Hey there.
It’s probably best for my own state of mind and for yours, if you have any intention of following me down this path, to define a little bit about what I expect to be talking about here.
To start, since I technically exist (depending on the viewpoint of some billionaire or, I don’t know, Alan Moore) this blog is obviously built around my desires. And since you technically don’t, in so much as I’m writing this with only me in the room, seeing the words as they hit my screen, and no one else knows about this yet or gives a fig about my opinions, I can’t honestly be writing this for You. As much as I’d like to be.
Blogging is a conceit, of course. It supposes that one person’s opinions and ideas are so eloquent and valuable that other people will seek them out and read them on a… weekly basis? Am I over-promising my schedule already? I hate putting expectations on myself. Writing used to be easy and fun because I didn’t care about any of it. Then it became precious and had to promise me some sort of net return. Which never happened because, frankly, I choke up at the idea of challenging myself.
I used to write stories to avoid school. I used to write songs for the same reasons. I used to write a LiveJournal because I needed a way to socially interact after a bad breakup. And about the only things I’ve done that actually got seen by more than a handful of people were comics.
I love comics. I have always loved comics. I was born and raised in the early 70s and I can not recall a time when I wasn’t a comic reader. For sake of simplicity, I’ll include comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, Manga, and so on here. And the culture that seeped into cartoons and television shows and films. All of it. My Mego Superhero dolls. My original art that is decorating the walls of my office.
Comics.
In my twenties, I actually semi-conned my way into working at and managing a comic book store. Then I abandoned everything I knew to move to California, where I wound up working at two other ones (years apart). I have seen comics from many different angles, and I think my last time doing the retail gig of it maybe killed my enthusiasm a bit. Not because of the job, certainly not the person I worked for or our customers. Perhaps it was the publishers. Perhaps it was the cost, ever skyrocketing. Or maybe I’d just grown to a point where what I’d always loved was giving diminishing returns. It happens. I don’t like it, but I was just in my early forties then. Now I’m nearly fifty and I think… Is it too late?
No. Of course it isn’t. Stan Lee was 95 when he passed and he loved comics as much or more than anybody. Granted, he had the added benefit of creating a large chunk of them.
And I’d like to create some more comics too. I’m working on that. But in doing so, I am taking a look at why it’s so important to me to make comics when I’d so recently had a stepping away point. Why do I love something so much, and want to pour my time and energy into making it for others, if it’s not something I’m currently enjoying myself?
I’m hoping I’ll find an answer here. I have some ideas, to be sure. But my brain flits around so much, I haven’t pinned any of them down. Sometimes you just need to talk things out. Or, in this case, write them out.
So yes, this is absolutely a self-serving blog. Not surprising, I mean, look… a lot of them are. But like most things I’ve ever made or written or performed, I make it because I feel like I need to, for me. But I also hope that it will make a difference or build a connection with someone else. Like You. Who, hopefully, a little while after I actually post this, won’t be so technically non-existent.
But if we’re getting into the technicality of it all, does it really matter?
It’s just another comics blog after all.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This was meant to be the introduction to a Blog I was hoping to start on another platform. I’ve chickened out of that, for right now, so if you’re here you probably don’t need an introduction and this isn’t going to technically just be a “comics blog” but more my old LiveJournal coming back to life. While I’d love to be able to snag the years of entries from that, as embarrassing as many of them are, I’m not sure if that will happen. So this is LJ Part 2, or what I’m now referring to as “CapJournal” here. I don’t blog as much as think out loud, and I’m way out of practice, but Levi has talked me into putting it out into the open again.
