Go, Read: Writer Matt Maxwell On Returning To Comics Here. What struck me is that Maxwell hasn't been away for very long in real-world terms but the context for making comic has changed for him personally and for the industry generally. Why people do comics is a question that gets asked more than in other art form because money or its promise is so thoroughly and quickly removed from the table for a lot of people. At the same, comics' relative low threshold for participation means that if you have an answer to that question, you can go ahead and start making in a way that doesn't feel separated from the rest of the industry by a giant wall the way some folks' describe filmmaking or fiction writing or recording music.
