For the Memories.

AwesomeCon was a blast.  It always is.  We met old readers and hopefully attracted lots of new ones.  We saw old friends and made some new ones.  But most surprisingly of all, for me, was a surprise reunion with a friend I hadn’t seen in over twenty years.  That was super cool.

I’ll spare you the details of our reunion, but one aspect of our conversation really struck me.  My friend was relaying a story, in which he was speaking with the frontman of a local metal band who had been a fixture in the scene for a long, long time.  This frontman was asked, “You hardly make any money, you’re probably not going to get famous doing progressive metal, and you don’t even have a huge audience.  Why do you keep doing this?”  And this frontman answered, “I do it for the memories, man.”

That statement struck me more significantly than I was expecting, and I found myself relating to this metalhead.  Our situation may not be the same; I’ve been lucky enough in my career as a webcomicker that I’ve made a living doing what I do and established a loyal readership over the years.  I may not be famous, but fame isn’t important to me.  It’s the reason that I relate to: to do it all for the memories.

Thanks to this crazy career I’ve collected more memories than I know what to do with.  I have a wealth of stories to share, from lucky encounters to unfortunate circumstances.  I’ve met so many wonderful, weird, unique, aggravating, and lovely people that the experiences have enriched me as a writer and a person.  I have so many new stories to tell, and learned so many valuable lessons, from this three-weekend marathon of conventions alone!

Money and recognition are nice, but they can vanish as quickly as they come.  But the memories I’ve collected?  No one can take those from me.