Summit Creator Spotlight: Brian Wolf

What Happens When You Take an Artist's Drawing Hand?

In some ways, I feel like a marathon runner, but not because I love running. I don’t. But I understand the mindset. People who run every day aren’t thinking about if they’re going to run. They’re simply thinking about putting feet on pavement. Finding their rhythm. Pushing themselves a little further than they did yesterday.

Then something happens.

Not on a run. Not while they’re training. Just some random freak thing. A broken foot. A torn ankle. An ACL.

Suddenly, they’re out of commission.

I think there’s a kind of depression that follows that randomness. Not because running becomes a permanent impossibility, but because your brain doesn’t immediately reorient itself. It doesn’t say, “Well, I can’t run anymore, so let’s enjoy the rest.” The body wants to run.

A week and a half ago, I slipped on a wet floor. Was it due to terrible flip-flops? The soaking wet towel that slid out from under me? Ultimately, it didn’t matter. I threw my dominant hand out to brace for impact.

I realized it immediately. I broke my wrist. It flopped in a way that wrists aren’t supposed to flop. It moved in a way bones aren’t supposed to move.

My first thought wasn’t the pain. It wasn’t even the shock. No, my first thought was, “I draw with this hand.”

That’s a special kind of sickness, I think. To love something that much. To feel connected to it in an almost cosmic way. To know, in an instant, that you’re being forced to stop. Depending on the severity of the break, the tendons involved, and which bones decide to snap, that stop could have been a very long one.

Then, I had surgery today. As I’m writing this, my arm is still numb from the anesthesia they pumped into the nerves in my shoulder. It’ll be another day before I really get my hand back.

But I already know myself. Tomorrow, I’m going to grab a pencil and likely make a few lines, circles, and shapes. I’ll convince myself I can get right back to work, but I won’t be able to.

The rest still needs to happen first, and that’s the hard part. I’ve been drawing for hours every day for years. Even on vacation, sketchbooks come with me. I get up at five in the morning because those quiet hours belong to drawing.

I had finally found a workflow I loved. I had finally started bringing physical pencils back into my workflow the way I’d wanted for years.

Then everything stopped. Or at least it did for me.

Summit Comics doesn’t slow down because I got hurt. The launch happened, books keep moving, and creators keep creating. I wasn’t able to finish the launch video I wanted to make, and while I managed a couple of posts, what I really felt was disconnection. And depression.

I’m not making light of that word because depression looks different for different people. For me, I feel it when my passions are limited. I remember feeling that way working in corporate America. Back then, I’d finish my work early, open a sketchbook, and draw in-between calls and meetings.

Some managers loved it. Some told me I wasn’t allowed. I drew anyway. Eventually, the stars aligned, and I left.

Since then, making comics isn’t just something I enjoy. It’s how I understand myself. So, what do you do when you’re laid up? When you’re incapable of making art?

For a few days...nothing. Then, I wrote an eight-page Jetpack Morgan story I’d been putting off for months.

I also realized something. My left hand was my drawing hand, but my right hand was still my clicking hand. Typing was slow. Awkward. The good thing is, there are a lot of tools now that don’t require nearly as much typing as they did in the past. So, I started building sprites. Little digital bodies. Lots of references and experimentation.

Then, I looked at those sprites and thought, “Well...I can still draw backgrounds.” I just needed to get the dimensions right. Be able to paint in the big shapes. Find the details afterward.

It doesn’t have to be perfect because I’m already chasing that Capcom look from the ‘90s. So, one character became two, one animation became a move list, and one move list became the beginning of a fighting game. Within two weeks, I had a playable demo.

Is it great? Not yet. Some animations don’t work. Some proportions are a little quirky. I’m still mostly fumbling around in the dark. But every day it starts to look a little more like the thing I see in my head. Maybe, just maybe, this becomes something Summit fans get to play someday. We’ll see.

For now, I thought I’d share a couple of screenshots so you can see what happens when you take an artist’s drawing hand away. Turns out he starts finding other ways to draw.

We’ll see how much of this gets built over the next couple of weeks while I recover.

And then, hopefully, I’ll get back to doing the work I was meant to do.

(Editor’s Note: Thank you to Brian for sharing his experience. And before our readers worry…Brian’s JETPACK MORGAN will return. In the meantime, please be sure to check out Summit’s latest Kickstarter, TESTAMENTS OF TERROR: Testaments of Terror #1. Then, stay tuned this Sunday for a tease of what’s coming next to Substack!)