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2011 was a weird year for me. Granted, most of my years on this planet have been “weird” for the most part; this one was just… different.
2011 was the first year I had lived in my hometown in a decade. Although, I did some freelancing and lived off of what I made, I was technically unemployed — for the first time since I was sixteen years old — the entire year. I knew very few people in town who I wasn’t related to. I lived mostly as a hermit, emerging from my secluded home only for sustenance, out-of-town comic conventions, and, occasionally, for short bursts of human contact.
That said, 2011 also held a lot of big moments for me, as well.
I made more art in the past year than I have in all the years since I dropped out of art school. Some of it got used, some of it didn’t. Some of it I even got paid for.
In 2011, the Amazing David Brame and I stepped into the world of webcomics, with the February debut of Punch-Up.net.
2011 also marked my first time as a paid comic book writer as well as a paid comic book letterer (that book was only just completed and I have not been able to share pages from it as of yet).
And I’ve received shout outs from both Warren Ellis, for a book cover I designed, and Joe Hill, who had start reading my webcomic. I may not be a famous comic book creator, but famous comic book creators are becoming aware that I — or, at least, my work — exists. Hopefully, in a good way.
At the time of this writing, we are nearly through the first day of 2012 and I honestly cannot predict what this new year will bring nor how it will change me. I’m another year older and, hopefully, a little wiser and, with any luck, I’ll be able to say the same this time next year.
Best to you and yours in the coming year. Cheers.
(I’ve always wanted to pretend I was a rock star and shout that at the top of my lungs.)
BTW, I live here now.
…I moved into my first apartment that was just my own. No roommates; no one to fuck up my shit, but also no one to fall back on. Just me.
That same week, I decided I needed a new pair of shoes and, thanks to a “Buy One, Get One Half Of” sale, I actually bought two pairs for pretty cheap.
Not that I needed two pairs of shoes, mind you. I, at just about any given time, own maybe three pairs of shoes. Total. One pair of fancy goin’ out shoes, a pair of my every day sneaks, and a pair of old, beaten up shoes — that used to be my pair of every day sneaks — that I wear if I know I’ll be trudging through dirt or mud and whatnot. I wear shoes until they wear out.
So, yeah, I didn’t really need two new pairs of shoes. BUT they were cheap, so I bought them. I have worn the first pair, and then other pair has sat — in their original box — on my closet floor, for the last three years.
Jump to three years later. Today, actually.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken several trips from Columbus, OH up to Cleveland, carrying a dozen boxes or so of personal belongings into my new house. Saturday, my good friend Troy Stith helped me load up a U-Haul truck and move all of my furniture. I spent most of today cleaning up the apartment so I could turn over my keys to the landlord tomorrow. And, this evening, I met up with some friends once last time and went bowling.
As I turned in my rental shoes and started to put my sneaks back on, I noticed that — after three years, almost to the day — I had finally worn out the pair of shoes I bought when I first moved into my apartment; a giant slit running the length of the shoe, just above the sole.
Since I’m giving up my first apartment all my own along with the shoes I bought with I first moved into it, it seems kind of fitting that — when I leave Columbus to restart my life in Cleveland — I’ll be wearing the other new pair of shoes I bought. Three years ago.
A whole blog post about shoes and not one tongue joke. Seems kinda wasteful.
…about a year ago, on the same day I mailed out Punch-Up submission packages to publishers. I popped it in the fridge with explicit instructions that it was not to be opened until Punch-Up was published.
Well, a year has gone by, I’ve barely moved even an inch forward in the publishing game, I’m moving a hundred and fifty miles away in exactly thirty-one days, tonight — well, technically, tomorrow — is Halloween, and that bottle has been sitting in that fridge — for a whole year! — mocking me.
So… eff it.
We’re popping the cork tonight. Punch-Up be damned. I need a drink and nothing’s classier that drinking straight from the champagne bottle.
Salute,
I was born and raised in a suburb of Cleveland, OH, twenty-eight years ago. However, it didn’t feel like my life had really started I went away to college, in Columbus, ten years ago.
I was never that great at making friends and had, at one point in my life or another, even convinced myself that I was better off on my own. Despite that, over the past several years, I somehow managed to amass some truly amazing friends.
Unfortunately, it would seem as quickly as we came together, we would drift apart and go our separate ways.
At the beginning of August 2007, two of my closest friends, Kevin and Jody, got married and moved a hundred miles away, to Akron, OH.
In July of 2008, my negro amigo David, already living for several years in Cincinnati, OH, accepted a teaching position at a university and moved to Toronto, ON Canada.
Halfway through the summer of 2009, Suenita, one of the first true friends I made after moving to Columbus, decided to return to her home in St. Croix.
And during the fall of 2009, my Sasquatch – Abby – attempted to “better herself” through “higher education” by attending the Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia.
Yesterday, August 2nd, 2010, my best friend – Michael Lee Harris – foolishly followed in the Sasquatch’s very big footsteps and has moved out of Columbus, OH to relocate to the “Atlanta of Southern Georgia” – Savannah.
Michael is the last of my core group of friends to leave. Sure, I have other friends and acquaintances, people I see or talk to every few weeks or months, but those whom I kept close contact with on an almost daily basis?
They’re gone now.
It’s just me.
Which can only mean on thing…
THAT I WILL RULE COLUMBUS WITH AN IRON FUCKING FIST!!!
NO MORE SHALL I WASTE VALUABLE TIME WITH MEETING UP WITH OTHERS TO EAT FOOD AND DRINK BEVERAGES OF THE ALCOHOLIC PERSUASION OR SEEING MOVIES OR JUST “HANGING OUT.” (WHATEVER THE HELL THAT MEANS…)
NO, NOW IS THE TIME THAT I SQUASH THE PUNY PEASANTS BENEATH MY BOOTHEALS AND TAKE MY RIGHTFUL PLACE AS THIS PITIFUL CITY’S SOVEREIGN, FEARLESS LEADER!! (FEARLESS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF, Y’KNOW, HEIGHTS AN’ SHIT.)
I WILL CRUSH MY ENEMIES, SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE ME, AND HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN!!
NOW, FOOLS, KNEEL BEFORE FRANK!!
(Good luck, Mike. Gimme a call once you settle in, dude.)
Hey kids,
As those who read the blog — or are constantly bombarded with my Twitter and Facebook update — know, I’ve written a couple of comics (Punch-Up and Skottie Rocket, Gay Space Pirate) and I’ll be debuting both of those books this weekend at S.P.A.C.E. this weekend in Columbus, OH.
Well, I have a special treat for my friends in Cleveland who might not be able to make it to the convention.
Yesterday, I sold three copes of both Punch-Up and Skottie Rocket, Gay Space Pirate to Comic Heaven, a comic shop located at 4847 Robinhood Drive, Willoughby, OH.
I’ve been buying my comics at Comic Heaven for the last fifteen years! They’re a great group of guys over there and the owner, Jim, is a good friend.
So, if you live in the greater Cleveland area, head on over to Comic Heaven and ask for a copy of Punch-Up and Skottie Rocket, Gay Space Pirate. My artist on both books, The Amazing David Brame, and I — and the guys over at Comic Heaven — would appreciate it.
Also, make sure that — if you do buy a copy of the book — that you take a picture of yourself holding the book and email it to me. After the convention is over and the book has been in comic shops for a while, I might do a random drawing and send a signed Skottie Rocket poster to the winner!
Columbus friends, don’t panic! I’ll have copies of both books in local comic shops next week after S.P.A.C.E. is over and done with. I’ll post another blog next Wednesday letting you know which stores you can pick them up from.
So go buy a copy of my books and be sure to let me know what you think of ‘em!
Hope ya dig!
-Frankie
