It may be a little early for this sort of thing, but the mass of things I hope to somehow accomplish in the coming year have set me to thinking. So – what did I do this year?

Well, I kicked off the year with a nasty cold, and just as I was recovering from that, the person I was apparently going to settle down with dumped me with little explanation. By mid-January I had had enough of 2008 and was ready for next year.

Fortunately, comics treated me much better.

I did not print a single new comic of my own, except a small giveaway for Halloween, but I did place comics in several anthologies. I co-edited & contributed to this year’s Trees & Hills anthologies Swingin’ Hits and Seeds; I also had comics in Matt Reidsma‘s 600th-strip celebrating High Maintenance Machine #20, Candy Or Medicine Free Comic Book Day Special 2008, Candy Or Medicine #3, Secrets & Lies, Always Comix #4: Activity, and Izzy Challenge #5: 50 State Jam. I initiated, edited & contributed to Trees & Hills’ free comics sheet Twig, then stopped when I got too busy. My strip Spinning World continued to appear in monthly Vermont newspaper The Commons.

I participated in the Comic Rehab Ripoff, Hourly Comic Day, and the 99 Doodles Project. I started a Comics By Request project, which I will draw next year (meaning you could still submit a request!). I also reprinted Before Sleep #3, 4 & 5.

I tabled at Granite State Comic Con, Broke: an affordable art fair, MoCCA, Arts Alive, Boston Zine Fair, Winchester Pickle Festival, Philly Zine Fest, and Broke (again).

I shut down my prematurely-started sustainability journal Downpower, and started a sketch & illustration blog. Unfortunately January’s events threw me off the regular sketching I was doing, and I haven’t yet regained the habit, nor have I found the time to keep scanning sketches. I committed to updating this website twice a week, and have mostly stuck to that. More recently I have decided at least half the posts should be comics. I also added a store, shortened up the header, and some other webby stuff.

I worked 2 part-time day jobs, for which among other things I built 3 websites. I’ve been pretty happy with both jobs.

I’ve made new friends and entered into new correspondences. One of my best friends moved back within driving distance. I have been subject to weird coincidences, omens, and the hand of fate.

All of this (and more!) brings us up to a couple weeks ago, when things got crazy!

But that’s another story, for another time (namely next week).

(ps. the sketch above is by Seth Tobocman, whose comics I’ve really gotten into & who I briefly met a couple times this year).