Zub Tales

Yesterday, Joey Manley at Modern Tales asked me if I would mind giving up my spot on the website so a new cartoonist (a cartoonist who’s actually updating their work) could move in with some new material. It makes total sense from a business point of view and as the editor, I would’ve probably kicked my own ass out many months ago once it became obvious that I didn’t have time to create new web comic material. Joey’s always polite and I appreciated that he asked me about it instead of just bumping me out. I haven’t added content to Modern Tales since May 15th of last year, 9 months ago.

It feels strange.

Joining Modern Tales was a tiny step in validating my artwork and/or telling myself that I could do this for a living. It wasn’t some huge amount of money, but it was mine and people were reading it and putting it on Modern Tales in some small way made me a “professional”. I might have gotten more people to read the story if I’d kept it free, but I wanted to hook up with the crew that Joey had formed and see if I could help them pioneer something different on the web. In turn, I met some great people, went to San Diego Comic-Con and inadvertently changed my life.

I’ve still got the first e-mail where Joey asked me if I’d be interested, back on January 26th, 2002. 2 years later…man, have things changed.

I still have stories to tell, but now I don’t know how much time I have to get them all drawn and colored up. I still want to create things, and the art I’m doing for work has been a great way for me to improve those skills. I look at some of the pages in Makeshift Miracle and they look raw and messed up. But warts and all, they’re part of the path I was on, finding my way. Having those 3 pages a week to see that evolution in my work was really important.

Joey is hoping that I can find a good printer and have Makeshift collected into a little graphic novel format. I’ve got to do some looking around here and call people about printing rates. Probably won’t even be able to do that until after the March 1st move.

In the end I guess it’s a little change with big memories attached.