This is a difficult commentary to write. Around this time I made my first trip back to Canada since I went to Japan, which was in general a disappointment. This strip was the highlight of my trip. I got to meet Tang for the first time ever. The disappointment was with the exception of Omar, I didn't meet any of my other former OFU friends and was instead greeted by an eerie silience.But first, the good news. Tang and I first met online way back in 1998 when we wrote me to say how impressed he was with my Queen of Clubs part in the Impromanga. Impromanga was a section of the old Fan Art Head Quarters in which an artist signed up to do a 2-10 page part of a continuing story. I got the chance to be in Queen of Clubs, arguably the best of the Impromanga. Looking back, that particular impromanga had some pretty cool talent, with Tang, Mal, Josh Lesnick, Dave McGuire, Eisu all doing parts. Queen of Clubs was really my debut for internet comics, it made a lot of people check out what I was doing. The reason why is not so obvious: everyone was trying to make Queen of Clubs the best of the Impromanga, and when my name was on the list, people didn't know who I was and worried that I would fuck it up. Tang was one of those people, and E-mailed me about "A Heart Made of Glass" which was partially online at the time. Tang was already internet legend at the time for Tang's Weekly, and I was pretty wowed. Since then, we've logged hundreds of hours in chat. We did a comic together, "Sunday Morning Coffee." I've appeared in Tang's Weekly, and Tang appeared in an early Sexy Losers strip. Sexy Losers in itself is partially inspired by Tang's Weekly by showing me that it was possible to do an internet gag strip as a weekly. We lived on different continents at all times -- when I moved to Japan, he moved to Canada, and we just missed each other. This was my first opportunity to meet in person.
It was a great experience. We hung out at a Second Cup on Younge Street in Toronto and tried to come up with an idea for some jam stuff. We did a group picture of some of our characters together. I had an idea for this strip based on Tang's guest strip that he did for Sexy Losers. Unfortunately, we both had different ideas for the final punchline, so, we did both. We alternated panels, and it's amazing how our styles meshed together so well. It was a fun strip to do, and the first we actually did together in the same place, after all the work we did together over the internet. It was a thrill and the best part of that Canada trip by a long shot.
The bad news. I was initially pretty excited about going back home and meeting everyone again. I missed the OFU gang, but I had felt I was getting the silent treatment for some reason. I had an idea, but I didn't know how bad it was.
It was my own fault. Before I left for Canada, I got involved with one of the women in the group. It was one of those things, you know, the stars were in perfect alignment and something just clicked. I thought I was in love with her, and I thought what I'd do was go to Japan for my obligatory year (I had signed a contract, I had to go) and come back and we'd be happy together. But she had a long distance relationship with someone in California. She was cheating on him with me. But as the saying goes, "love is blind" and I thought that if she was sleeping with me it meant that she would break up with him and be with me.
However, on the eve of my trip to Japan, we talked. She said she thought it best if we were just friends and she was going to go back to her boyfriend. I valued her friendship, we were friends long before anything happened so it would hurt, but I still loved her and was happy for whatever I got. We still contacted each other via E-mail for about half a year, though her replies to my mails were becoming less frequent. I had a new life in Japan anyways, so it really wasn't like I was pining to get her back.
In January 2000, she sent a letter to me. Basically, she felt so guilty for cheating on her boyfriend that she wanted me to stop sending her E-mail. It was like being hurt a second time. When it came down to it, my friendship was scrappable. She hadn't admitted to her boyfriend what had happened. I was like something that never happened, a lie, and now she wanted me out of her life to save her conscience.
In anger, I wrote her and her boyfriend an E-mail. I didn't say what happened, but I strongly suggested for the boyfriend to ask her, and if he didn't get a satisfactory response, that I'd be willing to send the details. Needless to say, it wasn't a smart thing to do. As Cohen says in Hallelujah, "The only thing I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you." I didn't get a reply, but she told my friends back home in Canada something. They E-mailed me and told me to get off her back. There was no reply from her or her boyfriend.
I didn't follow up on my letter, I had no intention to. It was just an angry shot, I was thinking this is the way to clear her conscience. It would be her choice, I wouldn't elaborate or send a follow-up letter. To this day I don't know what she said to him. But afterwards, my friends turned cold to me. I got banned from the channel where I talked with my friends with no explanation. On message boards I got threats. The next OFU book went to press and I wasn't invited to join, even though I helped create the group and pretty much published the first one. When I pressed people for information, the only response was, "You know what you did" without elaborating on that.
It soon dawned on me what happened. She said something, and that something wasn't good. I had been in this situation before. She was trying to isolate me from everyone else, painting herself as the victim. In order to keep the affair a secret, she spread some fairly viscious rumours about me. I don't know what the rumours were, I just know they were not particularly flattering -- enough to turn old friends into enemies. When I returned to Canada, no one from the group besides Omar (bless him) would meet me. I can't tell you how painful that was. It isolated me even further. It cut me off from my old friends, my old IRC haunt, everything. I went into a deep depression.
This is the first time I've written about it, seven years later. The experience taught me some valuable lessons. Don't be the other guy. Sometimes you gotta walk away, as getting your shot in will make matters worse. I walked away too late, when I realized that something was being said in my absence which I couldn't defend myself. People will make you into Hitler if they have a reason to, and people will believe it. Even people who called you friend at one time.
This is the reason why the comic will never see publication as a collected work. Many of the early jam strips had art by those people I was proud to call my friend but let me go. I can't approach them now to get their permission to print the strips. I can't guage their reaction if I would try to do it without. It's been seven years and I still miss that group terribly. I have no idea what any of them are doing now. I hope they're all doing well, and I mean that sincerely.
Strip Published Online: October 13, 2000.
Commentary Written: May 25, 2007.
