OIAF, TAC, BigCartel & lots of trips to the post office

I've been busy with lots of boring real-life crap I won't share on here, but I'm finally caught up with the initial wave of online orders for the Sublo zines. It's been an interesting experience doing them-- I was all excited about the creative side of making a book, but I underestimated just how much tedious labour is involved in self-publishing anything. I'm delighted by how well the zines have been selling, but running a shipping operation and going to the post office every couple of days is a real grind! I'm now friends with the woman who works there though, which makes the routine more fun.

Before launching the BigCartel store I had already sold a bunch of copies locally, so I'd say about 80% of the online orders have been going to the US. The new situation with the tariffs and customs have made it a special pain in the ass to send anything down there, and I see why so many countries are just flat-out refusing at this point. I'm still extremely grateful to the American fans who are ordering the books though. I know it's not your fault!

All in all, the zines have taken up way more time and energy than I anticipated, which is always my fear about doing any merch or extra stuff. I am proud of them, I think they're great for fans of the show and a useful resource for anyone trying to do indie animation... but they took as much work as a whole episode, and now the next one is even longer overdue! At least doing the zine has helped me prep materials for a few workshops, guest lectures and talks I've done lately.

Speaking of which, I'll be on a panel at TAC this week (the industry-facing add-on to the Ottawa International Animation Festival). TAC is a separate ticket and I doubt I'd ever attend if I didn't get a comped pass, but if you're going to OIAF maybe I'll see you up there! I've never been to the festival before. I have a bunch of work meetings and friend meet-ups planned, so I'm excited and a little overwhelmed already! My plan is to basically be going crazy all week. The panel is Switching Streams at 2:45pm Thursday at the National Arts Centre (1 Elgin St) in the O'Born Room, Terrace Level. We'll be talking about doing internet animation at various levels - at one end there's the head of a company that partners with/exploits young artists making content in Roblox, in the middle is a writer working with a studio, and me at the other end. It's gonna be fun butting heads!

I forget if I mentioned it before but I also recently did a mini-music video that will supposedly appear online soon. Anyway I've finished that, caught up with the zine orders and I'm back to hustling on Sublo animation. I'll post another clip soon, after Ottawa!

[Oops, two new zine orders came in while I was typing this. Not quite caught up!]