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Fuck. What is left unsaid to us?
My teeth itch for some reason when I half-dwell on unfulfilled, always urgent ambitions that the flight of days leave improbable at best.
And I am a lucky man.
What uncle/aunt/mother/father/brother/sister/teacher/grandma/grandpa didn't gift/damn you with subtle, or otherwise, praise that drove a flurry of empty/perfect creation, copied/gleaned from other lives lived in similar futile pursuit?
And I am a lucky man.
And who said it best and when? You are an artist. And did we question it then? Or later - when it grew harder, tireder, and so very far from the light, bright splashes of a sort of erudite visual blooming?
And I mean it - I count myself the luckiest of men.
You must know the feeling - it's like a nagging childhood yearning, dimmed but persistent. And it says:
More
Better
Still better
And more
And it says whatever you do it's not good enough. Never going to be.
And in truth - I really am a lucky man.
You'll never be that fluent, it says. You'll never be that good.
And you'll wake to days that scream for god's sake, man! Why did you not sing, or write, or act, or...
Or what? Because nothing will ever
Ever
Deliver what those appropriated expectations demand!
Yup.
We'll always fail ourselves.
And we are the lucky ones!
There's a quested soul that lurks in the finest of us, and it burns brightest, often, in the arcing amber gleams at the far end of a pint or six. And if not there, in speed or anger. Or all three.
When passion gives way to only skill - what then?
You are a lucky man.
When conviction gives way to doubt, and the deadline beats a rhythm that defines your every day, your every hour, what then?
Be glad, they say, for you are a lucky man!
When every shaken hand, and smile, and broad gesture of a life well lived masks doubt, what then?
And your fingers pluck invisible chords unlearned. Your ears strain to grasp fleeting melodies caught on a breath, a clamor of city life, a dance of wind and wing in open spaces. Symphonies in feathers and dust and smoke.
Those classic, forever unmade movies that run through our heads at night?
The novels that will shed new light on the pictorial legacy of the comic - the medium we can neither elevate nor destroy, escape nor fully embrace, because we are not worthy of such greatness that the fusion of word and image might promise, should promise, does promise?
Did I not say?
I am a lucky lucky man.
To stand in the shoes of those giants so briefly.
To imagine such epics in ink and paper, and tears and soul, but fail - and fail we all do.
To try.
And to fail.
And to try again.
Ah yes.
That's right.
I am
a lucky
man.
My teeth itch for some reason when I half-dwell on unfulfilled, always urgent ambitions that the flight of days leave improbable at best.
And I am a lucky man.
What uncle/aunt/mother/father/brother/sister/teacher/grandma/grandpa didn't gift/damn you with subtle, or otherwise, praise that drove a flurry of empty/perfect creation, copied/gleaned from other lives lived in similar futile pursuit?
And I am a lucky man.
And who said it best and when? You are an artist. And did we question it then? Or later - when it grew harder, tireder, and so very far from the light, bright splashes of a sort of erudite visual blooming?
And I mean it - I count myself the luckiest of men.
You must know the feeling - it's like a nagging childhood yearning, dimmed but persistent. And it says:
More
Better
Still better
And more
And it says whatever you do it's not good enough. Never going to be.
And in truth - I really am a lucky man.
You'll never be that fluent, it says. You'll never be that good.
And you'll wake to days that scream for god's sake, man! Why did you not sing, or write, or act, or...
Or what? Because nothing will ever
Ever
Deliver what those appropriated expectations demand!
Yup.
We'll always fail ourselves.
And we are the lucky ones!
There's a quested soul that lurks in the finest of us, and it burns brightest, often, in the arcing amber gleams at the far end of a pint or six. And if not there, in speed or anger. Or all three.
When passion gives way to only skill - what then?
You are a lucky man.
When conviction gives way to doubt, and the deadline beats a rhythm that defines your every day, your every hour, what then?
Be glad, they say, for you are a lucky man!
When every shaken hand, and smile, and broad gesture of a life well lived masks doubt, what then?
And your fingers pluck invisible chords unlearned. Your ears strain to grasp fleeting melodies caught on a breath, a clamor of city life, a dance of wind and wing in open spaces. Symphonies in feathers and dust and smoke.
Those classic, forever unmade movies that run through our heads at night?
The novels that will shed new light on the pictorial legacy of the comic - the medium we can neither elevate nor destroy, escape nor fully embrace, because we are not worthy of such greatness that the fusion of word and image might promise, should promise, does promise?
Did I not say?
I am a lucky lucky man.
To stand in the shoes of those giants so briefly.
To imagine such epics in ink and paper, and tears and soul, but fail - and fail we all do.
To try.
And to fail.
And to try again.
Ah yes.
That's right.
I am
a lucky
man.
On Detail
It seems I'm becoming known for my excessive detailing and textures. This is great, and I'm pleased to have a trait that is becoming a recognized feature of my art. But - and it's an important but, because it's to do with the craft of storytelling - I do work hard to balance the detailed pages with others that have a large amount of negative space or much simpler compositions, otherwise it's all just so much noise and the point is lost. I LOVE getting stuck into in all the intricacies that are part of making a, hopefully, believable world for my readers, but I try to leave room to breath too.
A city looks most impressive when you've driven o
It has been too long
Well, what a crazy couple of years! First Wonder Woman with the amazing Greg Rucka, then an issue of The Justice League with Rob Venditti, and after that The Brave and The Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman, which I also had the joy and honour of writing!
It has taken a LOOOOOONG time to get back onto the iconic books of my youth. I never thought I would - had kind of given up hope to some extent, after all it had been decades! I thought I was an almost-ran, somewhat a has-been, so my comeback was very unexpected. And what a comeback it turned out to be!
I'm now mid way through issue three of my latest DC series, The Green Lantern, with legendar
PARADISE REX PRESS, INC
Extremely thrilled about this: https://app.mailerlite.com/j9w9k6
My second prose publication after 'God Killers' is finally available - and with an afterword by the great China Miéville!
I'll be honest - I'm really nervous about it, now it's actually out! It's ferociously honest, very much a soul-bearing.
It's angry, it's odd, it's highly experimental, and it's verging on confessional - which perhaps is no surprise to anybody who reads my journals!
I have no doubt that some people will think it is pretentious, impenetrable crap - a one-trick pony.
But - I know it has also found its fans. China Mieville, for example, spent a long aft
What Are We To Do?
What ARE we to do?
I write to this miniscule bubble of mostly like-minded liberal friends - as like attracts like, and we've all learned the hard way in recent times that we are NOT the consensus.
As we slip into another inevitable age, who survives?
Because we will not change our ways - don't want to, or deny the proof of it - what then?
Do we take up the arms of those we have battled? Do we harden ourselves, cast aside our compassion for all human kind, and look no further than our defensible perimeter?
Do we prepare for the inevitable losses, and stop wasting our time with futile battles against elite institutions so powerful that non
© 2014 - 2024 LiamRSharp
Comments3
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Beautifully said.