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gregamanx-blog · 8 years ago

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When Hope Fizzles Out

WARNING: MASSIVELY LONG POST AHEAD.

Hey all,

I know that I’ve just started this Tumblr thing lately, but since I can’t convey my thoughts in short tweets on Twitter, and I’m not sure if I really want to make this a post on my Tapastic page, just in case things get better sooner than expected, I decided to at least give some of my most passionate followers who would bother to read this a heads-up.

I’m not sure that there’s an easy way to say this, but my hopes as a webcomic artist are kind of fizzling out at this point. Not due to a lack of interest in my story, or being upset with my art quality. Hell, it’s not even really due to a lack of subscribers (237 on Tapastic and 249 on WebToons, last time I checked). Although that last one could really stand to be improved, since I feel like I’ve kind of hit a brick wall on growth lately. No, this change in me is due to an extreme depression that’s been growing over the last month or so. I mean, it’s always been there, but now it’s been amplified a hundred-fold.

To give you some insight (LONG STORY AHEAD, by the way), all my life, I’ve fought with depression due to different issues. I had a childhood where about every friend betrayed me and eventually bullied me. I had parents who never showed any interest in my hobbies or supported any decision I made (I eventually stopped drawing because of it). I never had a girlfriend until I was almost 20 (thank god she was the one and I ended up marrying her!). I got forced through a crappy college program from my parents instead of having them let me decide what I wanted to do (I wasted 4 years doing Human Resources, which I ended up hating, and never got a career into it afterwards). Half the time I was in college, I worked my crappy part-time dollar shop job, and after I was done, I got another part-time job at a clothing store (My wife also worked part-time at a coffee shop in a hospital). I moved out as soon as I graduated and got that job to get the hell away from my parents before they caused extensive mental problems to me.

My wife and I lived in a shitty apartment for 5 years, where 4 years out of that, we had neighbours above our heads equivalent to meth-heads, who would constantly stomp/drag furniture (every moment of every day), and throw bloody ragers plenty of nights, while the complex owner did NOTHING to help us (police never made a difference either). It took us YEARS to save up enough for our current house (a semi), with AGAIN, precisely one year later, our nice old neighbours moving out, and getting surrounded by new obnoxious assholes. A few years passed, and my wife and I wanted to try for a child. It took 2 years of trying, with extreme depression and agony, thinking we were never going to have a child, while everyone around us got pregnant on the first or second try. It wasn’t until I quit my clothing store job because at my dollar shop job, our other employee apart from my manager and I, left. I was able to claim the hours of that empty position, and lock them in for myself, giving me 32 hours a week (I would also like to note, that I’ve been looking for full-time positions on -and-off throughout my life, with 0 success). Anyway, right after I quit the clothing job (which was a male-oppressed workplace. All the women did everything in their power to drive every last guy out and promote each other, which oddly enough, the place had new management afterwards, which drove all those women out), right on our second year anniversary of trying, we found out my wife was pregnant, which was a ray of sunshine through all the hell we went through.

However, on the NIGHT my daughter was born, after spending 2 days at the hospital with my wife, and her giving a late-night birth to my daughter, she told me to go home and sleep, and come right back in the morning when they were waking up. It’s a good thing I went home, because at 2am, someone broke into my house. I barricaded myself, phoned the cops, as someone was smashing their way in. I was bloody terrified. When they arrived, they told me to come to the door, instead of finding a way in themselves. I ran to the door (there seemed like no one in the house at the moment) and neighbours outside said they saw a guy hopping my fence. The cops assumed no one was home, so they started to drive off without even checking my house. I go inside, to see a pair of shoes on the ground that weren’t ours. I had to fly out the door, chasing the cops down the street and flagging them down. Luckily, they stopped, checked again, only to find that a drunk had broken into our house and crashed on our couch. But the thing that had me terrified, is that I couldn’t find one of my two cats. He’s the nervous one, so I thought that bastard left the door open and he skittered out. I called out to him around the house, and searched every nook and cranny for 2 hours, until I found him hiding deep within a spot I previously checked twice.

Anyway, the incident passed, my daughter had jaundice the next day, so we had to stay at the hospital for a few more days. A year passed as my wife was on maternity leave, while I still worked away at my crappy dollar store job, that also happened to shrink in size during that time, so my hours went down from 32 to 24 on average. Just barely enough to live. My wife’s workplace also tried to screw her out of her job while she was on leave, with the temp girl trying to take her place. Luckily, my wife got a good word put in for her at a fire extinguisher company, and she landed a full time job. However, for the last 2 years, I went absolutely nowhere in my job, and the point I’m getting at, is early this year, my manager told me that our company now had to give out a strict allotted amount of hours to our department. Meaning, if there was only 48 hours available, he would get 40, and I would get 8. My hours have drastically gone down from 24, to workweeks of 16, 14, and sometimes 8 hours a week.

I’ve had to dip into my own savings to keep up with my bills. Some weeks, like this week and the next, will give me 21 and +28 hours respectively, but that’s only because we’re getting a big shipment of seasonal orders, and once they’re all worked, I can expect my hours to go back down. I refuse to get another part-time job, as I was absolutely miserable doing 2 jobs, and I don’t want to work a ton of nights and miss out on my little girl’s life. I’m finally really bonding with her (after an immense amount of time of trying - she’s absolutely a mommy’s girl) and I don’t want to lose that. I’ve been job hunting like crazy then. The worst part, is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON I KNOW happens to have a full time job, and they all knew people and easily coasted into their positions. I have no one who can personally get me in anywhere. So I apply, and apply, and apply, and apply, and eventually grow more and more depressed. Every moment I take for myself feels like a waste of time, but I can only apply for so many jobs I’m qualified for, as only a finite amount of them are being posted. I don’t live in a big city. These jobs take time to build up.

The most depressing hit for me was a few weeks ago. I had gotten a call for what seemed like my dream job. It involved warehouse work, paid 30k a year, at +40 hours a week, 8-5 job, with benefits. You have to realize, this is a huge deal for me. My wife and I have never had benefits. We don’t even have a car because we can’t afford one. a day job is EXACTLY what I need, and warehouse-related work is what I’m most comfortable pursuing. I was even nervous as hell before the interview, even though I was told the manager was extremely laid-back beforehand. I went to that interview and NAILED IT. Seemingly not one slip up. The manager and I were laughing and joking about plenty of things, he was really interested, and didn’t even ask me hellish, confusing questions. I thought I had it.

I didn’t.

It’s been over 2 weeks, and I haven’t heard anything back. The receptionist, who referred me to him, expressed great interest in me beforehand. We communicated plenty before the interview. I sent a thank you email back, and got nothing. It’s been silence since then, and I’ve given up all traces of hope that I got the job. It was my best chance, I did my very best, and I thought it went the best way possible.

And I still failed.

What I’m getting at, is that my life has been this continuous uphill struggle, as everyone pulls ahead of me. This also goes for webcomics in a way. I know that some people have less subscribers than me, so I’m not trying to sound greedy. I’m not really, but when my growth reached a standstill, all I’m saying is that it goes hand-in-hand with my life events, like “of course, why would anything be easy?”

Oh, I also almost won 1.5 million dollars on a scratch ticket 2 months ago. I was one number off. You know, just to kick me while I’m down.

Getting back to the webcomics, I know this all sounds incredibly pessimistic. I know that certain elements of my life have gotten better after a long time of waiting, but this wait of mine...I tell you. It’s been the worst. Being trapped in a minimum wage dollar shop job for 13 years, while getting my hours reduced to almost nothing...feeling continuously guilty about bills, and my wife having to pick up the slack. Having this free time where I’m trying to job hunt the best that I can, but also trying to find the optimism to produce a new page of my comic a week. Today, I tried to start page 6 of my second chapter, with the image you see here. It’s been going slowly. My heart isn’t into it. I’m not sure if this is temporary. Maybe I’ll heal in a day or two. Maybe I won’t. I’m so miserable right now, that not even my sanctuary of making comics is feeling fulfilling. It sucks. It sucks trying to release pages on time, where each successive week, I’m feeling worse and worse. And it terrifies me to lose all the progress I’ve made. It terrifies me to go on hiatus, not because I may lose my viewership, but because I may not return (and that goes especially if I can’t find a full time job. If I couldn’t find one for 13 years, what if I never get one? Does that mean my have to cancel my comic forever)? My comic life is really going hand-in-hand with my actual life. I need to feel worth it in real life, to feel worth it as an artist. I’ve been trying my hardest at this webcomic thing, as realistically so, I haven’t hit any spotlights or staff picks, or got any giant boons in subscribers to live off of this medium. I don’t think a patreon account would save me, and commissions...well, I’m still debating if that’s possible for me, if I have enough of an audience and if I can figure out how to make it work, since I have no experience with them.

So the question is, am I quitting Don’t Be A Hero? Not yet (hopefully not ever), but I wanted to give you all a visual on how my life is affecting it’s progression. These pages take a ton of time for me to do. I can’t just blast out 3 pages a week. I’m slow and meticulous about it’s design. One is literally all I can manage, since I do have a lot of time taken up with sleep, chores, what work I can get, and being there for my wife and daughter. But right now, I’m having trouble just getting out one page a week. I’m not sure what to say, so I’ll leave it at this. I’ll still try, but I’m just not sure if I can guarantee weekly updates, especially if there aren’t any major changes in my life.

Finally, I just want to say thank you to all of my wonderful supporters. You’ve all been the best to me, and your support, advice and feedback has meant the world to me. I really do have to thank each and everyone of you for being there for me, whether it’s been communicating with me, or just plain reading my story and enjoying it. Sorry that this blog has been such a wall of text, but I just had to pour my heart out, getting these words out physically. I hope you’ll all understand.

(Oh, by the way, new page in 3 hours at Tapastic. I know, what a way to ring it in).

- Greg Dickson

#artistproblems #webcomics #webcomic #tapastic

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