Art, Love, & Heartbreak
Exploring my smaller projects and the need to create
Hey Mythopoeians,
This morning I’m in a contemplative mood. We have less than 72 hours left in the Sansha & Blanco #2 Kickstarter and we are not quite at our goal. I’m optimistic that we’ll hit it before the campaign ends, but there’s no denying that Sansha & Blanco, along with our first TTRPG Project, The Love Balloon, is one of our lowest grossing projects ever.
Recently I’ve done a couple of interviews - one with Ink to Table - and in both I’ve been asked the question on how I balance what I think will be commercially successful versus projects that I want to do personally. I jokingly replied to both, “poorly.” I did give a more nuanced answer after each time, but the question has stuck, especially on this morning.
So, here’s a reflection of a pair of our smaller projects, and what they’ve meant to me.
The Love Balloon
Early on in my career we found a string of successes instantly. Skies of Fire and Glow are both popular series with broad appeal. We had no problem finding an audience and that was incredibly blessed.
Our first real challenge came with The Love Balloon. Now, I’m not sure what possessed Vince and I to design a collaborative story game based on the 80’s sitcom The Love Boat, but that’s exactly what we did and y’know what? It was one of the best things to ever happen to us. At the time, our relationship was rocky - we frequently fought over creative differences that spilled over into professional and personal ones. A lot of the joy we had as creative partners and collaborators early on seemed to have evaporated as we struggled to break stories and find a consensus.
The Love Balloon was the first TTRPG project we worked on, and a breath of fresh air for the both of us. The switch in genre and format allowed us to get out of our entrenched mindsets, and the ensuing game was truly a product of our love - for each other, and the work we created together.
It really shows in the Kickstarter video we cut for the project - one of the silliest, most tongue in cheek ones we’ve made. Even to this day watching the trailer brings a smile to my face.
That project had exactly 99 backers and funded on the last day, and we’re so grateful that it did. Even though it wasn’t the most financially successful project for us - on the contrary, it was the smallest project we’ve ever done - The Love Balloon an important milestone for our relationship and Mythworks as a whole. I don’t know if we would still be around had we not done The Love Balloon, and now look at us - we’re more known for our TTRPGS than Comics these days. What a strange twist of events.
Sansha & Blanco
What can I say about Sansha & Blanco that I haven’t already? I think it’s some of my best work, and certainly the most personal. I began the project in the midst of my first major breakup, and so much of my feelings about that relationship seeped into the story and themes of the comic. Heck, I even wrote the following this to my collaborators at the project’s onset:
I believe in this comic, I really do. But even if it never finds a bigger audience, I am so grateful I got to tell this story, because this story is one that I wanted, I needed to tell.
Why do we make Art? Tricky question. Certainly, every artist has their reasons, but I would bet for almost all of us it comes down to a single word: catharsis.
Art allows us to process thoughts, feelings, and emotions that defy a single word or sentence. Art is an expression of ourselves, our beings, our souls. We create Art in order to create ourselves, in that self-eating snake of apotheosis. We become what we do, and in creating, we are, we are, we are. Even if what we are is sometimes Love, sometimes Heartbreak. We yearn to be understood, first from the self, and then perhaps from others. And so, we create.
I hope that helps you in some way. It’s certainly, like the rest of this newsletter, words I tell myself. Keep writing, keep creating, keep being.
Ray
Great stuff!