BARKING AT THE GARBAGE TRUCK #5: 2024 Wrap Up + Updates
Ok. Hi everybody. Sorry about the year-and-change between editions of the newsletter. I’d rather send ‘em out infrequently, with actual substance, than just inundate your inbox with fluff, though. So, you’re welcome, I guess. Here’s how this one is going to go:
Year End Media Wrap Up (my favorite: reads, movies, albums, and tracks [on a playlist for your listening pleasure])
Project Updates + Sneak Peaks of New Comic and Prose Book
Sound good?
FAVORITE COMICS + NOVELS I READ THAT WERE RELEASED THIS YEAR:
THE SKIN YOU’RE IN — Ashley Robin Franklin (Silver Sprocket)
ONE MILLION TINY FIRES is one of my favorite horror comics of all time. Every other comic was new to me, and every other comic delivered. Ashley Robin Franklin is a titan of queer horror comics.
LOVING, OHIO — Matthew Erman & Sam Beck (Dark Horse Comics)
I wrote a blurb for this one. Go to your local bookstore and check the back of the book if you want my thoughts.
PUNK ROCK KARAOKE — Bianca Xunise (Viking)
This is the most punk comic since Liz Suburbia did SACRED HEART. Bianca is a killer cartoonist and has near infinite punk-cred. I stayed up way too late so I could finish it in one go.
FROM THE BELLY — Emmett Nahil w/ illustrations by Megan Llewellyn
This was a very sensual novel about a guy who got yanked out of a whale that got killed by a whaling vessel, alive. I was repulsed, off-put, and couldn’t put it down.
THE SECOND SAFEST MOUNTAIN — Otava Heikkilä (Quindrie Press)
!! Transgender Banger Alert !!
LINDSEY CHENG DATES A WHITE BOY — Asia Miller (Shortbox Fair)
I loved Miller’s last Shortbox comic YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE THE SIZE OF YOUR FIST—it made picking this up a no-brainer. Their cartooning is so charming—and their dialogue/characters feel so real.
LOOK BACK — Tatsuki Fujimoto (Viz Media)
Emotional gut punch that will make you fall back in love with creating all over again. Honestly, I enjoyed the movie more, which is rare for me—you should read this first, and then check the movie out.
HOME BY THE ROTTING SEA — Otava Heikkilä (Shortbox Fair)
Beautifully done.
CHAINSAW MAN — Tatsuki Fujimoto (Viz Media)
CHAINSAW MAN is sick. I still read it physically, volume to volume. I rush to the comic shop as soon as I can on each release day. I anticipate that shit. It rocks.
FLASH POINT — Imai Arata (Glacier Bay Books)
Really interesting take on social media controversies AND the assassination of former prime minister, Shinzo Abe! Usually you have to pick one of those, but in this book, you get both.
FAVORITE MOVIES RELEASED IN 2024:
LOOK BACK — dir. Kiyotaka Oshiyama
RED ROOMS — dir. Pascal Plante
SMILE 2 — dir. Parker Finn
ALIEN: ROMULUS — dir. Fede Álvarez
CUCKOO — dir. Tilman Singer
RAP WORLD — dir. Danny Scharar & Conner O’Malley
INFESTED (VERMINES) — dir. Sébastien Vaniček
THE FIRST OMEN — dir. Arkasha Stevenson
I reviewed these, or most of them, at least, on Letterboxd @barkmouchard. I watched some more movies that released this year, but nothing else really stuck with me like these did.
FAVORITE ALBUMS RELEASED IN 2024:
I wish I had the time to really dig into these. There was so much great music released this year. Nothing blew me away like Stay Golden, the new Combat record, did, though. That album is fucking NUTS from front to back. It’s actually insane that the band wrote it when they were 19. If you leave this with one takeaway: listen to Combat.
Stay Golden — Combat
It’s Inside You — CANDY
plastic death — glass beach
CHROMAKOPIA — Tyler, the Creator
You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To — Knocked Loose
Cosmic Joke — Cosmic Joke
I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU — JPEGMAFIA
CAROUSEL FROM HELL — LustSickPuppy
Deep Sage — Gouge Away
Alligator Bites Never Heal — Doechii
FAVORITE TRACKS FROM 2024:
Stay Golden — Combat
Balloon — Tyler, the Creator ft. Doechii
Persona — GEL
eXistenZ — CANDY
either on or off the drugs — JPEGMAFIA
Moss Covers All — Knocked Loose
Leave It Alone — Cosmic Joke
CHOKEHOLD — LustSickPuppy
Good News — Combat
guitar song — glass beach
Endless — CANDY
Stuck in a Dream — Gouge Away
Barry White — Revival Season
Cool for a While — Combat
puppy — glass beach
Blinding Faith — Knocked Loose
Hedonic Treadmill — Cosmic Joke
Rah Tah Tah — Tyler, the Creator
Plucked — Destroy Boys
HOODLUMZ — Denzel Curry ft. PlayThatBoiZay & A$AP Rocky
commatose — glass beach
THE FIRST TEST — SPEED
Horse Crazy — CANDY
Mirage — GEL
Pack Rat — Squint
DENIAL IS A RIVER — Doechii
Spaced Out — Gouge Away
Weird Ending Explained, Pt. 1 — Combat
Uninspired — Grudgepacker
God Complex — Prince Daddy & the Hyena
Here’s a playlist with all 30 of these tracks on it, btw, my gift to you!
PROJECT UPDATES:
Honestly, I have been focusing on law school—I took a pretty heavy course load and pivoted focus entirely (from IP law to family law). I’ve pitched a couple of IP books here and there, but nothing has gone through. That being said, I recently signed with a new agent, who I think is a really killer fit. We’ve just put a YA horror graphic novel on sub, co-created/drawn by Morgan Beem. Because of the new representation, pitches I’ve been sitting on will be working their way into editors inboxes over the next few months, which has me really fired up. I’m working on new comic pitches with my friends Liana Kangas and George Williams—both artists whose work I really admire. The prospect of seeing the art for those soon is getting me through this finals week (also as of writing, it’s finals week, I’m up real late because I had an exam till 9:30pm and I’m still wired).
I have been working on a social satire comic with Shelby Criswell for a little while now. We have two places in mind, but are committed to making the comic as a digital-first, free webcomic prior to self-publishing a collected edition if neither of them feel like a fit. It’ll be around 48-56 pages when it’s done. Title’s under wraps for now, but the comic is heavily influenced by DEATH RACE 2000 and IDIOCRACY—it’s going to be violent, and over the top, for sure. I listened to an interview with Mike Judge a little while back, and the part that stuck with me was that, when speaking about KING OF THE HILL, Judge said that he found that leaning into social satire over political satire was more fun for him, and led to a funnier end result. This one is going to lean heavy, heavy into the social, against a pretty politicized backdrop that I think will hit. I don’t want to give too much away, but the comic begins with the generators for America’s first autonomous, off-the-grid I.C.E. detention center being turned on, and ends in fire. Here’s a pencilled snippet Shelby sent me a few days back:
I’ve been spending some time chipping away at a prose novella as well. It’s about a punk house where showgoers keep dying mysteriously—and that’s all I’ll say about that. I’m over halfway through the first draft, so I’m hoping to wrap it before the spring. I’m mostly doing it for practice, and to prove that I can, so that I can take the next prose project to my agent and maybe take it around to different pubs. The current one will likely see the light of day somehow, eventually. But I’m not super concerned with it right now—just having a blast working on something that feels like it’s for me—makes me feel like I used to arranging songs for my old brass band. It’s great. Anyways, here’s a tiny, tiny snippet I liked from what is currently Chapter 15 of the novella:
“When it struck the hardwood, the pane of glass keeping the print in place broke like a promise. The house quivered, practically doubling over, like an elderly woman whose cough clattered in her chest like a pickup with a bed full of stolen copper pipes.”
Here’s a lil motivating, year-end tidbit for those of you who also pursue creative endeavors, and are feeling beaten down by creative industries continually tightening their belts. I had been discussing a project w/ an editor for the past few months, when the editor’s boss revealed they had acquired something with a similar tone—meaning our project would not be moving forward at that pub. At the time, there was no artist attached. Within 15 minutes of getting that “no”, I had reached out to my top-choice artist, truly a bucket list collaborator—and she said yes! I bring this up to say, when a door closes, another usually opens. If not, rocks are common, and plentiful, and windows are breakable.
Ok. That’s it for me this year. The first half of 2025 is crazy for me (last semester of law school, bar exam prep, wedding + wedding prep) and then I take the bar exam in July. Not sure when you’ll hear from me next, but I promise it’ll be worth the wait.
Until then.
Mark