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.

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Joined 2 months ago
Cake day: November 23rd, 2024
  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoFediverse@lemmy.ml•One of these is not like the other
    0·
    1 day ago

    It was LibreSignal. That was a small scale but public meltdown from Signal’s founder, however. “Signal” is already a common term and as such hard to claim sole rights over.

    In the same github thread he, Moxie Marlinspike, also insisted that LibreSignal abstain from using Signal’s servers, which sort of defeats the purpose of a third party app. Signal’s initial federation with other servers was rolled back, which again paints an image of a budding data silo.

    You’re right, Molly seems to have navigated the third party relationship better, perhaps because Marlinspike has been replaced with new leadership as well?

    My ¢2 is this: At this point, with tech leaders making hard right political turns, or just idiosyncratic attacks like Wordpress’ Mullenweg, trust in centralised services should be at a minimum.

    Signal already foisted a cryptocurrency (that, incidentally, Marlinspike had consulted on) on their users. Controversial self-serving isn’t new to the organisation, and with full control of a significant share of the private/secure IM market, it’s only a matter of time before their stewardship veers of track.