Civil Servitude – the webcomic reborn!

With incredible loving care and lots of effort, we finally reposted the entirety of the original Civil Servitude webcomic run from 2006-2012, including Mayor Percy’s monthly “Mayor’s Memos” and the associated Jackson Press essays we also published from time to time.

To read from the beginning please click below. Or peruse the navigation for an episode title that tickles your fancy and Enjoy!

Tax Dollars At Work 1

The Picture’s Askew And Your Happiness May Be Too.

Ever been happy?

I’m sure you have. Probably many times.

Probably most of your life. Or at least more happy than not. I’m sure that’s how most normal people are.

Or at least that’s how most people who THINK they’re normal feel.

I would also assume that most people who DON’T really think about whether they’re happy or not or normal or not probably are. Both happy AND normal. If you don’t question yourself or your life and circumstances then you’re probably pretty content with things. You’re not looking for something better.

That’s probably close enough to happiness for this discussion.

It’s when you start to question things, start to doubt things, that you realize something isn’t right, or is at least slightly askew enough to be noticeable, like an old picture hanging on the wall that just won’t stay straight.

So you straighten it.

You compare the top and bottom of the frame with the floor and ceiling, making sure all the planes are parallel and even. Then you let go. It seems fixed, it looks normal.

So you go on about your business, living your life and pretty much ignoring that picture day in and day out as it dissolves into the background of your life. This is normalcy. This might even be contentment. Hell, let’s take a chance and call it happiness! Whatever we call it, it is an existence of smooth sailing, with no major obstacles, your life on autopilot as you cruise smoothly at thirty thousand feet.

Everything seems normal.

Then it catches your eye.

The picture.

It looks different. It’s slightly askew.

Again.

It’s planes are no longer quite parallel to its bounding floor and ceiling surfaces.

But you’re in a hurry so you leave it alone. And over time the annoyance builds up until it drives you crazy every time you walk by it. And then you realize it bugs you even when you don’t see it. Soon it’s all you can think about, all day, every day, wondering why the picture’s crooked again.

How did it get that way? What the hell’s wrong with your house? Is the foundation shifting? Settling? Sinking? You wonder if there are any cracks in the walls or ceiling that you haven’t noticed that might explain the once again crooked picture. You wonder if maybe you imagined the whole thing, that maybe the picture’s not crooked at all. Maybe you’re seeing things. Maybe you’re just going crazy.

Then you get home and there it is, the slightly askew picture.

So you straighten it.

Again.

And your temporary doubt about contentment and happiness is once again assuaged, your life again content and happy and structured and orderly. When you’re happy – or think you’re happy – you don’t question whether you’re happy or not.

It’s when you start to question things, start doubting and asking yourself “Am I really happy?” that you realize the very act of asking those questions means that you might not be. Or at least you’re doubtful enough to need to take a closer look, make a double check. 

It may only be temporary, that doubt and uncertainty, but it’s still there.

The picture is still crooked.

Again.

Why?

That is the question you have to truthfully answer to and for yourself.

Originally published on Medium.

The End

My renewal for the Civil Servitude website comes up in November. I do not intend to renew it.

Why?

Why indeed? That is the biggest question I am wrestling with now.

First off, there’s the money.

It costs $200 a year to keep Civil Servitude up and running. That money could be better spent elsewhere. For example, I have a child starting college next year: The Wife and I will be eating rice and beans every night once both kids are in college.

Next, there is the fact of waste.

Civil Servitude was never a heavily hit site with lots of web traffic, even in the prime of the cartoon. We never saw more than 100 hits a day at our peak, let alone thousands. So maintaining a web presence to post my inane musings to a few dozen people (at best!) is both wasteful and a bit narcissistic of me.

To be so self-absorbed that I think people will come to my site to read my BS is a bit much, even for me. Now I know people occasionally stop by to check out my stuff, but most of them are family and friends using my essays as a way to gauge what’s going on in the lives of my family and me. I can assure you there was never anything close to professional interest in my writings.

The whole concept of “build it and they will come” is bullshit.

But in a way I’m glad it’s ending.

I feel like I’m ready to start a new chapter in my writing life, ready to try something different, to break out of my rut.

To change. To evolve. To grow.

It’s all any human being really wants, right?

I’m trying to become someone new, someone more interesting and adventurous. I have lived too long a stable and sedate existence, plodding through each day like a thousand others before them. Something’s got to change, something new must emerge. It is new experiences that spark creativity and build interesting perspectives into one’s character.

So I am letting go of Civil Servitude and moving onto something new. That phase of my life is over.

Yet, even though it was barely successful at best, posting to Civil Servitude taught me commitment and responsibility in my writing and drawing.

I always had a self-imposed deadline of Sunday night to post new content. And back in the old days, when the cartoon first started, it was thrice per week. I had commitments!

But that became too much work and my creative cartoon well was not THAT deep, so it went to twice a week with the brief blog in between cartoons on Monday and Friday. Then it devolved even further, to one cartoon and maybe an essay per week, if I was feeling real productive.

And by the end the cartoon was a full part-time job, taking 10-20 hours per week to write, draw, ink, scan, edit, and post. And in the end it turned out the essays were all anyone was really interested in. And despite the Mayor’s Monthly Memos about the state of the city and his inane Twitter tweets, stuff that was always fun for me to write, the Creative well finally ran dry.

In the end all I was left with were my essays, the only thing I’ve always had, the heart of my creative core.

So now Civil Servitude is expensive overkill for my essay-obsessed outlet. Why pay for something when there are free blogs I could use?

I found a new medium for my writing. It’s appropriately called Medium.

I am posting what I think to be my better work there. And I’m actively reading and commenting on other people’s work there, too, trying to connect with other writers as I become part of that community. The quality of the writing there is very good, much of it better than mine. So I’m also hoping it pushes me to write better stuff, to create work with more introspection, that is more thought provoking.

I’m pretty sure I’m capable of it.

And that is why Civil Servitude will end.

If you’re still interested in the drivel I have to spew or you still have a gnawing curiosity over whether or not I will finally go more insane than I feel now, you can probably find me somewhere else out there in the interwebs.

But I’ll let YOU find ME.

Because if you do then we’ll both know it’s because you’re genuinely interested. Shoot me an email when you’ve found me, to let me know you bothered. (cljackson99ATgmail.com).

Be forewarned: the stuff I will post now will most likely be more serious stuff.

I think my Candyland Gauntlet days of general goofiness are gone, at least for a while. I’m taking a different, more intimate and mature approach to my writing. I want it to be personal and honest as I try to grow as a writer, maturing and refining my voice.

That’s not to say there won’t be funny or amusing tales anymore; it’s just that they will probably be darker and more cynical in tone and content. That’s how I feel these days, so that’s what I write about. I am documenting my personal journey of growth – or retardation, depending on who you ask and their perspective of me.

And you are allowed to observe and comment as long as you don’t judge.

That’s my only rule.

This is my life and these are my mistakes to make. And there may be some things that you feel are mistakes which I do not; that’s where the rule comes in.

I am trying to live my own life and judgment doesn’t help anyone.

It should be an easy rule to follow, depending on what I have to say.

I’m trying to be more honest these days. I have to if I want to be a good writer.

And I want to be a good writer, a better writer. And a lot of the things I would like to write about, the honest things that absorb much of my thought and attention, can often be painful.

We should all be careful now…

So long, and thanks for all the fish!