walsh is like 40. ignore him. go see OUT WITH A BANG this weekend instead.

Wow. I checked my referrer logs this morning and saw a bazillion people coming from MNSpeak to read the comic. Thanks for reading it, and thanks for the feedback– even if you thought it sucked.

Couple of responses on my part:

Wordiness: yeah, I was a little worried about that, especially on pages 1 and 6. But I decided that those chunks of text were necessary to keep what it was about Jim’s story that first grabbed me. There might’ve been a more elegant way to do that, but this was the best I could do with my skillset.

Sickness/Torment: I can’t speak for Jim Walsh, when he originally wrote the story, but to me this was at least as much about the joylessness of writing about music as it was specifically about how much Fleetwood Mac sucks (for my part, I don’t really like them, but if I was going to pick a band to kill all sniper-style, I don’t think they’d top the list). Like, you get into it thinking, “Yeah! I love music, I love writing, and I get to write about music! This is going to be AWESOME!” But you quickly come to realize that it’s just a job, and that as often as not you’ve got to suffer though stuff you don’t like and then, under editorial pressure, find positive things to say about it. Or sit through something completely soul-dead and then try to find a way to make it interesting. And before long, the passions that used to drive you are just sort of dead and burned out, and it sucks all the more because it’s something you used to love. I haven’t written for one of the local dailys, but I’ve done music writing for the local alt-weeklies, and my experience was pretty similar to what Jim was talking about (but with fewer arena shows).

So, I wouldn’t say soul in torment. I’d say “massively exaggerated frustration.”

(oh, and I really, really doubt that’s where Anne Coulter’s coming from. She’s operating on the “if I say outrageous crap, I get buckets of money” principle; I, sadly, haven’t gotten any buckets of money)

Art: Yeah, there certainly are 15-year-olds who can draw better. But they’re off drawing other stuff, so this one fell to me.

Coke Up Stevie Nicks’ Ass: Agreed. Would’ve been a big improvement.

again, thanks, all.

Although in all fairness, if it keeps the unwashed masses at arm’s length from the good stuff, I suppose that’s fine with me.

Drugstore Cowboy