It was October 2011. Rainy skies outside my cluttered room encouraged me to sit on my butt indoors.
I ran out of entertainment, and I was upset that I wasn't going to find any more. I'm broke you see. The internet is a great force, but even after keeping up with all the channels, news, blogs and galleries, you sometimes reach a slight moment of disappointment after running out of internet.
Furstration aside, I had bought an unbranded pair of shoes from a hippie store the week before, and the pretentious, sanctimonious "indie" bug had bit me bad.
In the silence that was no more texts, tweets and posts, I suddenly hungered for the new and interesting. A passing notion breezed through me, I was shaken by a feeling that ALL I WANTED was a beanie, organic food, poetic readings of homeless peoples' signs and a tattoo. I am a coward though. The closest I can ever commit to drastic action is empathy. I googled tattoo videos instead, wincing. But I did wonder what I would look like if I was hip.
The people in the tattoo videos looked like they were in pain. So I meekly downgraded my aspirations. Indie versions of things I already like exist right? I do like comics. I remembered that there are apparently "hundreds" of webcomics. I doubted it. I've only seen 6. There can't be any more. Quality on the internet for free? That just doesn't happen. Not on an appreciable scale. Utter tosh.
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| The first Google Image result for "Utter Tosh". |
I did manage to find one little forum about what webcomics people out there were reading. Must be some gathering of the mindless easily-pleased, I scoffed.
Now imagine a little pirate crew member leaping to the fore of the ship, yelling for the captain to see something daunting rising out of the horizon. The captain takes his time to turn around to address the issue.
This is what was happening in my mind. Eye-restoration powers one side- it was incredible. So much material I've never seen before. Titles and more titles and more bacon strips.
About 130 titles. No way could I read it all. But I had to. There was some serious talent out there. AND IT FOUND ME.
I was cornered. One one hand, I have near limitless material to absorb, with years of history - a goal even the laziest of consumers aspire to. On the other, it was a near limitless source of material with years of history - attempting a consumption marathon would be lethal.
So I needed a reason to read all of it and not waste my time while doing so.
Maybe I could even rate them on a reasonable scale so that I can statistically support my choice of which ones I'd keep reading!
Maybe I could even highlight some material which is all too easily ignored.
In the end, I made a reason. You are currently reading the "About" page to that reason.
Now go away.
