2927 No Need For Bankers.

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First of all, happy new year to you when it hits. This goes up for new year’s eve, so I won’t speak to you on the day. Not that it really matters all that much. 2026 is the 20th anniversary year for Between Failures. I had hoped to do something special for it, but just keeping it going is about all I can ever handle. I don’t expect anyone outside of the readership will make note of it. I have been excommunicated from the webcomic “community” for quite some time now. Not that I was ever particularly welcomed in the first place. As far as I know there isn’t any of the old internet infrastructure that created the webcomics boom that I came in on. I never hear about anyone podcasting about them or anything. Not for many years. Since there’s no money in it that’s not really surprising.
20 years ago the internet was very different. Google was just starting its strangle hold on everything. Personal websites were where it was at. That’s why I have a dedicated site. That used to be how it was done. We went from personal sites, to platforms, back to personal sites, and now there’s a struggle over which is the way to go now. The platforms would very much like to make sure the personal website never rises again. The personal site years were fun because people really made unique pages back then. They were ridiculous and awful a lot of the time, but they had a sincere charm about them that social media refuses to foster. All the “free thinkers” want uniformity. The irony is practically cancerous.
People tell me all the time now that my comic is the last one they read. I’m the last bright spot on the internet for them. Lots of sentiments like that. It’s pretty wild after almost 2 decades of being the 5th or whatever favorite to being the last man standing. People feel like they were betrayed by other works, for various reasons, but I stayed true to whatever it is I’m doing here. I tried to avoid chasing social trends, which is probably why the comic seems more like an artifact of a lost time the longer it goes. I never truly understood the longing for the past of my older family members when I was young. I mean I did as a concept, but I didn’t feel it because the world was still for me back then. As you age the world slowly leaves you behind. The things you love disappear. In fact, i think it used to happen a lot more gradually whereas a lot of the stuff I like was actively destroyed. I never envisioned a day where Star Wars would be completely ruined. Just that franchise was a massive part of my identity growing up. I was extremely open to parts of it that my contemporaries abandoned it over. In spite of the billions of hours of essays tearing them down I still like the prequels. One of my oldest friends jumped ship because of Red Letter Media. I kept going all the way up to the end of The Bad Batch. Although I let my D+ account lapse, so I haven’t actually seen the final season. I figured they would release some kind of physical media eventually. Now I’m not sure if I’m waiting them out or I’ve given up. I didn’t care about Andor, or Skeleton Crew, or Evil Lesbians (I can’t remember the right name.) I just don’t care anymore. Or at least nowhere near the levels I once did. It’s strange because in the years before the prequels the excitement didn’t wane. After the sequels though it just dissipated. It’s not like Star Wars is important really, it’s just that there’s a space inside of me for being excited about it that’s just blank now. That’s just one example. There was a sort of ritual connected to caring about these things. Looking forward to them filled some kind of need that I never really considered until after it was over. Now I truly understand why my father watches episode after episode of Tales Of Wells Fargo every night. The world he was born into is so far in the fucking past I can scarcely conceive of what it must be like. I bet it won’t be too long before I do though.
I’ve thought about getting DVD sets of South Park, Family Guy, Star Trek, and so on because I have had enough distance from them at this point that revisiting them seems a little enticing. Really though I don’t want to watch all of them. I just want to hit a few high points I expect. Maybe check out some of the later seasons I didn’t pay attention to. The Simpsons is another franchise I kind of want to look in on but every time I see bits of modern episodes I think they have the stench of death about them. Sort of like it should have ended quite some time ago. There’s an undead quality to The Simpsons that I can’t fully articulate at present.
It’s not like I don’t look forward to anything anymore, it’s just that it tends to be things like manga that don’t have quite so many rituals attached to them. I generally don’t buy a lot of figures for manga and anime. Although I did get into One Piece trading figures for a while. I’ve also seen some Frieren figures that are very enticing. In any case it’s just not quite the same in a way I don’t know how to explain exactly.
I dunno. I guess this is just me writing down experiences that basically every human goes though in hopes of reaching some kind of understanding. I’m adding to the tapestry of experiences than perhaps one day will unlock the secret of being alive at all.
Right now I need to find something to put up on Patreon that will convince people I’m still worth supporting. So I’m going to do that. Possibly after I have a quick nap. The holidays always fuck up my internal clock and ruin my productivity, which isn’t good on the face of it.

I will see you in the fresh new year, with the first new page for it, on Friday. Until then, be careful in your celebrations. Return to me after your frivolity is at an end. Until then, love and success to you in 2026.