I have long resisted the blog.
While there are many great blogs floating around out there in the infinite digital universe, they are difficult to locate amongst the vast oceans of pointless drivel posted by movie stars, housewives, angst-ridden teenagers and CPA’s who live for paintball.
I dread being just another anonymous contributor to the surplus verbiage clogging up the web, desperately trying to be heard amid the overwhelming din.
Because of this, I have resisted the blog.
The very few remarkable blogs I have managed to unearth are usually about something in which I have a deep interest. Television, movies, comics, illustration, and writing are what interest me most. The most compelling blogs, for me at least, are the ones that strive to go beyond mere reporting, youthful fanaticism and glorified journaling. The best blogs attempt to reveal something about the process, its joys and heartaches, and its victories and failures, its techniques and tenets. Achieving that kind of depth is an intimidating challenge.
Because of this too, I have resisted the blog.
It also takes a certain amount of chutzpah. I used to have bottomless barrels of chutzpah, but it has been in alarmingly short supply of late. I have now dipped down to the bottom of the last container, and found the final ounces. This may be my last draught of the sort of cool confidence and bold audacity required for this sort of thing, but I am going to quaff that ultimate chalice of impudent energy and make the attempt.
I do so because I have a lot I want to say about my struggle to become a better writer and illustrator. And, perhaps, about my ultimate failure to reach the pinnacles I strive toward. I want to get that stuff out of my head and on paper, or pixels at least, before I am too old and tired to attempt it. The twin challenge of finding an audience and offering true insights into the creative process must take a back seat to merely organizing my thoughts and recounting the many challenges I face while attempting to do so.
I am launching two companion blogs; FIGHTING WORDS and MOVING PICTURES, I will aim to do the very best job I can manage. Whether people will be able to find my blogs in the glut of cyber-ramblings, and whether they will find the words and pictures there worthy of their time, remains to be seen. I leave that to time and the vagaries of fate. For now this is just about me, and my thoughts. If anything more should come of it, I’ll consider that pure gravy.
For those who are reading this page and those to follow, whether invited here by me or led here by the fates, I hope you will be captivated, enlightened and moved… but I’ll settle for simply entertained.
Draw, Monkey-Boy, draw!
