This comic represents nothing more than time I had free and freedom in that time. It is not a statement of anything nor does it represent me in my entirety. It is simply an expression of self in a format and is a window into part of who I was then and now. Even if there was no reason for why when I drew, something I would tell people when they asked, there is reason that becomes more clear to me as I look back. There were reasons for each page. I did not wish or did not know how to tell what I felt but I do now. I will look at it and try to explain what my mind was when I put pencil to paper and describe how this thing came to be. The main thing you will see is that I was having fun with a skill that seemed only to be a way to pass boredom. I turned what was a hobby into something real. Even if the content might be what some will call outlandish, odd, violent, ridiculous, and awful, I am proud of it. I was 18 when I started it in the last months of my senior year of high school. I finished it rather quickly because I simply moved swiftly from one page to the next. It would end up being a really enjoyable time and a thing that I would continue to do as I moved from Mississippi, to Texas, and then Montana where I began university. I would go on to be inspired by the people around me and create ambition for this act of drawing that I had never had before. Sadly I would never pursue this ambition but the story I created, or wanted to recreate that is, is still with me to this day and the images I would have made bring a smile to my face. All of this is likely me chasing that act; the smile.
I was very inspired by a manga. It’s called Dorohedoro.
In that comic there is more magic than there is in mine. Mine is the idea of one who wants to be left alone and is unlucky enough to have people constantly showing up whether it’s his own fault or not. Death is cheaper than moving on and people just act on their emotions. Life is dangerous and everyone has a mask but I never make it clear why. I think I didn’t want to draw faces. I also know that I wanted to hide my own face and expressed that in these pages.
I put on a mask for people. I didn’t want to show my self. Who I was I was OK with. I just didn’t need it. I had shit in my life. People were shit. I was shit. Life was shit. Life is good. Life was good. I experienced the roller coaster and there is good and bad. I felt before that it was better to hide. I also had no idea how to talk. I had no idea what to say. If I was to speak then what would be the reaction? I was afraid because I was not someone who got positive reactions with just my being very often.
There is an aggression in me that I was worried about too. Before I had control I was more likely to become aggressive with the people who were so in need to assert themselves over me. This comic is about no one. It has no ties and I wasn’t placing my own feelings into the page of real people. This isn’t some dig at a girl, or some guy, or anyone. I was just drawing. It does at the same time become about me in that I made this. It is part of who I am. Better to not insert others into my life than to come to such imagery in reality, or so I had once viewed as an inevitability of living with people. No I was not dangerous, but throwing a punch and giving a bloody nose might have sprung from what I might have done would it be I spoke my mind to ye. That is long ago.
I enjoyed drawing this picture most of any in the first comic
This was not a thing I honestly shared with many. It was mine. I did not care what others thought because I never really allowed anyone close enough to give any.
I remember asking myself after each picture, “what next?” It is clear in the first pages that I was jumping all over. I’m in a bar with the story then I’m through a window. It was in a city then it goes to the country side. I did a lot going back and tried to make it line up. There is a lot of that, going back.
like I said before I was just having fun. There was no story and I was discovering what happened next as much as any who might read it. One thing I did realize is that I did not have consistency. I remember not liking having to spend so much time on an image then would expect to do the same environment. I gravitated toward making my pictures easier to recreate, hence the next comic is in a forest(another random in the moment and unplanned decision like the entirety of my comics). Trees are easier than buildings. This wasn’t some web comic where I can save the background on a separate layer to reuse. Some things are harder in digital but some things are easier for me too. I tried for a brief moment and will share some digital creations later.
Short stories, poetry, writing, and art 