Month: September 2023

Phew, has it really been a week since the last post? It feels like both an eternity and no time at all; this past week has been a blur of activity.

ComicCon Africa was a rousing success! The Dragon Wagon did well as always, and we had a team of people to help out this time, so we were able to get out of the stall a bit more often than usual. I still stuck around as much as I could, as is my wont for such things, but I was able to join my fiance for some photo ops and autographs with the visiting celebs for a change. We met Anthony “C-3PO” Daniels, Veronica “Ash Ketchum” Taylor, and John “Jack Harkness” Barrowman over the course of the convention; they were all extremely lovely, positive people and an absolute pleasure to talk to. I was as conservative with my cash as I could be, though I still found the wiggle room to support a few of my favourite local artists, and there was a lot of inter-stall trading happening everywhere (you’d be surprised how effective dice are as bartering tools). Overall, despite the additional expenses that we had to factor in, we still made a sizable profit that proved the trip to be well worth the effort.

There were some hectic storms happening in Cape Town while we were away; looks like we picked the right week to be in a different city. Fortunately, our cats were safe in a very well respected cattery; I can only hope their time in close proximity with each other helped their relationship somewhat. They are both very happy to be home again, though they were very vocal with their complaints when we picked them up; Silver doesn’t like being in a carrier, and while Sparrow handles it a lot better, he hates car rides, carrier or not. Both the trip to drop them off before we left, and the one on the way back were a cacophony of caterwauling, but they calmed right down as soon as they were out of the car. We’re going to give them the day to acclimatise back into the home situation, and by the weekend they can go out and roam again; there was a tree that got blown over in the park across the street that I’m sure Sparrow will love to explore.

Naturally, while I’ve been away, artwork has been on hiatus once again, and I will be taking a break from posting comics during October. However, I am keen to get drawing some other stuff in the meantime, as well as potentially building a buffer for the next issue of the Showcase, properly this time. I’m still running on the creative energy of ComicCon; seeing what everyone had to offer in the Artist Alley has been a major inspiration and motivational booster to me. You’ll recall how I mentioned that ComicCon pulled me out of my depressive spiral; it was in my first major blog post on this site when I finally returned, almost a full year ago. In the time between ComicCon Africa 2022 and 2023, I’ve gone through a lot, artistically, physically and mentally; on the whole, I think I’m a lot better for it, and it’s the power of creativity that has helped me keep pushing through in many situations since. I’ve stumbled here and there, and I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m feeling refreshed, reinvigorated and…a third thing beginning with “re” that I can’t think of right now.

Even being back at the day job hasn’t put a dampener on my mood yet, so I’m going to ride this high for as long as I can, and get started on whatever comes next.

Ciao for now.

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…revitalised!

No, I’m not going to do the Earth, Wind and Fire joke; I might have done it, but I only just remembered.

Keeping it concise tonight; we’ve had a busy day setting up The Dragon Wagon for ComicCon Africa, which is starting tomorrow. It’s going to be an intense four days; we have a lot of stock to sell, celebs to meet, and spending impulses to reign in.

With the latest Fifth Ace Showcase story now wrapped up and complete, comic updates are done for the rest of the month. No guarantees when the next Showcase issue will begin, but it will likely be November at the earliest; I want to try and be as efficient as possible with the next stories, and with a bit of luck the pages will be flowing faster than ever before.

But for now, I need some sleep; see you on the other side of the convention!

Ciao for now.

Going to keep this one short; it’s been another one of those weeks…

Once again, it looks like Friday’s Showcase page will be up on Saturday instead; if I get a chance this weekend (unlikely as it may be), I’m going to make a concerted effort to finish as much of the remaining pages as possible, because next week I’m going to have zero time to do anything other than ComicCon prep.

Yup, it’s almost upon us; on Tuesday, we do final packing, Wednesday we fly out, Thursday we set up, and Friday is kickoff! I can tell you now that next week’s Bottom of the Deck is going to be even shorter than this one; it’s going to be a busy time, though I’ll take that kind of busy over the day job any day.

We have our list of things we want to accomplish at ComicCon; there are several celebs that we want photos with, and I always like buying from local creators when their stuff catches my eye. Even better, because we have a larger team to run our stand this year, I may get more of a chance to explore and find new stuff, though knowing me I’d be holding the fort the majority of the time anyway to avoid being crushed by the crowd. Also, I have trust issues.

Also, I think I’m on the verge of leaving Twitter/X behind forever; I’ve finally managed to get onto Bluesky, which has attracted a lot more people in recent times. It won’t be easy, starting over on a new social media, but considering how limited my Twitter presence was anyway, I won’t be any worse off.

Anything else I might be able to add would amount to angst, so I’m going to leave it here for now. I’ll pop back in for a quick post next week before the convention, but other than that, I’ve got work to do.

Ciao for now.

Don’t know what it was in particular this week, but it’s been a rough one.

I think I took my “sketch, don’t snack” strategy a bit too far; I was skipping lunch completely, solving the issue of eating it too early and not spending extra money on a second lunch later. Unfortunately, that means I reached the “hangry” stage of the day a lot earlier, and it lasted until I got home; combined with a few frustratingly busy days at the day job, and it did not put me in a great state of mind for doing anything. Going to make sure I have at least something to eat during the day to stop that cycle before it goes too far.

In related news, tomorrow’s Fifth Ace Showcase page may only be up on Saturday; between the crashing energy, social obligations and taking every opportunity to earn a bit of extra cash, my evenings have been/will be rather unproductive on the art side. At least the pencils are all done, so I have less to puzzle out than I would otherwise; getting all the pages done in advance is still paying great dividends, regardless. Similarly, my #Swordtember uploads might end up being a bit sporadic in the next few days; my buffer has run out due to lack of time/energy at the day job, so I might even skip a few if I can’t build it back up in time. There’s only so much you can account for when it comes to life in general, I suppose.

All of the above hasn’t spelt out a particularly happy label for my mood lately, as you can imagine; the roadblocks in productivity and frustration at work brought on a severe case of the “poor me” mindset. It’s that feeling of helplessness in a situation that you cannot change, not for lack of trying to find a way out. The only thing I can do about it is wait, and I’ve done so much waiting already. If we’re lucky, I only have to stick it out until the end of the year; I don’t want to jinx anything, but some progress has been made in regards to our overall condition, and it may come through by 2024. It’s the first, bitter taste of that terrible illusion: hope (5 points to anyone who knows where that line comes from).

I stopped actively hoping for stuff to happen a while ago, this year in particular; too many potential opportunities for change that fell through will do that to a guy. I instead resigned myself to just letting whatever would happen, happen; I keep my head down and just try to do my best without getting attached to any possible outcome. I wanted this year to be the one where I made some concrete decisions and be less “go-with-the-flow,” and while there have been a few areas where I’ve done that, there is still so much more beyond my control where my decisions have no impact. There are some things I cannot change, so I have to control what I can instead, which is only so much and not nearly as much as I’d like. All this to say, hoping for change is scary, because if it falls through, I don’t handle it well. There never was much hope; just a fool’s hope (only 2 points for that line, that’s an easy one).

On that sombre note, I’m going to knuckle down and get back to doing what I can for now; ComicCon is two weeks away, and there’s a lot of stuff I want to get through before then.

Ciao for now.