Back in the days when I was involved with APA-5 and the Small Press Syndicate, I would traditionally start off the new year with a column detailing my creative resolutions. While I may no longer have such direct and regular connection to my creative peer group, I do have this lovely venue to share my plans for 2012. Hopefully putting them out there for the world to see will help keep me on track in a way that I haven’t managed to do over the last couple of years. Here are twelve things I plan to accomplish in 2012:
1. Get into a regular schedule for posting on this blog. I like to read about other creators’ methods and enjoy writing about mine, too. I’m aiming for two posts per month, with decent content relating to “comics and comic creation” …
Get my long-overdue print comic output back on track! As much as I enjoy doing my webcomic, there are some stories that will just work better in print. So be on the lookout for:
2. Double Dip #2 – this one has a deadline: I want to finish it in time for Tom Cherry to take to SPACE in mid April!
3. Doghouse Funhouse #2 – it’s nearly done, and I need to honor my commitment to its contributors.
4. Watusi #28 – finish the cliffhanger from the last print issue.
5. Watusi #29 – collect my first attempt at a Watusi comic strip, which appeared in a variety of print and web locations.
6. Get my jam comic backlog completed and in print. As Watusi print output fell by the wayside & the webcomic took off, interest in jam comics (both from participants and me) dwindled. I still have a few to wrap up so I can close the door on jam comics as the defining aspect of a Watusi issue.
7. Honor my other outstanding commitments (I know you’re looking at me, Keith and Joel!). I tend to overestimate what I can comfortably fit into my limited available hours; I need to keep my enthusiasm in a realistic perspective.
8. Reformat “Isla Esmerelda” for print. I’m not good about obsessively reworking past comics (either I could learn something from George Lucas or he could learn something from me), but there are a few fine tunings I’d like to make before I get the story into print. I’ll probably hold off actually publishing it until 2013, since I’d like to offer it as a comic subscription, but getting it all “in the can” is an import step towards that goal.
9. August is the Human Spring’s 10th anniversary. I’d like to do something to celebrate it. Something nice, but anything would be more than I did for Watusi’s 1oth…
10. Make available select out-of-print titles as .pdf comics. Not only is it cheaper than going back to print for comics that aren’t related to my current projects, it lets me play around with e-books a little.
11. Network with my peer cartoonists better. As I mentioned above, I don’t have the direct connection with as many of my peers that I used to, and commenting on each others’ blogs just doesn’t fill that void.
12. By popular demand: write a Mitchell comic! I have a good story in mind, but it’s probably better suited for a print comic than an online strip.
That’s what I hope to accomplish; I’ll revisit it at the end of the year to see how I did. What creative goals do you have for 2012?
