March Newsletter! (It's long, I'm sorry!)

Heyo!

It's been a while since I chatted to you properly so it's time for a Newsletter!

March has been a super busy month for me. I’ve got my fingers in lots of different proverbial pies right now so it’s been difficult for me to keep Patreon updated. Because of this, and because April is going to be even busier for me than this month has been, I’ve decided to pause billing for April, meaning that you won’t be charged for that month. I plan to continue posting comics and other stuff where I can, since I’m hoping to build up some kind of backlog, and $7 patrons will still be getting updates from other projects. Billing will resume in May!

Convention Boogaloo

I did my first convention of 2022 earlier this month! AMCE Glasgow was a lot of fun. It was nice to finally be able to go back to Glasgow and see my friends after all this time. Most of my friends live in Scotland and it’s been super weird to not really be able to hang out with anyone IRL for the last two years, oof! I had so much fun tabling and it feels nice to be getting back into the swing of doing conventions again.

My experience at AMCE has given me some things to think about though, or rather, confirmed things that I was already thinking. When I started doing conventions pre-Covid, the work that I made and sold was almost entirely fanart and most of the conventions I’ve tabled at until now have been anime cons, where the main attendee demographic is teen anime fans looking to buy prints of their favourite IP. During and post-Covid, I’ve shifted solidly to making personal work, which I find much more fulfilling and is more in-line with my long-term goals as an artist.

At the end of 2021, I tabled at LICAF, Thought Bubble and MCM London (in artist alley, not in dealers - the difference being that artist alley is all original work and dealers is fanart haha). All three of these events are comic-focused as opposed to anime-focused, and the attendees tend to be adult people looking for indie comics, which is more my wheelhouse these days. I had a great time at all three of these shows and my work sold well. It made me wonder what my tabling experience would be like at an anime con though since I no longer sell fanart.

AMCE was a huge anime convention, and it was a great chance to test out what it would be like not selling fanart at such a fanart-centric event. As I suspected, my work did not sell well and I did not break even. I had anticipated this from the start so it’s not a big deal. I wasn’t very emotionally invested in selling at AMCE, I was more invested in meeting friends and fans and new people and just getting to hang out in a social setting. I had an absolute blast!!

So for me now, the question is, ‘Will I still table at anime cons in the future?’ It wouldn’t be difficult for me to make some fanart. There are some IPs that I would quite like to draw, such as Pokemon, Nier, Kingdom Hearts and Evangelion. I do still very much enjoy fanart, it’s just not where my creative focus is right now; I’d much rather focus on original comics since I have very limited time and energy! It’s the direction my heart wants to go in. But I think it would be a shame to stop tabling at anime conventions…

I didn’t apply for a table for Dee Con this year, which felt very weird to me. Dee Con was the first convention I ever tabled at, it’s run by and at the university I attended and also I was one of the organisers of the convention in 2017. It’s a very personal convention for me for a lot of reasons, and not applying feels kind of wrong in a way.

I feel like I wouldn’t be telling the full story of why I’m agonising over this decision if I didn’t mention that (TW: abuse mention. Skip this paragraph if necessary!!), one of the main reasons I want to keep attending the Scottish anime cons and maintain a strong presence there, is specifically because I want to keep my abuser out of the scene. One of my trauma anxieties is that if I stop going, he’ll start going. And although it’s selfish of me, I want him to see my name on the artist list and feel that he can’t attend as either a seller or an attendee. He doesn’t deserve to be in the same community as me, and I want to do everything I can to prevent that from happening. In light of that, I might apply to Dee Con after all………

It should be a pretty easy decision; either attend anime cons or don’t! But there are many ~Extraneous~ Factors which make this choice harder than it has any right to be haha. I know I’ll figure it out though.

I’m meant to be tabling at Sunny Con this Summer which is a huge anime convention in the UK. I booked it in 2019 I think, and it was meant to be my first time going, but it turns out I won’t be able to attend after all, which is a shame since I was looking forward to it.

TCAF

The reason that I can’t go to Sunny Con is that I got accepted into TCAF, which is a Huge deal for me wowwww!!!

Toronto Comic Art Festival is the biggest and most well-known indie comic convention in the world. I applied without really expecting to be accepted and I was so excited when I found out I’d gotten in! This now means that I’ll be going to Canada in June, which is so cool - I’ve always wanted to go!

Since I’ve never been outside of Europe, I think I will probably take the opportunity to visit the US while I’m nearby, so I’m currently planning the trip to see what is and isn’t possible. I’m super hyped about it though!

Return of the Neurodiversity Panel at MCM London

In other convention news, I’m extremely happy to be able to say that I will be returning as a panellist at MCM London in May! I will be speaking on the Neurodiversity Panel again with Kev, Rach, Sheepdog and also a new face - Connor! Closer to the time, we will probably ask for some suggestions for things to talk about or questions you’d like us to answer.

I’m super super stoked to be invited onto the panel again. Last time I was so nervous!!! I’d never done something like that before but it was so much fun and it was so great to be able to take part. I was on such an emotional high for ages after it hahaha.

I have also applied to table at MCM London but I haven’t heard back yet. Hopefully I will be able to table there again, I had such a blast last autumn.

I’m a Featured Guest at LICAF

I’ve been invited to be a featured guest at LICAF (Lakes International Comic Art Festival) in the Lake District, UK. To actually be invited to a convention as a guest is like, mind-blowingly surreal and exciting for me. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be expected to teach workshops so I’m not sure how much time I’ll be able to spend tabling but either way I am Excited!

Next Level Comics - A Workshop for Autistic Comic Creators

On 1st April - which is the first day of Autism Acceptance Month - Myself and Matt Smith will be running an all-day comic making workshop for autistic creatives. I’m very very excited about it but I’m also pretty nervous as well!

In my free time and in my work time, I do a surprising amount of comic teaching. People regularly ask for my advice and I often give lengthy one-on-one critiques to people who ask. Mostly this takes place on Discord and I’ve been doing more of it than usual as part of the upcoming Autistic Comic Takeover (more about this further down!) and it’s something I really enjoy doing.

Over the years, I have accumulated so much knowledge and information on making comics and I really relish a chance to get to share that knowledge. I’m so excited for creators who are just finding their feet in comics, it’s such a precious time haha. And to be able to help people on their comic making journey in any way is really an honour for me.

So with that in mind, I’m trying not to be too nervous about this workshop. Something I’ve been concerned about is that making comics is VERY different to teaching comics, and I wasn’t sure if I had both skillsets; but I’ve been trying to remind myself that this is just a more formal version of something I’ve been doing for ages now. I do have experience with teaching, and I think I can do a good job.

I’m also very grateful to just be involved in this project at all. I found out about it through LICAF, when one of the speakers talked about looking for volunteers to run workshops for autistic creators with the aim of exploring how autism and comics can intertwine. I’m glad that I volunteered because I think out of everyone on the team, I’m the only person who has experience specifically with this combination of subject matter, which makes me feel confident in doing this. I just need to try to not let anxiety get the best of me!!!!

Autistic Creative Festival

Last April, for Autism Acceptance Month, I organised the #ASDComicTakeover which eventually became the anthology, SENSORY: Life on the Spectrum. This April, I am spearheading the Autistic Creative Festival (maybe I should start calling myself Festival Director because that sounds cool haha) which will feature a Comic Takeover, similarly to last year, but also so much more!

Autistic Creative Festival: Comic Takeover 2022

The main criticisms of SENSORY that I saw were that a lot of the comics were about masking, and also that the book has big ‘please understand my differences and needs’ energy without really talking in-depth about what those differences and needs are. I think that is super valid criticism and I agree with them, so to that end, we have a tighter theme and a more specific goal in mind for our comics this year: tackling misconceptions about autism.

Last year, the pitching and creation period for the comics was a lot looser and so some of the comics ended up being similar or being something other than what had been planned in the pitches. This year, the pitching process for comic ideas was much more involved and every idea had to mention and tackle a specific misconception about autism.

The comics this year have a wider scope: they are less autobio-focused (although there is definitely still autobio in there) and have a stronger focus on being educational/informative. Our aim is to use these comics to raise awareness, raise acceptance, and through clearing up misconceptions we might be able to reach undiagnosed struggling adults who don’t yet realise they’re autistic, and help them to understand themselves or give them a jumping off point to do their own research and begin their journeys.

I will be making my own comics for the takeover as well. So far I am illustrating a comic written by someone else, and I am writing two comics to be illustrated by other artists. I would like to make one more comic that is both written and drawn by myself but time might not allow it.

Like last year, we will most likely Kickstart our comics into another anthology, but I have definitely learned from last year’s mistakes. I am still dealing with SENSORY copies that have gone missing in the post, been returned to me instead of being delivered, copies that are stuck in customs, copies for people who are still only just filling out the backer surveys… it’s a lot. It’s been a huge struggle, made even more difficult by the fact that I am only home (where the books are) about 15% of the time now, since I’m currently staying with my partner.

For this Kickstarter, I will not be doing the shipping myself. I will be offloading all shipping and fulfilment to Buy Small Press Fulfilment Services. This will be more expensive so we will need to account for that in our funding goal, but it is going to make this process So Much Easier. I never want to put myself in the situation again where I’m shipping out thousands of books myself and merch on my own, and dealing with months of postage fallout. It’s been fun and I’m glad that I did it, but it also kind of ruined my life for a while hahaha. Only now am I recovered from the burnout of doing all that wowee.

I will also not be doing custom art rewards for the next Kickstarter. It took me an embarrassingly long time to get them all done and sent out. I wish I had listened to the people who told me it was a bad idea before I launched the project!! They were right.

Anyway, I’m feeling really good about this year’s comics and Kickstarting them! I’m really excited to be able to get this ball rolling again. I’m not sure yet when we’re going to launch the campaign but I would imagine it will be sometime in mid-April.

Autistic Creative Festival: Game Jam, Festival Album and More!

As I mentioned earlier, this year we’re not just doing the Comic Takeover, I have an entire Autistic Creative Festival planned for April!

The comics will be coming out every day but throughout the month of April, a bunch of autistic creators will be collaborating on a month-long game jam and also on a collaborative music album! As well as organising these projects, I will also be contributing to them, which I am very excited about.

If all goes smoothly, for the game jam, I will be creating the character art for a dating sim where all the characters are autistic! Because this is for a game jam, it will probably be very janky and not very long but hopefully it will be something fun that people will enjoy playing.

For the album, we are creating songs about autism, all utilising the same leitmotif hidden somewhere in the track. I’m currently about half-way through my track - I can’t wait to share it with you!

We hope to release both the games and the music towards the end of April.

There will also be opportunities for people outside of the Autistic Creative Hub Discord Server to get involved. There will be drawing prompts and two different writing prompts, which is very exciting! We will also be encouraging people to create their own comics for the Comic Takeover and get involved on Social Media - more on that at some point in April!

We are also floating the idea of doing a charity videogame stream, so look out for that!

Freelance Life: Book Cover

My main project right now is a full jacket book cover for a big 5 publisher, which is VERY exciting. I’ve been working on it since January and it’s very very very cool to be able to work with such a well-known client. It’s also been Super interesting to be on the inside of this process and see how the industry works first-hand since this is my first time doing a cover for someone else’s book.

So far, my experience of working on this has been Awesome. The deadlines have been generous and flexible, the pay is good and the people I’m communicating with have been very kind and enthusiastic about my work. I’m really grateful for this opportunity and I can’t wait until the cover is finally revealed. If all goes well, you should be able to see my cover in a bookstore near you in the future hehehehe!!!

I can’t say too much but the book features an autistic protagonist and it’s very good :)

Freelance Life: Closing Character Commissions

In other freelancing news, I’m thinking of permanently closing my character commissions. The truth is that I just don’t enjoy doing them, and I feel like they rarely come out looking as good as I know they could be, even though I spend so long on them.

I might keep expressions sheet commissions open because I do genuinely enjoy those actually, haha, but I am finding character commissions increasingly hard to get through. Over the last couple of months, I’ve had quite a few requests for character commissions in my inbox that I just never ended up responding to, because the dread of doing them was too much (I didn’t intend to not respond to them, it’s just that way where you think ‘I’ll do it tomorrow… I’ll do it next week…’ and then it never gets done aaa….. This is a recurring problem for me in many aspects of my life!!)

I do really want to continue to take comic commissions though. I love working with writers on projects and I feel like I’ve learned something from every single comic commission I’ve done. I love them!

Freelance Life: Traditionally Publishing the Anthology

Another plate that I’m currently spinning is being involved in the editing process for SENSORY: Life on the Spectrum which is being traditional published by Andrews McMeel to release this autumn! I believe it will come out in September in the US, and October in the UK but this may change later on!

It’s still such an incredible thing that our anthology was picked up and I am beyond excited about it. The editing process is really only just getting started and I expect it to pick up throughout the Spring, but hopefully it won’t keep me too busy!

Freelance Life: TourBox Collab

Something really cool happened to me a few weeks ago: I was contacted by Tourbox and they wanted to collab with me!

For those who don’t know, TourBox is a kind of controller for people who work with creative software. It’s probably easier if you just google it lol but basically it’s a thing that has buttons and switches and programmable keys so it’s kind of like a remote for your software of choice.

Last year, TourBox worked with a bunch of artists who I follow and had glowing reviews and I’ve always wanted to try one, so when they offered to send me one I was SUPER stoked. I’m going to be doing a drawing for them in the next couple of days when I get my stylus back. I might also do an unboxing video? I’m not sure yet, I think it would be fun though haha.

This is the first time a company has ever reached out to me to send me stuff so I’m like, super excited about it hahaha it feels really cool. It was realy nice to be able to tell my parents about it. Now that my career is finally starting to stabilise somewhat (ish) and I can tell them cool stuff like this, and being on convention panels and getting published etc, they finally believe I have a real job hahaha.

Comics!

As I mentioned earlier, my hope for the rest of this month and throughout April is to build up a backlog of Lavender Clouds (my autobio comics haha) again. I really do like to have at least ten unread comics on Patreon for you guys here because I want you to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, and also because I like to have a degree of emotional separation between me and my work by the time it goes live on social media.

I have So Many Ideas for new comics. Even though I haven’t been posting them, I’ve still been writing them, and I hope to be able to share some thumbnails with you soon.

The main reason for falling behind with them again is that I spent a week on various people’s couches in Glasgow, then I spent a week recovering from that week while also working on the Creative Festival, and this week, when I went to get out my drawing equipment, I realised that I left my stylus at home (I’m currently staying at my partner’s place) so I can’t draw on my PC at all. I have no stylus and I must scream.

Thankfully, I can still draw on my iPad but my drawing style on the iPad is very different to my regular comic style and I can’t make consistent work there, so it just isn’t possible to make Lavender Clouds on it.

With that said, I have been drawing a LOT on my iPad lately. I will be sharing what I’ve been making with my $7 patrons soon after posting this but I’ve been working on Violapse again and I have a *lot* to show you.

Spending time with my friends (who also make comics) in Glasgow was really good for me. We were talking about comic making and the challenges we face, and I was really inspired by them! They ignited the fire in my heart!!!

Something that I’ve always struggled with when it comes to making comics (and drawing in general) is that my style is very rigid. All my lines are connected (which makes it easier to colour), all my lines are smooth, I rely heavily on my stabiliser and it really affects the way I draw. Not only that, but my drawings and comics take a LONG time to make.

I’ve been thinking for some time that something needed to change. I think the obsessive neatness in my work gets in the way of not only the creative process but also the outcome. Rougher work often conveys something that can’t be conveyed in neatness. This is something I’ve always known but I just couldn’t overcome this wall with my own work for so long. Part of it is trauma from a past very close but also very toxic friendship with another comic creator and part of it is me and my own shortcomings, but it’s something I think I’m finally starting to overcome.

When I was staying in Scotland, one of my best friends Julie and I had lengthy chats about rough comics. Talking to them was Super inspiring and I think it’s a huge reason behind why I’m on such a drawing high right now. We stayed up late zooming in on manga and webtoons and it’s actually surprising how rough a lot of these comics are - but they still look SO good. We were also reading Megatokyo which is a VERY rough early 2000s webcomic (which is still going to this day) but also, it’s super inspiring!! It’s made by a guy who’s just living his best life drawing anime girls and making thousands of comic pages and even though the drawings are not technically the best, they still succeed at what they’re setting out to do, which is all that matters!!!

I’ve been working So Much on Violapse this week in my spare time in the evenings. I’ve made more work for this project this week than I did during the entirety of my final year at university (Violapse started out as a uni project). I am enjoying it so much more than I’ve enjoyed drawing in a long time and I think a huge part of the reason is that it’s Very Rough. The lines are a mess, but I think they’re able to really capture the vibes, so to speak.

I’ve decided that when it comes to Violapse, I do not care about consistency. I don’t care about being on-model. I don’t care about neatness. All I care about is VIBES hahaha, if the vibes are right, then I think I can call it a success.

Hopefully you’ll be able to see what I mean when I post the pages. I hope you like them! Huge huge TW for Domestic Violence by the way since some of the pages are either graphic or just pretty grim;;;

But yes, I’m really excited to share what I’ve been working on. I’ve been waking up every morning feeling Excited to work on it which is a feeling I haven’t had in the longest time. The subject matter is very dark but working on it is SUPER cathartic for me.

Right now, my approach is to draw random pages and disjointed scenes since that seems to be how I work best for long-form stuff - at least while I’m still developing it - and then I’ll connect the dots and make it make sense later. My biggest struggle with Violapse over the years has been plotting it, but focusing more on just drawing and honing in on The Vibes has been so much more productive!!!

Personal life

My mental health has been surprisingly good lately but it feels like a fragile peace that I need to actively check up on. I’m pretty sure I can maintain it if I’m careful - but also I’ve said that before! My main difficulties right now, rather than depression, are anxiety and stress. Stress is a strange one for me because it creeps up on me so quietly. I feel like I’m fine but then a minor inconvenience will present itself and I will be on the verge of tears.

As I head into this super busy time of the year, I am doing my best to be responsible with my own time and energy. I don’t want to burn out so deeply again, but in general, I’m feeling like I’m in a good place right now. I’m excited about comics, I’m very nervous about the workshop, I’m slightly stressed about how much I have to do but I also know that I can do all of it and that it will work out OK!

My partner and I are still flathunting. We actually have two viewings tomorrow and I really hope they go well and that we can finally move. Life is going to be so much easier when we have our own space and I’m not constantly travelling between two places.

Sign Off

Thank you so much for continuing to support me on Patreon. I know I haven’t been anywhere near as active as I would like to be, but I really do appreciate the support from you guys. Without you, it would be So Much Harder for me and my partner to move out, to be able to go to conventions, to be able to justify making these comics at all honestly… I hope that you know that I will never take you for granted.

I will continue to post as much as I can throughout April but like I said, I will be pausing the billing cycle in case the Creative Festival becomes too much work. Not only that but I feel like you guys are basically entitled to a free month at this point haha.

Anyway, I’m sorry this was such a long newsletter!!! I haven’t made one in a while and I really miss doing them. Hopefully I can continue to do them from now on. It’s nice to be able to talk to you more directly about what’s going on and also it’s a nice opportunity for me to self-reflect.

I hope you’re all having a good month, and if not, I hope you’re hanging in there. Chat to you again soon!

Bex