Reboot 2023

So… 

I’d like to say it’s because of Covid, but truthfully, it’s been a thing long before then too. I’ve been playing catch up with myself for far too long. I fell out of the comic making groove about a decade ago, and I never quite got back in. In 2017 I started Stargazer Apogee with the intent of getting back into it all. But not long after, I got married, we moved, bought a house, had a new career, and I was starting to have some health issues… It was kinda hard to keep on making a comic.

Not to mention, I was coming into this with a “webcomics 2010″ mindset which is NOT how webcomics (or webtoons) are done anymore. And my art was going through a shift in styles at that time too. When I started, it was still traditionally penciled and inked… Then digitally inked… And it just kept harder to match up how I was drawing NOW to how I was drawing at the start of the comic. And then there was the script, which was constantly undergoing rewrites, as I was drawing it. (Which is not the greatest way to get back into groove.) And that’s not even counting the issues that the Pandemic caused.

I just was never able to catch up to where I left off, much less where I left off a decade ago. On the plus side, my art DID get better! I mean, my art now is better than it’s ever been in my life. 

Then earlier this year… Things sucked.

My father died. My family were tools about it. I had some serious issues at work with some projects. I had some health issues that I’ll keep private, My wife and I had Covid back to back, my wonderful dog died out of nowhere and I had my first panic attack. This was all in a span of three months. And I spent weeks just trying to feel normal again. Something that never came and now I’m seeing a therapist and got diagnosed with severe anxiety.

I’m not even the same person I was five months ago, much less five years ago. Or ten.

In the last couple months, things have changed. The health issues apparently have an inexpensive fix. (Which I’m currently doing.) I got a neat new (better paying, less stressful) job, which gives me a lot of walking so I can get more exercise. (10,000 steps a day is commonplace now.) I’m on bupropion, which has helped me manage that anxiety so much better that panic attacks haven’t happened since, and I’m finally thinking clearly again for the first time in a long time.

Which made me realize that I can never re-obtain what I was going for in the past. I need to start anew. So with the new year upon us soon, all previous unfinished stuff is done. Projects will be hard rebooted or completely changed. I’m taking this as a new opportunity, to re-establish myself as a comic creator.

So right now, I have projects in mind that I want to do. But the immediate one I’m working on it what I call my “smutty monster-mystery” book. (Currently untitled.) Meant for (im)mature audiences, a little fun mystery story with sex, monsters, murder and dumb jokes. It’ll be a B&W comic, meant to evoke the feelings of those old Carter Brown Mystery novels. More on this soon.

I’ll probably make a (new) Patreon for this. But that’s a 2023 issue. Right now, I’m just gonna spend the rest of this year script writing and drawing various stupid stuff.

More on this all soon.