I’ve done webcomics for like 15 years, but I’ve never ever had a dream that was about them, even tangentially. Whenever I dream, my comics don’t exist. My theory about this is that my brain’s just too damn tired of thinking about and juggling all my comic stuff in my headspace during the day, and so it stays the hell away from that shit when it can.
Until last night, I guess. I’d been up for about an hour this “morning” when I suddenly remembered the dream I had.
It was about Ruth.
Well, technically, it was about a real-life girl I based Ruth on. Maggie and I were visiting in a place that would later be identified as her parents’ home, and we were hanging out with some old friends. One of them was, well, Ruth. I kept on telling myself, man, you keep on forgetting that Ruth was based on a real person! That’s kind of weird!
(Ruth was not, in fact, based on a real person.)
I wish I could take a screencap of my brain. Ruth didn’t look like my art, but like a real life flesh person that’s a dead ringer for how I draw her. Or at least how I used to. She probably looked more like Roomies! Ruth than current Ruth, if that makes any sense, as they’re not that different. But, you know, redhead with shoulder-length hair and glasses. Rounder features than how I draw her, but most real faces don’t have those sharp corners. In person, she seemed fairly happy and down-to-earth.
I spent the whole dream feeling guilty about it. I had taken this real person and stolen them for my comic and made them depressed and then killed them off (in Roomies!). And decided she was into ladies, I guess. I wondered in my dream if the real Ruth was secretly depressed and into ladies.
During my dream I kept on trying to sneak pictures of her to prove that the real her exists, but she kept on catching me doing it and embarrassing me. I wanted a better picture than the one my brain was sure I had somewhere in my old photo albums.
When I had woken up and later remembered my dream, for a second I was all, oh man, holy shit, that girl I based Ruth off o– ohhhh, right, Ruth was completely made up. STUPID LYING BRAIN. You know, like when you get up and are relieved to learn that, no, you are not late to turn in your homework after all.
I’m off the hook!