Throes of Life

On February 10th, I was telling Teodora somewhat jokingly that we should make a comic together; I would write the episodes and she would draw them, just like I’ve been doing with the stories for her portraits. Today we published the first episodes of our new webcomic, Throes of Life.

I’ve already written an introduction on Instagram:

‘Throes of Life’ is an idea for a webcomic I had a couple of months ago while I was in the… throes of life, experiencing an intense but familiar pain. The pain has come and gone and as always, I am immensely grateful for it and glad about all the good that’s come out of it. This comic is part of that.

I wanted to use that pain for good and do something that will have a positive impact on others, so here we are. I spoke with the wonderful @teoctobart 🍓 about it and she loved the idea of doing this together. I’ve written stories for her portraits in the past and I love doing creative work with her. It’s always been challenging for both of us, and this comic will likely be our most challenging work so far (especially for Teodora, who bears the brunt of it 👀).

I wanted to make a comic that’s profound, insightful, positive, funny, and perhaps just sad sometimes. I’ve only written a few episodes so far (which we’ll publish in the next couple of days) and I don’t yet know much about the comic’s direction, which is to say we don’t have much of an identity right now, but I think that’s ok. Join us in discovering it as we go along!

The idea for this comic came to me during a difficult time following a breakup. It had been my first real relationship in almost two and a half years. For the first time, I’d genuinely wanted something more, a real relationship in which I’d be entirely invested. While it didn’t last long, my investment had been total, thus the intensity of the pain that followed. It wasn’t meant to be, but in time I discovered that the breakup itself was a happier ending than I could’ve initially imagined. That’s a story for another time, but I’m mentioning all this because the first episode I wrote back then, the first one I published now, is directly related to that breakup. It’s got some things that I’d then started to realize and which I told myself to stop blaming myself for a failure that wasn’t mine. Even the characters for this episode were chosen because she liked elephants and hedgehogs. That doesn’t really matter anymore, but I kept them, because they’re cute (and Teodora would’ve likely killed me if I had asked her to draw other characters). At the same time, I feel like I’m honoring the memory of someone who, by hurting me, offered me some invaluable perspectives.

So here it is, we’ve got an Instagram account and a Facebook page. Like, Share, all that stuff. We really hope the comic will take off. The drawings are really great anyway, I feel like our success largely depends on how well I can write. No pressure.

We don’t have a website yet, but we do have a Ko-fi account where we can receive donations to motivate us because Teodora has an insatiable lust for money.