The end of a year sees the start of another. 2024 recap.
Frantic Scribbles & Senseless Ramblings December 2024
It’s the end of the year, the franticness of December is dying down and you’re reading Frantic Scribbles and Senseless Ramblings, the monthly newsletter of Asa Wheatley.
Making progress
December is always a hard month for me creatively. It feels like it’s not enough time to get those last little bits done and I always end up looking back, thinking I haven’t achieved as much as I should have.
This December productivity wise was terrible. I don’t think I got a single word written. I maybe planned a couple of Patreon posts but otherwise I didn’t get anything else done really. Instead it was filled with an exciting trip to Edinburgh, a visit with family to see the excellent Batman Exhibition and being ill (again!) all while wrapping up my day job after being made redundant earlier in the year. To say it’s been a month of mixed emotions is putting it lightly. Annoyingly I spent the weekend before Christmas incredibly ill, marking the second illness in as many months. But enough of the woe is me end to the year, let’s look at what I managed to get done despite all this going on.
Looking back at last year’s newsletter the sentiment has pretty much stayed the same, December is unproductive, surprise surprise. So what projects saw movement this year:
I am incredibly proud of the final version of Sagas of the Shield Maiden Book Four, there were things I learnt along the way that I will do differently for Book Five but the book itself has come out brilliantly and I can’t wait to share it with all the Kickstarter backers. I had hoped to have them all posted out by the end of the year but unfortunate circumstances prevented it and there was nothing I could do so instead of wallowing, I just accepted it and let the backers know. I’ll be fulfilling the campaign in the new year so the delay isn’t going to be that substantial.
I announced Of Ichor & Bone and have been releasing new pages monthly over on Patreon, which has been an interesting new experience. The pages are looking fantastic and it’ll be great to share the whole comic when it’s finished too.
Project Queen I took some time to reevaluate and artist Daniel Coloma will be starting back up with his pages in the new year so it hopefully won’t be too long have before I have more to reveal.
At the start of the year I was mostly working on the edit notes I had gotten for Project Murder. There were a lot of them and I had a lot of work to do and it has the comic has immensely benefited from that extra work. Like Project Queen the script and accompanying character notes are with the artist so it’s just a matter of waiting for me now.
Secrets of the Majestic was released this year. I completed the script (which was only 2 pages) towards the start of the year so it’s been a project I’ve been fairly absent from since then but getting to see Sammy work on her pages is always awesome and even better was when the book launched at Thought Bubble and Sammy’s pages were included in the exhibition at the Mercer Art gallery.
I added Project Slasher to the list and while I haven’t done much on it yet it’s something that I’m quite excited to dig my teeth into.
Project Hollow is the only thing on the list that I don’t think I even looked at this year. It’s a project that I will have a lot of fun with as soon as I’m in the right mood for writing it so come January you’ll probably see that it’s gone but maybe something new will replace it, who knows.
Needless to say despite the more melancholy start of this month’s newsletter I did achieve a fair bit creatively this year. While I’m job hunting for a new day job in January I’m also going to take some time to really plan out my 2025 and get all my comic making ducks in a row.
Sagas of the Shield Maiden Book Four - Book is complete. Fulfilling Kickstarter soon.
Of Ichor & Bone - Currently releasing on Patreon.
Project Queen - Art picking up again soon.
Project Slasher - Started writing 1st issue script.
Project Murder - Edits made and complete. Ready for artists.
Project Hollow - 1st Draft of script read and notes made.
Sagas of the Shield Maiden Book Five - Early notes for stories made.
All consuming, consuming all
The Hobbit Trilogy - We chose these three films as our Christmas watch this year and I was fairly underwhelmed. As a huge fan of Lord of the Rings I had only even seen one and a half of the Hobbit films and had largely dismissed them. But in more recent years I had come to love the Star Wars prequels once again and even though they’re not perfect there are elements of them I love and I hoped that’s what the Hobbit would bring. Unfortunately they didn’t I enjoyed the first one the most but the other two feel bloated and unfocused.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim - Keeping in the Lord of the Rings Christmas theme we went to see the new anime in the cinema and while the film itself it pretty simple in premise and execution I thoroughly enjoyed it and I’d definitely be more up for watching it again soon than I would be for The Hobbits. Maybe it’s my love for all things Rohan but it not being an over complicated and over long trilogy really did wonders for my enjoyment of The War of the Rohirrim.
Ghost Stories for Christmas - We picked up the first volume of the original Ghost Stories for Christmas but only managed to squeeze in a couple. This year we watched Lost Hearts which I didn’t enjoy and A Warning to the Curious which I thought was great. It had exactly the right feel to it and was just what I wanted from a Ghost Story for Christmas. We also caught up with the newer specials with Women in Stone being my favourite of the new batch.
A few favourites I watched, read and enjoyed from 2024 (without context because this newsletter is already long enough):
Movies: Mission impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, Love Lies Bleeding, MaXXXine, Catching up with the Chucky franchise.
TV: The Bad Batch, Taskmaster, Shogun, Bobs’ Burgers
Comics: Hack/Slash: Back to School, Newburn, Lovesick, Chainsaw Man & Berserk (catching up with)
Well that’s it for 2024 and frankly I’m happy to see the end of it. Not because it was all terrible but because I’m looking forward to starting fresh in 2025. 2025 brings exciting and terrifying new circumstances for me and I’m going to try and make the best of them. Here’s hoping I’ve at least got a plan by the end of January.