Hey all,

Hope you are enjoying 2016. As always, I left it too long between posts so have too much to say. Not your typical blog post though, this one is entirely different and mostly focused on a personal thing that happened to me recently.

Back in December I had a pretty epic car crash and once again narrowly avoided death. I broke three bones (my femur, pubic ramus and L7 in my spine). I've never broke a bone before and was not ready for that level of pain during my lunchbreak. I remember being sat in my totalled car and, by coincidence, a friend of mine pulled up in the traffic. I hadn't even tried to move, I think due to shock... but was sat there all like "Does my leg look right to you?" we were both unsure but looking back.. It was wobbly as hell and falling down the side of my seat. Definitely did not look right. I had hoped it was only dislocated but nope, sure as hell.. It done broke gudd. So then the ambulance crew arrives and ask me to try and move. Safe to say I screamed louder and more than I ever have or knew I could.

This is what a combined impact speed of 90mph looks like (on-scene estimate from a police). If I was carrying a passenger, they wouldn't have survived. It was clear they needed to cut the roof off, after that, they cut my clothes off and tried to lift me. Only to be met with even louder and even more screams. Then they dosed me up on two big doses of morphine and about 7 burly guys hauled me carefully out of my car onto a stretcher, which was inserted behind my back against my seat. It was still painful but wow, they did me proud. It's not often people treat you the way you want to be treated in this life but... To them... It's a day job. Heroes.

Naturally I was rushed to hospital... Had all kinds of pain and tests done. X-rays, scans. Projectile vomited everywhere in A&E. All the while, people cleaning off the blood. Multiple people plucking out glass from my arms and legs (I couldn't even feel that because the pain of broken bones nullified it that much!)... Such a surreal experience.

The next day I went to surgery. They stitched up a huge glasswound on my left hand. Cleaned me up a lot and oh yeah! Nailed a rod into my femur!! That's right, I have a bionic leg now. I'm held together with a piece of titanium, along with some nasty scars. Following all that, it was a steady road of feeling helpless and struggling with everything. I was out of hospital after a 7-day stay. Went to my work Christmas party on the day I got out! (it happened to be at my friends work and I was very well looked after) Went through all of Christmas, with my whole leg swollen to about twice the size and drugged up on opiate painkillers.

Above: Seatbelt/steering wheel wounds. Even now, after three months, I can feel the swelling and stinging on my pectoralis major. Also, fun fact... The mark on my forearm is where part of my face smacked into it; the marks on my bicep are from my teeth. That fucking hurt. Also had crazy black bruises on both wrists as I slammed into the steering wheel.

Above: 9 stictches in my hand. 31+ staples in my leg. Almost all the flesh on the back of my hand was torn off. I have no idea how they managed to stitch it back up.

Above: Glasswounds. I had a similar pattern in my leg too; apparently much larger shards were in my shins, having managed to penetrate my brand new jeans!

Not an ideal start to my year but... At the same time.. It gave me time to detach myself from everything. This scummy system called capitalism. I got away from it all and... For the first time in almost ten years... I feel more like me than I have in ages. I caught up on reading and got through Adam Phillips' (chluaid's) book on ToonBoom (Animate to Harmony). Did a ton of drawing and writing. For Christmas I was extremely lucky and got a big pack of Copic Markers! Only the fucking best markers money can buy. I've been busy. Getting back in touch with my roots and...finally... Feeling happy for it. After so much depression and stress of the impending doom that society and capitalism puts us all under... I can finally say I truly don't give a fuck. I've let it all go. All my demons, are their demons now. I'm me again baby!

Yeah I've been drawing a lot, even since before the accident. I've read and watched a lot of educational material. Time to revive AcidX. I've been working on it slowly the last few years but things are going to gain momentum now. I've invested heavily in equipment and will be switching to real animation software (ToonBoom). My old cartoons are super old now. I made them all on ghetto-ass machines like 5 years out of date. We were poor as shit. Not the typical background or upbringing for an animator. Now I have real power and professional equipment behind me. I'm gonna do this properly, like I've been longing to for so long. Life is too fucking short and can disappear in an instant. No more just letting it slip through my fingers. Fuck pleasing others. Fuck everyone who said I can't do it. Fuck all the agencies that doubted my ability. Fuck being who other people want me to be. Just fuck it all. I'm gonna do my thing now and not sell out to anyone. I do this for love, not glory.

On a lighter note.. The Deadpool movie was good, right!?