ComicLab Interview - Talking about Burnout, Mental Health, & Space Camp

13 months ago, I sent a question to ComicLab.

“How have you coped with building a sustainable comics career that is your entire source of income and then becoming burnt out with the workload and/or the subject matter of the work itself?”

Lemme back up. ComicLab is a weekly podcast about making comics (“And making a living from comics!”) by longtime veterans and pioneers of the webcomics industry, Dave Kellett and Brad Guigar. Matt and I call their show ComicDad because… because Brad and Dave are my Comics Dads.

Man, I could write a whole essay just on these guys and how fundamental they were in my webcomics education back when I was inching my way into the industry in the mid ‘00s. Over the last 15-or-so years, they’ve co-hosted a number of podcasts with their colleagues and I’m pretty sure I’ve listened to all of them. More than long-distance mentors, they also just make me laugh out loud. Like, not a demure “heh” under my breath that wouldn’t disturb anyone at a library, but the full-on spontaneous laughter that fills up your stomach and explodes from your mouth. It’s the kind of laughing that would get you glared at or scooted away from on the bus. They’re smart, they’re experienced in this weird-ass career, and they’re funny. They’ve felt like my close friends much longer than we’ve actually interacted with each other because every week I tune in and when they make me laugh (which they always do), my brain gets that shot of serotonin that says “You are hanging out with your friends” It would have remained a parasocial relationship except somehow in the last few years I’ve behaved well enough in front of them at comic-cons that I think we might actually be friendly-peers now? Like, not quite FRIEND-friends, but, y’know, we all make a point of seeing each other when we’re at the same con and they had me on their podcast a while ago. 

Ahk! I said I could write an essay about them and that’s what this’ll turn into if I don’t get back on topic. 

That topic being: Burn Out. Mental Health. The Thing You Love is Killing You. Being “Successful”. Having Your Soul Destroyed. Being Co-Workers with Your Spouse and Your Entire Livelihood Depends on This Thing You Don’t Want to Do Anymore. Surviving Creativity.*

*(That is a nod to another of my beloved comics podcasts that Guigar was on a few years ago with Scott Kurtz, Surviving Creativity. You know this is a good joke because I had to explain it.)

Yeah, so 13 months ago I sent my question to ComicLab (ComicDad) and if you listen to their August 24th, 2019 episode, titled Tell us about your First Time Story (printing books that is), at the 41 minute mark you’ll hear  a really lovely conversation they have about the realities of being a full-time creative and getting burnt out and how to pivot from there.

I didn’t know this when I listened to it for the first time, but I was just weeks away from checking in with my shrink to see if my Bipolar medication needed to be adjusted and instead being (basically) ordered to enroll in the hospital’s Intensive Outpatient Program (Or, as Matt and I call it: Space Camp). 

Now, here we are. 13 months later. A month at Space Camp, six months in the same hospital’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy program, and so many sessions of Mindfulness later, I’m doing a lot better. NOT CURED. Better. Better enough that I reached out to ComicDad (ComicLab) and asked if they really meant it when they ended that one episode with a request for me to check in later and let them know how things shake out. 

Which is how I came to be on their September 19th episode, Special Guest Erika Moen Discusses Mental Health.

While we do talk about some heavy subjects, Brad, Dave, and I have a pretty good distribution of jokes and laugh breaks throughout, so it’s not like this one big BummerFest. These two have elevated making digs at each other into an absolute art form that you need to experience to understand.

You know how you find a creator you like and you listen to a handful of interviews they do and they all kind of… sound the same because they’re covering the same subjects each time? If you’ve gone through that experience listening to me on podcasts in the past, let me encourage you to check out this one. Brad, Dave, and I have a real conversation that's covering fresh ground. I opened up a lot, although, obviously, there’s still a lot more that I didn’t (couldn’t) share yet because I’m still in recovery and I’m still processing and I’m just not ready to yet. Maybe someday. Maaaaaaaybe soooooomeday. But we still had plenty to chew on for this talk, nearly two hours worth!

I hope you find this interview interesting, I hope you learn something new from it, and I hope it makes you laugh. 

I hope you go back and listen through the archives of ComicLab (ComicDad) and find a spark of joy in it, they way its sparked joy in me every week for the last few years. 

I hope, I hope, I hope!

 Erika