Some lengthy personal writing about American Captain.

Oh wow, a lot of new followers. Okay, it’s time to finally make this lengthy personal statement. You should, of course, feel free to ignore it.  

Guys, I am really, really anxious. I say this in the spirit of disclosure, because I feel like having it on record is going to make me feel better about posting American Captain, because I so very much want to, but its existence is kind of making me edgy atm, and I would like to feel less edgy about it (and also because, who knows, maybe other people feel the same way and this will be reassuring to them?)

It’s like this: posting things to Tumblr makes me especially anxious because it has this thing of showing you exactly how many followers you have at a given time – seriously, who wants this feature? Do they want us to be permanently unsettled? Is that its actual goal? (I actually suspect it might be; not overtly, but just in that sense of neo-liberal logics operating through social organization, in that we’re supposed to be permanently worried about our social (and moral) status in relation to others).

That edginess is not because I want to be popular and have all the followers. I want people to read it who want to read it. That’s all. In fact, some of you might have noticed that unless there are warnings, I don’t tag the comic with anything besides “comic” in the hopes that nobody will find out about it who doesn’t expressly want to). Rather, the edginess is because while the act of unfollowing is commonplace and entirely banal and all about taste and things, it drives me to distraction of the “AND WHAT IF THEY WERE BECOMING STEADILY MORE IRRITATED BY THE COMIC AND THEN I FINALLY POSTED THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL’S BACK? SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD, IS IRRITATED WITH ME RIGHT NOW” variety.  And the more followers I have the more often that will happen. So I love that people like this, so, so, so much. Because I like it too and it’s really engaging to draw. And I love when people follow. But just… cue a lot of worrying, you know? WHAT IF I UPSET PEOPLE? WHAT IF? So it goes, on Tumblr.

Okay, so anyway, I really want to tell you this about the comic so I can relax: American Captain is a comic I started drawing for some friends in my indie comics sphere, for fun, because I’m working on a PhD thesis, a novel, and a longer, collaborative comic (I’m also gainfully employed as a copy editor and a tutor). The PhD is intellectually draining, the novel emotionally so, and the comic exciting but labor intensive. American Captain is a side-project, but one that has picked up a little steam for me lately simply because I’ve gotten interested in it and have noticed the parts of it that will allow me to talk about some things in the manner that art (or “art”) allows one to talk about things.

However, I can’t promise consistency, or even fidelity to canon (or, hey, consistency with which canon I’m referencing). My watchphrase for AmCap, which I use to distinguish it in my head from those other projects I’m doing which are much more constrained in terms of literal time required to work on them is that it is my pleasurable vanity project which I enjoy doing and that (loathe as I am to refer to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in an online fandom context) “it is what it is, yo.”

As such, it will be what it is, yo. And you should feel absolutely free to like that or not like it but it will be what it is.

And that is all I had to say. Thank you so much for your attention, and for the genuinely lovely responses I’ve had to this comic lately. I always want to hear from you, that I promise. Everything from your feelings, your stray thoughts, to minutiae about character interactions, all of it. I tend to answer privately unless the question is technical, but I will always answer.

My best regards,

Your perennially anxious host.

ETA: I should add that I am big enough and ugly enough (and used enough to dealing with anxiety by now) to be able to handle all of this tumblr-based angst, so please, please don’t ever feel bad for following or unfollowing or whatever you want (I can even take criticism too! Graduate students either learn to do that, or they implode. So criticize away!) It’s more that making this statement eases my own mind a little, and has made me feel better, and honestly that’s all. x