{"id":4941,"date":"2014-01-02T10:38:27","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T15:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=4941"},"modified":"2014-01-02T10:38:27","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T15:38:27","slug":"2013-the-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=4941","title":{"rendered":"2013: The Year in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DSC_0501.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4942\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?attachment_id=4942\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DSC_0501.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2427,1704\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.75&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Galaxy Nexus&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1388615850&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;3.43&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;64&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.019998&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"DSC_0501\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DSC_0501-300x210.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DSC_0501-1024x718.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4942\" alt=\"DSC_0501\" src=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DSC_0501-300x210.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DSC_0501-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DSC_0501-1024x718.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>(On my drafting table, Jan 1, 2014: half-penciled <em>Oyster War<\/em> page 110.)<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;re a few parting thoughts on 2013:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Oyster War<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The bad: I&#8217;d vowed this time last year to have <em>Oyster War<\/em> wrapped up in 2013. That didn&#8217;t happen. I am though, fairly close. I just posted the last page of Chapter 9, all of Chapter 10 is done and ready to post, and I&#8217;m drawing Chapter 11&#8211;the final chapter&#8211;right now. Including the epilogue, I&#8217;ve got around 20 pages to go to wrap it up.<\/p>\n<p>The good: in short, 2013 was a great year for things <em>Oyster War<\/em>-related.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The biggest thing was (obviously) getting an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/awards\/will-eisner-comic-industry-award-nominees-2013\" target=\"_blank\">Eisner Award nomination for Best Digital Comic<\/a>. Although I ultimately didn&#8217;t win (damn you, Bandette!!!), you can&#8217;t beat that kind of recognition with a stick. I know some folks think awards are just silly in general, but it&#8217;s gratifying just to have some comics entity say to you, &#8220;Hey, we dig what you&#8217;re doing&#8221; &#8211;especially when that &#8220;entity&#8221; is something as prestigious as the Eisner Awards.<\/li>\n<li>Despite several semesters of heavy teaching course-loads, I posted on schedule throughout 2013. I continued to post every other Wednesday to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oysterwar.com\" target=\"_blank\">OysterWar.com<\/a> and I even upped my posting at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gocomics.com\/oyster-war#.UsVqpfRDtfY\" target=\"_blank\">GoComics.com<\/a> to twice weekly&#8211;Mondays and Thursdays.<\/li>\n<li><em>Oyster War<\/em> was included in the Best American Comics list of <a href=\"http:\/\/dw-wp.com\/2013\/10\/notables-2013\/\" target=\"_blank\">Notable Comics of 2013<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>Oyster War<\/em> made a number of &#8220;best of 2013&#8221; lists, including some fairly high-profile ones such as Paste Magazine&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/blogs\/lists\/2013\/12\/the-13-best-webcomics-of-2013.html?p=2\" target=\"_blank\">13 Best Webcomics of 2013 <\/a>(<em>Oyster War<\/em> took the number seven spot) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/kevintang\/must-read-web-comics-of-2013\" target=\"_blank\">Buzzfeed&#8217;s Must-Read Webcomics of 2013<\/a> list.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finding a publisher: toward the end of 2013 I began to approach a few publishers about a possible book version of <em>Oyster War<\/em>. I don&#8217;t have anything to report on that front at the moment, but I&#8217;m hoping that&#8217;s something big that will fall into place in 2014.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Other Projects<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/monkey_business_final.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4944\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?attachment_id=4944\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/monkey_business_final.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"762,754\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"monkey_business_final\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/monkey_business_final-300x296.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/monkey_business_final.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4944\" alt=\"monkey_business_final\" src=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/monkey_business_final-300x296.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"296\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/monkey_business_final-300x296.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/monkey_business_final.jpg 762w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I tried to remain as focused as possible on <em>Oyster War<\/em> in 2013, but I did do a few other things comics-wise. &#8220;Monkey Business,&#8221; a one-pager I drew last year about Jackie the baboon, who fought in WWI, finally saw the light of day in the <em>Panels for Primates<\/em> anthology, a benefit book for the Primate Rescue Center in Nicholasville, KY. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comixology.com\/Panels-for-Primates\/comics-series\/12849\" target=\"_blank\">Buy it here on Comixology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I participated in the <a href=\"http:\/\/alphabots.tumblr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">AlphaBots<\/a> weekly drawing challenge for the initial few letters, but ultimately dropped out because I just couldn&#8217;t keep up. You can find <a href=\"http:\/\/drawblr.tumblr.com\/tagged\/AlphaBots\" target=\"_blank\">my contributions here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4905\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?attachment_id=4905\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"850,1258\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"kane-toned\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned-202x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned-691x1024.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4905\" alt=\"kane-toned\" src=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned-202x300.jpg\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/11\/kane-toned.jpg 850w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the last quarter of 2013, I was commissioned to do <a href=\"http:\/\/drawblr.tumblr.com\/post\/62717621157\/i-drew-the-silver-age-jla-herere-some\" target=\"_blank\">a bunch of Silver Age JLA characters<\/a>. They turned out really well and wound up getting a fair amount of traction online. \u00a0Partially as a result of that, I wound up doing a ton of commissions in 2013. The Kang the Conqueror commission above was the most elaborate of the bunch. In fact, I&#8217;ve got a handful more lined up right now, but I haven&#8217;t been able to execute them yet because of the holidays, getting ready for teaching next semester, etc.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4902\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?attachment_id=4902\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"650,1265\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"lou reed\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1-154x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1-526x1024.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4902\" alt=\"lou reed\" src=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1-154x300.jpg\" width=\"154\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1-154x300.jpg 154w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1-526x1024.jpg 526w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2013\/10\/lou-reed1.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 154px) 100vw, 154px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of &#8220;online traction,&#8221; for reasons unfathomable to me, among all the things I posted to my tumblr in 2013, this particular drawing of Lou Reed really took off. It made the tumblr radar and <a href=\"http:\/\/drawblr.tumblr.com\/post\/65704510637\/heres-a-drawing-of-lou-reed-i-started-the-evening\" target=\"_blank\">currently has around 1700 notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I continued to work fairly steadily in my sketchbook, but I wasn&#8217;t very good this year about posting samples to this blog. I was, though, fairly active with posting sketchbook images to my Twitter. I always use the #sketchbook tag when I post, so all that&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23sketchbook%20from%3Aben_towle&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\">archived fairly well right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Process<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4945\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?attachment_id=4945\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,1092\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"final_trapping\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping-247x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping-843x1024.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4945\" alt=\"final_trapping\" src=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping-247x300.jpg\" width=\"247\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping-247x300.jpg 247w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping-843x1024.jpg 843w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/final_trapping.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 247px) 100vw, 247px\" \/><\/a>(Sample of an image for an upcoming silk-screen print, artwork done entirely in Manga Studio)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m calling 2013 the year I officially &#8220;went digital&#8221; art-wise. I&#8217;ve had Manga Studio for a while and used it here and there, but 2013 was the year I really dove in fully. The big change this year that precipitated that was my purchasing a <a href=\"http:\/\/frenden.com\/post\/38693256477\/yiynovamsp19u\" target=\"_blank\">Yiynova digitizing monitor<\/a>. \u00a0I&#8217;d had a small Wacom tablet for a while, but I never felt really comfortable drawing with it; I could never get over the disconnect between the tablet drawing surface and the screen. With that gone, though, I&#8217;ve really begun to get comfortable with drawing digitally start-to-finish. I&#8217;m still doing <em>Oyster War<\/em> on paper with traditional tools (mainly, just to maintain visual continuity), but I&#8217;ve gone either partially or fully digital with most other things&#8211;especially anything freelance where saved time essentially equals a higher hourly rate.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Conventions<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Without a new book to hawk, I took it fairly light this convention season. As usual, though, Craig Fischer and I did a big &#8220;Mega-Panel&#8221; at Heroes Con this year. Our topic was &#8220;music and comics&#8221; and things went really well I thought. Craig and I were interviewed about it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comicsreporter.com\/index.php\/cr_newsmakers_interview_ben_towle_craig_fischer\/\" target=\"_blank\">over at Comics Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I also went to the San Diego Comic-Con this year, something I&#8217;ve not done since&#8211;I think&#8211;2005. My main reason for going was to attend the Eisner ceremony, but I&#8217;d been really wanting to return to the convention for years. The two previous times I&#8217;d been there, I&#8217;d spent the bulk of my time behind the SLG table. Until this year, I&#8217;d never attended as a \u00a0&#8220;civilian&#8221; and been able to take in all the activities. I did <a href=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=4791\" target=\"_blank\">a big write-up about the event here<\/a>, but in short: I had a blast and I&#8217;m hoping I&#8217;ll be able to attend again this year (although that depends on finances and scheduling).<\/p>\n<p>I attended a few regional cons this year as well: NC Comic-Con, Comic Book City Con, and DICE in Durham. I&#8217;m not 100% sure this region can support three conventions in the long-term, but it was great to be able to go to some events that didn&#8217;t involve staying overnight and I saw a bunch of folks I know at all of them.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>In 2014<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>What will I be working on? As mentioned, I should be able to wrap up <em>Oyster War<\/em> in the first quarter or so of 2014. During that time I&#8217;m also going to be trying to find a publisher. I have a few folks in mind who seem like <em>Oyster War<\/em> might be a good fit with. Hopefully, I&#8217;ll have some good news on that front in 2014.\u00a0I also have a ton of corrections to do on <em>Oyster War<\/em>: off-model characters in early pages, coloring errors, typos, etc.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s next? I have a few things in mind.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d intended <em>Oyster War<\/em> to be a stand-alone story, but the ending as-written is fairly open-ended and even overtly suggestive of a continuing story. So, I&#8217;ve been thinking about potentially working on a second &#8220;volume&#8221; of it and trying to focus on GoComics as its site for publication. I don&#8217;t see it ever generating a ton of money, but having a significant portion of the readership visiting the non-monetized OysterWar.com site seems like leaving money on the table.<\/p>\n<p>I wrote a full script a while back for a comic about cooking and playing music in the 1990&#8217;s called <em>In the Weeds<\/em>. No one&#8217;s really breaking down my door to publish it, but it&#8217;s something I&#8217;d like to see through. I&#8217;ve kind of half-considered a scenario where someone other than me could draw it, but I don&#8217;t know how that&#8217;d work&#8211;especially how I&#8217;d pay an artist.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4946\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?attachment_id=4946\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1396,1942\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"chararcter_01_02\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02-215x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02-736x1024.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4946\" alt=\"chararcter_01_02\" src=\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02-215x300.jpg\" width=\"215\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02-215x300.jpg 215w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02-736x1024.jpg 736w, https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/uploads\/2014\/01\/chararcter_01_02.jpg 1396w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I talked with a few fairly high-end publishing industry folks at (or directly after) San Diego comic-con who basically said to me, &#8220;You&#8217;re a great storyteller. If you ever put anything together that&#8217;s all-ages, I&#8217;d like to see it.&#8221; Nothing at that point in my &#8220;idea file&#8221; really fit the bill, but I&#8217;ve been ruminating a bit on something lately that&#8217;s all-ages and that I&#8217;m thinking could be really cool. I&#8217;m going to try to get at least some character designs, a plot synopsis, and a few sample pages together in 2014.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>My 2014 To-Do List<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 13px;\">The all-ages proposal mentioned above.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Oyster war: finish, find publisher, do corrections.<\/li>\n<li>Getting a better &#8220;day job&#8221;\/comics balance &#8211; I taught three classes last term and I&#8217;m teaching four this term. It&#8217;s nice to have steady income and I enjoy teaching&#8230; but I don&#8217;t like having so much teaching that it precludes me actually <em>practicing<\/em> what I&#8217;m supposed to be teaching about: art. To that end:<\/li>\n<li>Better promoting\/monetizing &#8211; I need to do a better job looking for work, promoting myself, making contacts, following up with folks, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Speed up comics-making &#8211; My current process is so slow it&#8217;s just untenable. I&#8217;d like to transition as much of my work into the digital realm as possible in order to eliminate all the scanning, printing, correcting, etc. that I&#8217;m currently doing the old fashioned way. I might also start work on a custom font based on my own lettering.<\/li>\n<li>Training: I&#8217;ll have to clear out time for it somehow, but I&#8217;d like to expand my skill-set in 2014. There are lots of reasonably-priced opportunities to learn online from some great professionals these days and I&#8217;m thinking a digital painting class would be really beneficial for me.<\/li>\n<li>Life drawing &#8211; I need to start doing life drawing again regularly. I should have the opportunity to do so at one of the places I teach, but again, it all comes down to time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Finally<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s about it. All the best in 2014, everybody! And many, <em>many<\/em> thanks to everyone who&#8217;s read, written about, or otherwise supported my comics work in 2013!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(On my drafting table, Jan 1, 2014: half-penciled Oyster War page 110.) Here&#8217;re a few parting thoughts on 2013: Oyster War The bad: I&#8217;d vowed this time last year to have Oyster War wrapped up in 2013. That didn&#8217;t happen. I am though, fairly close. I just posted the last page of Chapter 9, all &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link btn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=4941\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,45,22,12,26],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p46veT-1hH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4948,"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions\/4948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}