Looking back at this year, I realise what a strange year it has been. There have been plenty of ups and downs, but I’ve been consistently surprised with all of it along the way. It wasn’t a stock standard year. Which I guess means you mark it down as a year things changed. In certain scenarios that might not be a good thing, but I think if you look forward, then you can find positives.
Looking back there were some not so nice things that happened that I’d rather not dwell on. Even now, Christchurch City is still getting some big after shocks that the city centre has had to be re-evaluated again, so they can see what further damage might have occurred. Boxing day is not supposed to be about the town getting punched again! For all of you battling it out in Canterbury. My thoughts are with you. I hope your homes and businesses will endure after this tough period in the region has passed.
The year hasn’t been without some interesting moments though.
Some thoughts on 2010:
The World Cup – It was nice to have another sport besides rugby in the spotlight. That brief respite will be short lived though. 2011 welcomes the Rugby world cup, and this time I won’t be able to ignore it, as New Zealand is hosting it. I did enjoy the World Cup though.
Music – Seems like it was a year for revisiting some old friends. We had Soundgarden & Faith No More reform and start touring again. I was fortunate to see Faith No More play a show here in Auckland. Other bands began playing classic albums from front to back as a draw card to go see them play. It was amazing to see Shihad play both Killjoy and The General Electric live. The latter will be repeated again at the Big Day out 2011. Other bands from my youth that I saw were Metallica and the Smashing Pumpkins.
Travel – If you plan on going somewhere, make sure your shit is locked up tight, or you have a house sitter organised. As we found out after a couple of days in Melbourne – being burgled is the worst. That said, I had an awesome time this year traveling to Melbourne, Wellington and Christchurch.
Film – Not sure if I have a favourite from what I saw this year. I really enjoyed Pixar’s “Up” though – which I only just saw this year.
Finally, if you made it through all that. Thanks to you for reading this. I really appreciate all the support, all the comments on the comics and the site. It’s cool that some people have found it, and enjoyed it. I just want to keep going and making more stories for everyone, so thank you all.
Cheers
Marc
Sometimes people can be incredibly cool.
This week has been a good one. A couple of weeks ago, Dan, from Sassy Fortnight informed me he wanted a break from his comic for a week and asked me to draw a page for him so he would have something to run during this week. If you haven’t been over to Sassy Fortnight yet, go have a look. It’s a really cute and fun comic which has Dinosaurs and a Robot in it. What more do you need from the Internet?
Having never done a guest comic before, I was very aware that by saying “yes” I knew had to come up with the goods – a comic that would hopefully be fun for the creator, but also their readers. Not to mention you’re dealing with their own characters. It’s a unique situation. I know I can do anything with my characters at any time, but playing with someone else’s, and getting one page to tell a story you hope people will like – it’s intimidating. Dan is a really nice dude though, and wanting to lend a helping hand I asked for the deadline, and then worked it into my schedule.
After about 5 hours I had the finished product done. It went live this week – so please, go and check it out, and let me know if you liked it! Thankfully Dan did like it, and had some nice things to say about my own comic in the process. Cheers, dude!
The other nice thing to happen this week was a very kind review of my first comic by Robin Hotter. Robin is another New Zealand based artist, and he contributes his own awesome comic called Rally Mark to DMC Comics, an Anthology series (to which I have contributed to) run here in New Zealand.
Robin’s review was really cool, and totally made my day. Go have a read if you feel so inclined!
Hope the week has treated you just as well,
Thanks for reading!
Marc