I used to make comics. I know that because strangers would look at my work and immediately share their most excruciatingly banal experiences with me:

— that time a motorised wheelchair cut in front of them in the line at the supermarket;
— when the dentist pulled the wrong tooth and they tried to get a discount;
— eating off an apple and finding half a worm in it;

every anecdote rounded of with a triumphant “You should make a comic about that!”

Then I would take my 300 pages graphic novel out of their hands, both of us knowing full well they weren’t going to buy it, and I’d smile politely, “Yeah, sure. Someday.”

“Don’t try to cheat me out of my royalties when you publish it,” they would guffaw and walk away to grant comics creator status onto their next victim.

Nowadays I make work that feels even more truly like comics to me than that almost twenty years old graphic novel. Collage-y, abstract stuff that breaks all the rules just begging to be broken. Linear narrative is ashes settling in my trails, montage stretched thin and warping in new, interesting directions.

I teach comics techniques at a university level based in my current work. I even make an infrequent podcast talking to other avantgarde artists about their work in the same field.

Still, sometimes at night my subconscious whispers the truth in my ear: Nobody ever insists I turn their inane bullshit nonevents into comics these days, and while I am a happier, more balanced person as a result of that, I guess that means I don’t make comics any longer after all.

  • 31 Posts
  • 188 Comments
Joined 5 months ago
Cake day: November 23rd, 2024
  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoDoctor Who Social Club@startrek.website•Episode Discussion | Doctor Who | 2x03 "The Well"
    2·
    19 hours ago

    So, that was pretty effectively scary! I do enjoy when Doctor Who goes for those collective elements of dread, like in “Listen” or with the Silents. It’s something the show has done so well post 2005, and this was no exception.

    I don’t get the “sequel to “Midnight”” thing, though. There was nothing conceptual tying this to the older story (which I had to rewatch immediately after). The entities’ MO are completely different, the only connective tissue was clearly extraneous and added exactly to force the connection.

    If RTD had told us it was a “Listen” sequel I might’ve bought it, but here we are. And it was very much the Aliens school of sequels with a bunch of meatheaded marines as secondary threat. Without the strained callback I feel I would have liked this episode a lot more.

    Loved all the guest stars, and the relationship establishing between the Doctor and Belinda. And the Mrs Flood appearance threw me. Is this her true identity, or just an act like last episode?

    So another strong link in the season arc of the elusive May 25 and Earth disappearing. Just… less of the forced legacy connections, please.

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoDeGoogle Yourself@lemmy.ml•What's the main reason you're degoogling?
    23·
    21 hours ago

    I started degoogling because of Google’s more and more transparent business plan of data surveillance. I’m not comfortable with “paying with my information” because of the uncountable (and frankly unimaginable) ways that information can be applied by third parties without my knowledge.

    “AI” is one example which wasn’t even on the chart when I started degoogling, but we can all be certain that Google and partners use any language sample available on Gmail and G drive to train theirs. This is the company that casually registered private WiFi networks in the course of mapping their Maps street view. They’ll harvest everything they can.

    At heart, I don’t trust corporate mega-monopolies to take care of our best interests as online citizens, and as a European I’m super sceptical of becoming subject to less safe legislation (US, Chinese or whatever) that doesn’t offer me protections that I have or expect at home.

    By not using Google (or Meta, or Amazon, or X) I can deliberately pick and choose individual services — or host them for myself — rather than hedge everything on the benevolence of one corporation that doesn’t give a shit about their users.