This might just be me, but I like feeling like I'm not special. Just one of many.

That's not some kind of humiliation ritual. It's just a great way to remind myself that none of this is really that serious. There are billions of people on this planet.

Somebody out there is doing the same things I'm doing, struggling with the same things I've struggled with, and going through the same experiences. I find that fantastic. I'm not alone!

That's also how I felt when I discovered Yao Xiao's two-part series about her, wait for it, 365-day project of drawing daily comics about her everyday life.

Hey! That's exactly what I've been doing for the last 284 days!

And even though I know that sticking with something for this long is a little special, I love knowing that somebody else has already done it for much longer. I like having someone to look up to. Which, it must be noted, is not the same as putting them on a pedestal. They're nothing special either. Nobody is! Isn't that wonderful?

I realize I'm starting to sound like I'm about to declare communism the one true form of government, but that's not where I'm going with this.

What I do believe is that there's something powerful about realizing that the person who's been doing a thing for years and has become incredibly good at it probably got there by doing something we're all capable of: doing the work.

The trick is figuring out how to do the work in a way that makes it possible to keep doing it.

In How To Make Comics Everyday, Yao Xiao explains how she would sit down in the evenings and get straight to it. Ink on paper. No pencil sketches, no color, just 20 to 30 minutes of drawing. She also came up with little rules to keep herself entertained throughout the year. One of them: no meta-commentary. No comics about making comics.

She broke that rule a couple of times, but honestly, 5 out of 365 is still a spectacular success rate. There's some kind of law of large numbers at work here. If you do something often enough, even your failures become a tiny minority.

In What to Do With 365 Comics, Xiao talks about how the sheer volume of work she produced eventually became the main event. And oh boy, can I relate to that.

I'd rather not admit how often I pick up my sketchbooks from the beginning of this year just to flip through them and think, Look where it all started.

There's so. Much. Art. Here.

And strangely enough, this brings me right back to feeling special.

Because I do feel special. Just not in comparison to other people. I feel special in comparison to who I used to be.

Marcel from two years ago would never have guessed that he'd be this prolific. That he'd have sketchbooks full of drawings documenting hundreds of ordinary days. That he'd actually keep making art, day after day, for this long.

Today's Marcel is a little more special than the Marcel from back then. And I think that's worth celebrating. That's growth!

I can't wait to have the same problem as Yao Xiao: figuring out what on earth to do with 365 comics.

One thing I already know I'm going to do is add a "Last year on this day" feature to the blog. I could also add a "Last week, a year ago" section to the Wednesday newsletter. Or print a whole book with 365 pages! Who knows! The possibilities are endless!

And because I'm apparently in a rather nostalgic mood today, behind the paywall you'll find a few comics from the beginning of this year, along with some thoughts about them. Here's a taste:

I actually started on the very last day of 2025. That wasn't an accident. I'd decided to draw one comic every day, but my process was to draw each day's comic the following day. So, naturally, I had to start a day early.

Back then, I also thought I'd need a dedicated watercolor sketchbook for the whole project. Oh, how wrong I was.