End of Year Wrap Up!
Updates, drones, and what's to come in 2025
Happy Holidays Explorers!
I’m playing catch up again after a busy holiday season. I hope you are having a good holiday so far however you choose to celebrate it! I’ve had so many things I want to write about lately that I really wish I had to spend less time at a full time job that pays my bills, you know? I mean, I COULD go back to being poor and having all the time in the world to write again. OR, you Explorers could help me find roughly 1000 subscribers willing to pay for a subscription to Next Stop Unknown? Eh???
“...”
Worth a shot.
Anyway, I do need to catch everyone up on what I am doing, planning, and--by all means--my thoughts on all the UFO strangeness going on with these drones lately! Did Christmas come early, aliens? Or is the government just ruining everything with a psy-ops mission and not telling us about it? I’ll give you some things to think about in my deep dive here:
Comics News
In comics news, I finally had my first official comic book signing on December 14th at Challengers Comics & Conversation, and it was a lot of fun! The turn out was mostly friends which I appreciated so much, but I had one organic customer who found the book without even following me! Plus, we were able to sell all the Airship copies that the comic shop had ordered which was my main goal. Challengers has been so supportive of me in this process, so please check them out if you are ever in Chicago!
Also, thank you to my dear friend, Arturo Valle (@panicfilms), for taking pictures and videoing me while I signed comics. He made this cool video to record the event, and if you are local (or not), I am sure he could do the same for your event, as well. Check him out!
Finally, I am way behind on my newest short comic for a horror anthology. I want to make this horror anthology and my own anthology focus of 2025. I have wanted to finish this collection about cryptid lore for a long time. With three of five shorts written, I think with the right planning, I could conceivably have them all done and art on the way by the end of next year. (So far I have a bigfoot story, an alien story, and a Mothman story.)
If you are still interested in getting a copy of either The Airship or my Oranges Are Funny! book, I still have some copies left, but they are going fast! Send me a private message to get more info!
Cryptid Con
I recently attended my first Cryptid Con in Lexington, Kentucky. I got to meet some real cryptid and paranormal experiencers which included my favorite paranormal investigator, Jessica Chobot! She has been a big inspiration for my comics since I started listening to her podcast, Bizarre States, many years ago. I didn’t have long to talk to her, but she was very nice. We talked about the podcast, she told me about the best combination of REM pod and EVP tech to use when ghost hunting, and I was able to give her a copy of “The Airship” as a thank you for all the years of podcasts in my ears.
I also got to meet several artists and artisans who were inspired by the phenomenon. I sat in on a few panels of true experts on hunting bigfoot, ghosts, and aliens. It was a long drive for a last minute trip from Chicago, but I think it was well worth the experience. I hope to do more events like it in the coming years.
What’s to come?
Other than that, I really want to do more deep dives into things I have been watching and studying, but there has just been only so much time and energy between work and life.
I would love to do a debrief on the second season of Arcane: League of Legends sometime soon. Short analysis: the second season is not as special as the first, but still good and worth watching for the art and animation alone. I think I can break down some of the reasons why this season fell short of the last season using Aristotle’s Poetics again, but that’s something I’d have to spend some time digging into--time that needs to be spent on other things.
That said, if you are a writer and you are really peeved that I haven’t been getting to that deep dive or the deep dive about the Kishotenketsu writing structure I seem to have forgotten, I’d love to hear about it! I really don’t think anyone enjoys those deep dives as much as I do, but if there are people who do, it may motivate me to bump them up on the priorities list.
Anyway, until next time, stay safe and healthy, and I hope everyone got exactly what they want from St. Nick. (Or Krampus. Or whatever other spirits are wandering around this time of year.)
Sterling
Sterling Martin is a writer, artist, and designer living in Chicago, IL. His background includes drawing, writing, theatre, teaching, improv & sketch comedy, and whatever else he can get his hands on to be creative. You can find him on the internet at:
Instagram: @sterfest.art
Website: sterlingmartin.design
Cara: sterfest@sterlingmartin
Threads (well, I’m on it): @sterfest
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