I know how important it is to post regularly, but I’ve been struggling with what to say to engage my readers when there’s not much going while art gets completed on the latest issue of Brute (more on that below). Thankfully my new Facebook friend – Michael Penick author of Simon Brizdale and the Gauntlet of Kings, gave me some sage advice. That my own journey, vision, and goals, could be every bit as interesting as the fictional ones I’m writing about (providing they’re presented in an entertaining way).
So each post, I’ll share a little bit on who I am and my journey as I update you on the progress of Brute.

I just bought a new house, in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, about an hour north of Toronto and moved in almost a month ago. Now that we’re settled in, I was having a delicious apple crisp and cup of Nespresso, admiring the gorgeous view from our dining room and reflecting on how utterly happy I was with the current trajectory of my life. From my beautiful and talented wife, to writing Brute, to being able to enjoy such moments in such splendor, everything is, or is on route to be, wonderful.

And then I had that nagging sense of what’s going to go wrong? What disaster is life going to throw at me to shatter this illusion of happiness? Is this where the rollercoaster starts peaking and it’s all downhill and crazy roundabouts from here? Can you relate? If you’ve had this experience share below.

Such thoughts, I had to remind myself, are foolhardy. Yes, perhaps, this was the best life has ever been, for me, but my neighbour has lived here for 8 years, so to him, this view, this peacefulness, this ‘grandeur’ of living is all just everyday, commonplace, baseline, what is. He’s also happily (I assume) married and seems to love his job, his kids, his dog. He’s certainly not wondering when it’s going to fall apart. He’s probably wondering how to make it even better.

That’s certainly a theme in Brute – that how we perceive life, largely defines how we experience it. And how we experience it largely defines how we perceive it. It’s not until we can step outside our box, that we can we see new (to us), equally valid ways of living. But what happens when your entire reality is transformed and your suddenly thrust into an alien world, all alone, with no basis of how this new life should even be?

We’ll find out soon in Issue #1 of Brute – when a young Rose Kahn finds herself abandoned on a space station with no means on ever getting home and no one to help her except for a strange being known as ‘Brute’.

Also be sure to check out Parts 1(free!), 2 and 3 of our initial Brute story – available now in our store and very soon in print via the YEET anthology comic magazine.