I live by this saying

I live by this saying: what else good is abuse, harassment, bankruptcy, and a broken vagina if not to write about it in front of thousands of people? I learned that in my "Women's Lit" course in college.

But seriously.

I want to thank the men and women who contacted me to show their support. I am currently helping a sick friend and working from home at the same time so I can't answer everything right now, but I have been reading and I deeply appreciate it.

And I think that silence in the face of any sort of abuse, past or present, is unacceptable. It is only through sharing our experiences that we can heal and stop the cycle. We can hold it in, garnish it up, explain it away, pretend it never existed -- but it will always be there, begging to be released.

I wrote what I wrote because I had a story inside of me that was begging to be released. Through meditating on and tying together these various comic-related strands of my life I came to a personal breakthrough at the end of that blog. Though in a way I had already found a sense of peace and a new life, writing "Goodbye To Comics" brought me to a new level of self-understanding. I'm proud of what I wrote and I'm not ashamed of my experiences.

I also wanted to say that though the character of "Donovan Paul" may sound at points in the blog like a little bit of a cad, he also remained very calm and responsible during a freak accident that, quite frankly, was freaky for him as well. He calmed me down, did the appropriate things to get help quickly, and never left my side. The nurses told me that when he finally left the room after my initial intake, he was shaking and almost fainted. Had he abandoned me during or after that crisis I would have felt devastated. He did more than a lot of men I've known would have done. He's basically a good person and a great comic talent -- with a few fanboy blindspots.

As for the comic industry, there are a lot of good people, men and women, in it. I've grown up with comics people my entire life, and I'm taking care of one who recently fell ill now. I just want the industry to move in the right direction, get rid of the lingering sexism & racism, stop the sexual violence towards female characters, get more diversity (gender, racial, sexual orientation) into the characters, and make some of what I wrote in my blog things that no longer have relevance.

There is a big crop of talented young women and people of color out there who want to break into comics. Open the doors, give them an even and respectful playing field, and say a warm "hello" to the next gen of this industry.