The Family

Things proceeded on an even keel for the Gertlers. We took multiple trips to Missouri to see Hugheses, and to Arizona to see Gertlers. We keep intending to take some big no-relatives-seen trip, but never get around to it.

Ben is now in his last year of pre-school child care. He is getting good at figuring out and writing words, finding spellings for things if not always the traditioanl ones. He's graduated to big-boy underwear, and is becoming knowledgable about both types of Star Wars: Lego, and Angry Birds. He's a well-intentioned dude and a hard worker, if with a bit of excess energy at times.

As mentioned in the video, Allison won a citywide essay contest at the fourth grade level, and also her class spelling bee (an extra achievement, as she is in a "split" class with fifth graders in there.) She reads a lot, but still gets read to; Daddy is doing all the Harry Potter books, with a full set of voices. We just started book five. (House rule: no watching the movie until you've experienced the book.)

Four years after moving into the house, we're still doing all the little upgrades we should have done in the first month. A little painting here, some sprinklers replaced there, and we finally have the lighting guys coming in January to give us quality diode-emitted light in the living room, play room, and music room.

The Business

Nat-the-writer:

The big adventure for the year was a possible TV deal for Nat's alternative superhero series The Factor, which had a respectable production company attached and had drawn the attention of a major basic cable network. It didn't pan out, but these are always a bit of a long-shot... and they aren't the only TV outlet in town.

Meanwhile, Nat's work on the Peanuts comic book for Kaboom! started coming out. You can find his writing in issues 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12, with more coming up in 15, 16, and beyond.

Stand-in Superstar, a humorous novella of Hollywood hijinx (and Nat's longest piece of prose fiction to date) is now in print and in ebook... and if anyone out there wants an ebook copy, just drop Nat a line.

He's already contracted to write another book in 2014.

Nat-the-publisher

Under his About Comics imprint, Nat published the first color collection of Charles Schulz's It's Only a Game, as well as a collection of Trypto the Acid Dog by Bill Mumy, Miguel Ferrer, and Steve Leialoha.

Under his Combustoica prose imprint, Nat published another novel by Superfolks writer Robert Mayer. The imprint has four novels already lined up for 2014.

In the "creative services" category, About Comics continued to line up artists for beer labels, packaging, and advertising, working with such talented folks as Brent Anderson, Scott Shaw, Rantz Hoseley, Ken Meyer Jr., and Ron Randall.