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.

  • 2 Posts
  • 249 Comments
Joined 5 months ago
Cake day: November 23rd, 2024
  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoSelfhosted@lemmy.world•Fediverse equivalent of fable?
    1·
    5 days ago

    It’s pretty cool in that it allows cataloguing more media types than just books, so that’s a leg up over Bookwyrm. IIRC it also pulls item information from relevant (open API) databases, so you get the synopsis etc filled in?

    For me starting a new account that also made it kind of overwhelming. I’ve never catalogued my books anywhere, so the possibility of doing that, and input watched film, TV shows, etc — suddenly my media habits turned into a bit of a chore 🙂

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoSelfhosted@lemmy.world•Fediverse equivalent of fable?
    6·
    5 days ago

    Oh, never actually tried Bookwyrm, but I’d expected it would have a social aspect as well? That seems like a lost opportunity.

    [Edited to add:] Have you had a look at NeoDb? Also a tracker, but apparently with more social aspects —

    users can share their collections, publish microblogs, and engage with others in the Fediverse

    I only had superficial experience with NeoDb, so can’t say with certainty if a Lemmy community and threads for individual books may be better for you.

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoTechnology@beehaw.org•‘An Overwhelmingly Negative And Demoralizing Force’: What It’s Like Working For A Company That’s Forcing AI On Its Developers
    14·
    12 days ago

    What I take away from these testimonies is that, again, the people in charge show that they have little understanding of and zero respect for the skills and craft of creatives — and in this case also programmers. We always knew that, but it is next level offensiveness to demand that skilled professionals use a subpar technology to “generate” ideas, designs and code.

    The art director who forgets all his learned process of idea development and instead just prompts Midjourney until he sees something he likes (but which his staff will have to backward engineer to make sense of) is a terrifying image of things to come. Fortunately I’m long out of the corporate creative treadmill.

    [Edited to spell “Midjourney” as one word. This is my organic human accreditation 😄]