Notes from Underground.

Or, where the f- have I been these past few months?

Hey friends, it sure has been a while.

I wanted to check in and let you know what’s been going on with me, and it feels a little complicated to express, so forgive me if I ramble on a little. Substack is going to recommend I put images in to break up this big wall of text but I’m just not feeling it.

The biggest reason why I haven’t been sending out newsletters more regularly is that one of my goals with this thing, and with comics in general, was to be a voice of positivity - highlighting the good things, keeping an upbeat outlook in the face of the negative aspects of the industry, etc., and the truth is, I just haven’t been feeling very positive lately. And being honest, I was afraid to express that publicly. But here goes.

A Year of Hell.

Let’s rewind to November 2023, the month where I was laid off from my long term job, and lost my dad to heart failure within weeks of each other. It was, as I’m sure you can guess, a pretty low point in my life. My dad went into cardiac arrest the same day I got laid off, but held on for a few weeks. I’d bring my laptop to the hospital, stay with him overnight, and work on the scripts I had due.

I remember working on Leftovers for Batman: Brave and The Bold, The Cy-Nister Six for Spider-Man: Edge of Spiderverse, and weirdly enough, a custom Captain America comic for Minor League Baseball. It was hard to get into a creative space, but I was also glad to have something to keep me occupied during those long hours besides doomscrolling on my phone.

And you know, there was also something kind of special about having that light to hold on to in such a dark place. Sure, my world was going to hell, but I was writing Spidey! It was a glimmer to hold on to.

The Long Dark.

My dad passed a few weeks later, and after we all dealt with that, I was faced with the fact that I really didn’t have anything to do anymore. The job market for advertising creatives was (and still is) pretty terrible - many other friends had gotten laid off, and it seemed impossible to find anyone hiring, much less get an interview.

I’d get freelance gigs pretty regularly, but I also had a lot of free time to focus on comics, that to be honest I wasn’t able to make the most of due to being stressed out over the job situation. It was a long winter. And a longer spring. But then summer came.

I went to SDCC, despite the fact that it would have been smarter to save the money, and a wonderful thing happened. I got to see and hang out with some dear friends and fellow creators, which reinvigorated me, and I had some really positive meetings with editors from different companies that gave me some hope that more work would be coming in. And then the same thing happened at NYCC a couple months later. I felt like, after all these years, it was finally, finally happening.

And then it didn’t.

Ok, you get ONE image.

Knowing vs. Feeling.

Now I’ve said it before, and it’s very true that editors are really busy, all of the time.
They rarely have a moment to respond to emails even if they’d like to, unless they have something more to say than “thanks, we’ll keep you in mind”. This is something I know for a fact. Something I’ve been told in direct conversations with those same editors, who appreciate me sending them work but don’t have time to get back to me.

I know this. I accept this.

But it’s still worn me down. Kept me up nights. Gnawed away at my confidence, and played on my insecurites.

But this time, something broke. It wasn’t my desire to work at the big 2 - I still want to do that. It wasn’t my confidence, or belief I could do a great job there. I still have that.

What broke was this belief, this idea that I had, that anything I said, anything I did actually mattered. It didn’t matter how good a pitch I had, for whatever character I wanted to work on. It didn’t really matter what I wanted to work on.

Those decisions were truly out of my hands, and nothing I could say or do would put them under my control.

So I had to ask myself, even if there are good reasons for people not getting back to you, do you want to be the type of person desperately emailing into a wall of nothing, over and over and over again? The guy who just can’t take the hint?

I was surprised to find the answer was no. I don’t want to be that guy.

I say surprised, because this was something I had wanted so desperately, for so long, that it never occurred to me that I could just let go, and let it happen… or not happen. That the more I pushed, the more I was hurting myself, and if I really wanted to, I could just… stop.

It is hard, hard as hell, to keep trying when you feel like you’re being passed on, again and again. It’s like there is this wall between you, and where you want to be - there is no way around it, over it, or through it. You can bang yourself bloody running into it, or you can just stand outside, do your own thing, and wait for someone to throw down a rope.

Neither choice seems to matter to the wall.

Acceptance.

Maybe I’ve just reached the final stage of grieving a career that could have been, but I do feel some measure of acceptance, that the timing of how and when big 2 work comes isn’t up to me. Nor is it up to me if it comes at all. Doesn’t matter how bad I want it. Doesn’t matter if I deserve it. It’s out of my control.

And the surprising thing is that’s strangely liberating. I hate feeling ignored, and I hate feeling overlooked. The great thing is, I can just… not give people a chance to make me feel that way. I’m not exactly hard to get in touch with, so if they ever want me, they know where to find me.

Meanwhile, I can concentrate on working with the people who do want to work with me, of which it turns out there are many. I can pour my energy into projects with publishers that are more than happy to look at what I send them, and even greenlight it now and then. I can take every last shard of that broken heart, and put it into doing the part of the job that I love, which is crafting stories.

This is not giving up.

I realize that a lot of this reads like I’m leading up to making a big declaration of how I’m done with comics, taking my toys and going home. I promise you that it’s not.

This is me claiming my place in comics. Claiming that I deserve a spot at the table. And every day that I don’t get one is day that the big 2 and their readership are poorer for it. I’m done with scraps and bones.

I’m ready to eat. I just don’t get to make the reservation.

But my readers, my friends, if I ever do get invited to that table, I can promise you one thing. We are all going to feast.

Up Next.

Over the next couple of years, you are going to see work from me that eclipses everything I’ve ever done before.

You’re going to see me take the reins of two exciting non-superhero properties that I’m going to knock out of the park.

You’re going to see me pitch projects that are more personal and powerful than anything I’ve put out so far, and if those pitches get slept on by publishers, you’ll see them on Kickstarter.

Hell, you might even see a movie with my name on it.

But overall, you’re going to see me stop doing things “the right way” and start doing them my way. And you’re going to see this very broken creator reforge himself into something stronger. I promise you that.

Will I ever write Batman again? Or Spider-Man? Or any of them? I hope so. I really do.

But I’m done with letting the fact that I’m not writing them keep me down, or question myself.

If I never get a chance to work on my dream books, then I’m sure as shit going to spend my time making books that I never could have dreamed of.

The End. Finally.

Thanks for letting me get that out, my friends. I know that saying any of this doesn’t really matter. And for all I know, putting it out there just tanked whatever slim chances I still had. But I had to say my peace, and turn the page on all of that, for better or worse.

Making comics isn’t easy, or profitable, or even really sensible sometimes, but there’s just some kind of magic, some weird love, that keeps pulling all of us back to them, no matter how many times they break our heart.

It’s going to be quite a road ahead, and I hope you’ll continue to walk it with me. If you can believe one thing, the stories I will tell you along the way will make it all worthwhile.

Back to work. Excelsior.