I’m sitting here struggling to come up with a picture to post with this, so here’s an image of a font I don’t have access to at the moment and I’m frustrated by it. It’s called Broadway and it’s so wonderful. Affinity 1 had it, and it’s one of many fonts that didn’t make the jump to Affinity 2. I don’t think I can open the page in Affinity 1 to use the font, either, though I suppose it’s worth a try. Most of the fonts I currently have access to are very like standard print, with a few that look more hand-written. I’m missing anything loopy, or more cursive, or more stylized. I don’t know why so many fonts were taken out, and I’m not sure where I can go to get more. I’m looking into it. I don’t have that many font needs most of the time, or at least I historically haven’t, but I don’t want to be lacking. I want to get more into drawing my own sound effects, but I don’t want to do the sort of lettering I want Broadway for myself, since handwriting is my disability.
Last night, I finished up page 13 of Bet Your Sweet Bottom, so this project is nearing its artistic endpoint. It’s about time I start looking into the business and logistical things, like buying a new printer and finding places I can go with this zine. That’s the most daunting part of this. I have little experience or confidence even finding information and events like this, and I’m worried about going somewhere fully unfamiliar. If there’s a regular market or venue around town, I may go to one first to see what it’s like before anything else. I have so many blank spots around what it’ll actually be like, and that makes me feel so antsy.
On the other side, I do think I’ve learned a lot from doing this book like I wanted. Going back to an older work has reminded me what I like about my art. There are aesthetic choices I made here based on past experience and focusing on what I can do best now to accomplish what I want. For a long time, I’ve been frustrated because I was focusing on what I wanted my art to be, knowing what would work best based on other people’s work, and not able to execute on it. Doing this, where I need to be able to make something now that I’m proud and satisfied with, has me looking instead at my current opportunities and abilities. As I imagine my next stories, I’ve started thinking about how I would actually make them, rather than what would look the absolute best. Or rather, I’m doing way more of the former; I can still and would love to improve so I can do all the cooler stuff that I can’t at the moment.
Along those lines, I also have more solid ideas on how I want to move forward with my current journey. I would love to get something published one day, but at the moment, I really love the zine format. I’m very happy with the scrappy, hand-made aesthetic of it, which fits my current abilities really well. I also love that it’s something I can keep doing on my own, at my own pace. It’s a much better place to start from than trying to immediately jump into full book format with a publishing and business world I know nothing about. If I can get a handle on the marketing and selling stuff I’m wanting to do for this current zine, I’ll be in a position to keep moving forward with my art while learning business things and making connections (hopefully) for the future.
I just really want to make stuff right now, you know? I want to have stuff to do and make comics and not wait or slow down or get permission. It’s been so good for my lifestyle to have a comic to make, I’m feeling much better about myself and my place in the world, and I have a place to put a lot of my feelings that felt like stagnant swirling into the void without it. I still can’t see that far into the future, but I have already envisioned a way to make things happen right now that I can carry forward into multiple future projects. I still don’t know if it’ll ever be a full-time career, how to make this into one, or if the career I end up with will be like the vague outline I glean from the comic stands. But, you know, I need to be doing this no matter what, and that’s why I’m drawing.
Speaking of the future, my graphic novel will become a zine series. Like I said before, I want to continue working in that format. It’s also a great way to keep my head on straight as I develop it, since each issue will have a clear deadline, in page count and story needs. It also sets up that story to be the first model for how I’m currently thinking about my future with zine making. I think I could work in a seasonal format, taking breaks as needed between projects to plan and design and whatnot before diving back into the churn of book-making to produce a season of the story. That framing is mostly relevant, right now, to the martial arts story I want to make, which will have several stories as the characters continue towards their ultimate goals. By nature, it’s not something that can be done in one go, and each story takes place in new environments, so there’s a lot of stuff I’ll have to prepare in between. Hence, a TV season model would be the best route to both produce that story as it needs to be and keep me moving all the time. Giving myself the experience of what that season of production would be like with my former graphic novel project will be valuable information.
I’m also thinking more about what the digital business side would look like. I can monetize this site easily enough for individual zine sales, but in terms of more sustainable income, I think I have enough info to think through what the models could be. Based on the time it took to make this zine, I could keep myself on a two month per issue schedule, so long as I’m still otherwise employed. That would still give me some buffer room, too. So, yeah, I fully get that would be a hard sell for many on a Patreon or a Buy Me a Coffee or something, because so many others are making stuff on a much more frequent basis; my plan would be a zine every two months, with spaces between even that while I plan future seasons. But you know, if there’s anyone out there who’s willing to stick through it, I could have a more steady stream of income for this endeavor while I work towards a place where I could be more full time with it. That’s probably the most nebulous of all this; I’m certainly not ready to start any of that at the moment. It’s just good to have an idea.
I’m also starting to look at my life in a different way. When I was younger, I watched a lot more TV than I do now. While there’s a lot to say about the advantages traditional TV has over streaming, the more important thing personally is that I recognize the behavior more. I’m stimming all the time, and TV was easy for that. Now that TV isn’t as much of an option, and I can only watch shows that I actively choose, I find myself watching a lot less shows. At least, in what would be my spare time. Most of my active show watching happens at meal times, and the rest is mostly podcast listening while I work. For as much as I enjoyed the time I spent when I was younger with the TV, I now have other things I’d rather use that time for, and the idea of zoning out in front of a screen doing nothing is so awful. Similarly, I still play games to relax, and I’ve recently found myself with too many games at once. Having extra bars to fill distracts from the bar I want to be filling most. So I’ll be skipping the next season of Marvel Snap. I’m running into the card acquisition issue, so it’s mostly playing with the same decks I’ll have if I come back to it a year from now. It’ll also give me time to find out if the new snap pack thing is better or worse than the current system; it sounds like it could be better, but I also suspect it’ll be prohibitively expensive and thus harder, given the difficulty of acquiring tokens as things stand. But yeah, most of the things I do in life are about keeping myself occupied because boredom is death, and so I’m reevaluating which stims actually make me feel good and move me forward in life. Comics is the main one, and playing an hour or two of Pokémon every once in a while is a fine way to wind down.
Life moves forward, one step at a time.
Weekly Art Blog 3/23-3/30/2025
Life in the Gutters 