Wow, has it really been that long since I said I’d do this Writing Diary regularly? Sometimes life just runs away from us, doesn’t it? There have been changes to my plans for the year and I’m cursing myself for announcing things before being further along with them, but that’s the way it goes. Sometimes, other writing projects just take on a life of their own.

For a long while now I’ve been eager to produce an ongoing printed publication of some kind, something physical people can get their hands on to read, to slow down and enjoy, and to have new issues on a regular basis to build upon. Several possible topics have popped in and out of my head over the years but none ever seemed to suit what I had in mind.

NEW PROJECT

Well, now I’ve landed on one. It’s not comics-related but I’m confident there’ll be a good level of crossover for a lot of readers of the blog. In fact, it’s something I’ve already spoken about on here a couple of times, and it was working on the OiNK Blog that got me interested in this particular subject again. All that time searching for something and in the end it was right in front of me.

Of course, learning from my previous mistakes I’m not going to reveal what it is just yet but I can tell you about some exciting developments around it. Well, exciting for me anyway and it’s my diary so I get to decide what’s exciting and what’s not! I was considering expanding the amount of space I purchase from WordPress for this blog in order to create a second site for the new project, but then I discovered Neocities (with an ‘N’).

Who remembers Geocities (with a ‘G’)? Back at the turn of the millennium I used Yahoo’s Geocities to create a website of two halves. Half an episode guide to Knight Rider complete with a discussion forum, the other half for my friends including photo galleries of nights out, birthdays etc. I’d buy a disposable camera for nights out, use the whole thing up, develop it, scan all two dozen photos and upload them to the site before the next weekend. This was before social media. Eventually I even stopped using Geocities’ tools and learned how to program it myself using a great book borrowed from the local library.

Called Teach Yourself HTML in 24 Hours it was easy to follow and surprisingly very funny. I was so happy with the end result but after a year or so I moved on; I had been a student at the time and afterwards a full-time job and an income led to other interests. Fast forward to the present and after spending a lovely few days browsing the new Neocities I realised I’d found the online home of my new ongoing publication.

Neocities was created as a modern Geocities, to bring back the freedom and creativity of the internet. The big tech firms have basically walled off the internet; everyone’s social media presence looks and feels exactly the same; everything is uniform and bland by comparison to how it used to be. All while they track every aspect of our lives too. The internet is now a walled garden, and it’s not even that pretty a garden to look at.

Before all this, people created their own spaces which were fun, unique, quirky, interesting. We’d properly surf the internet, not get lost down negative rabbit holes. It was exciting, it really felt like we were interacting with the world at large instead of whoever a corporation’s algorithm decides upon. In contrast to the modern net, Neocities sounded too good to be true, so I took my time to research it.

I couldn’t be more thrilled with what I found. Already there are over 1.5 million personal websites full of creativity, hobbies, interests, and basically people being as quirky as they want; it’s a happy place to share what makes us tick as individuals (and generative AI is banned) and it feels like the perfect place for what I have planned. So much so that I now own a more up-to-date version of that same book I used to borrow from the library two-and-a-half decades ago.

UPDATES

So I’m working on the actual printed publication and its online presence at the same time, rather than producing the publication first and then marketing it on socials. I’m so excited by this but as you can probably guess it’s taking up a lot of my time and so other proposed projects have had to take a back seat for now. Last time, the big news was the Comics 80:99 bookazine. This hasn’t been abandoned, just delayed. By how long, I’m not sure yet.

At least I know Comics 80:99 is a viable project now. The prep work was well advanced (as I talked about last time), but the secret project I’m co-writing with another writer has been put on hold for now. Frustratingly I can’t explain why, I just ask that you trust me when I say it’s going to be of great interest to OiNK Blog readers and as soon as it gets moving I’ll let you know. I’d prefer Comics 80:99 to follow on from this, possibly as a potential annual or bi-annual publication rather than a one-off. It’ll make sense, believe me.

SUMMING IT ALL UP

So that’s where I am. The new ongoing project is taking centre stage and will be demanding most of my time. The co-writing project has been paused for now but hopefully we’ll see movement on it in a few months with an announcement perhaps by the end of the year. Finally, Comics 80:99 has been paused while the ongoing publication is released and the secret project begun, with plans for the bookazine to come at a later stage.

What about the blog? For the remainder of 2026 it’ll concentrate on extra content for many of the comics covered on the blog. There’ll be posts almost every weekend of the year and the Marvel UK Checklists every Wednesday, so two posts every week. At Christmas there’ll be the usual onslaught of content, with two new real time read throughs for the Annuals section included too.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back soon(er).

WRiTiNG DiARY (BLOG FEED)