032 - One year later: Minnebook

“It was a year that, like all years, a lot of things happened in.”
- Carrie Fisher, The Princess Diarist

Song of the day:"Still crazy after all these years
Oh Still crazy after all these years
I'm not the kind of man
Who tends to socialise"
- Paul Simon

Last year around this time I had been through a long time of anxiety and a mild form of depression, following the death of my mother-in-law (Happy Birthday Betty- today is her b-day). Betty had lived with us for five years. I was looking for some things to cheer me up and came across the vlogs of Michael Minneboo.  He is a journalist and blogger. As a longtime Spider-Man-fan , he wrote the book 'Mijn vriend Spider-Man: Superhelden, geeks en fancultuur' (My Buddy Spider-Man: Superheroes, geeks and fan culture). He still blogs and vlogs about comics and popular culture and he inspired me to write again. On one of his vlogs he reviewed an amazing book by Ger Apeldoorn about the comic magazine EPPO, that I grew up with. Thanks to my best friend and soul-sister, Renske, I managed to get a copy send to New Zealand and it was very helpful in those darker months to establish a stability in my mind again. By the way, go check out Renske's awesome drawings, she is VERY talented: Renske Art and Crafts.

The book and Michael's vlogs were truly inspiring - and once we were settled in again in our new home (and new area) I slowly got back into writing and managed to do the the whole #Blogjune experience. This also helped keeping me focused on what I enjoy. I have even done a few vlogs myself, but found them to take up a lot of time and things didn't quite go as planned in that direction. I might continue later, changing the content a bit. In the meantime, over the last year I have been communicating with Michael, via comments on social media and think I could call him a friend now. Heck, if he can call Spider-man his friend - I can call him that as well :) ! Michael even writes for EPPO magazine now, spotting his name on the cover the other day. He takes an image from a comic and creates an article around it. Of course it then ends up on his blog/vlog as well.  

The other day Michael asked me if I was going to vlog again and maybe show some of my comic book collection. It will be nice to highlight some of my favourite comic books and I might actually start with some short blogs on here, themed around specific items from my bookcase. Then, maybe - if I conquer my initial fear of speaking on camera - I will end up making some videos again.