Tag Archives: Golden Goblin Press

Skook Words (and Pictures) #34

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Greetings and Salutations!

It’s good to see you! You’re looking well. Someday you must share the secrets of your success!

These Days …

Our new housemate is all moved in. He’s brought a cat with him. So far it spends most of its time in his room but it has begun venturing into the greater universe of the apartment. Its expeditions have been short. Our cats are getting used to the idea that there is another four legged being in their world. They are mostly respecting the threshold to our housemate’s room as border not to be crossed. No wars have broken out.

The weather is getting cooler. A little rain has fallen. We’ve managed to be a little bit social. On Wednesday we visited with friends who were in town from Taiwan. We’ve know them for years, having met them before their move to the Republic of China. We hadn’t seen them in about three and a half years so there was a lot of catching up to do.

The day job continues to be the day job. I’m continuing to carry a little extra. Lately I’ve been volunteering to deliver the express mail for the 98106 zip code. (We serve four zip codes in our station. Besides 98106 we carry for 98126, 98136 and 98146.) This has me travel more than if I’m delivering part of a specific route. Express mail usually arrives after I’m already out delivering my own route so I have to go back to the station to pick it up. I like the variety of the task. The number of expresses and the amount of driving required is different every day. One day I had only two parcels but they were miles apart. Another time I had five parcels to going to addresses in a four block area. Some days none of the packages require customer signatures before delivery. Some days all of them do.

Cathulhu

Last week I turned in what I thought was my last illustration for the updated edition of Cathulhu and was almost immediately commissioned for three more. Yay!

Tails of Valor from Golden Goblin Press was my first Cathulhu job. I illustrated that book back in 2019. I shared my illustrations for two scenarios last week (one set in ancient Rome) and the week before (one set in ancient Egypt). This week I’m sharing my illustrations for the final scenario.

The Undesirables (set in Dark Ages France) by Oscar Rios
The cats of Paris struggle to survive in a city driven mad with fear. The streets are filled with the dead, the dying, and the terrified as a deadly and mysterious plague runs rampant. The church places the blame on Satan, black magic, witches, and their familiars… namely cats. As a purge of such undesirables begins, will the cats put a stop to the actual witches spreading this vile pestilence, or seek to escape the city and reach the countryside?

I have two more posts worth of illustrations from the Tails of Valor project queued up, one next week and one the week after.

The Process GIF

Bzzzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Means “Glad to see you!”

This design can be found on all sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Thank you for reading. May the next seven days treat you kindly. May you have continued success in the endeavors that matter to you most. May you get the rest you need and may you, on occasion, be surprised by joy.

See you next Friday!

Tuesday Night Party Club #29

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Gallery: Coloring An Inner Darkness

An Inner Darkness is one of Golden Goblin Press’s supplements for the Call of Cthulhu RPG. The scenarios deal as much with real, historical human evil as they do with the spectres of the Cthulhu Mythos. The book is profusely illustrated by Reuben Dodd. As production on the book neared completion, I was asked to color one of the illustrations in each scenario for a total of six. Mr. Dodd does fine color work but he’d already moved on to other projects. The editor, Oscar Rios, sent me tifs of the chosen illustrations and I set to work.
This is the first time I’ve colored anyone else’s artwork.The illustrations are clearly designed to be in black and white. So the trick was to add color without having that color clash with the linework – enhance not compete. For this specific illustration I started by chosing a set of flat colors that I thought emphasized the depressing nature of the situation – yellows, greys and sickly green. Once the main colors were chosen I added light greytones to indicate shadow and contour. I used the orignal linework as a guide for my light source. I’m happy with the results. I’m even happier that Reuben liked them too.

Story Seed #48
This Face Knows Your Secrets

A wealthy businessman turns himself in to the authorities. He’s come to confess his involvement in a money laundering scheme. It had started out simply, just cooking books, some shady investments, but it grew to covering up greater crimes including kidnapping and murder. The businessman is terrified. Not of his partners. They’re scary people but they’re just people. He’s afraid of the Face he sees in every reflective surface. The Face that stares at him knowingly from the windows of the building across the street. The Face that mouths truths to him before he can look away. The Face that no one else sees. 

The Face was a crime fighter from the early days of comic books. From 1940 to 1946, reporter Terry Trent would put on a fright mask and go beat up bad guys. Other than a scary disguise, Trent had no super powers. Due to the vagaries of copyright The Face is a public domain character.

I’m suggesting a couple different new versions:

  1. The Face is an actual supernatural entity. It appears before evildoers and torments them until they, out of fear and greed and their own stupidity, are undone. Sometimes they turn themselves in. Sometimes they destroy themselves trying to escape the Face. The Face rarely appears physically. Mostly it manifests as shadow or a reflection where there should be neither. Sometimes it’s a voice telling secrets. Perhaps it has been summoned by one of the evildoers victims. Perhaps it picks its targets on its own.
  2. The Face is the creation of a team of actors, hackers, make-up and special effects artists who use it to bring justice to those too rich and powerful for the law to successfully prosecute. Perhaps they originally created the character to get revenge on one untouchable man and then, once they succeeded, they decided to go after other targets. Their M.O. is similar to the supernatural version of the Face, they work to get evildoers to undo themselves.

Recommendation – Zebragirl

Zebragirl by Joe England is/was one of the first webcomics I followed. It tells the tale of Sandra Eastlake after her accidental transformation into a demon thing. The series ran from 2000-2018. The early strips are crude in comparison to the later ones but I find the evolution of the art interesting to watch. The story is now complete although England still adds the occasional postscript strips.

Local News – Postal Slang

A lot of jobs have their own slang, a jargon that only makes sense to people who do that job. I work for the Post Office as a letter carrier. These are some of the words and phrases that are otherwise nonsense to civilians.

Throwing Parcels
This is what the clerks do at the beginning of the day. Pallets loaded with parcels come in. The clerks bring the pallets into the station and center them in the middle of an network of hampers, one hamper for each route. They scan each parcel to indicate that it’s been received and then literally throw the parcel into its appropriate hamper.

Hot Case
There’s a case in the center of the station with cubbies for each route. The carrier put missorted mail into large general cubbies and the clerks sort that mail into the proper route cubbies. The carriers are supposed to empty our cubbies before we pull down our routes.

Pull Down
Each route has its own a case – a couple of racks with slots labeled for each address on the route. At the beginning of the day we sort mail into those slots. When we’re done sorting we pull down each swing and put into a tray. The trays go out to our trucks.

Swing
A swing is, generally, a block of mail. That is, it’s the mail for a block on a street. Usually it takes 15 minutes to deliver a swing. Usually. Time varies depending on whether the swing is mounted, a cbu, or a park and loop.

Park and Loop
A Park and Loop is a swing that is delivered on foot. The carrier generally parks their truck at one end of the block and then delivers up one side of the street and down the other in a “loop”.

Mounted
Mounted deliveries are those that can be done without leaving the truck. The carrier drives along a street and delivers to mail boxes at the side of the road. In some areas, all the routes are mounted.

CBU
A CBU is a Cluster Box Unit – a set of mailboxes that can be opened with a single USPS proprietary key. The carrier opens a single door and is able to deliver to all the boxes that are part of the unit.

Car Hop
A Car Hop is a delivery that is usually separate from other deliveries – a single address on a street,. Sometimes a swing consists of a series of car hops, single deliveries down one side of a street.

Deadhead
A Deadhead is a street with addresses on one side that is delivered on foot. The carrier parks the mail truck, delivers to the addresses on foot and then walks back past those addresses to return to the truck.

Long Week (Iron Week)
Postal employees have rotating days off. One week a carrier might have Monday off. The next week Tuesday. Then Wednesday and so forth. The Long Week is our six day work week from Monday to Saturday.

Long Weekend
The Long Weekend is the one where our scheduled Friday off and our scheduled Saturday off and our scheduled Sunday off happen consecutively and we get three days off in a row.

CCA
CIty Carrier Assistant. These are the folks who are delivering mail while waiting to become “career” i.e. permanent employees. They’re the carriers in training. The substitutes. They deliver whatever route needs delivering. They work overtime whether they want it or not. They work Sundays delivering packages for Amazon. They have no consistent day off. I was a CCA for about a year and a half before I made “career”.

Office Time
Office Time is the time a carrier spends sorting mail, setting up and pulling down their route. Management has a series of metrics that they believe reflect that amount of time that a carrier should use as “office time”. Those metrics are accurate so long as the mail arrives on time and in proper order, there are no emergencies and the carrier remember to clock to street time whenever they are not doing office time things.

Street Time
Street Time is the time spent sorting parcels into the truck, loading mail into the truck,  and then delivering the mail. Street time is more fungible than office time.

DPS
The DPS is the mail – letters and postcards and small flyers – that comes from the local mail sorting plant. The DPS should be sorted for line-of-travel and therefore the carriers shouldn’t need to sort it before taking it out to our trucks. I have about 170 active delivery addresses and I average about 1400 pieces of DPS for my route. Since the coronapocalypse the DPS numbers have gone way done. I’ve had a couple of days when I had less than 325 pieces of DPS.

LIne of Travel
The line of travel is the order in which a route is delivered. 

Nixies
I don’t remember what Nixie is an abreviattion for. A Nixie is a piece of mail that we can’t deliver on our route. Maybe that letter belongs on another route. Maybe it”s addressed to someone who doesn’t live at the address on letter. Maybe the address doesn’t exist. We bring the undeliverable mail back to the station and put in the clerk’s throwback case for sorting.

____

Stay safe. Be smart. Look after each other. Remember to dance.

Tuesday Night Party Club #26

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Gallery: The Lovcraft Country Cousins Grow Up
On Aucust 1st, Golden Goblin Press will launch its next Kickstarter – Growing Up Overnight. It’s a two book offering. An Eldritch Legacy is a collection of novellas featuring adult versions of the kids from the Lovecraft Country Holiday Collection. Between Twilight and Dawn is an athology of short stories that takes place between sunset and sunrise. An Eldritch Legacy features stories of the individual cousins in their early twenties.I did the cover illustration and Mark Shireman worked his design magic so that this cover will be a match for Children of Lovecraft Country. If all goes as planned I will be providing an illustration for each of the stories. And what are the stories, you ask? Take a gander at these blurbs:

Dreams and Nightmares by Peter Rawlik – Artist and gallery owner by day, secret paranormal investigator and spirit medium by night, Donald Sutton does his best to make sure these parts of his life are kept separate. After a particularly frightening investigation he decided to take a break from ghost hunting. He begins spending more and more time exploring the Dreamlands, a skill he learned as a child from his cousin Melba Sutton. However, when taking photographs at a Kingsport Congregational Hospital for their annual Christmas party, he encounters the beautiful and mysterious stranger, Ms. Aspinwall. Not only does she somehow know his secret work as a paranormal psychic but she desperately needs his help with a haunting in the hospital’s Mariner’s Ward. But the winter solstice is a dangerous time for spirit mediums, especially in Kingsport, because the veils between worlds and realities become perilously thin.
Warden of the Dark God by Glynn Owen Barass – The rolling hills of Dunwich have always been a mysterious, sometimes dangerous place. Every so often children go missing and when they do, Gordon Brewster is the one who sets out to find them. While still working on his family’s farm, he’s become an expert hunter, tracker, and a member of the Believers, a local collective of arcane practitioners dedicated to defending the people of Dunwich, and all mankind, from eldritch threats. However, things are coming to a head as an ancient evil, slumbering in alien ruins, begins to awaken with a need to sate its endless hunger. Donald gathers up a couple of allies and goes on the hunt once again, only this time the fate of every man, woman, and child in Dunwich hangs in the balance.
Separate Lives by Christine Morgan – After spending most of her life struggling with memories of past lifetimes, Gerdie Pope has learned to channel them into a gift allowing her to help people. Now a world renowned clairvoyant, she lives in Lily Dale, New York, a haven for mystics, psychics, and practitioners of folk magic. Then her peaceful life is interrupted by a challenging client and a visit from distant relations. Her client, a young girl with vivid “memories” of another life, one far stranger than any Gerdie has ever lived. The child’s parents are desperate for help, after doctors recommended she be committed to an asylum. But when relatives from her mother’s side of the family turn up, the degenerate side of the Whateley Clan, things quickly spiral out of control. They want her to return to Dunwich and use her gifts to continue her grandfather’s, the late Wizard Whateley, work.
George Weedon and the Secret of Infinite Horizons by Lee Clark Zumpe – Life is good for George Weedon, starting quarterback for the Pittsburg Pirates, living his dream of playing professional football. However, some things never change, and dark mysteries keep placing themselves in his path. This time he’s asked by his team’s owner and founder, “The Chief” Art Rooney, to track down some close friends who’ve gone missing while visiting their newly built vacation house in the Allegheny Mountain, a large but strange structure called Infinite Horizons. Expected to take years to build, it was completed it just 10 months, and the designer had a complete mental breakdown shortly afterwards and was committed to an asylum. So George sets off with a small party, the missing couple’s daughter, a boxer, and a professional baseball player to solve yet another mystery.
A Dark Legacy by Brian Sammons– Edward Derby, the youngest associate professor at Miskatonic University, was looking forward to catching up on reading during his first summer break as a member of the faculty. When he gets a call that a large house once owned by his birth father, Leon Derby, has been damaged in a storm, he’s called to Marblehead to deal with the repairs. Edward’s technically owned the house for years now, but has avoided visiting the property, afraid of what he might find. Leon Derby died before Edward was five years old, and the son has no real memories of his father. Edward does know that his father battled dark and unknowable forces, much as Edward, himself, does now. While exploring the house and beginning to learn its secrets, Edward discovers he has a lot in common with his late father. However, a long dormant evil begins to stir, and kill, forcing Edward to finish something his father started many years ago.
Blood and the Turning of the Tide by Oscar Rios – Who would have thought escaping the federal raid on Innsmouth would be the easy part? For Alice, a young Deep One Hybrid leading a small group of Innsmouth refugees, things keep getting more complicated. While she established her band successfully in Port Jefferson, New York, keeping them safe is another matter. They struggle with learning to live among “normal” people. Federal agents still hunt for Innsmouth residents who escaped the raid. Then her Aunt Margie, kept in hiding in her attic, nears the end of her “Change.” A federal agent arrives in town asking questions, a member of her community asks permission to marry a Port Jefferson boy, and a local mechanic even asks her out to dinner! When just surviving isn’t enough and the refugees want more out of life, can her community’s secrets and their safety survive much longer?
I will provide links once the Kickstarter goes live. In the meantime, here’s a gif of the cover art. Hats of to Mr. Shireman for putting it together!

Lest I forget, here is a description of the contents for Between Twilight and Dawn:

TUMSHIEHEID by William Meikle – There are older traditions than pumpkins and candy, more basic traditions. Jack of the lantern does not like being mocked, especially on a night when the veil is thin and the old ways can return, with their vengeance.

FORGETTING by Richard Lee Byers – Out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, out of life. A son learns this bitter lesson when trying to help his sick father work through some issues one night.

KAMLOOPS LAKE by Neil Baker– Unseasonably cold weather means that Kamploops Lakes in British Columbia is a viable ice-fishing spot for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, it is not just the plump rainbow trout that are being lured and caught, as Ethan and Mel are about to discover in a tale of beer, ice, and cosmic dread.

BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON by Pete Rawlik – Two dead men, one old and blind, the other pale as chalk, both died struggling for the book that lay between them. That aged volume was blank, just like every other book in the immense private library. Why would one man kill for a blank book, and why would another die to keep it?

MARY IN THE MIRROR by Christine Morgan – For pre-teen girls in the 1980s, what would a slumber party be without MTV, mini-pizzas, and the latest magazines? Well, how about playing ‘Mary in the Mirror’ to see if the spooky stories are true? After all, it’s just a silly game…

SHARPE SHAVER by Glynn Owen Barrass – A missing person, a riot in New York City, and a private detective who may have bitten off more than she can chew. An Urban Myth becomes macabre reality as Cassandra Bane encounters a dark, underground world of nightmares in the flesh.

BLACK JACK by Lee Clark Zumpe – Audra Kramer leads her documentary film crew on a dangerous overnight mission to infiltrate the abandoned mining town of Black Jack. Inside the restricted zone, the team quickly discovers that the community’s downfall had been caused by something more ominous than an environmental disaster.

GRAVEYARD SHIFT by Brian M. Sammons – Jordan kills for the CIA. Monsters, mostly. What should be a quick, by the book extermination job takes an unexpected turn when one night he has to work a literal graveyard shift.

UNCLE CRAIG’S WAKE by Konstantine Paradias – When cancer took Uncle Craig, it was supposed to be forever. But Deborah weaved Mister Danh’s spell and spoke the words from his warped little book and now, something lurks in the fruit cellar, prodding from its otherworldly perch into our reality.

THE DOUBLE-GOER BY Orrin Grey – Who are you when you go out? Is it different from who you are when you’re at home? And what would happen if the two were ever to meet?

WHISKEY, BEANS AND DUST by John Linwood Grant – Mamma Lucy didn’t know the Rantons, or the nature of the storm that followed them, tearing the land apart. She surely didn’t know what they’d learned, and what she was supposed to do about it all. But then again, what came that night didn’t know Mamma Lucy…

RACE ROCKS by Paula R. Stiles– A frontier lighthouse is the first line of defense when a mysterious meteor shower turns deadly.

FERTILE GROUND by Oscar Rios – A Dunwich farmer’s sheltered daughter invites her beau over for an overnight stay when her family goes out of town for the night. Both are excited to be together but nervous their secrets might ruin their chances at happiness, when they suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives.

Oscar Rios, the mastermind behind Golden Goblin, is still in the process of putting together this campaign. I will have more to say when there’s more to know.

Story Seed #45
The Title is the Seed

I have a writer friend who comes up with titles for his stories before he’s worked out their plots. He’s always willing to change the title if he finds out it’s already taken or he thinks of a better one but, for him, thinking of a title is an important part of the story creation process. Most of my ideas don’t arrive with a title. If an idea seems strong enough for me to want to turn it into a story I might play around with titles until I come up with something that seems to fit.

A interesting title can get a potential reader to pick up a book or, for a film or tv show, get a viewer to watch the preview. It’s gotten me to pick up books. And, as I’ve said, ideas come from anywhere.

Now, to me, an interesting title is one that suggests a story or a premise. Conversely, if the title is odd enough that I don’t get the premise I often feel curious enough to check out the story. A lot of authors, especially best-selling ones, get by with very generic title. The Judge. The Skrieking. The Lovers. The Count. The books are sold on the author’s reputation as a best selling author not as an individual story.

All Heads Turn as the Hunt Goes By. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The Halloween Tree. Alex Driving South. All these titles make me curious about the story. Three of these titles suggest situations. I love titles like that. The Halloween Tree juxtaposes a couple of words that one wouldn’t normally think of in combination. Combining seemingly unrelated words is the exercise I’m suggesting today. It keeps the title short while piquing the curiosity.

The Dancing Monoliths
The Angry Butterfly
White Gravity
The Yellow Footprints
Finger Trigger
The Mismatched Staircase
Falling Skyward
Zoom Kitty
The Eternal Sedan
The Laughing Haircut
The Missing Shadow
Accidental Romance
The Impossible Heartbeat
Electric Bondage
The Slow Suspicion
The Other Other
The Prodigal Otter
Shark Dance
The Green Armadillo
The Rhinoceros Tiptoes

I wrote these out in just a few minutes. About half of them immediately suggested a premise beyond the title. Whether or not the inspired story would still fit to the title isn’t important. The title is just the seed.

And if a title doesn’t suggest a story it can always be used for the name of a band.

Recommendation : And You Thought It Was Safe

I used to read a lot of movie reviews online, particulary reviews of old scifi and horror b-movies. I don’t have the time for that much these days but there are a few sites I still frequent. I started reading And You Thought It Was Safe before the YouTube explosion. The reviewer, David DeMoss, started out posting written reviews and then moved into doing videos. He focuses more on blockbuster films these days and often his opinion differs from mine but he puts enough thought into his reviews that I often end up agreeing with his analysis. He posts both a video review and a transcript of that review.

Local News

It’s vacation season for postal carriers. That means I’m working overtime delivering parts of other routes. That adds some variety to my days. Mostly I’m volunteering for the extra. I’m not on the Overtime Desired List so I have more of a choice of whether to carry. I am low enough on seniority that if management mandates regular carriers to carry I’m likely to get tagged so volunteering gives me more say in which route I get. And volunteering often enough means I can say no if I really need to work a shorter day.

I had my Long Weekend this week and we got social.

On Friday we met friends at a park in Tacoma to celebrate a birthday. We wore masks, kept a distance from each other when eating and elbow bumped instead of hugging. We picnicked and enjoyed the sunshine.

Saturday I went shopping and worked on art.

Sunday we drove down to Lacy to see another set of friends. The excuse for the get together was to celebrate a high school graduation. The boys had graduated a couple weeks ago. I’d watched them pick up their diplomas live via streaming video. That was as exciting as high school graduations usually are. It was much more fun hearing the boys talk about it and catching up with them and their parents. The day started out grey and rainy but the sun came out and we spent a good part of the visit hanging out on the deck. Sarah got a sun burn.

I have three illustrations to finish for the Lovecraft Country Holiday Collection and then I’ve got nothing on my plate until An Eldritch Legacy funds.

I hope your week has gone well and the coming week has good waiting for you. Cheers!

Tuesday Night Party Club #10

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Artstuff

My big project, at least for the first half of 2020, will be finishing the illustrations for The Lovecraft Country Holidays Collection. It’s an anthology of role-playing game scenarios written by Oscar Rios featuring a sextet of adolescent cousins living in (H.P.) Lovecraft Country i.e. legend haunted parts of New England featured in the Cthulhu Mythos. The project was successfully kickstarted in the fall of 2019 and I’ve been working images ever since.

Before it could run on Kickstarter, we needed promo art – a cover illustration and four interior illustrations. I did the cover first. Mark Shireman worked his design magic to create two great book covers. Above is the cover for the RPG collection. Golden Goblin’s publishing strategy is to publish fiction companions to go with its RPG collections. Below is the cover for the fiction collection. For the fun of it I’d done a monotone version of the cover illustration in the style of “olde tyme” photographs. Mark and Oscar went with it for the fiction anthology.
I like seeing process videos by other artists as they produce their work. I don’t yet have the ability to make an actual video of my work process but I thought it would be fun to put together a gif of some of the stages in making this illustration. The results are below.

Story Seed #34

A sequel needn’t be a rerun: Terminator

The Terminator was released was released in 1984. It tells the story of Sarah Connor, a woman who is destined to give birth to John Connor, the savior of humanity. A Terminator has been sent back from the future to kill her and prevent that birth. A soldier from that future has followed the Terminator in order to save Sarah.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day arrived in 1991. John Connor is 10 years old. Another, more advanced, Terminator has been sent back from the future to kill him. A reprogrammed Schwartzenegger style Terminator is sent back to stop save him. This film cements the pattern for the franchise – a killer robot time travels back from the future to kill a crucial human and someone else time travels back to stop it from succeeding.

One of the things I liked about The Terminator is that the time travel element is a closed loop. Skynet, the future computer system running the Terminators and other machines, has been defeated. It sends the Terminator back as a last ditch effort to save itself. Ultimately its effort to destroy John Connor ends up creating him. Time paradoxes are minimal. History is not rewritten.

Most of the Terminator sequels follow this formula – a Terminator comes back from the future to kill someone and someone else follows the Terminator to prevent it from carrying out its mission. The more times this formula is repeated, the more the flaws show. Both Skynet nor the human rebels act defensively. Skynet could simply send a Terminator back to establish itself sooner, to unlease a plague to wipe out humanity, or otherwise start its war before humanity has a defense. Killing single humans is inefficient. One would think an AI would have more imagination than that. Conversely, the future humans could send back agents with better operating systems to give Skynet a benevolent focus rather than a genocidal one. If they can reprogram Terminators they can reprogram Skynet, especially if they do it before Skynet launches.

To me, all the back-from-the-future stuff gets tiresome. If the future is not set, neither is the present. Skynet and the humans can keep creating new timelines but the conflict never really gets resolved. So, consider a sequel to The Terminator that doesn’t feature time travel.

Terminators takes place in 1997. John Connor is twelve years old. Unlike the John in T2 this John is a true believer. Sarah has taught him well. He’s well trained, he’s charismatic, he’s ready to be the savior of humanity. He’s ready enough that he wonders if it’s possible to stop Judgment Day. Kyle Reese told Sarah that Skynet would launch its attach on August 29, 1997. Sarah tries to convince him that the future is set. Trying to stop Judgment Day is pointless. John created himself by sending Reese back to save her.

John convinces Sarah to try. John and Sarah research Cyberdine, the corporation behind Skynet. They hack into its systems and discover that Cyberdine has already created Terminators by reverse engineering the model that tried to kill Sarah back in 1984. John insists that if Terminators already exist then the future is not certain and it might be possible to prevent Judgment Day. When Sarah remains unsure John sets out to take down Cyberdine on his own. Sarah pursues him.

From there? Well, this is a story seed, not a plot diagram. Perhaps the new Terminators have a plan to wipe out humanity in a less infrastructurally destructive way than a thermonuclear war. Perhaps the new Terminators are simply tools of the Cyberdine corporation and Cyberdine has its own plans for world domination. Perhaps John has been trained too ruthlessly by Sarah and is sort of a human terminator, willing to kill anyone who gets between him and his objectives. Sarah must deal with the human monster she has created. Perhaps Judgment Day is prevented. Perhaps it happens anyway.

Other Newsletters

Karavansara is the website of Davide Mana. Mana is a working writer (that is, he pays his bills with his writings) living in Italy. He writes in both English and Italian in a variety of genres. He also blogs about his projects, movies he’s watched, books he’s read, odd bits of history and politics, and many other fascinating things on a daily basis. He’s currently in a part of Italy that’s under quarantine for the Corona virus. Yuck.

If his blogging entertains you I’m sure he’d appreciate you supporting him via his Patreon.

Lifestuff

And speaking of the Corona virus – it mostly exists as background noise in my world. I’m not downplaying it and I’m not ignoring it. I live in Seattle. There are outbreaks and deaths as a result of the disease but no one I know has been infected. I’ve had to work more overtime that I planned because more carriers that usual have been calling in sick. Staying home when sick is more encouraged than usual. Most of our work is done solo but we are all in one place when we’re putting our routes together in the morning.

Whether or not I’m scared or cautious of danger depends on my statistical awareness of that danger. I spend a lot of time driving. I’m more likely to be in an auto accident than to catch Corona. I walk a lot. I’m more likely to be bitten by a dog than catch Corona. People who are elderly or have weak immune systems are in danger of infection from just about everything. I’m basically healthy.

So far. So good.

May you stay healthy. Take care of yourself and look after your friends. See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #5

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Artstuff

I’m currently working on illustrations for The Lovecraft Country Holiday Collection. This book of four Call of Cthulhu RPG scenarios was successfully kickstarted last year. One of the stretch goals that we didn’t reach was a fifth scenario: The Mystery of April Snow. We did get close enough that Oscar Rios, the engine behind Golden Goblin Press, decided to offer the scenario as an add-on. Separate projects need separate covers so:

This is a scan of the physical black and white art. I guess you’d say it’s “mixed media”. It’s a combination of pencil, brush, Micron pens and Copic markers.

This is my finished art. Photoshop got used and abused.

And above is the finished version. Mark Shireman worked his design magic to turn a fairly simple image of a girl’s creepy stare into a compelling book cover.

Story Seed #29
What if the Martians hadn’t accidentally been killed by Earth germs?

A lot of folks have written sequels to H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds. As far as I can tell they’ve all worked from the same premise – the Martian’s initial invasion was a failure. The Martians’ first set of invadors died due to exposure to Earth’s diseases. The sequels are usually about a second invasion from Mars. A few of them are about Earth forces taking the war to the Red Planet.

But … what if the Martians expected to die from exposure to our germs? They had interstellar travel. They presumably were scientifically advanced enough to expect and prepare for infection. What if those first Martians brought their own diseases with them – on purpose? What if they were here less to beat us by blunt force than to begin transforming our world with their native biology? They’re observed draining humans of their blood. They plant the red weed.

In Well’s novel, the Martians are cyphers. We don’t know how they think. We don’t know their politics or religions. We don’t know if they consider themselves individuals. What if, once the technological warfare ceased, the biological warfare continued? At the time of publication, germ theory was commonly accepted but even the most medically advanced countries were unprepared to deal with epidemics from another world.

Other Newsletters

SCIOPS – this newsletter by Max Anton Brewer is often about how fucked up our technology and our economic systems are making us. I think about that stuff all the time. But Brewer has a different perspective about reality than I do and I find that useful. He has different understandings of the whys of the fuckedupedness. I need different understandings of the world to make navigating it more tolerable and to help me continue to be compassionate with my fellow humans.Give a few issues a read. Maybe his perspecitves will be useful to you as well.

Lifestuff

Most days at work we have what we call “stand-ups”. These are meetings where all the carriers gather together and the supervisors give us safety talks and pass on relevant information from upper management or the outside world. Most of what gets said has been said many times before.

Last Friday I got to be the subject of the safety talk. An hour earlier I had been walking through the station on my way to do my daily vehicle check and my feet got tangled in one of those plastic straps that are used to hold together bundles of magazines. Down I went.

I got up quickly because embarrassment is a more poweful motivator than pain. My right hand hurt from trying to brace my fall. My left thigh hurt a lot more. The concrete floor had slammed the phone and wallet in my pocket into my leg. I seemed functional and didn’t think anything was broken but I reported the accident to my supervisor and got the necessary paperwork just in case. Our station manager talked about the accident in our stand up and repeated (for the umpteenth time) the need to pick up those damned strap.

I delivered my route as usual. Mostly. My hand got more sore as the day went on. Sorting the mail wasn’t a big deal. Turning the key in the starter, using the gear shift, putting on seat belt, closing the truck’s door – all that hurt more as time passed. My leg also hurt more. The pain lessened every time I did a walking part of my route but the leg would stiffen up during the driving parts. Getting out of the truck got less fun by the hour.

I woke up stiff and sore on Saturday. My hand had some weird bruising. Disappointingly, my thigh looked fine. For the amount that it hurt I felt like I should have a glorious purple bruise. I drove down to Portland and back for a friend’s surprise birthday party. Three hours driving south, three hours sitting in a restaurant, three hours driving north. My leg really hurt by the time I lurched into bed.

Sunday I slept in. For me that was staying under the covers until 7:30. My leg hurt less. I’d taken some tylenol before I went to sleep. That probably helped. The bruising on my hand was a little more colorful but really only noticeable in good light. Sarah and I went out for a late breakfast and them mostly stayed at home.

Monday I was back at work. I expected my leg to hurt more as the day progressed but it stayed mostly a low throb with occasional “ow! ow!” moments when I had to bend it tighter than 90 degrees. I did a little overtime on my own route due to mail volume.

I’m writing this before 5 am on Tuesday. Both my leg and hand are sore but they’re feeling much improved. I expect to do a regular workday. Still no bruising on the leg. That’s disappointing. I’ve found bruises on myself plenty of times in the past and couldn’t remember what I’d done to get them. The discomfort of the last few days seems like it should be heralded by vivid purple and green. Ah well.

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That’s it for this week. Do something kind for someone who doesn’t expect it. Thank you for reading.

Tuesday Night Party Club #4

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Artstuff

In my first newsletter I mentioned wanting to create more physical things. Like books. Tails of Valor and Tails of Terror are currently available at the Golden Goblin website. I spent a good part of 2018 and 2019 working on the illustrations for these volumes. Tails of Valor is a collection of role-playing game scenarios for the Call of Cthulhu setting/rule set. It’s a sequel of sorts to Cathulhu, from Sixtystone Press. Cathulhu is a version of CoC that allows players to role-play as cats. Cats deal with the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos differently than puny humans.

Tails of Valor features three scenarios –

Triumphus Felis Ferae (set in 41 C.E. Rome) by Jeffrey Moeller

Shadow Harvest (set in 5th Dynasty Egypt) by Stuart Boon

The Undesirables (set in Dark Ages France) by Oscar Rios

Tails of Terror is an anthology of sixteen horror stories featuring cats as protagonists. I provided title page illustrations for each story. A sampling of those illustrations are below. I’m not going to say which illustration goes to which story. That’s a surprise for folks who purchase the book.

Tails of Terror was edited by Brian Sammons and features these stories –

  • Brown Jenkin’s Reckoning by Edward M. Erdelac
  • Derpyfoot by Christine Morgan
  • The Cat in the Pall by Pete Rawlik
  • Ghost Story by Brian M. Sammons
  • Palest of Humans by Don Webb
  • Bats in the Belfry by William Meikle
  • Satisfaction Brought Him Back by Glynn Owen Barrass
  • The Bastet Society by Sam Stone
  • The Veil of Dreams by Stephen Mark Rainey
  • The Quest of Pumpkin the Brave by Oscar Rios
  • The Cats of the Rue d’Auseil by Neil Baker
  • The Knowledge of the Lost Master by Andi Newton
  • The Ruins of an Endless City by Lee Clark Zumpe
  • A Glint in the Eyes by D.A. Madigan
  • A Field Guide to Wanderlust Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
  • In the End there is a Drain by Tim Waggoner

My thanks go to Jeffrey Moeller for requesting me as illustrator for Tails of Valor. Big thanks also to Oscar Rios for taking a chance on me. It was great to get back to work. I’d been passing on commissions for a few years because my postal job had taken up so much time and physical energy. This project was an important part of helping me get some sanity and peace of mind again. Thanks also to Mark Shireman for his design work on both the books. They look fabulous.

Story Seed #28
Looking through a photo album you see that some of the photos have changed, they depict events differently than they used to. 

There’s your uncle, laughing and smiling at a family picnic that he didn’t attend. There’s your mom and dad holding hands in a Christmas photo. You know they were fighting that year. You know you hadn’t been able to catch them in the same room together. There’s your best friend casting a mooning look at the girl who never noticed her. The girl is returning the look.

These aren’t new photos. These aren’t digital things that could be altered in Photoshop. These are prints that have been sitting in these albums for years. What happens when you show them to other people – the people in the photos? Will they remember the same events, the same life?

Lifestuff

Letter carriers advance in their careers mostly by seniority. The longer I’m with the post office the more personal and sick days I accrue. I get regular, scheduled raises rather than having to ask for them. When a route becomes available the person with the most seniority will beat out other bidders to claim said route.

Last Wednesday I senioritied into a parking space. Our station is located at the Westwood Mall in West Seattle. I’ve needed to park in the Mall’s parking lot since I started with USPS. Our station has a fenced parking lot for our delivery trucks. There are parking spaces for employees along the western edge of the lot. I didn’t get a spot in there. I got a spot along the drive into that parking lot. I got the second spot from the entrance.

I was notified about my new status last Tuesday by other carriers who had seen our new parking chart. On my own I wouldn’t have looked at the chart. I’ve been assuming that I wouldn’t have an assigned spot for years yet.

It’s a little satisfying to have lasted this long. I’m not going to get used to it. If carriers with greater seniority transfer in I’ll be back out in the mall lot. It’s nice for now though.

NewsletterStuff

I was inspired to (re)start writing a newsletter because I’ve subscribed to a number of newsletters and getting them in my inbox over the week helps me get outside the bubble that my version of the internet wants to keep me trapped within. Facebook shows me more of what I already “like”. Amazon shows me more of what I already “like”. Youtube shows me videos similar to the ones I’ve already watched. Google shows me more of what I’ve already searched for. Getting more of what I’ve already gotten makes me dull and stupid.

The newsletters send me places I wouldn’t go on my own and make me think about things I don’t automatically think about. This week I’m linking to Orbital Operations, from Warren Ellis. I’ve found a lot of the other newsletters I read via his newsletter. He’s a writer of comics and television and novels and other things who, when he has time, writes about science and the future. When he’s short on time he writes about his current projects and links to interesting things.

Subscribe

To get the subscription link, click on “Home” in the menu bar under the site banner. A whole list of links and nonsense will appear on the right. The subscription link will be under the search field at the top.

That’s it for this week. Be as good as you can. Forgive yourself when you screw up. Make amends when necessary. See you next Tuesday!

Tails of Valor Cover Process

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Last Sunday I posted my basic sketches for the individual images that I planned to have make up the cover for Tails of Valor. Here’s what I did to turn those images into the final cover illustration.

Using Photoshop I collaged the images in a variety of ways to find a balance that looked good. The version below is number seven.
TailsValorCoverRough7 Once I figured out the basic layout I did a rough sketch that combined all the images in a way that (hopefully) worked together aesthetically. Triptych Sketch Final

Next I did detailed pencils of each scene. We (the book’s editor and I) decided to have me do each scene as a separate image and then have book’s cover designer put them all together for the final product. I regularly combined my working images in order to be sure that I was getting a good balance for the final illustration.TailsValor3PanelPencils

Next I “flatted” images for coloring, meaning I separated out specific areas of each image that I wanted to be able to color individually. At this point I wasn’t necessarily choosing the final colors that I planned to use, just something close.
TailsValor3PanelFlatsTest

And then I started adding detailed colors, adjusting colors on specific layers, doing gradients and playing with different brushes. I really don’t have much to say from here on. There was trial. There was error. There was “Hey! That looks good!”

TailsValor3PanelColor2

I hopped back and forth between all the illustrations but, in the beginning, I spent most of my time on the Egypt and Rome sections.

TailsValor3PanelColor3I made my biggest post-pencil changes here by moving the jumping cat in the Rome section up in space. The change doesn’t look like much but it makes the scene livelier.
TailsValor3PanelColor4 And done. Mostly. I’ve made some tiny adjustments to parts of the illustrations since I created the jpeg below but I’m probably the only person who will notice them. TailsValor3PanelColor5

Golden Goblin Press will be kickstarting Tails of Valor in July. I’ll put a post about that when the time comes.

Tails of Valor Cover Sketches

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I haven’t had a chance to finish any new illustrations for this site. I’ve been working on a cover for Tails of Valor, a collection of scenarios for the Cathulhu version of the Call of Cthulhu RPG to be published by Golden Goblin Press. There are three scenarios in the book: one set in Ancient Egypt during the time of the Pharaohs, one set in 15th century France during witch hysteria and one set in Rome at the time of Caligula. The editor asked me to create a cover that featured images from all three adventures.

Aaargh.

Multiple image covers are tricky. You’ve got to balance the images and colors so that the results are pleasing rather than just chaotic. I started by sketching an image for each scenario by itself. I figured that once I knew which basic image I would illustrate I could then figure out how to combine them in a way that looked good. EgyptSketch001

The Egypt image.FranceSketch001 The France image. RomeSketch001

The Rome image.

Come back Wednesday for a process post of the cover from pencils to final colors.