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.

  • 1 Post
  • 15 Comments
Joined 5 months ago
Cake day: November 23rd, 2024
  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoSelfhosted@lemmy.world•Fediverse equivalent of fable?
    1·
    6 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·
    6 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.earthtoSelfhosted@lemmy.world•Experience with Yunohost
    1·
    4 months ago

    I tried Yunohost once, and everything worked as long as I stuck to the officially supported apps. The community forum was supportive within reason, and would respond with advice fairly quickly. When I reported an error with an unofficial app, however, I was instantly told off that I shouldn’t expect any help.

    Now, having used and admined my Linux desktop systems for a decade (without claiming to be an actual sysadmin), I nosed around the system a bit and to my eyes it seemed a right mess of app and user folders, permissions and containers. Surely, a combination of my limited understanding of server apps and a system that is made primarily for GUI use to make administration easier for beginners.

    What I mean to say is, if you already run a set of working docker containers, you’re probably more advanced than the intended Yunohost user. I was that half ounce more literate that I became frustrated with the GUI-centric setup, and imperial pounds too illiterate to actually muck around in the command line.

    Look at it this way, Yunohost offers a fraction of the apps available on Docker, and not all of them are maintained. They do offer a graphic admin interface and out-of-the-box working setups (or did five years ago when I tried it).