There's Something Wrong with Me and Maybe This Will Fix It.

What the hell, there's only seven of you reading this anyways.

In the pit of my soul, I believe that in order to make worthwhile art, you have to be emotionally honest with your audience and with yourself. I look at the great works of narrative art that have affected my life; Sorry to Bother You, Papergirls, The Sunset Tree, The Worst Person in The World, Crimes of The Future, Bojack Horseman, God Loves Man Kills, Flex Mentallo, Dykes, Calvin & Hobbes, Pink Floyd's The Wall, the list goes on and on, and I see in them a level of emotional honesty that terrifies me. And yet, I want to be an artist. I want to make something, anything, that feels the way those works do. There is something wrong inside of me and maybe that would fix it. I cannot do that from the comfort of lies. Like I said, I check how many people read these. The last one had seven readers; we get less every time. So, because almost nobody is reading this, I'm going to work some things out on the page. This might be a brilliant touching autobiographical article, or it might be shit. Could be both at the same time. That also happens.

Unlike most blog posts, I will not be able to speak today for the entire company. This one is intensely personal. So much so, that Murray may ask me to take it down. If he does, I will.

Whenever I start thinking about why I want to write comics, I go back to film school. I had two professors who were married to each other. One once said I was one of the greatest writers the school had ever seen. The other once said that I was "The kind of guy who takes up a lot of space." It was the second one I was having the following conversation with. I was in his class working on my senior project; a visual E.P. consisting of four original music videos fitting into a narrative about a brilliant young artist who was totally inept in his personal relationships. It was also a difficult time in my life.

My mother had just been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder that I still spend most of my time thinking about to this day. I was running out of money rapidly. It looked like I might not be graduating. My understanding of my own gender identity was evolving in ways I was not able to grapple with at the time. I was being forced to grapple with the possibility that many of the dreams and aspirations I had built my life around would never come to fruition despite my efforts.

It was in the midst of this emotional quagmire that this professor sat down with me to talk about the quality of my work. After getting to the heart of what was distracting me, he asked me where I would like to be in five years. (Now three years.) I said I wanted to live somewhere with my boyfriend (I do), to have offers on one of my screenplays (we'll see but I doubt it), that I wanted to have my first novel on shelves (working on it), and that I wanted to be writing comics. He couldn't help but chuckle and ask "Yeah? Comics?"

It's the kind of response you expect, but I didn't have anything to say to it. The truth is that I'm a deeply insecure person. You're going to understand that by the end of this. Though I made up some response about the mechanics of the medium, it was not the truth. It was simply an answer that I felt could be taken seriously.

The truth was, and still is, that I want to write comics because there's a chair behind a desk somewhere reserved for whoever's writing Guardians of The Galaxy or Black Lightning or Cyborg or New Mutants and I will sit in that chair. I stay awake at night filled with some energy I can't describe, and I know it is because I am not where I am supposed to be; behind that desk. I cannot understand a purpose for my life outside of that. It is not because I live my life in a state of arrested development, though I may. It is not because my brain has been worn down by a decade plus of Marvel movies. It is not because the follies of American culture have blinded me to some mythological "real" art. It is because there are emotions pounding desperately on the inside of my chest that can only be released there, in those books. It is because there are tears constantly welling up behind my eyes that will someday leave four-color streaks down my face.

The summer before high school started, my father drove me into the middle of the woods and told me to walk home because he felt I was getting too fat. I still had my phone, but I didn't call anybody because he was my dad. Three hours later he picked me up and asked me if I had learned my lesson. I always assumed my mother made him turn around and get me, but she never knew this happened until I was an adult. I'm sure in his mind, he considered this "tough love." If my father was still alive today, I suspect my relationship to him would be reminiscent of The Pierce Family as depicted in John Ridley's The Other History of the DCU. Someday, I will expand on that.

Someday, I'll write a story about his relationship with his kids and his relationship with his students, and I'll speak on the fact that it takes one person to destroy a relationship and two to rebuild it. And I'll write a story about the things we do in the name of love, and the need to be tough and the need to be weak, and the people we forgive and the people we can't, and the fact that when my father died, I didn't have a relationship with him because I didn't want one, and I'll ask myself what kind of a person that makes me and I'll have to find an answer. And that story will be called Black Lightning. And I'll write it because I cannot turn to the people in my life and admit that I love my father but I'm afraid I might not if he was alive. There is something wrong with me and this might fix it.

When I was in college, with my mother sick and my best friend dead and no road laid out ahead of me, I ran away to the ocean. There were rocks in the pockets of my jeans. I stood there on the shore in Delaware, and I could not step further. My brain would send the signal, but my feet did not respond. I understand now that I was afraid. I admit, I am thankful for that fear. In the years that followed I came to understand that life is worth living because we make it so. I came to understand that we, each of us, has a responsibility to the people around us to create a worthwhile world for no other reason than that they are people and they are around us. Maybe this sounds silly, but that is what Guardians of the Galaxy would be about. That's what MY Guardians of the Galaxy is about.

When I was a very young child, I would scream and cry and throw things because I believed, as I told my brother, that God had made his first mistake in creating me. Later in life, I told somebody that I wished to become romantic with, that I was a fictional person. That I was not real. That is Cyborg. There was always something wrong with me, something that made me unable to be around other people. Something beyond the queerness and the fatness and the mental troubles. Sometimes you get these brief beautiful moments with somebody else where it fades away. But most of the time you just live a half existence in between. New Mutants.

I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. That is to say, I don't think channeling these experiences into artistic expression makes me some kind of freak. (At least, not more than everything else I do.) In fact, I think that's probably how a lot of profound art gets made. But I didn't say any of that to my professor.

I told him that I was fascinated by a medium which was visual but not auditory. I guess, on an intellectual level I am. But that really has nothing to do with the burning that keeps me up at night. I said it because it sounded more intellectual, more adult, more respectable, than saying "I think Charlie Brown has a lot to offer the world." But he does.

You see, I get this image of myself in my head sometimes. In this vision, I'm wearing a chicken suit with a massive pair of tighty-whiteys on the outside. I'm wearing this costume and I'm down on the ground in the mud. You see, I've just lost a fight. So, my eyes are black, and my nose is broken, and my mouth is bloody, and there's this crowd that's gathered around laughing at me because it's quite the sight to see. I'm down on the ground and I'm shouting back up at them. I scream "I'm a real artist! I'm a serious person! I make beautiful things!" Of course, that just makes it funnier.

Maybe that's why I quit stand-up comedy. I'm not saying this to brag, but for a while I was very good. There came times when I would be out eating dinner and somebody I had never met would pay for my meal because they saw me in a bar the night before. I know for a fact that there is one man in Northeast Ohio with a tattoo on his body referencing a bit I used to do about those limited-edition flavors of Coca-Cola. My point is that if I had stuck with it, I'd probably be in a very different place right now. The only problem is that I was never telling jokes.

One night I'm on stage at a college bar that I performed at a lot. The whole crowd is laughing but I'm confused. I inform them "That wasn't even the punchline yet." They laugh harder. It occurs to me in that moment that a lot of my sets go this way. It's not the jokes they're laughing at; it's me. When I decided to start doing stand-up, I told myself I was okay with that. Yet all the same, I was picking bloody pieces of chicken suit out of the shower drain that night. The quarantine started pretty soon after that, so I had a beautiful excuse to just stop. So, I did.

If you ask me in person, I will not tell you that story. I'll tell you I quit because guys who do standup are losers. A lot of them really are. I'll tell you I didn't realize so many people were doing digital shows during quarantine. I really didn't. But those are contributing factors, not THE reason. I'm going to wake up some day and be a whole complete real person, so I tell myself. When that day comes, I want to be somebody that I like.

Ironically, that means quitting less. I used to quit everything. Quitting is easy and it feels good. But it makes me into a person I'm ashamed of. You know that visual E.P. I mentioned earlier? I quit that right at the end. A massive months long effort. Five locations, eight shoot days, hundreds of dollars (not all of them mine) sunk into pre-production and production. Then, in post-production, I gave up. When people asked me in real life, I told them my sound mixer, and my editor (two dear friends, mind you) screwed me over and that when my computer turned into a brick, I lost access to the footage. All of that is true, to some degree. It is also true that I could have overcome those obstacles if I really wanted to. Hell, I still could today if I had the balls. But I don't. I'm afraid to face the shame of having failed when so many people told me I would. That cowardice has burned bridges in the local film community that I may never repair.

Here's a fun fact for you: I originally wanted this blog post to be a feature length documentary. I've been pitching Murray on it every time I've seen him lately. Ostensibly, it would have followed Murray and me through an entire convention season. Though I never brought it up, in the back of my head I knew there would be another, more compelling, angle for the story. Any storyteller worth their salt would be able to see it. Murray is my best friend, he cares about me, we share many dreams, and this company is one of them. That said, this job is harder on him than it ever could be for me. He is stretched thin and it is because of my demands. There is a level in which my existence here is exploitative to his. Either Murray doesn't realize that or he's made his peace with it. Either possibility is terrifying because this dynamic should not exist, yet I could never achieve my goals without it. They're comic books. A writer is nothing without an artist. I would be nothing without Murray.

The truth is, I'm jealous of Murray. Yes, I'm jealous of his talent and his disposition. Shamefully though, there are parts of me that are also jealous of the horrible things that have happened to him. I'm not going to discuss them here. I'm Italian, ostensibly we don't do that. Suffice it to say, I've had it easy. Yet when I look at Murray, I don't see a collection of horrible things that have happened to a person. I see a beautiful shimmering beacon of light. I see love and compassion. I see patience and hope. I see a joy that radiates off of him and overtakes the people he loves. Murray may be one of the most special people this world has to offer. In response, during my most shameful moments, I sit around and think; "Wouldn't it be great if something horrible happened to me? Then the world could finally see how special I was." It's pathetic.

I saw all of this festering inside of me and my first instinct was to point a camera at it. There is something wrong inside of me, and maybe that would fix it. I built a pitch deck. I was starting to assemble a budget when I reached out to the only person I felt could direct the project; the director of photography from that visual E.P. He was the guiding hand of the project when I could not be. The failures there were mine but the successes where his. I guess one could consider him, in this context, like a proto-Murray. I knew he was the only choice because I suspect he probably hates me for giving up. He never responded when I reached out to him, so I wrote this.

The observant among you probably pieced it together a few paragraphs ago. This blog post is one of those emotions from inside my chest. This despicable ramble is a story that's been keeping me up at night. This abstract jumble about art and emotion and honesty and the ways that I can or cannot communicate is another masturbatory exercise in "art." Something to be put into a compilation someday so people can pretend they know me and pretend they know my art. John Darnielle's This Year. Dan Harmon's You'll Be Perfect When You're Dead.

If you're down here, then you've read this far. That act of observation, you've probably realized, is actually an act of participation. I wrote this because you'll read it. All seven of you, maybe less. I don't do this for myself you know. I'm incapable of it. I need you to read this, even though I don't want you to. Do you think I want my best friend to hear me say I'm jealous of the terrible things that have happened to him? You think I want my mother or my boyfriend to read that I almost walked into the ocean and didn't come out? You think I want my sister to hear about the things my father did or the way they make me feel? But I have to do it, so that YOU can read it. Haven't you heard? There's something wrong with me. But don't worry, we're gonna fix it together. I'm a serious artist. I make beautiful things.

Some of you are clicking off of this right about now. If you would like to go, go ahead. Nobody can stop you. Nobody would even know. I think that's why I do it like this. But some of you are going to stick around. Some of you, though you may not be able to admit it, view this as a piece of entertainment. It is, but it's also something else. If you are going to stay, I want you to sit with the way that sentence made you feel. Okay? Carry that feeling with you as we continue.

We can go back to pretending you're not here now.

I've gotten a little off topic though. At the beginning I was pretending that this post was going to be about why I write comics. It's not a pointless question. A homeless guy asked me that at my day job once. I told him I do it because I love it. That's true, but we're also three-thousand words in right now, so clearly there's something else going on here.

My other professor, the one who was married to the guy I talked about earlier, she pulled me aside just before graduation. She told me that there was something special inside of me. She said that my writing was a gift and that the worst thing I could ever do was to give up on it. I don't know if she knew how perfectly tailor made to me that sentiment was. I suspect, maybe, she did.

I do want to be special. It's less about being special and more about being told I'm special. But if that was all I was looking for, I would just suck at sports until it got me on Fox News. Why is it writing? Why is it comics specifically? I can't just keep saying there's something wrong with me and maybe this'll fix it. What is wrong with me? Why do I think this will fix anything?

What if the answer was "I don't know?" Hm? What if you read this whole fucking thing and there was no goddamn conclusion at the end of it? How's that for art? But I guess that would be giving up, and I try not to do that anymore. This is, for all intents and purposes, a story. Stories end. This story ends with an answer to the question.

I write comics because I always pretty much assumed I was going to. I write comics because that's how I learned to read. I write comics because I spent my whole life thinking about it. I write comics because Charlie Brown has a lot to offer the world. I write comics because Murray asked me to.

When Murray and I started this business, we had two stories to tell. One was his, the other was mine. His was Bearing with Life. If you're reading this, you've read that. I'm not going to waste my time. I can only speculate, but I think Murray created that story because he needed to know that there is light and love even in the darkness.

The other story was Hoodlum Sells Out. It would have followed a young angry man with a lot of ideas about the harshness and horribleness of the world. He was brash and stupid and loud, the kind of guy who takes up a lot of space. He claimed he wanted to make a better world, but he wouldn't take any steps towards it unless they were big and flashy and made him look cool. One day, somebody great comes along and they say they see something special in him, he just has to put in the work. So, he does, and he becomes all these things he used to want to be, but it's not enough. He did it for him, not for them. And here's this other guy, older, richer, more powerful, and he wants to be a hero too. With his resources, he could hammer the world into shape. But the people get no say in it. It's all at his selfish whims. So, Hoodlum sets out to stop him, but he has to do it alone. Finally, it's not about looking great, it's about being great. I had to tell that story. I still have to. Because I need to know that in the end, a guy like that can do something right.

Yes, there is something wrong with me and I know that this isn't going to fix it. The thing that's wrong with me is that I'm a real person and I don't like it. I don't want to live and die, I want to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I don't want to experience events; I want to move from plot point to plot point until we reach a conclusion. I don't want people to know me; I want them to character analyze me. That's why you're reading this. I'm sorry, I lied, we cannot go back to pretending like you're not here. We can only pretend like I'm not here. If I'm not here then this is entertainment, then "me" is a character, then I'm not real. It's easy to think like that and it feels good.

It's easy to drown too. It's easy to throw your friends under the bus when you fail. it's easy to think dark shameful thoughts. It's easy to say you're friends are being manipulated by you instead of accepting that they have a relationship with you because they want to. It's easy to love somebody you're never gonna see again. It's easy to talk about your emotions if you can make somebody question how honest you're being.

I do think I love my father, but I don't think I forgive him. Murray is passionate and joyful about the things he does, even if they tire him out. If he didn't want to know me, he would leave. Pretending otherwise doesn't reveal any hidden darkness about me; it just robs him of his autonomy. I am not an easily definable story, but that does not mean that my life is without meaning. I will not wake up someday and become a real person. I am real now. I say these things because they are true. I say them for myself, because I cannot say them only for you.

Was that anything?