I still don’t understand. “You!” the vendor calls out again in a friendly but boisterous way, standing behind the cobalt felt of the con table. Their word points to me in a way the fingers resting on the glossy graphic novel covers do not.
I’m frozen to the spot while I melt in the Toronto heat. My hair’s damp and my nametag askew. I just delivered a thirty-minute presentation on the floor above us. Were they there?
They grip the first book on the stack and lift it for me to see. The cover boasts an anthology of comics about queer men and body positivity.
It clicks. They’re Nicole, the rep I’ve been emailing back and forth with for five months. They squeal. “I knew I recognized you!”
It’s the summer of 2019. I am a digital artist and an independent scholar at an academic conference that I found out about online. I’ve been publishing comics as part of anthologies for three years now, finding opps by combing through tumblr blogs and subreddits curated by zinesters and other fringe publishers. The presentation I did upstairs was on sex/education webcomics and their online anti-fans, riding the high of a sweet mixture of digital culture and sexuality studies that had been the majority of my work in my undergrad. Hell, the paper I did for my capstone comparing the rhetoric of bondage and domination with video game rhetoric became the writing sample in the package I sent to St. Cloud State. At this point, I’ve been accepted and am starting there in less than a month.
In all aspects of my life really I’m simpatico with the internet—the ‘net is how I’m finding my way through the world and being seen for my work. I’m an artist! I’m doing about ten projects a year. I’m a scholar! I’m following everyone I network with in real life on Twitter—and they’re following me back. Views on my uploads on Academia.edu and ResearchGate are in the double digits every month. I’m a writer! I’ve been a guest reader and honored contributor for online queer mags for years now. I’m a traveler! Solo, I’ve traveled across the Midwest and national borders with the web as my guide.
I know the computer has become part of who I am. But something unsettling flits at the edge of my vision. I try to draw it out but cannot see it, in the same way I cannot see myself without some reflection.