Since restarting the site I’ve gotten a lot of inqueries about “what happened” and what the hell has been going on since Dis shut down almost two years ago.
These comments were also echoed in hundreds of concerned emails people have send me since I stopped posting. (I just openned my Dis email the other day for the first time since Dis stopped — I swer I’ll write back to everyone!)
I feel, at the very least, an explanation is in order. I’m going to try and do my best to help you all understand the complexities of my life and mind as it applies to my seeming disappearance and abandonment of Dis.
Disassemblance has deep emotional ties to my past, the magnitude of which I’m only now realizing, so it is difficult to really explain. I just hope you all understand.
The two most prominent issues are The Existential Reboot and The Presure…
The Existential Reboot
The biggest reason for the abrupt end of Dis was related to a dramatic and abrupt change in my life. Though Ethan/Disassemblance may have saved me from taking my own life nearly a decade ago, the truth of it is the eight years following that were not entirely happy ones. There was much of my life that had not been settled… much of myself that I had not yet accepted. Eventually it occurred to me that I was so fundamentally uncomfortable with my life and the part I was playing within it that I was not much more than the cost of a box of bullets away from finishing what I started years before. Disassemblance had been a worthwhile distraction… an outlet… but it only helped to ease the symptoms of my grief, not cure the disease in my soul. A major change was required. I needed to hit the reset button on my life.
Though these changes were set into motion a year or two before Dis ended, it all came to a head in late 2007. And in the last nearly two years since the last Dis comic I quit the job I hated, moved to a new state (moving a total of three times), went through a painful divorce, started a new career, fell in love a couple of times, got remarried, explored new avenues of creation, fully embraced formerly repressed parts of myself, gotten involved in a new community and worked hard to rid myself of the last traces of the person I used to be.
I had immolated myself and my life as I had known it, and I was born again as someone completely different. But, not someone new… I was reborn the person I had always been underneath a hundred layers of dead skin.
I changed… and though the desire to continue Dis had always been there I felt, as time passed, I had more and more trouble relating to my own creation. Disassemblance was born out of a very different time in my life. The young boy that created Dis was far removed from the grown woman that now had the task of carrying it into the future. I finally decided that Disassemblance was nothing more than a relic of my past and that it would be better to bury it along with the person I used to be.
The truth, however, was that I had changed dramatically, but Ethan was still there within me. I still daydreamed of Middleton and regretted not telling all the stories I had to tell. It took the advice from a couple of fans to remind me that Dissemblance could grow with me. Absolutely nothing demanded that Disassemblance eternally be the product of another life… it was a living, breathing entity that could evolve with me.
So I began to think less about where I and my characters have been… and began to think more about where we all were going.
The Pressure
Throughout the five years that Disassemblance ran as a webcomic I was obsessed with the idea of it becoming “successful.” I damn near killed myself to be part of the webcomic “community” — following every trend and taking a part in every event in hopes that I could be the next Penny Arcade. Only to constantly be disappointed when all my advertising and self-aggrandizing never lead to some bullshit “golden carrot” ideal that I got stuck in my head. This wasn’t even really about Dis, but related to an even greater internal pressure that had been plaguing me my entire life.
When it’s realized at the age of five that you are creative and have an IQ of 160+, people begin to expect things of you. Eventually, that translates into a self-imposed torture of trying to constantly be as brilliant as you told you were your whole life. You struggle for some inane sense of “success”, accomplishment, greatness. This becomes a perpetual quest for something that is always just out of reach — because the pressure to be “a genius” causes you to constantly redefine “success” as something that is always seven steps ahead of where you stand. No matter how high you climb, there is always a higher peak… there is no satisfaction in what you’ve already achieved. Eventually you realize that no matter how smart you might be, you are not going to write the next “Great American Novel™” and for someone obsessed with being brilliant that is a crushing realization.
I knew Disassemblance was never going to be huge, and it killed me to think of that after all the insane amounts of my time, energy and soul went into it’s creation. Dis had become a chore. Instead of gleefully sketching away, it became something I felt I had to do. And when my life blew up I didn’t have the time or energy to invest in this chore. Disassemblance, once a priority of my life, was put aside so I could have the energy to simply keep myself alive.
As life has settled since stopping Dis, it’s FINALLY sunk in that I am so fucking sick of trying to be “something.” The pressure to be “brilliant” and “successful” were all meaningless empty pursuits that did nothing but rob me of the joys of simply creating. If I was ever to be happy again in my creative pursuits, I had to fully accept the fact that over a long enough timeline that I will be forgotten and all I ever do will be rendered meaningless.
I’m sure this seems like a weird epiphany to find peace in, but understand that this is a meaningful realization because it reminds me to enjoy my creations for the sake of the creating. To enjoy where I am and what I am doing in the moment because anything tangible that might result, no matter how “brilliant” and “successful” will be impermanent. Happiness is in the action, not the byproduct. A little Zen affirmation that I purported to understand for years, but only now fully realize.
So I want to again enjoy Disassemblance, my other comics, all my creations for their own sake. I want to create them totally and fully on my own terms without concern for trying to make them anything more than they actually are. If other people join me on this ride… fabulous! I want people to enjoy my creations. I know Disassemblance has touched many lives… even saved a few… and I want to continue to affect people, but… fuck commoditization. Fuck external measures of so-called success. Fuck being brilliant.
I’m going to paint my silly paintings, tell my crappy stories and enjoy every god damned second of it.
So pleased to see Dis back up again
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Also very glad that you’re not going to dwell on its past. Enjoy creating the comic because it’s fun to draw and make up stories. The fact that people out here enjoy it too is secondary
I hope you never let it become a chore again!
*hugs*
Yay! Cheers! Create for the sake of creation. Play! Take it and head in the direction that makes you happy.
‘Success’ is irrelevant because the general public is fickle. Don’t pander to the lowest common denominator in order to be successful. The strength of your success will be determined by how you feel about whatever precise portion of the process you are working on at any given time.
“Life is a balance of letting go and holding on- letting go of the bad and holding onto the good” I had a therapist tell me that years ago, and I’m only starting to understand it myself. I’m one of the few people who was saved by Dis, you of all people know the hell my teenage years were and what I was going through when I stumbled upon this comic that made me laugh when I was simply trying to live for 10 months – I never told anyone but I had a date set. Because of YOU I was able to laugh again, and I was able to make friends and really find it in me to live. It wasn’t just the comic that kept me coming back, yes it gave me something to look forward to when my life was shit but it was our late night chats, forums, and the fact that through YOU I met people that cared, and who loved me, that made Dis so dear to my heart. All that to say, THANK YOU.
To me it says how awesome this comic is, it that the forums are still going, and people are still wanting more. I’m so happy Dis is back, but I don’t want this to be a chore or painful to you. You’re happiness and health are more important to me than getting the rest of the story. After all, you did tell me on more than one occasion that Dis would one day end – it was meant to be a story in comic form and all stories end one way or another.
Brynn, you are one of the strongest, bravest, most transparent women i know…..you have taught me so much simply by example. thank you.
I’m glad you’re back, and I’m very appreciative of your explanation (I was getting pretty worried there!). My brother and I never lost hope. I’m sorry you’ve had a stressful life. Keep looking forward!
Just as a side note here, I don’t really read webcomics. But I always liked Dis!
Sweet! I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I’m glad you’re feeling better.
I hope you can once again enjoy dis.
It was the first webcomic I ever read and still my favorite.
I kept going to this site to see if there were any updates.
I’m happy there now is
Beautiful. :] I’m about to go through my first divorce. Men are pigs sometimes
So glad to know that you’re doing better. I’ve been supporting you in my heart ever since the day you left Dis for a while. At times I would check up to see if it was up and running, but I’m very happy that you are on a better road. It’s actually an inspiration to me, because I am going through some personal hell, and I need all the support I can get, especially from myself. I know what I’m going through will pay off, it’s just that sometimes I cannot see the end.
It’s good to hear that you’re on the path of getting better. I can understand what completely changing your views and what you strive for in life can do to a person. I’ve been there and I’m still going through it, but everyday gets a little better. There’s still ups and downs but they’re taken in stride. Cheers to your progress in finding who you are and what you what you want to do.