The process of making Four Eyes, which I started right after my graduation from art school was the deepest experience of my imagination. When I write comics, and when I make art, it so consumes me that it becomes my world, I work at a relentless pace without stopping. I first made a short zine comic tracing a narrative arc, and then moved over the course of my only summer out of school to make six issues and get it released in time for the Alternative Press Expo, which in many ways was a disappointment, as convention-goers seemed less than they had before, but something happened when I picked it back up, I realized I didn’t need half of the plotlines and even less of the drawings. I only chose the best work and compositions to carry forward, and then spent a month and a half, actually between all of it probably three months making the new version. I started putting it on webtoons and amazon, and then I realized something. I didn’t need a second part.
The best parts of the story are already there. Like most things, every thought, every turn of events doesn’t matter. Polly saves Tam, and Tam saves Polly, not by any action, but by simply loving and caring for each other. I was able to catch Polly’s emotions in ways I didn’t think I could, each of these panels is its own painting, and it was emotional. They both travel to the underworld, a world of dreams, the entire work is a dream, which overtook my mind as I wrote it, constantly changing at each step, going deep into repressed memories and something else entirely. This is a story of energy, this is a story of love and compassion. So what’s happening in my mind as I was writing this, and what does it mean? Polly gently guides Tam back into the safety of their home after a difficult journey out giving up her busy day, Tam gives up his second sight to meet her parents, and after the story ends his eyes open again and he sees a vision, of a gentle pond with a flower in the middle on a boulder, a depiction of both water, motion and safety, knowing that the currents of their love for each other keep them safe. It is also of the planets moving around the sun, as a flower in the center.
From what I can piece together this is about focus, and while my heart almost breaks for leaving this world, which is so like the one my partner and I lived in for more than a decade, I realized for me to heal I had to go through it. The world of Four Eyes will always be preserved in place by the work I’ve done over the last few months, and I almost don’t care if it never gets noticed, the more and more I think about it, the dream at the end is a reflection of the journey of the book, a long journey of the course of three months in swirling water, that almost overtook me but ended up producing a flower of the. mind, expanding ever outward. I don’t know if I’ll ever return to Four Eyes, I had a lot planned for it but it seems less important now, there are other things that need my attention, but if you ever want to know about the journey of our illusions, or even the personal transmuted alchemy of doing deep healing work, it might not work for some but it just might inspire for a few.
It’s a tragic time in the world but I hope you enjoyed this little story, it’s as complex or as simple as you want to make it. In the depths of the night and the tragedy of the day, I hope it cheered everyone up, or brought a sense of the mysteriousness of the day. It’s here.
The Reluctant Blogger 