The writing here is about a journey into the unknown. It is written by a person who wants to make comics: a simple enough act but it is a bit like pronouncing yourself a ghostbuster, with no team to back you up and no ghosts to bust. That is: there isn't a lot of call for comics on a grand scale and so it seems like a made-up job much like being a ghostbuster and therefore something a person could easily loose faith in over time. It's rough to get going with no connections, no safety nets and all the rest of it but I'm damned if I can think of a better use of my precious human life than making comics about things I love.
The story starts, well let's think, it might have been when childhood drawing was the first thing that gave a little spark of excitement because drawing characters (rabbits) and dressing them and wondering if they can be friends or fall out or have an adventure is captivating. Drawing rabbits coincided with receiving a rabbit as a pet. This was surprising and gave a sense that the world worked. But then the rabbit was so desperate to leave that it bit a hole through it's hutch that was big enough for it to fit through and ran away.
Another pivotal point was in the early days of the internet when Borders book shops opened in British towns, stocked with American indie comics. Borders' comic anthologies were a favourite with their kaleidoscope of artists making comics about their lives, or sharing their comic documentaries, or drawing characters to tell ridiculous jokes. Along side this insight into a different comic world, the early days of the internet lent themselves to hand-coded personal websites, and with all the inspiration around, a blog was a great outlet where you could reasonably write monthly notes sharing art made and art seen. Personally this online sharing developed into projects like going to a new place and documenting it in pictures or meeting new people for a cup of tea on a park bench and drawing a memento of the time we spent together. What an innocent time. Then along came the inevitable internet distractions and also the tedium of coding the site by hand and eventually that beloved personal website became just a link on other people's websites and then disappeared from public view all together (although an archive of that site is saved privately).
So this is how it goes, discovery, luscious faith in yourself and then something gets in the way. But that is growth or one form of it, and I do just keep coming back to this desire to make and share comics.
So what can we learn from this? It seems that being a cartoonist and being in some way on the internet are practically and inevitably entwined with motivation and purpose. We all have our little relationships with the internet that come and go. That's modern life. And if we are lucky we experience creativity in our lives. The trick is finding a way of having both that you really like and can sustain. After considering this matter for some time, this website is a solution. I have streamlined the way the website is made by writing a content management system that suits my needs. There is an RSS feed to keep you reminded of the site's existence and an email for anything you just have to tell me. This is a place for writing to keep faith in this little industry and it's many moving parts and you are warmly welcomed to follow along.