Begin the Begin
Restarting from the beginning as I journey forth through a creative career born in comics.
What makes a good newsletter? That’s a timeless question for creatives like me. Social media is in what seems like a death rattle. Expressing ourselves as artists is more and more pushed toward a clawing, gnawing, and pleading for eyes and ears.
I have constant conversations that surround the question of building and growing an audience. If you’re one of the souls that has spent exasperating hours with me as we muddle over what the answer could be, then you know exactly what I’m wandering through. I’m not convinced there is a real answer.
Reach back a hundred years ago, to 2013, I started a journal comic that was a hit (according to me and tens of others!). Sitting down on meditating on what good content is always draws me back then, to that comic, The Good Fight. It was raw. If you read it, you’d know that I have obvious confidence and depressive issues I deal with. Somehow, pouring them out in that comic did good for me.
Then I started dating. Serious stuff that grownups get into. The kind of dating that leads to marriage. It felt impossible to go back to a format that was revealing like that. A format in which I would bear new scars and troubles each week and we’d all agree it was fantasy felt impossible to attempt again. Since I am my own council, when backed in a corner, my only answer to something that can be cultivated is to get raw. Pour it out again.
For the entirety of 2022 I have wrestled with how to pour it out. I’ve tried leaning back into comics. I started a podcast. I’ve embraced the art I want to work on, and I’ve told the world to deal with it. But I am not satisfied. That’s the theme of my 30’s, I am not satisfied. Why? I’m still striving to find that. I don’t know what satisfies that need. However, I know I wrote this to you, for your eyes. Here’s the reason you deserve to read this: The way we present online, the way we make our lives look like gumdrops and rainbows all the time, it’s a lie. Life is rocky. Life is confusing. Life can be a mess.
So consider this a journal. I’ll write what I can, as often as I can, and you can be a part of it. My name is Dylan Jacobson. I am an illustrator, a storyteller, and I am a clumsy human being, just like you. Just like we all are.
Today’s Tune
This journal is owned and written by Dylan Jacobson an Brimstone Studios. Dylan can be supported by joining his community, the Brimstone Order, or by supporting the South Dakota Arts Council, the Nebraska Arts Council, the Iowa Arts Council, or by attending any of Dylan's events.