Author: Matty Boy

I made this update public because I wanna thank all my fans and supporters for sticking with me. Now that I’ve passed the 50-year mark, I’ve come to accept that certain things about my personality aren’t going to change. It’s just the way I am. There’s no “becoming someone else” now, it’s all a matter of managing depression and pain to maintain consistent productivity. 

Look folks, show me a functioning artist who isn’t depressive and I’ll show you either a successful one or a total naif. It’s par for the course, and frankly, fretting about it only makes me feel lousier. Since this is the life I’ve chosen, there won’t be a point where I can take a breather or any kind of personal break, without a lethal gap in income. Most of the time I accept this, sometimes it gets my goat. 

All this month I’ve been planning a new issue of Patron Saints, spotlighting an upcoming project I’m getting pretty excited about. If you’ve visited the Bands I Useta Like site lately, you know how poorly September kicked off for me overall. Even allowing for that, and some personal issues I won’t mention, in the last four weeks I’ve created 4 CFB pages and written 2 BIUL posts. I’m pointing that out more for myself than anyone else. The root of my depression is when I can’t make enough money to get by doing what I do. 

Because of my constant need for validation, as I begin early production on this new project I’ve mentioned, I keep wanting to show tidbits to the audience to prove that I’m not just huffing my own farts. If I do this, a voice in my mind tells me I’ve jumped the gun and I’m advertising another false start that will come to nothing. This happened recently with the aborted comic book Bad Shape, and the animations (One Hundred Percent American, Bone Wars) I haven’t had the time to finish. 

And yet, if I keep mum like a good content creator and wait until a project is finished to talk about it, the voice in my mind tells me that people have forgotten about me and I’ve lost my audience. Please note, I typically work alone, so I have to be both creator and promoter simultaneously. To do either properly is to take energy and time away from the other. 

If I had a wife or a family, all this would be impossible without neglecting them. Again; I accept this. This is the life I chose. 

I read about the lives of cartoonists and animators I admired as a youngster, lives filled with evictions, poverty, rejection, social ostracism and self-harm, and still decided to take that path. I chose to join a counterculture that no longer exists. The point of no return has well passed for me. 

At the same time, the sphere of modern entertainment has degraded to such a pathetic nadir, there still burns a fire inside me to do better. I know I can create something good enough for Netflix, or Hulu. It just takes money and time.

More than I have of either, to be precise. 

(Wait- that sounded too grim. I mean that I need the time that goes toward making enough money to get by, not that I’m staring down some kind of solid death-date. I’m fine folks, so far as I know.)

Thanks to a weekly regimen I established back in 2009, I am currently finishing the 460th page of Ceaseless Fables of Beyonding. That’s 460 pages of material that I can repackage and sell as comic books. My goal with CFB was to establish a fantasy-adventure franchise that constantly and consistently pleases readers, for years and years. To create something that readers can return to, over the course of their lives, just like the classic Sunday comics of yesteryear. Something dependable. I believe 460 weekly pages, with another 260 planned for the future, is pretty damned dependable. Once there are 720 pages, then I’ll decide whether or not to do a “third solstera” of another 360. By that time, I intend to have grown the strip’s audience several times its current size. 

Because among the projects I do, CFB is the “least popular”. That’s why I call it a “genuine labor of love”; it requires the audience to sit and absorb it by reading, rather than delivering the immediate punch of a YouTube video. I’ve built a whole world for readers in CFB, one more fleshed out than any world I’ve conceived before. CFB is my Tolkien, or Dune. In my opinion, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I’ll probably be dead by the time it is truly appreciated for what it is. 

That’s okay. I’ve never done CFB for monetary compensation. 

Now, Bands I Useta Like is technically concluded (after over 20 years!) as a comic strip, but I have almost enough material for a 6th issue of the magazine. BIUL is, on the surface, the thing I’m most known for. I know that I can keep it going as a website and an inconsistently-released magazine. There will still be thousands of people around the world who are interested in the overall concept. 

But you see, there’s something I’m known for by even more people, something I did from 2005 to 2008. A concept I’ve been known for since as far back as 2002. Something that caught the attention of the Sci-Fi Network (as it was then called), Comedy Central, and Adult Swim, who later rejected it (I wasn’t ready at all anyway, plus the rejection letter, which I wish I could find, was from Mike Lazzo). 

Something I’m daunted by the prospect of doing again. However, I know even more now than I did a decade ago about the business of production, and it’s clear that now’s the time to get started. 

The image attached to this post is the first image of proof of concept. It’s not much, but again, that voice in my mind is relentless in its taunting of failure. I have treatments, but not a script yet, except for some scenes that I have literally been working out for years at this point. I need a budget because I work with a qualified sound editor, and because I want to hire some voice actors I have in mind. Plus I’d like to farm out some of the animation and backgrounds so the production doesn’t take me three years and destroy my personal life again, such as it is. I want to step up from what I’ve produced before. I can do that now. I just need a budget, and my living expenses covered. 

After considerable research (for me anyway), I have found that the best way to finance this new production is Indiegogo. Then I’ll have 60 days to raise the necessary amount. That’s the part that scares me. I don’t want my own obscurity to hamstring another production, particularly one as professionally constructed as I can manage. 

The real ones among you know what I’m talking about now. Also I’ve already recruited and briefed a couple of cronies from the last go-around. The wheels are in motion. I just have to pay myself and everyone else involved, for the time required. This, at a time when I don’t even know where next month’s rent is going to come from. 

Because that is the time to do this kind of thing. When you’re hungry, and up against the wall. When it’s all or nothing. Do or die. 

Thanks again sincerely for your support. The best is yet to come. 

Stay tuned. 

First, the good news! The attached image is not only the first page of “Project OHPA”, which should already be known to my Patrons, but also a NEW animated project in the works soon! Also, my hamster Gomez, whom I adopted in late May of this year, loves to sit on my shoulder, and run in his wheel!

Okay- now for the bad news. Ready?

I’ll start with the small stuff. I was fine yesterday, and today I’m a wreck. The obvious reason for this would be the end-of-the-month terrors, but there is a matter beyond my control that I’m not at liberty to discuss in any way. Also, I have previously mentioned the egregiousness of my current living situation, where noise from “neighbors” keeps me up until 2 or 3 in the morning. Before you ask, yes, I have sent complaints to property management probably 30 times since I’ve lived here and it makes no difference. They don’t care. They would be tickled pink if my roommate and I left so they could move in someone new to the country who won’t complain if the neighbors make noise all night. I wish I was joking. They don’t care. I wish I could impress upon certain people how their behavior causes extreme stress to their neighbors, but NO ONE CARES. It’s just supposed to be life now, for those of us who should have gone into a better career where they could afford a place far away from obnoxious assholes. 

Whether due to external factors or not, I have been experiencing dreams and nightmares so indistinguishable from reality that I can’t wake up before 10 am, even with alarms. Last night I dreamt that I was trying to contact my father by phone, and he has been dead for almost 12 years. I see an endless urban environment of crowded malls and razor-wired abandoned lots unknown to me in any way, where I can’t find my shoes, or can’t get a bicycle out of a blocked-off area riddled with crackheads. These dreams have been tormenting me for as long as I can remember. Could be a week, could be years, I have no idea.  I have the shakes so bad right now that I’m having trouble typing. Again, I wish I was joking. 

I am feeling better typing this, however. Slowly getting back to typing at my normal speed. 

Unless things change, my living situation here will end in the next few months. This may seem like a good thing, being that this place absolutely sucks, but it’s not. I don’t have the means or income to move or live anyplace better. There are places I could move to that are outside of Georgia, but here’s the problem with that- I’m tethered to a local healthcare system that I can’t just exit. Without this system, I would’ve died or literally killed myself sometime in the last decade. “Just quitting” the medication I’m currently on is not an option. Whatever my mental state may be now, it’s sunshine and rainbows compared to 7 years ago. I’ve already gone on at length about the matter on my Bands I Useta Like site, so I’m not going to repeat myself here. But what you read about it here and elsewhere is merely the tip of the iceberg. It’s only what I can manage to write about it. There is an entire universe of torment that I can’t express in words. 

I have to keep believing that I’m not obsolete and that I still have a place in this world. I appreciate that everyone seems to think I can hold down a 9-to-5 job, but I work without a net for a lot of reasons. I have no confidence applying for “normal” jobs because even as far back as 1993 I was having psychotic episodes at work. I deal with this by joking about it in my work. This is not news. But no one wants to work with or hire a man who can’t control his anger and/or opinions. My reality is that, for better or worse, I am doing as much as I can handle. 

Since before 2020, I have applied for dozens of jobs, inside and outside of my field. I’m on Indeed, I’m on LinkedIn. I probably apply for one or two jobs a week. Half the time I’m whizzing into the wind because the job requires a degree, or five years of experience. If you have a job that pays your bills right now, or a spouse who lovingly supports you, thank your lucky stars. Seriously folks. You don’t understand the feeling of worthlessness that comes from not being able to make ends meet. You have no idea what it feels like when the world just wants to be rid of you. You don’t know what it’s like to push that boulder up the hill. Especially when you’ve been alone for over a decade, and you’re fifty years old. I only hope you don’t know. 

The silver lining in all this is a new project I’m very slowly spearheading, until I can properly launch a crowdfunding page for it. You will completely and utterly flip your shit when you find out about it. It’s not the endlessly-delayed One Hundred Percent American or Bone Wars animations, nor is it the 6th issue of Bands I Useta Like, although those are all underway and tangentially related to the new project of which I speak. It came to me in a recent revelation and everything fell into place. I put the gears in motion and now I have renewed purpose. I’m not even gonna hint at what it is. God almighty, you have no idea how hard it is for me not to even give you a tiny hint here. (That wasn’t a hint, it’s not the return of Tiniest Restaurant. No one wants that.) 

I’m shooting for October for the first tease and the opening of a crowdfunding page. There’s no way I can do this on my own dime, and I have the utmost confidence that this will be a successful project. I don’t even care if I end up eating those words. That’s how confident I am about it. Nothing galvanizes me quicker than the realization that I actually know what I’m doing. And it goes without saying, my Patron Saints here will know the details before the rest of the world. 

To quote HAL 9000; “I feel much better now.” Thanks again sincerely for your support, from the most obscure cartoonist and animator in the world.