My favorite poetry forum at the time was dying; its admin/creator caught up in the first few years of college and life outside of the internet, writing, and all of the people he’d never met. The other two sites I used were growing so quickly, and turning over members so regularly, it was hard to make any friends, get decent feedback, or even get reviewed more than once or twice per poem. One of my closest friends at the time, “Gothinius,” suggested we start our own forum. “Who are we to start a forum of our own?” I thought… “we’re just bored teens.” But she was convincing enough to not just change my mind, proving that we were the ideal founders of a forum for those like us, but get me excited about it… and by mid-2003, we had our own forum. Our very own sanctuary of poetry.

We spent the next several years constantly writing, reaching out to potential members all over the web, and growing quite well for a small forum with an obvious Christian influence. Our first forum was upwards of 200 members when server problems and a flame war between ideologically incompatible members convinced us it was time to move on and just chance not getting all the members to follow us to the new site. And sure enough, we lost a lot of members, and with that, a lot of momentum.

The trouble of moving, the drama of what had once been a secure place to post, shattered the secure feeling we’d taken so much time to craft and now our sanctuary seemed somewhat tainted. Along with that general feel permeating the site, the core users were finding new areas of interest, as was I… and, with time, the forum slowly just put itself on hiatus.

It didn’t need a mass email or its own thread. Posts just slowed down, reviews were less focused in content and in number, fewer members were signing in regularly… and eventually, it just slowed to a stop… living on as nothing more than a happy memory in the mind of its users of 3-4 years. A mere blip on the map of life. Our main core tried to stay in touch, but due to health problems, school, work, etc… it was just almost impossible, until recently. And while discussion the lack of writing in our current lives an idea occurred to us: a weekly poetry challenge. And what better place to hold it, than our old forum?!

That was less than a week ago, and yet all four of us have not just written something for that challenge, but other stuff in different forms and genres. A shared sense of excitement resonated with our work and we felt like keeping it all to ourselves was just too selfish… and so we cleaned up our past mess and reopened our doors; and we can’t wait to see where we go from here. For we are The Winter Moon.

It has obviously been pretty hard on the whole family and all of his friends. This whole year has been one long existential crisis for basically everyone involved… which isn’t unusual for me; having majored in Philosophy and carrying a minor in Religion, I spent all four years of college in a continually snowballing existential crisis that I found out doesn’t end when you’re handed a diploma. If anything, a diploma makes you feel more insecure for not having figured it all out by then. Anyway, since most of my family is religious, its been rough on them in a totally different way than it has been for me. They question a deities master plan, their faith’s religion/tradition, how the spiritual world is effecting the physical one.

I,  however, settled on some sort of “gleeful nihilism” around the time of my graduation (and also the name of my comic). The best way I can describe it is a sort of hybrid philosophy made up of the ones I find the most useful/awesome (absurdism/existentialism, nihilism, and bits of “post” modernism, mostly), and I tried to marry them in as cohesive a theory as possible. Since existentialism is such a big part of it, this whole psychological ordeal my brother is going through seems much more trivial than it does to those around me. They can blame the disease for his actions, the disease for his selfishness, the disease for the pain he’s caused… and that works in their worldviews. But to me, its just bullshit they’re hoping is true so they can take the responsibility of his actions off of him and onto something they can actually be mad at, stay mad at, and fix as if it were any other sickness. For them, underneath all this, is my brother. For me, its always been him.

Why? Because if there is no creator, then existence has to precede essence. And if this concrete world is all that we can know, all there is, and therefore all that matters, then we cannot blame a human nature, we cannot blame psychological diseases, we cannot blame social constructs or family traits or genetic misfortunes; we are condemned to be free. And with freedom comes responsibility for our actions and decisions; all of them.

That means that the biggest philosophical problem is that of suicide (and our relationship with the absurd). My brother has decided that life is too hard, too rough, to unfair and that it is not worth living. Most of my friends and family have made the same decision, but gone the route of philosophical suicide by turning to religious institutions, personal faiths, fairytale-like stories, and creators to hold their hand and tell them everything is okay and that all they just need to do if things get rough is do x, y, and z to make it all better. I,  however, have chosen to stare down the absurd and live my life in its face. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and means that there is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to different things, but if life were meant to be easy, it would be.

I’ve said all that to basically show you the question I keep mulling over in my head day in and day out (or for me, night in and night out): can there really be scientific exceptions to the rules or is my little brother really just a selfish, ignorant little pussy who would rather give up than make even the tiniest efforts to make his life worthwhile?

Right now I’ve sort of settled on the fence, deciding that its a little of both, but that the latter keeps him from overcoming the former. He’s always been so smart that he never really had to try in school. When he didn’t like sports or the effort involved, he would just quit. When videogames had too steep of a learning curve, and when consoles got more complex, he quit playing them and stuck to replaying games he already knew. And whenever he did have to try in college, he would take the course pass/fail. All that makes it really easy to just say “he’s a lazy, impatient asshole” and decide its the latter. But he was also a very sweet, naive little kid who had life throw a ton of shit at him in middle school that no kid should ever have to face at that age (he was young for his class and skipped a grade). And all that could account for a lot of the psychological issues he’s now struggling with.

The more immediate problem i face in all of this is how I interact with him over the upcoming holidays. I’ve let all his phone calls ring through to voicemail since the latest attempt but I won’t be able to avoid him or all of this once I’m under the same roof as him again. I’d like to just sit him down, tell him to fucking grab his nuts, man-up, and face life like a goddamn adult… but if he’s either of the above things I think he is, that won’t help at all.

I would honestly rather spend the holidays completely alone than go home and have to see him right now. I feel like, in the past year, I have lost my little brother, bestfriend, and roomie one after another. When I look at him I don’t even see my brother anymore. It’s honestly like I don’t even know him; like he’s a zombie or a ghost of someone I remember. Then again, maybe he’s never been the person I thought I knew.

The most obvious reason it irritates me is the obvious “never put up Xmas decorations before Thanksgiving” rule. But that’s been obliterated by just about every retail chain, so I can’t really hold these mindless “individuals” responsible for following larger social trends by egging just their houses. If I really wanted to make a difference I’d have to egg all the retail stores I see with Xmas shit up already, and that would be too much work and would cost way too much money. Plus, I rather like eggs. Not as friends or decorations, but as food. And yeah, as friends too.

Another reason is that I just don’t fucking get it… why do people feel the need to spend hours of their freetime putting up gaudy decorations around their house and lawn to remind everyone that its the worst time of the year once more? Is it worth paying for them just to display for a month and then store all year? Is it worth the wasted electricity? Is it worth the time and trouble knowing that all it’s really showing is that you are a superficial, materialistic, ignorant fuck? I would hope not. But then again… maybe they know something I don’t.

Lastly, it just reminds me of a lot of shattered dreams, weird memories, and lost hopes. It makes me reminisce about a time when I believed in fairy-tales and superstitions… a time where I discriminated against people who didn’t believe in those same stupid ideals… a time where I did and said a lot of stupid shit that I now know was just stupid shit that I shouldn’t have said and can’t believe I ever actually believed. I don’t think I’d go back and change any of it because I think I turned out pretty awesome in the end, but it doesn’t mean I have to like the route I took to get to awesometown.

Plus, I’ve blacked out most of those memories with booze, caffeine, and a general lack of sleep, so its mostly the other things I mentioned. You know, the first two; the ones that are funnier and less depressing. I shoulda stopped after them probably. But I didn’t. Maybe you did though. That woulda been smart.

Sure, I enjoy anime/manga when I have taken the time to find stuff I like or watch/read stuff people have suggested… but the main reason I went is because I wanted to get an idea for what I’d need to do to get myself and my comics ready to hit some conventions in 2010. Since my part of the midwest really doesn’t have many dedicated comic-cons, but does have a ton of sci-fi and anime cons, I thought those would be a great/practical place to start. And I think I was right, because I have a wealth of ideas that I now need to put into motion so that I can have them ready by Feb/March of 2010.

Since I had a great time and bought stuff, I figured I’d give you a few links to check out so that they can hopefully get some more hits, more exposure, and maybe more moneys if you find something you like (and yes, I did meet all these people at one point or another, have pretty awesome conversations with them, and they are totally deserving of the money they are asking for these products).

First are the friends whose artists alley table I sat under/behind a good deal of the weekend while not at panels or wandering around enjoying the badass cosplay outfits: SpringDragon Studios and whatever Cori’s studio name is/was. They were really cool and I think it was both of their first cons. But they had some awesome artwork displayed, sold some good stuff, and hopefully had a good time as well.

Next are the people I bought stuff from… the first does an excellent webcomic called Red-Zone, which is a manga styled comic done in chapters. Right now she’s finishing chapter 7 and is posting side-continuity sorta content on her site. Her book has Chapters 1-6 in it and I sat on the floor and read the entire thing from start to finish at the con… it was freaking amazing.

The other person who’s comic I bought and really enjoyed works as DreamGear Studios. The comic is called SoulBinder and he’s gonna start posting it on that there website later this month. I bought it at the con and read thru it a few times and really cannot wait for him to start posting it. Why? Because the print version is black and white (and was very inexpensive and totally worth it)… but the webcomic version will be in full color!!! He said he’s pretty far along on the second comic as well, so that’s pretty badass.

And lastly, the people who weren’t just at the con, but were guests and who did some awesome panels: studio (and webcomic) Otako-No-Yen! The comic has been going for several years now, is written by Richard Townsend, his wife Shannon does all the artwork, and they had some of the best panels and were two of the funniest people I met this weekend. One of the first things I did once I woke up from my post-con coma was to read their comic from start to finish, and then bookmark it and subscribe to the RSS feed because it’s just badass.

There were a bunch of other great presenters at the convention and if you’re intrigued by the links I posted already, you can go to this page of the NebrasKon site and click thru to all the artist/dealer sites you want. If you’ve got time to spare, I suggest that you at least click thru some of the stuff I mentioned above, and if you’re really looking to kill time, the artist links are worth a peak. Anyway, I had a blast and just wanted to share some of the cool stuff I found with you all. Maybe I’ll snap some pics of the me and my merch… or maybe I’ll just make you buy it to see how badass it is yourself.

Anyway, for whatever reason, he stopped himself, called 911, and had the squad car take him to the hospital where he checked himself into the Mental Health Ward. That was around 1am Wednesday morning. I got a call from him at around 720am as I was leaving work. As I got home I found all his supplies out and in the ready position. Our kitchen was inches away from becoming a crime scene and my apartment minutes away from being a nightmare. I just dropped everything and collapsed in the doorway. I had been hoping the whole way home that it was just a bad dream, that maybe he was playing a cruel prank… anything but this… but it was real.

After a few minutes I realized the door to my apartment was still open, so I got up and closed it, and thought to check his room for a note or anything… there was a new version of his suicide note and death quote list on his computer. I just leaned back in his computer chair, fell apart, and started gathering the pieces.

Took pictures to show to the therapist/doctor at the mental ward. Printed his suicide note and quote list so they’d have it on file. Started to clean the kitchen and just couldn’t do it. Took a shower, got dressed, and went off to the hospital.

I called dad on the way there and explained what I knew. Went back and forth between the hospital a couple times to get his meds and other things the docs needed. Went by his workplace and explained why he wouldn’t be back. Talked to the parents a few more times. Broke the news to his friends. Sat and listened to Stevo in the ward… while he did a puzzle… never looking me in the eyes, never showing remorse, never showing any sign of depression…

Laying on the floor with all the TV’s in the apartment on different channels, I fell asleep for maybe an hour. His friends came over to keep me company sometime that afternoon. My parents got here a few hours after they did. We ate, I tried to sleep some more, I worked that night. I decided not to go see Stevo with the parents on Thursday. The more I find out about how planned this was, and how far in advance and how much effort he had to put into this, the more mad I get. Maybe this entire move back to Lincoln was just so he could try again. I’ve never felt this conflicted about anything before.

The parents went back home Thursday afternoon. I slept all day… worked again, and am now trying to finish the comics I was doing Wednesday, before I found all of this out, so that I can try to have fun at the Nebraskon this weekend. The parents will be here when I get home on Sunday. I work that night and then Monday morning they’ll pick Stevo up from the hospital and take him to a longterm facility in Kansas City where he’ll spend however much time he needs to spend there getting better. After he’s released he’ll have to go to a different therapy place daily, for the entire day, and during that time he’ll live with my parents. Hopefully this is what he needs to get better…

As for me? I’ll be in Lincoln until at least next July when my lease is up. Maybe, after thats over, I’ll move somewhere I want to go/be this time. Or maybe I’ll just move back to KC so I’m at least near family. Anywhere’s better than Nebraska… right?

Sure, what you produce in that month is pretty much pure shit, but in some ways, knowing that everyone is feverishly producing the same level of work pushes you forward and gives you the courage to admit that, yes, your work isn’t great, but that’s not the point. And I think it’s an honorable exercise, really… too many times, when people try being creative, they hold themselves to standards which they will never meet as beginners. Whether its webcomics, fanfiction, novels, artwork, or any other creative outlet, it is far too easy to compare ourselves to the more popular and successful people in the field and quit in a fit of frustration when we give our time and effort and don’t see any immediate return on that investment.

It’s easy to overlook that beginning period when looking up to people who have already “made it” in their field. But they didn’t just get handed a golden ticket which led them straight to the success train. They had to work at it just as hard as we do when we start our own creative endeavors. And sure, its a fact that most people’s creativity will never be rewarded on a large scale, but if you never make the attempt, you’ll never even have a chance to be rewarded/recognized for what you can do.

As you can tell, I will miss NaNoWriMo this november… and before you can say it, no I’m not reconsidering. Instead, I’m crafting a challenge of my own and will use my blog to update you on the progress as I make it.

November, for me, will be an artistic challenge. I plan to sketch something unrelated to either of my comics everyday. I will be working on my black and white art (practicing how to use whitespace effectively and limit my use of greys). And I will also begin actively working on another comic idea and artstyle I’ve been writing for almost a year now.

Sure, I love to write, but I’ve been writing for a long time and know where I need improvement and how to challenge myself and write daily. Where I need more discipline is in my artwork. So while you all write like crazy, I’ll be drawing my hand off. Having never completed NaNoWriMo, I wish us all good luck to all of us. Trust me, we’ll need all of it we can get.

1. EmilyStrange (my laptop), where I do all my work since its portable and newer than my desktop
2. Wacom Intuos3 9×12 graphics tablet. She is beautiful. I love her very very much.
3. Krazim, my desktop PC where I was watching KC Green ustream, chatting on gtalk, tweeting, and jammin to tunes with my Zune 4.0 software.
4. Caffeine. You can never have too much of it. Unless you’re my old roomie Kevin who almost OD’d on it in college. Then, yeah, you can have too much…
5. Snacks. That night it was mini-donuts. I’m pretty sure i was eating teddy grahams too.
6. My scanner, which is barely offscreen… its for scanning. Naturally.
7. Voice recorder. My handwriting is awful when I’m on the go and so I record ideas so I don’t lose them.
8. Lotion and Hand Sanitizer. I hate dry skin and I’m a pseudo-OCPD person (and no, that ain’t a typo), so they both are needed. A lot.
9. Subwoofer (and its speakers are on the desk). Gotta have tunes!!!
10. Webcam/Microphone. The lappy has them built in. They come in handy for when I’m Ustreamin. Which is fun.

And, as Cori’s post says, it is now your turn, you awesome artists you. What do you have to have to get your draw on? Oh, what is that  you say? You DON’T draw!?!? Well, what 10 items do you need to get your favorite hobby goin? Whether it be gaming, writing, blogging, crafts, or whatever… lets see what you need to get them creative juices goin. These were mine (minus the stuffed animals and other childish toys across the room from my desk), so what are yours?

(edit: let it be said that, if this becomes a trend, I was totally the originator cause this pic is from october 5. Cori’s post was like the 28th. Therefore, i win. hah! Take that Cori.)

Even though I read a bunch of comics now, I still prefer to actually go to their individual sites to check content rather than subscribe via RSS feeds or other methods; it’s a little more of a hassle, but that way they get the hits, the ads on their site get another unique impression, and they can hopefully make some money they otherwise may not.

I also like checking their actual sites to see who is advertising where and how much its costing them on ProjectWonderful. If I see an interesting ad, I click it. And before judging based on that one landing page, I try to check out some of the other pages (and the archive if its a comic or blog site) to get a feel for what they’re doing and whether I like it or not. Some of my recent favorites have even been found this way! For some reason, it’s a really cool feeling to love a comic you find via an ad on a different comic’s site. Maybe its because I advertise my own comics on a few different sites with some regularity… I’d sure like to know if it pays off at all, and seeing that I’ve found sites thru ads is a sort of reassurance that it hopefully will.

Anyway, I write all this to say two things: 1) my blog has been somewhat neglected recently because I’ve spent my freetime either drawing or reading a ton of other sites archives; and 2) that because of these habits, I have started using my own “links page” on GN and B4B as a daily “to read” list so that any/every one can keep up on what I’m following regularly and check out ones they may not have heard of based on my judgment (which could either hurt or harm the comics I link to… depending on who you are and, well, how funny you are, I guess).

It needs work still, and I need to make it look more like the rest of the comic prolly (or make the rest of the comic look more like this), but I think its a step in the right direction. Billy and Randy’s hair don’t look the same. Will and George’s hair looks more feasable. And all their facial features are pretty much the same… just a bit updated and they fit more with their personalities (now that they’ve been established).

Thoughts?

So far, all of these people not showing up has screwed me over the most because its almost always on my shift, I’m the one that has to work my ass off to get breakfast out by 6am, and, yes, the managers get woken up a bit early and the morning desk person has to do some extra work and some possible cleanup, but I am usually asked to stay late. I’d love to say “no” to overtime, but getting paid time and a half for chatting with guests and keeping food fresh is almost too easy. I’d be retarded to turn that down… but at the same time, it sucks.

Yesterday a breakfast host called in because her kid was baby is sick, she hadn’t gotten any sleep, and she had a funeral to attend later in the day. She gave me several hours notice so it wasn’t an awful deal, I just had to rush because of a huge meeting we have going on at the hotel all week. The other breakfast host was scheduled for this coming morning, however, so I wasn’t worried about getting stuck with another 11-12 hour shift… but, upon arriving at work tonight, I found out that the other hostess had been in a car accident today and wasn’t going to be in for a few days.

With my current streak of luck, I’m betting that I’ll get to work another long shift today… oh, and did I mention that I am working a 6 day week currently? Yeah… thats a favor I’m pulling for the other night auditor because she didn’t request off the days she needed until the week she needed them.

I try not to use my blog or comics as a platform to complain about my life, because I hate reading about others petty issue, but I have been absolutely dumbfounded since graduating college, at the lack of work ethic and professionalism in the average person today. In working at a hotel for 1 year and 5 months, I have worked at two different hotels, and have worked with 12 breakfast hostesses. Of those twelve hostesses, only two of them have left the job because of a legit reason (one was becoming a nurse, the other’s husband was having serious health issues)… four of them quit before EVER working a full day as a breakfast hostess (that means they quit during training, without calling in to say they were quitting or wouldn’t be there any more)… three have  left on their own accord for whatever reason… and the other three still have their jobs the last time I checked.

In that same span of time, I’ve seen 3 front desk workers be let go because they either sucked at the job or were unreliable, and I’ve seen a shitton of housekeepers come and go, but I don’t have as much direct relation with them, and their attendance and reliability doesn’t directly affect my job in a significant way. I guess what I’m getting at in this entire blog is: what is wrong with people today!?

I take my job seriously. Since I was 17 I’ve almost always had a job (with the exception of a summer where I had wrist surgery and was all gimped up) and before that I mowed lawns and helped clean up snow for neighbors. I’ve only called in sick twice: once was because I was hospitalized for several days with kidney stones, and the other time I was quarantined by my doctor because I had pneumonia, bronchitis, a sinus and upper respiratory infection, the flu, and they thought I might have spinal meningitis. How have their families, friends, and society failed so badly at raising responsible people? And what the hell do we do to fix it!?

Sure, I love overtime… but this is getting fucking rediculous.

(PS: in my mind, the title was supposed to be a Where’s Waldo reference. I doubt you got that. So this is your “laugh” sign lighting up and flashing.)