Warning: blog post contains traces of horse meat and bitterness.

Since no one’s asking, I’ll do it myself: so, how’s that big change coming along, Jeroen? The short answer is: very very slowly. Dammit, change is tough. Even reminding yourself to work on it just a little each day is a challenge when faced with the easier alternative of remaining a grumpy couch vegetable.

I have been keeping very busy in the past weeks though, that is true. But I feel I have little or nothing to show for it yet. One frustration is that I haven’t found a new creative outlet to replace Happysad with. Nothing at all. What if it really was a once-in-a-lifetime idea? Another worry is that despite my somewhat improved social life, far too often I still feel lonely as shit. As if in the end, there is only one essential touchstone for happiness: am I in a loving relationship with someone who cares as much for me as I care for her? No? Then I’m not fucking happy. Nor happily.

Yes, I know what some of you are thinking. That you first have to be happy with yourself and yadda yadda yadda… That’s all very nice for self-help books, but I know what I want, and it sucks that I don’t have it. Period. And so the struggle continues. I take comfort in the fact that winter is almost over, that I’m already feeling a bit more energized, and that in general, life could be worse too. Maybe it’s a blessing that missing a mate is all I can complain about. But while working on change is a noble enterprise, and I’m most certainly not giving up on it, simply catching a lucky break would be bloody welcome too.

/rant

In a comment on my previous post about a possible new site, Mirko suggested that I could re-publish my “commercial” cartoons with English translations on this site. I could of course do that, but the issue is that most of these cartoons don’t make much sense outside their context. When a customer asks me to make a cartoon, they usually give me some input, like the text for an article or the theme of a campaign, and I use that for inspiration. Without that context, the joke often isn’t clear, or even worse – not funny at all.

But nevertheless, I really have to work on my marketing. It’s very odd, but since I ended the Happysad series, I haven’t received a single request for an illustration job. Coincidence? Or do people now think I’ve quit drawing altogether? Or maybe it’s confirmation of my theory that there is larger demand for cartoons in times of crisis – or so I’ve noticed in the past few years. Then the economy slowly getting back on its feet means bad news for me, apparently…

To make it perfectly clear: I’m still in business! So if you happen to be working for a company – particularly a Belgian one, although that is not a strict requirement – which could use some fun illustrations to brighten up its corporate communication, brochures, employee magazines, safety campaigns, etc… try to put in a good word for me! There are few examples of earlier work under the tab ‘Cartoons’ above.

Jeroen