Looking Back(wood) at 2025
It was one of those years where the good days didn’t come naturally. You couldn’t expect a nice afternoon to sneak up on you as a pleasant surprise. No, you really had to get your hands dirty and make any good times yourself. Those good results were not guaranteed or even likely. But some days we pulled it off. Here’s a few of those days from my corner in 2025.
My wife and I got married in the first quarter of this year at the Ozark Natural Science Center. I wrote about it when it happened, but it still obviously stands as the day I will remember most of this year. And you know, the rest of the years too. It’s impossible to write about your own wedding and not sound like a total sap, so I’ll make it brief and tip my hat to everyone who helped us put it together. And to my wife, who made her wedding dress, which I still think is the coolest thing in the world.
As a comic artist, I historically hadn’t usually been vulnerable on stage. I’m usually vulnerable in the little drawing cave I’ve assembled over the years. Distant and most importantly safe. Or not actually all that vulnerable at all. I think that came into sharp relief when I’m trying to not sob through wedding vows in front of the largest assembly of people I’ve known my whole life. Little did I know that would largely be the theme of the year. On stages, out in public, with all the old friends, and all the new family, being a little more in the world.
And just a couple weeks later I was back in front of people talking. First with the Delta Symposium at Arkansas State in Jonesboro for a panel on drawing Arkansas Cryptids. It was a total blast, and thanks to Dr. Gregory Hansen for his invitation. They *very* next day I was back in Fayetteville for The Strange World of Ozarks Monsters! This was a panel I did with Brandon Weston at the Fayetteville Library. It’s up on youtube, and I find it a little funny in retrospect, as you can watch me in real time try to keep my cool as my work computer I’ve used a solid decade for comics and illustration dies in front of my eyes. This is one of those moments where you are deeply thankful you are sitting next to a pro of a storyteller and performer like Brandon, who was still able to make that panel sing. Still a great time, but I can’t help but laugh at what’s going on in my head while it happened. Looking forward to another run on such a panel on a healthier machine. Keep your eyes peeled for the future on that one.
But I also didn’t just talk about real made-up stuff in front of crowds. I made some things up all my own. And in May, I’d go on tour for the Freshgrass Revue organized by Robert Bishop. Three nights across three cities of the Ozarks where I opened by reading three original stories before Charlie Jones, Jude Brothers, and Guinevere Goodwin took to the music and really wowed the audience. We also had gorgeous on the spot portraiture from Emma Nelson! It was a completely new experience for me, and really pivoted some of my priorities in art and performance. My relationship to music has always been the more distant in doing flyers, show posters, and album art. Stuff I adore mind you, but it’s pretty far from what any of those bands and musicians were actually doing. It always felt like another planet creatively. But it didn’t feel that different after sharing a stage and tour. And it certainly didn’t feel so distant anymore.
Then came Backwood Folk #2 and Spa-Con. I wrote a bit about my time with Spa-Con under its former leadership. I’ll miss it as it was, but wish the new stewards the best. I’ve put a lot of thought into my place within cons and a lot about conventional wisdom in the comics career. I’ve always been very cautious with conventions, being a hardliner about not doing one I cannot drive to in under a day. Really just anything to lower the cost to break even. There were years I could pride myself with never having lost money at a con. And I think 2024 and 2025 pretty handily took that claim away. I do enjoy them, but I think there’s increasing difficulty for attendees to justify ticket sales to effectively go shop some more. Plus, I think con organizers these days will be the first to admit they have increasingly little to do with comics. I suppose I can see the appeal in them as networking events for artists, but I’d like to think we can find less costly means to achieve that. If anything I’m trying to do less events where I am seen more in the capacity of a vendor than an artist. I like my plans highfalutin and likely to fail.
October is always a busy month for me, and I’d done a lot of pre-planning to try and keep my schedule open enough to do Halloween things. That didn’t pan out. But many things got done!
First and most fun, I took over the hosting reigns of our podcast on the Ozarks, WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS. There I composed a four part script on the history of Bigfoot in the Ozarks. Or maybe about how there isn’t a history of Bigfoot in the Ozarks. Take your pick.
I also completed another comic project that should arrive of Spring next year. Maybe illustration project would be more accurate. It toes those lines. In any case, something I’m excited about and still a little stunned to have worked on, given the author. Turns out adaptation was another new corner I found myself in, and I found the research aspect wildly appealing. Believe you me, it’ll be all over the site when it gets released next year.
In November, I’d find myself on a stage Springfield for the second time. The Ozark Jubilee was a program hosted by Red Foley and broadcast from Springfield in the 1950s. The History Museum on the Square began a live tribute show dedicated to the Jubilee last year at the Fox Theatre. This year I’d be invited to read a short original folk tale much like I had during the Freshgrass Revue. Just with one neat addition. My artwork! Projected behind me as I read were enormous comic panels. It was the perfect culmination of what I’ve been trying to do creatively this year. I deeply hope to get to do something at that scale again in the near future. But I was only five minutes of a two hour show! And what a show. Jeff Houghton and the Mystery Hour hosted across the whole duration for performers like Maddi Warren and Alli Butler, The Creek Rocks, and Bobby Bare Jr. And Guinevere Goodwin and the Guinevere Goodwin Band would play over the whole night as the houseband. A name you might recognize from earlier in the year as one of the acts on the Freshgrass tour. A huge thanks to her for suggesting me for the show in the first place. When it goes online I’ll make sure to post it around these parts. Honestly, given I was behind the stage a decent chunk of the night I can’t wait to see it myself.
My last event of the year was back at the Fayetteville Library courtesy of Pearl’s Books. They hosted a huge amount of local authors across Northwest Arkansas. I can’t speak highly enough of Pearl’s. They were home to my first reading late last year, which really opened the doors to many of the things I did in 2025. If you are in Northwest Arkansas I’ll always recommend dropping by Pearl’s or checking out their calendar. They really do offer quite a lot.
Anyways, thanks for sticking around this year. The reception to Backwood Folk has been one hell of a generator to kick on when the power’s out. I’m still a little humbled it keeps going well. I’ll see you next year, and I hope 2026 brings more good days we don’t have to work as hard for.
OTHER BITS AND BOBS
- Onwards to next year! Backwood Folk #3 BARK OF THE WOOD APE is well into production! It’s gunna be a bit because it is a doozy of a story. If you are one of the long timers who followed Backwood Folk some 15 years ago when it was a webcomic, well get ready. The history of the Pink Eye is coming.
- Speaking of webcomics, you might see something soon on this site. I test the waters earlier this year with TOBY STILL HAD HONEY TO SPARE. Expect more very shortly.
- There are also some big website updates coming! Specifically to PERC in the Po’Dunk section!
- On the thoughts of community and local arts in Northwest Arkansas, I also attended the new comic release of Stevie Petit // Spet’s The Mourning Light. Anytime I get too down about my medium’s viability someone goes and packs out an arcade for a comic debut. Stevie’s rendering is impeccable with character acting perfect for the stinging intimacy of the story. I can’t wait to read many more. You can find The Mourning Light here.
- Also on the local end, you should also check out the latest issue of Rant! by Chad Maupin. It’s a whole menagerie of the supernatural stuffed to the gillmen with comics, art, and asides from Chad. So it all looks rad as hell. You can find it here!