Roll On 2009

I have to admit - 2008 has been a rough year for many people I know. It hasn't all been daisies and bunnies for me either.
But... it has also been one of the most amazing years for me as an actor and for Something Wicked.
We started 2008 with no money and pretty much ready to throw in the towel with SW. It was sad and heart-breaking but it had been coming for awhile and I had several contingency plans in place as to how to keep the magazine going without sucking my bank account dry.

Around the 2nd week of January we received a call from the National Arts Council to inform us that our application for funding was under review. A month later we were told we had been successful.
The funding from the NAC allowed us to plan ahead, for the first time ever since the inception of Something Wicked we were able to take a long-term view and actually put a marketing and distribution strategy in place.

So we started the year out by sending out 50 mags to A Night of Horror film festival in Australia. We contacted a US distributor and managed to get SW on to the shelves in US and Canadian book stores.
We were able to increase (fractionally) our pay rate for artists and writers and we began to see an increase in sales and subscriptions.

Don't get me wrong here, we are by no means out of the financial shit, but the funding helped bolster what little available money SW has in its coffers.

From an actor's perspective, with the release of Starship Troopers 3, I began to receive my first ever fan mail and interview requests (through my performance website at www.JoeVaz.com) and through the year have been in a few more films and series (including ITV and AMC's remake of the classic 60's sci-fi series The Prisoner - due out next year). I've done a bunch of commercials and have been enjoying a boom in the voice-over market - all of which helps to finance Something Wicked a little more.

In 2009 we are hoping to try and get the mag to the UK, planning our first ever Radio Play (hopefully the first of many) and hoping to finally put our first anthology together - yes we've been promising for years, but this time it's going to happen.

All in all it has just been the most thoroughly exciting and fun year.
I am finding December, however, a little frustrating. The Christmas and Summer holidays tend to slow down the momentum of a year and I'm finding myself frustrated at the enforced holiday I have to take. I just want to keep on working - I have a thousand things that need to be done and I can't wait for the New Year.

2009 is gonna be a kicker!
Our funding will run out in SW10, but we are hopeful that we will be able to apply for more funding for another year.
In the meantime - please. please, please - go out and buy SW for your friends and family and for anyone else you may now.
Buy, buy, buy -tis the season for buying!!!

All the best for the holidays and may you have a Merry Christmas and a phenomenal 2009
Joe

currently reading:
Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Listening to:
Oldies from Thomas Dolby and The The