If you’ve been reading this newsletter, I feel like I owe you an explanation.

It’s been pretty quiet around here since May. A lot’s changed.

Some of you know I’ve been serving as Editor-in-Chief of The DeMonster alongside Sami DeMonster. For a while, I thought the publication was winding down. Sami landed an incredible opportunity at Tiny Onion. Because of that, I couldn’t really talk publicly about everything that was happening… how we were changing.

Around the same time, I accepted an Executive Assistant position working for a media head. Ironically, I ended up leaving that job while I was at San Diego Comic-Con covering the convention for Fanbase Press. Of my own accord, honestly, I was tired of juggling the comic book traveling store, my own creative projects, and figuring out what my role was here. If I even was a journalist anymore.

It’s been a strange few months.

As for The DeMonster, it isn’t going away. We’re pivoting.

The plan is to shift toward a podcast and more personality-driven content. We still have things in the works, and Sami and I will continue doing our back-and-forth review articles, but we want to create something that’s more personal and more conversational instead of trying to compete as another traditional news outlet.

Which brings me here.

I’ve spent years splitting my creative life across different platforms.

At The Workprint, my Monomythic column was essentially a guide to storytelling and writing. At The Beat, I wanted to explore why stories matter and what they reveal about us, but the pace of daily journalism rarely gave me the time to go as deep as I wanted. At the same time, I’ve been building Monomythic into a traveling comic shop while writing my own books… of which I’ll update soon as they’re all happening over the next 12 months.

Honestly, eventually, I realized I was living a divided creative life.

So I’m done dividing it.

Monomythic is becoming the place where all of those passions meet.

This newsletter will be home to essays about storytelling, the comics industry, and the business behind creative work. It’ll feature industry reporting and deeper investigations into topics that I think deserve more attention. I’ll share reviews of the books I’m reading and the comics I’m bringing to conventions through the store. And, maybe most importantly, it’ll be where I document the creation of my own comics, offering previews, behind-the-scenes looks, Kickstarter updates, and honest reflections on the process of making them.

In other words, this is becoming my one-stop shop for everything I love about stories.

Not just comics.

Stories.

Whether they’re found in books, games, movies, or the people who create them. I’ve always had one of the craziest networks that span into multiple territories. It’s time I sort of went all-in with my potential as a person just trying to create things in a world that’s constantly taking away from everyone. So I’m planting my feet down. Cracking the knuckles. And I'm ready to take on the challenge now.

If you’ve been here from the beginning, thank you for sticking around through the silence. And if you’re just finding Monomythic now, welcome.

I think this is finally what Monomythic was always meant to be.

More soon.

It was 2016.

I had just gone on a cross-country road trip with one of my best friends. Ankit was wrapping up medical school, finishing his residency, and before his life became fully consumed by being an M.D., we took one of the last free seasons he’d ever have and drove cross-country.

Thirty-six states. South, West, and North of the country. We skipped the Bible Belt as there’s not a lot there that interests me, and the East, as that was our coastal home anyway.

It was dumb in a bromantic kind of way. Two minorities. One Indian, one Filipino, both first-gen Americans, driving across the country, surprised at how nice people could be. Occasionally, dealing with that weird, kinda-sorta Southern racist suspicion, folks at the border checking if we were Mexican (did I mention, Filipino & Indian?).

Still, it felt… sane.

That Millennial Hipster optimism of the 2010s era, of crawling out of a great recession, when Barack Obama was still president, just before the 2016 election results had happened. Before the ambient cultural dissonance of the current Trump regime, the nightmarish precursor to the meathook realities of our tumultuous today.

Everything feels bad in the news today because—let’s be clear—things are bad. And the very checks and balances we’ve had in place are obviously quite broken. The dismantlement by the fed of our very constitutional institutions—along with what progressivism could have been versus what we had settled on—served as but a grim gut check realization that the millennial hope era circa 2008 had failed. Things are different. And the best we can ask for. The best we can hope for… is a change.

And don’t be fooled. Things are changing.

This is not how you imagined an essay about Jamie Ding would be, right?

But Jamie… well, he’s also changed in the ten or so years in the time since I’ve known ‘em. For the better.

He’s a guy who actually gives a shit. A child of immigrant parents, well aware of the importance of things like birthright citizenship and how this country was founded by Immigrants. He’s genuinely using his platform to try to make a difference.

In 2016, I went on a road trip across country, and by the end of that year, I woke up to a different type of America. At the time, like most moderates, we thought Trump would be a lame-duck. We thought nothing would change.

We were wrong.

So, in 2017, I quit my job as a mental health specialist and fully walked away from the whole psychologist track I was once on to pursue writing. Lost and looking for friends, allies or just people I could find solace with in my twilight young adult years, I found a new stomping ground, as a lot of my friends moved into…

Jersey City.

My older sister once lived here in my early 20s. A lot of my friend groups moved here to be professional adults, as it was cheaper than the newly gentrified Brooklyn.

That year, my friend Adam, a former classmate and fellow TA in abnormal psychology at Rutgers, pulled me into doing trivia nights at PINT, a gay bar that became our arena. Mind you, none of us were gay, which feels like a detail that should not matter, but somehow does ten years later, though looking back I do wonder if some of the extended rotating group were closeted queer… Regardless, what mattered was that we were a group of friends needing something to bond over, and Pint gave us… trivia.

And we won.

A lot.

Then kept winning till it turned into a ritual.

Which is how I met Jamie Ding. A friend of a friend from Princeton, bonding over free popcorn and victory drink tickets, because he was really good at winning those.

Jamie was, at least back then, an ace trivia guy. Never stuck up. Never boisterous. Just someone who genuinely loved knowing things for knowing’s sake. Jamie studied a bunch out of a passion for learning.

I’d hear a trivia question and would be thinking, building up in the thoughts in my head… before I got there, Jamie almost always had that answer. Mind you, I graduated Magna Cum Laude with multiple majors and was everyone’s pick for next big academic in my 20s… I’m a smart guy. Jamie was just that much smarter.

What I could contribute to was pop culture niche. Music lyrics and punk era bands a little bit, having been a former musician myself (fun fact, Jamie is also musically trained), but mostly, I knew weird factoids about video games, movies, and comics; taking pride in rare bits where I actually knew something that Jamie didn’t. Kinda knowledge that feels useless until it suddenly wins you a round.

For the most part, Jamie knew pretty much everything. He’s only gotten smarter since, even though back then, we had already won a lot of games.

I think the part none of us realized, and the big reason I started this piece the way I did, was because that small safe space gathering—it was our thing for a year and change. But we were becoming real-life adults, soon entering or embracing our 30s (I’m 38 now, and this was around 10 years ago, for context). But for that small moment, we had each other. Before kids. Before careers. When art still felt like the arts and was appreciated… or maybe I’ve just turned jaded.

Anyway, life did what it always does. People drift. Jobs change. You become someone else and change in little bits every single day til the old version of you feels like a role you used to play. And one day, a blast from your past smacks you in the face on TV.

Watching Jamie on Jeopardy! felt strange in a very specific way.

A little shock, but… well, not really… as it felt more like seeing a familiar move you’ve seen in a sports game again and again, just performed in a stadium-like arena setting instead of a bar (is Jeopardy in an arena? Probably not, but in my head canon it will be).

Like the triple deke in the Mighty Ducks, or Michael Jackson doing a moonwalk, it’s cool the first time, but we totally get it, by the 100th. And yes, I just compared Jamie’s Jeopardy run to Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. So what? Point is, it’s that familiarity that you knew—that the world was only finding out about.

Anyway, Jamie finally lost this past Monday.

He went on a 31-game run, though we were all rooting for him to go all the way. I texted Adam about the loss…not knowing Jamie himself was there, and was reminded like the douchebag friend/person that I’ve become, that I promised multiple times I’d go over to his place to catch up, and actually shoulda been there that day to coincidentally also run into Jamie… but flaked… because I was working… far too many hours chasing my entertainment industry pipe dream… again.

Jamie is now at number five all-time in consecutive wins and regular-season earnings. It tracks, is the simplest way to say it. I saw the clips, and Jamie looked exactly like those nights in Jersey City, just louder and zoned in. His streak and the charisma were new, though. That’s the change.

Jamie’s used the platform to speak out about what matters. He said something realer than any of the bullshit I’ve written in the past decade, where, in a space that usually rewards safe answers and polite smiles, he called out ICE and the administration for their own shitiness.

Intelligence is easy to admire. Courage to speak up for what’s right, that’s harder. Jamie has both Intel and Courage, the latter of which I don’t know where came from, as that’s kinda new to me, but honestly, I’m happy for my former trivia colleague who’s grown up to be a badass guy.

If ya don’t know… Jamie’s been an active Democrat fighting for voter rights against the current administration for a while now. He’s going to keep doing shit on the legal level to make a difference. Studying law and actually going out there to change policy. You know, the shit that matters.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the past 15 years or so… and I’m kinda at a crossroads about where I stand now with the entertainment industry.

Still, I’ve been blessed to have been around a lot of cool people. Not just folks in comics, but artists, writers, comedians, musicians, actors, executives, and even a lot of millionaires. I’ve spent a lifetime making myself smaller for others to feel better, which has gotten me into many a big player’s room.

The people I’ve met. The moments shared that felt incidental. I’m starting to think none of this is incidental at all. I think I’ll share more stories like that on here. Because that’s the journey and the answer to the question I’ve been asking lately…

About what the hell the point is anymore?

Then, I get reminded that people like Jamie, whom I hadn’t really thought about all that much in years if we’re going to be real, who exist and are making a difference. So maybe we all—especially myself—need to step up and do our part and make a difference too.

A short one, but just an example of what ya do matters.

A couple of years ago, I was the managing editor of a small outlet called The Workprint (sadly now gone), where I served as a liaison to our PR contacts with IDW.

Fast forward three years, and the entire industry has changed. A lot of those contacts I was working with in PR are no longer working in comics. But I am thankful for that experience. In that short time, I did get the opportunity to coordinate and later review the folks behind Breath of Shadows, including Rich Douek and Alex Cormac, over a tiny Q and A.

Rich would then hit me up in 2024 about Comic Book Kitchen, which is still one of the coolest things I think he’s ever done in mixing cooking and comics. But in passing, or at the least, while meeting last year at a signing at the NJ local comic book shop, The Geekery, we talked a bit about what comics need right now (Mind you, this was before the Absolute Line came out and dominated and revitalized sales).

Which stuck with me:

And with that little spark of an idea, I took and ran with it, and I kinda did?

I now run a pop-up that travels all across the Tri-State East Coast area, though mostly in areas in central NJ. The goal was never to replace or become a full-blown comic store, just to generate enough interest and spark some availability to buy books for those who maybe might have been interested but felt sorta intimidated.

In the process, I’ve not only made sales but also have also gotten hundreds of kids to read more—let alone, read more comics—for the first time. I have also sold more LGBTQIA books and banned books to people in spaces that didn’t have them, with the intention of again… helping this kinda important work be accessible.

The goal was always to bring people out to talk about why comics are cool and show them how their favorite forms of media started as comics. To kinda remind them… that actually physically owning their entertainment? Was kinda great?

Seriously, if there are any full-time comics sales roles, I’d highly suggest looking at me, as I’m living it right now.

Anyway, I’ve been touring for about a year and a half, and I’m still doing it. It’s become almost my full-time job outside of what I write on Substack for Sami (which, combined, makes up more than a full-time job).

It’s hard explaining it, but the store isn’t why people come to me and purchase books… It’s really. Just. Me. Talking about the industry with people. Talking about comics. Talking about the stories and artwork and craft - that’s why it does well.

And yeah, a lot of it is because, unlike most comics people, I come from a very diverse background of having gone from mental health caseworker to gaming, streaming, and then comics coverage, in that order.

But I rarely post about the success I’ve had with the Monomythic Comic store on social media, because I kinda think the in-person element of just enjoying community is sorta the point to it. People love talking books. I love recommending it. I also… just love talking with people about the things they find joy in. THAT… is what I honestly sell.

I do think there’s an artificiality to the internet right now that’s only bound to get worse, and I think how you counter this is in-person events and talking with actual people. Campaigning for comics. Selling books and spaces to read. Public spaces and communities that, yes, struggle to hold resources, but also work together well.

And it’s all because of a silly, tiny idea Rich Douek put in my head and that I moved forward with because I had nothing else to lose.

That’s why I think the things you do matter.

Those tiny, meaningless interactions? Those have a ripple effect.

And they can make a world of difference.

I feel old. I feel scared shitless. I feel tired. I’m guessing a lot of you do, too.

I’m okay overall, which is better than most. But I do want to take pride in not bullshitting my audience. So I’ll do a bit of a ‘real talk’ and how it relates to business before delving into what I’ve been working on writing-wise outside of what I do for The DeMonster.

Now, I used to pride myself on keeping up with everything — the news, the trends, the temperature of the world. It’s all interconnected with everything that we do, especially now, as we created a globalized economy that’s sort of seeing its second stage of fragmentation.

Whereas before our economy was focused on mass consumption, growth by users needing and meeting a demand, and getting everyone to spend their hard-earned dollars, now wealth has trended to the tippy top.

We’re now entering an age of society ruled by the wealthiest.

You’re seeing this reflected in other statistics. Birth rate declines because the goal posts kept moving forward in terms of age of accomplishments. I’m talking about owning a home. Starting a family. Finding a career that’s stable.

If that weren’t enough, more brick-and-mortar things are going out of business. You’re also… seeing items and goods that were previously owned being resold and more market pop-ups, essentially creating culture and community in localized self-created spaces because, without going too into a tangent, the physical spaces we once socialized and thrived in are dead: malls, bars, parks, and meet-ups. Gatherings get harder the less money you have to spend. I know it’s not just me… It’s all of us.

The financial struggles of the middle class effects everything but isn’t being looked at macro-economically anymore, mostly, for the sake of ‘focus’. Some say this is disruption taking its natural part, but I say it’s destruction.

The destruction of I mean of… EVERYTHING.

Information is being drained like a vampire feeding on our data-based behavior. How we spend our money and time, just about anything data-related is being scraped by big tech right now as modules for the next phase of AI.

My Instagram posts used to have limited access to all of my photographs. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but recently, Meta implemented a quiet feature where it’s harder to list said images unless you share access to the entirety of your camera. This is the data scraping I’m speaking of…

I see the mistakes a lot of us are making. People ‘focusing’ within a digital space thinking that this is secure. It’s not though and is weirdly contributing to the problem; folks just don’t realize it.

I used to believe in websites. I used to think the internet was a place to find your people. I do not believe in any of that anymore. I would much rather meet people in person or at conventions or over dinners. As I’m sort of done with the internet age and I think many of you are too… we’re just in reconfiguration of how to deal/live with it.

That said, I’m aware its impossible to return to a world without our phones. The way we consume information has passed the Rubicon and how we spread a message is almost impossible to do without connection. This is why I think what’s needed again is social spaces and physical media.

I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen today. Printed newsletters. Magazines. It’s all weirdly coming back, or at the least, feel a bit more sustainable in a way that digital just ain’t anymore thanks to tech greed.

But then again, what do I know?

I’m a year older now. I kept telling myself after pandemic I’d get my shit together but lately, it all just feels too heavy.

Like did you know... The Orange Man now has the record of most attacks against foreign countries by a sitting modern president? That’s not even including here, with all of the ICE raids.

But it’s not just that. Yes, it’s the economy is squeezing everyone at once. Yes, what we are witnessing is the death of the middle class. The impossibility to have kids or even own things anymore.

I feel as if the goal posts of what success even means keeps changing every 5 years as careers shift and technology shifts and, as a Millennial I’m here to admit, it’s a lot. Too much, even.

When I first started using the internet, I just wanted to geek out and bond over shit with my friends. That’s what geek culture was… butI think subscribers, likes, and links are what it is now. I think we’ve commodified everything from our hobbies to our personalities - all for the sake of selling a product. Which has become further and further our online identity. And I fear for the future that will bring.

My wish for this weird 38th year of life is kindness. That it becomes more common and more aspirational for society than what it is now. I wish the world would slow down. That people would stop hurting each other and that things would change.

But I can’t control any of that.

All I can do is tell stories. Write words.

So here’s me doing that. Now… here’s what I’m working on.

Beautiful

After two years, my short story from The Tomb of Baalberith is finally getting a spinoff.

I’m collaborating with the phenomenal Katia Vecchio on a 20-pager that’s a sequel to this first big comic I was in 2 years ago. I actually discovered Katia on Bluesky after she posted this unreal Final Fantasy VIII cover that she drew. We messaged and hit it off and are now, in production in making something that’s equal parts silly as it is… sort of a critique of our identities that we fake over our own individualized reality.

I will admit… FF8 is the game that pulled me into Final Fantasy, and eventually, into covering video games professionally. That made working with her felt weirdly full circle. Anyway, I love working with Katia and I’ll post pages for preview when its ready. But again, it’s a sequel to my short story in The Tomb of Baalberith 2.

If you don’t know, Beautiful was originally about a beauty influencer/model willing to do anything to be famous — even embrace the toxic, monstrous thing on the inside to get there. She’s down to kill. She’s down to destroy. She’ll do whatever it takes.

That was the message originally. This time, I wanted something more lighthearted. And with Katia as the new artist for this story, I wanted something a little less serious and more fun. This new comic is a one-shot sequel/reboot hybrid. It asks:

What happens when you actually get everything you wanted?

Spoiler: sometimes it’s a Pyrrhic victory. And a silly bender.

My goal for when I first created Beautiful with Jameson Matunas was to say that a lot of our goals, especially the externally motivated ones, end up feeling hollow in terms of our victory. Because once we achieve that hollow goal by living cuthroat and inauthentically, all that you’re left with is yourself - which is what Brandi is figuring out in this story. How to be different now that she has everything she ever wanted… but it feels empty.

Brandi is weird. She’s always been sorta weird. Kinda like if Harley Quinn were a succubus? She’s starting to figure out what success means and how to be herself in spite of it, instead of sanding it down to fit someone else’s algorithm.

That’s the heart of Beautiful. Embracing the weird person we are and figuring out how to be who you are, authentically.

We’re planning to raise a Kickstarter with a goal of about $4,000 to cover just the basic costs, though anything over that will definitely help.

It’s still early in production. I’ll keep you posted as it takes shape.

Oh and I’m talking now with Dezi Sienty to return to work on letters, as he did a great job keeping me in check the first time around (he lettered the original). Dezi’s also worked on amazing projects throughout his career and was one of the letterers on the original run of The Court of Owls.

The Devil and Daisy Dirt

I’m also excited (and honestly a little stunned) to be working on a comic adaptation of The Devil and Daisy Dirt. Here’s a recent piece by Fangoria about the play, which was a folk tale blue grass musical about the Jersey Devil written and performed by a friend.

I’m working as editor on the project. With a script by Alex Dawson. Line work art and inks by Tom Mandrake. Colors by Jan Duursema. Letters by Micah Myers. Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz. And finally, its produced by Kevin Smith.

Yeah, I’m well aware how what the fuck! this team is, because I’m weirdly the one who assembled it (outside of Kevin Smith, who was the producer on the play).

A lot of this is happening due to networking in NJ plus the buzz about the show thanks to outlets like Weird NJ and weirdly… all of us embracing our NJ community. It’s one of those teams where you step back and go… how did I get in this room?

Of course, like all good indie dreams, it only happens if it funds. So we’ll see.

I’ll update more when I get the go-ahead from Alex, but for now I’ll say working with the legendary Tom Mandrake has been a f’ing blast.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at at 38.

Still tired. Still worried. Still telling stories anyway.

And honestly? That might be enough.

More soon.

I hate subscription services. I’m a firm believer in the right to own a product rather than investing in a promise of one.

Yet, as a society, we’ve become a people that no longer own anything. We lease our cars, rent our rooms, and even subscribe to our security system services. Our coins of tribute paid to the almighty gods of capitalism.

Now, part of this shift came from the SaaS boom of the 2010s. Companies like Amazon, Adobe, and Netflix. The pitch was simple: convince people to pay for something they already owned. Essentially, bottled water, but for software and entertainment.

The truth is, we used to buy things outright. Now, we just rent for the rights to use them. Progress became not for people but for companies, because recurring charges can make shareholders very happy.

Now, I get why companies love subscriptions. Recurring revenue looks safer than one-time sales. It drives growth projections per user and props up the stock prices. But, if we’re going to be quite honest, it also has made life feel very strange in that so much of it has moved from ownership to access.

I did not plan on thinking about any of this during my first convention of the year down in Wildwood, NJ. But here we are, and so I’m making a post about it.

So this past weekend, I was focused on my little pop-up shop at WildCon, which went about as well as could be given the snowfall and this time of the season.

This time, because I like to do something different every show, I bundled character-themed graphic novels and small signs to show special deals. Phoenix books. Black Widow runs. Captain America: Sharon Carter and Winter Soldier, all BOGO free. Small touches to spark conversations.

But it was the night before the show, when I realized that before I could leave, I’d needed to reprint two signs. And I had the files saved under Canva. The plan was indeed rather simple:

Walk into Staples. log in. Print. Leave.

However, when I opened Canva, I scrolled through and, to my dismay, a pop-up had appeared asking if I wanted to change a file. I clicked without thinking, not realizing it was not a change… It was an overwrite.

The Black Widow file was gone. It had been overwritten by a duplicate of my Captain America sign. Same layout, different art.

So I checked the version history and saw that the real Black Widow file was still there, sitting in the timeline of last night’s version.

Yet, when I clicked it, Canva told me that in order to get it back, I needed a paid subscription to download the previous version.

I thought to myself, I’m not paying a subscription for a five-minute fix. So I decided to download the Captain America file to Google Drive, swap the art, and rebuild the Black Widow sign manually. Annoying but doable. Easy Sleazy. I hit download…

And then Google immediately informed me that my storage was full and that I needed to upgrade my subscription to store the high-resolution file.

Annoyed, I backed out and sought a solution more primitive. I tried to save the text locally as a Word file on my phone. Work from the most basic of programs that’s been around since the 90s.

I double-tapped the document and got a new screen… asking me to sign in and subscribe to Microsoft 365.

All three companies were telling me the same thing. In the span of 5 minutes, it just highlighted the point of what I hate about everything right now. Pay monthly or stop working.

Canva wanted rent for usage of my own file.

Google wanted rent for storage.

Microsoft wanted rent for software that used to come in a box, which, to be quite honest, I can use their biggest competitor’s version for free (Google Docs).

While I was standing there, annoyed, a Staples employee came over and asked if I could email the file instead. And surely enough, their system tried to push its own in-office subscription program. The staff member, understanding the absurdity of it all, kinda just downloaded my files and printed my stuff for free. And it was finally done…

When a human did the work in 2 minutes.

I thought about that the most this week when pondering the future. Driving home, I kept thinking about how normal it has become to rent our tools. Because nothing works anymore without a subscription prompt. And it feels like the internet pop-up ad era all over again, except now it just blocks productivity.

I think, like most of you, I do not want to depend on legacy companies and their subscriptions. And I think people are waking up to it when you look at levels of cancellations of Spotify, stalled growth on just about all streaming services, and a better understanding that a big reason creative industries feel stalled is that we stopped creating for the sake of disrupting things, to make it… well, shittier.

And now, we’re entering a new era of self-reliance. I just don’t think folks see it yet.

Still, I get really bothered by ghosting. I’m waiting on a few big responses on things right now, and I’m getting radio silence, and I worry, almost always, that it’s because folks don’t like me and would rather slowly back away than say it to my face. My anxiety keeps telling me that it’s ghosting, but I really don’t know. I do have a history of being punished for trying to do the “right” thing, which is why I pick my battles so much more in my adult life.

I feel like my relevance in all of it is disappearing. In the quiet, slow fade where emails don’t get returned, messages drift off, and people only resurface when they need something. Everyone seems to want me for what I can do for them right now. It’s all just a very… do this now, yet for the things I need, silence. I’m in my own mental hell.

Speaking of hell, mindless self-promotion section of the post. Check out Stephane Roux’s art of my character, Brandi the Succubus from THE TOMB OF BAALBERITH. He drew it for the original Kickstarter. I’ll have an announcement about Beautiful next month.

That feeling of loneliness hits hard at the start of the year because, at the moment, I see so many friends and the people I came up with, teachers I respected who are 10x better at this than I am, and who shaped me professionally… are gone.

Laid off. Pushed out. Burnt out. So, I dunno where the future in media lay.

The people who literally trained me at IGN? Gone. The Workprint? First place that ever gave me a byline? Not a site anymore as of two months ago. After years at The Beat, after leaving on a high note, I still get asked about coverage over there, even though I told everyone in my contacts that I’ve been gone.

Rarely do I get a notification about how I’m doing or what I’m building now. It’s like the world froze me in that one identity: The journalist. The news guy. The person who chases stories about other creatives and will do a favor by reporting a story, rather than someone who creates. Dance monkey dance. Do this for me. Ok thx. Bye.

The messed-up part is I’ve worked with some big talents in this industry. I’ve written scripts. I’ve developed worlds. I’e done things younger me couldn’t dream I’ve accomplished. It’s just my name ain’t there. And I worry that the only version of me people recognize is the journalist — not the writer. And when that’s the identity everyone reflects at you, you start to lose sight of who you actually are.

Speaking of that the grind: I table conventions and shows a lot. Sometimes it’s great. Sometimes it’s miserable. Sometimes it rains, and you’re wondering why you didn’t just go home. Sometimes someone buys your book and tells you it meant something to them. That they’d see this as a movie one day. Or are shocked at how good it is. It’s such a hit-or-miss existence that it warps your sense of self-worth.

This is also the year of the biggest projects of my career. The kind of projects I dreamed about even just a few years ago, with the kind of collaborations and ideas I used to journal about and never show anyone. On paper, things are moving. In my inbox? Silence. In my chest? Who knows. I’m well aware I am driving myself crazy.

I’m sharing all this to say you’re not alone. I’m well aware everyone is feeling this right now, too.

I don’t have a neat ending to this. I’m not writing it for pity or applause. I’m writing it to say: I’m here. I exist outside of what I produce for other people. I’m trying to figure out who I am when I stop being useful. I’m trying to make art. I want to believe that stepping away for family wasn’t some cosmic career penalty. I’m trying to accept that the ghosting I keep worry about is happening is also highly unlikely right now, as everyone is just restarting this year, and it’s just my anxiety is being really bad, and that everyone is actually very much ok. Just busy. And to be honest, so am I… so why can’t I give everyone else slack.

Oh yeah. Because I always worry I’m too old and far behind from everyone else.

I’m also trying to give myself slack by remembering that I’m building things — real things — that aren’t dependent on a newsroom, a platform, or a search trend driven by AI. I’m a creator and a person, too. Not just the work. And I wanna be a voice in the chaos of today, but to do so, ya gotta make it your own path.

And that’s really hard as we’re running this train without a guideline.

If you’ve felt this too, the weird alienation that comes with layoffs, rebrands, shuttered sites, friends gone, and industries that keep collapsing under our feet, then I hope this made you feel a little less alone. Because I know I need that reminder too.

Need it right now, in fact.

I know who I am, and I know that I’m still here. And I’m still making things.

For today, that has to be enough.

Photocredit: Netflix

_______________

So, Stranger Things is over. It ended last week after a large number of opinions swung wildly between “greatest thing since sliced bread” and “this show sucks and has become way too gay.”

There’s a lot to address. Mostly, the discourse was high but not necessarily in a good way. The people who review bombed it are dumb in my opinion, and also, sort of a big reason as to why internet review aggregates have lost the trust of the public interest (looking at you, IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes).

And I say this as someone whose own reviews have been on several of these aggregates… that in an era filled with Letterboxd, and people trusting those with money to buy influence, these places don’t matter as much as reputation and followers do.

Again, Stranger Things is good, there’s no doubt about that. But it is a show that rests heavily on the laurels of its own 80s reference nostalgia. The bikes, the synths, the Spielberg framing, the Stephen King DNA. Yet, beneath that surface, Stranger Things has also been steeped in 1980s comics language (my favorite era). Allegory mattered. Dates mattered. All by design.

Will Byers vanished on November 6th. November 5th? Famously, Guy Fawkes Day, the date tied to V for Vendetta and the radical resistance. The numbers used in the naming of the science experiments in Stranger Things, with One (Vechna) through Eleven… have you ever thought to think that this is strangely similar to codename V? the fifth number of the anti-hero of the Alan Moore classic?

These weren’t accidents. The show trusted symbolism and its own reference material. Psychics and superpowers? Jean Grey and the X-Men. Add a dash of stranger horror, and that’s just Carrie. E.T. and Stand by Me. Body horror? The Thing. Cold War paranoia? Stories straight out of Red Dawn, Aliens, and WarGames. Even The Terminator itself had callbacks, which is why it was unsurprising to see Sarah Connor/Linda Hamilton herself, showing up playing a slightly altered version of the general role she just played in Resident Alien.

This show relied on your nostalgia. It’s why we liked it. It’s also… why we grew bored with it. I do think what’s changed is what we care about as a culture. And I think we Millennials need to accept that our moment in the sunshine is up, and our culture needs to embrace the next generation.

We are now watching that same cycle of nostalgia we had for a generation before us repeat with the ’90s and early 2000s. The nostalgia we once had for the 80s is what kids are getting into about… us. Scrubs is back. The Simpsons are making another movie. Yellowjackets, PEN15, the Scream sequels, X-Men ’97. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Does this not feel familiar to you, my fellow Millennials?

After a decade of enshittification, AI slop, and subscription fatigue, it makes sense that what’s in is that we’re retreating to the era just before the internet broke everything. When magazines mattered. When culture wasn’t spoon-fed by algorithms. Because what Gen-X was ten years ago is what Millennials are today.

But I digress.

The problem isn’t that Stranger Things has changed. The problem is that it has run its course at the same time our entire content ecosystem has burned itself out. For a five-season show, with child actors who are aging, it’s really a problem of taking way too long, and trying to use methods that just no longer work. As the trends change per decade, by generation.

And we’re in the thick of change right now.

This final stretch does swing big. Hawkins is quarantined by the military; the upside-down is no longer just a mirrored hellscape, but something closer to a wormhole. In its final moments, Stranger Things reframes the mythology entirely, raising the stakes beyond monsters and into cosmic horror. Vecna isn’t just picking victims anymore. He’s selecting the weak, exploiting trauma, reshaping reality. A Thanos-level bad guy and a gang coming together to save the day in a group ensemble. It’s superhero writing. I love it. Though I get how some dislike it.

So, let’s talk about it. Stranger Things’ performance and how it all ties back to the culture of streaming, technology, and enshittification. Because believe me… It’s all related.

Stranger Culture

From 2016 to 2026, Stranger Things will have occupied the cultural zeitgeist for approximately 10 years. Similar comparisons to shows in terms of length of pop cultural hype and viewership, Game of Thrones ran from 2011-2019, and The Walking Dead, from 2010 to 2022. About similar runs and eras stretched across pop culture. Both of those shows peaked in terms of viewership during about around 2015, or about the time Stranger Things would come onto the scene.

Specifically, The Walking Dead peaked in season 5 in 2014, and Game of Thrones with the Red Wedding in 2013. For better or worse, what mattered was that you still had your water cooler in the office moments. Something that pulled people together where they talked about a TV show. Yet, the rise of Netflix in 2013-2015 changed how we watched shows, with Stranger Things hitting in July 2016. Same year, not coincidentally, Netflix expanded globally in January 2016.

Now, I think for anyone who’s read my writings in journalism, I talk often about story circles. The cyclical nature of the stories and the patterns that shape our culture. How nothing is truly original, inasmuch as it is all just a passing of the torch influenced by our experiences in this moment in time, the zeitgeist of culture, and what gets our attention.

Whereas GOT and TWD were popular coming out of the Golden Era prestige cable TV (Post AMC Peaks of Breaking Bad), an era defined by humanized broken anti-hero protagonists who did horrible things but were often praised for it because Millennials badly needed therapy, the turn of the 2015s saw, with it, the rise of Netflix. The Prestige streaming TV era and a complete change in the way entertainment works by offering all the benefits of cable and pirating entertainment through cheap application accessibility.

Netflix’s first shows, products like House of Cards, were creating the demure of prestige television as well, but it was really Stranger Things in 2016 that put Netflix at the peak. It was a show rife with 1980s nostalgia, covered by Xillenials in terms of demographic growth, but really, it was the whole 2010s era (my era) that was really just defined by its strange obsession with the 1980s. Stranger Things, Glow, Kobra Kai, and Ready Player One. There’s… actually A LOT of examples of this.

Now, Netflix was gambling everything by giving anything that creators asked for, but what it was actually doing at the same time was the same strategies that Facebook/Instagram were using: gathering data on its users and using that as leverage to create sticky, addictive products.

It was a bold strategy, so long as they could create something everyone needed and, most importantly, grow their subscription base.

The thing that most people don’t realize is that in equity-based markets, thanks to successful strategies implemented in the past 20 years that big tech companies like Amazon have pulled off regarding user growth that regardless of revenue, the money that you make doesn’t necessarily matter. All so long as you can show one thing that will appease equity shareholders:

Growth.

Subscription growth. Buzz. The idea of a product and how much that can make. So much of the investor economy rests not on delivery but on the premise of disruption, regardless of whether it can achieve it. It’s why we’re in a tech bubble. Not a lot of it holds actual value and will pop just like the dot-com crash of 2000. Why?

Because there’s not a real business involved here.

Culture writers call it… ‘enshitification’, but I see it like blind bags or mystery boxes (Thanks, J.J. Abrams). The idea of selling the promise of what’s in the box, over what’s actually in it.

Add on the fact that we’ve seen companies intentionally making inferior software products and intentionally making things worse, just to pat themselves on the back to make things better again (Google search used to be good. Intentionally made its own search shittier. Then praised themselves for fixing their own problem. It’s actually a weirdly known tech story).

I won’t get into it, but so much of our economy in the US is based on projections and promises of growth over actual, real-life data. Also, real-life data? No longer all that accessible because companies know not to share their data and instead.

Now, mind you, there was no guarantee whatsoever that Netflix could pay off this debt it was getting into for production. Hell, I know multiple people with Netflix-adapted TV shows or Movies, it was just an era where they greenlit almost everything. And yes, I know this was a lot of business talk for a segment called ‘Stranger Culture’, so let’s get to it…

How The Hell Does This Relate To Stranger Things?

I’m glad you asked, reader.

The real reason Stranger Things is polarizing and good or bad in your opinion is that it was designed to be in your head to ask the question of whether or not this was good or bad.

The show became a tool built for the company. Netflix’s flagship title of the past 10 years. The discourse only feeds into the consumption of the product, and a large reason you’re seeing all the actors burn out of it… is because they are the used afterproducts of an entire face of a brand.

On top of that, Stranger Things led to collaborations with the biggest brands thanks to 80s nostalgia. Coca-Cola, Burger King, and Eggos? Funny in-show jokes, but also, actual corporate sponsorship. If it’s not obvious, the show was never supposed to be this big, but it became the benchmark of what Netflix can do with established intellectual property.

So what I’m trying to tell you is it didn’t matter if the show was good or bad. Just so long as you were talking about it. Tomato. Potato.

And yes, I actually am a fan of the show, though I think I would’ve liked it better had it ended last season. And I know the argument can be made that the series was a show first, and then a flagship IP later… But my argument is that once something becomes THIS BIG…

You’re no longer appeasing fans. You’re appeasing shareholders. Executives and far too many people. That sorta kills the creativity. The pursuit of finishing a thing just because you know everyone is going to be talking about it. Because it’s really just business…

That Sort of Thinking Feels Similar…

Game of Thrones. I know, everyone’s already making the comparison. But it wouldn’t be a post by me unless I talk about my favorite brand I grew up with… Marvel. So by comparison, let’s look at one of my favorites as the counterbalance of how old media used to perform a decade previously.

The 2008–2019 MCU’s decade-long takeover of pop culture.

Avengers: Endgame sold roughly 100 million tickets on opening night. Stranger Things just sold a bit over 1 million tickets in a single week it aired in theatres. Meanwhile, season five of Stranger Things pulled about 8.46 billion minutes watched in the first four days of viewing, the highest metric ever recorded for a streaming title, and 59.6 million views in its first five days.

These are the best of all-time numbers in their respective consumption analytics categories. MCU regarding box office revenue. Stranger Things regarding Netflix minutes watched.

Yet, the MCU succeeded not just because of movies, but because it had decades of comics acting as connective tissue. A deep archive. A shared language. These streaming franchises don’t have that anchor. They don’t have time to develop one. Ideas arrive faster than they can breathe, and sometimes they feel algorithmically assembled rather than earned. Not because the writers don’t care, but because the market doesn’t allow patience anymore.

Stranger Things did almost everything right. It told a story with heart. It raised the stakes without losing its character. It grew alongside its audience. What’s gone wrong then was not ambition, but rather, it was timing. Corporate pressure demands constant engagement, endless expansion, and safe consensus. Criticism becomes difficult in a culture that treats liking something as a personality trait. And in the end, the finale didn’t just give an ending. It reflects the moment we’re in. A world split apart. Too much content. Too little space to process it. A lord of the Rings level ending, which is strange as a comparison to me, because it’s just the nature of epic storytelling. The last chapter of the monomyth sees the heroes returned forever changed.

If it’s not obvious, both the MCU and ST were obligated by a need to meet corporate demands. Large fanbases. Many products. Vertical integration of being a brand that sells toys, games, comics, and more. So by all means, Stranger Things is a success story in its final season. Especially, when we consider Netflix’s other best contender for watch time, the reality TV show Love is Blind; well, and reruns of the same types of old content on the platform, whether it be a Grey’s Anatomy or NCIS…

It’s obvious to me that there is very much an attention problem in an era with too much content. Hitters are hits in an era with too much glut. Which is why Stranger Things run on Netflix feels this big. But to make it more complicated… just about all of this reported data does not account for watch time after these patterns for analysis, nor does it account for rewatches or even completion rates; metrics which Netflix cares about but is intentionally obfuscated because data right now is more precious than gold. Just look at every AI stock in the country that’s using it.

By any actual reasonable metric – and I know it’s speculation, but Stranger Things should have been the biggest TV event of the modern era. What the MCU was for cinema is what Stranger Things should be considered with streaming. Especially now, as the buzz is still high, and traffic for discourse is there as well.

Yet, I don’t think we are going to remember it.

Because the show, despite all of its success… is designed to be the flavor of the week. That’s Netflix’s dilemma. It’s like The Witcher problem, all this hype, but none of the cultural staying-power success.

Why?

Because its strategy is built on filling a quota, and its entire model feels like burnout in a race against the clock against churn. The inescapable need to deliver hits month after month to stop you from hitting unsubscribe.

And that… is what everyone got wrong about Stranger Things.

Not that it wasn’t a cultural phenomenon, because it really was, and I think the product is exactly what Netflix was looking for, hence the series spinoffs of Tales from ‘65 and an upcoming new live-action series. But the question was never was Stranger Things was good or bad, so much as it became one company’s mission to get us to ask ourselves to talk about Stranger Things.

But my issue with all of it is that Netflix burned what the show could’ve been in the cultural phenomenon for decades. All to maintain the way of doing business over the past decade and change. Which, to sound the alarm, is starting to show cracks of potential failure.

What it means is slowing down releases, slowing down production, and actually figuring out how to build a longstanding culture with the IP. Which is why they let someone else do the work for them in building a brand and bought some of the oldest and most reliable, with Warner Bros. Discovery. Which I don’t think people realize… has already been a big hit multiple hit producer on Netflix with shows like Lucifer and Sweet Tooth, and even Sandman, on Netflix.

Because yeah. All this hype, and we fail to realize that as a culture, this has already been there.

The Red Flags

To put it simply, streaming has plateaued in user growth, which is a big reason why Netflix stopped reporting that data since the first quarter of last year. What Netflix is doing then is games, copying the successes of the NYT in regards to that platform, but also, live experiences such as pop-ups themed after their product (Stranger Things even has one).

And that’s my problem. Midway through watching this season, I saw this show for what it was: business. An attempt at keeping Mickey Mouse (Can Eleven be Mickey Mouse?) alive for future potential. A no-deaths, no-stakes, piece of entertainment meant for mass enjoyment, that stopped pushing the envelope of what’s possible. Or to put it simply…

The series lost the simplicity and horror roots that made it interesting, in pursuit of grandiose storytelling and pushing almost superheroic IP.

But why?

Well, because it had to get bigger. Because it’s Netflix’s high-end flagship product and because this show is one of the most popular things everyone was watching, in an era where nobody is watching new TV anymore. And that’s why it doesn’t work.

That’s Your Takeaway?

Yeah. It is. Long-term IP – a big reason why Netflix is buying Warner Bros. Discovery – is to get its usage in copying the Disney method of selling a million iterations of a thing of its own brand. We’re talking video games, theme parks, and more. This is why the show feels… off. Especially, given the 10 years since the show’s release and where we are going from here.

When Stranger Things debuted ten years ago, it was intentionally small. It was the story about a missing kid in the quiet town of Hawkins; the idyllic setting of a Stephen King novel from the 80s came straight to life. Mystery, not mythology, that drove the story. A great contrast compared to now, where the series has become steeped in a lot of end-of-series explanations: Vecna, psychic programs, cosmic rules, and expanded lore.

On the internet these past few days, there has been a lot of commentary on the nature of ‘plot holes’ regarding the story, even though in actuality… It’s about as on par as the writing for the other seasons.

Personally, I think people don’t understand how television works. That often, writing is done in the season of, with a team, and a lot of editors and hands. Continuity is difficult when you have such large-scale time gaps between seasons. Especially, as longstanding schematics in sight of an end goal/game… doesn’t translate always fit naturally.

The show stopped being a question of what’s happening, but rather a prime example of raised stakes while running out of time, and thus squeezing in how it all fits together.

The Numbers

Now take all of this with a grain of salt, as Netflix uses very strange metrics to calculate what counts as a view versus not, as we learned in the past, just as no one actually knows if minutes watched means actual eyes glued to the screen versus falling asleep with the play next option on the television (I’m guilty of that).

A critical part of their analytics lately is intention and subscription retention; so for a business strategy for a show like Stranger Things, the platform needs to hit particular numbers on a regular to be sure to fill certain gaps in the demographic coverage and watch time. Aka have a product for a specific type/group of people and be sure to cover just about all of its bases. Which, mind you, isn’t just a Netflix strategy but a digital model strategy called hyper-personalization, meant to host something to engage all of a product’s users.

Which, you guessed it, is a big reason machine learning is here and being integrated via AI.

If you’ve ever wondered why Netflix cancelled your favorite show… It’s this. It’s data. Algorithms. The more we used a product, the more it knew its users and our data analytics, and essentially, how ‘good’ a show didn’t matter so long as it retained that demographic of users to prevent them from… cancelling their subscription.

All this data creates probability models of you keeping your Netflix streaming service. This is what big tech is pushing for and is sorta a big theme I’ve written about in my career, regarding Gamepass, Streaming, and of course, fully-integrated applications like Amazon’s library of services.

A recent report also revealed that the show hit most most-watched thing on Netflix for New Year’s Day ever, with a whopping 31.5 million views. Why does that matter?

Well, New Year’s Day is one where lots of people consume television (remember Honeymooners or Twilight Zone Marathons?) and he goal for the streamer, if it’s not obvious, has never been quality but providing a product that fills quantity. If you are of X background, from Y geography, and have spent oodles of time watching Z genre, they want to see if they can retain your attention in this moment in time. This is also, if you haven’t realized it… How most tech companies that retain user data work. The money is in the analytics of the user.

Mind you, this always happens in tech. Innovation in disrupting a way of doing things.

Now, the reason that this worked was that Cable was still getting a piece of the pie. After all, Netflix wasn’t just the data provider, but a service willing to take on the responsibilities of running an entertainment service. And if you really analyze the moves that the cable companies were making from 2005-2015, you’d realize too that they were pretty dumb regarding how to run the media side, and more interested in infrastructure and selling unnecessary bundles of cable boxes in an era where none of that was necessary.

Now this is a maneuver we’ve seen in the tech industry and one I’ve critiqued a lot about in my career regarding “As A Subscription” services. Lack of ownership, but also, false pretense of value. Hook a person on a product and then praise the price to no end. I genuinely think the real reason folks were so divided about the show had less to do with the show and the people involved…

And more about a corporate strategy, about giving us a feel-good, just good enough ending. And that’s fine. And for what it’s worth, I really liked Stranger Things.

But I can’t pretend like it wasn’t a big corporate push for the Netflix brand.

This year felt relentless. It felt endless. Each season sort of represents a major change in my life. I’m not talking about just the administration and changes to healthcare or the layoffs per the entertainment section, or the job insecurity with the rise of AI, and truly, the longstanding dismantlement of all that we kinda knew.

It was just… well, it was… a lot. Especially for a journalist as plugged in as me. I used to take pride in my Ozymandias-style of info gathering. I’d… rather not now. Focus inward and what I can control. So a lot happened. So much so that I’m going to break it down by season — like my favorite video game, The Last of Us.

Winter

Professionally, this was my biggest year yet. I did some killer interviews at the beginning of the year with some of my favorite creators, like Scott Snyder, David Pepose, and Kelly Thompson. Though that was also sorta overshadowed by some familial concerns. The wildfires in California and my close family, who were pretty much at the heart of it.

Despite all that work to align all these announcements and interviews, I felt like my efforts were kinda drowned by natural disasters and the increasing political panic caused by the current admin. Because nobody gives a shit about comics when democracy dies in darkness. I worked hard on a thing, and it gets overshadowed by a global, once-in-a-lifetime thing. Yet, this felt like… almost every moment earlier this year. The longest 3 months of my lifetime, I think. Yet, little did I know that sort of set the precedent for what would be the year.

All of that chaos energy? It affects us all in ways I think many of us will never process in full. In fact, I had an ex-girlfriend reach out to me around Valentine’s Day this year, talking about her kid. The struggle. Life. She praised what she’d seen what I’d been up to on social media (which, again, is bullshit, I’m struggling almost always, folks), Then… for just a moment, we kinda reminisced about the life path not taken together, but stopped, realizing it was 2 in the morning, and these types of talks always end in one way. I didn’t share it, but I was silently struggling almost always. What was all this for? Save for a small reputation only people in comics care about, and a life that in some ways I totally missed. I was paying my dues. when the hell was it going to be my time?

Anyway, I helped co-run The Beat’s media team at MoCCA Fest in March. I won’t get into it, but it was a lot of work, and I didn’t tell anyone this, but I was almost completely flat broke at the time. So I was stressed beyond all hell, but still managed to do a stupid amount of interviews in about a week and change, to promote the event.

With the current issues and change happening, politically and globally, the things I’ve seen and witnessed and was privy to, I knew that I had to change. And now. So I left The Beat as editor on a high note, despite reaching more readers than ever with my column and the many hats I was wearing at the time.

Spring

I was still running my Monomythic column at The Beat, but part of being vulnerable and honest and talking about the cyclical nature of stories in the world and how nothing is original and it’s all just humanity’s cycle on repeat… is that you get a lot of shit for essentially saying nothing is unique? I had to learn to accept that. Being hated.

I noticed it most when folks really loved my piece on what used to be my hero in what was likely a piece read by him, that still very much ranks on the front page for news about him. Without getting too into it, I thought what I was trying to do was right… and I think it was, at least, helpful to those like myself who needed it.

But the amount of shit you get for it. The distrust. The change in dynamic. The way people no longer like you out of fear about what you’ll say. These are the things that regular people don’t know about… and well, it was enough to switch me over to here and look for a new way. I was offered a few jobs when I stepped down from The Beat. In fact, I was offered an editor role at CBR. But I said no… Mostly, in solidarity with the staff who were laid off at Polygon at the time.

Anyway, the goal for me is to be a writer’s writer, anyway. Journalism needed to step back, and creatively, I was focusing on getting my debut comic ready with my newly assembled team. I decided to try to patch up old relationships (you know who you are)…. which inevitably, also burned to the ground... though led to new projects I’m announcing soon. This was also sort of my theme for 2025.

Things end. New things began out of their death. Spring was a period of rebirth.

This Spring, I attended two big things.

The first, was Super Jersey Comic Expo, which was one of the biggest shows in comics in NJ, and where I got to fanboy while meeting Heather Antos for the first time, while apologizing to her for that one time on Twitter, I made a Taylor Swift art joke about farting regarding some art she’d created. She’s awesome and didn’t think anything of it.

The second big thing was I tabled Philadelphia Fan Expo with Jad, my co-writer on the Tomb of Baalberith, for the first time. It was a big show and a largely successful one, and definitely the one that made me see I could earn some tiny bit of living via this.

I spent this Spring figuring out how to sell books. I already got used to talking with people, but this is when I cracked the formula in terms of design, approach, setup, and getting to know how conventions work and what people want. I’ve kept it a secret, but I’m sharing now: I do really well at shows. Like… a 95% success rate level of profitable vs. unprofitable, I think only losing out at maybe 2 shows in total at this point.

Anyway, it was enough to go on tour selling other people’s books and my own books, that I actually sold out of all my original books’ first printings. I sorta turned my tour into a legitimate pop-up store, with a focus on comics and modern comics (as that’s where my knowledge is from years of journalism and at The Beat), but especially, I became an expert at suggesting jump-on points for new readers. Some profits were made. Enough to get me out of a bind. Now, I’m paying taxes and everything!

I have to stress, though: the goal was never to replace comic book stores. I’m the entry point into comics. The guy you get your first high off of as to why it’s kewl. My store can’t hold inventory for everything, and honestly, my sales come from me running my mouth about what I think all of this is awesome, and then giving the reader recommendations. My own comics I made, are also being offered.

Summer

Summer is when I scaled the business. But it’s also… where I met A LOT of new artists and creators; mostly, local. I’m not gonna ruin the surprise, but making new friends is awesome, especially when… You’re creating an anthology together. Just for them.

Ahhhh…. I spoiled it.

Anyway, yeah, this summer, I scaled the store and made better profits. It’s also when I SOLD OUT of everything. All my original books.

Oh, and uhh… then, a little thing also happened. The Beat won an Eisner for its work in 2024 that July. It was a big deal for its legacy and 20-year history. I was also editing and writing a large section of the articles during that era.

So yeah. Go team. Having an Eisner this early in my career does make my head go… schwat? But like… the more you read these posts. You’ll learn I’ve lived a life of these kinda moments.

Fall

That brings us to Fall. The exhaustion of it all. The new year to coming. My debut comic, DEAD ON THE INSIDE, didn’t launch. To be honest, the team is so incredibly behind, I’ve had to reassess a lot of things regarding working with friends, but also, how I approach the work and failure to meet the work.

I love Will. We had some disagreements, but hashed it out, and I’ve given it space. Time. And a lot of money. It’s still on its way, but for it to get here, I had to unlearn what I had learned and try a new approach. One that adjusts for life.

When I started in comics, I wrote more like Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, and Jeph Loeb. My heroes at the time of my early 20s. Lately, I mostly just write them in Marvel Method, with dialogues passing back and forth with my artists, a lesson I learned from Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta, actually.

Anyway, I did NYCC for the last time with The Beat. Said thanks to Heidi Macdonald for the opportunity. She was a great teacher who taught me to believe in myself, but I am most definitely on a different path. And weirdly enough. I started working with Sami at the turn of the fall. Which is why this substack now exists, as The DeMonster lit a fire on my butt.

She’s someone who genuinely loves doing this. That passion reminds me of who I used to be, 10 years ago, and is a big reason I wanna keep trying here. I look forward to writing more, but at my own pace and with my own voice, less focused on newsy-seo-friendly and more down to earth, like you’re seeing now.

______

Now, where’s the thing. None of this covers the many many many worse moments of this year I omitted for a reason. This was just my 2025. Chaos, poorly edited, and summarized and all. I’m not sure yet who I’ll structure this Newsletter exactly.

I just know that I needed a space to call my own and this is probably it right now.

I know 2025 was tiring. I know 2026 won’t get easier. But there are big things on the horizon, for myself, and I think, for us all. And change is always a good thing.

As it reminds us we’re alive.