Morgens has evolved a lot since I was a college freshman. It started out with what I thought was going to be a re-invention of the mafia- something so modern and unexpected by ‘the system’ that it would succeed in ways the mob never could. I wanted it to be violent, and funny, and more than anything I wanted it to be a group project. I wanted to be a co-collaborator, not the sole author. I figured a diversity of opinions would strengthen the cast and the stories told.
What I ended up with was a cast of attractive young women all about the same age and body type. So I beefed up a few of mine, changed ages and races around so that it wouldn’t be that homogeneous, but really I should have been more extreme.
Okay, that’s fine. X-Men had a similar issue, especially back in the 60s. Whatevs. N00b mistake, only another one of my goals for the comic was for it to be popular enough that I could actually make some $$ off it. I don’t know if I was just stubborn or overly naive. I forgot that only gay guys are popular on the internet, that lesbians get shoved into a corner and ignored unless there’s some graphic sex and even then- not the kind of audience I wanted.
I don’t want to abandon the project, because I still have a few good stories to tell, but I don’t see it going to the dazzling heights I dreamed of when I started it. So I guess the stories themselves need to change, and I need to quit pretending that they are ever going to be mainstream. Remiss was a good example of something terribly edgy, and guaranteed to never make Morgens popular, ever. But it’s still the only story (aside from the next one) with some decent ideas in it, some decent tension between the way the world is and the way it is perceived. Or some bullshit like that.
So while heists and duals were originally my focus, I guess that should shift to the interpersonal relationships, and the way they fit into our fucked-up society and its craaazy ideas about gender and sexuality. Since that’s not the kind of story I’ve ever really wanted to write, I don’t see Morgens having a long future. I estimate it being over (actually over, not I-Don’t-Care-Anymore over like Ice) by the time I draw the next two stories. The next story I’m drawing has to do with the roots of the mafia, and the one after that its demise. There are some ‘charming’ little one-shots that I will put up here while I’m drawing those two stories, but by and large I’m ready to move on.
And that’s the state of the union.