Are we really married to this idea...?

Talking a bit about love, a bit about loss, and a bit about growing into who we're going to be.

Background: A Frog in the Fall (and later on) by Linnea Sterte

My first marriage lasted a little under ten minutes.

I was seven years old at the time, trying my best to navigate second grade and getting far too stressed thinking about how to “Free the Horses”. I also had three girlfriends.

This was not something I had set out to do. One of them, I had since before I had coherent memories. The other two just happened because I was nice to the girls at school, and when you do that, at some point you have girlfriends. Or something.

There are a few things I remember about my time as a second grade Lothario. I know that one of my girlfriends was attending school in another city entirely. I remember another one that dramatically broke up with me while walking somewhat dangerously on the outer edge of the wooden playground equipment, no barrier between herself and a drop to the ground that was easily twice her height.

“You have to let go of me,” she stated, looking down at the ground, “We have to say good-bye forever.”

She was transferring to another school due to changes in her family, something neither of us really understood. We just knew we wouldn’t be able to hang out at recess anymore, and so this was going to be it. She figured she might as well jump to the sandy ground below.

She didn’t. She told me later I was supposed to try and save her, so broke up with me “even more” because I didn’t care about her enough.

And then, there was the marriage.

During the day’s first recess, I was informed by friends that I was to be married. Apparently, that girlfriend has decided she didn’t want me to have any others, and her solution was simple: out in the back field, a mutual friend would run a ceremony. We would have a friend each as a “best boy and best girl” (because we were still kids). At the end of it, we would be married, and that would be the end of this “multiple girlfriend’s nonsense”.

I agreed to the marriage, and over the course of the next block of school, arrangements were made. When lunch recess began, we all dutifully walked out to the back field.

I don’t remember too much about what was said in the ceremony. I do remember that I was stood on the side that is more traditional for the bride, and she was on the groom’s side. None of us clocked this or cared, because (gestures at the concept of being married at school when you’re seven). I also remember the very end of the ceremony, where our friend said, “you may kiss the bride”, and I leaned forward and kissed my new wife on the cheek.

After a moment of shock passed and our friends started dying of laughter (“grooossssss! I can’t believe you did that!”), my new bride pushed me down to the ground. Red faced and embarrassed she yelled, “This is too much! I can’t be married to you!”

And that was it. As our friends continued to bug us about the incident for the next few days, we were both dragged away into our little gender silos. The relationship never recovered.

A page from “All About Me” - by Brandon, pishrs by Brandon - my first “published” work, from when I was six years old.

My second marriage went considerably better than that, but has also reached a conclusion.

Folks who have been reading my writing for the past decade plus will know Danica either as my partner in business and in life, or at the very least, as the sometimes-editor of these missives. Over the past few years, we’ve been navigating a bunch of hard situations and emotions, all pulled tight into a gordian style knot. Some of these we navigated very publicly. Most, we handled privately.

About a month ago, we announced to the world something that we had known for quite a while longer: we would, in fact, be separating and continuing our lives on decidedly separate paths.

We came to this decision in dribs and drabs over… years. I think. Talking about it today, I realize we both knew our marriage wasn’t going to last a long time ago, but I just couldn’t believe it. Not until we started untangling the knot that was our lives.

Once the rope was sufficiently loosened, a lot of things started happening quite rapidly - the most significant of which was the drastic improvement of both of our mental health. Then came the truth - something once realized, felt like a thing that had been inside us almost all along: we were incredible friends, but not at all suited to be each other’s partner in a healthy way.

And that’s okay.

Since that realization, we’ve both been running in better spaces. We still talk and share jokes, and are in each other’s corners. But… okay, this is incredibly cheesy, but I haven’t found a better way to articulate it than using lyrics from a song called “Northsiders” by Christian Lee Hutson:

But you said that we would always be

branches on the same old tree

reaching away from each

other for eternity

And you know I can't argue with that

Roots planted through time and life shared, destined to help us grow to where we need to be.

I will never regret those years. I hope she doesn’t either, but I wouldn’t really blame her if she did, a least a little bit. Not all of it was easy.

But now, at least, we are both significantly better.

Our “disengagement” photo.

The day after I got back from my first real vacation in a little over a decade, we let loose the announcement of our separation on our socials with a “disengagement” photo and message. The reaction ranged from “I’m so sorry”, to “Congratulations!”, and everything in between. I’ve had a bunch of people checking in to find out how I am doing “really”. My answer is always the same:

“Honestly? Better than I’ve been doing in years.”

Not to say all of this has been particularly easy. The knot we tied had been tight and complicated. There was a lot of hurt that preceded this state of separate comfort. But. We’re on the other side of so much, and - I believe - all the better for it.

So. That’s what has been happening with me. Maybe I should be talking about something to do with the comic industry, huh? That’s probably the reason you’re subscribed to this little publication, right?

Welcome back to the shitshow, my friends. We have so much to talk about, and it is all going to unspool over the next weeks, months and years. I have so many notes from the past year that I’m just itching to share with you and the torrent truly begins next week.

But ahead of that, I wanted to start here: with the fact that my reality has changed. I am at the end of one phase of my life, and the start of another.

Reaching away from each other for eternity.

To the surprise of literally no one, I’ve taken a lot of the personal realizations I learned about my life, and I’ve been thinking about them in terms of what they mean for comics.

Because I am absolutely that bitch, and that at least, will probably never change.

I am absolutely bound and rooted to this industry - to this medium, to these stories, and the ideas and art that fuel it all. What some look at as silly bits of business where grown adults fight each other in their pajamas, I see as comfort and purpose.

There is so much absolute beauty in this medium, and we can use it to say so many things. We can use this art to help ourselves and help each other. We can use it to escape, and to endure.

Comics have saved my life. This industry has given me great purpose.

That said, I have often felt like I’ve been growing away from “the roots” of it all. I never quite had the words to articulate it before, but lately, I’ve started getting closer.

---

“But you said that we would always be branches on the same old tree, reaching away from each other for eternity.”

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The whole purpose behind “The Indirect Market” has been an exercise in recognizing my roots, while realizing I can’t remain as just “part of the trunk”, so to speak. The idea is to branch away from the foundation, to reach upwards and to drink in the light. Discover where my direction is, as part of this great structure.

To belabour this metaphor, I’ve been looking at all the branches that are starting to atrophy and die, and I’ve been looking to prune. If the rot is allowed to live, if it remains in the structure, the whole tree starts to feel it, and at a certain point, there is a level of no return.

The rot creeps in at many different levels, and in many different ways. It exists in the ways that some in the industry would rather prune the new buds than push out into the sun. It exists in ideas that pull us further away from the art and the joy of it all, to provide fuel and blood for the tireless machine.

I love this industry. I love what it has given me, and I love what it has meant to me. I am proud to say that I have become a better person from interacting with it. But I also know that there’s something else out there. A better way, some better ideas.

We can’t be happy with the way things are, can we? Why are we constantly dealing with the idea that comics are dying? Why is that a narrative that has not stopped happening for well over half a century at this point? Shouldn’t we past something like this? Shouldn’t we be looking for a better situation for ourselves?

We should absolutely be thankful for our roots, for where we were and how we grew, but we can’t just let that be. Without water, we die. Without nutrients, without care, without pruning, it all goes away.

So here I am, the motherfucker with some sheers. With buckets and sprays and whatever the damn a tree needs to do tree things, to use the technical arborist terms.

Let us recognize the importance of who we were.

Let us be grateful for the people and the medium we’ve become.

Let us grow. Let us push. Let us become who we will be.

Let us be all the better for it.

My name is Brandon Schatz. I live and breathe not just for myself, not just for my life, but for these words, for these pictures, for these voices and ideas and the shuddering weight of what we can do with, and because of comics.

This is where I’m going to chronicle my attempts to grow. Maybe even our attempts to grow, if you want to join me on this project.

I’ll leave you today, with the absolute timeless words of the late great Tom Spurgeon:

“I will save this comics industry to the ground.”

To be so lucky.

We’ll talk again soon.

-B.