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
  • 110 Comments
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?
    38·
    5 days 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.earthtoFediverse@lemmy.ml•Is There a Fediverse Equivalent to Discord?
    3·
    7 days ago

    I agree with your initial paragraph, certainly to the point that we shouldn’t focus on ActivityPub as some grand unifier or a goal in itself. It’s just the protocol that currently federates with the most different platforms.

    AFAIK some bridges from AP to other protocols currently exist, but we would really need to bridge (or somehow fully integrate) all the federated protocols you mention to talk about one fediverse. Whether it will be made possible through ActivityPub or some other protocol, that remains to be seen.