Wait what? 2021 is over? ALREADY??! Alright, time to reflect.

2021 was a wild ride. Starting with celebrating 10 years of Loading Artist comics.. and then burning out and disappearing.. only to later return with Plucked Up - a side series born out of burnout, rising like a duck from the ashes.

Now I’m back with a renewed sense of where I oughta be spending my time, and with a more loosey-goosey mindset when it comes to making things. I used to obsess with making sure every pixel is “perfect”, spending hours and hours on stuff that, in hindsight, either isn’t even noticeable or worse: made the comic look over-worked or too rigid.

Some of you are probably thinking wtf is this guy on about, his comics never looked pixel perfect … and that’s exactly my point.

Anyway, I’ve thought about it and these are my top four favourite Loading Artist comics of 2021 (in no particular order):

Over His Head

Killing Him Softly

Sending the Message

Party Animal

But overall, I’d say the comic that really stood out to me this year was the entire Plucked Up series, except it’s hard to compare it to the Loading Artist comics because they’re so different. Like comparing apples to… a longform comic about a duck.

plucked up #1

Thank you very much to everyone reading my comics this year, and especially to those who are reading these words right now. With people sticking to social media more and more, the ones who still go the extra mile to visit the site deserve extra acknowledgement, so thank you!

And that’s it for 2021! I’m really looking forward to some of the stuff I have planned next year! In the meantime, you can catch up on all the bonus panels you might’ve missed on my Patreon.

See you in 2022!

<3 Gregor

P.S. - Hall of Memes has been replaced by the #meme_ories channel in the Discord server, as it already serves as an archive for all Loading Artist memes from the streams and things <3

loadtoberJ 2021 has wrapped up and the results are in! Well, actually it was announced on stream a while ago, but now it’s really official!

Quick recap what this whole loadtoberJ thing even is: Basically it’s about taking the daily prompt from Inktober, and then -ifying it in some way.

Here are the 5 categories and their prize winners!

MOST CREATIVE: MarcMansfield with “Tick”

The ‘Most Creative’ award goes to MarcMansfield for this unsettling video as he’s definitely thinking outside the box (and possibly outside my window) and I’m not just awarding Marc the prize because I’m semi-worried for my life.

At the end of the video there’s a flash of suspicious numbers..

.. and typing them into Google maps as coordinates points to a place called Egg Lake Campground, which.. I’m now realizing probably doesn’t mean anything to you if you aren’t watching the streams because it’s an inside yolk.

Also this lake sorta looks like a from space, so bonus points for that.

FUNNIEST: Jamamp with “Sour”

I gotta give this award to Jamamp for Funniest loadtoberJ entry as it still makes me laugh , and when Exocomics saw it she couldn’t stop. Some say she’s still laughing to this day.

MY FAVOURITE: Grinzpilz with “Knot”

It was hard to choose my favourite. I mean, I definitely knew Grinzpilz drew my favourite entry, but it was hard pinpointing exactly which one of his many amazing entries was the one to take the crown.

I think I made the right decision with his ‘Knot’ entry because turning the into the earbuds is something I would never have thought up myself in a million years. See all the other entries here.

EXOCOMICS’ FAVOURITE: Quiet_Artist with “Crystal”

Exocomics awarded Quiet_Artist the prize of being her favourite! Now to pass the mic over to her:

“I like this one because crystals are so hard to draw but quiet artist nailed it. The loadj is really well integrated into the crystal structure too. Love the sparkle on the eye!” - Li aka Exocomics

A FOR EFFORT: Psycho “Finbean” Manatee

Honestly everyone who participated in loadtoberJ deserves to get this award, but that would be crazy because I’d have to send out like a hundred prints and stickers to people and the shipping expenses alone would bankrupt me…

… so instead I’ve awarded the A for Effort prize to Finbean ! A bunch of different styles and techniques on display here that definitely look like it took a lot of time and effort!

~

… and that’s a wrap for the prizes! To the winners: expect your exclusive signed art print and stickers in the mail soon(er or later)! I mean it’s being sent from New Zealand and it’s already Christmas time, so best of luck it shows up this year!

And to everyone else: thank you very much for participating in the second ever loadtoberJ! Thank you for making it what it is! Because if it weren’t for all of you and your amazing submissions, loadtoberJ would just be me drawing loadJ entries under anonymous pseudonyms while quietly sobbing to myself…

… and I’d still lose to Grinzpilz because there’s no stopping that guy.

– Gregor

loadtoberJ is back!

What’s loadtoberJ? It’s only the latest and greatest (and only) Loading Artist drawing contest right now! Pick a daily prompt from the official Inktober list, and loadJ-ify it and you’ll be in to win prizes!

Prizes you say?

There are 5 different categories to win, and the winners will get three secret new stickers (as well as an additional classic sticker), and a signed A4 print of Free Spirit!

note: the winner of the “Li’s Favourite” category will instead receive an Exocomics print

Check the #rules Discord channel for more info, or see last year’s winners if you’re just curious

I’m 32 now (and also a month ago)! I have to mention “32” as much as possible because despite everyone trying to make you believe it, I am NOT 42. Even though sometimes it feels that way. Anyway, the community has once again completely overwhelmed me with another amazing surprise!

Presenting… THE NEW GREGOR a collection of The New Yorker-esque cartoons drawn by the community with my quotes from the streams being the captions

Here are a couple of my favourites to show an example:

By ShibaSocks

By Exocomics

32 quotes turned into cartoons. I just realised that’s also the number I turned this year. Not sure if that’s a coincidence or intentional, but either way it’s perfect.

Thank you so much to everyone who took part!!! Special thanks to SuperTux for coding the site, and to Exocomics for the New Yorker idea and design, and to Kittyrules for the idea of drawing the quotes in the first place!

And if all of that wasn’t enough, here’s MarcMansfield with another amazing montage! HOW DO YOU FIND ALL THESE CLIPS TO USE??!?? This must have taken so much time and effort, I cannot appreciate it enough! Thank you!

I was going to say the timing of my birthday coinciding with my burnout was unfortunate, but I really do super appreciate this amazing gesture by everyone and all the work and planning that went into it. Especially as it happened while I wasn’t even putting out any comics. Thank you everyone for your help and patience with me.

<3 Gregor

Here’s one more 15 minutes of highlights from the Resident Evil Village streams (featuring Exocomics)!

Normally I’d be streaming some more today but I’m taking a break from the comic & streams this week. Feel free to follow me on Twitch to be notified when I start streaming again