Reality Amuck™

Every year during the holiday season I end up thinking less about the holidays (Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Day) and more about my birthday, since it arrives shortly after New Year’s Day. Many people naturally take the time around New Year’s Day to reflect on the past year and their hopes for the coming year. For me, this has always been a little more personal. Having a birthday on the 4th of January causes me to look at the new year a little differently. Some years I use it to look back at the previous year and think about what I could have done better, but this year I’m looking at the coming year with excitement about all the awesome things I have planned. While there’s a lot of negative stuff floating around me at the moment, for some odd reason, I’m staying a lot more positive than I generally do. This year will be my first year as a full time cartoonist. Will I still be doing this at my next birthday? I hope so. I seriously plan to be. After doing three strips a week for a full year I’m hoping that my art and writing will have improved significantly.

I have a lot of big plans for the coming year. You can already see I’ve decided to take the strip to color. While I’m not completely happy with it, it will improve over time as I learn more about shading and color selection.
I’m planning on going to more cons this year and hopefully be behind the table at a few of them. The first being MarsCon 2010 January 15-17. If things work out I’ll be sharing table space with a couple local creators from the 757 Comic & Cartoon Creators group. I’m really excited about the opportunity to sit behind the table with internet celebrity T Campbell of Penny & Aggie, Fans and Guilded Age fame and the up-and-coming Kevin Copeland, creator of Fustercluck.

I’ll be making my regular stops at SPX! and Baltimore Comic Con, but this year I plan to add Heroes Con and the Virginia Comic Con to my list as well. I haven’t heard anything about a new New England Webcomics Weekend yet, but if there is one I fully intend on being there.

At the same time I’m getting ready for all of these cons I’ll still be doing my best to get you a new strip at least three days a week plus, this year, I’m going to be focusing all of my spare time (except for when I’m playing WoW or Bejeweled Blitz) on cleaning up the archives and putting together my first book. Hopefully it will be ready for the end of this con season, or the beginning of the next one at the latest. And finally, once the archives are ready, I plan on adding a link where you’ll be able to buy high quality signed prints of your favorite strips. Currently too many of the hi-res versions of the early strips are lost to the ages, but as I uncover more of the lost works, I’ll be updating you on availability.

I’ve really enjoyed having everyone stop by and look around over the past few months, and I look forward to having a great year with you all.