Well, here we are. On Friday, March 20, 2026 it has officially been 20 years since I started Between Failures. In reality I started a little earlier. There was a false start, some problems, and the actual date would be contested, if anyone could remember it. When I migrated the posts from the old, broken, website I made the 3rd page land on March 20th since it’s my birthday and I can remember that date easily enough. I started the comic close enough to my 30th birthday that it makes no matter in the grand scheme of things. I sit here, looking back on these two decades, on the evening before my 50th birthday.
It’s fair to say that things didn’t go exactly as I planned.
I was working at a Gamestop when I wrote the script that Between Failures was based on. Before that I had worked for several years at an entertainment store called Hastings. It was a regional chain that was mostly midwestern. Basically a Barnes & Nobels with a blockbuster mixed into it. Those years are where much of the stories from the early comic pages come from. I still pull stories from there from time to time as need arises. By the time I left that store I was relied upon enough that I was able to get away with the kind of things Thomas regularly does in the comic. I’m sure it seems insane to some of you, but if you can make yourself valuable enough to a company you can gain a tremendous amount of leeway. I was almost fired 4 times and walked away unscathed each time. The penultimate time I was ordered to be fired by my regional manager. My manager told him that there was no way the store could survive through the holidays without me. 4 months later that same regional manager returned to the store to “investigate” something. 2 weeks later he was fired. I advised hirings at various points, firings, and all kinds of random nonsense. I was promoted and demoted so many times that by the time I left the store I was making more than the manager. I wasn’t happy at that job, but I was also not as miserable as I could have been. It was probably the best I could have hoped for at that time. When I was hired I was still nursing a broken heart after losing a girl who was very right to dump me. I did a good job at first because I was too much of a pussy to just kill myself and be done with it. I didn’t particularly want to put my family through all that bullshit either, but I certainly wasn’t invested in life in any meaningful way. I lived against my will. After many years, and many misadventures, I finally left to work at the new EB Games. They were eventually bought by Gamestop and that’s where the decline of my retail life began in earnest. Gamestop is a terrible company. Whatever you’ve heard I assure you it is worse than that. Their company culture makes the toxic cultures of other companies look like milk. It wore me down like Hastings never could. Eventually I had a nervous breakdown over the whole thing and left Kansas to find some new way to live.
I think it’s fair to say that I was not really of sound mind when I moved to Colorado. The fact that I spent enough time on the internet to convince myself that I could succeed as a webcomic artist is proof enough of that. Somehow though I was able to convince my parents that I could do it and they supported probably the worst idea I have ever had if you were to look at it on paper. The crazy thing though was that after 5 years it was my job. Somehow, with my relatively small audience I was able to live the dream and just be an artist. I was living below the poverty line, but I was still doing as well as millions of other Americans.
I lived through several monetization periods, but Patreon was the era where things finally changed to the point where I really felt like a success. I had to pay taxes. A lot of taxes. I could afford to buy new tools if I budgeted well. I had health insurance. Car insurance. After a decade I was a mostly functional adult. Life wasn’t misery all the time.
Of course I have had my various health problems, and the anxiety disorder to deal with, but everyone has crosses they have to bear in this life. I helped raise my young cousin when her father died suddenly and her mother was incapacitated. She grew up into a fully functioning adult and I helped with that in some small way. She is still even fond of me against all odds. When mom was out taking care of the rest of the family and our many crisis’s I was able to be helpful enough to at least allow her not to worry too much about the house. Maybe that’s not a huge deal, but it’s important to try to be helpful.
In the actual realm of webcomics there are few left who I would call comrades in any meaningful sense. Some moved on with their lives when the dream didn’t pan out. Others were beset by the hardships of life and had to bow out. The saddest however were the ones who could not abide differences of opinion. I have never been able to exist in the circles of other artists for very long because they insist on uniformity of thought. Over time it has led to a level of professional isolation that has been daunting. Even now, at the edge of these two decades of dedication to my craft, there are but few who will take any note at all. Of course I’ve never needed those people. You, my audience, are who matter. The ones I serve. You, by and large, have supported me as I have supported you. There is no level of thanks I am capable of that could express my profound gratitude for allowing me to live this dream. To walk this earth with the fewest number of others who have the authority to tell you what to do is something I value above most everything. That is the gift you give me. It is not hyperbole when I say I would prefer death to surrendering that. I have lived so close to true freedom for so long now. To take a tool to my hand and craft my simple tale in exchange for that. What could be better, I ask you? I know not. I thank everyone who has ever contributed to my freedom, deeply, sincerely, even if it was for but a short time. Each moment is precious to me.
At some point I thought that my great work would attract my soulmate to me and we would be married and start a family. Unfortunately my great work wasn’t great enough to do that. “You give a a few things chasing a dream” as they say. The future is uncertain. No man knows what time he is given to walk upon this earth. If I spend the last of my time serving you all, even in isolation, it will have been a worthy life. Simple service to those in need of simple stories.
There are days when I have not wanted to make the comic, but they are so few. I have crafted pages in cars, outdoors, and in hospital beds. Through sunny days, storms and disasters, I have done this modest work. I am compelled to do it. It is a thing I must do. If kept from it I despair. I make the lines. I write the words. I give them to you in hopes that your journey through this life is eased. I hope I can be here for you for another 20 years or even more. Perhaps a vain hope, but to hope for the unlikely is the very nature of hope. Let us go forth in hope. I for you, and you for me. This one time I will break my rule and say

I love you all.

2961 My Love.

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