I could probably have gotten away with staying in Beary Fun but I was starting to get antsy about wanting to draw other characters for a while. Also, since Friday is the 20th anniversary of the comic it seems fitting to return to the characters who represent the core of the work. Although I think it’s fair to say that I have spread the story amongst the cast such that they are all important enough to have been given this honor if it had worked out that way. The first arc of the comic could very well have been the end of it. It wraps up nicely and there isn’t a particular need for more story to be told. It implies a happily ever after. Which makes sense because the first arc was adapted from a movie script. I can’t remember how many years I had been working on it at that point, but I think it was 3 or 5. The dates in the archive aren’t correct since the site got damaged at various points and also wasn’t always hosted here. My memory is not so good that I can remember all of the details anymore. If I had been in a different headspace at the end of that arc I might well have let it end and moved on to something else, but I felt like I still had something to say with these characters. As time has worn on a lot of my other ideas were abandoned because other people had ideas so similar that mine would have been lost to history by comparison. Of course you could probably say that about Between Failures, but I mean that at the very least this is unique to me in a much more specific kind of way. The pseudo biographical elements make this work personal to me in a way that has made it very difficult to let go of even though I probably should have and just gotten a regular job. I don’t think that the point of life is to make the most money. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that. I just feel like if I had gone back to retail, or sanitation, or whatever, I wouldn’t have had much of an impact on the world. Which is not to say that I’ve had much more of an impact, but I do have evidence that I’ve helped more people doing this than stocking things, or cleaning toilets. I’ve gotten many emails and comments from people over the years who have told me they found my work at just the right moment to save them from despair. Or it was the last thing they had to look forward to in difficult times and it helped keep them going. Some of those people have kept in touch and I’ve gotten to hear about the good that they did in the world that might not have happened if I hadn’t tried to help in the way I was best suited to. No matter what you do, if you do it in hopes that it will serve others, I think you’ll always do more good than harm in the long run. Intent is important and I intended to make something to give people hope who were lost in the world the way I was when I was in my 20s. The world is very different now. Retail is much less a part of American culture, and world culture for that matter, than it was when I started. The story evolved away from being so specific about that sort of thing and into the broader scope of learning to get along with difficult people. Sometimes the difficult person is you and learning how to grow out of that is also part of the story. It’s a hodge podge of things the way life is. The small frictions that dull our clockwork over the course of our lives. All part of my hour upon the stage. I hope that I can be the thing people find in their hour of need a few more times before my hour is up.

Anyway, I will return on Wednesday with another page. I hope your week starts off well. Stay safe until we meet again.

2959 Dream on.

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