thomaskdye

My first brush with the internet was back when I was visiting my brother. He had a laptop and he showed me some search engines, and, me being the fanboy I was, I searched for "Genesis." I found a long text document with rare information about the band, and I was so excited I read every scrap.

In the meantime I was still trying to be a syndicated comic strip artist. It's funny to think of a time when that meant Bristol board, copying machines, paste-up boards and a lot of glue and Scotch tape. (For a while it also meant Zipatone dot patterns. Bits of that stuff would be sticking to the inside of my nails for days.) Without any real knowledge of the possibilities of the Internet, I could make up my own inner world about editors being amazed at my work and wanting to sign me up immediately. It technically had happened four times already with King Features Syndicate's "The New Breed" taking on four of my single-panel cartoons.

Then I did get accepted -- by an independent "co-op" syndicate called "Future Features Syndicate."  The "co-op" part meant pitching in to contribute to a comic strip magazine that could be sent to newspaper editors across the country. Fine, I was in.  I don't know whether it was a scam or not because I got several of the magazines.  Future Features also put the comics online for editors to read.  And one day I decided to go to the local library to see how they looked.

Now, it wasn't the first time I'd seen my comics scanned. My brother had done it earlier with a couple of my drawings.  But this somehow looked so real... anyone could type in this "URL" and find my comics. It was utterly mesmerizing. On top of that, the site had some other "links" you could click on to find other "internet comics."  Stu's Comics and Webcomics.com were the two main ones. And holy moly... what did I find.

Webcomics.com and Stu's had a whole slew of comics on display.  It was a digital comic page of independent comics that anyone could read. The main one I always remember is "The Adventures of Mayberry Melonpool," because the art just jumped out at me as being amazing and utterly professional. There were others. "Soap on a Rope" was one.  I'm sure "Sluggy Freelance" was there somewhere, as well as "Kevin and Kell." But "Melonpool" was the comic that shone at me. It turned out comics this good didn't need syndicates. They could be independent, and live in a forum anyone could visit. A cartoonist no longer had to "touch their forelock," as Paul McCartney said, and beg a syndicate owner to give them a chance. You could get your comic out there all on your own.

I will never forget, for the rest of my life, the walk down the Ohlone Greenway from the library to my apartment in upper El Cerrito. BART trains sailed over my head as I imagined getting my own website, my own comic presence on the internet. I could barely contain my excitement.

I asked my mother later that day, "Mom, what would you think if we got a computer?"  She was for it.

It was $800 and probably had a quarter of the memory of your average thumb drive. Allan got me a copy of Adobe Photoshop. I bought a huge scanner as well.  I don't think we even had a printer; we still had a floppy disk drive and Mom would take it in to a Kinko's or whatever and get her manuscripts printed out.  The ISP was called Sirius.com. Through them, I bought the newshounds.com domain. (I'm still amazed it was available.) I got set up with a cheesy version of FrontPage.  Once everything was set up, I signed up with Stu's and Webcomics.com. My conquering of the world has just begun.  Soon, there it was, available for all to see.

It grew from there... Yerf.com, Albert Temple, Vince Suzukawa, Chris Crosby, a comic symposium on Usenet turning into Keenspot and automatic updating, Dana Simpson, and so on.... and it was amazing and wonderful and new. I self-published that first Newshounds book, which Diosden Rodriguez helped me sell at Anthrocon, and it was the only way I made any money. But it didn't matter at the time. People were seeing me and I was making new friends. My world had exploded exponentially into multiple personal discoveries that changed who I was for the better.

And it's all coming to an end. Mom is gone. Albert Temple is gone. I'm still happily with Keenspot. But it's all been changing, and with the advent of the end of net neutrality (which I hope will not happen, or if it does, it's temporary) it seems like the dream is truly over.  No one will ever have that experience anymore. It'll be choked and killed by the monster corporate robber barons and turned into a place where only money can play. Like SDCC.

It's the way of things. New frontiers are choked off by the millionaires and the rich. We can't have nice things where everyone can be happy.   We can only be told we can be happy if we pay, pay, pay and lose, lose, lose.

I remember once it was marvelous and incredible.  I wish something new would come along that could stoke all our dreams again... and not get torn away from us.

So I've gotten offers for three different jobs, each of them for $3 an hour less than my previous job. I also got notice that my rent was increasing $100/month starting May. I was struggling already before; this is basically not sustainable.

I've gotten some wonderful commissions and responses from friends. I had one set of twelve comic page commissions that I thoroughly enjoyed doing. (In fact, I'm a little melancholy about giving up that "work on commissions at home" lifestyle.) But I'm aware that my art is not in the demand it needs to be to make up the shortfall.

So, after the initial panic session, I've come to some conclusions:

1) The minute a job in my old salary range becomes available, I'm applying for it and jumping ship should I get it.

2) Tim and I are working together to get him employed. It's a bit difficult as he's been out of the workforce for some time, and I haven't had the time or ability to acclimate him to the strenuous business of job searching.

3) I will try to find any part time work I can get to help make up for the shortfall.

4) I will be available for commissions indefinitely. (There's one job that, should I get it, would make doing one commission a night a definite possibility.). If I don't do one, I'll try to do an independent artwork to keep myself relevant and keep me on my artistic toes.

5) I'm going to add more benefits to Patreon patrons. I'm thinking of text stories, which are a bit easier for me to write than comics.

"Newshounds" is coming to a definite close this year, but there's comics in the queue till January or so. "Infinity Refugees" may end up being twice a month until I can spare time for it again. In the meantime, I'll work on commissions, struggle to find a new job, or whatever it takes so I can get us back on our feet again. This is going to be so rough. I have no breathing room right now if an emergency happens. I'm making car payments. My credit card debt is huge. But at the same time, I don't have any big needs or expenses, and we can live even more sparingly if we have to.

But we can't continue to live like this. Before, once I had a job, I would settle. I can't do that now. The job search is continuing while I work.

So my first Dreamwidth journal entry is an apology for not writing anything. But I'll add some more disorganized thoughts.

1) I don't want to get dragged into muddy Twitter fights with right wing trolls. It's pointless, it gets me angry, and the trolls you will always have with you. I just have to remind myself that a vociferous section of the 46% that voted for the a-hole are going to remain vociferous.

2) I've not felt like writing much, even when it comes to writing and cartooning. Let's put it this way. I love the process of writing, I love the creative efforts that come out, but I don't love all the in-between stuff of putting pen to paper. However, in order for anything to appear on paper, I need to actually draw things. It's a bit of an internal struggle right now. I'm not sure I'm selling myself much when I say "I hate having to do this but I love it when it's done."

3) Currently, "Three's Company" episodes are my background noise when drawing. Seriously. I know it's kind of an idiotic farce at heart, but it really can be quite funny once you allow for late seventies attitudes. There's a few later episodes that are very tight and hilarious, and John Ritter could be one hell of a comic powerhouse. (The other actors, particularly Joyce DeWitt, did fine as well.) One positive effect it's having on me is that it's reminding me to keep humor on a high priority when I retell the old stories. There are a couple of good gags that I've added to the current story that I really love, and I don't think I'd have done it if I were just listening to prog rock all the time.

4) Speaking of rock, I bought a Uriah Heep album from 2014 with a gift card I got from Tim's parents. I totally expected just to listen to it once and go "meh," but it has been in constant rotation for the last two weeks. I'm REALLY surprised as I haven't been into music much these past few weeks. I stopped listening to the new Kansas album because I'd mentally associated it with the election, and that association now breaks my heart. As the feeling dulls, I'll probably get back into it.

5) The car business is driving me nuts. I'm totally lost as to what's happening with my registration. I'm planning on going to the dealership to get it straightened out. I was told to call, but I think I need to be face to face with them so that I can get a straight answer, and so I can present them with the paperwork the DMV gave me. Long story short, DMV says they need one thing, dealership says I'm supposed to a get a different thing, which I haven't gotten at all. In the meantime, I'm driving around without plates, which makes me hella nervous.

6) Work is very busy and quite stressful. My boss has decided to measure my stats now, though admittedly not as oppressively as I've been measured at other jobs. I'm really tired of waking up at 4 AM to go to work, honestly.

6) Further Confusion is coming! My GOD I'll be so happy to talk to my friends again. Dana, Orv, Vince, Mike, Candy, Ryan, the list goes on. I'm really looking forward to being social for a change.

7) Tim and I watched Joss Whedon's 2012 film "The Cabin in the Woods." I quite liked it, mostly because it was fairly clever and it entertained me. The premise doesn't hold water if you think about it for more than five minutes, and I found tearing apart the concept was just as much fun. The "surprise guest star" at the end basically comes in to explain "everything," and it's really goofy. "Okay, you morons in the audience, in case none of this made any sense, HERE'S what it all means!"