Get Your Doom On

It's beautiful outside at the moment, but it's all gloom in The Cave as I finished coloring this piece for Michigan's Beast in the Field, coming back with Bellville, Ohio's Artillary Breath, Cleveland's Deathcrawl and The Great Flood. This is kind of a different look. Not as vivid, not as bright. Keeping it real.

I dunno how real a giant ass buckwild red Owl is, or if all those swords and knives wouldn't pull that Bladesman's belt down, but it's real to me. I believe in giant ass buckwild Owls, though. I believe in a Bladesman carrying a multitude of bladed weapons.

I believe in fairy tales. I believe in comic books. I believe in movies. I believe in storytelling. I believe in the extraordinary life. I believe in the amazing and the epic. I believe in magic. I believe animals can talk. I believe robots can be heartbroken. I believe in the self.

Years ago, I used to think I was a realist. Back then I was doing autobiographical comics that were steeped in keeping it real. Black and white and brutally true. I was wrong. I'm definitely a romantic. Though, I believe romanticism is no less brutally true. If anything it's more so. I actually believe that reality is epic. Reality is majestic. Even in the gloom of doom there's something extremely valuable happening. Something that happens for a very important reason.

I believe in time travel. I believe my cats are mystical creatures. I believe in the science and the fiction. I believe in folk heroes. I believe in ghosts. I believe buildings are watching. I believe in riffs and beats. I believe in holding on.

I do not believe in giving up, even on a lost cause. Probably especially not on a lost cause. I can't. If I believed in giving up, on lost causes or otherwise, I'd have been gone a long time ago. And I believe I'm not going anywhere.