End of Year Report 2016

For a couple of years now I’ve been doing the end of year report and looking back, it looks like I’ve made a bit of progress with each one. I don’t feel that I have this year. I think as far as output goes, 2016 has been my most successful year… but I feel like I should be getting a lot more in print by now. I’m certainly not short of ideas or passion to complete stories. The first story I had printed this year was in the 2016 Summer Edition of FutureQuake (June/July.) That was Prison Conditions with artist Terrance Whitlow. I will admit that the art is a lot stronger than the story is and people who have read it are often confused by the ending. Nonetheless, John Freeman seemed to like it over on Downthetubes.net and I was fairly pleased with how it turned out.

I didn’t see print again until November but I did get published twice, so that’s a first for me. Chivalry Isn’t Dead was published in Something Wicked #12/2016 with art by Joe Palmer and The Heathen Masses (with artist Paul Moore, colourist Adam Brown and Letterer Rob Jones) was published by Markosia in The British Showcase Anthology. Chivalry is still my favourite thing I’ve written (which has been published!) I have mixed feelings about The Heathen Masses. I like the story, I like how it turned out, I just don’t like how the book has been handled. We’re in December now and I don’t see anyone talking about it anymore. It wasn’t on Markosia’s website (even before it shut down for maintainence) and I never got a fucking copy of it. I haven’t seen a physical copy other than a few pictures on Twitter.

Also, I took issue with the fact the book is on a variety of bookseller sites and ComiXology, but no one is credited with writing or drawing for it. It says VARIOUS for both art and writing. I tried to correct this with ComiXology, they told me they couldn’t put my name on it without the publisher’s permission. My support for the book stopped there. Bittersweet, but if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, thanks. It makes all the ball ache sting a little less (my balls are killing me because I know you didn’t read it… haha.)

So, my grand total of published pages this year was sixteen. Better than last year, absolutely nowhere near where I want to be… I’m going to sort that, hopefully. More on that towards the bottom. There were some nice reviews for things and some not so nice but it’s all over on the press page, go have a look if you’re interested.

I think one thing I’m quite proud of this year is the fact I spent some considerable time exchanging emails with various editors whilst trying to get myself some work. I surprised myself with this. I also got to speak on the phone with Todd McFarlane earlier in the year which was cool (though he never sent me the stuff he said he was going to… I’m sure he’s been busy.) It was cool to meet some artists I’ve spoken to over the internet… I met ‘em at Thought Bubble earlier this year, which was nice. It’s weird meeting people in the flesh, though. Especially in some cases where you’ve worked with them and talk via text frequently…

I started writing for Comic Bastards in August this year and I’ve written over forty reviews for them so far and I look forward to writing some more in 2017… I like writing reviews because it’s a nice change of pace from scripting or outlining comic book stories.
The Comic Book Shop which I co-own is doing fine, I haven’t really been in much lately, but things are going steady and hopefully will continue to into next year.

My plans for next year are to quit smoking (I’m 3 days into quitting and I’m doing fairly good) and use the money I save to produce some comics... Hopefully I can do it, the way I’m feeling right now I reckon I can. Although, my attention span is pretty fleeting at the moment. I’m sure I’ll get over it. Thank you to the people who have donated to my comic making fund this year, it really means a lot to me that you would do that… Hopefully I can get some more donations throughout next year that’ll help me get to where I need to be faster and I can finally start making the comics I want to make! I’m not working on anymore small press anthologies that don’t pay for the work, so making my own books and paying someone to draw them is probably my best option for making comics… I’ve talked about it at length with friends and they agree I should be making my own and not working for free, so I guess we’ll just have to see what happens over the course of the next year.

I feel this year’s report was lacking a bit but I’m putting that down to my attention span again. I’m trying to get away from my laptop so that I can watch Tom and Jerry with my kid and relax, haha.

Happy New Year and I’ll be seeing you next year!