A Bit of What Was
Adrift (detail of a work in progress)
One of the things I liked best about doing the comic book was that sometimes, somewhere out there in the inky universe of generous fandom, someone would get it into their head that a connection had been made between us. Some small link, I imagined they imagined, existed because they had liked my book.
I found out about this curious phenomenon unexpectedly. I made a trip to the mailbox, one we’d rented from the post office, and which usually contained the most mundane stuff: bills, junk mail, flyers, & office supply catalogs. That day, however, there was a small, padded envelope along with the usual rubbish. It was too heavy to contain merely a letter, and my fingers, carefully prodding the thing like a kid at Christmas, detected the unmistakable outline of a cassette tape box.
I drove home before I opened it. In fact, I think I waited a few hours before I opened it, finishing up a bit of drawing on the current page, reading e-mail on the then-nascent web, drinking a little orange juice. This practice of neglecting the mail drove Adam, my partner on the book, crazy, as it does Morgan, my partner in life. But mail, good mail, deserves a little respect. It deserves a build-up, a surfeit of anticipation akin to birthday presents. So I let it sit and absorb this stuff, the mental energy I expend in wonder. Is that over-the-top? Perhaps.
The package contained a short note and the expected tape. If I recall correctly, the note said something like
Curve:
The dream is over, but the music lives on.Oh, and Greymatter is cool, too.
I don’t remember which album it was (although it’d be cool if it turns out to be Gift), but more thrilling than getting free music in the mail was the idea that someone I didn’t even know, and since the package was not return-addressed and the note unsigned I never would know them, thought there was a connection between us. In thinking that, and acting on it, that person brought me great and lasting pleasure.
Who needs mysticism?
Oh, and Curve is cool, too.
