Hey folks,
I had a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to write about in this month’s newsletter (what with taking last month off for an actual holiday), but then a thing happened, and as a result I’m afraid this is going to be a rather sombre edition:
This is (was) my beautiful Rottweiler rescue princess, Tia. Due to old age (she was pushing 12/13) and the rapid onset of kidney failure, we had to make the gut-wrenchingly difficult and awful decision to have her put to sleep yesterday.
Right now I’m still firmly in the denial stage – I keep expecting to see her in one of her spots (curled up on a bed in my studio or at the bottom of the stairs) or hear her pitter-pattering around the house. It doesn’t feel real that she’s not here any more.
It’s going to take a while before I can think about her without crying – the way she used to bounce up and down in excitement about going out for WALKIES, the Paddington hard stare she’d give us every time we ordered pizza to try and guilt us into giving her a slice, how she’d roll on her back and be the silliest, most lovable creature alive. The world is a darker, colder place for her absence.
If you have a pet of your own, please give them a big hug and cherish every moment you have with them. You never get enough.
The Usual
I’ll keep the rest of this short because I have an (emotional) dehydration headache – big news this month is that I had a story announced in a new anthology which is currently funding on Kickstarter. The anthology is called Sharp Wit & The Company of Women, it’s being run by the wonderful Extra Pages Press and the premise can be boiled down to: SWORD LADIES from LGBTQIA+ creators. My story is with the phenomenally talented Lauren Knight and coloured by the wonderful JP Jordan, and here’s some more about it:
It’s 6 pages long and intended for anyone who likes a) tattooed guitar girls, b) heavy metal or c) misogynists getting their shit ruined. And if you don’t like any of those things, why are you even reading this newsletter??
You can back the campaign at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/capnbiggles/sharp-wit-and-the-company-of-women – we’re currently just over 50% funded with 27 days remaining, so plenty of time to hit that target (and maybe some stretch goals)!
The Record
- 6-page story for Sharp Wit & The Company of Women written
- Print prep work for Brigantia Vol. 1
- 1 page of lettering/skills hub for The Phoenix
- 4 pages lettered
The anthology story came together remarkably quickly (the only editorial note I received on my first draft was a “Hell yeah” about one of the more dramatic pages) so most of my time has been taken up getting Brigantia Vol. 1 ready for printing. At time of writing, I’ve received the prints and bookplates from the wonderful Comic Printing UK and I believe the book itself is currently in the printing forge being created! It won’t be long now…
The Tunes
Predominantly heavy stuff on this month’s playlist – we’re kicking things off with Wormrot, a grind act from Singapore. 1 minutes and 15 seconds of fury, doesn’t fuck around. Nice. Next is Chat Pile – there are some truly haunting tracks on this release (in particular the last one, grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg) but this track turns a baleful eye on how broken our society is and pummels you with it. Heaviest song I’ve heard this year. Blackbraid is an atmospheric black metal project from an indigenous American musician – I always appreciate people bringing their culture into a genre and it’s even better when the music is this good. Couple of tracks from Japan next – BAND-MAID are a very recent discovery and truly the most insane, Japanese thing you can picture. Basically, they’re a group of cutesy girls who dress up like anime maids, but play heavy rock/metal with some excellent riffs? Similar vibes to Babymetal, except they play the instruments themselves. Wild. They’re followed by Asunojokei, who put out this very unique Japanese spin on atmospheric black metal which I’ve listened to a few times already. Tribulation, one of my favourite bands, are up next with a new track, and they’re followed by a complete 180 turn into classic crooning with Bobby Darin and Beyond the Sea. I binged season 3 of Marvellous Mrs. Maisel earlier in the month – it remains truly fantastic, and also got this track stuck in my head. Faith No More are next with Midlife Crisis – we watched a Youtube video where a classically-trained singer analyses rock/metal vocals and she didn’t know what to make of Mike Patton on this song, hence it’s inclusion here. Falkenbach are a band I’ve liked for a very long time – big, atmospheric synth-metal with similar vibes to Bathory and Summoning, this album soundtracked a very scenic drive I took over to the other side of the country a few weeks ago to buy a new guitar off a private seller. Lastly, we have Cluster, described by Matt Berry (of What We Do in the Shadows and Toast of London fame) as “early electronic nightmares” – I couldn’t not listen to it with a review like that, and I’m pleased to report that he was 100% accurate. It’s also the perfect soundtrack to a horror story I’ve been dabbling with so… thanks, Matt!
The Links
Just one link in here this month, an interesting longer read about visual effects and the way that the film & TV industry has completely and utterly fucked them: https://defector.com/inside-hollywoods-visual-effects-crisis/
The next time you find yourself tempted to complain/laugh about the CGI on a particular show or film – spare a thought for the poor bastard who’s had to spend hours upon hours working on it, only for a fickle director to ask them to scrap it completely and do something different in a quarter of the time with a sixth of the budget..!
That’s all from me this month – take care of yourselves, cuddle your pets, and have a good weekend.
All the best,
Chris