I don't know what I'm doing. I mean, what is this website? It's where I put my comics and write my thoughts into the void. But why am I doing this? I don't know anymore. I made the conscious decision to avoid the whole social media nonsense with likes, comments and followers and all that. I have a deep antipathy towards all these things and couldn't imagine doing it. But I can't deny the fact that it was under the premise that I could make it work without.
In the past I claimed that I'm doing these comics for me. That I don't care how many people read them and that I don't need an audience. But I have to face the reality that this might have been a lie I've been telling myself. I do care about people reading my comics. Somewhere deep inside me there was the romantic fantasy that my comics and blog posts will be appreciated at some point. That they might be read by someone who understands them and cares deeply about their meaning.
It's not about fame and it absolutely is not about money. I just want someone, anyone, to understand me. I think that's what most artists want. But maybe I'll have to accept that this is never going to happen. Maybe there isn't even anything to understand. Maybe I'm just a mundane guy, drawing mundane, boring, comics. It might feel to me like I'm special. It might feel to me like I make comics that are different. I might think that I'm expressing something deep and meaningful. But maybe I'm just an idiot. Maybe I'm just spending huge chunks of my life producing meaningless garbage.
I'm always happy when people tell me they like my comics. In fact, I'm even happy if people know about my comics. But people rarely do. Few people who learn that I do these comics actually visit the website and those that do usually read a few comics and then never return. At least that's what I think happens, it's not like I have any way of knowing, but it's just the most plausible explanation for how little people seem to care about these comics and how I never got any messages from a reader I don't know personally.
Why am I doing this to myself? I know that it's an unrealistic expectation that my comics will just build an audience through word of mouth without any form of engagement. I know that people have a lot of content at their fingertips at all times and that these weird comics just don't stand out from all that. I know that my comics are very niche interest at best, but probably just not that good.
I guess I'm doing it for this dream that some day it will all work out. That at some point someone will notice. That it wasn't all for nothing. I guess I have a tendency to have these unrealistic dreams. Sometimes I refuse to do things in the conventional way that is much more likely to yield the desired outcome, just because it would be way nicer if it worked my way. Just because it would produce a better story. Just because having these dreams might feel better than trying the conventional way and failing.
But despite what popular stories tell us, dreams don't necessarily come true. None of my dreams ever do.
