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)

On my personal social media profiles I describe myself as a writer, yet aside from this blog my friends sometimes ask what exactly I’m doing to justify that? It’s time to come clean and fill you all in on what I’m working on away from the blog, especially since some of it should (hopefully) interest regular readers. I’ll begin with one thing you can already read in Northern Ireland’s Impspired Magazine.

SHORT STORY

Last year I was taking part in a medical trial and one of the nurses there writes and performs her own one-woman plays in Belfast, and so we’d talk at length about writing. One day she told me about a creative short story writing competition only 24 hours before its deadline. I hadn’t written creatively since my early 20s but I thought “what the hell” and entered it. Next thing I knew I was a finalist and got published in their online magazine and later their print edition. I was stunned! (Please ignore the typo right at the start, I can only guess it happened when printed, my original doesn’t have it.)

It’s given me a taste. I’ve had a certain novel in my head since my 20s that I never got around to writing because I never had the confidence in my creative writing abilities. However, I now find myself with the OiNK Blog which is doing very well, not just with the amount of visitors it gets, but also the feedback I’ve received from professional writers and editors about my writing. Yes, it’s a different genre, but still. So, after that competition I’m considering resurrecting the story. Starting it is part of the planned outlook for 2026.

THE BLOG iN 2026

I’m immensely proud of this blog and have no intention of ever stopping, so don’t worry this post isn’t about me moving away from it to concentrate on other things. Last year I did limit the extras (except at Christmas) and concentrated on the real time read throughs so I could start work on other stuff. This year I’m also going to have to balance things, but I’m really looking forward to what’s to come.

This year, Aliens ends its monthly series in March and there’ll be no new real time read throughs beginning (well, a new one at Christmas which you’ll find out about then) and instead I’ll be concentrating on a year full of extras, and every single comic covered so far will be included! This is both to make up for last year and to give me a chance to work on my main project (named further below) while not skimping on blog content for its readers.

HUSH-HUSH PROJECT

Since last year I’ve also been working on a secret project with a professional writer/editor on something I’m positive fans of a certain section of the blog will lap up. My co-writer is a very busy person so there’s no timeline yet on when we’ll have anything to announce but you’ll be the first to know when we do. The plans for the project are exciting even at this early stage so I’m eager to see where 2026 takes it.

COMiCS 80:99

The main project is one I’ve mentioned just briefly on the blog before: Comics 80:99. This will be my first attempt at self-publishing. It’ll be a nice thick bookazine based around a similar selection of comics as here on the blog, the majority of which hadn’t received much coverage in the years since their publication. There’ll also be features based around lesser-known aspects of some of the more popular UK comics from the 1980s and 1990s.

There’ll be regular updates here throughout the year but obviously I need to keep some things close to my chest for now. This is on the advice of some comics professionals I’ve already approached and talked to about it, but I can let you in on a little for now. Some of those professionals are comics heroes of mine and I was amazed when they’d tell me they were aware of me through this blog or even that they read it regularly! So far, all of those I’ve approached have agreed to take part in some fashion and I couldn’t be more thrilled. (I can hear teenage me screaming inside my head!)

I’ve finalised the contents (and thus the amount of pages it’ll contain) and all of the comics I’ll be including. I’ve also been researching paper types. This might seem like a backwards way of doing things but as this is my first dip into self-publishing I wanted to look into the costs and research printing companies to ensure it was doable. I soon learned I needed to know the names of different paper types and thicknesses. Proctors, a local Belfast shop was incredibly helpful and very patient when I took along samples so they could identify them for me, meaning I could get accurate quotes from various printers online.

I needed that reassurance of what it’d cost and what I could charge before committing myself, after all I also need to make money from this. I have a cat to spoil.

Long story short, Comics 80:99 is a go and I’ll keep you up-to-date on it in this Writing Diary. The secret (for now) co-authored project is in its early development stages, then once these are both further along that novel inside my head will finally begin its transition to the laptop. Throughout all of this the blog will also continue and you can expect one new post every single week on average throughout 2026 (along with an accompanying Mighty Marvel Checklist every Wednesday too) and a wealth of stuff at Christmas as usual.

It’s an important year for me. If I don’t get the ball rolling now I never will. I hope you’ll join me to see what happens.