The new year is approaching and naturally it makes me think back to some of the things that happened in this past year. 2014 was a big year for me, and I will definitely remember it for the rest of my life.
The most important of course is the birth of my son, Parker, who has proven to be quite the active baby. My wife and I are very lucky as he's relatively healthy and seems to be a really happy baby. He keeps us busy, but we have a lot of help from our family and it's great to see the joy he brings to everyone.
Also, I launched the comic and this website. When I was in marketing mode, I really tried to push the comic onto anyone and everyone and I think it paid off. I never had unrealistic expectations for the comic, and I think in the grand scheme of things, I'm happy with what I was able to achieve. I took a bit of a creative hiatus after the book launched, but I'm ready to jump back into things and try my best to not miss any of these blog posts. I understand people don't really read them, but it's neat to think that my life is sort of being curated here.
I came across some really cool things this past year and have obsessed over them as I am prone to do. For the next 4 days, I'll be putting up a post a day for all of the things that I came across this year that have really caught my attention. Most of these didn't actually come out in 2014, but it IS when I finally got around to checking them out. I hope you enjoy, and have a great new year everyone!
This may seem like an odd choice, but Legend of a Cowgirl has definitely stood the test of time in my own life. I'd love to say there's a powerful memory that I can attach to this song, but there isn't... I just really like this song. This song to me really captures the 90s poppy side, which honestly was closer to my 90s experience then the grunge scene (I was only 10 when Cobain offed himself). I do remember this song being a bit weird, and that's probably why I liked it. What I didn't remember from my youth? dancing silver dudes in speedos. It was definitely a one-hit wonder for Imani Coppola, but surfing around for this blog post shows that she never stopped making music and has quite a few albums under her belt.
Hey everyone!
It's a pretty exciting Christmas for my family and I. It's my son's FIRST!
Cliche as it is, I really can't believe that he's almost one year old now. It's pretty neat how having a family really changes your outlook on Christmas. I'm really reminded of how much I genuinely loved the holidays as a kid. I have pretty distinct memories of being at my cousin's house, and they would sometimes have those blueberry candy canes hanging from their tree. We'd play his genesis and run around for reasons unknown all day. Slowly Christmas became less and less important to me... and everyone else for that matter. I'm realizing now that kids will breathe new life into the holidays for me, and I really look forward to seeing Parker build some of those memories for himself.
So to that, I wish you all a really great Christmas to you and all your families. Try to think back and remember some of your favourite Christmas memories. Cheers!
During the peak of the Zombie Craze as the beauty-vampire era was coming to a close, I discovered this great comic. I came across a lot of great reviews on this book, but opted out of the vampire genre which has never really grabbed my attention. When I finally get my hands on American Vampire, I couldn't get enough of Rafael Albuquerque's incredible artwork. Because the book jumps decade to decade between story arcs, Snyder has the opportunity to create new characters and shift style and tone constantly. Snyder being the master writer he is, manages to touch on the coolest parts of the characters while still managing to make them rich and interesting with very little space to.
I was young when I was introduced to Leisure Suit Larry. Really young. Wayyy to young to understand much about it. The game is best described as 'raunchy', a term that seems quaint and naive since the advent of the internet. Leisure Suit Larry was geared towards adults and to get into the game you had to answer questions that only an adult would know. It actually kind of worked, my cousin and I would have to reload the game over and over until we hit a question that we knew the answer to. This was kind of laughable by todays standards as the low pixel rate made you feel like you were playing a stick figure. Leisure Suit Larry had sexual content, but I didn't get it. Sex at the time was something funny and weird to make jokes about, so when we played the game it was more a way to fuel our curiousity and immature jokes. In the end, I don't remember much about the game, just that we would laugh when the cops would shoot poor Larry when we would purposely forget to take his condom off when he wandered out to the street.
