I wasn't planning on a 2025 retrospective, but this was probably one of my most creatively fulfilling years in recent memory. It feels a little gauche to do a year-end highlights reel considering how awful this year has been for so many people. But. This is my blog. I'm allowed to notice these things! If only to remember that it happened!
Without a doubt my most noteworthy accomplishments were finishing two long-languishing projects: HERETICAL, the adventure comic I started eight years ago, and The Plot Of The Phantom, a text adventure game I started forty years ago when I was a teenager. The latter got some attention from some old-school websites and as a result people actually played through it. I got some nice feedback and requests for hints. There's an upgraded version out now that has a hint system and a few Easter eggs.
I also leaned into doing longer comics. I churned out CHROME SANDS, a sequel to HERETICAL, in only three months. Both stories are up on a dedicated website now, and I'm currently scheming on a third installment. Also in late spring were two more short-form stories: Finders Keepers and Los Ojos del Desierto. I released From The Shallows, a literal fish-out-of-water story I'd been holding onto for awhile.
Los Ojos Del Desierto | Neat Hobby!
A supernatural tale of greed in the southwestern desert
Comics by Scott Andrew
And for no real reason I drew a hand every day in May. And I'll do it again! Well, maybe!
I also did a bit of computer stuff:
- A free responsive webcomic template.
- a simple photo gallery generator for static websites.
- Some tools to connect a Buttondown email list to both Eleventy and Wordpress and create a "soft paywall" for subscriber-only content, although I never did end up using this myself.
- I started Tiny Details as a library of small webcomponents to improve old websites but only finished a handful.
- I hacked together a Clip Studio-compatible version of the Flexioki color palette, which I used to color Finders Keepers and Los Ojos.
Those are the wins, and given the...uh, tenor of this past year. I'll take 'em. Among all of that, I was lucky to find a new day job this past summer, which is at times great because it's work I love to do, and with health insurance, yay! But it immediately put the brakes on other things. Now I'm back in the familiar sleep-work-eat-repeat cycle and finding ways to break out of it is one of my goals for the new year.
I don't have a great way to end this part of the post, so: the end.
Some music
I tried to listen to a lot more music in 2025 and I'm not sure I succeeded because podcasts are a still a thing.
Scarlet House, Homecoming
Since wrote about them last spring, Scarlet House took the top spot in my Spotify Wrapped*, dislodging Rush and Power Windows years-long reign as my most listened-to artist and album, respectively. That is...a notable thing!
The videos on Scarlet House's YT channel are filled with comments like "I'm 57 years old, I love you guys" which I find really sweet but also really funny to think about being a Gen-Z artist with a huge Gen-X following.
screenager, Striker
Women are keeping indie rock alive. Like Scarlet House, I found screenager through an Instagram ad and I'm a sucker for interesting production choices wrapped around a solid pop song (note: when advertising your music through IG, use the best part of your best song as your clip).
Matt Nathanson, Please Pet But Do Not Ride The Horse
A collection of live cuts from his early 2025 tour that will give you a sense of how Nathanson has evolved into a top-notch lyricist while remaining so darn affable as a performer. We saw him on this tour last year in PDX and I got kind of emotional over it.
Please Pet But Do Not Ride The Horse
The new live album from Matt Nathanson, available now wherever you listen to music: https://go.mhe.fm/mn_pleasepetbutdonotride
YouTube