Newsflash but anybody’s thoughts and feelings are the priority or responsibility of nobody. Ego wanting a rich life free from all accountability can always take a walk because their comfort and joy is nobody’s concern. If any entitled profiteers of resources wishes to privatize your ass, do not bend over for them. All I’ve left for this world are words, but I give mine the consideration of life-sustaining foreplay.
I helped countless comic book people over a decade or so, the ninth art courtesans, by hundreds of interviews and thousands of non-mainstream reviews. I found jobs for people. I proofread, script-doctored and ghostwrote to make them appear competent. In the years I was caregiving round the clock for my mom, the only ones I heard from were all prissy over my not having the time to further alleviate the burdens of their egos. Returned favors are unheard of in creative industries. There was a professional tracer years back who had wanted to setup a video-chat between me and his mutie-book editor, for me to pitch whatever I wanted. I laughed so hard at the idea it hurt the artist’s feelings and the weight of his friendship was carried away in a flume of pot smoke. So many characters purportedly caring so much for the work, who cannot wrap their heads around anyone not sharing their lust for the limelight. And who become outright enraged by persons not wanting to carry them aloft forever and a day. Everybody has dreams and nobody wants to scrub toilets for a living, but nobody’s dreams should be dependent on others doing the scrubbing.
I’ve jack-shit sympathy anymore whenever a publisher goes under and creatives are left with their hands out, because each and every one of them waited til others were suffering before calling out the issue. Wouldn’t want to get blacklisted from blowing egocentrics, heaven forbid. And by the same standards I’ve jack-shit sympathies for voters not remembering 15 minutes ago. I really think feeding egos is so much worse than feeding trolls, because while trolls are full of it, egos never get enough. Our system of checks and balances is a mass-hallucination if law and order can’t amount to more than a high school popularity contest. All I know, is that if you doubt the superiority of any person, place or thing you will never be proven wrong. Artists are persons actually opposed to whichever problem-solving, explicitly because they could then no longer mud-wrestle them.
A comic book writer who wanted me to interview him last year believes people defunding police want a police state to come for everyone’s gas-stoves. Buddy my lack of interest in your ego is not the reason you can’t sell your stories. The mentality is what permitted me to plant 4 landmines at the big webzine for omicsgatecay, articles undoing their philosophy from the inside out. But which led to a former editor of mine blocking me here, for giving so many clicks to her allotted enemy. I used to joke that comic book editing is the only socially-acceptable form of sadomasochism, until my GED was elsewhere needed to proofread for a vanity line of educational OGNs because the people getting paid could not be more dense. Nevermind how I did more harm to the “anti-SJW” label than anyone short of attorney Mark Zaid, getting dozens of email from folks saying I put into words issues that had been nagging them, or gave new light to matters they’d never considered in terms they could understand. Or that I saw myself as expendable anyways for being blacklisted everywhere over my failure to endlessly frig everyone who wanted it. Middle school was long enough for everyone but comickers. If you ever want to lose faith in humanity, interview hundreds of comic book professionals. Old-fashioned D&D taught me intelligence is book-smarts and wisdom is street-smarts, but to write or edit professional comics takes a removal from reality altogether.
No friends through thick and thin, mostly thick-skinned and thin-skinned peers. Rules depend heavily on exceptions compensating for their shortcomings, but exceptions continuing to serve the imaginary rule of law ultimately accomplish only their own heartache. I’ve tried more hats over the years than most, and every one brought friction for not allowing acclaim to be flown high and above its origin story.
If the work is indeed what truly matters, we should know none of these people to hate them or love them either one. And it blows goats there’s no course of action for any of this. Most every comic blog is more inclined toward the copy/paste of unpaid advert press releases than questioning how the milk is made. There’s not one grownup to be found anywhere. I’d insist that most people don’t leave the biz over popularity contests or partisan politics, rather they leave because it fucks them up the ass without hint of lubricant, with everybody looking the other way until their own time comes. The more we allow dreams to lead us away from reality, the more that reality suffers for it. The world has more than enough stories already, and all of them failed to save the day.