Month: July 2023

Seems like I’ve hit another creative dry spell; let’s hope it doesn’t last too long…

So yeah, not a lot of art happening around here; thanks to a massive project at the day job sapping all my energy and motivation, the comics have slowed to a stop for the moment. I might be able to pick up the pace this weekend, depending on any social obligations that might arise; there’s a good chance that Saturday will be dedicated to a binge-watch party for the new season of Good Omens.

This does mean that it is very unlikely that I’ll have the current Showcase storyline finished before next month, and that also means that August’s story will spill over into September. This isn’t as big of a deal as it could be; I was planning a break in September anyway, in order to potentially accommodate for ComicCon Africa. The jury is still out on whether or not we’ll be attending; the table pricing is utterly insane for small businesses, so we’re hoping that they’ll drop during the last stretch. It also depends on how well The Dragon Wagon does at Dragonfire in mid-August; if we make enough sales to fund our ComicCon table and cover our travel costs, we may still stand a chance of being there. That said, I’m assuming nothing at this point.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since leaving home and becoming (mostly) independent, it’s the art of cynical optimism: hope for the best, expect the worst. It’s a mindset that has become increasingly relevant to me over the past few years; a lot of things I hoped for didn’t happen, but they often turned out better than I expected. I hoped that I wouldn’t lose my job in 2021, but as expected, I did; though I did get my job back a month later. I hoped I would be able to maintain a consistent update schedule when I resumed this website, but as expected, I didn’t; I have still managed to keep telling my stories, even if it’s not at the rate I wanted to. I hope that we’ll be able to attend ComicCon Africa this year, but given the current situation, I expect we won’t be able to; even if we don’t, we know that whatever events we do attend often go well for us anyway. I hope that we’ll be moving to a new house before the end of the year, but all evidence to the contrary makes me expect that we won’t; at least we still have a roof over our heads, one way or the other.

Another thing I’ve been hoping for is to become more active on social media, though I expect it’s going to take a lot longer than I’d like, especially since my art has been slow lately. If you’re reading this, there’s a fair chance you found the link through some form of social media, and are well aware of the whole TwitterX drama going on, and the increasing feasibility of moving to new websites. I myself have signed up for a few of them, and I want to start showcasing (hah!) my characters and other artwork on as many different platforms as possible; one of these places is bound to take, right? I’ll still be on Twitter until the ship sinks completely, but if/when it eventually does, you can find me on Mastodon and Cohost, as well as my Instagram; I may even try revitalising my Tumblr. 

You can find me on these alternative spaces through my brand-spanking-new Linktree right here: https://linktr.ee/fifthacecomics. It’s a little bare bones, but I’ll be adding any other accounts I’ve missed as I remember them.

I’ve also signed up for BlueSky, though that waiting list is a mile long, so when that eventually comes through, I’ll add it to the Tree. I’ve also considered signing up for Threads, but I’ve heard it’s a bit of a mixed bag, so we’ll see how that progresses before leaping in. I’ve mostly just thrown up some intro posts with some art samples on the new spots so far, but if this weekend is as productive as I want it to be, there should be more stuff appearing there soon.

So that’s where I’m at this week: lots of hopes held in check by expectations. Let’s see if they go anywhere by next week.

Ciao for now.

It’s been a stop-and-start kind of week; every time I start on something, I have to stop because something else happens. I need a holiday…

You may have noticed the inconsistent nature of Fifth Ace Showcase updates this week; with everything else going on, I haven’t been able to get stuff done on that front. The day job has been wildly oscillating between nothing happening and frantic crunching, and I never know what it’s going to be, so I can’t slip any free time doodling in between like I usually do. Not to mention, the crunching is not triggering the manic side of my creativity at all; it all processes as incredibly tedious and unstimulating, which means I lack any motivation to actually do it. It gets done, because that’s my job, but I take no pleasure or satisfaction in it at all. Pretty sure this is an ADHD thing; I was never officially diagnosed, but I’ve picked up enough clues over the years.

My neck issues haven’t been as much of a hindrance in this regard as you might think. Naturally, I’d be more efficient if I didn’t have to wear the brace; all it really does is slow me down as opposed to preventing me from doing anything. I have to pop a pain pill every now and then, since my neck being held in one spot does get a bit strenuous, though it’s ultimately just something I’m living with at this point. I will say, with the weather as cold as it is, the brace makes for an effective neck-warmer; it’s the one part of my body that doesn’t immediately feel the chill when I step out of the office. Plus, while I can’t sleep comfortably in bed with the brace on, if I need a quick nap in my chair, it’s a surprisingly comfortable pillow substitute.

Even the weekend is going to chew up a bunch of my creation time; I’m running two games of D&D between Friday and Sunday, though I am getting paid for one of them. That’ll leave me with Saturday to work on comic stuff unimpeded, but I’ll likely use most of it just to recover from everything else that’s been happening. So if the current Showcase story doesn’t quite wrap up before the end of the month, don’t be too surprised. Admittedly, it’s not only the Showcase pages that have been on my mind.

I’ve been agonising over getting a cover page done for Fifth Ace Showcase #1 ever since I finished drawing it a couple of years(!) ago, but nothing I’ve come up with ever seemed to fit. I’ve gone through several iterations recently, and I think I’ve nearly cracked it; even if I do, you likely won’t see it on the main site for some time, if at all. Because, once the cover is done, and I’ve found the time to draw the backup Nadir story, it’ll all be displayed in its entirety in downloadable PDF form, most likely on a funding site or somewhere like itch.io. It might even reach printed format someday, though I’ll probably have to launch a Kickstarter to get the kind of money I’d need for the cost.

Once again, it’s all a lot of planning, only so much action; I just don’t have enough hours in the day or energy in my body. I’m prioritising the important stuff first, and that means my health and my family. Everything else, no matter how much I want to get done, is secondary to staying alive and keeping my connection to my loved ones strong. We’ll see what I can fit in between all that by next week.

Ciao for now.

Whoops, a day late again; the day job sprung a buttload of work on me yesterday that I didn’t expect.

Neck update: my neck is a mess. The MRI didn’t reveal any major kind of blockage, so we still don’t know exactly how my nerves are being pinched; as such, I’m stuck with a soft collar brace for the next three weeks to see if I can straighten the situation out with anti-inflammatories. On the other hand, it seems my surgery from 2014 is coming back to bite me in the long term; since the muscle in my neck could not be properly reattached after the surgery, the vertebrae have been compensating for the lack of suspension by twisting in all sorts of fun ways. Long story short, within the next decade or so, I’m likely going to need a spinal fusion when the disks finally wear down to the point of nothing. Ordinarily, it would be something that happens much later in life, but my unique circumstances mean that I’m getting hit with it early. Joy.

I won’t lie, it’s a scary prospect; I’ll have minimal movement in my neck, if any at all, well before I reach retirement age (if such a thing will exist by then). I’ll likely never be able to do regular exercise regimes, so my prospects of getting into shape are becoming more limited. I probably won’t be able to legally drive myself anywhere; I’m sure I’d need special permission to be on the road. If I ever have kids, will I be able to physically keep up with them and do all the things you’re meant to do as a parent? Not to mention it’s likely going to cost a fortune, which is something my starving millennial artist brain cannot wrap itself around right now. 

All this and more was on my mind on Monday, when I received the diagnosis, such as it was. It was a depressing few days while I sorted through my feelings, which weren’t helped by the collar brace making me feel incredibly self-conscious. But now that I’ve had time to process the whole thing, I’ve reached the end of the week feeling better about it; I won’t say “positive” but certainly less afraid.

Despite the brace, I’m still able to live my life in much the same way. I can still take care of myself, I can still type, I can still draw; it’s really not that big of an adjustment. Whether or not it will sort out my pinched nerve, I can’t say yet, but it’s still early days so I can’t leap to any bad conclusions either. And if/when I do have to get my vertebrae fused, if having a permanently stiff neck is anything like wearing the brace, I could do a hell of a lot worse. Ultimately, the alternative to suffering through these situations later in life is a small price to pay for averting a death sentence; if I hadn’t had that surgery in 2014, I would not have lived to be where I am today. I would never have left home; I would never have bought my first self-owned car; I would never have met the love of my life and been part of the most mutually loving relationship I could ever dream of for six years and counting. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity for a future.

I am exceptionally lucky to be alive today, and any hardship I have to endure in light of that is worth it for the experience of living.

Though it also would have been nice to have won that cover art competition… ah well.

Ciao for now.

Busy busy busy, that’s all this week is; I’m grateful for it, it keeps my hands moving and my mind focused.

Shoulder update: it’s not the shoulder. I’m meeting with a neurosurgeon on Monday, as this is apparently more neck/spine related, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a definitive answer to my discomfort; I’ve almost stopped noticing it at this point, but there are still certain positions that I can’t lean into without feeling the pain.

I’ve been deep into my art this week, and not just with the new Showcase story that started yesterday. One of the local comic shops is running a competition until Sunday, with a R1000 voucher up for grabs, and since it’s art related I had to jump on it. The challenge is to draw a cover inspired by Green Arrow #1, which was released a few months ago (I was lucky enough to get a foil edition, signed by artist Sean Izaakse, at ComicCon Cape Town this year!). While I initially took this to mean that we had to redraw the cover in our own style, it turns out that it’s actually a freeform contest, and we have to produce an original work; that was two days worth of drawing down the drain…

Nevertheless, I’ve been plugging away at this thing in every spare moment I could find since Monday, and am proud to show off the end result here:

I’ll be getting this bad boy printed and submitted tomorrow, wish me luck!

Other than that, I’ve been working on staying ahead of schedule with the Showcase this month; while I’m still proud of what I put out during June, a couple of the pages were a little rushed due to my injury, and I want to try and have some pages prepped in advance if anything else sets me back again, God forbid. I might even start plotting out next month’s story early as well; it took me a while to settle on which one I would be including in this issue, and there’s still a lot to write; I literally have a one-line summary at this point. 

The tricky thing with the Showcase is that I have a lot of characters I want to introduce, but many of them hinge on the bigger picture story that I want to dedicate full issues to in the future, and I’m starting to run out of characters that are slated to take the lead in that story. Basically, I’m just about done with introducing the necessary cast members; I may feature a few extra stories with them, but they’re ready to start taking centre stage and get the main plot rolling. In light of this, the Showcase may start to feature a few non sequitur stories by the time we pass the six issue mark; we’ll see what happens.

Anywho, back to the grindstone; I have to get tomorrow’s page done and dusted, and I’m running two separate games of D&D this weekend, which are going to require some prep time. See you all next week for something new.

Ciao for now.