Tag: sengoku

Posted on

July 2024: Proof is in the Pudding

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:

Brigantia gazes out at the ruined Otherworld.
Brigantia gazes in horror as the legend of the Fomorians unfolds.
Veteris towers over Anna, unleashing his fury at her.

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:

https://theoceancleanup.com

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,

Chris

Posted on

February 2024: Island Time

Howdy, folks!

February has rolled inexorably to a close (with an extra day this year, which really threw me off when I was typing this newsletter up!) and while I took a chunk of the month off for a very deserved break, some other stuff has been happening around the margins. Let’s get into it!

The Usual

I’m conscious that I’m in the incredibly privileged position of having parents who are quite well-off, which is the only reason I was able to manage the holiday I did this month – I spent a week in Barbados staying at an apartment they own the lease on and therefore didn’t have to pay for any accommodation (big phew!) That aside, it was an absolute godsend for my stress levels – I’d reached what felt like a breaking point at the end of January, with the stress of day job/an additional data analysis course on top of the day job/two bands regularly practicing/comics stuff all conspiring to make me feel like an absolute desiccated husk. A week soaking up 30° heat and sunshine, eating lots of delicious seafood, drinking rum, splashing in the sea and sending a grand total of 2 emails (I tried to stop myself!) was absolutely what the doctor ordered, and I feel much, much better for it. The rest of 2024 needs to watch out because I’m back, baby 😤

A photo of palm trees against an ocean, at sunset
The view from the road next to our apartment


That aside, I don’t have much to report on the project front – pages are starting to come together for SECRETS OF THE MAJESTIC, and I had a very exciting email relating to it last week which will be excellent if it all comes together, but BRIGANTIA VOL. 2 is still sitting with our hyper-talented letterer Hass to fit into his schedule. At the moment I’m still on course to have both books ready for Thought Bubble in November – the Brigantia KS will be in a few months once the whole book is finished, so I’ll spend about a month before launch date pushing the campaign link in everyone’s faces. Keep ’em peeled!

Also, because it’s a Leap Day today – I’m running a one-day-only sale on my webstore. Head to www.chrismole.bigcartel.com and use the code FEB29 for a 10% discount, today only!

The Record

– 4 pages lettered for The Phoenix
– 4 pages lettered for Secrets of the Majestic
– More emails than you can shake a stick at

Again, no writing progress this month – but that’s fine, I’m focusing on getting some of the projects which are already in motion cleared and out into the world before I start writing anything new. Know your limits!

The Tunes

Hell of a mixed bag this month! We’re starting off with something light from The Offspring, purely because “you gotta keep yourself hydrated” was stuck in my head for the entire holiday. Next up, it’s the ultimate cheesy power metal band Dragonforce covering Taylor Swift – A+, perfect, no notes. They’re followed by some heavy shit, starting with new solo material from black metal maestro Ihsahn (of Emperor fame) and followed by some antifa BM from Woe, a band that Ba’al have recently bagged a support slot for in London later this year. Next up is some excellent atmos black metal from Sunken who most of the band absolutely adore, and then we’re onto Ellende who also scratch that atmospheric BM itch. Last up in the run of heavy shit is a new track from Borknagar, one of my favourite bands and possessed of a distinctly unique sound. We then take a massive 180 – I finally watched Barbie on the plane over, so I now know and appreciate the song I’m Just Ken in all it’s glory. Finally, we’re closing out with my two favourite tracks featuring Barbados’ number one export, the mighty Rihanna (who they’re so proud of, they’ve made an “Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador”) – Bitch Better Have My Money, with a message we can all appreciate, and her cameo with The Lonely Island as a bank-robbing stunner saddled with Andy Samberg’s useless Shy Ronnie. Ha-haaa!

The Links

With thanks to Ritesh Babu who originally shared this one: https://vajra.me/2022/03/17/the-extractivism-of-setting-and-the-traitors-text/

It’s a bit of a deep read (and I’ll need to read it a few more times to fully grasp it), with a specific focus on speculative fiction and non-native authors playing in a jungle they can only lay claim to through colonialism, but I found this piece useful for interrogating the use of setting in your (my) own work. It’s something that has been at the forefront of my mind recently, with finishing the script for SENGOKU and the arrival two days ago of the new Shōgun series (which I am INCREDIBLY excited for) – how to tell stories set in a specific place/time that you have no inherent connection to without indulging that colonialist mindset? I hope I managed to arrive at the same conclusion as this article with SENGOKU, but time will tell (once I’ve found a suitable Japanese sensitivity reader to give me their take on it..!)

—

That’s all for this month – thanks for reading, enjoy your weekends and let’s hope spring starts to roll in properly next month!

All the best,

Chris

Posted on

December 2023: Time Goes By

Hey folks,

It’s that time of year again! As is tradition, this month’s newsletter will be more of a “2023 round-up” one – a place of reflection on what I’ve done this year and some thoughts for 2024.

The Usual

Re-reading last year’s entry for December, I was clearly in quite an introspective mood, but I feel confident in saying that I’ve taken my own advice to heart – I deliberately tried to avoid focusing too hard on what I have and haven’t achieved this year, and while my list of comics-based “wins” is shorter as a result, I can still point to a number of items ticked off the proverbial to-do list.

All this is in the face of a world that seems to continue sliding into the shit, both here in the UK (where we’re still, somehow, suffering under an utterly corrupt Tory government) and across the rest of the planet. War in Ukraine (still), attempted genocide in Palestine, the ongoing climate crisis and the continual existence, somehow, of fascists in every corner of the globe. It’s overwhelming sometimes, and it’s been a real struggle to keep trying to write and create against all of that noise and a continually worsening economic background here in the UK. Hopefully we can kick out the Tories this coming spring (and replace them with a Labour party who are almost as bad, wheee, isn’t it fun not to have a viable left-wing party to vote for??) but even with that, I don’t know how many more comics I have left in me. I’m definitely shortening my mental project list and trying to focus on what’s achievable to stave off burnout.

On the agenda for next year:
– Crowdfunder for Brigantia Volume 2! Very excited to share this one with folks!
– Complete and release Secrets of the Majestic at Thought Bubble 2024!
– Exhibit at a couple of conventions
– Hopefully release two EPs (one with Powerhouse, one with Ba’al) and potentially even an album, if we can secure a good record label for it…
– Play some gigs in places I haven’t played before!

The Record

Pages written: 62 (2022 total: 71)
Pages lettered: 84 (2022 total: 78)
Anthology pitches: 1 (not counting the one I’m running myself!)
Miscellaneous: Ran two successful crowdfunding campaigns (the Art of Professor Elemental, a hardback collection of a huge chunk of comics written/edited by me and Secrets of the Majestic, a very niche anthology about a toilet). Recorded one album and one EP with Ba’al (totalling about 90 minutes of music) and one EP with Powerhouse (another 30 minutes). Played multiple festivals with both bands, plus went on tour with Ba’al in October across England, Wales and Scotland.

Again, my lettering output has outpaced my writing this year thanks to a chunk of work for The Phoenix and a few anthology shorts (including, for the first time, one that I didn’t write!), but I’m quite pleased that I’ve finally managed to finish up a first draft for SENGOKU – given how long I’ve been working on/thinking about it, it feels good to finally have a completed story, much as it will need polishing up and refining. My next challenge will be to find someone suitable to edit/act as a sensitivity reader – it’s very important to me that this story feels authentic, and doesn’t make the kind of mistakes that many stories about Japan written by white people make. That means this one will stay in the pot for a little while longer yet..!

The Tunes

The playlist this month is a mixed bag – some of it has been on my rotation for December, the rest comprises tracks that I’ve particularly enjoyed this year. We’re starting off hard with metal from Naeramarth, Svalbard, Atheist, Crypta and Wounds of Recollection, before it segues into synthier territory with Gunship (this song is impossibly catchy), Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan and The Ocean – we then close out with Naoki Sato’s phenomenal theme from Godzilla Minus One and a big finish from Masayoshi Soken (from the FFXIV soundtrack).

2023’s Top 5 Things

Because I had fun with this last year, we’re bringing it back – my top 5 things of the year, whether a movie, comic, album or an experience. Let’s go:

The cover of Golden Rage Vol. 1


5. Golden Rage Vol. 1 (comic) – Here’s a thing that people may not know about me – I really, really like Golden Girls. We started watching it a little while back for some wholesome sitcom entertainment and it has quickly endeared itself to me (plus the theme song is a banger). So when I saw that the pitch for this comic was “Golden Girls meets Battle Royale”, well… I don’t think I’ve ever slapped my money down faster. The writing is fantastic, it’s great to see a collection of older female protagonists, and Lauren Knight (who I collaborated with on a story for Sharp Wit & The Company of Women, which is now in Previews, AHHHHH) knocks it out of the park on art duties. Get on it!

The album cover for Unicorn by the band Gunship

4. Gunship – Unicorn (album) – I’ve listened to A LOT of albums from this year (around 207, to be precise) but this one is squarely at the top. Synthwave beats and a truly stellar list of guest stars (including Carpenter Brut, John Carpenter and HEALTH) are the starting point, but this has stuck with me because it’s absolutely rammed full of extremely memorable hooks and uplifting choruses. The production is beautiful (big, glistening, neon-soaked) and it keeps serving up bangers well into the runtime. Don’t sleep on this if you haven’t already heard it!

The poster for the movie The Saint of Second Chances

3. The Saint of Second Chances (movie) – I was curious about this purely because I’ve enjoyed a few movies about baseball in the past, even though I don’t really follow the sport – little did I realise that it’d leave me an emotional, sobbing wreck on the sofa. It’s a documentary about Mike Veeck, the son of a famous baseball owner who invented the concept of promotional nights (most notably the ‘Disco Demolition Night’ for the Chicago White Sox that ended in a riot) and later went on to run an independent team in Minnesota. I won’t spoil anything else about it here, but I can’t recommend this enough as a story about second chances and trying to do the right thing.

Cover art for the videogame Blasphemous

2. Blasphemous (game) – I’m a bit late to the party with this one, but what a party it is. Blasphemous is a Metroidvania type game (where you run around a 2D map, exploring, platforming and smiting enemies) – what makes it unique is how incredibly gothic and Catholic it is. The premise is essentially that a mysterious Miracle has unleashed judgement on a medieval world tormented by a corrupt Church, turning it into a hellish domain full of tortured souls seeking repentance or oblivion – and you, as the Penitent One full of clemency, must embark on a pilgrimage across this land. Honestly, the worldbuilding in this game is intoxicating and I love how incredibly grim it is – it’s full of phenomenal writing and characters that made me go “what the fuck is THAT” on multiple occasions. If you’d like a challenging (somewhat Dark Souls-like) gaming experience in a truly compelling world, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Now watch Blasphemous 2 be in this list next year..!

A photo of a band on stage lit up by blue lighting as a crowd cheers them
Ba’al on the main stage at Sheffield Corporation for the Heel Turn Festival

1. Playing gigs – I’ve been trying to figure out which gig this year was my favourite, and honestly, there are a number of strong contenders for that crown. Playing some big folk festivals (Whitby and Towersey) with Powerhouse was a lot of fun and meant I got out to rock some very big stages, while a number of Ba’al shows this year hit the triple sweet spot of great venue/big crowds/solid performance. So instead of choosing just one, I’m giving this slot to the overall experience of playing live – much as I sometimes feel shattered afterwards, I love playing gigs and connecting with an audience. It’s a chance to embody the emotion in the music and manifest it, and I sincerely hope I can continue to play bigger and better shows next year.

—

And that’s a wrap on 2023, folks! Thank you as always for reading my rambles this year (if you made it this far) – I hope you’ve enjoyed them. As another chapter of the heavy, heavy book of history closes, remember: you made it to the end of 2023, and that means you can do ANYTHING.

I’d like to close things out with one link for you – a list of actually good things that happened this year, because while it’s important to be realistic, it’s also important to have hope for the future: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/12/28/24003198/10-good-things-that-happened-in-2023

Have a good evening, whether you’re celebrating or tucked up at home with a good book, and we’ll speak again in 2024!

All the best,

Chris

Posted on

November 2023: The Neverending Pile

Howdy, folks!

It has once again been a hectic month and I’m rather feeling the strain of it – turns out that running a Kickstarter remains a stressful experience, and rather more so when a) it’s an anthology, so there are a lot more people you want to succeed for and b) you’re doing it in a climate where social media is utterly broken and there are at least two major conflicts currently going on in the world, so spending all your time shouting about toilets feels a little bit ridiculous..!

Add to that a general feeling of impending burnout on the band front (this year, with two bands, I’ve recorded an album and an EP, with another EP on deck next week; played several big festivals and done a UK tour) and I feel a little stretched… like butter scraped over too much bread.

Thought Bubble was also a weird one this year – I was forced to do a truncated appearance due to a family wedding on the Sunday, and it meant that I never really got into the swing of things. It was a fairly quiet day sales-wise, but I’m happy to attribute that to me not really having anything new on the table, and only a half-table at that as much as it’s down to the con being much more insanely busy than I remember it being the last few years. Still, my tablemates were a delight and it was lovely to catch up with friends, albeit for less time than I would normally do. Next year I should have both the anthology (more on that below) and Brigantia Vol. 2 to launch, so hopefully it’ll be a big one!

A large group of comics people cheering while sat on the bench in the toilets of the Majestic Hotel
Still managed to do this though – huge thanks to the contributors to Secrets of the Majestic (as many as we could round up) for indulging me!

Thankfully, my last creative endeavour of the year (an emotionally charged gig with Ba’al at the Heel Turn “For Absent Friends” all-dayer) is scheduled for the 16th of December, and after that I can take a bit of a break until 2024 rolls in. The current plan is to eat cheese, watch a lot of movies and do basically (pardon my French) fuck all. But before that, let’s crack in:

The Usual

November was toilet book month, with Secrets of the Majestic rolling along on Kickstarter. The campaign closes today, and I’m very glad that we’ve made it over the finishing line, with (at time of writing) 327 backers – a record high number for me! It’s been extremely gratifying as ever seeing people pull for this book – obviously the creative teams are all fully on board with the Majesticus Cultus, and their enthusiasm has buoyed me throughout a sometimes difficult campaign, but seeing other people who aren’t directly involved with the book wave the banner for it has been really touching.

Anyway, now that the funding hurdle has been passed, we get to do the fun bit – making a bunch of stupid toilet comics! I’m very excited to get stuck into that (and to see what kind of magic Chris Wildgoose can produce from our script). I’ll be sharing more as development progresses, of course!

The Record

  • 8 pages written – SENGOKU

I’ve made some more progress on SENGOKU, the samurai story I’m putting together with Andrew Browne. Everything is in place for the last act of the story, I just need to dive in and get the first draft nailed down. It’s a much more contemplative, character-driven story overall than you might think given my love of samurai action and katana duels, but the last act is where we get to cut loose and have some ridiculous Takashi Miike-esque fight scenes. I’d also like to get it finished and written before the new FX adaptation of Shogun (one of my favourite novels) comes out in February so I don’t end up accidentally cribbing from that…

The Tunes

This month’s playlist is fairly short and sweet! We kick things off with a cut off the new Gunship album, featuring Power Glove – not to be confused with the videogame metal band Powerglove, but a great collaboration nonetheless. Next up is some synthwave gorgeousness from Ocoeur, which I picked off the excellently named “POV: ur in an 80s film driving at night” playlist on Spotify. We then take a turn into some upbeat thrashy metal, with new Gama Bomb up first (I haven’t listened to a lot of their stuff, but I appreciate throwback thrash now and then) followed by Singaporean grind monsters Wormrot (who are apparently playing Sheffield next year with Napalm Death, Pig Destroyer and Primitive Man, a bill designed with surgical precision to reduce the entire city to nothing more than smoldering ashes). Next up we take a trip into atmospheric black metal country with Blaze of Sorrow and their viola-heavy blastbeats, followed by a new track from the king of BM Ihsahn where he’s leaning very heavily on the orchestral elements (and I dig it). Michiru Aoyama is a mini-swing back to lighter territory with a laidback, wintry ambient piece, followed by Canadian royalty The Tragically Hip. I learned at Thought Bubble that my Canadian pal Jordan Collver, a phenomenal artist, is actually from Bobcaygeon and I was truly blown away by the news – it’s a small world! Lights is next with a big blast of synth pop and soaring vocals, before the playlist closes out with the immense and undeniable riffs of Pijn. Pijn’s guitarist (Joe Clayton) is also an incredibly talented producer, and Ba’al worked with him this summer to record a huge chunk of music, so it was a must for some of us to head down and catch up with him when his band played Sheffield earlier this month – as you might expect given his ear for great tones, they sounded incredible, and this track got the whole crowd moving.

A picture of a frame from The Lighthouse with Willem Dafoe's character saying "Look at ye. Postin'"
Thanks, Rogue Print Co

No links this month – I’ve spent the whole of November spamming people with the Kickstarter (and checking it incessantly) so I’m going to take at least a week off postin’ after today. Thanks for reading, and for backing the campaign if you did – and have a great weekend!

All the best,

Chris

Posted on

October 2023: Toilet Season

Howdy, folks!

First off: a happy All Hallow’s Eve/Samhain to all who observe it! I’ll be spending this evening in a spooky ghoul mask playing ceilidh tunes with Powerhouse at a new venue in Sheffield, so that should be fun, as gutted as I am to miss out on the usual tradition of watching a horror movie and welcoming trick or treaters. A few things to cover in this month’s edition, so let’s crack in:

The Usual

October has been an extremely busy one for me, what with the Lakes Comic Convention (which was a delight, albeit somewhat soggy and cold – one particular highlight was a Saturday night gig in a scratch covers band with Michael Lark, Shane Chebsey, Nick Rossert of Sloth Comics, my pal Tom Ward and Charlie Adlard on drums) and then two weekends of touring up and down the country with Ba’al. It’s also primarily been a month where I’ve been trying to drum up interest and hype for my next comics endeavour, SECRETS OF THE MAJESTIC. I’ve mentioned it in here before, but I’ve now announced all the creative teams and pin-up artists over on social media (Twitter/Bluesky) and we have a truly stacked line-up:

Kieron Gillen | Benjamin AE Filby | Tula Lotay | Laura Jones | Dave Cook | Laura Helsby | JP Jordan | Rik Worth | Jordan Collver | Owen Watts | Gavin Mitchell | Adlai McCook | Asa Wheatley | Sammy Ward | Rob Jones | Sam Chase | Paul Carroll | Lane Lloyd | Chris Wildgoose | Gary Moloney | Colin Craker | Aaron Thompson | Dan Bell | Aaron Eamer | David Cousens | Fraser Campbell | Craig Munro | Rob Luckett | James Lawrence | Ria Grix | Rob Burton | Sarah Peploe | George Joy | Mark Granger | Liam ‘Pais’ Hill | Umar Ditta | Paul Tonner | Matt Hardy | Jon Scott | Erika Price | Matt Simmons | Liana Kangas

Goddamn, right? What a group of established names and emerging creators. I’m thrilled to see what they come up with, now we just need to raise the funds so I can pay them and print the book!

Cover by Laura Helsby, colours by Dearbhla Kelly

The Kickstarter page is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrismole/secrets-of-the-majestic-anthology

We’ll be launching tomorrow, on November 1st! Please do hit the notify button, check it out, tell your friends – I firmly believe it’ll be a fun book of stupid toilet comics and well worth your time.

Oh god, I haven’t mentally prepared for the Kickstarter campaign stress 😬 I will probably be a hollow husk of a man by the time December 1st rolls around, especially if we’re struggling to reach the goal…

The Record

3 pages written for an anthology short

8 pages lettered for The Phoenix

I had hopes of doing more writing this month, but it’s amazing how much being on tour demands your attention – even with various very long car rides to and from Scotland I didn’t have the spare brain capacity to sit down and work on anything. On the plus side, no notes back for the anthology short so that’s all good to go. Next month can be a writing month – I have the final act of SENGOKU planned out (and came up with what I think is quite a neat way to dovetail the two strands of the plot together, wrong-footing the reader slightly in the progress) so I just need to knuckle down and finish the first draft.

The Tunes

It is (as ever) a mixed bag of tunes this month, with a slight bias towards some of the bands we played with on tour. Kicking things off is some ultra soothing piano in this Ghibli cover from Spirited Away – perfect relaxation music if you’ve had a stressful day. Surprising nobody (given my well-publicised love of Taylor Swift), next up is the new version of Blank Space. 1989 was the first album of hers I listened to and it remains (IMO) her best, so you’d better believe I’ll have Taylor’s Version of it on loop the next few weeks..! It wouldn’t be an October playlist without some spooky tunes, so here’s master of horror John Carpenter with one of his synthwave tracks – he’s done a few albums of these and they’re all highly recommended! Hail Spirit Noir are next with their own disco/synth/theremin groove (which sounds very little like their previous album, but I’m here for it) and then we’re into a real 90s nostalgia blast with Fatboy Slim. You can thank an episode of Derry Girls for getting this song stuck in my brain this month..! Myrkur marks our turning point into metal territory – this is from her new album, which is great, but not as strong (for me) as the masterpiece that was Folkesange. Sulphur Aeon are a recent discovery but this album slaps – big cosmic death metal with a lot of interesting atmosphere. Defod opened for Ba’al at our show in Liverpool, and I was very impressed with their sound – hints of Saor, classic Dissection and Primordial but a unique mix. Hopefully we can share a stage again at some point! This Borknagar track from their latest album is an absolute earworm which was in my head for the entire drive up north (see what I did there..!) And lastly is a track from Ofnus, our Welsh touring partners and possibly the nicest atmospheric black metal band you’ll ever meet. They made the whole tour a delight (and they write excellent tunes as well!)

The Links

I’m just going to drop the one link this month, alongside my hopes for a ceasefire and for cooler heads to prevail. I don’t feel at all qualified to discuss the complex geopolitics of the Middle East but I know that what’s happening right now is truly horrific.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/648292

—

Sorry for ending this month’s entry on a bit of a downer, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable ignoring the situation outright! Thanks for reading, please check out the Kickstarter tomorrow and pledge if you’re able and have a happy (and safe) Halloween.

All the best,
Chris

Posted on

September 2023: Sleep is for the Weak

Good morning, folks!

This month’s post comes to you from my table at the Lakes International Comic Festival (through the black magick of ‘writing it a few days early and then scheduling it to post automatically’), and it’s probably going to be a bumper one considering that I took last month off – I beg your forgiveness. Let’s get into it!

The Usual

August was probably the busiest month I’ve had in a very long time – tons of band practices to tighten up for a pair of festival gigs with my ceilidh band Powerhouse in the final week. Both gigs went very well, and we had a fantastic reception, so that was great – I particularly enjoyed playing a massive stage at Towersey Festival down in Buckinghamshire and I think we knocked the socks off quite a few people!

Me and the Powerhouse crew backstage at Towersey!

Then I went on holiday – Athens was fantastic, and a very welcome respite from my day job drudgery. Ancient temples and ruins everywhere you look, delicious food and A LOT of people. History nerd that I am, the novelty of gawping at structures from over 2000 years ago (especially on top of the Acropolis, which is worth the hype) never got old and filled me with a sense of awe and reverence that was sadly not always shared by other visitors. Here are some of my favourite pics I took (because what’s the point of having a newsletter if I can’t force you all to look at my holiday snaps?)

That there Parthenon
My face next to the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion
An extremely aesthetic street cat on the island of Hydra

On the creative front, while I appreciated having some time away from it all, I also spent a chunk of the holiday fretting and planning (because I’m incapable of switching off my brain). A quick project update:

Brigantia Vol. 2: Alaire has just two more pages to draw, Rebecca has coloured two thirds of the book and we’re well ahead of schedule. Lettering depends on Hassan’s very busy timetable but we’re firmly on track to have the second half of Brigantia’s story wrapped up at the beginning of 2024! The pages are looking incredible and I can’t wait to share them with the world (not least because I’m funding the whole book myself and the sooner I can try to recoup some of that the better..!)

Pravin does some research! Art by Alaire Racicot, colours by Rebecca Nalty

The Art of Professor Elemental: has gone to print! Some minor design quibbles from the proof to sort out (which is to be expected when the book is 276 bloody pages long) but it should be in people’s hands very soon.

Secrets of the Majestic: It’s all systems go for this toilet-themed anthology (the premise in a nutshell is: why are the men’s toilets of the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate so outrageously opulent?); I’ve gone over all the scripts that have been submitted to add my preliminary notes, and my co-editor Gary Moloney will be doing the same so we can pass any feedback back to the teams. We’re currently on course to launch the Kickstarter in November, and you can sign up to be notified when that happens by clicking on this link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrismole/secrets-of-the-majestic-anthology

The cover of the Secrets of the Majestic anthology; a marbled floor, a luxe leather bench and a pillar with a huge green tentacle snaking out from behind it.
The wraparound cover for the Secrets of the Majestic Anthology, by Laura Helsby and coloured by Dearbhla Kelly

Please do sign up – this is going to be a very fun anthology and we’ve got some truly amazing teams involved given the silliness of the premise! I’ll be sharing more on that on my social media over the coming month.

Space Cowboys: Tango has been doing fantastic work on the character designs for this, and is now into inking up a set of preview pages from the start of the 1st issue. It’s always a delight working with someone who completely gets what you’re going for, and the pages so far are matching and exceeding my expectations. The goal for this project is to find a publisher who’s interested in a slice of emotional space-Arthuriana with Jodorowsky/Moebius influences… can’t be many of those around, right??

The story’s heroine, Shay (art by Tango)!

Sengoku: I’m still making solid progress with the script for this, despite taking a writing break due to the holiday (and a million and one other commitments) – Andrew has the first ten or so pages of the script now which act as a kind of “cold open” to really set the scene and mood for the story, so we’ll keep making progress on that in due course. Given the number of other projects on my list this one is going to be more of a slow burn and that’s okay!

Phew…

The Record

• 9 pages written (SENGOKU)
• 8 pages lettered (on a fun short story for the LET HER BE EVIL anthology)

A very sneaky peek from the Let Her Be Evil story! Art by Andres Labrada, colours by Maksim Strelkov, letters by me

• Cut together a first draft of the recording diary for my black metal band BA’AL’s recent foray into the studio
• Tons of other admin!

Not a huge number of actual pages written/worked on over August/September but it feels like I’ve been rushed off my feet – I’m spinning a lot of plates alongside the day job (and now a data analyst apprenticeship that I’m doing alongside my regular work, with the goal of beefing up my CV and ultimately getting paid more) which has contributed to at least one bout of stress/anxiety about everything. It’ll be nice to get some things cleared off the list so I can have an actual break in, I don’t know.. December?? 🙃

The Tunes

Kicking off this month’s playlist with one of my favourite tech-death-ish metal bands, Atheist, who are finally back on Spotify – this is the best song off their best album (IMO). Bouncy riffy good times! Still on the metal, we have Agriculture – a new discovery for me, their goal is uplifting nature/spiritual black metal. Strong Deafheaven vibes from this track which I appreciate! Astronoid continue the uplifting metal vibes with the big major key riffs and soaring vocals (which will get stuck in your head, soz!) I had cause to recommend Zeal & Ardor to a friend who doesn’t know them this month, and it sent me on a discography listen-through – the whole of their Stranger Fruit album is phenomenal but this track sticks out due to the ominous af lyrics. Piano break time! The rest of this album by Fleshgod Apocalypse is punishingly heavy symphonic death metal, but they give us a breather with this lush piece. A new Wolves in the Throne Room release is always cause for celebration (their last album, Primordial Arcana, was my no. 1 album last year) and this continues their tradition of reimagining previous releases through a more ambient and contemplative lens. The Pixies are a sudden turn back into popular music – this track in particular will be on the setlist for the “LICAF Variant Covers“, a scratch cover band that I’m guesting on guitar for this evening at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. It should be fun – I’m looking forward to showing off my guitar skills to a different audience than I might usually do! Next is Elisapie – I know very little about this album other than that it contains various covers sung in Inuktitut, the indigenous language of the singer, and that this is an absolutely beautiful rendition of Blondie’s Heart of Glass. You should all know by now that I’m a sucker for a) Final Fantasy music and b) emotive ballads, and Eyes on Me (from FFVIII) is up there with the best of both – so I’m very happy that Distant Worlds have finally recorded a version with the wonderful Susan Calloway. Lastly, to close out the playlist, we’re taking a sudden sharp turn into crushing funeral doom, with a 21-minute long slab of antediluvian heaviness from Ocean. I’ve never met anyone else who has heard this band (I picked up the CD in a HMV probably a full decade ago, and they have fewer listeners on Spotify than my own band) but this release is amazing so I’m more than happy to share it!

The Links

Just the one link this month – plenty to agree with in this list of “20 Best Samurai Movies of All Time”, even if I don’t personally put much stock in ranking films:

https://collider.com/best-samurai-movies-all-time-ranked/

Still, the top two are a solid one-two punch, and there are some gems in the rest of the list as well! I’ve been watching A LOT of samurai movies as part of the research/vibe-setting for SENGOKU and it’s been great to revisit some classics I hadn’t watched in a while (like Hiroshi Inagaki’s Miyamoto Musashi Trilogy!)

—

And that’s all, folks! I did apologise for it being a bumper edition this month – if you made it this far, thanks for reading and have a great weekend. I’ll be at Table 23 in the Comics Marketplace in scenic Bowness-on-Windermere, hopefully hawking my comics and having a jolly old time!

All the best,

Chris

Posted on

July 2023: Sunshine & Showers

Good morning, folks!

Another busy month has flown past and I find it hard to believe that we’re already into the back half of 2023 – I haven’t watched Oppenheimer yet, but I’m sure Chris Nolan has something to say about time (on the atomic level) that would explain why this year has gone both faster and slower than expected.

Anyway, let’s crack on!

The Usual

After last month’s recording adventure, I’ve spent most of my weekends this month doing music as well – a gig in Cheltenham (roughly a 3 hour drive away) was followed the next week by three gigs in 48 hours, not an experience I’d recommend! First, my ceilidh band played a wedding in a medieval tent that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Tudor times, in a field, in the middle of a huge rainstorm, to a crowd comprised partly of drunk French people; the day after that, I played two sets at an all-day doom/metal festival in Sheffield with two different bands. Le Menhir (a solo project by a good friend of mine who has occasionally recruited me and some other friends for live performances) opened the show, and later on Ba’al played what was probably one of our strongest ever sets to an absolutely packed out room – I was absolutely exhausted afterwards but it was a fantastic experience and we got some great feedback afterwards.
A very large crowd watches a band bathed in blue light on stage.Beside all that I’ve even managed to get some writing done! The wheels are starting to spin up on SENGOKU, my attempt at writing an authentic and mature samurai story which deals with themes like familial duty over personal happiness and casts a justifiably critical eye at the bushidō cult of the samurai. As anyone who knows me will know, I’ve been a huge fan of samurai stories since I was about 13 – from Kurosawa and Miike in the movies to Hiroaki Samura, Goseki Kojima/Kazuo Koike and Takehiko Inoue in manga. But I’ve been holding off on this idea until I felt I could do it justice and actually interrogate the concept, rather than just doing a “cool samurai” story riddled with inaccuracies and calling it a day.

I’ve teamed up with a fantastic artist for this story – Andrew “Monomizer” Browne, who as well as loving samurai movies as much as me (and being the only other person I’ve met to have seen Kihachi Okamoto’s “The Sword of Doom”), actually lives in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese! Here’s a test page (not from the story itself) that he’s put together as we figure out the right artistic style:
A page of comic/manga art. A confident samurai is surrounded by ruffians. Close-ups on three of them show them preparing to attack, then the samurai dramatically pushes his sword out of his scabbard with a 'CHIK' sound effect.I’m very excited to start putting this one together – expect more news as the project progresses 🙂

And lest I forget to mention other projects that are currently moving: Alaire has now finished all the inks for Brigantia #5 (the middle part of the second volume) and is cracking on with the third and final part. I was going through her thumbnails yesterday on the bus on the way to work along with the script, and I’m so overjoyed with how well she’s capturing the emotion and power of this part of the story – even just the thumbnails got me a little choked up! It’s been a very long journey but we’re approaching the end and I can’t wait to share it with the world.


The Record

• 14 pages written (SENGOKU)
• 8 pages lettered (The Phoenix)

As the above spiel probably made clear, I’ve dived into writing mode with SENGOKU – at this point the goal is to get a first draft nailed down so I can move bits around or rewrite later. I already had about 10-11 pages written so the page count is creeping up, slowly but surely!

The Tunes

Actually not that much metal on this month’s playlist! The first few tracks are all on the light end of the spectrum – I’ve had a bit of a Ghibli appreciation month, so the Totoro theme opens things up. Try not to get it stuck in your head..! Next are a few pop starlets – Taylor Swift with my personal favourite track off her re-recorded version of Speak Now (not an album I got into when it first came out – my Tay-Tay journey started with 1989) followed by the divine Lola Kirke (who I have a MASSIVE crush on) with a track off her newest album. After that we have new music from the mighty Metric – I’m looking forward to the new album! My writing soundtrack for SENGOKU has obviously skewed towards traditional Japanese music, and here’s probably the most famous piece in that repertoire – Kojo-no-Tsuki, a certified banger. After that, something completely different to kick off the brief metal portion of this month’s list – it’s a death/thrash song by a band called Pizza Death about being eaten by zombie olives. Perfect. We follow that with some more atmospheric/serious stuff – Wounds of Recollection make lush blackgaze that’s a joy to listen to, and Lowen were a particular highlight of the festival I mentioned earlier in the newsletter with their blend of middle eastern vocals and big doom riffs. Lastly, we close out the list with some more electronic sounds – Mega Drive are a pounding bridge between metal riffs and vapourwave synths, and Carbon Based Lifeforms wrap things up with some big ambient space electronica, perfect relaxation music.

The Links

We watch episodes of Somebody Feed Phil (a very good, delightfully wholesome travel/food show) with a friend every Monday night, and recently saw the episode where he visits Korea – which reminded me of the amazing Buddhist nun/best chef in the world Jeong Kwan, and that led me to this article about the restaurant she’s opened up: https://www.lottehotelmagazine.com/en/food_style_detail?no=276

Chef’s Table (the show) is almost a parody of itself (and rightfully mocked in the fantastic film The Menu, when Nicholas Hoult’s awful Tyler suggests that he has an elevated understanding of Ralph Fiennes’ Chef Julian Slowik because he’s watched his episode of Chef’s Table multiple times), but the episode about Jeong Kwan is perfect – not just because it foregrounds her philosophy over her food, but because it makes every other chef profiled in the series look like an immature, petty little child obsessed with status and “being the best”. We could all stand to be more like Jeong Kwan, quite frankly!

Thanks very much for reading this bumper-sized edition (assuming you made it this far) – next month there won’t be a newsletter, since I’ll be on holiday in Athens, eating delicious food and looking at extremely old buildings. I’m sure you’ll cope..!

Until next time, cheers!

Chris

Posted on

February 2021: Vitality of Thought

Hey folks,

Once again, the end of February crept up on me out of nowhere – I thought I had a couple of extra days to write this post! Let’s get into it.

The Usual

I’ve had something rattling around in my brain this month that I wanted to dig into here – inspired partly by some of the discourse on Comics Twitter™, and compounded by having spent a chunk of the month wrestling with writer’s block.

I’ve spent a lot of my “brain-idle” time this month dwelling on the question of why I enjoy writing stories. Not in a particularly negative way, but just out of curiosity – what’s my reason for creating characters, worlds and narratives? What does that energy expenditure mean? It feels very much like there’s a constant tug-of-war between the impetus to write stories which are “meaningful” and “important” and the desire to write what I’m passionate about. In some cases, those two things can co-exist, but often I’m reminded that the stories I most want to tell aren’t “important” or “vital”, and aren’t exactly a new and unique vision.

There’s an easy answer to this, which is that every story someone creates is unique to some degree because it’s informed by who they are as a person – how they grew up, how they staple words together, what life and upbringing they’ve had. But I don’t personally find that answer all that helpful, especially when I routinely see discussion about how stories (and the comics medium in particular) should be used to tell stories that nobody has seen before, in a way that’s never been done before. The implication (at least in my mind) is that since there are a lot of other people like me, I should strive to find experimental or downright weird methods of storytelling in order to stand out.

Don’t get me wrong – experimental storytelling can be great, and I certainly wouldn’t tell anybody not to get weird with their writing. But my personal interest is less in pushing the boundaries of the form and more in clarity – I want to tell stories which will stick with people, move and inspire them, and for me that means focusing more on content and less on the form itself. My main hope is that after I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, I’ll leave behind something more concrete than just memories, and I don’t need to push myself into a writing style I’m not comfortable with to achieve that.

The Record

*1 page of SENGOKU written
*SPACE COWBOYS issue #2 redrafted
*Notes/basic story summary for THE BLACK RUBRIC sequel
*Two pitches submitted to an anthology
*Lettering work – 12 pages of Professor Elemental: NEMESIS lettered

I’ve taken a little break from SENGOKU writing this month – the first scene is scripted, but I’ve been reconsidering my approach to the “voice” of the protagonist. Rather than the first-person captions I would normally default to, I’d like to try something which is stylistically a bit closer to the incredible series Lone Wolf and Cub (by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima). It’ll mean letting the artwork do a lot more of the storytelling, but I think it’ll make for a stronger result.

SPACE COWBOYS #2 has been redrafted based on Claire’s feedback, and next up is issue #3. I can’t overstate the positives of working with a good editor – Claire’s great at pushing me not to take the lazy/easy approach and to really find the dialogue/ideas which will make this story stand out. I’ve even drawn some location maps/reference sketches for this one so hopefully it’ll make life easier for the artist!

I really had fun making THE BLACK RUBRIC with Katie Fleming, so I’ve been idly toying with the idea of doing a longer (maybe 50/60 pages or so?) sequel since we wrapped up the Kickstarter and launched it. Earlier this month, I hit on what the central premise of the sequel could be – as well as still being a loving spoof of black metal, I think I can see an angle to make it about creative burnout and the struggles of artist desire vs. fan expectation. If that sounds rather more serious than the last issue, don’t worry – I’m still determined to make it funny!

The Tunes

The playlist is a pretty long one this month! As usual, it’s a fairly even mix of stuff that’s new to me and more familiar tracks; Together to the Stars were recommended by a friend and this is a great slab of atmospheric black metal with plenty of melody to keep things interesting. Tides From Nebula make what I can only describe as… synthy post-metal? They (along with Harakiri for the Sky) have a knack for BIG RIFFS and soaring choruses which I’m particularly into. Wormwitch and Tribulation are both in catchier, head-banging territory – not quite black’n’roll, but they know their way around a groove. Palehorse/Palerider are a new discovery, and I’d highly recommend the full album this track is from – it’s like doomy, gloomy, darkness-soaked cowboy music with a metallic edge. Blood Ceremony are one of my favourites – hints of Jethro Tull but modern, more witchy, and fronted by an incredibly talented flautist/organist/singer Alia O’Brien who I’m a little bit in love with. Of Monsters and Men are a pop recommendation from the same friend who directed me to the first track on this playlist (because only listening to one kind of music is boring) and I really enjoyed this song – any act that sounds similar to Chvrches is a winner in my book. Next up is the most pristine rendition of Aerith’s Theme (technically called ‘Flowers Blooming in The Church’) I’ve heard, from the FFVII Remake Soundtrack – this song always makes me emotional because it’s so delicate and sad and hopeful, all at the same time. Lastly, please enjoy 9 minutes of ancient Egyptian/desert temple atmosphere from Karl Sanders, also known as the guitarist of brutal/technical death metal band Nile – his solo project sounds nothing like his day job and it’s a nice, chilled end to the list!

And that’s all from me – the sun is shining for what seems like the first time in months, vaccinations are happening and I might actually be able to play some live shows towards the end of the year. How’s that for something to look forward to, eh?

All the best,

Chris
Posted on

January 2021: Vitamin Tree

Hey folks,

I know I fell prey to thinking that at midnight on December 31st, 2020 would turn into a pumpkin and we’d all get our lives back… as unrealistic as that was. Nice of 2021 not to slow down much, eh? Let’s get into it.

The Usual

Since we’re in month 216 (or so it seems) of lockdown and still paying the price of our government tacitly encouraging people to socialise over the Christmas break (before changing their minds at the very last second), there haven’t been many of the usual markers that I rely on to emphasise that one year is changing into the next – usually there’s a tangible feeling of “newness” in the air, a sense of possibility in the year ahead. This year, thanks to the continuing uncertainty of COVID, the only sense of possibility is a hope that maybe this year won’t be as bad as last year was. Still, I’m trying to stay positive and keep inching forwards with project progress.

Part of maintaining that positive mindset has been making the time to venture outdoors (safely and alone) and soak in some greenery – whether it’s pseudo-science or a real thing, there’s something about going for a forest wander that really chases away the brain-weasels. Yesterday I had a nice walk around Wyming Brook on the outskirts of Sheffield, somewhere I’ve never been before, and spent most of it just gawping at the scenery and whipping out my phone to take pictures every 30 seconds:

There’s Uruk-Hai in these hills…

It was truly delightful and I’d strongly recommend soaking up some ‘vitamin tree’ if you have the ability to – absolutely beats staring at the same four walls all week and weekend!

The Record

*8 pages of SENGOKU written
*SPACE COWBOYS issues #2 and #3 sent to my wonderful editor Claire Napier for her input and suggestions – next step is redrafting
*HOCKEYTOWN pitch document mostly finished
*Lettering work – 4 pages of Professor Elemental: NEMESIS lettered

I’ve finally broken ground on SENGOKU and actually started writing – I’m taking a much more detail-oriented approach for this script than I have done before, because it’s important to me that I don’t fall prey to the mistakes that are present in a lot of stories told about Japan/Japanese culture by Westerners. I’m linking in tons of visual reference for each scene, and my intent once the first draft is written is to work with a Japanese sensitivity reader who can tell me whether there’s anything glaringly obvious that I’ve missed. The result (of course) is that it’s going to take me a lot longer to write, but it’s not as though I have a deadline!

SPACE COWBOYS (still a working title, I really need to come up with something better) is still trucking along too – since Claire’s happy with the shape of the story thus far I need to start a) firming up exactly where I want to go with the remaining three issues (since my previous draft outline doesn’t quite match up to the story we’re now telling) and b) thinking about reaching out to some artists and putting together a pitch for it! I have a couple of people in mind, but as with everything, it’ll depend entirely on whether they’re interested in the story. Fingers crossed!

The pitch document for HOCKEYTOWN is basically a chunky Powerpoint which contains bits of artwork from the pages that are done so far, the story synopsis, a detailed breakdown of the story and an explanation of why we think it’s a comic worth publishing. The pages (once they’re coloured and lettered) will be stored in a Dropbox and accessible via a link on the pitch document. I’ve never pitched anything before (I’m using a template that another writer shared online) so I have no idea if it’s any good, but hopefully it presents the story in the best possible light.

The Tunes

This month’s playlist follows a fairly straightforward progression from heavier stuff to lighter, commencing with the mighty Earth – Zé Burnay (@Ze_Burnay on Twitter, a phenomenal artist) mentioned this album a while back and it reminded me that I haven’t heard it in far too long. After that we have one of my personal favourite Children of Bodom songs – their singer/guitarist Alexi Laiho passed away this month at the too-young age of 41. I spent most of my teenage years trying to learn how to play his songs, and almost as much time lusting after his signature guitar on the ESP Japan website – this one hurt, but I know he’d been suffering from ill-health for a while and I hope he’s partying up a storm on the other side. Next up are a couple of tracks fed to me by the Spotify algorithm by Countless Skies and Green Carnation, and after that we’re taking a brief diversion into Tolkien-inspired metal (in the vein of the mighty Summoning) with Moongates Guardian. I have a real soft spot for this kind of super-atmospheric, not particularly heavy metal with tons of keyboards! After that, the final “metal” track on the playlist belongs to Elder, whose album art really caught my eye before their proggy doom metal impressed my ears. The “cool-down” section of the playlist starts with some Eastern-inspired trip-hop courtesy of Xori, then a song which I already recognised despite never having listened to it before – the opening part of ‘Telephone and Rubber Band’ by Penguin Cafe Orchestra was used in a TV ad campaign for a telecoms company for years so it was weird to have it pop up halfway through the album! Finally, the playlist closes out with some wintry acoustic music as a nod to the blizzards we’ve been having semi-regularly over here – TPR with a mournful piano rendition of a track from Final Fantasy 7, and Myrkur with a new haunting folk single that builds on last year’s incredible Folkesange.

That’s all for this month – congrats on making it through January, the days are only going to get longer and warmer from here on out!

All the best,

Chris