A year that felt like the longest decade of my life, that ended before it could really begin. A hazy dream, half-remembered, whose lingering pain is all too real. Let the recap begin.

Recap

January began as usual for me. I drew the first part of Threads Chapter 7 and finally got When Night Falls its own page. In February, I discontinued My Resident Ghost because I wanted to focus on Threads and Laana Maji. Things didn't exactly work out as planned with either story, though. Convention prep time came around in March. I designed some new merchandise and placed my orders. I started making plans to rebuild and fix up my displays. My tables were booked.

By this point, news of COVID-19 had started making its way into my corner of the world. It wasn't a big issue in my area until around mid-March. Then my day job sent me home. Conventions were postponed. In April, when I first wrote about my job shutting down, I still thought it would be over soon. I was hopeful that, if nothing else, the time off could be a good break for me. Under normal circumstances, it would have been. Under these circumstances, the stress of uncertainty made working on my projects rather difficult.

Only a third of the way into the year, yet it already felt so long.

Threads went on hiatus for a while in May and came back a bit sporadically. I managed to buy a new computer. In June, I started laying the groundwork for False Faces. Due in part to becoming laser-focused on it, I left the other projects on the back burner. I was still anticipating conventions until, in July, they cancelled. Without those to plan for, I returned my focus to False Faces, which finally began in September. In October, I started to work on Threads and planned to start posting soon.

The universe had other plans for me.

After not being able to visit my family for months, I made plans to visit my grandmother in November. She had gone to her local bar a few days prior to my visit, not knowing that it had become a hotspot for infections. Shortly after I returned home, the symptoms hit. I actually made a post about it on Twitter, and wrote daily updates during the worst of it. At its peak, my fever was over 103 Fahrenheit and my toothpaste tasted like alcohol. I spent two weeks in my bed, unable to get up for more than a few minutes. Even after recovering from the fever, I was too tired and sick to do anything until December. Now, at the end of the year, I still tire quickly.

Throughout December, I've been trying to clean up the mess that COVID-19 and the year 2020 have left me. Some of that is literal; I've been doing a lot of cleaning around the house. I'm trying to get my health back after having it sapped by the worst fever of my life. I'm working out a better schedule for my comics and some freelance work that I picked up recently. It's been one hell of a year. Looking back at my 2019 review, I was very hopeful that 2020 would be better. Things didn't work out that way, but I haven't lost my love for comics or the desire to create. I'll make the best of whatever comes next.

What’s next

Threads is expected to resume in February.

False Faces Chapter 1 is almost finished. The second chapter is already scripted.

Laana Maji has no official prospective start date at the moment, but it is still on the table.

I intend to release progress reports at least every other month and will return to the format that I used in 2019.

If you like my stories and want to support them, you can do so on Patreon. Patrons see all the pages as they’re finished.