End of the Year (Patreon)

I just wanted to take a second and wish everyone happy holidays and I hope that the coming year is a good one! 

It’s also a good time to say, sincerely, thank you for your support. I wouldn’t be able to make Oren’s Forge without you guys, and its really wonderful to have the opportunity to develop and continue the story. Over the years, the response from mainstream English speaking agents or publishers has generally been “wow, this is great, but it’s too weird/niche.” And yeah, it is, but I’m so grateful we all found each other and that you guys are here and able to support independent stories.

I had a rough start to this year and a lot of it was a struggle, creatively. The need to push through and post pages, to finally finish Volume One, was entirely due to having you all as an audience. Being able to finish a story I'd first scripted in 2013 was emotionally cathartic and I'm glad I had you guys to help!

I’m really excited to be working on Volume Two— which, I’ll be honest, kind of surprised me at first. I’ve been having a complicated love/hate relationship with art for awhile (I’ll be real, its hard to really enjoy something that's simultaneously your job, your public identity, and intrinsically tied to your self worth). I'm proud when a panel or a page is finished, but the process of getting there can be a mix of frustration and exhaustion. I was feeling pretty drained most of the year but having Volume One under my belt and moving onto Volume Two proved really creatively refreshing. In a lot of ways, it’s a brand new start, with new ground to cover and new places to take the characters. When I was tightening up the script earlier this autumn, something really clicked and I love it all over again.  

Anyway, thank you again, for taking this weird journey with me! I think you’ll like where we're headed in 2022!