A Year in Review: Looking into 2024

There's a lot happening next year.

Some of this is pie-in-the-sky but I'd like to share what I am planning or hoping to achieve in 2024. I like to keep myself busy but I'm maybe aiming to do a bit too much. Regardless, writing this down will help make me feel accountable to myself haha.

Festivals

First off, I'll be attending Angouleme this January as part of the exhibition highlighting Canadian cartoonists! This is my first time attending the festival and I am incredibly excited as it's always been a goal of mine. There will be copies of Blind Alley for sale as well as, hopefully, advanced copies of The Gulf.

I'll be tabling at Vancaf and TCAF this year as well in support of The Gulf. I'm going to try to convince my publisher to help me get to either SPX and/or CXC. I'm aiming to table at Short Run Seattle in the Fall of 2024. If any of you have any festival suggestions I'd be happy to hear them.

The Gulf

Come March, my first full-length graphic novel will release! It's surreal.

I'll be doing an event in Vancouver at Lucky's Books to celebrate the launch! It'll be an art show featuring art for/from The Gulf and Blind Alley. There'll be some special merchandise at the event and I'll sell any leftovers online or at Vancaf.

There's also some very exciting things in the pipeline regarding The Gulf. There will be a French and Spanish edition!! I'll share more when they're officially announced. There's also another thing I can only be coy about it at this point but suffice to say...2024 may be very exciting.

Brambles

Brambles chapter one will come to a close in March. I was initially planning on publishing it online but I think I'll hold off. I would love to do a daily style four panel strip in the Brambles universe after I finish up this first chapter but I'm not certain I'll have time do so.

I'm hoping to continue chapter two in the summer but we'll see.

As for a print collection, it will be printed and collected in...

DOLDRUMS

Doldrums is a printed comic magazine I've been kicking around the idea of for ages. I want a place to publish (yearly?) serialized stories. Think of a kumerish-branded Shonen Jump. Ideally, I'd like to invite guest cartoonists to contribute but compensation gets tricky and I am hesitant to wade into that water.

When? I'm kinda thinking September 2024 in time for the fall convention season.

So far, Doldrums #1 is planned to include:

- Brambles Ch. 1 + 2
- A 20-something page Vampire story.
- A Blind Alley adjacent 20-something page story.
- Maybe something A Gleaming related...

A Gleaming

Finally, I'm officially starting work on the third and final part of A Gleaming this winter. I'm going to re-enter the work by editing the art and lettering of chapter one and two. After that, I'll move into chapter three. This will be around 100 pages and there will be a book with a publisher that I love.

Secondly, in preparation for the launch of part three I am planning on uploading the first two parts online, for free, in much the same style as Blind Alley. Part three will only be available in the book but I figured releasing the first two parts online is a good way to garner attention.

Blind Alley

We will return to the alley in the spring! I believe I'm going to publish strips on patreon a few months before I start up the public feed again. Doing so will allow me to not have to manage two feeds at once which is helpful logistically. I haven't decided whether we'll do three strips a week again - it's a great pace to put strips out at but it's a lot more work.

I had a great time doing the exclusive Sunday strips and I'll aim to do at least one full colour Sunday strip a month.

Keep this on the down-low but  Blind Alley will be published in a foreign language in 2025 in full colour. I'll post those strips here as I colour them this spring as a patreon treat.

There's also some exciting merchandise in the works...fingers crossed it all pans out.

Running with the Dogs

This is the title of what I hope will be my next graphic novel. Despite being inches away from finishing the first draft of the script, I stopped working on it in November to let the story congeal. Already, after some time away, the story has begun to shift. I'm looking forward to returning to it but I'm unsure when that will happen - this year already feels quite busy. I was initially planning on sending off the script/pitch package this month but I started to feel intimidated about commiting to such a long project so quickly. 

It's a high school noir about a weed deal gone wrong. Thematically, it is about how we search for and make meaning in our daily lives. I feel like this story needs a higher page count than The Gulf which is partially why I am putting of pitching it for the time being.

Anyways - I think that's it for my plans; that's enough to keep me busy. Happy New Year.

All the best,

Adam