A Legitimate Monologue

Somewhat back in 2008 I contributed a 6-page piece about “Time” in a german amateur sequential art anthology called “Jazam”. My work was a direct reference to Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics” and I tried to reflect on my view of stylistic devices to handle the passing of time in comics.

It was nice. I felt like I had something meaningful to contribute. It earned an honorable mention by Sascha Thau in a review on Comicgate, a german magazine focused on sequential art. The recognitions meant something to me at the time.

I repeated the stunt in 2009. This time the anthology was themed “Monster” and I continued the stylistic reference to McCloud elaborating on suspense and I got some nice feedback for my work. And one particular disappointed one by fellow artist Alexander Gellner. It went somewhat along the lines:

“Dear Rapha, I think you are one of the rare persons I can be that honest with without rubbing you the wrong way. For the love of everything good, stop wasting your talent on that crap.”

Or something like that. My memory’s fuzzy and the mail’s buried in some ancient backup. He was mistaken, it definetely rubbed me the wrong way. I still remember the hurt I felt back then.

The next time I participated in the anthology again, “Night Life” was it. I drew one page for a new format of a jam comic addendum and also contributed with another six-pager. No Scott McCloud rip-off anymore. I liked my story then but looking backwards I am pretty sure that, in its weirdness, ¹it needed more space to become more coherent and digestable. I met exactly one person who told me they could relate to it and that felt good.

In the same year I was asked by Comicgate if I wanted to draw something for their print edition planned for the Comicsalon Erlangen 2010. Hell yeah, I did. What I produced was a messy time-travel story with an unfortunately racist stereotype, mediocre suspense and one big nose. The editor Frauke Pfeiffer kindly printed it as she had promised but also remarked it would have been nice if I would have checked back with them while I was still in the creative process. She liked the villain though, it had potential.

A short and brilliant reemergence as a participant in an art battle of small audience 2013 proved to be the last heartbeat of one of the talents of the aging ²“millenial comicforum kids”. A small flame snuffed out by… yeah, by what exactly?

Am I good enough?

Besides other things like joining a startup (2011) and starting a family (2012) – which in truth are perfectly fine things to be fully occupied with – I had a seriously distorted self-image. In my own view I should have been far better, successful, amazing for my age at the time, more wunderkind turned genius. Truth was, I felt I had achieved basically “nothing” and was falling short of (my own hyperbolic) expectations. I also took Gellner’s and Pfeiffer’s criticism to heart – so deftly that today I still think about it as I consider returning to publishing. The memory so vivid that it almost paralyzes me:

If I have nothing genuine, new, amazing, relevant to say, why should I repeat the stories and insights someone else already had but I am ignorant of? And if I could or would not want to make sure that my work was a step forward for mankind - how can I even dare to play in the big leagues, when I am not doing my homework to really excel at something and be the expert?

But was that even the message of their criticism? How would I know, I never really asked.

The simple question of “Am I good/qualified/young enough to publish XY without making an ass of myself?” is derailing my trains of thought and in the wreckage of synaptic incoherence all my insecurities and fears are laying bare in the eyes of the world. And I am afraid of it.

And while wrestling with the idea of returning to writing I recently stumbled upon this little gem:

“My advice to anyone interested in writing is to focus on using writing to improve your thinking and explore puzzles you are hoping to unravel. If it interests you, you'll find some other people curious about the same thing.” (by John Cutler)

And that’s it. I worry far to much about the response of the audience. An audience which is not even here yet, because I haven’t found my voice, yet.

It’s like playing a game, which had been a quiet and silent hobby. I am better at it than some, and worse than many. Or vice versa. But to know the exact place I could/will occupy at a certain time - I need to play it in public.

¡Ándale!

1. which is particularly funny because space in sequential art can translate in “narrated time”. And that’s exactly the thing I was elaborating in that Jazam anthology I mentioned first. ↩

2. No shit, some of us were really good. Steven Bagatzky, Alex Gellner, Jenny Dolfen, Christian Nauck and many more.

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