AmenAmy

This is a 150 page, partially incomplete graphic novel. I worked on it October 2022 to April 2024, though the story originates from 2018. That year I was 21, and I was living alone, working as a housekeeper while the rest of my family took care of my dying alcoholic father. Life in general was bad but I hated that job in particular so fucking much; I had gotten the job when I realized I couldn’t afford art school. I often drew gory scenes and characters on hotel stationary for comfort (catharsis?), and at some point began telling myself a story: A sad girl is decapitated and becomes two distinct identities. The body runs away while the head attempts to follow. What happens in between was never quite set in stone but involved lots of blood and guts. I called it AmenAmy (from a song) as a placeholder(I could never think of anything better). I then thumb nailed the original draft in a frenzy and was completely consumed by it since. From the beginning there was a focus on stylization and composition, which would end up a defining trait along with an intense dissatisfaction for my work. I would continuously scrap progress to begin again, over and over and over. The story has literally countless drafts between then and now, each varying in style and theme, yet through them all I worked out my obsessions and anxieties. Death and the transformation of the body (stemming from my dads long illness and slow death), loneliness and depersonalization (stemming from my sheltered and isolated life) with underlying themes of repression and sexual frustration (don’t worry about it). For six tumultuous years AmenAmy was an outlet through which I processed my art as well as my life. I could just never fucking finish it. This is the closest I got, and perhaps the closest I’ll ever get to something intentional. I don’t know if it’s a good comic, but at the very least it’s interesting. I hope people get some enjoyment out of it, because I did love drawing it. After this maybe I’ll move on, or I might keep making the same thing over and over. Let’s see.