I’m writing today while coming to terms with the sad fact my marriage has ended. My wife and I are separating after 15 years together. Some of you know her as a character from my books, or from interactions you may have had with her at conventions, or if you’re lucky you know her in person. She was a big part of my life, the best part, the part which mattered to me most, and now that part of my life is gone. I’ve lost her forever.
Losing love is a special kind of pain; blistering in its intensity, terrifying in its existential abstractions, chillingly empty, hollow, lonely, inescapably all-consuming. It is the worst pain I’ve endured to date. I feel like, for me, that’s saying a lot. But maybe you know this pain too? It’s as common as it is horrific.
These past couple years much of the energy I’d normally direct into my comics instead was focused on protecting and maintaining my relationship with my wife, the health of which was slowly but unstoppably deteriorating. I gave everything I had and more in hopes of saving our marriage, until my body rebelled against me and my sanity fled and I collapsed under the terrible weight of the pointlessness of my efforts. I sacrificed everything I had to keep us together. I watched that sacrifice burn to ashes in my hands. But everything I had wasn’t enough. I gave it all and lost it all, and in having nothing I became nothing.
When I hit my rockiest of bottoms, like so many times before in my life, I find myself turning back to comics. It’s been around 15 years since I completed Helen Doesn’t Live Here. That was the first time comics healed me. Time and time again, page after page, book after book, making comics has dressed my wounds, set my fractures, lessened my agony. It is my most effective healer, my favorite medicine. I put pen to paper, and even through the most low-brow of titty jokes I am healed.
To you who are reading this, I owe you two things:
First, please accept my gratitude. Thank you for still being here in spite of my nonattendance, for remembering, for acknowledging me and my works. I am thankful for your attention, which I have done little to deserve these past few years. The world is awash in talented cartoonists who are far more deserving of your loyalties than I am, but yet here you are. I appreciate that you haven’t forgotten me, that you care enough to click a link and follow it and take time out of your busy day for me and my bullshit.
Second, please accept my apologies for my absence, for my negligence. These past few years I have let me career atrophy. I haven’t attended any comic shows. I have neglected my various social medias. I have essentially vanished from all things public. There was a time when I held my comics in higher regard than I did my own life. While I recognize that this isn’t exactly a wise way to live, to see the career I so valued in such a state of disrepair fills me with shame and sadness. I hope to one day forgive myself for this. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me as well.
I expect the coming year to be a flurry of work. In case you missed it, my latest book Dozer Manifesto is finished (after ten fucking years of work) and free to read both on Webtoons and The Duck Webcomics. It’s nominated for two Drunk Duck awards on the latter, so if you could go either way please read it on the site which promotes me. The Westword in Denver wrote a flattering article about it which you can read here. I’m considering doing a series of Youtube videos exploring all the things I had to leave out of the book and answering any questions folks might have about it or Marv or any other related topics. Shoot me an email if you have any of your own, I’d love to answer them.
Expect a new season of NSFW coming up soon, probably around 50 pages of good ol’ fashioned smut. If you’re a smut lover of the historically intellectual variety, please consider following NSFW on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for daily pinup analyzations.
After that I may consider finally laying down the sequel to the previously mentioned HDLH. I’ve had it in the can for a number of years, but haven’t had the right mindset to put it to paper. Until now, maybe.
Sure my life is in ruins at the moment, but clear that away and what remains is solid ground from which to build again. There’s much that needs clearing, but it’s nothing I haven’t done before. I’m becoming quite proficient at rebuilding.
So let’s get to work.
V