589 Miles

These are the late night musings of a tired writer, coming off the road only to avoid the bed

Warning! Forgive my lack of images.

I skipped last week’s Fighting the Good Fight. Those of you keeping up know that last weekend I was in Kansas City for Planet Comicon. Planet serves as a fulcrum each year as I try to tackle new things and make progress in the sales department of what I do. At a show like Planet Comicon, I debate what my setup looks like, how my approach to talking with people works, what’s selling, what’s not, who am I, why am I, what even? You know just the important things.

Kansas City, in simple terms, is 230 miles from where I live. I spend those precious miles thinking, too. I think about all sorts of things like the state of the world, how I can leave a lasting impact, what my life might look like tomorrow, in a week, a month, a year? What’s anything matter, anyway? It’s often accompanied by a persistent backdrop of podcasts or audiobooks. I want to stay informed. I want to laugh. I want to learn something.

Planet Comicon offers me a round trip of 460 miles of contemplative existentialism that does almost anything but offer me creativity. So much of my work surrounds itself with what music does for me and to me. Sometimes, I need to cut through languishing in my own uncertainty and frustration and let someone like Shirley Manson tell me how it is. Or, alternatively, let Aaron Barrett from Reel Big Fish take it all away by reminding me that, of course, Everything Sucks. In the best of lengthy wallows and contemplative thought, Michael Stipe will mutter me his nonsense and my scribbling brain will make new meanings for whatever night gardening might be.

I skipped my entry after Planet Comicon because everything I have to say is scrambled, garbled noise. There’s all these things on my mind that I know I need to say. Meanwhile, there’s no logical string to put anything together in a meaningful way that tells you something valuable about keeping up in an independent art career.

Right now, the time is 11:18 PM, Central Time, in Huron, South Dakota. I don’t live in Huron. But I have an artist residency on the horizon this week. I’m not writing this because I’m up late for kicks. As a matter of fact, I came in from Grand Island, Nebraska. My friend, and fellow artist Fighting the Good Fight contributor, Gabriel Perez brought me out to an emerging comic convention he and helps put together, Tri-City Con. Grand Island is about 317 miles from home, Huron is another 272 miles north of there. After 589 miles, and a skipped week, I knew I had to share something.

Recently, I told members of the Brimstone Order that the road is tough. I went into greater detail on a drop before Tri-City Con, but I feel like I spend more time in my car than almost any other environment. Deep down, it stirs my desire to get up, go, get the hell out of here. Yet, in other respects, as I face health issues, improving my wellness, and the late 30’s concern that I have stunted my ability to make any real roots, it’s hard. There’s only so much time I can be alone with me before I start to convince myself the genuineness may not thrive best in the dark.

If I was taking my health to heart, maybe I wouldn’t be here, typing as 11:30 approaches and midnight creeps slowly behind. I’d have a glass of water and get to bed. But it’s been 1,049 miles, or more, since I stopped to write an entry and I’m prioritizing these disorganized thoughts and your readership over whatever the king-sized bed behind me has to offer. By the time I know what I want to say, or riddle out what I ought to say, it’ll be a total of 1,440 miles since I left for Kansas City. I’m certain some of this madness will have fled from me since then.

I should take notes. But I’ve never been scholastic enough to prepare like that.

I want to be taken seriously. Or, at least be considered sincere and earnest. It’s the sincere and earnest who change minds and do good deeds, isn’t it? Or perhaps it's the clown and I’ve deceived myself?

At Tri-City Con, we kicked off the first Dylan’s Drink & Draw of 2025. I had new technology. You can even see the prompts on your phone! (Thank you Chad) It was loud, it was wild, it was a silly community coming together over a game I’m only ever getting better at running. I can’t fool myself too much though. I have great colleagues who judge, or lend a hand, or even just show up to be in the crowd. We bring a crowd out, that’s for sure.

Since 2025 crept up on me like a past-due oil change, I’ve wanted to add anything for substance to Dylan’s Drink & Draw. Maybe I’ll kick it off with some inspiring words? Or do I end it with some meaningful monologue. If you ask me right here, right now, what was the last movie I watched, I wouldn’t even be certain I’d ever seen a movie. My thoughts run away faster than I can identify them. If I want to say something valuable amidst these ludicrous community building drawing games with my name on them, I’d have to write something up. But that means carving out time and organizing what I might even say!

Dylan’s Drink & Draw is consistently a smash hit. Maybe there’s a world where I don’t bring my art out to shows and I just focus on the game. The crowd isn’t coming out to see what new character I’ve come up with, or what anatomy I think I’m nailing. They’re not booking me for that deep reference in a drawing I did, or an obscure atheist nod added to a portrait. The real show isn’t asking for a new comic, or even what the last one was about. They want the game.

Raw earnings, what’s pushing the Subaru from one town to another, isn’t Dylan’s Drink & Draw. Raw earnings also aren’t what last year seemed to predict. At least not yet. It could be the economy, it could be the crowds at shows, it could be my approach, I could have too much stuff. But when people buy something from me, it’s almost always original artwork, or commissions. That speaks volumes to what these folks want. Maybe that’s all the sincerity I need? Living in the United States right now is a new surprise every day. Folks need some levity.

Either way, whatever it is that I have to offer, I’m riddled with dichotomy. Dichotomy, as it often does, breeds indecision. Go left? Go Right? Focus on one thing? Focus on whatever I want? It’s so hard to choose. It’s harder, still, to make good decisions and assessments when I’m locked in with myself for a thousand miles in less than ten days.

I saw so many people and have so many thoughts. Will either still be with me when I can finally put them in order?

A familiar face, a foreign place, I'll forget your name
I'd like it here if I could leave and see you from a long way away
Who are you going to call for, what do you have to say
Keep your hat on your head
Home is a long way away

Today’s Tune