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.

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Joined 2 months ago
Cake day: November 23rd, 2024
  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoFediverse@lemmy.world•Will 2025 be the year that venture capital discovers the Fediverse?
    32·
    23 hours ago

    I’m not a developer either, so take this as an observer’s speculation.

    My impression is that venture capitalists took a long look at the fediverse and chucked their money at Bluesky instead, because it actually works more similar to “ye olde” social networks — specifically with a business plan, road map and traditional organisational structure.

    The parts of the fediverse that I am most inclined toward is too unruly, recalcitrant and noncommercial to attract deeper interest from VC investors. They are deliberately built and organised to resist expectancy of capital return on investments.

    So my conclusion is the reverse of what you’d rather not discuss — in my eyes, the fediverse isn’t very good for investors, because until now it’s largely been grassrootsy. It will be interesting to see what VC-friendly platforms emerges in the vein of Bluesky or even Threads, and to what degree they will overlap with the current fediverse.

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoStar Trek Social Club@startrek.website•Star Trek is like a warm blanket for me.
    5·
    5 days ago

    Sorry for your loss!

    If I may offer my own experience in sympathy — last year my brother passed after a few years of cancer treatment. We grew up as TNG aired, and Trek was always a shared reference.

    During his final illness, one effect of his treatment was constipation which he alleviated with… prune juice. Often in the last months he would raise his glass and say, “A warrior’s drink!” It never got tired 😄

    On the night he passed away the only meaningful thing that I could think to share on social media was the TNG screenshot of the Klingon death ritual — I’m sure you know the one.

    Star Trek may be a utopian sci-fi future, but the shared stories and communities lend meaning to our everyday lives nonetheless — your deep, shared experiences with your grandfather, or my brother putting up his best Klingon warrior face against his illness. We need those optimistic stories to ward off hopelessness, and to remember the good moments by.

    In the face of grief and loss — Qapla’!

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoFediverse@lemmy.world•jointhefediverse.net - Why was Lemmy removed from the list of fediverse alternatives?
    44·
    9 days ago

    In the encyclopedic sense, you’re right. In this context that I replied to, however, censorship had a negative connotation, and my response spoke to that rather than the formal meaning.

    I don’t know where people get the idea that censorship is an inherently negative thing.

    Right, and I do note that you talk about jointhefediverse “suppressing” Lemmy — another negative connotation.

    I’ll maintain that, no, they are just leaving it out. Again, that is the privilege of a list curator. Nobody else have a say in what and why is included on the site. Choosing what to publish, and the omissions that entails, are also protected by free speech.