2022 wrap-up
the year is almost over, somehow! this has been a really busy & exciting year for me, so here's a little look back at things i've done this year and things you can expect to see from me next year!
(this list of projects can also serve as an awards eligibility list for 2022, if, you know, you're into that kind of thing. wink.)
first, though, an announcement that's become announce-able since the last time i updated this newsletter:
• ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? •
submitted for the approval of the midnight society: i'm drawing part of a new graphic novel for nickelodeon and abrams, based in the world of the middle grade horror tv show ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK!
the book is called THE WITCH'S WINGS AND OTHER TERRIFYING TALES, written by tehlor kay mejia & illustrated by me and three other extremely talented artists. it'll be available wherever you buy your books in fall 2023!
i've been working on this since summer 2022, and i'm beyond excited for y'all to see the stories we're telling in it. it's such a dream come true to work on this franchise! as somebody who was scared to death of everything as a kid but still stayed up late to watch "mystery hunters" and other kid-friendly horror on my little barbie tv at night, i have a lot of feelings about the importance of making horror that's accessible to younger audiences that i think will come through in my art.
from the announcement article on bloody-disgusting:
The graphic novel The Witch’s Wings and Other Terrifying Tales features haunted buses, monstrous creatures, and spine-chilling mysteries. In order to join the Midnight Society, a new storyteller must share three interconnected stories—”The Tale of the Witch’s Wings”, “The Tale of the Haunting of Bus #13”, and “The Tale of the Stray Comet”—to prove she has the horror goods. The segments will be brought to life with distinct, eerie art styles from four different illustrators.
• HAUNTS •
HAUNTS was undoubtedly the biggest project of the year for me, and the one that contained the most "firsts" — first book self-published, first kickstarter run, first artbook, first time having to drag 400 books to the post office in an unfathomable number of tote bags and grocery bags. i planned the kickstarter in february, ran it in march, got 750 books delivered to me in june, and now, in december, i have 99% of them mailed out to their new homes.
it's still absolutely astonishing to me how much interest i got in this project, and it's made me so excited to do more things like this in the future. i've learned so much over the course of running and fulfilling the kickstarter, and it's been amazing being able to share my love of haunted houses with people!
once i've mailed out the remaining 1% of books, i'm planning to put a pdf version of HAUNTS for sale online, as well as whatever leftover physical copies i have. stay tuned for all that in early 2023!
• COMICS •
HAUNTS took up a lot of time this year, but i did make some comics too!
HELLBENT II — i had the pleasure of contributing a few guest pages to the second volume of the fantastic HELLBENT series early this year, focused on their golem character!
LABYRINTHOUSE — much less formal of a project, but i had a ton of fun doing it so i'm including it here anyways. LABYRINTHOUSE is an experimental mini-adaptation of HOUSE OF LEAVES, risograph printed in blue and black.
• COLLABORATIONS •
TOURNAMENT ARC — a tabletop roleplaying game by biscuit fund games, about the epic highs and lows of being a character in a sports anime. i drew the cover as well as three illustrations for the interior, and it was so cool getting to bring the possibilities of this game to life.
i got to do work for a bunch of really cool tabletop games this year, which was such a joy. i love playing ttrpgs, and i love looking at the way ttrpg rulebooks are designed (seriously, some of the best graphic designers out there right now are working in the tabletop game field), so getting to add to that was incredibly fun!
speaking of which...
the new edition of THIS DISCORD HAS GHOSTS IN IT by adam vass and will jobst comes out next year, and i got to draw a bunch of illustrations for it!
this is one of the projects i've been most excited for this year. the folks at good luck press are always lovely to work with, and i've been obsessed with this game since the original digital edition dropped — from concept to the design of the book, it's absolutely incredible, and i can't wait to hold the new edition in my hands!
(this discord has ghosts in it is still available for preorders right now! go get one!)
and that's not the only thing i did with good luck press this year! i also had the opportunity to design some merch for them! you can get my design over at the GOOD LUCK PRESS MERCH STORE along with some stellar designs by will jobst, seb pines, and adam vass.
another dream collaboration: i did a few illustrations for shing yin khor's UNSET MOTEL project! i'm consistently in love with every project shing does; they have an amazing approach to groundbreaking methods of storytelling in so many different formats (comics! games! installation art! sculpture!) and i was stoked to get to contribute to one of those projects.
UNSET came out in part this year in an epistolary story mailed over the course of a few months and is about "a motel that eats people." my art was mostly for the game book for the game shing is making for this project!
i also got the chance this year to make a haunted house poster for one of my favorite creators on the internet, youtube video essayist JACOB GELLER. if you like my work at all, and i feel safe to assume you do if you're subscribed to my newsletter, you'll probably enjoy his videos, especially this one that was formative to the way i think about haunted houses.
the posters are sold out right now, but once they're back in stock you'll be able to grab one on jacob's merch store!
also this year:
an illustration and enamel pin for trang thanh tran's upcoming book she is a haunting
• OTHER 2022 ACHIEVEMENTS •
moved from nyc to baltimore and survived living alone for the first time (so far, at least)!
tabled at five conventions (a personal record!), including TCAF (my first international convention!) & SPX for the first time and FLAMECON for the third time!
coded a new portfolio website for myself from scratch!
made enamel pins for the first time!
sewed a quilt!
made art my full-time job for an entire year for the first time — which i'm so happy i've been able to do, and i really hope i keep being able to do it in the future, and i could not have done it without y'all's support, so thank you so much!
• FAST FORWARD TO 2023 •
what's next for me?
there's a lot of projects in early stages that i can't share yet (aside from saying that they're going to be super cool, of course).
look out for THE WITCH'S WINGS AND OTHER TERRIFYING TALES next fall in bookstores! i'll be sharing more about that once i'm allowed to, but for now, just know that i think it's the best comics work i've created so far and i can't wait for it to be published.
my last stretch goal for the HAUNTS kickstarter was to go spend a night in a real haunted house and make a short comic about it. don't worry, i haven't forgotten! once it warms up a bit (and i have slightly less deadlines to tackle), i'm absolutely still planning to do this, so stay tuned for some firsthand spooky stories.
i'm also hoping to put together some pitches for original projects in the coming year. i've been slowly assembling a few ideas for a while now, and i'm hoping 2023 brings enough free time for me to actually pin those down and make a story or two (and then, hopefully, find a publisher for it)!
• FAVORITES OF THE YEAR •
of course, i can't just focus on myself in this newsletter. i did so much reading and watching and playing and etc this year, so i gotta pass on those recommendations to y'all! a lot of these aren't gonna be things that came out this year, just things i enjoyed this year.
here's a bunch of top-3 lists.
BOOKS
plain bad heroines by emily m danforth — a story about a cursed school and several groups of women, with a narrative bouncing back and forth between the early 1900s and present day. i'm obsessed with the way danforth balances so many different narratives, and i love stories that let their female characters be unapologetically terrible sometimes; the women in plain bad heroines are complicated and selfish and angry, and they felt extremely human. (also, pretty much all of them are gay — and it's even rarer to see well-written lesbians be Guys Who Suck™ (girl edition) without the media being explicitly lesbophobic about it, much less to see this many sapphic characters all in one story.)
the city beautiful by aden polydoros — a horror novel / murder mystery / ghost story set in 1890s chicago, which focuses on a gay jewish immigrant from romania and his best friend's dybbuk. i really enjoyed seeing a jewish take on a ghost possession story, and the writing in it was beautiful!
folklorn by angela mi young hur — folklorn is about so many things that it's hard to succinctly describe it. it's about korean mythology and particle physics, family ghosts and generational trauma, mental illness and diaspora, and the way stories are passed down and repeated.
COMICS
flung out of space: the indecent adventures of patricia highsmith by grace ellis & hannah templer — a really fascinating approach to making a biographical comic and the art! is so gorgeous! holy shit!
home sick pilots by dan watters and caspar wijngaard — i am not usually a person who keeps up with month-to-month floppy comics, just because i don't live near a comic store and ye olde adhd often makes me forget to keep up with things as they're coming out. this is the exception. home sick pilots is about teenage punk girls piloting haunted houses like mechs, which means it feels like it was engineered specifically for me to become obsessed with it.
stages of rot by linnea sterte — a close-up look at life in the decaying body of an alien whale. this is the kind of comic i had to reread a few times and then let sit in my mind for a few months before it clicked into place for me; it's beautiful and surreal.
FILMS
nope (dir. jordan peele) — i mean. obviously. anybody who saw nope and doesn't have it on their 'top films of the year' list is lying, i think. just unbelievably good horror from start to finish. the scariest movie i've ever seen, probably.
everything everywhere all at once (dir. daniel kwan & daniel scheinert) — another one that just feels obvious to put on here. the only multiverse movie that matters. eeaao balances comedy with heartfelt authenticity like nothing i've ever seen before; the entire thing just feels so genuine.
the menu (dir. mark mylod) — this one's new enough that it's still in theaters, which means you should go see it, right now. more good horror — basically "what if every gordon ramsey show was a horror movie" — but also way funnier than i was expecting it to be!
adding a fourth to this category because i can: raw (dir. julia ducournau) — not one that came out this year, but i did watch it for the first time this year, so it counts. a vegetarian goes to veterinary school, eats meat for the first time, and develops a cannibalistic hunger. gory and horrifying and beautiful. to quote a letterboxd review of it: "this isn't even a horror movie french people are just like that."
TV
leverage & leverage: redemption (john rogers & chris downey) — i rewatched the original leverage this year and i'm watching the sequel series right now, and both are so good. a group of thieves getting revenge against the rich and powerful on behalf of regular people who've been fucked over by the rich and powerful. it is, in my opinion, exactly the show i needed this year, and it might be for you, too. (also, like, shockingly anti-capitalist and leftist for a show that was on tv in 2008.)
yellowjackets (bart nickerson & ashley lyle) — remember when i was talking about how much i loved that female characters in plain bad heroines were allowed to be terrible and complicated people? same here. a high school girls soccer team's plane crashes in the middle of the wilderness, and the story bounces between the teenage girls immediately after the crash & the ones who survived, decades later, leading adult lives and dealing with the trauma of what happened to them. it's spooky in a way that toes the line of 'is this actually supernatural stuff, or just a lot of trauma responses happening at once' (without veering into ~ ooh scary mental illness ~ territory).
game changer (sam reich) — with a big thank-you to my friend who lets me use their dropout subscription. this one's just fun — a comedy improv game show where the game changes each episode. there's a couple full episodes up on youtube if you don't have a dropout subscription!
PODCASTS
friends at the table — every season of friends at the table follows a different story in (mostly) different worlds, which makes it hard to give a summary. this year i listened to sangfielle, which is a gothic horror season with demons and vampires and sentient monstrous trains, and i'm currently working my way through twilight mirage, one of their sci-fi seasons focused on giant robot-gods called divines and an unstable, changing universe.
cool people who did cool stuff (margaret killjoy) — do you like listening to podcasts about history, told from a leftist/anarchist perspective? this is a great podcast for doing that & learning about, well, cool people and the cool things they did, and perhaps getting a little bit of hope for the future out of it.
behind the bastards (robert evans) — do you like listening to podcasts about history, told from a leftist/anarchist perspective? this one's like cool people, but in reverse. the worst people who did the worst stuff. still really good, though.
MUSIC
daniel kahn — i've been learning yiddish on duolingo for about a year, now, and this summer i decided to look up some musicians who sing in yiddish. i've been listening to daniel kahn on repeat since then. his stuff is a mix of klezmer and folk punk with a mix of languages and a leftist bent. song rec: 99% / nayn-un-nayntsik
the taxpayers — more punk/folk punk! i've known about them for a while because one of their songs is the intro to a podcast i used to listen to, but i've gotten really into the rest of their stuff this year, especially the album "god, forgive these bastards". song rec: some kind of disaster relief
my chemical romance — i mean, obviously. i had my emo phase fairly late and only got into mcr in like 2016, which means i did not expect to ever see them release new music, much less get to see them play live. but they put out a new song this year and i got to see them in new york this summer! and it was amazing! song rec: tomorrow's money
GAMES
i'll be honest, i only played one game this year, but i have so many thoughts about it that i think it counts for at least three.
disco elysium — i am not much of a #gamergirl. mostly because i don't have the kind of coordination or muscle memory for the controls of most video games; the second i have to use two different sticks/buttons/etc to move my character around, it loses me. fortunately, disco elysium's gameplay is more like the point-and-click nancy drew games i played as a kid than like an aaa 2022 video game, and its story kept me so entranced that i'm still thinking about it all the time now, after finishing playing it in april.
disco elysium is a game about so many things: memory, community, hope, the end of the world, building 0.0001% of communism, changing what kind of animal you are, searching for cryptids, dying from sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair.
my favorite quote from disco elysium: Volition - No. This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive.
as a note: as much as i love de, i can't recommend anyone buy it right now, as the studio that owns the game has stolen it from the original creators and ousted those creators, and the creators are currently suing the studio. (a little more info on that here, in the game director & art directors' statement.) obviously, i do still recommend playing it! i'm sure you can figure out a way to do that. 🏴☠️ & etc.
MISC THINGS
learning yiddish — i'm at a streak of about 130 days of studying yiddish on duolingo right now. i still don't feel like i'm very good at it, but i'm improving every day. reconnecting to my jewish roots has been a slow process over the past couple of years, but learning yiddish definitely makes me feel closer to my history. the last person in my family to be fluent in yiddish was my great grandpa, who died when i was a kid, and yiddish as a language in general only has an estimated quarter-million speakers in the united states, so trying to, in some form, keep that tradition alive has been a big part of my year, and will be a big part of next year, too.
sewing — i got really into doing little sewing projects this year. mostly i've been getting better at mending my own clothes; it feels nice to, if something has a hole in it or doesn't fit quite right, be able to just pick up my sewing kit and solve the problem. i also sewed a quilt this year on a whim, and taught myself how to quilt in the process, which was very fun! i'm hoping to learn how to machine sew next year and maybe make myself some clothes.
coding & the revival of personal websites — since social media is, uh, the way that it is, with all the hate and algorithms and billionaires buying websites just to run them into the ground, i've gotten really into coding little personal websites in the past couple of months. there's a whole community of people on sites like neocities bringing back the early-2000s geocities-style personal site where you just collect things you like & talk unabashedly about your interests. i really enjoy coding in general, and it's been extra nice to have a place on the internet that's just for me!
this is, by far, the longest newsletter i've written, so i'm cutting myself off there. there's a chance i've forgotten some things, but this should be most of it.
if you've read all of that (or just skipped to the end; i won't judge!), thank you so much for being here and supporting my work this year! i hope the end of the year & beginning of the next are kind to you all.
see you next year! happy hanukkah!
- kaylee