Another year come and gone. Lately I'm seeing a lot of people expressing quite a lot of negativity towards the last 365 years.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it was that bad a year. Hell, if anything the last two months alone have been great for me.
Remember that warehouse job that I wasn't really crazy about?
I still have it!
Probably not the answer you were expecting however at a recent evaluation both my boss and I have agreed that this has been my best year at the company. However I also think that my growth as an employee has been quite substantial.
This while we've had to undertake a new Operating System and I've been having to pull a lot of double-duty to pick up some slack that's been going on. At times it can be a bit hectic but I'm trying to look at the positives:
1) The constant activity actually makes the day go by a lot quicker
2) The more it goes on...the better it makes me look.
Returned to Calgary Expo this year and now that they've got everything under one roof, I can safely say I can see this show only getting better and better. No more running back and forth between there and the Big Four Building like it was for so many years. Now it's all in one building and that makes for a much better experience.
I got to show off some completed pages for my comic "Stan & Me" which had some pros tell me that it looked very good and very promising. One writer (I won't mention their name) even took a look at some of the fan-comics I had done with Marcelo & Carl and I could tell by the look on his face, he thought they were official DC projects for a second. He was so blown away by Marcelo's work that we even recorded a message saying that he hoped to work with him in the future.
As usual at that show I got some books signed, picked up some good artwork (Dad & I were one number off in the draw after a sketch-duel for some art) and while we haven't purchased tickets for next year, we'll both be there. If that same pro from last year is there I plan on showing him (And several others) something else from this past year:
Back in 1993 I wrote in my grade 2 journal that I wanted to be a "comoc book maker".
I made comics in the past but those had all been strictly web-based. To actually make a whole 22-page comic that I (and others) can hold in their hands...it takes a lot of work, a lot of going over pages, a lot of patience and also a lot of worry at times.
However there was nothing quite like that day in November when I had the books delivered to me at work and nervously opening that box like I was Charlie Bucket opening that Wonka bar to find a Golden Ticket.
I remember that Saturday going out and thinking, "What if they don't want it? What if they think it just won't sell?"
Well, there have been stores in Calgary that were more than happy to buy copies off of me and I've been doing very well with selling directly to individuals who see it and are more than willing to pay $10.
The price might seem a little steep to you and personally, I understand. But also understand this: I paid for every page of Marcelo's work, as I did with Carl's work. I also paid for getting the book printed. The book also has no backing from any major publisher, has no advertising etc etc. I would like to try to make just a little profit off of this.
To that end, I'm hoping that next year I can attend maybe one small show for local creators here in Calgary. Yes, I'll have only one book to sell, that won't be a lot, but I also know that the book is eye-catching and when people pick it up, they're impressed by the quality of work. I had one friend who purchased it who was blown away by the level of production.
Even one of my uncles was caught off guard at how professional it looked.
When people see this comic, for lack of a better word, they marvel at it.
Needless to say, Marcelo and Carl hit it out of the park on this one.
So while that was the only comic work I put out this year I should note that I kept up with last year's goal of one script per month. I was hoping to outdo myself and get 13 by the end of the year but the timing just wasn't on my side. One thing I want to work on in 2026 is better time management.
But I can already predict that 2026 will have more put out than before. Naturally, not even a month after getting "Stan & Me" finished, I was asking Marcelo if he wanted to do more and he was.
I sent him three scripts that I had completed and he said that he liked all of them and ranked them in order of preference however...I had this sense that maybe they didn't excite him.
So I sent him another script called Sneak. When he responded the next week that he loved it, I knew we might have a winner on our hand.
Another thing that excites me about it is that if we get it done, I might be able to get this published as a smaller sort of digest magazine and that could be another thing I'll be able to sell at small shows. When Marcelo got his copy of our comic, that feeling of being able to hold the comic in his hands really came through.
I won't go into too much detail about this one however I will tell you no matter what language you speak, you'll be able to enjoy this; there's going to be no dialogue, the entire story is going to have the pictures tell the story.
I've also got another comic in the works by Rory Chapman titled Cut Man. Again, from one of the scripts I've written over the last two years. This one was from February, I believe and was one that I'd wanted to do for a while: A boxing story. The way we do the art is going to be a bit interesting and I'm really eager to see how this turns out.
I started to feel a bit burnt out with writing towards the end of the month but I think also because I was going on vacation before Christmas might have attributed to that. I knew I couldn't get the planned story done on time so I decided to simply make a one page story. It's what I hear the pros say to do all the time to aspiring writers all the time so I just did that.
My trip back to Ontario for Christmas sucked.
OK, let me try that again.
The flight back to Ontario sucked. Leaving at 1AM, stuck in a middle seat and I'm a tall dude, I need leg room badly. By the time my parents picked me up, I felt so uncomfortable I thought I was going to pass out. When we got back to their house, I think it was almost 9:30AM. I remember just heading up to the guest room, climbing into bed and actually still being so uncomfortable that for a while I couldn't sleep. However it eventually came and the rest of the trip was quite pleasant.
Got to see friends and family I hadn't seen in a few years. However one rather special meeting happened a few days after Christmas. Remember how I wrote in Grade 2 that I wanted to write comics (or comocs, as I believed it was spelled at the time)? Well, I was able to find that same teacher, told him about the comic and how, among dedications to my family, it was also dedicated to "every English and Creative Writing teacher who nurtured me along the way". This teacher was at the top of the list for that category as far as I was concerned.
We met up, talked about what we had been up to over the last 25+ years and it was great. Along with the comic, I brought him baked goods and...he brought me comics! I told him about how those comics he had in his class were always such a treat and to for him to bestow me with more was an even bigger treat. You can tell they're old comics when on the back of one of them, they're advertising the new movie "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".
If anything I can't wait to return to the area and show him what else is in store.
One final thing that happened this year...I discovered that I'm really good at making truffles. Seriously, I thought they were good but recently I'd gotten into making these wonderful egg-nog truffles, coated with graham cracker crumbs which make the perfect Yuletide treat.
I even made a special batch of dark-chocolate and orange truffles for my parents before I left. The secret is put orange zest in the cream and let that steep for a bit before reheating and adding to the chocolate and then adding fresh orange juice.
Eh, I'll save the recipe for another post.
2025 may not have been a perfect year (I know there are things that didn't go my way or how I wanted them to go) but I'm choosing to focus on the positive right now and carry that positivity into the future.
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