It’s the feeling of possibility. More specifically, the fact that absolutely anything is possible.

This is exactly why I like comic books. Why everyone likes comic books. They can be anything, they can do anything. You can eat a sandwich, sell your cat for drug money, or start an anti-matter twin fight club in your basement. You can punch a bear with your robot fists, traverse the various dimensions of time and space, or even arrange a vase of flowers for maximum floral impact. If you can imagine it happening, if you have the gumption to write, draw and see your ideas come to fruition, you can do absolutely anything inside the comic book medium.

I admire the people who do this. I envy the people who can do this, and every day, I struggle with crafting adventures of my own. It seems as though I have my limitations: mainly, my amount of gumption. The ideas, oh, they’re easy enough. For instance, I would definitely read a book about an anti-matter twin fight club, and I don’t even know what that shit even means. But it sounds rad, right? Even though the science is probably flawed, even though I know shit all about anti-matter, the idea of it becoming involved with, say, vagrants and a fight club is compelling to me.

And so where is this book? Where’s this great thing, this magical story? (Shut up, it would to be magical.) Whelp, it’s locked away due to gumption deficiency. And isn’t that always the way.

There’s a handful of things that people need in order to make it in the comic book industry. The first, is a healthy disdain for money. Or the very least, the will to pretend like you don’t need any for a while. Or ever. As much as we love our little industry, as much as these creators, these characters are god damn rock stars, you have to remember: it’s all nothing. Insignificant when compared to the sea of people and money and attention that comes with all other media. This may never change.

And so, if you’re making comics, you’ll have to learn to live without. Because while you might make it big, you’ll never be able to do the rock superstar thing, living large with a big house and five cars. But dammit, you’ll sure as hell be happy, right? Shit, of course you’ll be happy! You get to make comics! You get paid to make comics, to bring about the impossible, to attempt the improbable. You get to eat by just having fun, and god dammit, that’s what it’s about, right?

Anyway, lately I’ve been thinking. Lately, I’ve been getting restless. I’ll do this sometimes. I think most people do. They do a thing, they keep doing a thing, but there’s still that something, that special thing that would be better. That could be the best. And for me, that thing is making comic books.

And dammit, I can do it. I can do it. I just gotta work hard and keep drinking it all in. I gotta’ keep reading Casanova and I gotta keep feeling like shit every time I do because, god dammit, how can these people be so talented??!? I gotta’ take that feeling, (and I get it so often, what with all the phenomenal comics on the stands lately) and I have to use it as a spark. I have to use to to create and to push forward.

This is a thing I will be doing this year. This is a thing I will be doing next year. This is a thing I’ll be doing until it’s a thing. And dammit, it’s gonna be a thing.

Because this is a medium where anything can happen. Where the impossible dares to exist. And if it’s easy enough to make impossible things happen in this industry, then fuck, surely I could manage something improbable.

Gumption, motherfuckers.

Let’s get this going.