This Year, I Failed!

Next year, I'll come back stronger.

Hey everyone!

This is my last post of the year. Since my previous update, I attended San Diego Comic Con Málaga in Spain, New York Comic Con, lost three Ringo Awards, and tabled at Baltimore Comic Con, Perú Comic Con, and Thought Bubble Festival in the UK. Plus, I launched a new editorial effort in Peru to see if the local market is ready for some comics!

This year, I made many moves in the comic book industry, but I didn’t achieve my biggest goal: getting published in the US market. Why am I so eager to accomplish this? Because my goal with comics is to make it sustainable. I want to live off comics, and the way I’ve chosen to do it is by focusing on the US comic book market, which means getting work there, climbing the ladder, and someday spearheading my own initiative to reimagine Spider-Man’s origin.

But rather than sound ungrateful, I wanted to reflect on how, sometimes, we can’t control things. I learned that to get published, three things need to line up: the right story, the right publisher, and the right time. You only control the first. And no matter how much passion, talent, marketing, or whatever you pour into making your comic book, it might not be enough for the editorial market to pick it up. That’s how it is.

Furthermore, if you get picked up, you need to wait somewhere between 6 and 8 months to see your book on the shelves. Once that happens, you need to wait a few months for it to see success (if it does), and then you can move on to project number 2, and so forth. With those timelines, if I get my big break picked up NOW and it does well, I may see success in the next 2 or 3 years. Realizing how far along I am toward my goal and how many things would need to line up in the process has opened my eyes.

No, I’m not quitting comics. No, I haven’t stopped believing in telling my stories, pursuing my projects, or collaborating with my collaborators. I’m more motivated than ever to break into the industry. But I’m also more cautious, more careful about how I spend my time and what my focus is. At some point, you need to stop seeing it as a dream and think about it more rationally, because that’s the world we live in.

Overall, what I learned is that you can’t let anything, not even comics, consume you. For a while, I felt I had to accomplish something, which led me to neglect other aspects of my life. Comics became an obsession, and not seeing the results I wanted, while feeling on a timer, was stressing me out. Once I realized I can’t do more than I’m doing and that, to an extent, my future in comics depends on other people who may not have time to answer my emails or review my projects right now, I started seeing things more clearly. Comics is a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s about endurance, not only creatively but also of the body and mind. Today, I’m at peace knowing that I’m doing what I can.

The reason I’m sharing this is that, now more than ever, I value my journey and those of my colleagues. Trying to make comics and succeed at it, alongside so many amazing people, in a world that rewards money and individualism, is an act of rebellion. Even when it seems we can’t hold on, we need to step back and value what we are achieving. So, if you are a creator reading this, know that what you are doing is valuable. And if you are a reader and supporter of my work and indie comics, thank you for making our dreams come true.

The end of the year always brings this kind of reflection, and I know most of them are full of hope and happy feelings, so I wanted to offer you a more realistic approach, for a change. Even so, I’m hoping that this dream will come true, hopefully sooner rather than later, and next year I’ll continue to do everything in my power to achieve it.

2026 will be my best year yet, and my only goal for 2026 is to be happy.

See you in January! Until then, stay awesome and go read something.