So here it is. The last guest strip before I come back on Monday, January 4th. I want to thank Avi for putting it together for me. I gotta give it up to Avi. No web site to promote. No agenda. Just wanted to draw a guest strip and did. No matter which way you slice it, that’s awesome, folks. So big thanks to Avi. May your New Year be everything you hope for!

As for the rest of you, I hope last night’s festivities treated you well. Since we have Pearl now, Cami and I had a low-key evening at home. We had some good food and a little bit of bubbly to ring in the New Year. My sister-in-law came over and we played games on the Wii. All in all, a good time.

Frankly, I’m just happy to have survived 2009. It’s been a stressful year for me personally. Lots of ups and downs.

Things started off great. We found out we were going to have Pearl back in March and we were excited about the future.

But bad things started happening to the people around me. One friend lost his job, another friend’s wife decided to divorce him out of the blue and yet another friend died in a car crash with his wife. Horrible, horrible stuff.

Not long after that, I lost my job – which is about as scary as it gets with a baby on the way. We kept our head above water with freelancing jobs I picked up here and there. Then I carved up my hand with a router and took a trip to the emergency room. That sucked.

Of course, when Pearl was born, that wiped a lot of negativity off the slate. But if I look back, I wasn’t incredibly fond of 2009.

Things could have been SO much worse. I KNOW that. So it’s not good to focus on the crappy things that happened because I could be living in a box somewhere. As bad as things get, someone always has it worse.

One thing that I’m really, REALLY happy about is the funding of Theater Hopper: Year Three. As you know we met goal, but the campaign officially ended yesterday. We ended up collecting $3,966.77 in pledges through Kickstarter in 60 days time. That’s AMAZING and I want to thank everyone that pledged.

There will be more to say about the project in the next coming months. But suffice to say that the book has been laid out and is ready to go to the printer. So everyone who ordered a copy of the book should see one in their mailboxes in the next couple of months.

As for the immediate future, I’m back in the saddle starting Monday, January 4. I’m a little less nervous about producing comics again then I was when Henry was born. But I’m not entirely sure that I’ll be doing 3 full-color comics a week yet. I WANT to. I’m just not sure if I’ll be able to.

Pearl’s not sleeping through the night yet. Once she does, it’ll be easier to do the comics. Until then, I’ll have one foot in the studio and one foot in the nursery taking care of the baby. We’ll see how it goes.

Thanks again to everyone that continues to support Theater Hopper year after year. Come August, it will be 8 years since I started and I’m amazed that I’ve been able to stick it out this long. It’s all because of you. You give me the support and encouragement to continue and it means the world to me. Thank you.

May 2010 bring happiness and prosperity to us all!

In the meantime, how did you spend your New Years Eve? Tell you tales of debauchery in the comments below!