Invisible

The other day me and Ilyn had a quick dinner at David's at Puregold here in San Pablo. As we were entering the place one of the servers opened the door to let my wife in. I was following closely behind her in my cane, but as soon as my wife was inside, the server let go of the door, closing it almost in my face.

Curiously enough, similar events happen at restaurants. Sometimes the servers would get my wife's order only and leave. Sometimes when it's me that asks for the bill, they always give the bill to my wife and almost always only talk to her. When I ask for the menu, they always give it to her. It's like I'm not there at all.

I don't think I'm being ignored because I'm mean... I'm never mean at restaurants or anyone who works there (unless they give me reason to). So I'm scratching my head whenever this happens. What could possibly be the reason?

Am I really just invisible? Like I'm not there? Am I so really visually insignificant that I'm easy to ignore?

It also happens a lot elsewhere, like when I line up for something. People always go in front of me like I'm a post or a part of the building. Like I have perfectly no reason to be there.

It happens professionally too. I'm a comic book creator but I spend a lot of my time as an inker. I've been inking for either Marvel or DC for almost 20 years. That's a long time, man. But up to this day I'm not sure if anyone actually knows me for it. I really haven't gotten any emails as far as my inking is concerned. I've never been invited to US conventions in my capacity as an inker. The comics press seems completely uninterested in what inkers have to say. Add to that inkers are no longer included in solicitations and only occasionally appear on covers. When I didn't get invited to the Darth Vader Annual signing at Greenhills last December, it really made me feel bad. It felt like my contribution was inconsequential, unimportant, non-essential. Invisible.

In spite of that, I still very much enjoy inking. It is the job of the inker to disappear anyway, and help the penciller reach the full potential of his or her work. I like to think I do that for Leinil and I hope to continue to do so in the future.