This collection of heads was drawn just last week to consecrate the beginning of a shiny new sketchbook. I just felt like drawing something, and so I went into autopilot and started drawing a head, it occurred to me that I’d unthinkingly drawn one of the characters from my old webcomic; The Box.
Since I’d already drawn the first one I decided I may as well draw all the others. The fact that I’d then gone and drawn all my old characters made me wish that I could start the old comic back up, after I suddenly dropped it midway through last year.
Technically I can start it back up, there’s almost nothing stopping me. Of course the problem is that I never really liked making the comic, and I never had the time to do it. One single (often sub-standard) comic page would take me an entire days work, which I could have devoted to all sorts of other things I’d rather do. I did however enjoy the reader’s interest in the story and the feeling of creating a whole ongoing fictional world to share. Comics are much more involving than an illustration, readers get attached to the characters and the places, and feel much more strongly than they would about a single piece of artwork. It was a great feeling, but It just wasn’t a strong enough drive to spend all that time on something I didn’t want to do. Instant gratification generation syndrome maybe?
The temptation is always there though, to go back and start again, or to redo something you’ve already done that you enjoyed, even it won’t benefit you in the long run or you know that you’ll get sick of it fairly sharpish. Video games are a great example of this. I absolutely adore the video game Morrowind, I played it when I was a kid and loved how original and open it was, especially the setting and the art design. I love it so much that I decided to play it again. I spent half an hour installing it, 2 hours playing it, 2 hours adding mods to it, and then I stopped and didn’t play it again. Because it’s shit.
Which is what I’m getting at, nostalgia is all very well so long as you ignore it. It so often turns out that the things you once thought were brilliant suddenly look upon re-examination; a bit disappointing. Time gets wasted and your naive wistful memories of something are corrupted by horrible facts. Even Banana Man is awful!? When did that happen? Maybe I’m simply getting more cynical as I get older, I do still love Morrowind, but that combat system is inexcusable.
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