24 November 2020 - Falling (Back) in Love with Webcomics
(For clarity's sake, when I'm referring to a "webcomic", I mean it in the past tense, and when I say "webtoon," I mean it in a more present/modern tense.)
The first few weeks after dropping out of University were interesting to say the least. For one, I tried and failed to learn programming. Turns out HTML is a LOT different to programming. Really, the only thing they seem to have in common is having somewhat-similar looking syntax. Otherwise, HTML doesn't involve itself with all of this "logic" and "math" nonsense, stuff that is just not at all intuitive to me. And that's okay! Programming isn't for everyone, and self-discovery is what I'm all about right now! Especially considering I am not in school right now.
This realization that programming just isn't for me has, in a sense, freed me. I feel I am more able to "go back to my roots" as it were, worrying less about future career profitability and moreso on what I want to do. That meant continuing on the escalating trend of the past couple months, drawing more and more! See, I used to draw a heck of a lot, from 2011-2012 and 2014-2018. (2013 was the year I did nothing with my life... grade 6.) But then in 2018 a bunch of stuff changed in my life, and let's just say it left me really demotivated towards drawing. I have been into writing as well as long as I can remember being able to coherently put stories together, so for the next two years I leaned more into that. Then the pandemic hit in March, and for fun, since I never quite stopped doodling in the margins of my notes (even in Uni lol), I thought it would be fun to turn an unused composition notebook into a "quarantine doodle journal." And after a few months of quarantine, my passion for drawing returned after two years! Sure I haven't been drawing every day, or even every week, but when I do draw, I do it because I want to, not as a way to procrastinate or pass time in class. Nor do I draw anymore because my brain is telling me "that's what you did for so long, why aren't you drawing anymore?" It is merely the desire to draw for the fun of it, to express myself, and to improve.
Back in mid-October, an acquaintence of mine told me about a webcomic they were reading called "It's Them!". It's very gay, and very heartwarmingly wholesome. I ended up really liking this comic as well, and after being sucked into a rabbit hole of LINE Webtoon comics, I was hooked! It brought back these emotions and desires from before I was 16 that I assumed were dead. Instead, it only amped up my desire to draw even more! I even began considering making comics again, something that had not crossed my mind since 2017. (No word on an upcoming comic, it's just brainstorming and desires as of now.) Overall, I am just happy living my best life, being re-acquainted with my visual-arts after feeling detached from it for so long.
Addendum:
I suppose that's about it for today's blog post. I feel it's worth noting that this entry took a long time to post. I started writing it on the 15th of October, worked on it some on the 2nd of November, with most of the work being from 15/10 and 24/11. The reason it took until today to finish writing this entry is because this entry is an expression of joy, and I wanted to maintain that, but I went through a pretty serious 2-week long mental health episode that I am still recovering from. I have tried writing about said episode and recovery multiple times since it began a few days after the 15th of October, but it never came out right. This is alo why this site hasn't seen much attention in the past month and a half. Hopefully now that I am doing better, I can create a better write-up of the whole situation. Or maybe I'll find it too personal and never mention it again, who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯