April Newsletter

Hello everyone! 

It's been a little while since I posted anything on here, I'm so sorry about that! March was a bad month for pretty much everyone, I think. There's a lot I want to say in this update so I hope you don't mind that this is quite a long one! It's a tiny bit downery but I don't really mean for it to be. As I said, March was Not Super Great but I'm ready to move forward and get on with April with the same determination that I had earlier in the year!!

 ⋆ LIFE UPDATES ⋆ 

So just before the UK went on lockdown, I decided to temporarily move in with my partner and his family to see quarantine through. This decision was definitely the right thing for me but it basically means that the nice and steady schedule that has been holding me together for so long has pretty much gone out of the window. 

One huge problem is that I no longer have a desk. I'm currently working from bed because it's literally the only space there is here. This sucks for a ton of reasons (my back! my knees!) but it's really messing with my ability to fall asleep and keep regular hours. Yesterday I got up at 2pm for the first time in YEARS. It was not a good feeling! 

There are a few other small inconveniences such as this that are adding up to make a Bad Work Environment and truth be told, I'm really struggling to adjust

It's so strange because I've worked from home for over a year now, but just being in a different environment throws me into a spiral. It's like having to figure it out for the first time all over again, but this time with new obstacles to overcome.

I also got Really Sick for a solid week and a half which affected my ability to do most things. I'm just going to say that now especially is a very bad time for someone with an anxiety disorder to get ill hahaha

★ KICKSTARTER ★

So most of you probably know this already but I launched my first Kickstarter last month and it was an overwhelming success! It was a collaboration between myself and two of my best friends to make enamel pins and we managed to raise £1500, smashing through every stretch goal and our original goal of £600. 

Being in charge of this project was so much fun but also a huge strain. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of doing group projects back at university haha. I had a little bit of help from my collaborators but suffice it to say that I now understand why people say that running a Kickstarter is like having a full time job!

Anyway it was stressful, but that good kind of stress where you know you're getting things done! I'm really proud of myself for not dropping the ball hahahaha. I'm also really looking forward to shipping all the orders. It's going to be a ton of work for me to do on my own but at the same time, I can't wait. I've seen a lot of artists post photos from when they have to ship a bunch of orders at once and I always hoped that would one day be me and now it's going to be! I'm like, ridiculously excited hahaha

★ COMICS ★

I'm so sorry for the lack of comics for the past 2 weeks. The main reason for this is that other things have been getting in the way (getting sick, kickstarter, commissions...) but another reason is that I'm worried about how the way I'm currently feeling might impact the work in a bad way. What I mean is that the raft series that I'm doing (which I've decided to call Staying Afloat) starts to skew positive around this point and one of the pages that's coming up is basically the defining page, if that makes sense. It's like, the whole reason I wanted to make this a series in the first place. But I'm worried that if I'm feeling kind of depressed lately, I might not be able to give the positive message my all

ALTHOUGH maybe the act of making the comics will remind me of why I wanted to make them at all and will be kind of cathartic and actually help me feel less depressed. I guess the only way to find out is to just do it!

Anyway I REALLY MISS MAKING COMICS so I'm going to sketch some out this afternoon and see how I feel about it. 

★ CONVENTIONS ★

The convention situation is Pretty Bleak right now but some good news is that I GOT INTO THOUGHT BUBBLE!!! I am still *so immensely happy* and grateful like.... this means SO MUCH to me aaaa.... For those of you who are unaware, Tbubs is the huge indie comic con in the UK and getting in is Hard. When I was applying, I didn't think I actually had a chance of making it in, but I always kind of mused that getting into Tbubs would be the moment of 'I made it in UK comics'. Which if course is completely made up by me! But that's how it feels!!! I really hope it can still go ahead and that I'm able to attend. 

Dealing with conventions being cancelled and postponed left right and centre last month was difficult. It doesn't help that many of the shows are refusing to refund people, instead offering them a table at a different show. As a high risk person who is immunocompromised, I have no idea what to do. I don't think I can safely attend the Summer cons, although I suspect that the only convention that even stands a chance of happening is Thought Bubble...

Here's an updated list of my current convention schedule:

April 4th - Rai Con - POSTPONED

April 5th - North West Zine Fest - POSTPONED

April 18th - Dee Con - CANCELLED 

May 29th, 30th, 31st - MCM London POSTPONED

June 26th, 27th, 28th - Sunny Con 

July 4th - Glasgow Comic Con

July 10th, 11th, 12th - Hyper Japan (CANCELLED)

July 10th, 11th, 12th - MCM London New Date (clash)

July 10th - Rai Con New Date (clash)

November 14th, 15th - Thought Bubble

 ★ PATREON ★ 

 Since I've been struggling to work as productively, I'm restructuring my Patreon 

The $2 is staying the same

• Sketches, illustrations and WIPs exclusive to Patreon 
• Comic thumbnails and stoy ideas 
• Early access to my comics
• Monthly newsletter

The $5 is changing slightly. I'm removing the sketch request from this tier, just because it's getting too much to handle. I'd love to replace it with something though so if anyone has any suggestions, please send them my way!

• All the previous tiers’ rewards
• Access to PDFs of my zines and comic books
• Access to my fonts
• Invitation to my Discord Server

The $7 is basically staying the same, but I've rephrased it to give myself a little more room to breathe. I'm still chipping away at Violapse, but I just haven't been able to prioritise it at all since launching this Patreon so having it be mentioned by name in the rewards tier, while not delivering on it made me feel really awful. I'm hoping that removing this pressure will actually be better for productivity. 

As always, you guys will get more personal comics and drawings and you'll still get your sketch!

• All the previous tiers’ rewards
• Access to my adult content
• Development for my other projects
• More personal comics and writing
• A sketch request every month

 ★ GOOD NEWS ★ 

So I just want to run very quickly through the good stuff that happened this last month so that I'm not just being a huge downer in this whole update hahaha

• I led a Kickstarter that raised £1500 - more than 2x its original goal!
• I got into Thought Bubble!
• I opened Animal Crossing commissions and the response was huge! I ended up doing like 40 of them and I was able to afford to buy Animal Crossing on the Switch!
• People have bought my brushes on Gumroad
• I get to see my partner more than ever lately (we only usually see each other at weekends)
• I am safe and well and alive 

Anyway oof, that was a long one huh ;;; Thank you so much for supporting me in this weird and uncertain time. Now more than ever, it means A Lot to me, like, a whole super ton. I'm going to do my best to make a bunch of comics for you guys! 

Stay safe, everyone.