A Retrospective on "Clockwork"

Last year, I wrote and drew a short comic piece called "Clockwork." The original version was solely dedicated to one of my best friends for her 21st birthday, but I ended up extending the dedication in the final version to another friend (Patrick of CHINA SMOKE) and my brother. It pretty much depicted my winter break, weekends in the spring, as well as my summer of 2008.

I remember awhile back I watched some old documentary special on the life of writer Raymond Carver. His loved ones were upset that Carver decided to create characters in his stories that were based off of the people in his life. His depictions of his friends and family were generally very negative.

That was pretty much the reaction I felt I got out of Clockwork. I was already infamous for writing life-based characters in my fiction short stories, so for me to write a non-fiction, "American Spelendor-esque" piece solidified my place as (what my friend Blaine calls me) as a guy whose stories are centered around "cheap shots."

To answer that statement, yes, I do believe I do make cheap shots at people, but I do think that's missing the point behind the narritive. I am very proud of Clockwork because it brought up the age old question: does your life feel like it is on repeat?

My life did, and that's why it needed to change. Imagine what it must feel like to know every morning how you're going to wake up, what you're going to do, what everyone is generally going to say (it's bound to happen if you hang out with anyone daily), and what you're going to do right before going to bed. It's fine for people who are comfortable for the same thing every weekend, but I've always been the kind of person that dislikes the feeling of people stuck in the same place.

The reaction I got from the people in this piece are as follows:
1) One person wanted to see me write/draw more comics of himself.
2) One person said, "Yeah, I do say that too much," and ended up saying other things over and over in it's place.
3) One person was offended.
4) One person got it, and mused in a blog of his own: "Everyone has problems, and to the guy who has the least problems, we're his problems." (I thought that was sweet of him.)

Interestingly enough, I've been planning for the longest time to write/draw an update to Clockwork. It would be about the time I found someone who broke me out of the clockwork blues, but at the same time, I felt I was making this person's life repetitive. Ironic, right?