About the Comic:
This comic started out as a vaguely autobiographical story about a kind of terrible experience I had, because I couldn’t get certain things out of my head and they kept running around in there and making me crazy. So, a lot of it is just things I wish I could say or wish I said or did at the time. And I guess in that way it’s not too terribly autobiographical at all. But in any case I realized, barring the drama of the situation, my life is not too terribly remarkable, and I didn’t really feel like writing a comic that was just a huge chunk of drama and then mostly uninteresting. I will let "Apartment 3-G" handle that (ZING).
So it’s turned into a semiautobiographical fictional work about a person who is not me, interacting with people who I don’t know (and some I’ve made up), doing things I’ve never done and discovering things I (probably?) never will. Theoretically this will be more interesting than a purely autobiographical story about me.
More than anything else, Such is Life is an attempt to take a metric shit-ton of negative energy caused by gut-wrenching, stupefying heartbreak and use it as fuel for a constructive effort. Think of it as a Magnetic Fields concert, or an Elliott Smith song, only it's a comic on the internet, and it (probably?) won’t make you want to kill yourself with a sword.
(Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental)
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Sam: Sam’s a pretty okay guy, albeit a little boring and kind of a shut-in. He’s got a great sense of humor and he loves music, but he suffers from a peculiar case of social anxiety where, if out of his “comfort zone” (the safety and warmth of his apartment and computer) for too long, he starts spazzing and can’t concentrate very well. But all-in-all he’s a good guy. Age: 25 Likes: Music, Not talking to people Dislikes: Public speaking, Internet shorthand Powers: Hypnagogia
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Lilah: Lilah means well, but she doesn’t know where to start. Her upbringing was, let’s say, less than ideal, and it’s left her ill-equipped to deal with, well, anything on an emotional level. Her main tactic is to simply run away from problems, and when that doesn’t work she gets desperate and tries to cover her tracks with many tiny revisions to the truth. But if she could just get past that she’d be a wonderful person, with real depth and substance, instead of just a product of her past. Age: 18 Likes: Music, When people like her Dislikes: Whatever you dislike, Being alone Powers: Chameleoabsorption
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Dylan: If you ever wanted to know anything about The Beatles, you’d ask Dylan. Or any music from the British Invasion period, for that matter. Or any really good (and some really bad) music ever, really, she’d probably know about. Dylan is also Sam’s roomie, a source of good advice, and an all-around great friend. She enjoys smoking, drinking tea, listening to music, making mix tapes, and playing Katamari Damaci (or “Roll-em-ups” as the cool kids say). Age: 26 Likes: Music, Ordering too much tea in the mail Dislikes: These hipsters covering good songs badly, what do they know anyways Powers: Phonomancy
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Hope: Outgoing, loud-mouthed and insecure, Hope is doing the best with what she’s got. Sam doesn’t know much about her, but he does know she keeps getting him into situations he’d rather avoid. For some reason, though, she manages to drag him away from the comfort of his computer pretty consistently. One thing is for sure: There’s something about Hope that’s incredibly compelling, and Sam has, much to his chagrin, a very hard time ignoring that. Age: 24 Likes: Awful movies, Yelling at strangers Dislikes: Purse dogs, The Sun (It’ll kill us all you know) Powers: Transdimensionality
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Shadow: Sam's shadow. For some reason it can talk, and it's an asshole. Age: Who knows? Likes: Insulting Sam, being a jerk Dislikes: Everything, probably Powers: Physical manifestation
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