In 2017, I went to New York Comic-Con. A thrilling experience for this geeky, comics-loving, anime-watching, gen’xer. I’d decided two years prior that writing, a lifelong hobby, would be my full-time pursuit. There, I sought guidance from graphic novel creators on how best to strike out.⁣
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“First, build your own audience,” they told me. That and, “Money?!” (insert hysterical laughter) “There’s no money in this!” It sounds cynical but their faces were all smiles and pride. They’d sacrificed for their creations and money wasn’t their objective.⁣
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This, I understood. At 21, I quit college and started my own business, a web/print design agency. Two bartending jobs paid the bills while I pitched my company and slowly grew my client list. By 2004, I had a staff of 20, offices in the US and UK and over 100 active clients. It started from a passion for design. But the Great Recession lingered and by 2013 my company was on life support. Eventually, I decided to start anew and follow my passions again, this time, writing.⁣
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Taking their advice, I leveraged my experience as an art director and did what no one else was doing, creating long-form posts on Instagram with great illustrations.⁣
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And the name? Here in Brooklyn, vig is well-known slang. It’s the high, weekly interest you pay for a cash loan taken from the mob. It usually breaks you. It made me think of how stories tell the unexpected, and high, prices we pay for living life.⁣
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Tomorrow’s Vig.⁣
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I chose a logo instead of a photo so readers aren’t distracted imagining me telling the stories. I don’t want people comparing their life to my own, a disheartening and toxic side affect of social media, imo. I want you to see yourselves when you read. And I want followers to smile when these posts hit their feed, beautiful art preceding an unexpected experience.⁣
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The Indian Head Penny dated 1866 was used because the Vig the US paid for its birth was the genocide of Native Americans and it’s wealth was the enslavement of Africans. 1866 was the year the Civil Rights Act was signed. The two seemed a poetic, visual fit.