It only took a year of procrastination, but I’ve finally updated my online store. You have an online store, you ask?? Yeah, I’m not the best at self-promotion. But now I’ve got a site where you can buy Spectrum in three different modes: single-issues (all 6 bundled together), the trade paperback, and the mighty deluxe edition. My older work is also there for any completists out there.

Spectrum (Trade Paperback) | Rick Quinn

All that’s left to do is test and make sure everything works. That means… someone has to buy something!

Lucky for you, my trusted subscribers: everything is 50% off for the next 48 hours, but only when you use code EMDASHES at checkout.

And for the Spectrum superfans, Dave is currently selling original art at a discounted rate (including some of the very best pages from the series IMO). Check out his thread on Bluesky for more info. Speaking of “Melody”…

This is part of a new series where I thumb through my music collection and write 500 words or less about a song I love. I’m organizing them around a theme. This first collection will be The Outliers. What’s the hook? It means other than this song, I’m either: oblivious to the rest of the respective artist’s discography, or actively hostile.

Artist: Okkervil River

Song: “Lost Coastlines”

Album: The Stand Ins

Year: 2008

Length: 5:31

I have a pesky need to be clever.

I’m not sure where the impulse comes from. It’s obviously some kind of defense mechanism, erected in my youth as my only hope of winning against the bullies (it sure wasn’t going to be my physical prowess)—which then metastasized, as I got older, into a debilitating need to make obscure references at every available opportunity. It’s not enough for me to be perceived as smart, I need you to be impressed.

As an example, take this single panel from issue two of Spectrum, where Ada and Theo are walking through the Silver Lake district in Los Angeles while discussing their relationship:

The dialogue “Eight months…” is paired with Theo’s finger drawing an eight in the air (which doubles as an infinity symbol—thematically relevant!!), with the mural from Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 cover behind them. The “Lilies of the Nile” dialogue is a reference to a song from the early 1900s¹, hinting that the story is going to span the spectrum (see: “rainbow’s smile”) of song in the 20th century. Every line of dialogue comes from a mind that can’t help but find layered meta-ness in everything. Even this breakdown, the one you’re reading right now, is convoluted, with every other sentence needing emergency parenthetical assistance².

Another person who insists on being fiendishly whip-smart with every turn of phrase is songwriter Will Sheff from the band Okkervil River.

Lost Coastlines by Okkervil River on TIDAL

Listen to Lost Coastlines on TIDAL

While other bands are content on rhyming “baby” and “maybe”, Okkervil River songs presuppose that you’re listening along with a well-worn, spine-cracked thesaurus. The band being named after a Russian short story author is the least surprising fact ever.

But the joy of listening to “Lost Coastlines” is Okkervil River haven’t forgotten that, sometimes, you need to crowd-please: the bass line at 0:22 is pure Motown, the croon at 0:41 is pure Roy Orbison, the spiky guitar attack at 1:16 is pure post-punk hysteria, and the “la la la” coda, amidst mournful horns, swirling strings, and a drunken piano, evokes “Hey Jude” as performed on a sinking pirate ship.

Seriously though, that bass line. While the lyrics are rushing to fit in every last novelistic detail (from singing marionettes to ensuing melees), bassist Patrick Pestorius (great name) is like “I ain’t reading all that, I’ll be on the dance floor shaking my ass to Martha Reeves & the Vandellas instead.”

Heatwave by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas on TIDAL

Listen to Heatwave on TIDAL

Art is usually improved by some level of wit. Movies or music or comics without any spark of cleverness are a waste of time. But it’s also important to remember that one of art’s primary functions is to connect people. And sometimes the easiest way to bring people together is with simple ingredients. Head-bopping grooves. Operatic melodrama. La la la la la.

You ever notice how, as true masters get older, they start using fewer lines? Fewer flashy tricks? Time is running out. You have something to say? Say it. No frills. No vanity. Straight from the heart. What are you afraid of?

Are you an Okkervil River fan? Do they have more songs that swing this hard? Let me know in the comments below.