I’ve been thinking of doing some kind of yearly self-portrait for a while now, mostly inspired by illustrator Rebecca Green. I just really like the idea of having some kind of register of where you are at a certain time, both in terms of your own work and your perception of yourself.

But then I had this feeling that seems to be common among comics people: making an illustration that is not a comic is so hard! It took me a while to figure this out, even though it sounds really obvious—I’m a cartoonist! Of course my self-portrait has to be a comic! And so, as I turned thirty-two in October 2024, I started writing this. The layout/script didn’t really come together until January, and then… I just slowly, slowly chipped away at it until it was finished, closer to my 33rd birthday than to my previous one.

It’s funny to look at myself back in October, thinking I was going to do ✨ all of these things ✨ after the book was finished, without knowing that it would take me ten months just to finish this 4-page comic. Partly because a lot of things have happened, but also because the post-book burnout hit harder than I expected it to. But, it’s finished now! And I can feel myself slowly coming back to comics, which is a big relief.

Hopefully the next comic in this series won’t take me so long to make! We’ll see how that goes.