Falling from the top of the ladder, all 200 hundred pounds of me hit the floor with the grace of a wet bag of vanilla pudding. Honestly, it was the most athletic thing I’ve ever done.
I had been repainting my bedroom for my then wife. We had bought this great brownstone in the post-apocalyptic hell hole that is Trenton, New Jersey. The previous owners were rather over the top and had painted elaborate murals in a few rooms. A “Birth of Venus” naked lady in the bathroom and ancient greek faces “blowing” the ceiling fan in our brown bedroom. Dark, freeze burn brown. The whole room was a brownie you’d never want to eat. So as a gift to my patient wife and mother to my child, i came home early to paint and build all new furniture. She could rest with her family and the baby while I remade our bedroom. Our marriage was not in great shape and I was hoping this huge effort would be an symbolic lighting of he Olympic Flame. The entire adventure was a fiasco. The brown was nearly unkillable and took 5 coats to cover which is 4 more than I planned on. When removing the fan, it occurred to me after that I should turn the power off before dicking with the wiring. It took 5 straight 12 hour days and I delirium was setting in when I fell from the very top of the ladder with a full bucket of paint.
Time slowed. I knew if the can landed my 100 year old floors would be ruined.I don’t know how I slipped but once free from the ladder, I fully extended like a hall of fame receiver to make sure the full can did not tip and boy did I take the hit. There was thunderous slam in empty house. I stood up and pumped my fist like Michael Jordan after a game-winner. Guys, it was truly amazing. And no one saw it.
This is what it’s like to finish a drawing a Kickstarter comic. Sure, there’s still more to do. (Coloring, lettering and post-production. We’re probably a couple of months from you receiving your books.) However, the hard part, the scoring touchdowns in the Super Bowl that is this endeavor, is finishing pages and I fucking did it. These were the hardest 28 pages of comics I’ve ever made and I’m really proud of myself. Maybe this is the beginning of new era of artistic achievement. Maybe it’s nothing but soon to be discarded weird objects my friends and family don’t read. I do not care. I make this work because it matters to me. Because I have to. I am absolutely good enough to earn a living doing this but the game is the game. Any successful creative telling you it’s just hard work and not some luck is bullshitting either you, themselves or both. I feel really good at the moment. It’s been a difficult few years but I fought for this spot. For the comics, my son and my sanity. It’s really not much at all but I am so so grateful. This year has sharpened me. (In some ways. This year has also made me tender in a way I hadn’t thought possible. I gave up a lot of things that weren’t serving me. Tough…but tender.) I’m glad I did this Kickstarter and that you supported it. I’m not sure I would have made it through things without it. I didn’t scream when I finished that last turkey drawing. I didn’t scream like I did when I saved my floor from paint ruin. That superlative play did not save my marriage and someone else owns that house now. This? These pages I made? I finished them and it took days for it to sink in what happened. I fucking did it. It felt impossible last year like I sold y’all a bill of goods and I’d never deliver. But I dug in. Comics didn’t give up on me even when I gave up on myself. This chapter I put together is fucking mine forever.
Very soon it will be yours as well. Thank you, fam.