A ramble on past comics [5/5]: A CHALLENGE

Ending this personal retrospective on my last big comics effort, “A Challenge”. Feels like I’ve talked about this ad nauseam, but I blinked and suddenly it’s been 8 years since the Kickstarter. Whatever ambitions I’d had while making it have been sanded away since then, but I knew from Day 1 that I’d be a “Comics Lifer”. So as long as I can hold a pen and have even an ounce of desire to keep drawing, I’ll get back on the horse eventually.

It was a hard lesson to learn, about 3 years in/ 70% into the book, that I shouldn’t work in complete solitude. I’d developed bad habits and pretty sure I was not the greatest person to deal with. Regardless, I’m eternally grateful for the support system of friends & family that helped me through the finish line. 

Special shout-out to my old roommate’s adorable husky, Archer (AKA: Starchy Buttz). Those final months would’ve been absolute hell without that dawg watching over me.

The biggest gift from working on “A Challenge” might’ve been meeting the legendary Wong Jack Man, thanks to his wife Sally (who passed the book to him after I’d contacted his student Rick Wing). We met at the premiere of “Birth of the Dragon” on my birthday in 2017, the movie coincidentally coming out as I was wrapping up the book.

Words still fail me when trying to convey just how surreal it was to meet him. I couldn’t have asked for a more poetic way to wrap up the whole experience.

Thanks to Phil Yu for his early support, Kat Chow for chatting with me at NPR, writers who had kind words about the comic (or simply wanted to chat with me about Bruce Lee), Norbert for convincing me to do the Kickstarter and shooting the video, everyone who shared the campaign (especially Greg Pak and Bryan Lee O’Malley), and thank you for reading.