A Statement about Recent Events in the United States

Right before the holidays, I kicked off a marketing campaign for our first Kickstarter campaign, to fund a wonderful book called Passing in the Night. It launches in February, and I’m nervous and excited for it to come out into the world. That campaign will continue, but I need to acknowledge something first. The next paragraph contains a description of real violence. Please take care.

On January 7^th, 2026, just one day ago as I’m writing this, an ICE agent – a federal law enforcement officer – shot and killed a woman named Renee Nicole Good who was attempting to flee the scene of a protest in her car. Officers prevented a physician from providing medical care at the scene. The federal government labelled the woman a domestic terrorist before she was identified – before her body was even removed from her car. Tensions are rising between protesters who saw a woman shot without justification, and the US federal government which insists her murder was justified and even necessary. Protesters who are exercising their rights to peacefully protest are being targeted, attacked, and detained.

More details about the event are emerging all the time, and many things are still not clear.

Over the past two days, I’ve found it difficult to look away from the coverage of what’s happening. The world is so chaotic and uncertain right now, and this feels like a very frightening tipping point. I was born in the states and lived there for a lot of my life before moving to Canada with my family. All of our books so far include contributions from writers and artists who live in or are originally from the states. I have friends, family, and former coworkers who live there. I have friends there who are immigrants, trans, gay, autistic, who have chronic disabilites – all groups the US federal government has targeted in the past year. I’m scared for them. I’m scared about what it would mean for the US and for Canada if wider conflict were to break out. And I’m frightened about the ever-increasing threat of fascism to world democracies.

I’m posting this here because I can’t just keep posting comics and D&D content and pretend that all this isn’t going on. I believe we need levity to retreat to and restore our energy, which is one of the reasons SCP focuses on light-hearted stories, but I have to acknowledge this tragedy, to express my support for everyone seeking to uncover the truth in this matter, and to in some small way stand, online, with the people I can’t be with on the streets.

The marketing campaign for Passing in the Night will continue as planned. This beautiful book deserves to exist, and the author and artists deserve for their work to be out in the world for people to fall in love with. It’s a story about choosing love in the face of adversity and ignorance. It’s a hopeful book that we need right now especially.

Although written over a year ago, Passing in the Night depicts a protest scene that includes some police violence. That scene artfully captures the angry, helpless feeling of standing against the forces of intolerance when they are supported by those in power, and it provides a message of hope. I don’t know whether I can justify using this portion of the book in promotion right now. It’s more relevant than ever, but I feel like using it to market the book would be more crass than supportive. I will likely exclude it from our marketing efforts, but I want you to know it’s there.