Well, tonight another year comes to a close. I have no plans for it of course. I volunteered to work New Year's Eve once again. No parties to go to. No local friends to do anything with really. Plus, what would I do? Get drunk? I can do that anytime. (like right now! RIGHT... NOW!!!!) So I guess I'll take the time and a half for working New Years Day. Why the hell not. Someone has to sling the porn for the lonely on the Eve of a New Year. Might as well be my funny book makin' ass.
2008 was another what I call "a transitional year." Seems 2007-2008 were pretty similiar in feel and accomplishments. Although I achieved more in 2008 than in 2007. In 2007 we moved down here to help accomplish dreams that really didn't happen. However we fell backwards into decent comfortable jobs. ME, working at the porn shop. While not the most GLAMOROUS JOB in the world, it is secure. Sales are up, even in this time of distress. People just like fucking. So it will never stop. Had I got the newspaper job I applied for earlier this year, I might have been laid off by now. My wife landed the greatest job of her life: Wallgreens manager. She makes really good money and keeps our head well above water. I released one book in 2007, went to one convention and pretty much slummed it. But I kept writing and drawing, hoping to come out of it.
2008-I was working new year's eve night.. ringing up a customer at 11:57pm. I thought to myself, "God, please don't let me be ringing up some asshole when the clock strikes midnight." I rememeber years before raising glasses of beer or what have you, high in the air with trusted friends, toasting the new year to come. Playing music and enjoying their company. That night, ringing up some lonely sap for his $12.99 movie near the stroke of midnight (if you pardon the pun I tossed in there. "stroke." Nehhehehehehhehhehhhhh...) I felt pretty low and down. I hadn't accomplished shit in 2007. The regular conventions I usually got to do I had to miss out on for lack of funds. The wife was sympathetic. She got me a big screen TV and HDDVD player for that Xmas. (although the HD DVD player 2 weeks later would be declared obsolete, natch). I declared that 2008 would be different.
On Dec 31, 2007 I blogged this--"Starting in the new year, we’re going on a diet, we’re gonna save like mad, buy a new computer, pay off debt and hit every fucking convention I can. I’m not gonna make this another year where I say I’m going to do this or that and never get to do it cause we didn’t have the fucking money or I felt lazy. No. Dreams aren’t built on that. They are built on guts and luck. So I gotta have the guts to put my nuts out there."
Well, the diet didn't pan out yet. It took us all year, but I now have my new computer and the programs I need. But the promises I did keep: I hit three big conventions this year. I had a BLAST at them too. I counted last night, I did over 325 comic book pages. THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE PAGES! Not counting pinup pieces, commissions, etc. Thats Pleasant Life, Outcast, Expendables #2. 325 pages. That folks, isn't lazy.
It was a highly productive year. It was an exciting year. I turned 30. Found out the wife was pregnant. I went to Pittsburgh and met Tim and Brian, had a great time, sold really well. The wife and I went to Motor City Con. Stayed with her parents, sold well. I went to Wizard World Chicago with Brian, sold pretty decent. Made friends. Thats one of the main things I took from this year, I made some good friends. Thats something I desperately needed too. I needed people who understand me, my creative brain and what it goes through. Tim and Anthony invited me to be a co-host of the talkshoe podcasts. I cannot tell you what their friendship and the relationship I have with everyone on that show means to me. It gives me an in. It keeps my head in the game. My eyes on the prize. Its invaluable. I look forward to seeing them (vitually) every week. I miss it when its gone. So I guess in that sense, 2008 was the year I made contact.
Also in September, my son was born and we stayed on hospital floors for over 3 heartwrenching weeks while he got better. Now he's home and we get to mold him into what he will become. Icing on the cake.
But all throughout this, I've stayed productive. I've kept going. Page after page, panel after panel. And the beginning of this next year, I will emerge from my cave triumpant! I've seen the first 47 pages of PLEASANT LIFE completed, tones and balloons in all. I mean this: My best work yet. The best.
So, 2009 will bring the release of these things. I plan to keep cultivating my friendships with my comic book friends. I say goodbye to a best friend who is moving far away for good and closing that chapter in my life. I am going to more conventions this year. 100%. Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Detroit, Chicago and San Diego. Who knows? Maybe more that them, but I am guaranteeing at least those first ones.
I'm tired of transitioning. Its time for the phoneix to rise from the ashes of his old life and fly. Like Rocky up the steps, bitch.
So goodbye, so long, farewell and goonight to 2008. I look forward to 2009 with my dreams at my back.
Luv ya all. Be safe tonight.
T
No comments:
Post a Comment