DarkBrainComics

I was able to take a big bite out of restoring content to DarkBrainComics.com. Twelve series were put up with a total of 2,200+ pages of free content and over 5 hours of free video! It really feels like the old DarkBrain is getting the celebration I wanted it to have and to make content available to anyone.

Titles restored: Mirror/Mirror, Church of One/Two, Columbia’s Underbelly, Locked Out, Envoy 82, Grace Comes Home, God Play, Too Important, Zeopatra, Pissy Pussy, Sexy Sundays with Pissy Pussy, Haunting Ivy and The Butcher. I also put up The Vat, but that one is in bad shape technically, still, it is such an emotional title for me that I wanted it up there too.

I kept a few titles, mostly volume 2s of a couple of series, totaling another 1086 pages of content for sale just to help with costs to run the server. But, probably more interestingly, there are several titles I did not return as they either were unfinished and in a state of not having “enough” to be presented, or fully completed by just a little too “deranged” for modern times.

SORTAN-VALTA is a good example. This is the clear winner of “most deranged” I ever got with a story. It was intended to be that way, and was meant as a tongue-in-cheek exploration of the fantasy construct “destiny” – but after a good walk-through, yeah, probably should just keep that one in the closet. Rashida is another, but I’ll save my observations on that for another blog.

Was a bit of effort to push all this out fast, but I wanted the site to have some teeth if people came back to see it, and I think it does now. And I am so happy to be able to put bylines on every piece so those who worked on these comics get their shout-outs!

And it feels… amazing. It is nice to be past the “identity crisis” phase of trying to figure out what DarkBrainComics was supposed to be. Now it exists as intended, warts and all. I’m really happy with that. And the pure joy I felt in re-watching Locked Out, Zeopatra, The Vat, Church of One… damn, those were some of the best creative moments in my entire life.

So, what’s next for DarkBrainComics? I think I will walk through each series and blog about each one. Why not? There are always a lot of stories behind the stories, and I intended to celebrate them – so let’s party! I will try to pick one a month (at most!) so I don’t just flood the airwaves and burn it all out fast and then have nothing to look forward to…. haha.

-Andrew Zar

Looks like time to poke my head out and see what I want DarkBrain to be or become…

One thing that I have decided – it is about “integration.” This is a term I heard in a career workshop when I discussed my comic projects (which I was clearly passionate about) vs my normal career (which I did not speak of in anywhere near the same passion). The suggestion was to try to integrate my passion into my career.

That sounded really interesting and I went down a path of considering it. In theory, if I could successfully tie my passion and my career together, the upside felt amazing. There were many challenges, however, because my main career is a service business. And when and how should a service business present anything -but- the services they offer?

So I spent some time mulling it over and weighing out if it was worth the risk to showcase more creativity in my career. Then the pandemic hit and necessity became the mother-f-er of … progress. I put my energy hardcore into my normal business and found a way to survive and thrive in the new reality.

Objectively speaking, however, DarkBrain was not a part of it. So reality showed me the way. DarkBrain is a creative outlet for me, not a career. This does jive with my efforts on DarkBrain over a decade ago. I took a serious stab at making it a real career, and that 100% did not work. If it didn’t work then, why would it work now?

So, I have settled into that DarkBrain is a hobby for me. I’m going to let that percolate and decide what it should be or become…

-Andrew Zar