The Last Night
Thanks for being here in 2024!
2024 is drawing to a close, so I looked through the old drawing book and found a couple of pages about the end of the year.
But first, I have to send out a gigantic thanks to the folks who read, shared and responded to my newsletter from last week! For seven years, I’ve been writing comics for Calgary-based independent journalism outlet The Sprawl, and last week the fate of The Sprawl was looking a bit precarious. Editor Jeremy Klaszus posted that, without some more financial support, The Sprawl would likely fold in 2025. To our surprise and delight, supporters stepped up, not only matching Jeremy’s funding goal, but exceeding it. Here’s what I drew for all you wonderful folks who helped make this happen!
It’s so great to know that The Sprawl is appreciated, and even better to know that we can keep on doing this work! Here’s the update that Jeremy shared on The Sprawl website. I’m looking forward to making more comics in the new year - continuing our Curious Calgary series, and who knows, maybe some other things, too! For now, to close off 2024, we just published a new Curious Calgary zine about Calgary’s Broadcast Hill. You can read the zine here - enjoy!
Yes, Christmas is just around the corner. In my old sketchbook journal “the drawing book,” I made this sketch on a Christmas morning long ago:
Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a happy gathering with the people you love! And maybe even a stylish hat?
(Speaking of hats, here are a few that appeared on one of the earliest Drawing Book pages…
…Ok, sorry, that was a total digression! Enough about hats!)
The End of the Year
A few days after that Christmas, I was on an airplane coming back from Frankfurt. Here’s my sketch from the last day of the year.
Back in 1999 there was all sort of frenzied concern about what would happen when all the computers switched over to 2000. This page about the end of the millennium reminded me of a couple of drawing book pages inspired by a movie called “Last Night.” What would you do, if it was the last night of the world? I can tell you that the things I’d do now, in 2024, are quite different than this silly random grab bag of things that I wrote down in the drawing book all those years ago… but here they are, for what it’s worth:
What did I really do, on the last night of the millennium? I went to an excellent New Year’s Eve party, and I wore a magnificent hat! This hat, in fact:
I think I might skip my weekly Substack post next week, so let me wish you a happy start to the new year, with or without a hat, whether stylish, outrageous, or otherwise. Thanks for joining me on my journey through all these comics, old and new. Looking forward to keeping this going in 2025!
All the best,
Sam