10 Years of 1134

It dawned on me recently that this summer marks ten years since the first 1134 Project. There’s been quite a bit of evolution since that time, but I believe it still retains the core idea. The idea in the beginning was to band together with some fellow creatives and support each other in the pursuit of our artistic endeavors—what that would like, we weren’t sure. I don’t think anyone exactly worded it that way at the time, but that was essentially the idea. However, we thought about it, I believe the real spirit of 1134 was to create a space for us to explore our creative interests freely. Over the years 1134 has had a few changes, to say the least, and in the past year finally found a more purposeful direction.   

Summer 2011: The beginning

Two good friends and I created Project 1134 in the summer of 2011. The idea behind the project is mentioned above, so I won’t rehash that here. I will go over some of the details, though. After a bunch of discussion, we made a started a Facebook page and an Etsy store. We were making some comics, jewelry, and we were doing a lot of stuff in the sugar skull lane. It turned out that the sugar skulls were pretty popular on Etsy, and we evens sold a handful of our first mini comic. We still didn’t really have a unified direction for where we were going with this thing, though, and before long everyone kind of drifted away from the project. 

2012: Doomsday

Okay, there wasn’t really a doomsday. I just can’t help but think “Doomsday” after thinking “2012.” Project 1134 officially met its own doomsday, though. I changed the Facebook to 1134 Comix and went ahead alone. Admittedly, I’ve never been very good at growing an audience, or posting things regularly, or networking, or any of things you should do to get people to read your comics. I did like having an outlet to tell jokes and show kooky characters in zany adventures. 1134 Comix would continue as my own little creative outlet for the following years. It was always a background project for me, though. Most of my time was spent pursuing other things. Although 1134 Comix is still not the main project, I do post new stuff to that page occasionally, and I never know when I might get the itch to do something more involved. We also created a YouTube channel for 1134 Comix quite some time ago. I’ve started playing with ideas for the channel, but we haven’t landed on anything serious yet. 

If nothing else, 1134 Comix will remain in the archives for those interested. For those subscribed to the 1134 Comix pages, do expect something to pop up every now and again. I hope you enjoy whatever it is. 

2017: 1134 Press is Born

We created 1134 Press while I was in the final steps of completing my first collection of short stories. My book, Gestalt was the first publication through 1134 Press. We hit the ground running, too. We found support from friends and family, sold our books, began establishing a brand, built a real website, and started of our indie publishing endeavor. I got to work on our next two books, which were to be a standard size, black and white comic, and a collection of all the past comics. Bree got to work making handmade books. 

 For the next year, I worked on the comics, and she made an impression with the handmade books. Then, we had the honor of publishing For Us: A Self Care Journal for Mamas. Shortly thereafter, the two comics were published. We were pretty well on course at this point to focus primarily on publishing printed books while having handmade books as a more exclusive thing. Two more years went by, Bree was near completion of her first book of fiction, then the pandemic happened. 

2020: Seeing the Light

It was 2020 and Bree’s book was almost finished—1134 Press was to have its next printed publication since For Us. And since it had been over year since our last print publication, we had already started questioning our direction. A year or so earlier we had discussions about showing how to make the books, rather than making them a selling them on Etsy. Kind of like the give a man a fish/teach the man to fish idea. It was only after being stuck inside for a really long time during the first months of the pandemic when we came back to that idea. It was summer 2020 when Bree uploaded the first 1134 Press junk journaling video to YouTube. We didn’t know it at the time, but this would shift our vision for 1134 Press moving forward. 

2021: And Here we are Today

Over the past year 1134 Press has truly found its place. We make books; the physical book, the stories that live inside the book. We want you to make your own book and tell your own stories. With that idea in mind, we have so many plans for the coming years of 1134. Look forward to the current style of video continuing at the 1134 Press channel. Look forward to new publications and other things I probably shouldn’t mention yet. And of course, look forward to random things popping up on the 1134 Comix pages.

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