THE PUNK BOY'S ANEURYSM, YEAR ONE!

7 jars of Pelikan India ink
3 bottles of Rotring drawing ink
3 paintbrushes
a zillion 2H and HB pencil leads
2 PCs
4 GB of images scanned, processed and completed in various resolutions
over 61,981 visits (and counting)
1180 packs downloaded
142 finished pages
61 posts
365 days
52 weeks
12 months
0 bucks earned

Those are the rough figures that make up The Punk Boy's Aneurysm. Of course, those figures tell us nothing in the long run, especially because figures never tell anything and because, I guess and there's no need to say it, the important thing is that this story exists and it has been burning your brains and mine for the last year, no matter what.

Every Tuesday, since November 1st 2011, we've learned what's going on with No, Dirthead, Lima and Ringo, and this is just the beginning. And I say "we" because writing this story surprises me as well as you, the readers. The plot is pretty much defined today, but I confess that in the first pages I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. This began as a story about teenagers kicking each other's asses, but it took an unexpected turn after the revelations in Chapter 6.

This was the first sketch of all, I realized about the iconic face of No (who had no name yet), so in that moment I thought he could wear a mask.

After 142 pages, I wouldn't say that I'm tired of it, not at all. I insist: it's just the beginning. Since the story is about ordinary people growing up and learning, any of us may assume that this would be along ride, and that's OK. Then, I hope we keep on walking down this road together for a long time. In the end of Chapter 6, we encountered a lot of enigmas and mysteries that will set the wheels rolling for future events. Loose ends gradually tied, fresh possible outcomes, brand new characters, situations, revelations and destructions. The story will surely take unthinkable twists and I'm eager to keep it going forward.

Seeing what others are doing with my material is exciting. There are people drawing masks with three circles in the forehead just because they dig that image. There's a video game in development. Some musicians are already planning on writing songs inspired by this whole universe. Volume One (containing the first 8 issues) will be published in Spanish by Dead Pop in 2013. And the English version will see the light thanks to a mysterious publisher (sorry, I can't reveal the name yet), but I love how they embraced the idea of publishing a story about a bunch of foul-mouthed, book robbing squatters.

 Defined sketch with mask as the three circles on the forehead.

I'm extremely grateful to those who are with me in this since day one. First, I want to thank the guys who make up the famous Tuesday's triumvirate: Javier Gómez, reviewer and translator to English and the first one to read the finished episodes. Javier, if it wasn't for your support, this would have clearly fallen in deaf ears even before starting. I would also like to thank Nicolás Viglietti, a.k.a. Black V, the second one to see the development of this story step by step, and responsible for adding another small layer of metadiscourse to this giant mess from his role as music programmer.

Thanks to Jimena, who witnesses the weekly production by showing up in the studio and snooping around, criticizing and suggesting what to do with this or that. She's the one who puts up with me leaving aside my social life and entering the weekly trance, she's the one who patiently waits every Monday night for me to finish preparing the posts, and she's responsible for Dirthead's existence.

Thanks to all of those who accepted the Open Call and expanded our visual universe with their talent. Thanks to Damián, Franco and Hernán. Thanks to all of those who share links and help promote this humble process, those who whine because there are too few pages per week, those who download the packs and prefer to read The Aneurysm's complete issues, those who extract panels and paste them on their computers or use them as Facebook profile pictures, those who get their asses kicked by the story and those who think that this whole thing sucks but nonetheless take a look at what I have to say.

I don't need to tell you what The Punk Boy's Aneurysm is about. As we flip the pages, possible allegories continue to develop and they fit like a glove. You just relax and keep on reading. As a whole, as a society, we must believe that our minds might eventually change things. That is the ultimate rebel attitude these days. Let's be punk.

Happy Birthday to you all for being here with me.