Karma
A eulogy and some thoughts on creativity and catharsis
There’s a pretty prolific comic book series from writer matt fraction and David Aja called Hawkeye. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
I’m not a big superhero guy anymore, but this book is incredible. It is filled to the brim with a lot of heart and great dialogue (as always) from Fraction, conveying Hawkeye’s empathy for the downtrodden. David Aja’s artwork is something else, an absolute masterful use of light and shadow that makes every panel so fluid and coherent. Add on top of it the timeless colors of Matt Hollingsworth and lettering from Chris Eliopoulos, you’ve got a winning formula that deserves all of the praise.
The first issue immediately establishes the tone, a heartfelt issue that feels very relatable.
In this issue, Hawkeye suffers through a painstaking series of events to help this dog, adopting him in the process. Everybody wants to save the dog, but there’s a level of vulnerability on display here, that makes this such a compelling story, where you just feel like it just has to be drawing from some real world experiences that elevates the material emotionally.
This was a story that Matt Fraction wrote the day that his dog died. Just wrote it out, processing the grief through a story where the hero saves the dog. When I heard this in an interview from Kieron Gillen with creators Matt Fraction and David Aja, it really struck a chord.
What it conveyed to me, more than anything, was this connection between our art and a method of expressing our pain in such an intimate way. A friend and excellent cartoonist in his own right, Conner Herbison, told me how artists are quite sensitive, channeling their feelings into a laborious process that sees the world differently. When I think about these things in congruence, it is clear to see the desire to emotionally move others as one of the artist’s greatest gifts.
I can’t say if I am successful in those endeavors, but I can say that it is, to me, the gold standard that I strive for in my creative work. It is something that I try to tap into when I create, leaning into complex emotions to comprehend it myself, but also to ideally move readers in the process.
A couple of months ago, my dog Karma died.
She was pretty old. 13 years for a pit bull is pretty much where they gotta get moving on. She was my dad’s dog, outliving him for a few years so that she could have a second life with us, surrounded by an entire community of loved ones. Even though I had known her since she was a pup (we got her while I was in high school), it never really felt like she was MY dog.
She never felt like just my dog because Karma was there for everyone. She was an absolute sweetheart, loved strangers and close family alike. She likely had a favorite (my partner) but she found solace in anybody that was accepting of her love. As I describe it now, that’s really what it was: a loyalty to love. She was a wildly emotional dog that felt so human at times. She would convey all of the things that come with love: joy, anxiety and even jealousy.1
She was my personal GOAT.2
The day she had passed, we scheduled in-home euthanasia3. Surrounded by her family with a belly full of a WAGYU beef steak, various lunch meats, green beans (an homage to my father, who notoriously would feed her a can of Great Value brand green beans as a part of a weight loss diet program) and a bunch of Sour Patch Kids4, she died happy and experiencing that emotion she was so committed to in life.
The next day was hard. I walk downstairs where I’d typically go to love on Karma, usually in a variety of positions such as these:
She’s not there. There’s no use trying to hold back any tears.
I was a bit nervous about my grief around Karma. After all, she was a connection to my dad, a living reminder of what I had lost. This was a point brought up in therapy that I need to lean into these feelings and to not shy away from the healing process.
I typically read for an hour when I wake up, but I was really struggling to focus on that. I sat there with my coffee, looking at this brick of a book5 but unable to turn my brain’s attention to anything else. This was for the best, I thought. This is not something to shy away from.
My second hour is dedicated to writing. Now this is what my brain was really telling me it wanted to do. As I sat at my desk this morning, the day after she had passed, the words flowed, and with it, a story.
At this point, Henry and I had already outlined many chapters of STEPPERS, and were beginning to lay the groundwork for what a Kickstarter campaign could look like. A recurring discussion we had was including our pets in the work itself, as a way of fleshing out our side characters, because why not? Part of it was utility, but the other part was to give our characters more depth.
In Chapter 4, Karma was introduced to the world of STEPPERS.
Our original script for Chapter 4 involved “Oswald’s goon”, an unnamed character that ultimately could become someone of more importance down the road. The story I wrote that morning was the backstory of Karma, a fitting replacement for our placeholder.
Karma would be the right hand man of Oswald, a character motivated by loyalty and love of the community around her. Raised by boxers, she is strong, tough and wears her heart on her sleeve. She acts as a maternal figure to others in the camp, and is ultimately an empathetic character helping make the most of a complicated situation.
I’d like to leave it at that, because we will have a dedicated chapter for Karma. Immortalizing her in this way already had provided a level of catharsis that day.
Many more days had passed, turning into weeks and now a couple of months. She is still very much on my mind from time to time, but my grief feels natural, like I am working in tandem with those feelings instead of burying myself to avoid them.
Writing continues to feel like home when I must resolve the tensions of life. Good Karma to the wonderful readers that are still with me.
Bad Karma to the dog pissing on the carpet.
Still, a fine hound worthy of words and stories dedicated to her memory.
C. Clyde
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Pet Portraits
One aspect of comic Kickstarters that I’ve always enjoyed is the ability for creators to collaborate with their audience. Specifically, characters within the book as tiers they offer. STEPPERS provides a unique means of delivering that, considering its all animals.
With STEPPERS, we’ll be offering pet portraits and characters within the book inspired by your own Karma. What better way to immortalize your pet than with a story involving communist Mickey Mouse?
Don’t answer that. Just click this link and get notified when we launch.
Catch up on STEPPERS
I shit you not, my partner would come home from work, and we’d greet each other with a hug and a kiss. And this fucking dog, would run up and start whining and trying to get between us. She’s the only dog I’ve ever known that would convey jealousy - another testament to her emotional intelligence.
Everyone with a pet has their own personal “greatest of all time”. I am not here to judge you on your choices, but I say with confidence that Karma was THE BEST.
Highly recommend these types of services. The lack of stress you are putting your pet in during these final moments and the level of closure you give to your loved ones is truly remarkable. Our vet was so lovely and supportive and I can’t stress how grateful I was to work with them.
I am not a good pet owner, and I am mildly ashamed to admit that she knew she was a fan of these things well before her last supper.
Infinite Jest from David Foster Wallace. It’s hard enough to read this on a good day, there was no way in this moment that I’d muster the attention to read this.
Really moving man. What a beautiful send off and eulogy. Karma’s a bitch but sorely missed.
Thanks for the sharing your story and its impact on your storytelling.