I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a pretty rough year for me.

I’ve certainly spoken before about the crippling self-doubt and negative internal monologues, so I’m not going to retread those here. But suffice it to say, this has continued all year.

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I was made redundant from my work-from-home job, a cyber security company that I had worked for 18 months for. It was an ultra convenient job, as I never had to go to the office even once over that time - it was all conducted by email and Teams calls. It paid pretty well too. But it wasn’t a particularly great working environment, the Boss was regularly nasty to staff and very unsure of what he wanted, so often it was up to me to try and guess what visuals he would like and what he would not.

There wasn’t a lot of organisation either, so some weeks there wouldn’t be a lot to do, and then the next I would have 2-3 days to put together an entire presentation that would be needed that week - there was rarely enough time, and never enough advance notice of tasks required. It was a very scattershot management style, and led to far more stress than was really necessary.

It was also a company that wanted to cut costs, and AI art was embraced, something that I was diametrically opposed to. Not just because of the intellectual property issues, but also because the results are often REALLY BAD and amateur-looking. I felt like any company that saw us promoting our products with amateur-looking graphics would simply laugh at it - I felt like it was HURTING the business, but I was overruled at every point. Yes it was his company of course, but after my design sensibilities had been trusted in the past, not paying for professional stock photos was preferred. Everything became very cheap and nasty.

And in the end, I was made redundant, and to add insult to injury - I was never paid for it, as the company went into administration shortly afterward. I’m still owed over $4000, and lo and behold, he had never paid any of my superannuation for the entirety of the time I was there.

After the administrators were done, I’ve been told that I will be paid what I’m owed in instalments - over the next two years. But so far I haven’t seen a cent of it.

To top it off, I’m unemployed again towards the end of the year, which is one of the lousiest times to find a new job. Thus far I haven’t even secured an interview, from the many dozen applications I have made.

Being 47 years old definitely doesn’t help - in this industry that makes me a DINOSAUR, something I had realised since I was 37 and the few opportunities that have come my way since then. OVER-QUALIFIED is the word I hear most often.

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My health has also been an issue of late, as I caught a nasty strain of flu that I’m only just recovering from since catching it a month ago. It led to a recent hospital admission with very low blood pressure, which thankfully has been fixed since then. It’s a scary feeling when your body starts to not work correctly, I had a severe dizzy spell and collapsed, and lost consciousness for a moment and found myself unable to pull myself up from the floor for 30 seconds.

That doesn’t seem like long, but when it’s your experience it feels like hours.

On the plus side, from all the many blood tests and echocardiograms, it seems that my severe heart failure has actually improved - my heart’s function has gone from 25% up to 40%, which is due to the powerful medications I’ve been prescribed and taken. My doctors have worked hard to try and make things better for me.

This also brings some hope that surgeons may now be open to fixing my abdominal hernia, which until now they have refused to take the risk that it might prove fatal.

But I’ll definitely be more cautious when out and about, the face masks will be used more strictly when I’m in large public gatherings in particular.

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Something that has been great though has been being able to still work on comic books in some form or another.

One of these has been a large lettering gig for Beau Jardine (and his partner Kelli), I’ve lettered 7 issues of his new NITESIDE comic book, and will likely be involved in helping him to get these published in the new year. Beau is what I would call an old-school comic creator, he works on paper and often uses paste-up onto the art, and draws in the speech balloons onto the art too. This has made it a more involved type of lettering, as part of the task has also been cleaning up the artwork, and removing pencil marks and dirt that have been part of the creative process.

Beau does some really great artwork, and a lot of it - some of these issues are up to 50 pages long, so it’s been a lot of work. And he’s also a great client, he’s very happy with what I’ve done and as such it becomes a fun project to work on. It’s challenging work too, I’ve used several different fonts for different characters and sound effects. It really came at the right time for me in terms of not having much to do to earn money for rent and bills, too.

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I’ve also had some fun helping my friend Lauren Marshall with some of her projects, tasks such as colour flatting for Phantom covers and prints, and doing some design work for her next sketchbook has been fun to work on.

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The long-term Killeroo book, still tentatively titled THE DARKNESS WITHIN, has been a slow burn this year, working with Jason Franks on the script, and Ben Sullivan for the artwork. Ben is very in-demand, juggling many projects at once, with work with Rob Lisle, Reverie, Cynation, and more. So Jason and I are well aware that we’re just one of the irons in the fire that Ben is working on, but we’re really loving the resulting pages coming in so far.

I’ve collaborated with some great creators before, but this one is next level, I think it’s going to be something really special, and really explores a new side to the Killeroo character.

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I tried to do a few more conventions this year, with both Melbourne and Sydney Supanova, Bendi-Con, and the Melbourne Comic and Toy Fair in Reservoir, and the Geelong Comic and Toy Fair more recently. I have enjoyed these events, but they haven’t really been what I would consider lucrative in terms of return on time and prep work. Putting all of my eggs in one basket with Killeroo products alone has really limited the financial returns, as it’s really a niche market, within a niche market, within a NICHE market.

I’m considering going down the fanart print route next year. It’s something I’ve always kinda resisted, the intellectual property rights issue has always kinda bothered me, but it definitely feels like I’m leaving an awful lot of money on the table (especially when I hear the kind of money that some folks are making with fanart - often many multiples of my best results with just Killeroo).

I have really tried to court the ‘furry’ market and appeal to them, but I really haven’t had much luck in terms of sales. I’ve gotten a lot of likes for the art I’ve posted, but haven’t gotten much more than that. I’ve tried to attend a few furry cons, but I usually find out about them too late, or they’re not interested in having me.

I can understand that to some extent, as I am just an old straight male - so perhaps I will never really be accepted by that group because I’m not really one of them. Maybe they consider me an intruder to their group, I don’t know. But I really don’t judge, the one time I did go to a furry con on the Gold Coast a few years back, I had a lot of fun drawing commissions of their ‘fursonas’. They can also be a bit extreme in their character and tone, it seems at times that it’s just really cute stuff, or extreme hardcore, with little in between.

(If you’re part of this fandom, I’d really like to hear from you and hear your perspective on this)

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As detailed in a previous blog, I made the trip up to Canberra to help celebrate the DEE’S COMICS store, which sadly closed mid-year. I really enjoyed spending time with Brendon and a few other creators, and the amazing korean bbq dinner with them afterwards - that was a genuine highlight of the year. Great food and fantastic people.

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Earlier in the year I assisted Tim McEwen in his first GREENER PASTURES kickstarter which was a lot of fun, and for the first time I handled fulfilment for a book other than my own. For the most part, this was an enjoyable experience. A few mistakes were made and learnt from, and Tim recently ran his second kickstarter for a trade paperback and was very successful with that too. Which is generally what I like when I’m helping others with this platform - I like to help set them up for future success (without needing my help).

(It hasn’t been solicited as yet, but I did work with Tim and my old mate Emmanuel Hernaez on a Greener Pastures/Killeroo short story. When it will come out I have no idea, ask Tim.)

I also helped out on a couple of other kickstarter projects, Jason Franks with GOURMAND GO and Duncan Cunningham with his DESTROYERS book.

That’s kinda my favourite part of comics - it’s not always about managing the whole project myself, sometimes it’s nice to just help out here and there with some aspects of it, and know that I played some part in helping things get made.

(I actually forgot that I had run a Killeroo campaign myself earlier this year, a sequel to the Stuart Black crossover from a few years back. I’ll be honest, this didn’t really get much response or sales at all beyond the successful campaign, which was a bit unexpected, and probably contributed to some of my doubts about the financial prospects of the character I’ve spent the last 25 years working on).

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Lastly I did get the regular edition of OLD MAN RUFUS printed and shipped out early this year, which was an achievement tht meant a lot to me. I know the majority of my readers are still waiting for the Deluxe Edition of that book, (and I have made progress with it), but still not enough to really show you yet, or make any guarantee on its completion.

There’s clearly been a few other things that went on this year that hasn’t helped, but I remain resolved to complete and deliver on this in 2024. You can rest assured that I won’t launch any other Killeroo project until I’ve finished and delivered on what I’ve promised and committed to.

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I wish you all the best for your xmas holidays, and hope that 2025 is a better year for ALL of us.

Best,

Daz.