Howdy, folks!
If June was a depressing month, July has largely continued that trend, and I write this a day or two after a full-on anxiety attack that is leading to me finally seeking actual medical help for the anxiety and depression that I’ve been ignoring for the past few years. That isn’t especially relevant to the rest of the newsletter but I wanted to provide some context in case I don’t seem like my usual chirpy self, online or otherwise! Anyway, here goes:
The Usual
We’ll keep solely to the comics side of things: after sending out the digital copies to all our backers, I now have boxes and boxes of SECRETS OF THE MAJESTIC sitting in my spare room, ready to be packaged up and sent out. Rich (Surname?) at Comic Printing UK has once again done an incredible job – the book looks fantastic, the art is gorgeous throughout and it has a very “prestige” feel (for a book about toilets). Here’s evidence of the great unboxing:
I’ve given myself plenty of time before the official launch at Thought Bubble to sort out fulfilment, which is nice because it means some of the pressure is off and I can take my time getting the books packed up.
In the meantime, it’s time for a hard pivot into BRIGANTIA land – I’ve just received Hassan’s letters for the final part of the story in my inbox this morning, and the pages look absolutely fantastic. I know I’m biased, but to me it’s an artistic team firing on all cylinders (and now with an Eisner-winning letterer in the mix for some added sheen!) To prove I’m not just blowing smoke, here are a couple of exclusive sneaky peeks:
Lines: Alaire Racicot / Colours: Rebecca Nalty / Letters: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Lastly, here’s something that’s very much still in the slow cooker – Andrew’s completed his pencils/roughs for the opening sequence of SENGOKU, our samurai story about war, family and the cult of bushido. We wanted to open the book with the sort of classic showdown that you’d see in a chanbara movie before starting to deconstruct things. The current goal is to complete this intro sequence then probably try funding the full book through KS – it’s a 64-page one-shot graphic novel so hopefully that’ll be achievable.
Here’s a sneaky peek, anyway:
The Record
The only creative thing I’ve written this month is this newsletter, and it’s debatable as to whether that counts. Oh well!
The Tunes
I’ve spent a goodly amount of time this month playing Dredge, a very satisfying (and creepy) cosmic horror fishing sim, meaning that this opening track has been firmly stuck in my head. That leads us into some new Childish Gambino, from the final album – a fitting send-off for a project that has produced a lot of fantastic music. Next up is new Pijn, the passion project of Joe Clayton (nicest man in metal, who we recorded the latest Ba’al release with) – this whole album is just a sumptuous joy to listen to. If you watched the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics you probably saw Gojira absolutely melting some faces off – they’ve been one of the best bands around for a long time (this track is a banger off their third album, from 2005) so it was great to see them get such a big stage. Staying on the topic of “2000s metal”, here’s a new remixed/reimagined version of the classic Laid to Rest by Lamb of God & HEALTH – it goes harder than it has any right to (and the original song goes pretty hard!) And because I’ve been listening to a lot of comfort food music, a couple more classic tracks for you – my personal favourite Turisas song off their best album (The Varangian Way) followed by a complete pop-punk 180 courtesy of The Offspring. Lastly, we’re into a closing trip of “more obscure shit” – Belore is a one-man band making big symphonic/atmospheric black metal and recently got announced for the one festival I’m planning to go to next year (Fortress Festival), so I’m excited to see them on stage. Hail Spirit Noir’s new album is great – not as catchy and immediate for me as their previous releases, so more of a grower, but it has some real standout tracks. And finally we have Wormwood closing things out with some melodic black metal (and some rather sub-par album artwork, but we’ll let them off)!
The Links
Going to share something inspiring/hopeful today – I was vaguely aware of The Ocean Cleanup project, but I had a nosy at their website due to a link in a work email and they’re honestly doing great work. The oceans are so important to the overall health and climate of our planet, so cleaning up the massive amount of plastic pollution that gets poured into them is a mammoth task but they’ve been grinding away at it and making real progress – go and have a browse and remind yourself that there are a lot of very smart and good people hammering away at trying to make the world a better place:
And that’s all from me for this month – have a great August and let’s hope the Kickstarter fulfilment gods smile down on me!
All the best,