Optimism
Or the attempt to stay optimistic amid the chaos of life.
In my last two posts I have been pretty open about feeling stuck and the looming sense of hopelessness I find myself constantly trying to suppress. In many ways 2024 was one of the most difficult times in my life, but I also look back and see it as one of the best.
One thing that I don’t want to do with this newsletter is create or share negativity. While I try to remain honest about what is going on in my life and how I feel, I don’t want to add to the general despair that plagues the internet. It is great to be honest and open, but I also think we are responsible for what we perpetuate through our words and actions. There is a balancing act I try to perform when writing about these topics. On one side of the scale, it can be helpful to others to share experiences with negative thoughts, anxieties, depression, and so on. On the other side of that, it takes a certain amount of positivity, optimism, and overall goodness to push a reader towards hopefulness rather than hopelessness.
This is a large part of my recent months-long hiatus. I didn’t have a lot to say that wasn’t coming from a place of deep sadness and anger. I would rather remain silent than add to the vitriol that has undoubtedly plagues the internet. I fear that there will be few places to escape from the gloom that seems to be overtaking the world, so I want to do what I can to keep this Substack on the more pleasant side of that scale as much as possible. Even now I worry that I didn’t do enough work in this balancing act to make my last few posts lean more towards optimism rather than pessimism.
It is true that when I think about 2024 I think of a lot of emotional baggage that I haven’t been able to dump yet. However, when I look back at the moments and accomplishments over the past year, I can see important and pivotal moments that made it one of my best.
I worked on a lot of big projects in 2024 including the continuation of the Boris Karloff series for Gold Key Comics, the digital release of Neptune, which will be released in print next month through Dark Horse Comics, and began editing another full length graphic novel for Comixology, The 99 Legs. I'm proud of each of these projects and worked very hard to get to this place, but it would be an egregious omission to not mention my dear friend, advocate, and collaborator on each of the aforementioned comics, Michael Conrad.
From my very first editing project I've been fortunate to work with Michael. This week I looked back at old messages where Michael had encouraged me and pushed me forward. All these years later, he's still doing it. I've been very fortunate to find a friend like Michael who has continually pushed me to be my best. There have been times when the only thing that has kept me from throwing in the towel was Michael and his stern support. While I'm really proud of all the work we have done together, I would also like to recommend you take some time to check out Michael's other work as well. Not only Is he a best friend, but he's also one of my favorite writers as well.
It is great to have friends that push you to create and improve your craft. I hope that I can inspire others in the same way.
As usual, I have too many projects under way and not a lot I can really show or share. One that I can talk about is monthly mini zines that I have started creating in January. My goal is to make two a month that will be limited to 100 each. The first two, a collection of small skull drawings and a quick look at apocalypses that I don’t want to live through, are in my webstore now. You can check them out and order them here. While you are in the webstore, take a moment to pick up some of Laura Jones’ zines while they are still in stock.
I reached another important milestone in my life last year when I took my first international trip. While visiting the UK might not be much of a culture shock, it was certainly an eye opening experience. In my last post I spoke about how traveling grows your world view and expands what you feel is possible. Even just my one small trip has made me see a lot of places and experiences are much more accessible than I had believed. None of that would have been possible without another dear friend of mine, Laura Jones. I’m lucky to have so many great friends through the world of comics. Helping to distribute her zines through my webstore is the least I can do so make sure to order them before they run out.
With any luck I’ll have a lot more to share over the next few months so keep your eye on your inbox as I get to share more work, new zines, and hopefully announce new projects. As always, thanks for reading.
If you haven’t already, click the link above to subscribe to my Substack newsletter so you don’t miss out on future posts. If you are already a subscriber, consider sharing your favorite posts to help me grow my audience and make more content.