The Year in Things
Let’s be up front about this. 2023 was not1 a2 good3 year4 over5 here6.
With that out of the way, I wanted to do a kind of year in review in ‘things’. There’s stuff here I’ve probably already written about, but I’m going to assume that most people skim these missives and I’ll just blunder ahead with immaculate confidence.
I’ve chosen bits that I’ve done based on how “photogenic”7 they are, so this isn’t a complete catalogue of my many roaring successes and riotous good times this year.
January!
Back in January, I was working with Superbrothers on JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time, lending brain-capacity to the production of the game. I wrote about it in more detail here, and made the dumbest bit of dev-team-in-joke audio, which is linked at the bottom. Good stuff.
February!
Amongst putting in hours the ol video game mill, I did hourly comics about my day going for a walk, a burger and struggling to get a file to work. Thrilling.
I made my wife a couple of really nice and well-thought-out valentines cards;
And we climbed Cader Idris in mid-February. It was COLD8.
March!
I spent time getting my hands dirty and my brain relaxed with clay and pixels. That was good fun, and gave me a nice idea for this illustration I ended up doing for a Michael Rosen poem;
I also spent a lot of emotional and physical energy trying to nail down likenesses of Gavin Williamson and Matt Hancock, again for a Michael Rosen Poem for the National Education Union magazine. Hancock has such a distinctive look, I found it really tricky to get. I think I managed to capture his ‘essence’ eventually, but you should see how many versions I had to go through to get to this point. Williamson on the other hand was relatively easy.
In March, I finally stopped making the Make It Then Tell Everybody podcast. I wrote about it at length here. It’s been surprising to get some really lovely notes from people letting me know what the show meant to them, and equally surprising to continue to regularly get messages from people pitching themselves as a guest.
April!
April was a good month.
I spent a bunch of time in Canada at the end of April and the start of May to get over to TCAF9 and10 then spend some quality time in the woods of Quebec at Superbrothers HQ. Good, good times with good, good folk.
May!
I was home for a few days before heading back to Denmark to teach at The Animation Workshop again. My travel day was BUSY. Up really early to drive to Manchester, a flight to Copenhagen, a train to Viborg and then about 15 minutes to eat some food before I started drawing each and every performer competing in the Eurovision Song Contest while they performed. I’d recommend better ways of relaxing after a full day travelling, but I can’t think of any. I really enjoy this sort of thing. I also enjoyed eventually compiling all my drawings into this cool video with a music by meeee;
June!
I was really excited to be asked to give the graduating speech at The Animation Workshop for the Graphic Storytelling class of 201911. My speech was in the form of a comic that I drew and performed for them. Good times, good people, good luck out there!
July!
July was a month in which I got my head down and tried to get some work done. I made good progress with the next graphic novel I’m working on with David Gaffney. It’s been trundling along underneath everything this whole time, I’ll have more to share soon enough. It’s a good one. Really weird, dark and touching.
I also put the updated version of the blade pen I make on sale in July. I’m still really pleased with the design and production of this pen, I think it’s really good12.
If you’ve met me in person I might have shown you the accidental knuckle tattoo I have from slashing my finger open with a very sharp blade while making these pens. How does that happen? people ask. Notice the perfectly round (and deceptively deep) incision in the palm of my hand below13. That’s how; I’m blasé about personal safety it seems.
August.
August was a bad month14.
September!
I was back in Denmark at The Animation Workshop to lead the first class in Minicomics with the newest students. That was good fun. Lots more early mornings and long days travelling.
My flight home from Copenhagen was cancelled, which meant that I got to go to a BBQ and briefly visit Helsinki15 on my rescheduled route home16.
October!
We put on the Show N Tell at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which was so much fun. I wrote about it here.
I put together the David Gaffney story I’d illustrated for the Show N Tell as a video that I also narrated;
This kind of approach to illustrated narratives has given me Some Ideas that I want to spend more time exploring in 2024. Watch this space.
November!
Make of this what you will, but I spent more time making weird masks than I probably should have.
The goat mask is called ‘Alan Ramlam’ and the red one is called ‘Yackie Putatz’17. I will not be taking any questions at this time.
December!
I’ve been working on something that isn’t quite ready for talking about yet, but here’s a brief glimpse at it. This thing is scratching some itches that haven’t been itchy in a while, and if it all comes together as I’m planning should be pretty useful. To a very small number of people.
Onwards!18
I had my identity stolen and have had to spend days on the phone with people assuring them that I only own one car. (although, see footnote three)
I got a hernia and spend a day in hospital with a suspected strangulated bowel. It’s fine, got surgery in the next couple of months.
My car broke down and needed expensive repairs.
Lots of work dried up. Like, basically all of it. Sales on my store in the run-up to the holidays have traditionally been really good. With the decline of twitter came a tangible decline in the number of sales I made. I know that correlation isn’t causation, but I’d at least like someone to blame other than myself, ELON.
My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Oof, chemotherapy sucks. I guess that’s not a closely guarded secret, but let me tell you it’s zero fun.
What’s a word equivalent of photogenic but meaning 'internet-interesting’? Conceptagenic? Interestagenic? Do you know what I mean? A lot of stuff is interesting, but not everything feels like it’s quite ready to be fed into the internet sausage machine to make internet party snacks.
We discovered the distinct extract and agony of dunking your bare feet in a frozen mountain stream on the descent. I’d show pictures, but I’m fearful of rousing the interest of the Perverts Of The Internet.
I barely took any photos.
But just look at this fish face I found! Good Lord what a face. I love it.
Notice the sweet Matt Forsythe diploma illustration! So cool!
Urghh apart from my horrible not-a-hand-model hands. They look like a rubber glove filled with sausage meat. Gross.
While I was looking for this photo I found at least two more that described the very same injury on different parts of my hands. Pain, it turns out is not as good a teacher as some people would have you believe!
Mainly footnote number 5 with a smattering of notes 1, 2 and 4.
Helsinki Airport for about 40 minutes.
Which is the kind of serendipity that sums up what I love about travelling.
Alan Ramlam is, according to my daughter, the best name for a goat. Hard to disagree. Yackie Putatz is what my kids call Jacket Potatoes. As I said, I will not be taking questions at this time.
BROKEN BONES!
Just so you know you're not alone we have a saying here in Brazil: August, a month of deceptions--which rhymes in Portuguese, "Agosto, mês do desgosto" (if you throw "disgust" as a replacement you wouldn't be that far either).
Goodspeed, have an awesome 2024! All the best to you and yours!