Josh Closs Comics and Stories

Hello, friends!

January seemed to last all year, and then it was February 4th before I realized it! Funny how that works.

Two main agenda items to begin: Fuck ICE and fuck ice. If you need further elaboration on the first one, then I’m a bit confused how I haven’t scared you off before this, but a gang of masked men going around and snatching people out of their homes and schools and workplaces and churches without giving them due process, which is already bad enough without going into them shooting innocent people in the head… if that doesn’t rile up your deepest moral fibers to say that there is no language sufficient to express your contempt for that kind of behavior, but you’ll try your fucking hardest to find the words… then I just don’t know what to say.

For the second item, the main event I was looking forward to in January (other than the Steelers’ inevitable first-game exit from the playoffs) was a showing of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on the big screen, Friday through Sunday, one movie a day. I bought the tickets for the second weekend because the first one had worse seats, and just as the promised Friday came around, so did the ice storm that made the streets outside slicker than spit on a salamander. Fortunately, the power stayed on for us throughout (unlike what happened five years ago), but I wanted to go see movie! We watched it at home instead, which was good in its own way, but just not the same, y’know?

Artistically, I’ve made some decent game-making progress this month, but it’s still slow. The holiday season did a proper number on me and I remain in recovery mode in a lot of ways, and Job is still bad more often than not despite getting through the rush. I hope to find Different Job in the not-too-distant future! The economy doesn’t support that hope, but still, I hope it. Cross your fingers for me, pals!

Love,
Josh

Hello, friends!

Now, listen. I love Christmas. I do. I think it’s neat. And even if it wasn’t personally my thing, I could appreciate that it’s a time for people to be merry as the cold sets in (above the equator, at least), and that’s not a bad thing.

But.

Until you’ve worked the returns desk before, during, and after Christmas, you do not know its dark side. And its dark side is grim, y’all. It changes you as a person. Fundamentally.

(If I had a genie-wish to spare, one of them would be to make it so that people only get 80% of your money back on their returns. I think that’s the break-even point where most people would say “Yeah, there are costs involved with putting this back on the shelf/returning it to the manufacturer, even if it’s still in perfect working order,” while the people who use stores as rental facilities would maybe, maybe change their habits.)

(Actually, I’d just use the wish to make it so anyone who buys something with the intent to return it has one bad Food Oopsie within the next week for each item. Spaghetti sauce on their favorite shirt, ice cream scoop lands on the ground, etc. I think it’s a fair tradeoff.)

Anyway.

I had intentions to make a big wrap-up of what I did in 2025, but I don’t have enough to show off for that to be worth it. I drew a lot (okay, a fair amount), wrote… some, and did a lot of gamedev work, along with my Twitch streams, but most of my work this year has been building up skills that I hope to use in 2026 and beyond. Well, that and surviving the personal and worldwide hells of 2025, as well as working retail.

One of my main goals in 2026 is to not start any new projects. I have about ten things that I want to finish before I start anything else, and I think that about four of them are finishable in the next twelve months. The others are more ambitious and/or ongoing projects; things I’ve talked about, like The Devil That Knows You, The Hartvane Chronicles Book II, Star-Crossed Mercenaries, or ongoing streams like Backlog Busters Brigade. (I don’t think I’m going to manage to play every game ever made, but I’ll keep playin’ ’em anyway.) There’s also an unannounced one, so if/when I start talking about something that makes you say, “Whoa, that’s really ambitious to be doing on your own,” that’s the thing I’m talking about now! I already know it’s a lot! But I’m gonna do it anyway!

Making art is one of the few things that I can do without an ounce of guilt. I never feel like I should be doing something else instead. I thought that would change when I quit Patreon in 2024, but it still feels important, if a bit less urgent. I wish that there was more (or any) financial payout for me doing it, because it would be really great to not work where I’m working anymore, but for now, I’ll try to keep my chin up and keep making things. It’s hard. It’s painfully hard at times to not have what I make get the audience I think it deserves, because I want people to enjoy the things I make, by orders of magnitude more than I want financial recompense. But ultimately, I need to make these things for myself first and foremost. Anyone else enjoying them is gravy.

But it’s delicious, delicious gravy. And if I ever make something you enjoy, I would love for you to tell me so.

I think that’s all for now. See you in February, if not sooner, y’all. Take care of yourself and each other. Enjoy art made for humans, by humans.

Love,
Josh

Hello, friends!

Do you, uh. Do you ever feel like you’ve been living in an unprecedented moment in your country’s history for almost the last decade and you’re ready to live in precedented times again?

Just curious.

September went by both fast and slow, and now it’s time for Spooky Season! Nice to have the normal horrors available to us again. I’ve spent the last month working on a smaller game that’s almost entirely mechanics-focused, because that’s one of the big roadblocks I’ve been struggling with. It needs at least another month in the proverbial oven, but I’m excited about the progress I’m making! More news to come on that front.

I think that gamedev is where I’m keeping my focus for the rest of the year. I had ambitions for a while after starting a day* job that I’d be able to work there and balance multiple projects, but at this point, I’m happy if I make any progress at all in a given week. If there are any wealthy benefactors out there looking to be a patron of the arts, please let me know and I’ll happily be a benefactee!

Short update this month. Hope y’all are well, or at least surviving. Hang in there, friends.

Love,
Josh

*I wish my shifts were consistent enough to always be during the day…

Howdy and hello, friends!

A short update this month. I haven’t gotten much internet-facing work done for a number of reasons, the most pleasant of which being my new-found obsession with Blue Prince. Highly recommended if you enjoy a puzzle game and don’t mind being confounded for hours on end, along with a bit of a tussle with some random number generation.

Having published a novel and finished two webcomics, along with dozens of theatrical performances and countless other artistic tidbits, it fascinates me how quickly various forms can reach “Not Too Bad” status. Not quite the “Good Enough” status, where you can share it with the public and feel proud of it, but where you can look at it for yourself and say, “Hey, this is not too bad.” Even within a given medium, there can be a lot of variety; a story might reach that point after its first draft or its twentieth. But of all of the forms I’ve tried, video games take the longest to reach that point. I’ve made a game that’s functional and can be played, but I’m still not at the “Not Too Bad” stage. There’s a certain volume of story and art and sound design, along with general je ne sais quoi (almost spelled it right on my first try!) that it still needs before I can look at it and feel good about it.

This isn’t to say that I’m not proud of the work I’ve done on it so far! I’ve grown a lot throughout this process, and I’ve developed a lot of skills I wouldn’t have any portion of otherwise. I’ve also grown a lot more forgiving of some things I see in games, and less forgiving of some others. Specific examples aren’t coming to mind, but perhaps some will arrive as I think on it over the course of this month.

All of this to say: I haven’t worked much on the game-making in the past month, but I have plans to get back onto that particular horse in the one ahead. And if you ask me if I’ll have a game that I consider Not Too Bad at the end of this month, I’d have to say that I…

May.

Get it? Get it???

Love,
Josh