As you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve been absent from the site for, oh… I dunno… a month and a half. If you’ve been coming back to the site, godbless you, you persistent person you.

At the start of this summer, I had made up my mind that I was finally going to fully attempt to become a legitimate comic artist. I was going to get my portfolio out there, I was going to comic con, and I was going to make Meaningless all it could be so it could start earning money.

Well, that stuff… kinda happened. Meaningless was earning money. Not as much as it sucked in, though. I got my portfoilio out there. And it got sent back. I went to comic con. And when I was there, I was working 14 hours a day and falling over from lack of sleep.

And when I got back, I sat down to draw more Meaningless and… nothing. Nothing happened in my brain. I had a meltdown. I locked myself in my room for at least three days going slightly insane. I looked at my art work in my portfolio and went more insane. Insanity happened. I may or may not have started collecting geese that visit my neighborhood park. That’s up between me and the Los Angeles County Park Service.

It’s been a few weeks since then. I’ve been successfully looking for work, and I have a number of opportunities to take hold of. I’ve been re-thinking my idea of going to law school to eventually do video game law (there is such a thing). I’ve even been painting again.

What I have not been doing is Meaningless. See, earlier this summer, I totally threw myself into the site. I had all KINDS of cool shit going on. Movie reviews, political commentary, we had the podcast, all sorts of stuff. I was buying up advertising all over the place. I was hustling forums and link-sharing sites. For about two to three months, Meaningless was a power-house of a webcomic.

And yet… when I checked my numbers… zilch. I wasn’t gaining readers. At all. Sure, my traffic was higher than normal, but only because I was paying for it. I skipped a day on my advertising to see how it would affect things, and my numbers slipped down to nothing again.

Maybe this is very greedy of me, but I’ve been running Meaningless for over two years, and I’ve been kinda wanting something out of it. Granted, Meaningless has only been (what I would call) “good” for a year or so… before that, it’s just a mess… but I was really digging things. And to be honest, I was putting a lot of work into the site. A lot.

And in my fit of post-Comic Con insanity this year… I realized it. I burned myself out.

There are thousands of webcomics out there, and hundreds in the “stick-figure” style. I am 100% sure my webcomic is funnier than 90% of them (that’s seriously not saying anything… go look… most webcomics are patently horrible), but it doesn’t matter. I’m a small fish swimming in a giant, giant pond. Ocean pond. Waterworld pond.

So, the simple thesis of this rant is thus: Meaningless isn’t going to be Meaningless anymore. I’m not pumping 30-40 hours a week into the site or its content anymore. It actually adds to my stress and sucks money from my pocket.

I may keep returning to add the occasional comic or blog rant… but only on a personal level. I may even revert the entire site into a tumbler or wordpress blog to save money.

I’m proud of the site and the work I’ve done. For a while, it’s everything I wanted the site to be. Except I never got to do my Meaningless videos. I wanted to do animated videos. It would have been great. Also insanely time consuming.

Thanks for checking out the site if you’re new (or I have given you a business card… you poor thing you), and extra thanks if you’ve been checking out the site for the last two years. Keep trucking.

Share this on ze internet!

Hey guys!  So, sorry we haven’t been updating comics over the last few weeks, but I’ve been busy preparing for Comic Con and my job.    We did manage to record a podcast this week, though, so zip over to the PODCAST PAGE and check it out, or if you have iTunes, you can subscribe to us by clicking here!  We talk movies and such.

So, I’ll be at Comic Con next week, unless something goes wrong with the documentary I’m working on that’s getting me into the place.  I’ll be leaving a bunch of Meaningless Comics laying around the place, so if you’re going, keep an eye out for them!  If you, by some luck and my genius understanding of guerrilla marketing willing, have found my website by one of these little fuckers laying around, thanks for checking the site out!  More comics will be coming as soon as I’m back from San Diego.  I’m telling the rest of my podcasting boys to crank out their own podcast, sans my involvement.  I have no idea if they will, but by god, I’ve demanded it.

I also demand you watch this:

If someone understands what either this man or this goat is saying, please let me know. I think they’re having a very important discussion, but I have no idea what it is. Perhaps global trade disputes and the affections of over taxation on a tariff level. Perhaps they’re talking about the effects quantum computing could have on the consumer marketplace, outside of its impact on a cultural level that of course would be incredibly powerful. Perhaps they’re talking about babes. I just. Don’t. Know.

Share this on ze internet!

Hey all!

While I haven’t had time to draw up more comics (which I know is weird, since that’s the main purpose of this site), we did record a podcast this weekend.  Our topic was the great city of Los Angeles, in a conversation that tries to give advice to people new to the city or just moving out here.  Hopefully, it’s not the most alienating thing you’ve ever heard.
I’m taking off to San Diego for a few weeks to visit the city, work on a project, and go to Comic Con, so updates on the site aren’t going to be happening.  But if you’re in San Diego at the world’s largest geek mating festival, be on the lookout for some random Meaningless Comics I’m going to be dropping around the place!  I plan to be sticking them in bathrooms and in random nooks and crannies.  And hopefully not get in trouble for doing so.

Share this on ze internet!

Hey all,

The last couple of days have been rough, and the next few weeks will be even rougher for me.  My schedule is wound like a clock, and the pressure (albeit, tiny pressure) that Meaningless exerts on me has gotten to be a bit too much.  I’ll definitely have a Down by the River for Friday, and I hope to have a few comics next week, but it’s going to be pretty sparse through the month of July until August breaks.  I gotta earn that rent.

The bad thing about running a webcomic is the times when I’m actually trying really, really hard to make it a success, to take it seriously and spend money to attract visitors and work my ass off to generate content.  These can be bad times because my traffic rarely ever goes up and I attract what feels like one or two regulars a week.  It’s a tough racket.

The good thing about running this webcomic is when I need to take a break from it, I know my regulars will come back.  You always have, so I trust you’ll be back soon.

The podcast will be going strong, though, hopefully even when I take a few weeks for a job in San Diego coming up soon.  That sucker’s a beast that (because other people are involved) will always have its gears moving.  Meaningless as a comic, however, is all me.  And I’m damn tired.

By the way, I saw Predators tonight.  After a 14 hour drawing day, I still found strength to go see a proper sequel to my all-time favorite action movie, even though it’s going to be the death of me tomorrow morning.  And it was good!  Messy… sloppy around the 3rd act… a little too much fat in some places… out-of-place villain monologue that doesn’t belong at all in the movie… but, overall… if you dig the original, I don’t see how you can’t dig on this.

Share this on ze internet!

Hey guys!  Our podcast is up for this week, covering (in a very dry and educational way) the subject of booze.  I have a new comic that will come up later tonight… I got a busy day today, so it’s going to be a bit late.  Hope y’all are down with that.

Share this on ze internet!