While browsing the 4thletter, David Brothers pointed out the end of an interesting strip. DAR, created by Erica Moen, is a strip that ran for six years, and dealt with love, relationships, and life’s little vulgarities. (Warning: Mildly NSFW)
Moen can explain the Raison d’être of the comic far better than I can. In her “The End of Dar” blog post, she writes:
It started my sophomore year of college as a 20 year old student and has seen me through my first love, finding my queer identity, my first heartbreak, my first rebounds, traveling to another country, depression and medication, having stupid adventures, meeting the man I’d eventually marry, re-structuring “my identity”, graduation, working in the real world while struggling to keep making art which brings us to today where I’m a 26 year old self-employed happily married woman.
Oh, and I guess there were some dick ‘n’ fart jokes in there too.
Having a weekly deadline has taught me to draw more efficiently and the limited space of six panels has forced me to communicate my ideas as concisely as possible. It’s helped me find my voice and opened up a helluva lot of doors to me professionally. I am extremely fortunate to have gathered a big enough readership that I can mostly live off of this goofy little journal. Most importantly, this comic has been directly responsible for me meeting my heroes, some of my very dearest friends and especially my husband.
I’m extremely grateful for the wonderful opportunities and experiences and connections that have come into my life because of this ridiculous comic.
After six years, I feel emotionally and mentally ready to move on.
The last comic provides a great summary of the feel of the strip, but I wanted to share a few of my favorite strips. I’m not quite through poking through the archives yet, but these are the standouts:
Luckily, the end of DAR is not the end of Erica Moen’s promising career. She has other projects in the works – hopefully, one of those things will be a new web strip.
(All Images/Comics from the DAR Website)
Official Site [4L]
Official Site [DAR Comic]
The End of Dar [DAR Comic]
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
