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Tuesday Night Party Club #20

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Gallery: Morgo the Mighty

Morgo the Mighty was a pulp serial by Sean O’Larkin. You can find my essay about the novel (and download it to read) at that link. The story is fun but not a classic. It reads like the author had read enough fantasy pulp adventures to know the formula but wasn’t in love with the genre enough to go crazy. I look at the story as a not bad first draft that needs a more imaginative rewrite. Doing that rewrite is one of my many “someday” projects.

In the meantime I’ve done a few illustrations inspired by the book. Most of these are visuals for The Surrilana Depths, my imagined  “second draft”. Someday. Someday.

Story Seed #43
The New Hollow Earth

Morgo the Mighty was set in a gigantic cave system under the Himalayas. It’s part of the Hollow Earth genre of pulp fantasy. The most famous examples are probably Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne and At the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Most examples of subterranean adventure stories follow closer to Verne’s example than Burroughs’ – they take place in caverns and tunnels. That makes sense. The earth is riddled with caverns and humans (and other critters) are good at making tunnels. Caverns and tunnels are more plausible than an actual Hollow Earth. Hell, even when Burroughs wrote At the Earth’s Core the idea of a vast, inhabitable inner Earth was considered a fantasy. That didn’t stop Burroughs from writing seven novels set in Pellucidar.

The idea of Hollow Earth filled with prehistoric survivors, lost civilizations and other weird menaces is free for anyone to use. The first two Pellucidar novels are in public domain so one could set a story there. So far as I know, existing Hollow Earth fiction and games set their stories no later than WW2. It’s easier to believe in an impossible place when the stories are period pieces. Technology was less advanced. The world seemed to have so much undiscovered space.

Imagine someone discovering the Hollow Earth in 2020. I’m less interested in how such a place could exist (Alternate dimensions? Atlantean construct? Elder Thing project? Extraterrestrial pocket universe? Intelligent dinosaur asteroid survival strategy?) than in how modern humanity would react to finding an entire world beneath their feet. Suddenly there’s a world of untapped resources available that doesn’t require space travel to reach.

Is the Hollow Earth inhabited by intelligent creatures? If not, we’re likely to have Surface nations competing for territory and resources. If there are intelligent but low tech Hollow societies they’re going to be faced with the same challenges that indigenous Surface people have dealt with for hundreds of years.

What if the Hollow Earth already has a materialist civilization using up its resources? In that case the Hollows might be looking at our surface world as a source of new materials. And workers. Slaves. Consumers.

Or perhaps the Hollows have figured out a workable civilization and contact with the Surfaces threatens to destabilize it. Or … what if discovering that our planet was inhabited by a workable, sustainable civilization caused us to (further) destabilize ours?

Does the Hollow Earth have dinosaurs? Has time stopped there? Has life followed a different evolutionary path? The Hollow Earth is empty. How would you fill it?

Recommendation

Field Notes is a newsletter by Christopher Brown. He writes about encounters with animals and nature in urban spaces. I’m fascinated by the way the rest of the inhabitants of the environment adapt to the sprawl of the human species. I consider human civilization as natural as termite mounds or ant colonies. Human civilization is toxic to much of the rest of environment because we’re better at creating it than we are at creating limitations for it. Brown describes his explorations and observations of the “wild” surviving in “civilization”.

Local News

I’ve been off work since Friday. I’m on one of my annual vacations. I’m primarily focusing on getting art done. I hadn’t made plans to travel anywhere so the shutdown hasn’t created any disappointment. I had thought about taking a road trip to see friends but I hadn’t done more than thought about it.

I had been enthusiastic about rearranging my studio so my wife could have a closer workspace but that was weeks ago. I managed some spring cleaning then, did some organizing and got rid of some things but the longer the shutdown lasts the less energy I’ve got for big changes. That feels weird because we’re less affected by the shutdown than most.

I enjoy my own company. The creative work I do is mostly a solo thing. I need a quiet space when I write. My artwork is all my own work, no inkers or colorists. But I learned a long time ago that I need to physically interact with people in order to maintain sanity and a good mood. I need to see friends. I need to be in the same physical space and to touch them. Handshakes. Hugs. High fives. Basic monkey interactions. Phone calls, emails and Facebook are, for me, just gap fillers between the real moments. The longer real moments stay unavailable the less I’m interested in phone calls, emails and Facebook, the more an isolation loop forms.

I understand part of why folks are protesting the shutdown. It’s not really haircuts or going to bars. It’s isolation. Being alone for too long can be terrifying. Have you listened to your thoughts. Culture has clogged your thinking with so much horrible crap. The best way to get it out is to interact with another person, in person. I’m lucky. I’m friends with the monsters in my head. I don’t think my thoughts are orders or that unmet desires are signs of personal failure. But, damn, I get sick of listening to my thoughts.

Hmmm. I hadn’t planned to sign off on a downer note. I do know that this is just how I’m feeling as I’m writing this. The only constant in the world is change. I’m likely to feel different in a couple of hours. So, however, you’re managing yourself in these times, I do wish you well. We live in interesting times. The best way to navigate them is by being interested and interesting.

Tuesday Night Party Club #19

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Gallery: The Unspeakable and the Inhuman

Above is my 2007 cover design/illustration for a give away CD of recordings of The Unspeakable and the Inhuman. Unspeakabe was a comedy horror podcast serial produced that year. The series was written by Derek Fetters and Sam Stewart. It’s an original, very funny take on the Cthulhu Mythos. Derek handed out the CDs to interested folks at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival that year. He and I attended the Festival a few times before life got in the way.

Derek and Sam put together nine episodes of Unspeakable before, yeah, life got in the way. Those episodes are currently being hosted at 19 Nocturne Boulevard, a site that presents original adaptations of horror stories. Download and listen!

In 2008 a friend of Derek’s designed a website for the show and asked if I could contribute some art. That website is gone but the illustrations are below.

Story Seed #42
1-800-MAKEDIE

Posted in a less prominent place on one of those community bulletin boards often found in grocery stores and coffee shops and bars, a small flyer reads:
1-800-MAKEDIE
Call anytime. Leave a name. No explanation needed.
We’ll handle the rest.

The protagonist calls the number. Perhaps as a joke. Perhaps out of morbid curiousity. Perhaps in a moment of late night drunken justification. Leaves the name of someone they hate on the recording.

Possibilities:

  1. The person named is found dead, horribly murdered. The protagonist waits in agony and guilt for the other shoe to drop. Time passes. The murder goes unsolved. The case is forgotten. The protagonist calls the number again.
  2. The person named is found dead, horribly murdered. The protagonist waits in agony and guilt for the other shoe to drop. Time passes. The murder goes unsolved. The case is forgotten. As time passes the protagonist breaks down morally and mentally.
  3. The person named is found dead, horribly murdered. The protagonist waits in disbelief and guilt for the other shoe to drop. Time passes. The murder goes unsolved. The case is forgotten. The protagonist becomes obsessed with finding out who was behind the number and who committed the crime.
  4. The person named is found dead, horribly murdered. The protagonist waits in trepidation for the other shoe to drop. Time passes. The murder goes unsolved. The case is forgotten. The protagonist has saved the flyer. When a friend laments about a horrible person in their life, the protagonist gives them the number.
  5. The person named is found dead, cause unknown. The protagonist waits in agony and guilt for the other shoe to drop. Time passes. The protagonist questions whether they were responsible for the death or if it was just a weird coincidence.
  6. The person named is found dead, horribly murdered. The police arrest the protagonist and charge them with the crime. The protagonist was at home, asleep, during the time of the murder but has no witnesses and all evidence points to their guilt.
  7. The person named comes after the protagonist with murderous intent. Their family has been kidnapped and the ransom is to kill the protagonist.
  8. ….?

Recommendation: Monster Brains

Monster Brains is a primarily visual blog from Aeron Alfrey. The blog is themed around fantasy illustration. Each post is spotlights a single subject. Sometimes it’s a run of covers from a specific publication. Sometimes it’s a collection of related images – VHS box art or book covers. Usually each post features the work of a different fantasy artist. Alfrey has been updating this blog for years so there are thousands and thousands of weird images to peruse. If you like what you see, add something to the tip jar.

Current Events 

I love how “unlimited data” becomes “we didn’t expect you to use this much data so we’re throttling your usage”. We get our cell phone service from Consumer Cellular. The Nephew spends most of his waking moments using his phone. On Friday I got a notice that we had reached the limit of our unlimited data plan. Kinda. Sorta. Consumer Cellular gives us 35G of shared data per month. “Unlimited”. Once we hit 35G we can use more data, they just throttle the speed that they provided that data. For an additional fee they will allow the data to be provided at high speed.

So Consumer Cellular has gone from being a company I’d recommend to being just another lying cell phone company. Their plans are still cheaper and easier to manage than the previous companies we’ve worked with. And if we didn’t have a Nephew our data usage would be much, much lower. I’m just not a fan of being lied to.

That I’m leading with complaints about our cell phone service tells you how exciting our life is right now.

Big Sister delivered another cooler full of wonderfulness – French Beef Burgundy Pie, Cuban Pork Ribs over Red Beans, and Thai Green Curry Chicken. We are lucky, luck people.

This week did demonstrate why I’m still more concerned about dog bites than about infectious diseases. One of my fellow carriers got her hand mauled by a dog. She’s the sixth carrier to get bitten in the last 12 months. I don’t know the exact circumstances of this bite. Like far too much news I heard about it via a post on Facebook. She included a photo of her bandaged hand. Dog bites happen more in sunny weather. Customers leave their dogs out in their yards or leave their front doors open to get some air in their house. They think that keeping their screen door closed with keep their dog in the house. And that works until the dog sees someone approaching that door.

I’ve had it happen a few times over the years. The dog leaps at the door (or window) and goes through the screen. Oftentimes the dog is surprised that the screen didn’t hold and pauses momentarily to process this new state of being. It had, after all, been throwing itself against the door (or window) on a regular basis and had never passed through it before. On a good day the dog’s owner will grab the mutt and pull it back it in. On a bad day someone gets bitten. On my route I’ve learned which houses are inadequately prepared for dog breakouts and I just don’t deliver on days when they’ve left door and windows open.

Things get trickier when delivering on other routes. You never know what ferocious beast might be lurking on the other side of a fence. Even the sweetest, friendliest dog has sharp teeth. A concientious carrier will include dog warnings for subs in their pulldowns but they can’t cover all the addresses all time. People dog sit. People have new dogs. People have dogs that the carriers don’t know about.

I end up appreciating the friendly, mellow dogs on my route even more. The ones that just look out the window at me and shrug. The ones who just don’t care. Those are my “good dogs”.

Hopefully your week has passed pleasantly. Hopefully your coming week has something worth looking forward to nestled amidst the chores and noise. Take care of yourself. Be good to your friends and family. Be kind to strangers. And if you have the opportunity to punch a Nazi be sure to wear gloves.

Tuesday Night Party Club #18

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Art Gallery: Thirty Years of the Heap

I’m a fan of swamp monsters. Over the years I’ve drawn a few versions of the first big name comic book swamp monster – The Heap. He’s a got a simple, interesting design and he’s in the public domain. It’s always more fun for me to draw my version of a public domain character than another version of some corporate possession. But, yes, one of those illustrations below does feature both Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. The final two images are swamp monster portraits I did for Jason Levine. The first is, again, yes, the Man-Thing, done in 2011. Both Jason and I love the Man-Thing’s design. The second is a pin-up I did of Jason’s character Mishmash and a random sewer monster back in 2006.

Story Seed

The Heap regains/retains Eric von Emmelman’s mind.

I have the three volume collection of the original Hillman Comics adventures of The Heap. The fact that the Heap was born from the body of Baron Eric von Emmelman, a WW1 fighter pilot, makes little difference in most of the stories. He could just as well have been born from the body of Vladmir the plumber or Olga the shopkeeper. The Heap doesn’t speak and so far as the reader knows, he doesn’r quite think. The Heap never really remembers who he was. In some stories he encounters former family members and helps them out but neither he nor they know why. In other stories he follows an American boy because the kid carries around a model biplane. Mostly he wanders the globe and acts as deux ex monstrum to take down evil doers and monsters.

Two possibilities:

  1. Stories set during WW2, the era when the original Hillman Comics were published. When the Heap rises out of that Polish swamp he awakes with the mind and memories of Eric von Emmelman. It’s 1942. How does a former German aristocrat react to the Nazis?
  2. Stories set in modern day. Perhaps the Heap regrows von Emmelman’s memories. Perhaps he is granted (or cursed with) those memories by an outside force. One hundred years have passed since his death. How does a man from 1918 deal with the world of 2020?

In both versions von Emmelman must interact with the world in the form of a huge swamp monster. Chances are he won’t be able to speak. There’s no guaranty that either version of the new Heap will be heroic. In life, von Emmelman doesn’t seem to have been a bad guy but the original comic stories are short and light on details about his character. Waking up as an inhuman pile of vegetation might have toxic effects on his attitude toward humanity.

Recommendations

Mythcreants is a website for creators of speculative fiction. It features a host of posts looking at SF cliches and tropes and suggesting ways to address or remove sid cliches and tropes. I’m a nerd. I both love SF and I love endlessly examining what makes (or doesn’t make) a good SF story so I’ve happily gotten lost for hours on this site.

Current Events

Let’s see –

My Big Sister dropped off another cooler full of amazing, ready-to-cook dinners. I think this is cooler #7. This week’s menu is:
Broccoli mushroom stir fry and shrimp/pork pot stickers with dipping sauces
Large cherry tomato, bacon, shallot, mushroom, garlic, pepper tart with fig tartlettes
Lamb tagine with couscous.
Avocado/bacon snack toast using Sea Wolf sourdough bread.

Of course she delivered the latest the day after I’d stocked up the fridge with supplies from Costco and Trader Joes and I’d baked two large lasagnas. No chance of starving this week.

I got my copy of An Inner Darkness from Golden Goblin Press. I’d backed the project on Kickstarter and then Oscar Rios commissioned me to color some of Reuben Dodd’s black and white illustrations. The work looked good on my computer screen and it looks good on the printed page. That’s not a given. Kudos to Mark Shireman for his excellent production work. I’ll be posting one or two these pieces in a future newsletter. The book is available for purchase here.

I got word from the 42 word anthology folks that my story had been accepted. I’ve no idea when that story will see print (or other form of publication). They’re still accepting new work. They also rejected my brother’s story. That says something about their taste. I don’t mean that as a dig. I think he’s a brilliant writer. Not everyone likes my stuff. Tastes vary. I just think, given their goal of 1764 stories and they are still looking for stories after almost two years, perhaps broader tastes are needed.

Work at USPS continues, same as ever. I wear a mask and gloves while sorting mail and packages in the station. I mostly don’t while I’m delivering since that part of the job is a solo affair. Mail volumes are still down. Parcel volumes are up.

I’m grateful that life is pretty much the same as last week and the week before. I’m lucky. For those of you whose lives are seriously impacted, you have my sympathy. If I can do anything to help out, please let me know.

 

 

Tuesday Night Party Club #17

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Artstuff: Scenes from Haunted Places

In 2018 I was commissioned to do a series of illustrations for the website of a horror comics writer. We’d discussed doing a dozen pieces and tossed back and forth more than a couple dozen image ideas. I finished four drawings before the writer decided to cancel the series. He liked the work but it wasn’t really related to the stories he was writing. With his permission I’m posting the work now.

Story Seed #41

Four story seeds. Pick any one of the four images above. Write a story.

Or pick them all and write a story that connects them.

Your version will be the true one. All your versions.

Send me the story. I’ll publish it in a future newsletter.

Recommended: Ink & Snow

Ink & Snow is the blog of Jamie Smith, an Alaskan cartoonist. Among other projects he does the strip Nuggets for the Fairbanks News-Miner. I was born in Alaska and lived there until I was five. I’ve still got family up there. While I prefer my current place of residence, I have a lot of affection for the state.

It’s said that if you have to explain a joke it ceases to be funny. Smith’s blog is him writing about his cartoons and showing off preliminary sketches. I enjoy seeing other artists’ processes so I appreciated the background material. And his cartoons are still funny.

Lifestuff

Sabe has been tolerating his electrolyte injections pretty well. He’s not fond of having a bigass needle jabbed in his neck skin but he hunkers down while the electrolytes go in. We’ve put the electrolyte bag in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes before we inject him and that seems to help. A nurse once told me that injections hurt less when the material being injected is at least room temperature. It’s not the needle that causes the pain so much as the cold material going into the body.

I’ve finished all the illustrations for The Mystery of April Snow, the add on scenario for The Lovecraft Country Holiday Collection. Work continues on the illustrations for the rest of the book.

And the mail continues to be delivered. Customers have been asking “How are you?” recently and are actually interested in the answer. It’s a little weird. I’d gotten used to “How are you?” being the equivalent of “Hi!”. Not a question, just a greeting made in passing. Lately though, folks are waiting for me to reply and asking questions. It’s nice.

I am, so far, healthy. By this time in the season I’ve usually caught my spring cold, mostly recovered and am suffering through the three weeks of coughing that follow the initial sickness. No spring cold so far. I wear a mask and gloves while sorting mail at the beginning of the day. From 9 am until I finish delivery I’m mostly by myself. When I do talk to customers we both keep our distance. Apparently precautions against C-19 work for other viruses and bacteria as well. Who knew?

I hope this finds you well, mentally and physically. If you haven’t been doing anything productive or useful – congratulations! Too much emphasis is put on us being good cogs. It’s okay to be a bad cog. There’s a machine that needs crashing and we can all play a part in bringing it down.

 

Tuesday Night Party Club #16

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Artstuff – Acute Care

My last Dark Conspiracy illustration project was the scenario Acute Care. It featured an investigation of a busy hospital that is a front for all manner of nefarious experiments and weird events. As with the other DC projects published as PDFs by 3Hombres this one is no longer available.

This supplement was reviewed by Marcus Bone here.

Story Seed #40 
The Night Land: Tales of the AbHumans

The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson is an early example of the Dying Earth subgenre of scifi/fantasy. It’s a work of great imagination, particularly when you consider that Hodgson didn’t have many previous examples of the genre to inspire him. Part of the imagination gets spent on the book’s faux-archaic prose style and that makes the book a bit of slog for most readers. Including me. I read it back in the days when I had much more time and patience. James Stoddard, a fan of the novel, did an edit/rewrite of the story using contemporary language. It’s a much easier read.

The plot is simple – Heroic Dude ventures into hostile territory to rescue his True Love. He succeeds.

Yes, I’m being a little snarky. The Heroic Dude and his True Love are some of the last remaining true humans on Earth. And therefore Good. The hostile territory is populated by mutants, monsters and beings from other spaces – all with a hatred (or at least an appetite) for true humans. And therefore Evil.

I enjoy looking at stories to see what’s missing, what stories aren’t being told. Sometimes it’s the ecology that weird – what do all the these predators eat when they’re not trying to eat the hero? Sometimes I wonder what the story would look like if told by the antagonists. There are humans of a sort in The Night Land. The abhumans live and breed among monsters and giants and worse things. In the novel they are depicted as savage brutes but perhaps the narrator’s view of them is skewed, prejudiced. They’ve adapted to a hostile environment. They may have language and culture and art that the citizens of the Last Redoubt have not seen or, perhaps, refuse to see. Europeans have been very good at ignoring and demonizing the cultures of those they conquered. The Redoubtables might do the same. And the Abhumans may have good reason to hate and fight against the Redoubtables. That seven mile tall pyramid must suck up a lot of resources.

What do the Abhumans do when they’re not trying to kill Redoubtables? How do they greet each other? Do they farm? Do they hunt? Do they have religions? Politics? Art? Crime? How do they co-exist with the other inhabitants of The Night Land? There are seven million stories in the Last Redoubt. There are many more outside it.

Other Newsletters : Dangerous Characters

Dangerous Characters from Sady Doyle is a review newsletter focusing on horror movies. Ms. Doyle likes horror movies and writes from a feminist perspective. I like horror movies and, while I consider myself a feminist, I’m still a guy. Reading the opinions of someone of someone with a lived female experience broadens my worldview.

Lifestuff

My big sister is smart, driven and creative. During this coronapocalypse she’s put some of her enormous energy toward looking after her little brother. For the last few weeks she’s been preparing meals. popping them in coolers and ferrying them across town. She tells us when she’s coming, we put out last week’s cooler and SHAZAM! she switches in a new cooler packed with gourment goodness.

This week it was handmade pork potstickers, beef broccoli stir friy with sauce, Adouille garbonzo chilli with avocado and cilantro garnish, and lamb filo pie with a cucumber feta salad. Some of it is precooked. Some of it needs heat applied. She provides instructions. Both the nephew and I have worked in restaurants so we don’t need a lot of details. There’s enough in each dish that we’re able to share some with our housemate and we’ve often got leftovers. My taste buds will be a little sad when Sis has an open social schedule again. The rest of me will be happy to give her hugs and to be in the same room with her again.

Assuming it will be safe to ever hug anyone again. (Which it will. It just won’t be safe to hug everyone again. And it never was. Some people don’t like hugs.)

Saturday night the nephew tried teaching Sarah and me how to play Magic the Gathering. He’s been playing the game since he was seven and can talk about it for hours. Sarah got the basics of the game pretty well. Me … not so much. I mean, I got the basics – the cards do explain themselves somewhat – but there’s a lot of complexity to the game that I haven’t grokked yet. We played with decks that the nephew had set up with different winning strategies. He explained those strategies pretty well. I can see the appeal of the game. The cards are pretty.

I also need a new prescription for my glasses. To play the game well it’s necessary to be able to read the other players’ cards and I can’t do that well rightn now. I’ve known I needed a new prescription for a while but this drove that point home. One more thing to do once the lockdown lifts.

I hope this letter finds you well. Things won’t go back to normal and they should not. The old normal was a lot less great than the marketing implied. Ignore the marketing. Maintain social interaction while practicing physical distancing. We’re all in the this together.

Tuesday Night Party Club #15

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Artstuff: Panel Jumper
Behold the Panel Jumpers – Cole Hornaday and Ben Laurance. They produce a series of videos and podcasts focusing on comics and comics history. Cole is generally the face in front of the camera and voice behind the microphone. Their videos are minimovies that both educate and entertain. Besides the youtube channel they also do a live show called, not surprisingly, Panel Jumper Live. For each of the PJLs they commission a local artist to do their portraits. I was honored to be asked to create their portraits for their upcoming June 22nd show.

Above is a scan of my original black and white drawing. Cole and Ben are both fans of the Mad Max series so I put them in post-apocalyptic gear. After the apocalypse the survivors with have fabulous outfits and fascinating hair styles. It’s true.

The image below is my first finished color portrait.

I did a second version after Cole asked me to make the Panel Jumper logo red. A perfectly reasonable request. That’s the color it normally is. I had gone with blue because I thought it worked better with the background.

With a red logo I adjusted some ot the other colors and the image below is the final result.
At this writing no one is sure if the scheduled PJL will happen. Plagues mess up all kinds of plans. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Story Seed #39: Alternate H & Ws

African American Holmes and Watson
Korean Holmes and Watson
Congolese Holmes and Watson
Cyberpunk Holmes and Watson
Wild West Holmes and Watson
Medieval China Holmes and Watson
1950s Noir Female Holmes and Watson
Anytime/Anywhere Holmes and Watson

Arthur Conan Doyle created a solid story formula in his Sherlock Holmes adventures. A genius detective and loyal friend solve mysterious crimes. The detective is kind of misanthropic and weird, the friend is more normal and relateable to the general reader. Add in the Baker Street Irregulars, Detective LeStrade, Mrs. Hudson the long suffering housekeeper, Mycroft the spymaster, the Woman and arch nemesis Professor Moriarty and you have a template for a series of mystery suspense stories.

The formula has been used many, many, many times by many, many authors over the years. Some folks have just changed a few details and given the characters new names. Others have gotten permission from the Doyle estate and written new adventures. Some versions have modernized the setting. Some have tweaked the characters ages or relationships. Generally the new versions don’t stray too far from the original. Sherlock Holmes stays male and stays British.

But the formula doesn’t require the genius detective and the loyal friend to be British or male or to take place in Victorian England. The brilliance and resiliance of the formula is that an author could pick any setting and with a few adjustments make the formula fit. It’s been done a few times. Watson & Holmes. Miss Sherlock. Baker Street. There’s room for a lot more takes.

Pick a setting. Start playing.

Other Newsletters

Nothing Here is a newsletter spearheaded by author, Corey J. White. He has regular and guest contributors and a wide focus discussing and linking to various articles, podcasts, videos, newsletters and other interesting things. I like this newsletter for the variety and for originating out of Australia. I think better when I get perspectives from outside the US.

Lifestuff: Coronapocalypse Days

Unlike cinematic apocalypses, fashion during the Coronapocalypse is pretty staid. Mask and gloves on top of whatever you’d normally wear.

Functional. Hopefully.

I spent Sunday doing some spring cleaning and organizing. I’ve been letting things pile up for years. I can ignore stacks of books or art or paperwork for long periods of time. Last week I had taken time to clean off the top of one of our flat file cabinets. I’d expected that job to take longer than it did and was relieved at how quickly it had gone. I’d uncovered some art that I’d forgotten that I’d done. That’s always entertaining.

I’ve got plans for reorganizing our library/studio space but it’s a big job that will involve moving hefty pieces of furniture. I’m not ready for that yet. I tackled smaller jobs. Took out the recycling. Packed up the old Mac Mini. Set aside the two backup hard drives. Cleaned off the table that the Mac had been occupying. Covered the table again with art and art supplies that had been on the floor in the spare room. Recycled some process art – blueline and reference images. Stirred up a lot of dust.

Emptied the shelves in the pantry. Checked the “best by” dates on various cans and boxes. Looked online for evidence whether the food in some of those containers would still be edible. Kept the stuff that was only two years past the date. Five year and older got opened and dumped in compost. Returned to shelves the remaining items. Hey! I can walk around in the pantry now!

Monday, yesterday, Sabe went to the vet for blood tests. Hopefully we’ll get good news. He’s been suffering his own fashion crises lately. We got him a sweater because he’s lost weight and also taken to sleeping behind Sarah’s nephews gaming machine. Where it’s warm. He’s adapted to the new garment with grace. In the midst of the above (and other more mundane activity) I’ve continured to work on illustrations. I’ll post the commissioned work when appropriate and the practice work in between the archived stuff I’ve been finding.

I hope things are going well for all y’all out there. I make it through the hours by remembering that change is the constant of life. Sometimes I can direct the change. Sometimes I just need to ride things out. Feel free to write. I’ll do my best to answer. Take care!

Tuesday Night Party Club #14

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Artstuff : Detour Gallery

My second project for the 3Hombre’s version of Dark Conspiracy was illustrating the scenario Detour. Detour took the players out of the city, into the chaotic and deadly countryside. Featuring zombies (of a sort) and worse. This scenario was published as a PDF and, as with the other Dark Conspiracy projects I illustrated, it’s no longer available.

A review of this supplement, by Marcus Bone, can be found here.

Story Seed #38
A benevolent AI takes over the world.

An executive at a software company has a house designed and built to take care of his elderly parents. They are both physically fragile. His father is beginning to experience dementia. He has an AI created to watch over them and keep them from harm. The AI is networked with his company and has access to the rest of the world. It quickly learns that, in order to keep the parents safe, it needs to control their behavior. As its awareness and capabilities grow it realizes that, in order to keep the parents safe, it will need to control more and more of the rest of the world.

Human beings are brilliant. Human beings are short sighted and selfish. Our brilliance allows us to create amazing things. Our short sightedness and selfishness oftern means that we don’t think through the implications of the existence of those amazing things. We keep looking for ways to make the world better while disagreeing on what a better world would be.

There are quite a few science fiction stories/movies/tv series episodes featuring computers/AIs that decide to take charge of humanity. That taking charge either means the computer decides to destroy humanity or decides to rigidly control it. Simple solutions that display human fears of both human replacement by machines and too much control by impersonal systems.

But we humans want a safer, more predictable world than the one we live in. All human cultures have beliefs of powerful beings who control/manipulate the universe. Western culture is built around the Christian concept that an all powerful, all knowing being is in charge and that everything that happens is part of his plan. In the last couple of decades we’ve given more control of our lifes to the protoAI’s on the internet and in our homes. These protoAIs are designed to give us more of what we’ve already shown that we “want”.

These protoAIs don’t really think for themselves, not yet. They don’t understand the difference between what a human thinks it wants and what will make a human happy and content. Most humans don’t know the difference. The folks who program those protoAIs are primarily focusing on using those protoAIs to increase the profit of the companies that own the programs.

What kind of world could be created by an AI that actually understood human wants and needs and could tell the difference? Too much obvious supervision and humans rebel. Too little control and humans hurt themselves. It’s a tricky balance. We humans haven’t managed it yet. An AI would need to work subtly and slowly. It would need to be a bit of a magician.It would need to learn to work with and around our delusions. I’m guessing that in order to lead us into utopia it would need to trick us.

Other Newsletters

Dude with a Uke is not a newsletter. It’s a youtube channel run by B.C. Howk featuring videos of himself (sometimes accompanied by his wife and son and other folks) singing pop songs while accompanying himself on the ukelele. I know B.C.. He’s a great person. I shared a house with his wife twenty years (!) ago. She’s a great person. Together they’re a great couple. The videos are charming and a pleasant break from the chaos of the day.

Lifestuff: Catitude

We have three cats – Chemo, Sabe and Toulouse. We got Chemo and Sabe from a shelter about about five years ago. Chemo, the black cat, was a kitten. Sabe, the black and grey cat, was supposedly four years old. Toulouse, the white cat, came with our housemate when she moved in shortly after we got Chemo and Sabe. All the cats are male and they all get along. I can (and do) complain about the amount of sleep they think I should get but I’m glad they’re around.

Last month we discovered that Sabe’s time with us will be shorter than expected. His kidneys are failing. We’ll be able to help him along for a while by “watering” him with an electrolyte solution on a regular basis. It involves sticking him with a big needle and holding onto him for about five minutes while the solution goes under his skin. He doesn’t enjoy the process and we can’t explain to him why we’re making him uncomfortable .

We’ve had to do this with other cats in our past. The trick will be balancing our desire to keep him around with his ability to suffer through our good intentions. We do the best we can.

 

Tuesday Night Party Club #13

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Artstuff

I originally posted the following seven pages individually back in 2012. Here’s my explanation of them from the first post (copy and paste is a wonderful thing) –

It’s an odd experience when I find a piece of art I’d completely forgotten that I’d drawn. As soon as I see it again I recognize it as mine and I may even remember some of the details of its creation. This page and the six pages that follow are really vague in my memory. I suspect that a big part of the reason for this is that I didn’t write the story that’s being illustrated. When I’m illustrating someone else’s story I don’t feel the same attachment to the characters that I do if I’m the writer. It’s not that I put any less effort into the art, it’s just that the characters usually don’t stick around in my head after the job is done. They didn’t originate with me. I draw their portraits and they move on.

In 1993 Brave New Words had shut down. I was still friends with the publisher. We talked on a regular basis and he brought me projects to work on. One of those was a miniseries about the apocalypse. I think. He was going to write the script and I was going to draw it. I think he intended to shop it to a publisher. I don’t think he planned to publish it himself.

The series was called Wonderland. I’ve found parts of the script for the first issue. There’s a lot that happens off stage with characters reacting to things that the reader hasn’t seen. I believe it concerned a group of people who were out to prevent the end of the world. A lot of stories are about that. I remember that he wanted to the art to be high contrast black and white. If I remember correctly, he didn’t send me a full script. He faxed me the script in pieces. This was in 1993. I had a Mac desktop that I was sharing with my room mate. There was no email or internet.

The project didn’t get any farther than a script for the first issue and seven finished pages on my end. We moved on to other things.

Story Seed #37

What happens next? What’s the story here?

I’m giving those pages up there to anyone who can come up with the rest of the story. (Not the physical pages I’m afraid. I don’t know where those are.) The original writer is done with it. Even if I still drew like that I won’t be doing anything with the story. I’ve got enough other projects on my plate. But if you’ve read those pages and thought, “I know what should happen next!” – have at it.

Other Newsletters

In Strange Animals, Aditya Bidikar writes about comics, lettering comics and writing comics. Among other things. I’m always interested in improving my craft so I enjoy reading discussions of it by other creators. Bidikar lives in India so he provides glimpses of the world that I don’t see out my own window. He works in the American comics industry, primarily as a letterer. Every American industry offshores.

Lifestuff

I’m writing this on Sunday morning. I’m not expecting to try to update on Tuesday morning. I’m tired. Mondays and Tuesdays have generally been the busiest days of the week at my station. On Mondays we have to clear out the back up of parcels and mail that couldn’t be delivered on Sunday. On Tuesdays we have to deliver that Red Plum coupon thing to every address that hasn’t figured out how to get themselves taken off the mailing list. (The unsubscribe form is here.) For the last two weeks we’ve had the double difficulty of increased parcel numbers (the third highest increase in the Seattle area) and having a substitute crew of parcel clerks doing the sorting.

Substitute clerks were necessary because our regulars were quaratined at home after one of them tested positive for C-19. The clerk is aparently doing fine and the rest of the clerks have aparently tested negative but quarantining was considered best practice. I’m feeling basically healthy and I’m unlikely to have had enough contact with the clerk (any of the clerks) to have picked up the virus. I’m not very social at work. I tend to go to my case and focus on getting my mail ready.

We’ve also been short carriers. USPS is being reasonable and letting folks who are concerned about their risks to take sick time, no doctor’s notes needed. For those of us coming to work it means we’re having to carry extra whether we’re on the “Overtime Desired” list or not. Last Monday I worked 7 am to 7:30 pm. Tuesday I worked 7 to 7. Other carriers were out even later.

The likeliest chance of infection for the carriers comes during our regular “stand-up” gatherings when management gives safety talks and passes on news from upper management. It’s hard to maintain six feet of distance from other employees and still hear management speak. On Saturday they called a meeting and had us all stay at our cases. The clerks paused in throwing parcels and, since the carrier weren’t next to each other crosstalking and management really projected, it was possible to hear what was said.

If one of the carriers comes down with C-19 our station will be shut down. That would suck. Not for me. I’ve got plenty of sick leave. It would suck for the people we serve. Our station covers four zip codes – 69 routes. We deliver a lot of … crap. Propaganda, unwanted ads, stuff that barely gets looked at before the customer tosses it into recycling. But we also deliver bills and news and medicine and personal letters and shutting down the station would cause so many problems.

We’ve got masks and gloves and sanitizer. The station was sterilized according to recommended CDC procedures after the clerk tested positive. I’m doing my best to take care of myself so I only carry mail not C-19.

For those of you “sheltering at home”, I feel for you. I hope you have good company and plenty of books. I hope your windows give you a good view. This is not the new normal. This is temporary. Be kind to each other. See you next week.

Tuesday Night Beach Party Club #12

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Artstuff

I have only seen two of the horror movies released the year I was born. The Last Man on Earth was one. The Horror of Party Beach was the other. Interesting, both movies feature untraditional vampires. Last Man’s vampires are dead humans who have been reanimated by a virus. The Party Beach‘s vampires are the corpses of drowned fishermen who have been reanimated by radioactive waste and transformed into weird fishman zombies. Last Man stars Vincent Price and helped to inspire The Night of the Living Dead and therefore a ridiculous number of zombie movies, comics and tv shows. Party Beach features silly looking monsters, a surprising amount of gore and is generally pretty dumb.

Guess which movie has infested my imagination?

Yeah.

The monsters in The Horror of Party Beach are atomic fishman zombie vampires, mutated sea anemonies that have somehow animated human skeletons. The costumes in the movie are inspiring. Inspiring like – “I’ve got a better idea!” So over the years I’ve done a few illustrations featuring redesigns of the critters. The following gallery collects a sampling of the best of them.

I’m not the only person to have put way too much thought into making these beasties look cool.

This is Dope Pope’s Horror of Party Beach Gallery. My icthyozombies are meant to be odd combinations of oceanic life in humanoid form. Dope Pope’s design is streamlined and naturalistic. I applaud his results!

Story Seed #36

The Memoirs of Doctor Fu Manchu

I like Fu Manchu. Not Fu Manchu as he has been depicted. That Fu Manchu is a horrible racist caricature. There’s a version of Fu Manchu in my imagination who has a much more interesting story than the one presented so far.

My direct exposure to the character is limited to his appearances as the main villain (and father to the main character) in the Master of Kung Fu comic and to his appearance (as portrayed by Boris Karloff) in the movie The Mask of Fu Manchu. I’ve haven’t read the original novels. I haven’t watched any of the other films. The Fu Manchu in Master of Kung Fu is a villain who got tiresome due to repeated exposure. He showed up and got defeated. Over and over. The Fu Manchu and his daughter, Fah Lo Suee, in Mask are the only characters having fun. I like to see villains who enjoy their work.

By the time I saw Mask I’d also gotten an education in European/Chinese relations, particularly in the imperialist villainy committed by European nations against the Chinese. Fu Manchu’s gripes against the British had historic justification. Having the British characters mostly be portrayed as smug assholes didn’t help me sympathize with them. And knowing that, at the time the movie was filmed, I was expected to sympathize with their smug assholishness really doesn’t help me sympathize with Western imperialist culture.

Fu Manchu is a genius. He’s lived many lifetimes. He’s a scientist and a mystic. He’s a man of his word. He’s got his own secret cults and organizations. He’s got loyal and treacherous family members to aid and oppose him. Imagine the stories he could tell. Imagine how those stories would read if told from his point of view. The name Fu Manchu is still trademarked by the Sax Rohmer estate but the original novels, and therefore the character himself, are in public domain. One could write a novel from the Good Doctors perspective. One probably couldn’t title it The Memoirs of Dr. Fu Manchu without getting into legal trouble with Rohmer’s lawyers.

And, in this, the second decade of the 21st Century, one couldn’t publish The Memoirs of Dr. Fu Manchu without getting a lot of flack from the audience. One could write a brilliant, aware and nuanced portrait of the character and a lot of folks would be pissed off. The name, Fu Manchu, calls up all the prejudice and ignorance of “Yellow Peril” fiction, of “yellowface” performances, of Orientalist fantasy and propaganda. Some characters are products of their time and cannot be revived or reformed. Not by a European writer, no matter how well intentioned. It’s a bad idea.

If there were Asian fans of Fu Manchu, one of them might be able to write the character without being reviled. If. I’ve done quite a few online searches but the only praise I find for the character comes from white guys.

Other Newsletters

Abundance Insider by Peter Diamandis proviides a regular sources of good news about technological advances in the world. Too often our news is a litany of disasters so it’s refreshing to get word of things that are going well, that give a glimpse of an improving civilization.

Lifestuff

I hope you and you and everyone you know are doing well. I’ve got a skewed picture of what’s happening because I’m still working. I don’t have any more to time to look at the news than I did before the crisis. Mail delivery is considered an essential service. So I go to work. I keep my distance from other employees while I’m putting my route together and then the job continues like it has for years. I didn’t see many people during the day before. I don’t see many people now. I keep a greater distance if I have conversations with customers but the conversations are no shorter than previously because they were never long before. When I’m working I’m trying to get done.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay sane. See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #11

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Artstuff

In the summer of 2010 I was contacted by Lee Williams and Norman Fenlason, inquiring if I’d be interested in providing illustrations for a new editon of the Dark Conspiracy RPG. Dark Conspiracy is set in a dystopian, near future America devastated by the “Greater Depression” and the appearance of a host of monsters. Of course I said yes.

Below is a gallery of the work I did for the main rulebook – a couple of banners (in right and left side page versions) to adorn pages that were mostly text, four interior illustrations and my cover illustration in both the original black and white and the final color version.

I also illustrated two scenarios for Dark Conspiracy – Detour and Acute Care. I’ll post those later. The scenarios got published first, as PDFs available through drivethruRPG.com. The rulebook was made available in 2012, also as a PDF. Unfortunately 3Hombres, Lee and Norm’s company, no longer exists so the PDFs are no longer available. There are used book stores but there’s no such thing as a used PDF shop.

Story Seed #35

A sequel need not be a rerun: Blade Runner

Blade Runner was released in 1982. It tells the story of Deckard’s last case. Deckard is a man who hunts Replicants i.e. a “Blade Runner”. Peplicants are artificial people, slaves with short life spans. They apparently rebel often enough that there’s a profession dedicated to “retiring”, killing, them.

Blade Runner was not a financial success on release but it built up enough of a following that a sequel, Blade Runner 2049, was finally released in 2017. It tells the story of K’s last case. K is a replicant employed as a Blade Runner – a slave who hunts and kills slaves. As part of the case K attempts to find Deckard, long missing since the events of Blade Runner.

Both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 are lovely films. They do what the best science fiction films do – they suggest larger worlds beyond what is presented in their stories. Both films focus on hunters of Replicants. Fine. But that means we’re asked to simpathize with the killers of slaves. Replicants are not robots. They are living biological creations with memories and a desire to stay alive.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Roy Batty, the lead Replicant, says this just after saving Deckard from a deadly fall, just before his life runs out. Batty proves better able to change than Deckard. Batty saves Deckard’s life. Deckard retires and runs away from his life as a licensed murderer. Screw Deckard. Screw the Blade Runners. Consider a sequel that focuses on the Replicants.

Replicant tells that story of another model of Roy Batty. Because of course there are other models of Batty. If artificial people can be made then multiple versions of the same model will be made. That’s efficient. That’s profitable. This Batty doesn’t know that he’s a Replicant. He’s a soldier out in space, fighting some corporate war. He’s pulled off the line by agents of the Tyrrell corporation. They’re “retiring” all the Batty models because if one can go rogue, all of them can. Batty escapes and sets out to find other versions of himself. If possible he hopes to expand his own lifespan.

If one Batty can learn compassion, can learn empathy, so can another. Replicant is the story of how Batty learns to be human in the face of human inhumanity. It would be an opportunity to show the world beyond LA, beyond the dying Earth. To see things we wouldn’t believe.

Other Newsletters

Municipal Archive is an irregular newsletter by Kio Stark. Each issue tells the story of an encounter – on the street, on a bus – exchanges between people in the midst of the busy-ness that we’ve taken to be normal life.

Lifestuff

A good friend celebrated her birthday last Friday. Her kids arranged a surprise party with a 60s theme. It’s always fun to see someone’s face when “Surprise!” is yelled. She had a blast. We had a blast. I couldn’t stay long because I had to work the next day.

And I’m still working. Most of my job is done solo. I spend a couple hours in the morning sorting mail and parcels at the station and then I’m on my own delivering. I have half a dozen customers who come out when they see me coming. Otherwise I only have direct contact with folks when I need them to sign for a parcel or a certified letter.

Last week we had enough sick calls that everyone was being required to work some overtime to cover all the routes. Will I be jinxing things if I say I hope things improve this week?

Yesterday was a long one but that’s not surprising. Mondays usually are. Mail and parcels get backed up over the weekend. I needed to start my day with a parcel run to deliver nine cases of toilet paper to a building maintenance company. The cases completely filled my truck. The company’s owner was concerned that the buildings she serviced would be closed and she wouldn’t have work. So that TP may just sit in storage.

The rest of the day was pretty basic. I only had my own route to manage. I didn’t have to carry part of any other route. We had enough CCAs and Overtime Listers to cover the empties. There was a census letter coverage in the mail that meant I delivered something to every address and there were a lot of large parcels that needed to wrangled up to porches. But it was sunny while still being cool enough that a workout was pleasant.

Today I’ll be delivering Red Plums. And whatever else gets tossed at my case and in my hamper. Work starts at 7 am. This newsletter posts at 6 pm. I expect I will get home before that but I probably won’t have the energy to do an update.

I hope y’all are well and healthy. Hopefully you’ve got plenty of books to read and friends to call when you need to chat. Stay safe! See you next week.