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So, back to that golden idea, which was a pretty simple one, really. It was a feeling that I should somehow have my characters explore the history of my medium. That was it. But it seemed to refer to things that had apparently been on my mind since I’d done my first old comic book cover Sunday strip. When the story of Lisa’s cancer was finished, it truly felt that it was the end of something. Lisa’s story had been an ethereal moment that came unbidden with no promise of ever happening again. I had done the heavy lifting, and any attempt to replicate it would be burdened with intent. So I would somewhat facetiously tell anyone who asked that I had achieved what I wanted to achieve and that going forward, indulgence would be my watchword. Of course, that didn’t happen. Okay, that kind of happened a little.
I had spent my artistic life up to that point creating works for a new generation while trying to channel the soul of the work that had inspired me in the comic strips and comic books. Especially the soul of the comic books. I was never too far away from it. I was driven more by the spirit of that work than by any rationalized set of aesthetic principles. Collectively, comic books were my place in the universe even if I didn’t fully understand why. So now I became curious about and sought to examine the creators who were the source of my inspiration in an effort to understand just what had inspired them. Who were these ghosts who invented this new art form? Phantoms who sat for long hours at sweatshop drawing boards pouring their hearts and souls out onto paper with no expectation of selling a million issues, or having a big-screen superhero blockbuster, or creating something that would one day lead to collectors spending millions of dollars for a single issue. Spirits who in spite of their harsh Great Depression reality still created pages filled with imagination, energy, joy, life, and mystery. Who persevered simply because of their love for the work. Inventing an art form on the fly before they began to know too much to know so little again. More than just a nostalgic attempt to recapture that childhood pleasure, I wanted to somehow get back to that place to figure things out.
From The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume 14