Phantasmic Tales: What Is It And How Can It Help You (it cannot)
THE STATE OF THINGS
It's grim times out there for comics creators, and really, art in general. The possibilities of the internet are collapsing into a narrow corridor of ad-ridden, unstable venues owned by people who only want creative work as a thing that they can dangle in front of you long enough to pick your pocket. The gatekeepers are coming back with a vengeance, and this time the gates are closed to people who don't already have a sizeable fortune in the bank. Social media is imploding, and marketing freelance and indie art, which used to be something you could manage with a little bit of work, has become almost impossible. Instead the hot new thing is paying vapid idiots to put out newsletters.
Don't worry, though: this particular vapid idiot is not being paid!
Anyway, as a guy who still clings to the hopeless dream of making a bit of money in comics, I figured every little bit helps, and so here it is: the Phantasmic Tales newsletter, by me, Adam P. This is going to be a venue to showcase my work and feature some bonus art, sketches and process, as well as keeping you abreast of my doings and transpirings. I'm planning on generating a lot of comics content starting this year (2024), so subscribing to this newsletter would be a good way to make sure you don't miss anything!
The comics will be published on itch.io, Gumroad, and Global Comix, but especially at my Patreon, where subscribers will be getting everything early (and some will be exclusives). I'm going to adopt a format that I think will be interesting: a series of short, mostly 4-6 page issues, allowing me to generate a lot more comics than a full 24-pager every month (are there any remaining indie people who can even pull that off?) Some of these will be serialized, some will be standalone, some free, some will be for purchase, but subscribers get everything! Plus I get to eat! Everyone wins!
Adam Prosser | creating comics and podcasts | Patreon
creating comics and podcasts
In all seriousness, most of what I'm going to be doing will be offered for free so if you like my stuff, pledging to my Patreon would be a HUGE help, even just a $1 tier. I'd prefer to earn money that way and help everyone see my work than make comics people have to pay for.
Here's a preview of some of the comics on tap:
DASH PLATYPUS
DASH PLAYTPUS only took shape a couple of months ago, compared to the other comics I'm working on right now, but I've been able to pencil the entire first issue already and I'm nearing completion on the inks, and it's likely going to be the first new comic of these to hit the web. I actually concocted it specifically as a quick, breezy, silly thing that I could work on without overthinking it, whereas I'm writing detailed scripts and filling sketchbooks with designs for my other projects. And yet I'm really excited about how it's coming together, and I think you're all gonna love it.
I've talked elsewhere about my love for Carl Barks and other funny animal comics--I did a comic called ALLY KATT which was kind of a warm up for DP, which I'm actually going to offer up in short order! But anyway, I love the transposition of goofy cartoon animals on actual high-stakes (if not necessarily "serious") adventures, which were a staple of comic books and strips for a good chunk of the 20th century. Dash Platypus is my contribution to this, a pulp adventure story that happens to star a short, unpreposessing, but fearless monotreme, his faithful sidekick, and a whole cast of marsupials. It's an homage to classic serialized pulp adventure with twists, turns, danger, excitement, and cliffhangers.
DP specifically will end every time with a cliffhanger in classic pulp style. It's about the titular Platypus, initially a cowardly janitor, who finds his mindset radically adjusted by a lab accident and become THE MONOTREME WITHOUT FEAR!!!! In fact, he becomes a little TOO fearless--now willing to dive headfirst into danger, no matter how foolish the circumstances, and it's up to his sidekick Edna Echidna to pull him back. Even without Dash's newfound recklessness, they find themselves caught up in a sinister conspiracy, which will take them across the world and into the darkest depths of adventure!
NEW JUNK CITY
New Junk City is the other big focus for my comics work right now. Set in the indeterminate future, it's a cyberpunk comedy--all cyberpunk is somewhat satirical, but I want to ramp up the comedy a lot. It's about the adventures of Gloria Edsel-Wong, freelance cab driver, bodyguard, criminal, food delivery person, and wannabe cop, plus whatever else will pay the bills in a world where the hustle is non-stop and money is hard to come by. A resident of New Junk City, a lawless wild west habitat built on top of the Pacific Garbage Patch, Gloria falls in with a disgraced billionaire and a rogue artificial intelligence, finding themselves in a position to take on the powers that have turned the world into a mess. Can Gloria do the right thing, even when she's on the other side of the law?
NIGHTBEACH
Nightbeach is a comic I developed with Dan Butler and have since been developing with other artists from my own scripts. The first issue is here for subscribers--https://www.patreon.com/posts/nightbeach-1-17058465 , or you can buy it on Gumroad.
I actually have two whole issues in the can that no one's seen yet, with a third underway! These are drawn by Kelvin Sue and It'll probably be the first thing to drop a new issue in 2024.
Nightbeach was born when I first heard that BAYWATCH had a spinoff in the 90s--one in which David Hasselhoff's character moonlighted as a private eye (!!) and solved X-Files-style paranormal mysteries (!!!!!!!). The 90s, man. Anyway, without having actually seen the show, my brain sort of spontaneously generated the concept of lifeguards battling the paranormal, and thus was Nightbeach born. It's all very serious, you know.
STARFORCE PENTACLE
Starforce Pentacle is a webcomic I published a few years back, and it's what inspired the "mini-issue" format I'm working in. Every "issue" is 5 pages, and the number 5 is of mystical significance throughout.
You can read the first issue on Global Comix right now!
As a huge fan of both Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, I'm always a little stumped when they try to work chaos magick through their comics, so I decided to try and figure it out for myself...by creating a comic that's also a work of chaos magick. Yeah, I'm a wizard now.
Starforce Pentacle is a space opera about magicians, a riff on Star Trek, and an exploration of how magic can help us understand the creative process. It's my feeble attempt to toss some hope out into the world.
Technically complete, the webcomics format was never ideal for it, so I'm excited to offer it in short-issue format at Global Comix--you can check it out right now!
AND MORE...
And that's not the end of what's going to be dropping from me, comics-wise, in 2024! Also in the works:
DRAGON'S LOUNGE: Hahahaha, I announced this in 2018! And in fact, the black and white "ashcan" version has been available almost that long (subscribers can read it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dragons-lounge-20591658 ) but I'll be finishing the final coloured version this year for sure, and who knows, maybe it'll be time for another issue! (Art is by the spectacular Gavin Guidry)
THE KING IN YELLOW: This is going to be interesting, I'm straying outside my wheelhouse to write and draw a graphic novel that draws from the King In Yellow stories by Robert W. Chambers. It's not an "adaptation" per se, though I'm trying to work in as many of the themes, elements and ideas of the Chambers stories as I can. One particular thing I want to do is create something that's distinct from Lovecraftian horror; Chambers was a big influence on Lovecraft and his mythos has become entangled with Lovecraft's, but I think there are interesting ideas that deserve to be considered on their own. It's also going to be an attempt to connect them to a modern sensibility, as Chambers was definitely ahead of his time in considering our relationship to media and the horrific undertones of structures of power and entitlement.
I have lots of other comic ideas that I want to develop, too: A vampire cowboy tale, an Arthurian time travel epic, a superhero saga, and a really weird "90s aesthetic" comic are all percolating in my brain. At the very least, hopefully you'll hear more about all this in 2024!
PODCASTS
On top of all this, I host a couple of podcasts!
WHAT MAD UNIVERSE?!? features myself and pal Philip Rice reading through a series of Sci-fi, Fantasy and genre books, from the relatively recent to centuries-old, to track the development of genre tropes and cultural icons--in other words, asking stuff like "how did vampires take their modern form?" and "how did the counterculture of the 60s influence the most popular conspiracy theories?" and "wait, Die Hard is based on a book?" We've done over a hundred episodes with lots of fun guest stars, and we try to have a new episode every two weeks or so--plus, of course, Patreon subscribers get to listen to it early (and sometimes in expanded form). Check it out!
What Mad Universe?!?
Action! Excitement! Horror! Romance! Thrills and Chills! Swords and Sorcery! Rockets and Rayguns! Hosts Adam Prosser and Philip Rice take a journey through the history of SF, Fantasy, horror, and pulp fiction. Every 2 weeks one of us, alternating back and forth, selects a book or book series from the late 18th century up to the present to look back on, discuss, and examine. Some of them have left an indelible mark on pop culture; some of them are forgotten echoes of what might have been...all of...
My other podcast is The Mirror Universe, a series of conversations about, you guessed it, Star Trek. I've been a lifelong Trekkie with a lot of thoughts on the subject, and having met Douglas Macdonald-Norman online while following Carl Garcia's Star Trek livetweeting, we decided we had to get our thoughts down in podcast form. We were eventually joined by pop culture writer Dylan Roth as well. This is something we just do once in a while but we're really happy with it, I think there's some real meaty discussions on Trek. Spotify link is below, but you can also just search "Mirror Universe Podcast" on your favorite podcatcher!
CRUCIAL INFO AND VITAL STATISTICS...
I've been making comics on and off for 20 years, and some day I might decide to start taking it seriously. When that happens, you better watch out.
I recently joined the Comics Cooperative, an attempt to help indie comics makers and cartoonists band together to support each other, whether by sharing resources, helping promote each other's work, or teaming up to make great comics. Apparently freelancer's unions are a tough row to hoe in the US (and probably everywhere else, too) but this is an attempt to help us get there. Part of the reason I decided to do a newsletter for myself is that I've taken over their public newsletter, which is bursting with great comics recommendations by our members. You can check out the latest edition here: https://cartoonist.coop/journal/january-news-2024/
The Phantasmic Tales website is here:
http://www.phantasmictales.com
I mentioned I have a Patreon, but I'm not going to shut up about it, because I like money:
Adam Prosser | creating comics and podcasts | Patreon
creating comics and podcasts
My artist's portfolio! If you're looking to hire me to make pictures, I can do that!
http://www.adamprosser.ca/I have a linktree for chasing me down across social media:
Of all the media socials, I probably spend the most time on Bluesky these days, so here's my profile:
@prankster36.bsky.social on Bluesky
Maker of comics, stories and podcasts. http://phantasictales.com . He/Him. Portfolio: http://adamprosser.ca Patreon: http://patreon.com/phantasmictales
And finally (for now), there's a Ko-Fi account if you want to send me a one-off tip:
https://ko-fi.com/pranksterThat's enough for now! More coming soon, I'll send one of these every time there's new material, hopefully with interesting thoughts and musings as well as the comics and art.
Stay Phantasmic!
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| https://www.patreon.com/phantasmictales | https://linktr.ee/phantasmictales | https://ko-fi.com/prankster |