Greg says: I know that it’s true that many, many creative professionals have little to no emotional investment in the projects that they create. Let’s be honest here; in a professional environment, cool heads often prevail. I can’t claim that kind of professional detachment though. This isn’t to say that every piece I produce is important to me in some sort of goofy, lop my ear off sort of way. It is to say that I don’t think I can take a completely mercenary approach to being a creative, it means that on some level the projects I take have to mean something for me.

I am not a religious person. I flirted with the notion of serious study of Taoism, but never really got past some of the kookier aspects of the system. (Taoist alchemy tends to cool a person’s interest, if that person is at all rational.) Matters of custom and community are largely absent from my life.

So the things that are important for me are quite different than for most people I know. I am a graphic designer and a cartoonist, but the vast majority of my collegiate background is dedicated to training in the fine arts. The two attitudes are almost always at war, and in direct opposition to one another. A fine artist is dedicated to the work and the process, everything else be damned. A graphic designer is a craftsman, and is dedicated to the client. If the final piece is unusable by the client, then the designer is damned.

So it is that collaboration with another person is one of the most important interactions I can imagine. To create something out of nothing, working with someone else towards that end is the equivalent of breaking bread for me. It’s a matter of trust, sustenance, cooperation, and brotherhood. One must be as willing to alter or integrate their ideas into the whole as their partner is to do the same.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve tried to co-opt my close friends into creating something with me. I cannot count the number of times that those projects have fallen apart at the seams, either. Collaboration is a tricky recipe, but the bread it makes is sweet and satisfying.

Within a month or so, I will no longer be the regular artist on Gossamer Commons. I will still contribute character designs, and “cover art” on occasion, but the lion’s share of artistic chores will be handled by someone else. I really don’t know if Eric can know how important this experience has been for me, how much doubt it erased for me. To create something like [nemesis] is one thing, but to successfully collaborate on a project with another person after so many aborted attempts elsewhere is like a kind of redemption, a validation. That the collaboration produced something as wonderful as Gossamer Commons leaves me feeling as though I’ve helped to bring grace and some light into a world that sorely needs it.

I want to thank everyone who’s been reading Gossamer Commons, whether you’ve been here from the beginning or you’ve just started. To call this group fans seems a bit of a disservice, because the calm, rational, kind, intelligent, and supportive people who seem to make up our audience can hardly be called fanatical.

I also want to thank Wednesday White, who has the thankless job of maintaining the website design, rebuilding the templates when something awful happens, and who has always been a patient, lucid, inventive and supportive member of the team.

As a collaborator, Eric Burns has been (and continues to be) a wonder and a joy. Rich dialogue, captivating characters, and an inventive use of mythology have made his scripts as much fun to draw as they have been to read. More importantly I found someone whose aesthetic sensibilities complement my own, and I found someone who has made an excellent friend over the last many moons. Eric has always been willing to listen when I’ve had problems and when I was feeling dispirited in general, and I appreciate that.

Now that we’ve shared this collaboration, it’s time for me to take my leave for a short while. There’s much I intend to do before I can come back to break bread again.

Thanks to everyone—
Greg Holkan
October 2005