It's Been A Whole Year... I Need Your Help! (Guts N' Gutters #13, October 2025)
TL;DR (Too Long, Don’t (Wanna) Read)
Help Me Make This Newsletter Better!
Letters from the Void Ends In One Week!
Crit One Holiday Special Launches Soon!
Into the Gutters: Why Creating Can’t Be An Individual Activity
New Gutter Buds Format!
Something Old: Lycan: Girl’s Night
Something New: Check out my BlueSky Thread of Kickstarter Campaigns!
Something Borrowed: Beneath the Tree Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring
Something Blue: Spikes by marlo mogensen
WHAT’S THE WORD?
Revolution - the action by a celestial body of going round in an orbit or elliptical course; a sudden, radical, or complete change.
Happy Birthday Guts N’ Gutters!
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been running this newsletter for a year already. I remember being initially nervous about maintaining it and especially having an interesting article to include each month, but outside of one issue being a day late, I did it!
This newsletter is still early in its development, and with each one, I get a little closer to understanding its identity and what I want to accomplish with it. However, as I’ll discuss more in this month’s article, creative endeavors should never be individual ones, and I don’t want this newsletter to be only for myself.
I created a little survey to ask you, my subscribers, about what you like or don’t like about the newsletter, what you’d like to see, and how you engage with Guts N’ Gutters, etc. Your feedback will do wonders in helping me develop this into something that you’ll love.
Letters From The Void Ends Next Week!
Letters from the Void ends next Friday!
We are 60% funded, which is amazing, but there’s still a chunk to go. Any support you can give, even just $1, is incredibly helpful. Plus, all of my newsletter subscribers get access to a secret tier that offers a discount on our Vessel Bundle!
Crit One Holiday Songbook Complete & Awaiting Launch!
We launch November 18th and will only run for 2 weeks!
Project Spielberg Foundation
Unfortunately, KVGIR had to step away from the project, so we are pausing briefly until we find a new line artist. Stay tuned!
INTO THE GUTTERS
Don’t Meet Your Heroes, Kids
In September, I eagerly read New York rapper Rakim’s Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity from the Lyrical Genius. If it isn’t apparent, I’m a huge hip-hop fan and over the last few years, I’ve been digging deep into the history and craft of the genre. Rakim is one of the greatest lyricists of all time, and his work from 1988-1996 with DJ Eric B. is still mindblowing even though some of it is over 35 years old. I was incredibly excited to learn about his creative process and how he became one of the greatest rappers of all time.
But then… things took a crazy turn.
Sweat the Technique started off well. I hungrily ate up the story of how a young man became enamored with a new and emerging genre of music, began crafting his own rhymes, and begged adult DJs in the park ot give him an opportunity (one time ending with him getting slapped by a DJ for being too insistent). Then, Rakim picked apart one of his most finely-crafted songs, How to Emcee, and explained how he thought about wordplay and rhyme schemes. In these first few chapters, I was in heaven, and it seemed like I was getting an intimate look into how a talented artist.
Then in the next chapter, things started to get shaky. Rakim’s explanations strayed from explaining how he works into the mystical. Some of it was things I’d heard before from artiste types, like the spiritual experience one gets when they reach an almost meditative state and words or art just flow out of them with ease. That’s something I’ve experienced many times, but, unlike Rakim, I’ve never applied this to mean I’m tapping into the literal energy of the universe.
The cracks began to show when Rakim asked how the Egyptians built the pyramids without geometry. This is flat conspiracy nonsense. The Egyptians built the pyramids with basic physics, simple machines, and a whole lot of enslaved manpower. They weren’t tapping into some divine creative energy; they were using the science and engineering of the time, even if they didn’t explicitly call it that.
From there, it only got worse as Rakim devolved into musings on numerology, nonsense “vortex math” and how by tuning his music to A432 Hz instead of the standard A440, he’s somehow tapping into the vibrations of the Earth. By the finish, I was so disappointed to realize an artist I admire was so self-assured about finding hidden knowledge that was completely wrong. Despite this, I powered through and finished the book, and after some reflection, I felt really empty inside, and I think it was more than the odd spiritual ideas.
Rakim’s description of his ideas and pursuit of knowledge seemed really lonely. What was missing most from this book that mixed memoir with bullshit philosophy was other people; the ones who helped him develop his ideas, the ones who taught him lessons after he became successful, the ones who helped him move from talented emcee to the GOAT. The story of Rakim, according to Rakim, seems to be one of thinking an idea is true and then seeking out the “why” of that idea on his own. He was convinced that the Abrahamic religions said we are God, not the children of God, and sought out answers in the Quran and Torah to back it up. Based on his experiences performing live, he believed that music is a form of energy and sought out the reason through shaky sound physics and math that isn’t math.
Though he presents himself as a creative and deep thinker, Rakim is a walking, talking confirmation bias. Like the stereotypical starving artist, he conceived his ideas of his own brain, became convinced of their correctness, and sought evidence, but never questioned if the idea was flawed in the first place. Sadly, I have to say it’s the ego of a talent that rose very young and was never questioned. Imagine if even one manager or fellow rapper had said to Rakim, “I don’t know about that”. But, based on what little is in the book, Rakim wasn’t the type to commiserate with colleagues. He knew he was talented and wanted to be the best, so what he thought was best was what he did.
This is most demonstrated in a story Rakim tells of him refusing feedback from famed producer Marley Marl to have “more energy” in his delivery. Rakim wanted to rap in a relaxed style that allowed focus on the lyrics, going against the grain of the time. He did several takes of the same style over and over until Marl gave in, and the sound ended up being a signature of him and Eric B.’s first record. But again, this is confirmation bias in action, not innovative, reflective thought.
Reading Sweat the Technique showed me why creating art can’t be purely a solitary pursuit. It’s a recipe for ego-filled, irrational thinking. I’m reminded of a book I read several years ago: Michael Shermer’s Why Smart People Believe Weird Things. He argues that people with talent or an education believe illogical things because believing those things serves some sort of personal need, and their perception of being an intelligent person causes them to dismiss contrary evidence. I assume Rakim sought an explanation for his unexplainable gift with words because, like many with purported natural talent, he was uncertain why he could write a rhyme better than most at 17 years old. So, he observed what he saw as a mystical connection to the universe and used it to fill that void. It’s the same trick a lot of the best athletes fall for by having lucky socks or a specific ritual before hitting the field; correlating what seems without cause eases the anxiety that a gift is fleeting or luck.
Artists need other people because art, at its core, is communication. If we aren’t communicating with our peers and audiences who care about more than trading praise, we invent conversation partners who may take us down weird paths. Thank God comics have this teamwork and group uplifting baked into the medium. Though there are talented cartoonists, there’s something beautiful in seeing 5 people come together to make one great story. Though starving artists may find feasts, their meal will never be as sweet if they dine alone.
GUTTER BUDS
I’m changing this section up from here on so that I can highlight things that aren’t just Kickstarters. As I mentioned last month, it often feels even harder to get eyeballs on our books after the Kickstarter, since there is no ticking clock to get it made. So, Gutter Buds will now be broken up like the old marriage saying:
SOMETHING(S) OLD
This was a really stunning take on the werewolf from a great team. Allegedly, there will be more of this, but only time will tell. For now, be sure to check out Lycan: Girl’s Night!
SOMETHING(S) NEW
It’s been a busy month running the campaign, so I didn’t get singular campaigns to shout out this week, but I would love it if everyone checked out all of these projects I’m supporting in this BlueSky Thread!
SOMETHING(S) BORROWED
I work at my local library and am a huge supporter of them, so this section will be dedicated to things I’ve read that I’ve checked out from the library.
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring
I read the first series earlier this year, and it’s one of my favorite books of the year. There’s always a concern that sequel won’t live up to the original, but this series has been just as good!
BTTWNS follows a serial killer bear named Samantha Strong, who has her routine for killing and hiding the body down so perfectly that decades later she still hasn’t been caught, but then things happen in the small town where she runs her hardware store, and her way of life is threatened. Rite of Spring follows immediately after the original series. We see Samantha dissatisfied even after establishing a new routine of killing. As much as the events of the first book nearly ruined her life, it was also a bit thrilling. When the sister of an old victim comes to town looking for her long-dead brother, Samantha sees an opportunity.
I can’t recommend this series enough. It’s intense and pokes fun at the pastoral, small-town life so prevalent in today’s slice-of-life stories. Plus, the individual issues are available on Hoopla for those with a library card!
SOMETHING(S) BLUE
This section may contain blue things, or it may not. It could be random, or loosely blue, you’ll have to tune in each month to find out! X_D
This counts as blue because it’s a Sonic the Hedgehog zine, but it’s also not that.
Spikes is a collection of queer comics with every character portrayed as a different member of the Sonic cast, but not necessarily in character. There’s no clear reason why they are Sonic characters, but after reading this zine, it strangely works and enriches my favorite part of these comics: the characterization.
Having familiar characters in these unfamiliar scenarios separates the reader and the story because we’re not observing new humans and learning about them as they go about their day, but cartoon animals with preestablished back stories and lore. At the same time, these characters are not Sonic, Amy, or Shadow, but a set of queer friends who just happen to look like them. This forces the reader to focus on the dialogue and character acting in each panel because the familiar/unfamiliar juxtaposition makes one curious how Sonic or Tails are different from their Sega counterparts.
And the character writing is fantastic. I dare say it’s some of the best I’ve ever read. The reader knows exactly who these are based on what they say and how they say those things. This anthology is mostly conversations, but they are never boring because the dialogue is so good, and they do have resolutions, if not big ones. I can’t recommend this zine enough and it may make my list of best comics I’ve read this year.