the warning at the heart of my comics “career”

I keep on coming back to these two panels from McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Especially that footnote.

I’ve got the respect of a small group of my peers, and some of that small group have shiny shiny awards on their mantlepieces. And I got financially lucky. I don’t fear the footnote as much as I used to. But it’s still there in the back of my head.

And I just realized I’m seven or eight years older than Scott was when he drew this.