Two months since there has been any activity on this site; one would almost think I’d dropped off the face of the Earth again. Not happening, people; I aten’t dead.

After my birthday in March, things just started happening that were too fast to keep up with, but in hindsight not worth dwelling on, so I didn’t bother to record anything for blog posts. I fell back into routine, just keeping my head down while still trying to keep it above water. I’ve been brainstorming, doodling, jotting down notes and concepts, but not a lot has manifested in the way I want it to, and despite the vitamin supplements I haven’t felt the right energy to create intensively. This wasn’t helped by the changing of the seasons and the workload at the day job playing up my anxieties. That being said, it’s not like I’ve been doing nothing at all.

The 30 Day JLX Amalgam Challenge during March was completed successfully; I was immensely proud of myself for finally finishing a month-long art challenge, having failed several times in the past. Here’s the full compilation of art pieces, stylized as trading cards and a fold-out poster; this was a very 90’s sort of challenge, so I went with the trends of the times:

It felt good to check off the first block of my Art Bingo card for the year. I also hopped onto the 100 Original Characters Challenge; that one’s taking a bit longer, but I’m 66 characters in and spacing them out so that they aren’t overwhelming me.

March in that regard was super productive. April… ugh, where to start with April… I think this is why I didn’t want to blog so much; April was when stuff started to go wrong. My car needed some major repair work, I had to take several days off work to accommodate it, and I cringed every time I looked at my credit balance. My saving grace is that with the end of the month came ComicCon Cape Town. While I was there primarily in a supportive capacity once again, and the stresses of making the convention work were relentless, it sorted itself out in the end, and the profits are going a long way to clearing our debts. Like I said, I didn’t want to dwell on it so much, but I inevitably did, and I think that contributed to my low-power, safe mode-bootup existence for the past few weeks. Prime example: last Saturday I napped from 9am to 1pm with a cat on my lap, then spent the afternoon painting miniatures and binge-watching X-Men ‘97, my brain effectively running on background power.

Through it all, my ambitions have only increased, and I may be making myself unnecessarily depressed by not being able to do all of the things, not having the time or the energy to create everything that passes through my head (and there’s a lot; I must have conceived another six different stories in the past month). In my mind, I feel like I could churn out so many comics if they were my full time job, if I could work from home all day, if I had a fancy Cintiq tablet to make the drawing more natural, if I wasn’t shackled by the constraints of the day-to-day, if if if if if if IF. All of the “ifs,” the “ands,” the “buts,” rattling around in my head and telling me that there’s no way I can do what I want, because that’s just the way things are. Well, in the words of a surprisingly eloquent duck: ““The way things are” stinks!” To change that, I’m going to have to make it happen; I can’t do it alone, but I’m going to have to be the one to take the first step. Once more unto the starting blocks, dear friends, once more; time to get a real routine going again.

First priority: clear the debt; that should be sorted come next month, but I think it might be time to open up commissions again. Any little extra income is going to help; I’m going to have to self-promote like never before, as well as set up a proper payment system. If you came here from Bluesky, my DMs are open; I’ll be posting a commission pricing sheet sometime in the next week.

Second priority: new day job; I’ve set up an account with a recruitment agency, so it’s time to follow up on every recommendation they send my way. Anything that I can find that is closer to home (or better yet, remote work) and can improve my net income for the month will be a welcome relief.

Third priority: get the comics flowing; I’ve been able to squeeze pages out in the past despite everything, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to now. Even if I only get two pages out a week instead of three, or heck even just one, I need to start getting the stories out of my noggin and online.

Everything else is more long term; by the end of the year, it would be nice to buy something like a Cintiq tablet to make the work easier, or a Nintendo Switch to have something to play more casual games on in my downtime, but those are non-essentials. I can still do what I need to do with the equipment already at my disposal, so no excuses on that front.

Maybe one day I’ll have the time, energy and freedom to become the comic producing juggernaut that I’ve always wanted to be; if Jack Kirby could churn out six pages a day, why shouldn’t I be able to eventually as well? Until that day comes, the marathon continues; I needed to sit and rest for a while, but now I’m back at the line, waiting for the starting gun to fire. 

BANG.

Posting rather late tonight, it’s been a bit of a full day; the less said about the day job the better, but all I’ll say is that I only managed to squeeze in one character portrait, so you know it was packed.

The JLX Amalgam challenge is going great; of the 40 character designs due by the end of the month, I’ve gotten through 21, with the first 15 already uploaded. I’m having a blast drawing these things, and thanks to the layout that I’m using, they remind me a lot of the trading card collections of the 90s, which is very thematic with the era the characters hearken from. I mean, see for yourself:

Aren’t you lucky, getting to see the next six characters in advance? This is the quality content you come here for; I really should start that Patreon sometime, creative juggernaut that I am /end sarcasm.

Aside from that, I’m approximately a third of the way through the 100 OC challenge, the portraits of which I will begin uploading soon; I’ll probably wait until April rolls around so that I’m not clashing with the other art challenge, though if I feel that I can’t wait any longer, I’ll start uploading after my birthday next week. Oh yeah, that…

As of next Sunday, I’ll have spent 35 years existing, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a decently substantial amount of time to have been doing a single thing. I still don’t think I’m particularly good at it, but I’m continuously breaking my record for how long I’ve done it, pretty much on a daily basis as it happens, so that’s something. As I continue to exist, I also continue to have mixed feelings about my birthday, particularly as I’m now approaching middle age, numerically speaking. I tend to keep the occasion as simple as possible, usually just a casual meet up with friends or family, primarily the ones who won’t stoop to singing that bloody song at me, and I don’t encourage gift giving; I always feel bad that I don’t have the capability to reciprocate gifts on other people’s birthdays, so it feels wrong for anyone to spend money on mine. Give me a cake and a day where I don’t have to do anything, and that’s enough for me. I intend to keep this attitude until I turn 73, and that’s when the big party will be; the reasons are too complex to explain right now.

That’s pretty much it for this week; I’ve had a few new/old/revised story ideas knocking around in my head today, so I might see about jotting down a few notes for them this weekend since I’m ahead on character portraits. I’d also better haul out my D&D notes again; I’m returning to a game tomorrow night that has been on hold for most of a year, so who knows if any of the people involved are going to remember anything.

Ciao for now.

Okay, I’m not quite as buzzed this week; still productive, but not manic, so let’s actually talk about something this time.

I mentioned a couple weeks back about how I’d been watching some documentaries about comic books, specifically some of the creators widely regarded as the greats; some stuff I already knew, other bits were revelatory to learn, and all of it was majorly inspiring. I knew that Jack “The King” Kirby was a creative machine who could churn out a mountain of content, but I had no idea it was because he worked anywhere up to 16 hours a day; his creativity just couldn’t be stopped. I knew of Todd McFarlane’s decision to found Image Comics with several of his ex-Marvel colleagues in the name of creative freedom and intellectual property rights, but was blown away by just how fervently he believes in carving out a niche for oneself when the existing infrastructure doesn’t work the way you want. I learned, and was inspired by all these and more, but this morning, the news of another comic legend’s passing overshadows them all.

It was announced today that one week ago, respected manga creator Akira Toriyama passed away from an acute subdural hematoma, at the age of 68. Primarily a comedic creator, Toriyama was most well known for his distinctive art style that captured the hearts of a generation in the video games Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger, and the powerhouse manga/anime series Dragon Ball and its sequels. To say that Dragon Ball Z was an influence on my childhood would be an understatement; the latest episode appearing on TV would be the highlight of my weekday afternoon, a microcosm of levity at the end of a long school day. The characters were well defined, fantastically detailed and unique in their presentation, and were outspoken in their message of becoming stronger to protect the ones they loved. Everyone in my school wanted to be Son Goku; the show was the ultimate unifier amongst nerds and jocks, preps and bullies, because there was no way you could bash someone for liking Dragon Ball Z. 

Toriyama had a reputation for being a “pantser” when it came to writing; he rarely, if ever, plotted out a full storyline in advance, preferring to throw characters into a situation and let them just keep going until they hit the few beats he had in mind. He also had a whimsy when it came to character design; characters could be anthropomorphic animals, hideous monsters, or sometimes just a dude with three eyes, and none of this was ever regarded as particularly odd in the world that he had created; it was just widely accepted that his worldbuilding ran on two rules: Weird and Cool, and Weird more often than not overrode Cool. Reportedly, this drove his editors nuts; they would instruct Toriyama towards certain character designs and plotlines, and he would turn around and just do whatever he thought would be fun instead (e.g. the God of Destruction Beerus was designed both visually and personality-wise on his own Cornish Rex cat, instead of the lizard-like beast design that had been lined up). Rather infamously, Toriyama had a tendency to forget a lot of his established lore, because he often didn’t think beyond what the next chapter would be; he took the resulting inconsistencies and rolled with them, so any continuity snarls that arose would just become terrifying new twist characters that broke the rules and were all the more popular for it. Despite it all, his storylines always found their way back to themselves, tying up loose ends and bringing the tale full circle; he was a true master of discovery writing.

Still writing and drawing up to the day he died, Akira Toriyama will be forever remembered as a creative mind and whimsical soul, and his work as a tour de force in the manga industry, instrumental as a forerunner in bringing the medium into the western public eye. Without Dragon Ball Z inflating the anime boom of the 90s, there’s no telling how different the landscape of comics, cartoons and social consciousness in general would look on a world-wide scale; it influenced a whole new generation of creators across the globe and is one of the defining stars of the shōnen genre to this day. On a more personal level, if not for Akira Toriyama, my childhood would have been a little less colourful, and a lot more boring; because of his work, I made new friends, I was inspired to create, and I can’t imagine how I would have turned out without it.

Thank you for the memories, Toriyama-sensei.

R.I.P.

I’m going to make this one quick, I’m having too much of a blast to slow down right now.

For the month of March, I’m going to be attempting to cross a box off my 2024 Art Bingo card by completing a 30 Day Art Challenge; I know my previous attempts at such things have failed, but considering how many character portraits I’ve been pumping out lately (I swear I have, you’ll see them soon enough!), I think I may just stand a chance this time. The challenge is the JLX Unlimited Amalgam Character Challenge, i.e. a mouthful; every day sees a member/enemy of the Justice League being melded with one from the X-Men, creating a series of amalgamated characters. I’ve already leapt into the challenge, intent on getting my weekend uploads ready in advance, and maybe even get a head start on some for next week. For those of you who take the time to actually read my blog, congrats! You get to see Saturday and Sunday’s entries in advance, as well as the first one today; check ‘em out:

I swear, those vitamin supplements must be doing wonders for me, I haven’t felt this motivated in ages. Once I’ve gotten another character or two out of my system tonight, I can use tomorrow to finally start catching up on Showcase pages again.

That’s all I’m going to say this time, too much stuff I want to get done. Have a great weekend!

Ciao for now.

Yes, I’m still alive, believe it or not; I just didn’t really have anything much to say last week, and inadvertently forgot to mention it.

I may have been somewhat distracted; I’ve lost count of how many times I watched this trailer:

Honestly, I was sold the moment this was announced; this series (and theme song) were an integral part of my childhood and elevated my love of superheroes from a very young age. Fingers crossed that this means we can get a revival of the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon as well; it was meant to have a dimension-hopping storyline for its final season, and the Spider-Verse is pretty much a proven concept at this point, so…? Maybe? Please?

While actual comic art has been a bit of a non-starter at the moment, I have been busy with a project that I’ve been sitting on for a while; in my spare moments, I’ve been creating character portraits as part of a 100 Original Characters challenge. It’s essentially a basic, yet expanded version of what Fifth Ace Showcase #0 is meant to be: a collection of all the characters I have plotted out to join my comic universe at one stage or another. I had selected the most prominent ones to have bios and backstories written up for the comic issue, but the 100 OCs challenge is just about getting their look down and catalogued; I’ve had the list prepped for almost a year at this point, but I never dug in my heels and started for a number of reasons. At this point, I just said “to hell with it” and hopped to it.

I’ll share a few of the pictures when I’m comfortable that I’ve got enough in the bag to confirm that I’m not going to abandon the project part-way through; I’m having a lot of fun with it, as I’m getting to draw a bunch of characters with unique designs that I would otherwise be sitting on for ages until they appear in stories. It’s also allowing me to explore the characters a little more intimately; most of them were just one-line descriptions that I intended to flesh out later, but just the process of drawing them makes me think of details that hadn’t yet occurred to me to include in their characterisation. Hopefully this will motivate me to get back to the comic pages soon too.

I don’t know if me making progress on this project is a result of that new-start energy that might burn out really quick, but it might also be due to the vitamin supplements that I was recommended this weekend past; I certainly feel like I have more energy, though it could be a placebo effect for all I know. Whatever the cause, I’m feeling more productive than I have in a while; let’s hope that I can maintain it for a while longer.

I’ll leave it there for this one; I had a whole other spiel about some of the comic book documentaries I’ve been listening to lately, but I’ll save that for another slow week. Right now I want to get back to drawing; I’ve got a lot of social interaction and meal prep to do this weekend, so I’ve got to take advantage of every moment that I can.

Ciao for now.

Maybe I should just make Fridays my blogging days at this rate, huh?

Artwork is crawling along; I’ve been doing a lot of doodling in my brief moments of spare time, trying to get back into the groove once more; I think it’s working, but only time will tell. Exercises are still being maintained, regardless of screaming underused muscle groups. There’s still a roof over our heads, there’s still food on the table, and Sparrow only seems to lose his collar once per week on average. All in all, life goes on.

I had a whole rant about social media that I was going to post with this, but having typed it out, I’m not in the mood to rile up anyone about anything, least of all myself; social media is already stressful enough without inviting more stress, so I’m just going to leave it unsaid to the world at large. That’s what my journal is for: ranting about my opinions where they can’t be used to bother anyone.

I’m going to try and get some more artwork done and listen to the new episode of The Magnus Protocol, so have a good weekend everybody; I want to keep mine as uneventful as possible.

Ciao for now.

The fact that this is a day late should already give you some idea of how this past week has been, but I’m gonna splurge some more of it at you for a bit, anyway.

I still haven’t found the energy or motivation to get anything done around here, and it’s down to the usual suspects; the mounting workload at the day job means I have had no free time to get comic art done during the day. The massive burst of productivity that I was riding at the beginning of the year no longer has room to expand in the ever-growing deluge of “real” work that I have to do to keep the roof over our heads. I have to make do with the little nuggets of writing that I can squeeze in when I’m at least 20% sure that an email isn’t about to land in my inbox within the next three minutes; that is literally how I’m typing this up right now. So let’s just consider any future comic updates as TBD and “when they get there,” yeah?

At least I can say that I’m keeping up with my exercises; I got through the first 30 day workout program and am three days into the next one. The first month was more about settling into the routine of getting up at a certain time and doing something first thing in the morning, ideally before it gets too warm; this next month is about cranking up the intensity a little. It’s still nothing huge, but the fact that Day 1 left me gasping for air in a shower-worthy sweat means that I’m definitely on the next rung up the ladder now; the residual ache in certain muscles is another indicator that I’ve come to appreciate as a physical feeling of progress. I’m making it a point to not check my weight, as I know these minor exercises are not going to move the needle very much; any real change is likely only going to happen around the fifth or sixth month mark, if anything. At this point, I’d settle for getting more energy out of it; if fitness is directly proportional to energy levels, and I increase my fitness, then I should have more energy to get other stuff done, in theory. 

What I’m saying is that I want to get fit so that I have more energy to actually do what I want to do i.e. write and draw more comics; I don’t know if that kind of energy can translate into creativity, but it would still be nice not to be completely burnt out by the time I get home in the evening, so I’m doing what I can. I guess running would probably be the ideal thing, but I don’t care how many joggers I see going past the house in the morning: I am not going outside before the sun comes up where people can see me; say what you like, but I do NOT look good in running shorts, and I haven’t shed enough of my dysmorphia to not care about that. Hopefully that can start to change with enough exercise as well.

Anyway, back to the grindstone; going to drown out what passes for “music” on the radio with the new episodes of The Magnus Protocol and some YouTube video essays while I get through whatever happens to ooze into my inbox for the rest of the day.

Ciao for now.

I did say the comics wouldn’t be interrupted in any way, right? Right…

So yeah, no comic uploads this week; between the increasing workload/frustrations at the day job and the debilitating heat, I have had zero energy to get anything done either at work or at home. The pages that were to go up this week have been scripted and pencilled out, but getting into the inking/colouring process has been tough; hopefully I’ll work myself up enough this weekend to push through it. 

I’ve been slipping a little in my journaling endeavours as well; I need to start doing it earlier in the evening, because I feel the need to fall asleep a lot sooner these days. I blame the extended work commute; spending that long on the roads both in the morning and the afternoon do not put me in the mood to do anything except pass out. I’m hoping to resolve this by finding a new job soon; I’ve been keeping an eye on job offers closer to home or remote working opportunities, but given my limited qualifications, I might as well fall back on the plan of writing a fantasy novel series and the hope of becoming the next Jim Butcher. The odds are about equal, I’d say.

Despite slipping on the creative side, I’m still holding strong on the physical stuff; I haven’t skipped a morning workout session yet (though I might leave off the additional yoga stretches if I’m strapped for time), and the meal preps have been working well. This week has been battered chicken and egg fried rice, supplemented by mini chicken pies; I did say last week that I had a hankering for chicken, after all. Not sure what I’ll have lined up for next week, I’ll make a decision on that after payday. The website from which I get my workout routines now has a sister site that does healthy recipes; they’re primarily vegan stuff, but even as an avowed carnivore, I still thought some of them looked good, so we’ll see what happens.

Still no luck in capturing the factory floor kitty (I’ve nicknamed her “Pandora,” since she’s a vicious lady that won’t stay in a box), not for lack of trying. I’ve given up on leaving food out to bait her, as it clearly wasn’t working before, and she’s been spotted roaming all over the building, not just the one storage room. I’m still keeping the cat carrier in my car, just in case we happen to opportunistically snatch her up, but Pandora’s been extra cautious ever since my first attempt at catching her; the scratches are healing nicely, thank you for asking.

Think that about covers everything for this week; fingers crossed for some comic pages come Monday.

Ciao for now.

So much for maintaining a buffer… I’m going to have to put some work in this weekend to build up again.

That being said, the comic uploads should not be interrupted in any major way; I already have next week’s pages plotted out, so if I get the inking done by the end of Saturday, I can at least have Monday’s page ready to go in time, and then build up from there. It’s not like the day job has been particularly gruelling this first month back; on the contrary, it’s been dead as a dead thing, but I’ve found myself being preoccupied with other stuff instead.

Chief among the preoccupations is the appearance of another stray cat on the factory floor. She (I think it’s a she, I didn’t get a thorough look) has taken to hiding in our Receiving storage room, as well as some extra-dimensional secret space that makes her impossible to find before 3pm most days. She’s somewhat skinny, but not 100% feral; I managed to get close enough to pet her the other day, which she accepted; she was less accepting of being picked up or held in place, which is why my right arm is a mass of scar tissue right now. Subsequent attempts to catch her have failed; I’ve brought in a carrier, some calming herbs and a bowl of food to try and tempt her out, but no luck yet. Unlike the situation with Sparrow, there is no debate in my mind about keeping this cat if we catch her: the answer is no; in our current space and financial state, a third cat is out of the question. 

That said, I still want to wrangle her up somehow so that I can get her to an Animal Anti-Cruelty League depot, where she can be looked after and hopefully adopted one day. The problem with this lies in the fact that anywhere that I could take a stray cat either doesn’t accept uninjured animals, doesn’t send out responders on the same day, or closes too late in the afternoon relative to when she shows up; it’s frankly ridiculous how hard it is to get a stray cat to a qualified safe house after 3pm. If I do manage to catch her later in the afternoon, I’d have to make a plan to house her for the night before taking her elsewhere the next day; I just want her to have a chance at a good life, like how I’ve been able to give a good life to my own cats. 

Being the obsessive, ADHD-coded worry-wart that I am, my concern for the cat has kept me from focusing on a lot of things this week; it’s a good thing I’ve been prepping and packing good lunches, or I might have resorted to buying stress-food from the petrol station again, which is on my list of resolutions to not do this year. I intend to keep my credit card free of frivolous charges, and my trash bin at work free of snack wrappers. With that in mind, the burrito-style beef wraps were a rousing success, and I have zero issues with eating them all week. The only complaint I can voice about them is that they’re very more-ish; I always want seconds after I finish one. Maybe next time I’ll make bigger wraps and pack them with more stuff, perhaps some rice like a proper burrito to make it more filling. Next week will likely be something different though; I’ve got a real hankering for some chicken again…

Not much else worth mentioning this week; anything I could properly angst over these days is still going directly into my journal so that I don’t have to inflict it upon the internet. Fingers crossed I get my buffer reestablished by Sunday’s end, and next week will start to introduce a new face or two to the Fifth Ace Showcase.

Ciao for now.

We’re almost two weeks into 2024, and I haven’t crashed and/or burned yet; I’ll take it as a good sign.

I’m happy to say that the Fifth Ace Showcase has returned and is trucking on well so far; I actually had enough of a buffer that I could schedule the uploads for the whole week, which is not something I could say since the beginning of the series. I don’t know if I’ll be able to maintain the buffer at such a rate forever, the day job kind of puts a crimp in the already-slow colouring process, but considering how much I’ve been able to get done so far, I’m feeling optimistic. Issue #0 will be running all through January and February; we’ve already seen some familiar faces, we’ll be seeing a few more, but by the end of next week there will be a slew of new characters being introduced. They may or may not feature in the next upcoming stories, but if I waited to introduce them naturally, it would take years, and I don’t want to wait that long before showing them off. I’d rather whet your appetites for the wider universe by showing you what may be on the horizon rather than just telling you about it.

On the home front, we have more or less settled into our new residence quite well; all the essentials are in place, now it’s a matter of seeing how we can improve. A few natural decorations in the form of some pot plants wouldn’t go amiss out the front and back, maybe some astroturf, a few veggies and herbs growing out the back if we can manage it. The cats are getting acquainted with the area; Silver doesn’t go much further than the garden for fear of the sprinkler system, while Sparrow has already started taking his explorative expeditions beyond the perimeter fence. We were a little worried about him at first, and we still want to get a tracker tag for him just to be sure, but he went out early this morning and came back before I left for work, so he clearly knows where home base is. It’s just as well; if we tried to keep him exclusively inside for much longer he might have exploded; the little guy feels the need to roam down to his bones. Plus it means that even if I have to get up early to let him out, I can go back to bed and get an extra hour or two of sleep, which I’ve been needing for a while now.

Exercise is still being maintained; my routines would be the equivalent of a warm up to anyone else’s workout, but it’s not about bursting onto the scene and wearing out my body. So far, it’s something to get my heart rate up, and get me used to doing something in the morning; by the time the workouts start to ramp up, I’ll have gotten into the groove of being physically active before 6 a.m.; it’s all about routine building. I’m also going to be expanding my meal prep this weekend by finally making those homemade tortillas I was looking at last year; filling those with some ground beef mince, some black beans and a few onions and bell peppers… I’m making myself hungry just thinking about it, which is not hard to do, because most of my between-meal snacks have consisted of apples, lately; I need to crack out the popcorn again.

Other than that, life goes on. My fiance starts her new job next week; lucky her that she can roll out of bed and be right where she needs to be. I’m still hunting for a new job, fingers crossed that something comes along soon; in the meantime, I’ll just do what I can to keep us afloat. See you all back here next week, where I’ll hopefully have more stuff to talk about; journaling in the evenings has seriously cut down on how much I need to vent here.

Ciao for now.