The Two Hardest Words

In honor of Halloween: The time Chelle and Jane dressed up as Catwoman and Batman.

I’ve thought of posting something for the past days about the final week of Jane’s World, but I’ve been a bit of a mess. Some days happy, some days sad, overall, feeling bittersweet about letting my friends on paper go their own way. I decided the two hardest words in the English language might be, “the end.”

How ironic, that Jane’s World, a comic strip too risque for mainstream papers twenty years ago received a send off from one of the biggest mainstream papers, The New York Times. I would be lying if I said that didn’t mean something to me. I’d like to thank George Gustines for writing the story and for chatting with me about my two decades with Jane.

Jane’s journey was my journey in some ways.

I’d been thinking for more than a year about how to bring the comic to a close. I was feeling ready to work on other projects but it’s too hard to write new characters when other characters are still filling your head with chatter. I knew I needed to let Jane go in order to write other voices.

In college I wrote this quote in my sketchbook. I’m not sure who authored the quote, but I’ve returned to it time and again when faced with big, life-changing decisions. The quote reads: “The important thing is this, to be willing to sacrifice at any moment what you are for what you can become.”

Letting go is difficult, but necessary.

The good news is that Lion Forge recently released an anthology of the twenty-year run of Jane’s World titled: Love Letters to Jane’s World and it’s available everywhere books are sold.

In other news, just yesterday, the syndicate who manages GoComics said that they’ll begin rerunning Jane’s World from the beginning. The first of the classic strips will appear November 5th. So for those of you who missed Jane’s goofy, humble beginnings… here’s your chance to catch up.

Thank you to my readers for all the supportive emails and comments. Seriously, your kind words meant the world to me.

So, here’s to letting go… and looking forward to what comes next 🙂