Reason Enough

I recently sent in all the files to get the first portion of this webcomic printed up, and I thought I'd publish the backmatter/note from the author. It got away from me, but I think I tied it back up at the end okay, and I hope you enjoy it. I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I can start sending out the print issues of this little book.

A Note from the Author

I’m not really sure what to say about this little intro book, but I’ll make it up as we go along and hope you’ll forgive the clumsiness and first-draft vibes of this little backmatter. 

At some point I figured out that I can churn out a side project pretty quickly if I’m procrastinating on all the big, important tasks I really ought to be doing. I have contracts to fulfill and collaborations to honor. I love those projects with my whole heart, and I have enormous respect for my collaborators, my editors, and my agent. I want to get all that done quickly and efficiently. I want to produce something that does everybody proud, and that’s a lot of pressure! 

In pitching comics, I’ve gleaned from my little pool of experience that conciseness, clarity, and a restrained dash of flexibility can really help make a book more appealing in its infancy. An editor is far less likely to take on a book if the author doesn’t know precisely where the story is going. It’s too big a gamble! There should be some notion of the shape of the story. Even if that shape changes during the process of actually realizing the project, there is a certain amount of stability in setting an intention that publishers seem to appreciate. While this is excellent for an organized brain that can one-and-done a story in a respectable amount of time, this runs extremely counter to my nature as a wildly scattered and frequently overwhelmed daydreamer. I’m easily distracted, and my work as a freelancer means that I’m wearing many hats, constantly switching gears, and finding myself exhausted by the necessity of juggling responsibilities. And my remedy for that is, apparently, to make more work.

I grew up reading a lot of Sunday strips. I loved those floppy, horizontal collections of Garfield comics, and I’m used to a frequent lack of cohesive, long-form arcs in that format. I’m also accustomed to the scope-creep that pops up in various shonen manga I loved growing up (cough cough Inuyasha). I love short-form stories that might eventually gesture at arcs, as Garfield’s adventures in Sunday strips sometimes do, and I also deeply appreciate very long stories where it’s clear, issue to issue, that some poor editor is trying to rein in the chaotic impulses of an author with too many stories to tell.

Though I don’t consider myself to be a big webcomic reader, there are some webcomics that were really important to my artistic development, in hindsight. Chris Sanders’s Kiskaloo was a big deal for me while it was going. Sanders is probably best known for his expressive pin-up style and his contribution to the animated Disney film Lilo and Stitch. I remember being a little frustrated at the comic petering off. I had a similar experience with Karl Kerschl’s The Abominable Charles Christopher, though it went on for much longer than Kiskaloo. It meandered at length, switching from the perspectives of an abominable snowman, circus bears, some woodland animals, and even some old deities. Again, the The Abominable Charles Christopher comes and goes in little bursts in between Kerschl’s commitments to DC Comics, and once again, as a reader, I found it frustrating.

But now, as a creator, I deeply admire this approach. With some hindsight and a little more experience, I recognized that these are two incredibly skilled, highly respected artists who still found it important to keep a little bit of their brilliance for themselves.

In speaking with students, I am often pressed about what happens when I run into creative blocks. As an author and cartoonist, I have the privilege of experiencing both writers’ block and artists’ block. It’s a doozy. My first bit of advice is typically to take a step back and take in other people’s work. Go be a reader or a viewer or a listener. Your cup is empty, so fill it. The world is so full of beautiful art, big and small. My second piece of advice is to be selfish, to keep a little bit of your shine to yourself. Make weird, unstructured, unbalanced, clumsy, and imperfect personal work. Build a little sandbox for yourself and just play. I think that’s what those comic artists I admire were doing with their webcomics. They carved out a little space where they could make things for themselves, and they came back to them when they needed to. 

Sanders’s work is very well-regarded among those of my colleagues who work in and around animation. Kerschl continues to be a favorite of young readers of DC comics for his accessible, kinetic, and attractive way of drawing. I don’t think you can maintain that level of craft and output without giving yourself room to simply mess around. The Abominable Charles Christopher is a decorated series. It’s won multiple awards and is collected in various print volumes. I don’t think it could have been pitched to a traditional publisher without the room Kerschl gave the story to meander. It feels made to suit the whims of its creator first and foremost, and I think it’s brilliant for it. It feels like it’s being made up as it goes, like folklore, like oral tradition around a campfire. It has that energy.

And in the spirit of that energy, I’m not too fussed about this essay feeling like a first draft. I hope a reader goes through this essay and thinks, “This guy makes books? I bet I can make one, too. I bet I can do one better.” And you should! My dearest wish is for everyone to feel empowered to make whatever suits their fancy. This whole project, I hope, feels a little unpolished, uncomplicated, and unwilling to serve a hypothetical reader. It’s just for me, a little side project, where I keep a little bit of me for myself. I need it to continually reacquaint myself with all the reasons I love storytelling and comics, especially when I’m feeling overwhelmed or burned out. I love this work. I want that for everyone.

So thank you, dear reader, for picking up this unfussy, aimless little project. It’s a little space I carved out just to play, and I hope it emboldens you to make all the things you want to make, even if it feels a little pointless. There doesn’t need to be a point. You’re the point. You’re enough, and the pursuit of your own joy in your projects is worthy of carving out a little dedicated space.

You’re reason enough.

As for some general housekeeping, I'll be showing up in person at a couple spots, mostly confined to the midwest for now.

I'm also doing a comic reading at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking on August 16th. The readings start at 7pm and go until about 9pm, and I'll be one of a few readings. There are some great people coming, so check it out! I'll include more information at this link here. 

Then the following week, I'm a special guest at CAKE!

It'll run the weekend of August 24th-25th, and I'll be stopping by DePaul to do a lecture just while I'm in town. I hope to catch some of you at these events!