Do people still read blogs?

Ever rediscover your old blog that you haven't looked at in 8 years is somehow still functional?

Amazingly, the readership has remained steady (zero). Its like finding my old journal from high school when I didn't have the courage to ask a girl out so every day I would record what snacks I bought her at lunch. She ate my snacks but then eventually dated another guy.

History is basically a form of pattern recognition. 

There is nothing more sad that seeing your own past pathetic earnestness laid bare in stark black and white. The essays and art posted here were meant to gain a foothold in the comics industry. Much like the girl from high school, the objects of my pursuit almost always choose to go with a more promising suitor. No matter how much I think I have to offer there seems to be someone ready to make you a better offer. My comics collaborator James Hitchcock would often comment how much the comics industry was like going to a school dance where everyone was looking to pair up with a better suitor. Jim was going through a divorce so most of his advance was in the form of relationship metaphors. 

Ever look at your life and realize that you seem stuck in patterns that you are somehow unable to break? Is it fate, genetics, a social class system we pretend doesn't exist in America, my own failings as a human being? It would be nice to feel like I had ever made any progress toward any of my goals but like the snacks bought for someone who seemed oblivious that they came with other intentions, the blog posts and other online activities in the past always amount in watching the object of my pursuit find happiness elsewhere.

I spent untold hours engaging in message board discussions and various other activities that for most people lead to connections in the industry, making a friend, finding a collaborator or even (GASP) a fan. When I meet someone online I look into them, read their bio, follow the link to their portfolio or blog or whatever else they have done. Even close friends and co-workers who offer effusive praise of my skills without prompting aren't interested in my other pursuits. I learned this lesson the hard way when I published a comic, assuming the break even costs might be met by people I knew and that I only had to grow out from that base of support I was always promised existed yet even a $1 "ash can" comic book was too much for them to support. I even remember one co-worker saying "don't I get a free copy?

It's really hitting me now how alone I feel and how finding this dead blog is like being shown the ghosts of Christmas past but without the portions where I get the epiphany of knowing what mistakes I need to correct. The funny thing is all the pursuits I have engaged in since this period have unfolded the exact same way.

Looking back at this blog the broken links seems very poetic. The long screeds about the comics industry that were never read, the promises to myself that it was all going somewhere, the art posted that went almost entirely unseen. All of it feels like a metaphor for my life. Here I am, with nothing to show for it all and starting all over from zero.

I don't even know what it is I am starting. Or maybe this is the ending.