In Case Of Actual Death

I was walking down Putnam Street the other morning and there was an orange Cambridge Public Works truck parked in the middle of the road. A guy in a reflective vest was using a shovel to scrape something dead off the road. Maybe an opossum? A house cat? Hard to tell. I slowed my walk and started doing the usual mental calculations about how I would perform if this was my job.

Surely you become inured to that sort of thing. It’s just a lump of molecules. It probably wasn’t even the first mashed tabby he’d scraped off the street that morning. He was making the world a better place, in a small way. At least for me. Of course you question which is the better world, the one where we don’t have to look at mushy dead roadkill or the one where it’s left to rot and fester as a warning to others. Although is there even any hard evidence to support heads-on-pikes as an effective deterrent to wrong-doing. Surely it ultimately all goes back to the economy.

When we sold our house we had to clean out our garage for the first time ever, and underneath the cardboard boxes and high chairs and sleds and curtain rods we found the body of a dead bird. Vague memories of a terrible, unidentified smell however far back. It had been laying there for who knows how long. I scraped it up with a snow shovel and carried it out to the back yard, dropping it in the weeds under the apple tree, a gift for the coyotes or possibly the people who were buying our house. But that was a bird mummy, the shell of what it had been.

I came alongside the man just as he got the blade wedged under the fox or small dog, and I was admiring the stoic manner in which he performed the indelicate task of dumping its still fresh entrails into a garbage bag—The Working Man! Performing the societal roles few of us even pause to think about, and with dignity and honor!—and as the bag of broken bones and bloodied fur flew through the air to land in the back of his truck the man yelled out, to no one, “UGH! SO GROSS!”  

A list of graphic novel recommendations

I was emailing the other day with lestwesurrender about graphic novels I like. I mean I wouldn’t describe myself as a graphic novels sexpert or anything? But they are Things That Exist, so I have Opinions about them. Anyways if you ever wanted some recommendations of what to read here is what I told lestwe and what I now tell you.

1. Finder by Carla Speed McNeil

Finder is a self-published comic that’s one of those very highly-respected books that barely anyone’s heard of or bought. The art tends towards black & white line drawings, the focus is more on the story and the (Tolkien-level) world building. The author calls is “Aboriginal Sci-Fi.” Whatever it is, SO GOOD. I’d recommend Finder Library #1, Voice, or Talisman. (If you love books and writing and do not own a copy of Talisman you are in TROUBLE WITH ME. You may read my copy the next time you visit but it is not to leave the apartment.) 

2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

If you live on this planet someone has recommended this book to you. It is a much-loved classic. A memoir about a lesbian realizing her funeral-directing/home-restoring father was gay. Go ahead and read it.

3. The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The story of an immigration to a strange new land, told in images. No words! And it made me bawl my eyes out. Crazy good.

4. One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry

Not really a graphic NOVEL per se, more like graphic short stories. Autobiographical stuff, childhood memories, both fun and sad. Super good. She’s my hero, like I’m not going to put Lynda Barry on this list? I mean?

5. Kabuki by David Mack

So I really love this collection, it’s unique and stunning and gorgeous and almost impossible to describe, but it’s also kind of an investment in time & money. It’s like a 7-volume deal and it’s not until you’ve read a bunch of it that you can really get a sense of the breadth of the artistic landscape. The first volume is visually the most straightforward—black & white images crammed in and around a dense “secret government agent ninja on the run trying to solve a mystery” kind of story. Then Volume 2 is almost no words, just this swirling pastiche of color that takes place entirely inside the mind of the main character as she lies bleeding on her mother’s grave (!). And then a later volume is mostly conversations between the main character and her therapist in a secret insane asylum for former government agents? And meanwhile in each volume the art gets crazier and crazier—stories told through found objects and origami and painted photo collage more than pen and ink—and the story becomes less about a squad of female secret agent TV stars slash ninjas and more about artistic and spiritual rebirth? And the importance of creativity and art and writing? IT’S FUCKING CRAZY. It is mind-blowingly good and unlike just about anything else you’ve read. In terms of digging into the psyche and psychology of dark characters, it’s like someone took every single thing that’s been done with Batman in the past 70 years and said “Cool, that’ll be Act 1, now let’s get serious.” Maybe at least put it on hold from your local library.

6. The Sixth Gun by by Cullen Bunn

This is a fairly new one that I am excited about. It’s just realllly fun. Sort of Deadwood meets Buffy. There are these 6 magical revolvers, each with a unique power, and the main dude is trying to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. I kind of wish they would do more with the female character, but there’s only 2 volumes so far, so we’ll see what happens.

7. Lone Wolf & Cub

This is a 20-volume work from the 70s. I’ve only read the first one. I wish you could just get the whole thing in one giant book. Manga is financial hardship, man. $10 a pop for each book in a series that goes on forever and forever. This is why I gave up on Iron Wok Jan. Anyways it’s about a ronin samurai and his baby. He keeps getting into trouble, you keep worrying about the baby, and it always turns out OK, with the samurai kicking much ass and the baby perfectly happy. It’s bizarre how great it is. 

8. Anything by Hope Larson.

Her books are amazing. They’re often girls-coming-of-age type stories, super well told, with amazing, unique art. She is one of my all time favorites. Love her. Looooove.

Kickstarter, and Being Your Creative Word

Matt Haughey wrote some really good words about Kickstarter and I wanted to throw my thoughts in. Because in theory I love Kickstarter! So much! People need help in order to make stuff. If their project sounds interesting to you, you help them. They make stuff, people are happy, the world is a better place. The end. 

In practice though, Kickstarter has been not something that I love at all. It has been something that has annoyed me, stressed me out, and fomented my already ongoing hatred of humanity more than any other website since Perez.

The problem with Kickstarter is this: You are asking for money. I give you money. Now you can finish your project. But was the money I gave you a donation, or an investment?

You could make a case for either side! A good one!

If it’s a donation, cool. I’m psyched about your project, I’m psyched that you’re psyched, and no matter what happens, best of luck in this and future endeavors. 

But in most cases Kickstarter projects have tiered structures where giving $X guarantees Y in return—which means the money I give you is an investment. I am a shareholder in your project, expecting a return on the money I gave you. I have an invested interest in the outcome of your project. 

But so what, who cares, what’s the difference?

The difference is that if I invest in your project, and we both agreed to a contract where my giving you $X guarantees me Y in return, you better finish that fucking project. If it’s not a donation, then in no way is it OK for you to take my money and disappear off the face of the earth.

Right? Seems basic? And really this is bigger than Kickstarter. People have been taking my money for projects that never ended up happening for as long as there has been an internet, and even longer. And it sucks, every single time. I want to be supportive of people doing interesting things, and every time I support a project that ends up going south, I am a little more hesitant to help out the next time.

“BUT,” you say. “Sometimes shit goes wrong! Sometimes the writer gets mad at the director and they can’t work it out! Sometimes the hard drive dies and there was a back-up but the back-up died! And frankly mutability is the nature of any creative endeavor! Sometimes you start off making a movie but it turns out you were actually making a comic book!” 

I know! And all of that is totally OK! It’s totally fine!

AS LONG AS YOU COMMUNICATE ABOUT IT.

If giving you $20 means at the end of a project I get a book, and I never hear from you again, guess what! Now you have a customer service problem. Because fuck you, I paid for a book. 

If giving you $20 means at the end of the project I get a book, and you send me a DVD, guess what! You still have a customer service problem. Because what is this DVD shit, I paid for a book.

It has been stunning to me, how many project owners seem to fall off the face of the earth once their project gets funded. Realize that it is practically hard-coded into the creative process that you end up miles from where you intended. But when that happens it is critical to keep your investors in the loop. We are riding shotgun with you on our project! Keep us in the loop as the landscape changes! Just an update every so often: “Dudes, sorry, here are the reasons why this is taking longer or becoming different from what you expected, thanks for hanging in there with us.” That’s all! 

(Although, also, I will gently argue, that if you are at the point in your project where you need $X to complete it, and you receive $X, you should do exactly what the fuck you said you were going to do. If you say you need $X to complete your project, but actually then it ends up changing in some huge significant way, you had no business asking for $X in the first place, and you wasted a lot of people’s time & good will. And next time, if you hope to rely on other people’s support again, you should do your level best to make sure you have your shit exactly in order.)

Because either way, without communication, you’re done. Even if you do eventually finish the project two years later, I am not going to be super psyched to see that book or DVD and be reminded of you. I’m still mad at you, remember? You already broke my trust, remember? Doing the bare minimum of what you were supposed to do however long ago does not earn it back.

When you have investors in your creative project, it is just as important to manage their expectations as it is to manage your project. You got all these dozens or hundreds of people excited about a project that for so long YOU were the only person excited about. There is an expiration date on that support. Manage it, or lose it. Otherwise where once you had so much good will headed in your direction, you will have an angry mob of unhappy customers, some super furious and in your face about it, some just super disappointed behind your back, and none of them in any way interested in supporting anything else you do, ever again, ever. 

If a transaction goes sour on Amazon or eBay, there is legal recourse for people to get their money back. There’s a safety net. Not so on Kickstarter, where it’s just promises, money, and your reputation on the internet. And unless you’re new around here, you know that money + bad experience + internet != happy smiles.  

But at its most basic level, this is not about Kickstarter, and it’s not about funding creative projects, and it’s not even about the internet! IT’S ABOUT HOW PEOPLE WHO LIVE TOGETHER ON THIS PLANET SHOULD BEHAVE TOWARDS EACH OTHER.

In this and all other instances of human interaction on this planet, here is what should happen:

1. Do the shit you say you are going to do.
2. If shit changes, have communication about it.
3. The end.

Please, creative humans, step your game up. Be realistic in your approach, be thoughtful in your interactions, and hold yourself to the standard you would hold others to, if it was your money you were investing. I don’t want to publicly call out any particular project like Haughey did but of course I am available by email or gchat to vent like the cattiest bitch ever.