Fetch

The Raven is a motif in a lot of my work. This is the second time he has appeared in Fetch, the first being the strip “Raven” where he picks at the dark parts of Kevin’s brain. (Or “my” brain? The Kevin of Fetch is both me and not me, so even I get confused.) Here he acts as both messenger and guide to the Underworld, roles he plays across many of the world’s mythologies. And he’s fun to draw.

Speaking of getting “me” and me confused, some readers might pick up on parallels between this story and events in my own life. That is purely accidental. I think. Back when I studied literature at U Buffalo, they always told us to avoid the Biographical Fallacy. “Look at the Ding an sich, the thing itself!” So even if Kafka’s father was a brute who bullied his son, don’t think about that when analyzing “The Judgment.” Okay. I think it might be a bit puritanical to deny any influence of personal experience in an author’s work; artist’s take what is at hand and recombine the elements to say something, or many somethings. In my case, the raw material is there, stews around, and comes out as story. But Otherworldly Goods won’t be an anthropomorphic roman à clef. It will be much too silly and absurd for that.