Whoever said making your own independent comics is fun was lying. Or thinking wishfully.

Satisfying, yes. Hard work, yes. Educational, enlightening, yesyes. But fun? Only sometimes. Seldom. There's too much writing and redrawing and peripheral distraction. And far too many road miles and bad meals and hotels. And often, way too much shilling and ballying for people's love and attention and money -looking out for what my old carnival mentor called "the Tip." The crowd. The audience. The ones you must please or cajole or manipulate with your charm, your routine and your patter until the conclusive Big Payoff. "Grab the Tip, build the Tip, execute the Tip"-the Barker's creedo.

Yet, comes the other side. The private side. The draw, if you'll pardon a pun...the need to create with the ideas of visual storytelling, of making and reading Movies On Paper, taking a medium out for a spin in ways seldom, if ever, used anymore, and all while exploring a world that, for most, is the very definition of the unknown.

A synthesis of the last two paragraphs is what I suspect provides the spark that keeps things moving...

I've made some changes to the layout, and have begun to explore some of the technical possibilities inherent in using a site like this. Its exciting, but I'm not sure if I'm obsessive enough for it to become too "enhanced," or too much of an online journal for myself. It is, after all, about the drawing.

I think I'll keep the overall look of it fairly simple: basic black, without a lot of bells and whistles. Focus on the visual aspects, for the time being... if people comment otherwise, perhaps we'll add more.