Where The F*** Have I Been?

Where do I even start?

Guess I can say that 2020 was one of the best years of my life. Despite Covid-19 looming over us like a dark, fatal cloud, I think the quarantine was good in some ways. It made me realize what was important, and what wasn’t. For starters, I shocked even myself upon realizing I didn’t miss going to concerts and clubs as much as I thought. In fact, I throughly enjoyed the downtime. An added bonus was the six feet apart rule. It felt so damn good not to be squeezed in on queues just to get a loaf of bread. Oh, and I didn’t have to go to my then dayjob. It was so amazing to wake up with a nice payment from pandemic unemployment. There was no stress, no drama, just peace. It was truly lovely.

Eventually, I lost my “inspiration” to draw. I was okay with that, for a while. Figured it was time to take a break.

Then I threw out my knee in Febuary 2021. Then came the hardcore vertigo. Then came the lost of balance. Yeah, 2021 pretty much sucked. This forced me to take a good look at everything around me. Someone once told me outright: “You know a lot of assholes.” She wasn’t wrong.

That’s when I took a good look at my personally inventory. First I left the dayjob I held for six-seven years. Then I started cutting off people. Don’t mean one or two here and there. I cut off whole groups of people. Once they were gone, that’s when the healing began. Then out of the blue, I pulled the plug on my old Facebook account. No warning, no nothing. Just outright pulled the plug. Next step was to transfer out of a few more things. Basically I had become a people pleaser, living a life that wasn’t for me. Surrounding myself with fakes who were never my friends. I’m not as involved about promoting myself on social media either, but that part might change. Who knows. Right now, I’m just busy being me.

While I did attend a few concerts after pandemic restrictions were lifted, it just wasn’t the same. I used to dream of making a name for myself in the creative field, in alternative comics. Now, I dream of other things. It doesn’t mean I’ve given up on cartooning or illustration altogether. At the moment I’m re-arranging my little art studio.

Mold discovery made after new year’s celebration.

Speaking of art studios, I made a discovery right after this past New Year’s Eve. Turns out I had serious black mold in my art studio. No wonder I’d been getting sick! For now the mold has been removed. Just as I was about to start drawing again was when I made the mold discovery. I’ve been going through old art supplies, and throwing out dried out paints, pens with dried out ink, busted paint brushes, stained sketchbooks from the past…all of it, gone. I went Konmari on my place. It’ll be a while since I’m still in my Marie Kondo phase.

Now, for no reason. Here’s a logo I created for a project. Maybe I’ll get into details about this, maybe I won’t. Until next time.

Logo design, Jan. 2024.

Stripwinkels in Amsterdam

The title of this post, Stripwinkels in Amsterdam translates simply as “Comic Book Stores In Amsterdam.” If that translation isn’t accurate, well then. Blame DeepL.

This short post has photos from my first trip to Amsterdam in late summer/early fall 2021. I fell in love with The Netherlands. Since then I’ve visited that country two more times. I particulary like Amsterdam as a city. Everyone says Paris is an amazing place. While I liked Paris, I still prefer Amsterdam.

City of Amsterdam at night. 2021. Photo taken by Michele Witchipoo.

Right now I’m just going to focus on two places inside Amsterdam. First one is Henk’s, which is Amsterdam’s eqivlent of Forbidden Planet. Not as large as Forbidden Planet or Midtown Comics in NYC, but it has a selection that is similiar. Hank’s focuses mostly on popular titles, superhero, manga and other pop-culture related items. What I liked about Hank’s was that it has two entrances. That way instead of waddling through the tourist crowds, I can just walk through one end of the store, and exit on the other side. Those two entrances were very conveinant.

Henk’s Comics & Manga in Amsterdam, 2021

Second comic book shop I visited was Lambiek. I’ve heard of Lambiek for years, as their website has an online encycopedia of cartoonists. There was no iternarity planned, so I took out my cell. It was still halfway through the pandemic in 2021, so there wasn’t that many tourists. Lambiek is on a side street, which makes it a bit tricky to find if you’re a first time visitor. Yet if you’re a huge Alternative comics fan, you’re going to love this place.

Lambiek comic shop in Amsterdam, 2021.

The shop has a mixture of old and new titles. As I was browsing, another local creative stepped in. Turns out he was an American expat, Chad Bilyeu. He has a comic series titled Chad In Amsterdam, which Lambiek highly recommends.

Chad Bilyea in Lambiek, 2021.

That’s it for now. Amsterdam is a very magickal place, I’ve been back two more times since then. Yes, I’ve been really slow on this blog, a lot has happened between Febuary 2021 and now. The year 2021 was a bad time for me, the only highlight was the trip to the Netherlands. Perhaps I’ll explain more in future posts. No worries, I’m doing much better now.

In the meantime, I shall leave you with this stray cat I met in Amsterdam.