So, as I’m sitting here at my Flame Con booth, selling the exact same two issues of my comics that I was selling five years ago, and I can’t help but think about those five years. The word “wasted” drifts intrusively into my thoughts. Back in 2019 I thought my comics career was finally starting. I had self-published two books that year, I had two more in the works, I had tabled at two conventions and was looking to table at even more. Late 2019 things were really kicking off for me, and I was excited about what the future may hold.
Then 2020 hit, and like everyone else my life changed drastically. All of the cons were canceled, comics as an industry stopped for months, my roommates lost their jobs and I had to move, we trapped ourselves inside, and I most certainly fell into a pretty deep depression. I canceled the books that were in production, paid the artists for the work they had done and left the books incomplete. For those still visiting this website, I let the cobwebs build up and didn’t update anything, I still doom-scrolled through social media but my posts vanished. It felt like the world was over.
Until it wasn’t. Comics started getting published again, cons awkwardly returned, but I still didn’t put apple pen to tablet. Instead I stopped thinking of myself as a writer and went about my life as a “normal” person. Putting in the hours at the day job and spending the rest of my time with friends, I traveled, I partied, I served on jury duty for the first time, a bit of a mixed bag, sure.
Then the cons started again. I know a lot of creators have love hate relationships with cons, but I’ve always loved them. There’s an energy on the show floor and especially artist alley that I can’t seem to find anywhere else. I went to NYCC again, but more importantly Flame Con. I saw my fellow creators again, friends I hadn’t seen in now literal years. And I remembered why I loved making comics.
Admittedly I’m a very antisocial person. And as a new normal emerged I made a list of my favorite hobbies and nearly all of them involve me alone in a dark room with a sweet beverage, a book and a coffee, a movie and a soda, but the thing I loved the most was collaborating on creative projects. So when table sales for Flame Con 2023 rolled around, I jumped at the opportunity with zero prep. I bought a table despite not having typed any stories in several years. Flame Con lit a flame under my ass and I began working again. Like the old saying goes I shot for the moon and though I didn’t get anything new done in time I wound up among the stars. I’ve got several new scripts ready for artists, I’m launching a new podcast with my long time collaborator, Kate, and I’m ready to get shit going again among my favorite stars. Expect much more in the coming year, because I didn’t do nothing, I grew, I lived, and now I’m ready to work!
I wrote that at my booth while waiting for Flame Con to start this year, and now a few months and an NYCC later I’m ready to share it. Fucked Up Wholesome is now three episodes in, and you should definitely go give it a listen. I have some comics in production again and you’ll see more about those on my instagram soon. I’m ready to give things a go again. Watch this space, I’m not sure what exactly will show up, but I think it will be fun. Thanks for sticking with me, and for anyone new, thanks for showing up. Making things is hard, and theres a lot of distractions out there, but I’ve found a rhythm again, and I don’t plan on giving that up.