New Year, Same Me
2024 was, upon reflection, not a great year.
It was a year of opportunities dangled and then taken away, of projects indefinitely delayed, of working hard and ending up with very little to show for it. My body kept the score, as it always does, and I ended in up in the emergency room for organ failure. The part of me that gave up the ghost was removed—not without struggle, according to the surgeons, who had to make a bigger incision than expected. Now one organ lighter, my recovery necessitated diet free from animal products. So, we can add “meet” and “cheese” to the long list of things I lost in 2024, along with organs, jobs, etcetera.
But if I may find a silver lining to an essential part of my body ceasing to function, I think to switch to veganism has been good for me and its something I intend to continue. Painful events can sometimes lead to positive changes. So I’m going to look to 2025 with an open heart.
The following year, 2026, will see the release of my next book with DC Comics (which should be announced soon!) and I have a pretty good idea of what that year is going to look like because of it. But 2025 could be anything. It will no doubt be difficult—yesterday, the US House of Representatives voted 218-206 to ban transgender girls from girls sports in federally funded schools, so we’re not off to a great start—but perhaps it will also be rewarding. Maybe things will get better, maybe I’ll get better. Or maybe I’ll just stay the same. That would be a victory, in its way, after all the changes of the past year and the possible horrors that are lying in wait in this one.
Here’s to the new year, and the same me.
I cannot say that all of 2024 was bad. After all, it saw two publications with my name on it: HAWKGIRL-ONCE UPON A GALAXY, which collects the 2023 HAWKGIRL miniseries in one tidy volume, and “Secret Identity,” a story in the anthology WHEN I WAS YOUNG… which I wrote and drew and was colored by the remarkably talented Robin Fasel.
Drawing that story was wonderful, but it also drove home how rusty my visual art muscles are. Practice makes permanent, as my daughter’s music instructor says, so I am challenging myself to draw 50 comic pages this year. That’s not a whole lot, but last year I only did 4, so, baby steps.
I’m going to start with a few stand-alone pages, not connected to a larger story, but featuring characters I’ve been meaning to work with. These characters could go on to larger stories—after all, I’ve got 50 pages to fill—but mainly I just want to play around. I want to see what gets me excited about drawing, and do that.
These comics will go up on my Patreon—the first one is already there—which now only has a $1 a month tier. If you can’t swing it, don’t worry! The comics will show up in this very website and on my newsletter the following week.
I want 2025 to be a good year for me, as much as an extensive arbitrarily-selected length of time can be. Let’s see how it goes.
Good luck with the dragon.