My Final Thoughts
I once had a short conversation with my instructor Patrick Flynn, we had been talking about a number of cartoonist and their works, both of us have read several of the same interviews with cartoonist as well as some the same works. While I have since forgotten much of the conversation, there was one thing that stuck out. It was when he noted that many cartoonists' works draw parallels to their personalities. Not always aesthetically or because of their subject matter, but the general feel and mood that one gets from their works. Its as if a cartoonist has buried an untainted piece of themselves into their work.
Since then this idea has weighed heavily upon my mind, and I actively started searching for these things in my own works. But often that is like trying to look at the back of your own head, you just can't do it without someone's help. Because of this I started to become aware of conversations I had with people about my comics and occasionally those about my personality. the big thing that I have had problems with is tackling serious subject matters, often scenes that I intend to represent a serious emotion get the most laughs. For a while I thought it was due to my style, which references newspaper strips, and Saturday morning cartoons, but seeing other cartoonist work in similar styles and successfully tackle serious subjects, I began to realize there is something more to it then style of the work.
When I began to talk to people about my work, often they make a comparison to myself. Some of the things I have heard include that the characters in my comics sound like me and are fairly cynical, that my drawing style looks like how I dress, unpolished and rough. That my style looks cute and that I also look cute... well my girl friend said that and she's probably a bit biased. But the one comment that caused me to realize why I cannot write something that is straight up serious was that I am not a serious person. This person said that when I talk about something serious, I either say it in a tone that makes it sound funny, even when it clearly is not, or I undercut it with a joke.
Because of this one of my long term goals in my work is to discover what it is that doesn't allow me to be serious in my comics, not so that I can eliminate, but so that I can understand it and use it to my advantage and when it is appropriate. This may take a long time and the creation of a lot comics but I want to figure out how exactly my personality imposes it self on my work. Hopefully in the process of doing this I can gain a better understanding of myself.