Another Win For The Good Guys
There may be no harder working, nicer person in webcomicdom than Meredith Gran, she of the stellar Octopus Pie, the brilliant Polar-oid, the gone-too-young Skirting Danger (dead domain, but at least the redirect page recognizes it used to be a webcomic), and the occasional piece of masthead art. Her long-limbed, loose ‘n’ scribbly (in the best senses of the words), animation-derived style is a lovely thing to behold. She’s been doing the webcomics thing so assuredly and for so long now (by my reckoning, more than a third of her life), it’s sometimes easy to forget how young she still is; she’s one of the vets in this community, and she wasn’t even born yet when I left for college.
We may be seeing more of her soon:
The thing that’s been on my mind lately is that the comic could, in time, take the place of a job for me. I work full-time in TV animation. It’s fun work, but I do it to pay the bills. Spending the majority of my time on a personal project I love is a no-brainer.
The fact is that Octopus Pie currently takes up a lot of my spare time. Far more than any hobby. It’s essentially a 2nd full-time job for me. As such, balancing a full-time job AND a full-time webcomic is, in the long run, unrealistic. It’s come down to the fact that I have neither the time nor the energy for it.
That’s why, come summertime when my job ends, I’m going to take a risk and do the comic exclusively. Take charge and be my own boss. I feel as if it’s as good a time as any.
That right there? That’s what the past generation or so of indy [web]comics has been leading up to. There’s really nobody — by training, by talent, by temperment — more suited to this kind of personal artistic project lifestyle than Mer, and I am so very, very thrilled that the state of the technology, the culture, and the economy of [web]comics is such that she can take her shot.
It’s a no-brainer to say that she could have made a living and a reputation in the artistic and/or comics world of decades past, but seeing what she’ll come up with on her own, unfettered by anything other than the number of hours in a day — that’s gonna be something to see. On the off chance that you don’t read Octopus Pie, get started before she gets all famous and conquers the world, so you can say you were there at the beginning.
In other news, it’s been a while since there was teh drama in webcomics, so let’s see if we can’t start something. Hey Mike Russell of Culture Pulp, John Allison’s talkin’ smack about your town.
And because webcomics can educate as well as entertain, a little ASL for you from that Satanic Porn comic. Nothing I know of sign language has made me smile as much as this, and I was present (back in 1992 or so) at the invention of the sign for “geek”.
It’s only really a win for us (The forces of good)if she succeeds and waves of lucre flood into her coffers. that’s right folks nit-picking, parade raining, I do it all!
By gerard on 02.12.08 5:45 pm
I fail to get worked up over Allison’s Portland jab, because it’s TRUE. We are a town full of cartoonists, great coffee, really great beer, and massive, terrifying amounts of regrettable body ink.
Also, he needs to come here for the Stumptown Comics Fest.
By Mike Russell on 02.14.08 10:05 pm
The above comments are owned by whoever posted them. The staff of Fleen are not responsible for them in any way.