Happy Birthday to me!

It's my birthday today!

It's been an interesting year.

I started off the year really vigorously, producing 8 to 10 posts a month, so much so that I had a back log of posts ready two months in advance. But things slowed down in August because the nature of the posts I was doing changed. It had occurred to me that instead of just sharing some of my favorite comics, I found that I wanted to write more about comics. But writing takes a lot more time than simply posting art. I did some cool posts that I'm really proud of like Woman's Lib comes to Marvel about the early 70's women's lib movement and how Marvel reacted to it, and Sweet Christmas! Civil Rights Comes to Comics where I researched the depiction of African American's in the comics of the late 60's and the early 70's as well as  Rethinking the Copper Age of Comics where I critique the generally held view of the Bronze Age of comics (1970 to 1985). I am really proud of these posts because they are of subjects that interest me and I've been really enjoying studying the history of comics and seeing how the comics industries relates to the real world.

I am also learning how to use Photo Shop. For the Civil Rights post I colored Jim Rugg's Black Avengers mock cover. 

I've also done some histories of different heroes like the Sub-Mariner, the Red Skull and the Black Widow that I'm really proud of. I will probably be doing more of these like I have one in mind on the Vision which I should probably get done to coincide with the new Avengers movie.

This year I also worked a little bit with some creators and publishers like Christian Ortiz on his Golden Campaign, Jamie Chase on his First World, reviewed Nelvana of the Northern Lights for editors Hope Nicholson and Rachel Richey, Mari Naomi's  Dragon's Breath and other stories, as well as Tony Salmons and his Batman

Toward the beginning of last year I was inspired by Theo Ellsworth's Norman Eight's Left Arm to do robot themed posts which were fun to do.

It was a blast to post up all of the myriad of varieties of robots in comics out there from Theo's sentient robot, Norman Eight, to Mike Allred's Art Deco robots, from Basil Wolverton's cyborg in Man on the Moon to Scott McCloud's Dekko. One of the most unusual was also one of the most popular, Bill Sienkiewicz' Warlock from the New Mutants.

Warlock was hugely popular but my most popular post to date was my memoir on Frank Miller in response to his declining health

This got more than twice as many hits as the next most popular post Lynda Barry's Two Questions. I've been really pleasantly surprised by the popularity of this post. Lynda Barry is a great creator and deserves all the popularity that she gets but most of the post about alternative comics don't do so well. But I understand that Two Questions is special in that Lynda Barry addresses a very common problem that most creative people have to deal with, insecurities about there work.

Lately I've decided to make post honoring my favorite creator's birthdays. This has been going very well for me though it takes a lot more effort to the point that I have a hard time keeping up and post much less frequently as a result, but I find the posts much more satisfying. I've really enjoyed researching David Mazzucchelli, Mike Mignola, R. Crumb, Matt Baker and Jack Cole.

And I've enjoyed trying to put into words my thoughts on Jack Kirby or Alan Moore, though I feel that I just scratched the surface on them and will need to post more about them. I've got a ton of birthday posts lined up for next year as well.

Working on this blog has been great for me because it helps me focus my energy on something that I love and gives me aims to keep me busy and gives me a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day, but I haven't always gotten a lot of support from the public. It's OK because I do this blog out of love for comics and want to share my passion with others. I have taken steps to make some money at it. I have Goggle put adds on here where I get a few cents for every time someone clicks on an add and I post links to Amazon so that when someone follows a link and buys a book I get a fraction of a percentage. So if you enjoy this blog I would encourage you to clink on a link and if you are going to buy a book through Amazon, do it through the links I post. It's not much money but it gives me a tiny income for all of my hours of effort and shows me that my work is appreciated.

Thanks a lot for reading. It's you that makes this blog worth doing.