This 3 minute clip, in Spanish, shows a lot of the visuals of the coolest comic book series I ever read, Seekers into the Mystery. It was written by longtime comic book writer, J.M. DeMatteis. This fifteen issue series was published by Vertigo way back in 1996-1997.
"It's raining grace..."
There are some crazy anime ads on this link that you need to ignore, just to warn you, and usually a kaptcha or two to get to each issue. But you can read Seekers into the Mystery, start to finish, issue by issue.
Either you're a seeker in life, or you're not. If you're someone who went to church as a kid, and found that a lot of people seemed really hypocritical, but thought there must be some deep truths somewhere buried in the religion somewhere, you're probably a seeker. Or if you had an interest in the supernatural as a kid, if you wondered about ghosts, psychic abilities, mystical ideas, UFO's, Atlantis, and similar weird stuff, you're probably a seeker. Or if you felt like an outsider, and just seemed to look at the world differently, and more intensely, than other people around you, you are probably a seeker. If most people around when you were a kid seemed kind of shallow, and didn't think about life near as deeply as you, you know what I'm talking about. If this paragraph sounds completely corny and stupid to you, then you are not one.
Whatever else went on in my life as a kid, I was a seeker from early on. My childhood home was always a place of unnecessary drama and thick psychological tension. Living in that world, I spent a lot of time really depressed and scared as a kid. My home was a place I didn't want to be most of the time. Due to this I wound up really shy, and afraid to make decisions in general, because pretty much everything I did seemed to land me in trouble. I was a pretty good kid, I didn't go out looking for trouble, I tried to avoid it. But I always seemed to be in trouble anyway. Because of this, I questioned life itself from a really young age. I wondered what might happen in the future that would make the emotional pain of childhood worthwhile. I was a seeker from the earliest age I can remember. I sensed that there had to be something that made life make sense, some underlying reason that so many people had to endure all kinds of hardships, particularly as kids.
Basically, I wondered, "What is the point to life? Why is there so much pain and fear and darkness in the world? Is there some underlying thing, some secret knowledge, that helps make sense of it all? I spent my life looking for answers to these basic questions. My 20 years riding a BMX bike every day helped me evolve in some sense, and learn a lot about myself and the world. But I also read at least 250 or 300 books over the years, mostly non-fiction, seeking answers.
In 1996, I was a furniture mover in Huntington Beach, working for a local company called Happy Movers. Our office was in the old Seacliff shopping center, at the corner of Main and Yorktown. Our boss had an office in the back of the center, and our trucks were parked in the lot out back. Close to our office was a small comic book shop run by a middle aged woman. I started wandering in there and checking out the comics, when we got finished with our jobs early. I was never a comic book guy, and not a fan of superheroes in general. But I liked a lot of the art, so I wandered around, checking out the comics coming out in that era, 1996. Soon I started talking to the owner, and she began to turn me on to different comics, beyond the standard superhero stuff. She suggested Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which was pretty cool. I also bought a couple of issues of Sin City, because I liked the pure black and white style of the art.
Then one day I saw a comic called Seekers into the Mystery, I think issue #3 had just come out. The title caught my attention first, and then the artwork. I bought the first three issues and read them. As someone who had already been seeking a deeper meaning of life, Seekers was right up my alley. I followed it, issue by issue, as it came out, and collected and read all 15 issues. I loved this comic series.
I've only read four complete comic series in my life, Sandman, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and Seekers into the Mystery. Seekers is the only one I actually followed, issue by issue, as it came out. The others I read as full graphic novels, years later.
Seekers into the Mystery is the story of Lucas Hart, a mostly washed up Hollywood screenwriter, who likes to hike in Griffith Park. He runs into this weird homeless guy named Charlie Limbo, and things begin to get weird. If you're a seeker, someone who needs to find out what the point to life itself is, I highly recommend reading Seekers into the Mystery. It's a beautifully crafted, well written, and very enlightening story, combined with great art as a graphic novel.
This comic series popped into my mind a little over a month ago, and I looked it up, to see if anyone had the full series. I wanted to buy the issues on eBay or somewhere, and read them again. Since it's such an obscure comic series, it never occurred to me that it might all be readable online. But it is. When I found it, I read the whole thing in two days, and it really inspired me (again), creatively.
Almost three weeks ago, after re-reading Seekers, I got the idea to write a book called The Poet, featuring a guy named Thomas, a character that's been slowly evolving in my head for 25 years or so. In 17 days, I hand wrote 78 pages of this idea for a novel. Then I realized that Thomas is me, but if I was cool. The whole story was just too much of my life, very thinly veiled. About three days ago, I realized that I just needed to write my own story of how I became a poet in my early 20's, and a writer overall. So I just began writing that book, my own story called The Poet.
Along with some black and white doodle drawings incorporating the female form, that's what I'm up to these days.
I've been just been scraping by since my backpack got stolen a couple of months ago, and I lost my phone, laptop, and most of my art supplies. I can't upload photos, I still haven't got a new phone or laptop, and I've just been scraping by money wise. I'm not hinting or asking for more help, simply describing the current situation. I should be able to order a "new," refurbished laptop soon.
I've been really busy creatively, although a lot of it has been offline. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm going to use this blog to write about what I'm up to, for my one Club White Bear member, and my 5 Patreon supporters, and a handful of other people.
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