BARKING AT THE GARBAGE TRUCK 2: Yelling, Again.
Alright, now that we’re getting into the swing of things I’ll just jump right into it. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen that we’ve started pitching around THE GUTTER KING, which is incredibly exciting, seeing as I started working on it in 2019. It’s wild to me that it used to take me so long to come up with a book, but then again, in 2019 I was balancing comics with a fifty-hour-a-week office job with an hour-long commute. I don’t know, though. I feel as if I’ve built up my chops enough that if I have a solid enough story idea, I could hammer out a full packet in a few months. But we’ll see how the addition of law school impacts that.
Since I started working on GUTTER KING, it definitely feels like I’ve leveled up as a storyteller. A fun fact— when I approached Bayleigh to work together on a longer project in 2020, it was initially with GUTTER KING, but she wasn’t vibing with it as hard as she did with the seed of the story that would become IT TOOK LUKE. Sometimes, it just works out like that. Sometimes, a book comes to you almost fully formed, and sometimes it’s just a seed that you need to nurture.
We’re making some solid progress on LEAF PEEPERS— only a few more pages of inks until we’re ready to design the book and go to print. Very excited to get this one out into the world. With it, I got to flex the muscles I previously used to write for The Hard Times and Hard Drive, which was always really fun for me. (If only I had the time for it now!) Here’s one of my favorite panels from artist/co-creator Shelby Criswell’s latest batch of pages— I really love the way they're doing the lettering for the creature's song.
Also gearing up to pitch something we'll just call PROJECT FARMHOUSE until the pitch has been sent. I think it's the most brutal, vile thing I've written— it's definitely the horniest. With Rye Hickman as my co-creator/the artist on the project, how could I not take it there— their work rips. The sheer dread their concept art for the book inspired...very excited to share some of it with you all. But that's something for next month.
Some Media I’d Like to Highlight:
Home Is Where’s I Became Birds
This EP is wild. Just over a year since its release, I’m still obsessed with it. In its six songs it features a singing saw, harmonica, shredding electric guitar, and even an acoustic guitar on a couple of tracks. Make no mistake, this isn’t lowkey, or a folk release. Quite the opposite, as evidenced by the vocals, which frequently consist of heavy punk yelling, or straight up first wave emo screaming. The standout here is frontwoman Brandon MacDonald, whose lyricism astounds almost as much as her vocal range. Lines like “the atmospheres are held by meathooks / now she lays there like a bible / in a hotel drawer” (Assisted Harakiri) and “altar boys curb stomp the mall santa claus / wearing high heels, ‘cus the tv’s unplugged. / oh, what a strange salvation! / bong water transubstantiation” (Long Distance Conjoined Twins) really drew me in as a writer.
I saw this band play with Oux and glass beach last November, and it was fucking amazing, like, the best set I saw in 2021 (and I slapped on the ol’ KN95 and saw a bunch of ‘em). I had a bit of a fan moment, where I brought a copy of the kickstarter edition of IT TOOK LUKE to give to Brandon. She brought it back to the green room and showed her bandmates, one of whom started reading. Apparently, Layne, the guitarist/producer for glass beach saw the book in the green room and freaked out because he had backed it on Kickstarter and really enjoyed it. I only know this because J, the frontperson for glass beach, recounted this onstage. Easily one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me at a show.
I don’t want to end discussion of this EP talking about myself, though. If you’re at all interested in emo, or want to see what the fuck’s up with this ‘fifth wave’ that’s going on, this release is a great place to start. Plus, there’s a song about experiencing gender euphoria that builds to a screaming breakdown with a small choir repeating the line, “I want to pet every puppy I see.” — what more could you want?
BARK BARK GIRL - by Michael Furler (edited by Zainab Akhtar)
This one’s out from PEOW, so snap it up while you still can, wherever you can. It’s a fairly long (around 200 pages) slice of life graphic novel about a high school student who hates math so much, she lets her dog off-leash so she’ll have an excuse to get out of a big math test she didn’t study for because she was too busy making comic strips on MS Paint. Only then, the dog doesn’t come back home. Basically the whole book unpacks her guilt, and her search for the dog. I’m usually not one for slice of life stuff, but I found this book to be incredibly charming. The pacing was excellent. Furler’s art is the real draw here. It’s incredibly unique and draws on a variety of different styles to communicate certain expressions, as well as the protagonist’s mental state. It’s done in black and white with spot color (a very neon green), which I love.
A good editor is incredibly important though, which is why I’d be remiss to not mention Zainab Akhtar’s involvement — she runs the small-press publisher ShortBox (from which I’ve purchased so many excellent comics). The seamless transitions between dream sequences and reality in BARK BARK GIRL really stood out to me. The potential for one of these transitions to take me out of a story (if done poorly) is immense, because it’s a narrative device I like to use in my own work quite a bit. I’m very pleased to say that this was a one-sitting read for me. I just couldn’t put it down. Knocked it all out one Saturday morning. It was blissful. I highly recommend picking this one up.
INCANTATION (on Netflix)
This Taiwanese horror movie is, in my opinion, the best Netflix release since the FEAR STREET trilogy, though to be clear, it’s an entirely different sort of beast. The pacing of the movie was fantastic— once the supernatural elements entered play, the hits just kept coming. I find that a lot of horror movies take too long to dig into the actual horrors for my taste. This one was perfect, though. I found the ending to be incredibly satisfying. If I say more, I’ll want to talk about the plot. This one is best watched without any prior knowledge. Be warned, though. It’s truly terrifying.
Until next month.
-Mark