So here we are, it’s the week leading up to Thought Bubble 2023 / TBF23. Just days away really.

I’ll be there (with Sarah too, which is great, as it’s always more of a fun weekend when we are there together), and I’ll have the usual array of comics and prints (and maybe even two new banners, see the side panels in the art above).

I’m looking forward to seeing some regular faces, meeting new people, as always happens there, and to catching up with old friends too (as we have often used the event as a focus point for our Norwich Art School friends meet-up).

But, regarding the comics and prints, particularly the comics, I’m hoping this is the last year I have to turn around to people who arrive at the table in eager anticipation of something new (and I love these people for that enthusiasm I really do, please don’t stop asking!)  only to have to say, “No, sorry, I’ve no new Cthulhiad comics again this year… I’ve just been too busy with other stuff.”

Unfortunately this year, I will still be saying that.

And it makes me crazy in the brain.

I’d really hoped to have something new on the table, but it just didn’t happen. I talked about it with Sarah on a number of occasions, but the year just seemed to slip through my fingers, again.

It’s not like I can’t show people that I’m working on those other things (at least the comics ones), you can see that happening in the posts from earlier this year. 

I’ve new work on Book 3 of “The Lance” (ie the final part of my two books The White Ship, and Drakon), and I started a whole new thing, well two actually, one a book looking at a retelling of the events around the life of the Gorgon, Medusa. Which I’m really enjoying working on (see some sketches below). 

The other being a set of short fantasy adventures, which would be cool to have more time to work on, but might have to take a back burner seat while I finish these other projects. There are others too, some even scripted already, but they’ll be even further back, on the back-back burner if you will.

Earlier this week on a forum for creatives (admittedly in a different medium, i.e. not comics), I wrote the words, “…in the rich tradition of starting something new before finishing the last thing(s), I’ve started toying with a new thing”…

I think this is part of the issue… so many ideas, and never enough time… or never enough well used time.

The other reason is, I’m just working… ie, not on my own personal work, per se, but on collaborations and work for hire, for or with others. This being where the money to live and pay for things like printing and being able to even think about turning up to events like TB comes from.

And once you start doing that, it becomes incredibly hard to step away from it and find the time to work on your own things. Any free time you do get, you think, “Will I have the time to make some significant ground on that big project? To do it justice? And if not, why not do something smaller instead?” Which, when you do that, all you have done is started another thing you haven’t finished, and once again you’ve got yourself caught up in a self-perpetuating cycle.

It’s not like I haven’t been here before, here’s my old DevArt profile pic from 2003, twenty years ago…

Half of something, indeed…

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve really been thoroughly enjoying the professional work I have been doing. 

I’ve produced some of my strongest painted work of my career over the last year or so*, I’ve made some of my favourite comics art in that time too, done my first solo painted cover (I’d definitely like to try more of that). Even produced things that have inspired me and given me a way forward for some of those personal projects that are sitting in the wings. And gone back to my roots, laughs, by taking on duties on a western** comic… I’m sure you’ll here about that in the near future.

*_{much of which again, isn’t going to be seen, even in my portfolio for a while as I’m under NDAs until the work is out in the world. All of this makes it look like you aren’t working and producing new stuff, but that’s the business.}

** _{my first fully finished self-published comic was a western, called The Indian Fighter – currently out of print.}

Add to all that, this recurring (post Covid?) brain fog into the mix, and, well… you get the picture.

…

So, what to do?

Well, I guess this post is really me just saying, that I need to have a serious think about how I organise my time.

I need to fit in time for those projects of my own that are sitting there almost ready to go, but are just not being done or finished. 

I’m hoping that this coming year is the year I get the balance right.

In the meantime, I’ll see you this coming weekend. And though for those of you who have bought my stuff in the past there might not be much in the way of new or unseen, it will still be great to say hello if you pass the table.

Look, new banners!

Regardless, let’s just have a great festival, and as always chat and rave and rant about our love of comics. It should be fun, come and say “Hi.”

We’ll be at table B34 in the DSTLRY Hall.

See you there.

g,

Some bonus coloured Cthulhiad Art…