I'm Turning 34 Years Old Tomorrow...
...and I'm taking donations.
The Mid-30s Have Arrived
I never really liked celebrating my birthday. My parents would often have it at a Peter Piper Pizza where the pitchers of Budlight were $10—and the pizzas were cheaper. The last thing I wanted for my birthday was my parents to get drunk in public and have a shouting match. Even the anthropomorphic purple dinosaur, Rocky, didn’t want to come out because things would get too awkward.
Did I binge-eat pizza, chow down on some superhero-themed grocery store cake, kick everyone’s ass in NBA Jam arcade, and drink coke to excess?
Totally. You win some, and you lose some.
This time tomorrow, I’m going to be a 34-year-old unemployed man, wondering if all this writing and comic book business were worth it. It probably is. But it doesn’t feel like it today.
If you’re looking to contribute to my birth, I’m accepting handouts in exchange for funny books. My Square Site is live so you can buy signed copies of my work. Signatures are always free. I only charge people trying to grade and slab their books.
Buying from the Square site is the best way to pick up what I’m dropping at comic shops since I don’t have any cons planned outside the Arizona Comicbook Arts Festival on February 25th at the Phoenix Shrine Auditorium.
You can switch from being a free subscriber to a monthly or founding member. If you sign up before my birthday ends, I will send you a signed Creepshow #4!
You can straight up send me money via Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, or Cash App. I am not beneath what Uncle Sam calls “gift income.”
Another way to help is to click this link to read Gil Thorp on GoComics from Monday through Saturday. The royalties stack every time you read it on GoComics or in your local newspaper, so get clicky.
Last but not least! My chapter of HOUSE OF SLAY drops on the WEBTOON and Tapas platforms every Tuesday! That story and experience will always have a particular place in my heart, so I hope you dig it.
I’d be remised if I didn’t mention this weekend’s response to the senseless death of Tyre Nichols. Enough of my friends have posted their thoughts better than I could conjure here. But I grew up in the southside where I would see brown police and border patrol officers. Quickly you would learn that, more often than not that they were harder on folks with matching skin color. James Baldwin said it best: “A cop is a cop.”
Let’s do this again on Friday when I have a new episode of the Latinx Press Podcast recorded for y’all. Until then, stay safe.