about hole boy the process about VOID VOID annotated comments credits about the author

Feel free to e-mail me any comments you might have on hole boy. I can't promise to reply to all of them, and I certainly can't post all of them here, but I do read them all. hole boy has won An Apple a Day, The Mining Company's "Personal Best", the Internet Cartoons Forum Highlight, The Great Goo Award, and fourth place in The 1996 High Five Student Contest. I feel like I want to cry, but I'm too stunned. The shock of experiencing hole boy (over and over again for the past hour and a half. . .) has left me shaking. It's so powerful, I don't know what to say, but I feel like I have to say something to let you know what a profound effect it had on me. I just wish I could express what I'm feeling right now. All I can say is wow. It's amazing. -- Amy for once i wish i had e-mail I am visiting home and having the pleasure of using my little brother's newest example of "how it pays to play by the rules" gift at school i haven't bothered to figure out the university's e mail system for the firm anti-technology beliefs (read "Ishmael") but i connected with your web site...you have a true grasp.."hole" whispers to me i am sending my tribute to you in this little electronic box for what it's worth -- kate god. that was an experience. simple but brutal, powerful. honest and personal. clean, raw, and clear. it was simply amazing. i don't know. it moved me so much. the way it was arranged, drawn, everything about it was just so strong, dark. poetic and artistic. it put me in awe. i myself saw no flaws. just pure dark forboding energy, a clean clear expression. i cant say much more. i wont forget it for a long, long time. -- ChozoTaro Great, great, great job. ... It really DOES read like written-for-computer as opposed to drawn and scanned. You're on to something. -- Joyce Brabner, Our Cancer Year ...a stylish design sense, and poetic storytelling. -- Internet Cartoons Forum ...a brutally powerful, imagistic piece of work with a rare glimpse into real human feeling... it moved me very much.... -- Nate It's really powerful... I didn't understand it fully, but I don't think that I have to understand it to appreciate it! -- Lizzie I was referred to your site by a friend, one who suffers with depression, as do I, and was completely touched by it's raw honesty. As much as you were proud, but painfully objective about your own work, I can tell you from my perspective as both artist and "being" that I loved it. -- Amy An excellent work. I fancy myself to be a bit of a writer and found not only your comic but your poem to be very good. The combination of the two transformed 'very good' to excellent. After failing out of law school in my third year I went through a deep and thorough depression. Thanks to the love from my mom and my friends, I kept it together through the deepest depths; what would have been my graduation day...similar to your May 20 (mine was May 13th, 1995). -- Mike I'm so very impressed by your site, I can barely articulate it with words. I'm a web site designer ... (I've been an illustrator and designer for 10 years) and you've proven that comics can and will be a part of the net experience. ... Please make a point of submitting your address to the Comics Journal. They should be covering this in their magazine. It's time that net comics presence is acknowledged. -- Michael holeboy. alomst exactly one year too late. But then. that's your life, not mine. nice presentation of it as well.... most people dont actually do anything with their angst except wallow in it... i dunno if it's art, but i like it. -- Erik You moved me. ... "hole boy's lack of a coherent storyline is only the most obvious of its many flaws." coherency was not needed to communicate its message. its flaws helped make it real if you polish depression will any depression be left? some art is best left RAW. -- Shawn The film noir of the web, hole boy takes visitors on a roller coaster ride through his warped world. Edgy black and white illustrations suck you in and spit you out. -- The High Five Award Page I finally just got on a good/fast enough computer to take a good look at "holeboy". ... Wow. Um. Yeah. -- Sara Having just recently shuffled out of a serious (and I hope solitary) depression along with Vitamin P (p for prozac), your pages rang quite true. -- John I have just wandered through "hole boy". It certainly is a very expressive work of art - I think You underestimate the accomplishment You have made. -- Joachim I found your Web comic "hole boy" to be quite powerful. The stark drawings really captured the emptiness of clinical depression. My wife suffered from severe clinical depression for many years... In her worst moments she would drone on and on about the "emptiness" and "holes" she felt in her being. -- JTK Damn. I've been through the thang twice, once for impact and once for design. Damn. I think i said that already. -- Rob I'm forty five years old, a professional artist, web designer, and businessman. I have suffered from depression for forty years, although I wasn't diagnosed professionally until 18 months ago. ... I left your website with MORE than when I came. That is the greatest compliment an artist can receive. To touch, to enlighten, to inspire. -- Lone Wolf I like your Hole Boy comic - the images are strong, inventive, wrenching, and personal. -- Carl Up until the early 20th century comics were considered an artform, as relevant and intellectually challenging as anything else out there. For me, your site is proof that it can be that way again, and that the internet may perhaps be the perfect medium. -- Greg Tuft, Falling Dream I saw your link to your comic on asd, and have just read it. Despite the flaws you pointed out, I think that on the whole the comic strip is excellent and I'm amazed a depressive had the patience to see it through :-) -- David I checked out your comic "hole boy". I like it. I particular like the layout and the design. It is indeed one of the first legitimate web comics I have seen in comic book form. -- Farhenheit i like his look. i like his evolution from a larger hole also. i'm impressed by the web design - esp the frames. that's the first useful frames page i've seen. -- Tony Great work! Despite your own critique of your work, I found it to be phenomenal. I think it was more of a catharsis than a contest entry... the segments formed a story that one could not tell alone. It blew me away. -- Matt Wow! That is incredible. I guess there's nothing else to say. -- Tory Back to top of page