Life isn’t robbed when capital is the end, only the potential for experiencing more than a toilet. Nevermind my team of costumed adventurers returning in my mechanized phenomena after a successful mission ending the invasions of distorted angles spilling forth from the black holes in our sister dimension, which we plugged with fragments of their fallen god.
The writer who scorns paper trails presents a funny life, believe you me. I haven’t even held a bank account in about 20 years, and then only because an employer refused to pay by any means but direct deposit. Never had a credit card in my life. Never crossed into debt either. There’s been an unseemly number of days to my life where I couldn’t eat, and the better part of one year especially where I lived off the yin-yang diet of black coffee and white rice, all store-brand and scant. Because I’ve never in my life known an employer who would avoid invariably paying late and/or paying less than agreed or just snaking their way out of payment altogether. I was homeless for years but always working while unhoused. But even back before I found wording for my principles and convictions I never allowed myself to take blame or credit for what others say or do, and never allowed others to claim ownership over anything I might say or do no matter the scale or stakes. Not inventing problems frees me up to help others with theirs, even while leaving myself nothing to show for this life but a broader range of life experiences than anyone I’ve ever communicated with.
The emotional tale of Heckle and Jeckle, two upstart magpies waltzing from their sour mash addictions by leaving the farm and finding themselves alongside value and purpose on higher branches of Yggdrasil as Huginn and Muninn. With my experience in reality I think more people than not are compelled to take whatever work they can, because they cannot afford any prerequisites. I didn’t build chicken coops or shovel horse dung or endure hundreds of yards of post-hole digging for the competitive pay. Ego project of old was to curate an anthology of creator-owned tales for variations to a root character called the Apothecarist, with writers and artists customizing their very own benevolent doctor adventuring across time and space. Masthead reading Bucket Brigade Comix. This would have partly been revenge for the one and only American ever imprisoned in the Tower of London being an ancestor of mine personally. Soberly, why should others sacrifice for my dreams with their time, monies and attentions when they’ve their own? And were they to keep some vacancy in thought or feeling, is that unto itself truly an invitation to sublet?
My last real comics work proofing/script-doctoring for graphic novels of a vanity line resulted in my being personally stiffed by the billionaire creator of the CSI franchise, likely shamed a GED was needed to correct educational books. It’s surprising how common lack of pay is. My biggest comics payday occured in the 2 years at Heavy Metal. A time came where they were between marketing firms so I covered for one issue and got to try cashing a $500 check at the package store. The clerks treated me like a rock-god for months. Contracts were rare at my level though. Way more barter and trade. I ghost-scripted the Michael Jackson tribute comic from Bluewater inside a 10 hour all-nighter. It was Marvel-style, the billed writer left as the artist was finishing. Editor sent me a carton of smokes for that. Stories suit me more than fame or fortune though, as stories don’t run out.
Essays are my legacy, over half a million words to date with not one “but look at this youtube vid” post. On a website owned and operated entirely solo free from adverts or promotions of any person, place or thing. Drawing parallels/conclusions so others may learn from my flaws. The voids we might fill in place of pride and comforts, never mistaking entitlement or privilege or luxury for survival, is exiting from all the bad things we meet with. And there’s not one reason to ever sacrifice for entertainment in our respective space or time, not when and where the universe exists. Begging for anything not physically prolonging life’s survival itself is the norm for social media, but I’ve never been interested in following or being followed either one in real life. People can think or feel whatever they care to, the universe lingers without our priorities. And we ourselves only may linger when realizing our value and purpose, both collectively and individually, have nothing to do with gratifying ourselves. No hero in history the world over demanded sacrifice as a matter for others. Everyone else goes forgotten eventually.
People want that good capitalism where they can have public utilities and video games and TV shows without having to work or sacrifice, wanting entrapment, exploitation and extortion obligated upon others while entitlement, privilege and luxury only exist in absence of equality. The better society isn’t where favored persons benefit from the tribulation of others, it’s where nobody is ever enabled or empowered to do so. Redistributing wealth still necessitates the hell of its procurement and aggregation. Don’t take control of the factories, the churches and governmental offices merely to recast a hierarchy, burn them to salted Earth or somebodies somewhere continue to toil for useless esteem where neither pride or comfort has ever saved a life. When each and every contributing member of society wastes life arguing over themselves deserving more of whatever, more rights, resources or opportunities, the happy ending is guaranteed to never arrive, Not til each and everyone argues that none deserve less than themselves. Prove me wrong and I will live-stream my suicide. Pay per view though with all proceeds going toward my dream of super-gluing pennies over every iota of a 1978 el Camino, because a life without fantasies is a reality none will afford space or time for.
I was finally able to hold a physical copy of my graphic novel, the seedlings. Nicholas Myers, the originating creator who did pencils, inks, colors and letters and re-letters after I second-guessed myself a decade late, says a second printing is more than likely. Nick’s previously self-published his own giant OGN, and a mini-series and year-long web-comic both later collected into trades. All his other projects on hold the past decade while drawing our story. He’s the best of Phil Nibbelink, Larry Marder and Sam Kieth all rolled into one. There was a strange acreage flying over the valleys, with a strange man singing his strange songs, and I knew if I did not write down those words I’d never be so strange myself. The book was packaged last Fall, and I’d contacted 11 comic book folks who either owed me money or who I thought would just love it, for pull-quotes. Only one responded, and to pass, because comic book people are self-serving animals. Despite the atrocious tastes of those names the project was crowdfunded inside 24 hours and again and again by campaign’s end. And with the before, during and after all gone wholly unobserved by every comics media platform, proving for me personally their utter irrelevance. Honestly cried a bit reading the done deal, while snowy bliss rained down outside. Some characters were named for cousins of mine I don’t trade words with, one of whom overdosed a couple years back. But somehow Nick and I both lived out the main thread these years, like an actual case of sigilism. I refuse to believe it’s art imitating life or versa vice, rather I think the distinction between the two is lost altogether when a work is true. God created no devil, he merely observed the root of evil to his word.
Such the hypocrite, when I imagine anyone as worth dying for but that nobody is worth living for. I was so gone after my mom died that for the rest of my life I will forever be nowhere else. I realize I made it through this last year not because my little sister and her husband have done what they could to keep me around, but that events of the last year would have floored them mentally and physically had I not been around. I’m not high and mighty, I am as low and powerless as everybody else; not a know-it-all but a fellow know-nothing is all I can assure anyone. But crowds are for getting lost in and the only thing I’ve ever honestly had to lose was my life regardless of a direct correlation between the amount of life I’ve left and the growing level of guilt I feel for not having been able to do more to help the people around me along the way. We can get by without so much, but we cling to irreverent dung as though life derives from it. Every thought, every feeling we ever know is as useful as handfuls of stone underwater.