Faith Erin Hicks

The year isn’t quite over yet, but I’ve got some time now, so thought I’d write a ‘what I did in 2022’ post. Since Twitter seems to be on the verge of collapse and/or becoming sentient, I feel I need to find other places to update readers on what’s up with yours truly. So thus, a rare blog post! 😉

So, 2022. A much better year than 2021, but still one with a lot of challenges. We’re still in the midst of an ongoing pandemic (sigh) which continues to make travel, book promotion and Author Life more challenging. I got my vaccine boosters twice this year and still haven’t caught Covid, so I’m doing okay for the most part, but the last few years have been taking their toll. I’m not particularly hopeful that things will be drastically different in 2023, so I’ll just keep getting boosted and wearing a mask until … well, who knows at this point. But please, get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a mask, etc please please please. It’s our only way back to some semblance of normal.

Ride On, my graphic novel inspired by my childhood as a horse crazy girl, was published in August. I was so excited for this book to come out, and the response to it was lovely. So many nice comments! It even got on the Indie Bestseller List for a while, which was super cool. My first time on that list!

Unfortunately, due to my discomfort with the state of the pandemic (and especially international travel), I decided to cancel my in person events for Ride On’s publication. Trying to be safe, all that etc, but wow, I was super disappointed. My hope is that I’ll finally be comfortable with travelling internationally in 2023, but we’ll see. I’m definitely planning to do what Canadian comic conventions I can, so I’ll see readers there. I went to VanCAF (the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival) in May, my first comic convention since The Before Times, and had a great time! Attendees were really excited to buy my books and talk about comics, which was wonderful. I’ve missed comic conventions a lot over the past few years. I’ve applied to attend VanCAF in 2023, so hopefully I’ll be there.

In terms of comic work, I was both super busy and then actually not busy (like, at all) for a couple months. A weird year, work wise! For the first half of 2022 I was frantically drawing away on my next graphic novel, Hockey Girl loves Drama Boy, a young adult romance that will be out from First Second Books sometime in 2023. I threw pretty much all my frustrations over the progress (or lack thereof) of the pandemic into finishing that book, and ended up drawing nearly 300 pages in about a year. Wild!

I also wrote an Avatar: The Last Airbender script, a 72-page stand alone graphic novel focusing on Azula called Azula in the Spirit Temple, that will be out from Dark Horse Comics sometime in 2023. It’s drawn by my usual Avatar collaborator, Peter Wartman, and it’s basically my fever dream Azula story. Here’s the cover:

So good, right??? SO GOOD!!!!

Anyway, I very much did NOT pace myself, and finishing Hockey Girl (and the Azula script) early-ish in the year meant I spent the summer somewhat flailing around, not sure what my next project would be. I did eventually figure it out and am now working on something new, but it was a strange, empty summer where I played a lot of video games and then felt mildly guilty about it.

Getting obsessed with the Dragon Age game series was my big “thing I enjoyed” in 2022. I played through Dragon Age Inquisition (the third game in the series) a second time, fell in love with Sera and just had a ridiculously wonderful time, so much so that I literally felt depressed for a week after finishing the game. I’d mostly stopped playing games for the past decade due to the hours my comics career demanded, and getting back into gaming over the past two years has been very rewarding. Due to those 10 years of all work/no fun, I missed playing the first two Dragon Age games. So, I went back and played Dragon Age Origins, and am now in the midst of playing Dragon Age 2. The ancient combat system and graphics made Origins kind of a slog, but it was worth it for the lore. Anyway, if you see me in real life, let’s talk about Dragon Age!

Otherwise, I read a ton of books, over 40 (a lot for me)! My faves were as follows:

Tehanu by Ursula K Le Guin

Nettle and Bone by T Kingfisher

Spear by Nicola Griffith

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

And I also re-read All Systems Red, the first Murderbot novella, for the millionth time. Also re-read Network Effect, the Murderbot novel. And Fugitive Telemetry, the 6th novella. XD

Anyway, I love Murderbot. My favourite series of the last decade or so.

Whew, this is getting long! What else did I like? I enjoyed the Rings of Power tv show. I watched a lot of Rupaul’s Drag Race. Turning Red was a very good movie that I hope means more modern, human focused animated movies from Pixar and Disney in the future. Season 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks was good, although I wish the seasons were longer (10 episodes is short!). What We Do In the Shadows was AMAZING!! Pretty much my favourite TV shows this year. Really enjoyed The Outer Worlds, the rare non-Dragon Age game I played this year, haha.

And I think that’s it! Thanks to everyone who sent a nice note this way, or bought my books or supported my books in other ways. I really love making comics and I couldn’t do it without you! Social media-wise, the only place I post regularly is Instagram, so follow me there if you like comics and cat pictures. Hope to see you all in 2023!
-Faith Erin Hicks, 2022