TL;DR (Too Long, Don’t (Wanna) Read)

• Letters from the Void Funded!

• Crit One Holiday Special Ends Soon!

• New Projects: Lavender Phoenix, Pitches etc.

• Into the Gutters: How One Weird Clive Barker Metaphor Sent Me Spiraling

• Gutter Buds!

  • Something Old: Mansect

  • Something New: Go back Very Hungry Women, The Cannibals & Darkade on Kickstarter!

  • Something Borrowed: Redlands

  • Something Blue: Puppetmaster by King Diamond

WHAT’S THE WORD?

Flair - a skill or instinctive ability to appreciate or make good use of something; inclination or tendency; a uniquely attractive quality; Old French to give off an odor.

Letters From The Void Funded!

Thank you to everyone who supported Letters from the Void. We finished over $100 over our goal, and with late pledges still open, we are currently sitting at $2160 and 101 backers.

We even added a new comic to the book, one written by me with art by our cover artist, Felipe Thowsand!

Late pledges will still be open for a bit as we finish up the book, so now’s the time to pick up a copy if you missed the campaign. 

Crit One Holiday Songbook's Campaign Nearly Over

We’re funded and working on adding another comic to the book if we reach $200!

Lavender Phoenix: A Queer Hope Zine

Three months ago, I made the Queer Comics Creators Discord so those who identify as LGBTQ+ and comic creators could connect and support one another, since times are rough for the gays right now. I’d been brainstorming what this group could do to help out others and connect more, and what resulted in a new zine series: Lavender Phoenix.

We’re close to wrapping up the first issue! Each entry in this series will have art and writing about good things that are happening to the queer community, personal anecdotes, or just uplifting stories to help keep spirits up for our community. They will be available for free on Itch in digital and easy-to-print formats, so anyone can make them at home and spread the hope in their area. It’s just a little something I thought this group could do to support everyone.

New Anthology Pitches!

Three anthologies recently announced open submissions, and daggummitt, I felt inspired to pitch to all of them. Trey Baldwin and I are currently working on a folk story called The Sun King and The Moon Woman for Wildstar Press’ “How I Made the Moon Cry” anthology, that I think is one of the best things I’ve written. Here’s some character sketches from Trey of our protagonists!

The other pitch is for Iron Circus Press’ Lies anthology. My story is going to be a musing on the Irish Potato Famine from the perspective of the fungus that rotted all of the potatoes. Being from a Celtic family, this topic is something I’m very passionate about, and it’s one of the biggest examples of how propaganda and false beliefs can cause great harm. I’ve been hitting the books, so I don’t give any false facts, and I can find the right scenes to portray for this story. This research has even cascaded into researching Scottish history for another story idea I had, so it’s been a lot of fun.

I have tentative yeses from an art team, so I don’t want to announce them just yet, but it’s someone I’ve worked with before and a new letterer that I’m excited to collaborate with.

And last is a horror story I’ve had in my back pocket for a while with my longtime collaborator KVGIR. We submitted it already to Long Box Punk’s call for submissions, so fingers crossed!

INTO THE GUTTERS

Damn You Clive Barker /lovingly

As of writing, I’m close to finishing Cabal by Clive Barker, and the opening lines from chapter 15 have been stuck in my craw.

“The sun rose like a stripper, keeping its glory well covered by cloud till it seemed there’d be no show at all, then casting off its rags one by one. As the light grew, so did Boone’s discomfort.”

Originally, I was going to write an essay on style over substance and how this sentence is an example of the failings of one over the other. I was going to write about how this metaphor is confused; how it makes no sense in context. A man, Boone, now an undead creature called a Nightbreed, with an aversion to the sun, wouldn’t desire it. I would have continued to write about how, despite this, the metaphor paints the sun as something desirable and scandalous, yet this feels tonally out of place. Is Boone supposed to be in awe of the sun as it teasingly reveals itself? He wouldn’t. It harms him. He doesn’t want it.

I would have continued to compare it to the style-over-substance of Five Nights at Freddie’s, and how this doesn’t bother me as much because of its absurd premise. It’s retro animatronics haunted by dead children, so perhaps its style is its substance, and that’s why it doesn’t bother me. But then, I waited until the last minute to write this essay (as one does), and I had a thought…

Does any of this matter? What even is style? Why is substance better?

Not to sound like a broken record, but another piece by Magen Cubed had me reconsider what the point of this essay was meant to be. In her essay Barbed Wire, Sharp Teeth, David Lynch’s Rabbits, she writes about how writing about art, and thinking about thinking about it, is how she engages with it, but that it sometimes feels unproductive, like fence-sitting:

“Without a conclusion, a singular meaning to stake out as my own, I still feel like I’m failing the text in some way. I’m not trying hard enough. Not reading deeply enough. In settling for my own impressionistic view, I remain in a discursive loop with myself, going round and round but achieving nothing.”

But as Cubed continues to explain, “[…] that's the point, isn't it?

“The conversation doesn't end. I won't stop thinking about thinking, feeling about feeling, until I'm dead and gone. Writing is how I make sense of that fact.”

In a way, I had the opposite issue. I had a conclusion. I would impose myself on Barker’s art. I would craft a brilliant exploration of how this metaphor was bad, and indicative of a larger idea, but it didn’t have to be. It could have worked if x, y, and z had happened.

But, why did I feel like I had to argue? Reading Cubed’s essay made me realize that I wasn’t having a conversation with the piece, but shouting past it. 

It’s stupid because I don’t believe style-over-substance is bad. I’ve written a previous newsletter about the importance of bullshit; making things for the sake of making them. Isn’t that style over substance? Plus, I love thinking about camp and writing campy stories, which is about as style over substance as possible. I’m no stranger to chasing my bliss, so why did this single sentence irk me? 

I don’t know. After reflecting, I only know I had an emotional response to it and began to fixate. Surely, there was something to be gained out of dissecting this response, right? There had to be a reason why, something deeper, right? I feel like I have to write about this. There’s just something in my jellies screaming “do it!”, so that’s a good reason, right?

Truthfully, I like Barker’s metaphor, but not in this story. That’s all I can really say about it: I didn’t like it in this context. But, I was prepared to write intensely about it without purpose, but disguise it as purposeful. I think it pays to stop every once in a while and think about why we are creating something, especially in those times where we feel compelled to do so. Are we compelled because it’s something we’re passionate about or because we’re trying to justify feeling something? I think in the latter, it’s easy to shut down the conversation between art and consumer. Feelings don’t always have reason; sometimes they just happen and, as the Stoic philosophers believed, it’s up to the individual to decide how to respond.  

Why did Clive Barker write that line? Probably because he liked it and wanted it in there. 

And you know what? That’s neat. I look forward to thinking about it more. 

GUTTER BUDS

SOMETHING(S) OLD

Mansect

Technically, this book is both old and new. Mansect was originally published in Japan in 1975, but was only translated into English this year. It was some of the best body horror I’ve seen in comics, and while the writing is definitely dated, the story was so rich with emotion. To me, it’s a story of how isolation pushes people to extremes to escape their pain. This idea is explored in some unexpected ways as well, such as how a chronic illness can be incredibly lonely even when surrounded by loved ones and doctors treating the symptoms. Would you become something inhuman just to escape the feeling? Mansect is exactly what I love about horror. 

SOMETHING(S) NEW

Apparently, this month is the month of weird horror (and eating people, I guess?), because that is the majority of what I’m backing on Kickstarter currently. Check them out!

Very Hungry Women

Fifteen years after tragedy cut short her career as a sidekick and ended the era of government-endorsed superheroes, Antonia is a reporter looking into a string of recent disappearances for an unusual client. When her investigation turns up a bloody connection to the city’s beloved new superhero Galahad, she has to decide if justice is worth joining the corpses that seem to keep piling up in the hero’s wake. It should be an easy choice. It really, really should be. Especially when Galahad starts noticing her back.

What follows is a violent, messy, and undeniably mutual obsession that drags both women in and puts their friends, family, sanity and morality on the line.

The Cannibals

The Cannibals is an 18+ queer yuri vampire horror romance set somewhere in the future in a world where vampires are regarded as worthless parasites, objects of derision, and fetish objects. The vampire Olive Yo struggles to make enough money to buy expired fake blood. Crushing on a rock star celebrity chef named Chamomile, (who only works with "ethically-sourced parasites"), an alley-way encounter leads both women on an unexpected path.

Darkade: An Arcade Horror Comic

For over 20 years, avid gamer Sam has hidden her estranged father’s legacy as owner of Benningworths. An abandoned arcade located on Plank Pier, Coney Island.  A place haunted by countless allegations of child abduction and crime back in the 90’s.. Sam’s father himself now missing, long presumed dead. The place now just a condemned waste ground.

With Sam’s own funds dwindling and desperate for money – Sam makes the decision to return to Plank Pier in the hope of recovering a collection of her father’s own rare motherboards to sell online. In doing so, Sam will discover something far darker lurks in the shadows of the abandoned pier.

SOMETHING(S) BORROWED

Redlands

It’s kind of hard to recommend Redlands because the story was never finished, and sadly, it’s been so long that I doubt it will. I must be a magnet for falling in love with series that were never finished. If I had a nickel for every time it’s happened, I’d have 3, which isn’t a lot, but it’s depressing that it’s a regular thing (but I hear rumblings that Nana by Ai Yazawa may be coming back). 

However, I still thoroughly enjoyed this and think there’s a lot of value in reading it. The pacing is incredible, and the art even more so. It’s a fantastic story of witchcraft and taking back power from oppressors, with memorable characters and plenty of atmosphere.

SOMETHING(S) BLUE

The Puppet Master by King Diamond

While not blue in color, The Puppet Master is certainly blue in story. 

If you’re unfamiliar with King Diamond, he is a Danish metal vocalist and, with his band Mercyful Fate, essentially invented black metal. His solo work is almost entirely horror rock operas that often end in tragedy. Diamond says a lot of his work is inspired by his nightmares, and while most people try to run from their bad dreams, he returns to them night after night, thinking maybe he can fix them. I think it’s this sense of futility that makes his albums and their stories so special.

The Puppet Master wouldn’t be in most fans' top 5, but it’s become a favorite of mine. I think it’s because it's the one album that deals with love lost. There’s a sense of hope and childlike joy in the beginning of this album that isn’t present in his classics like Abigail or Them. Two people meet on Christmas at a grotesque puppet show in Budapest and realize they’re the only ones who witnessed the show’s supernatural nature and were amazed. They kiss and fall madly in love, but then the woman, Victoria, disappears after returning to the puppet show. 

The man (King Diamond sometimes doesn’t name his male point-of-view characters) ends up captured by the puppet master and his wife, who imprison him in their cellar. It’s here that he sees Victoria has been made into a human puppet, and it’s too late. Eventually, the man joins her, and they perform together at the next Christmas show. It’s an emotionally complicated ending, for the man and Victoria are now together forever, but only because they are now slaves to a mad artist.

It’s one of the most bittersweet stories I’ve ever experienced, and that’s why The Puppet Master holds a special place in my heart.