December 2024: All Change

Hey folks,

As is tradition around here, this month’s newsletter will be a bit of a 2024 round-up – a look back at the year that’s just been and a look forward at what’s to come. Minor spoiler alert: I’m afraid this month may be a bit of a depressing one, so I hope you’ll bear with me…

The Usual

Looking back at 2023’s piece, there were already blinking red warning lights on my mental dashboard – I talked about shortening my project list to avoid burnout and the challenge of trying to keep creating in the face of a continually worsening economic and political situation. On the plus side, I ticked off every item on my project list from last December;

Brigantia Vol. 2 art was completed, the Kickstarter was successful, and at time of writing I’ve fulfilled 91% of the rewards to backers (with progress stymied mostly by Christmas).
Secrets of the Majestic came out at Thought Bubble and has weirdly been the most successful book I’ve ever done, with an accompanying exhibition at the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate, radio interviews on BBC York and an in-studio interview on BBC Radio Sheffield (a real thrill) and a ton of sales at Thought Bubble – having two debuting books obviously helped but I had the most successful con I’ve ever had on the selling front by a large margin.
I exhibited at a couple of cons – Coco Comic Con in March which was a lot of fun, and (obviously) Thought Bubble in November. I applied to LICAF and didn’t get in this year but that’s fine, two was probably my limit given everything else that’s been going on.
Powerhouse released our new EP with a launch gig in Sheffield that sold 143 tickets, a pretty staggering number all things considering (we then followed that up with another Halloween Ceilidh at the same venue which sold 131, so it’s probably fair to say we have a good local fanbase…) Ba’al also released our new EP (Soft Eyes) and had a great response to it, and we’ve started making serious inquiries about labels for the album so things are progressing on that front.
I played some gigs in a couple of new cities – Glasgow, Swansea, Shrewsbury and Bristol and a festival in Bromyard. Not as many gigs as previous years but the overall quality of them was generally better – next year is looking pretty sparse on the gig front right now but notably, Ba’al are playing the second largest stage at Bloodstock (the Sophie Lancaster stage) which will be the biggest show I’ve ever done. To say I’m excited for that would be an understatement!

…but on the minus side, all this busy-ness joined forces with the depression and anxiety which spent a solid chunk of the year kicking the shit out of my mental health and completely burned out my ability or desire to write or work on comics. One of the main catalysts was probably when I sent out a pitch early in the year for a project that felt like my strongest and most emotive work (No Space Like Home), only to get a rejection back – the rest of the team for the pitch are all established and in-demand creators, so I naturally took that to mean I’m the weak link in the chain and it was a rejection of me and my ideas. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t really matter, because that’s what my brain is telling me and it’s very difficult to argue! Plus, there seem to be very few publishers worth pitching to (based on the horror stories that regularly circulate on social media around most of them), so having the most suitable one pass on a story I’d poured my heart and soul into was, to be blunt, a massive kick in the bollocks. It means that there doesn’t feel like any point working on anything new – nothing I pour time and effort into will ever get picked up by a publisher, which means my only choice is to self-publish. And I’m sick and tired of tipping money into funding entire books only to make a fraction of that back – I can’t burn any more of my savings, I’ll never have a Kickstarter mega-hit, and the landscape has changed so much in the past year or so (let’s not get into the absolute shit fire that is social media now) that funding anything feels like an impossible slog.

So the simple and logical solution, in a world where there’s no pathway to reliably making comics, is: to stop making comics. I have one project on the docket for next year (Sengoku, with Andrew Browne) and then I can comfortably say that I’m done with pissing away money, time and effort on it all. I’ll stick to lettering stories for other people where I can, since that’s much easier than trying to bring my own into the world.

I’m also making the decision to reduce this to a bi-monthly newsletter – I started it all the way back in 2020 as a way of holding myself accountable and keeping track of my writing progress, so I would feel an impetus to keep working on projects. But since I haven’t written a single page this year and have completely omitted the “The Record” section in the last few editions, that seems unnecessary now and I don’t want to waste your time when I have nothing to share! So bi-monthly it is for now, with the hope that it’ll result in a more interesting read and not something that I crank out for the sake of it.

That got a bit depressing, didn’t it? Apologies, here’s the part where I write about music and try to be a bit more cheerful:

The Tunes

As is tradition, the first half of this month’s playlist is tracks I’ve enjoyed this month while the second half comprises my favourite tracks from my top 5 albums of the year. We kick things off with Deafheaven – New Bermuda remains my favourite album of theirs, thanks mostly to some utterly gorgeous clean leads like the ones in this song. I listened to the entire album whilst walking around a snow-covered Pittsburgh in 2016 and every time I put it on I’m transported back to that magical time and place. Yoko Shimomura is up next – I haven’t been able to find out if this album is a soundtrack for anything or just her making music for herself, but it’s got some beautiful and evocative orchestral and choral sounds. I haven’t played any Fallout this month but I had the urge to listen to the soundtrack, and this one by Bob Crosby & the Bob Cats remains a banger (albeit with some very tenuous rhyming going on). Lowen are a fantastic prog/doom band from the UK with utterly mesmerising vocals from Iranian singer Nina Saeidi – the best way I can describe them is that they sound like the end of the world if it was happening in the middle of an ancient Persian temple complex. Lastly from this month, we have Ulcerate – progressive death metal and very, very good at it. This album has topped a lot of 2024 AOTY lists and I’m looking forward to seeing them at Fortress Festival next year!

Now, over to the AOTY section – first up we have the title track from the new Nile album, which I thoroughly enjoyed. As a history nerd I’ve always loved the stories and concepts that Karl Sanders (Nile’s primary lyricist) throws in, and on this album the band are in truly savage form. It might not be quite as phenomenal as their older material but it’s still miles better than most other death metal bands could dream of. Next is Gaerea – I came to this album a good while after everybody else did, but it quickly rocketed up the list to establish itself as an AOTY candidate. Lots of beautiful, reverb-drenched lead lines and an incredible production, plus rich, mature songwriting all adds up to the best atmo-black album of the year by far. Blood Incantation are another band that people have been raving about this year and once again, it’s justified – their new album is a cosmic prog-death headfuck masterpiece, calling to mind (for me) the seminal 2112 by Rush (if they’d gotten really into gnarly distortion pedals and Neil Peart had done more blastbeats). Terminal Nation are up next with the ultimate anti-police brutality anthem of 2024 – it’s not especially complicated (when compared to some of the stuff on this list) but it is very effective, and the refrain will get stuck in your head. And lastly, something completely different – this album from Laura Cannell sounds like the aural equivalent of a drug trip through Tudor England, with traditional instruments and monophonic melodies reinterpreted through a modern lens. Very lush and contemplative, so perfect for a walk through the forest.

Top 5 Things

We’re bringing it back! In no particular order, my 5 top things from this year:

1. The Ocean playing Pelagial at Damnation 2024 (gig)
My favourite band, playing my favourite album in full for the final time? It was enough to get me to buy a ticket for the first night of this year’s Damnation Festival despite not being hugely bothered by any of the other bands, and I’m pleased to report it was everything I could have hoped for and hit me right in the feels.

2. Alien: Romulus (movie)
I know there are some mixed reviews on this one, but I forked out to see it in IMAX and hoo boy, am I glad I did. It might not have reinvented the wheel but it absolutely nails the Alien aesthetic, with incredible set design and some genuine horror bits – I don’t like a couple of the choices they made but on the whole, I thought it was a great movie.

3. Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 (game)
Burn the heretic, kill the mutant, purge the unclean! The previous Space Marine game (10 long years ago) was a favourite of mine, so I was hyped for this sequel – and it did not disappoint. Cutting through vast swathes of Tyranids and Chaos hordes has never been more satisfying, and I was able to play through the campaign co-operatively with my battle-brother (and best man at my wedding) Martin which made the whole thing even more enjoyable. I’ve even dipped into the online modes, which I very rarely do because I don’t usually play games with other people. For the Emperor!

4. Janelle Monae at Aviva Studios, Manchester (gig)
I actually won free tickets for this show through work, which was great because I adore Janelle and her music – I took one of my oldest friends who still lives in Manchester and we had a fantastic night. It was also very shortly after we adopted our new dog Max so I hadn’t slept properly and was incredibly, health-ruiningly stressed out – so I think spending a few hours just luxuriating in great music and the strong LGBTQ vibes of the show really helped.

5. The Secrets of the Majestic exhibition
I know I’ve mentioned it above, but this has to go down as one of the top experiences of this year (and indeed my life) – I’ve never put on an art exhibition before so had no idea what to expect, but it was great to be able to showcase the fantastic work of the creators in the book and just chat to friends about the whole thing. Plus we had a massive turnout for the opening, and it’s continued to have legs in the months following – radio interviews and all!

And that was 2024! A year of ups and downs with a somewhat somber ending, and that’s without even digging into the weeks I spent in therapy for crippling anxiety or the continuing slide into enshittification of our society and our culture. 2025 probably isn’t going to be much better (and probably much, much worse) but let’s keep looking out for each other and doing what we can. On a personal level, I’ll be looking forward to a trip to India for my day job in Jan/Feb, the aforementioned Bloodstock slot and some more fun gigs and festivals – so definitely some things to get excited about at least!

Have a good evening and take care of yourselves and those close to you – and all the best for the coming year!

Cheers,

Chris

November 30, 2024

November 2024: Mad World

Hey folks,

It’s been an interesting month (to say the least)! A few things to recap, so let’s get right into it.

The Usual

We’ll start with Thought Bubble, as usual – this year was something special. Obviously I’d spent a lot of time building up for the weekend with Secrets of the Majestic and the exhibition along with it, so I was hoping to have a big one – and I’m happy to report that this year was by far my best ever in terms of sales and general positive vibes. The exhibition opening on the Friday night was a lot of fun, and absolutely packed for most of the 2 hours it was happening – it was great to see so many friends and to share the joy of having comic pages up on the walls of a legitimate art gallery. On top of that, I spent some time before the opening doing some press photos and video with the North Yorkshire Councillor for Arts & Culture, Simon Myers(!) for the council’s press team to fire out. Here are some photos:

Me attempting to explain toilet comics to a councillor…

A photo of me actually smiling? Incredibly rare!

Love this shot of someone appreciating a page from mine and Chris Wildgoose’s story from the book!

The Saturday and Sunday were both hectic and busy – a lot of backers were picking up their copies of the toilet book but I also sold a lot of copies, and it was truly surreal to see people running up and down the aisles with their copy of the book out to try and hunt down signatures from the creatives within. Not an experience I’ve ever had before! Brigantia Vol. 2 also sold well, but the weekend was always going to be about the very Thought Bubble-centric book on the table – the lesson here is don’t debut two books at one con, but I was determined to get Brigantia wrapped up this year so I didn’t have much choice. That aside, it was once again delightful to catch up with pals and shoot the shit for a weekend.

Both Brigantia Vol. 2 and Secrets of the Majestic are available now from my webstore, btw..!

Anyway, after Thought Bubble is when my month went from fun and fulfilling to ludicrous – I got a message asking me to dial into the morning show on BBC Radio York to talk about the exhibition and the book, so I woke up early for that. The same day, the producer for Toby Foster’s show on BBC Radio Sheffield (which also covers Leeds and York!) contacted me asking if I wanted to come down to the studio and have a proper interview that afternoon! I obviously wasn’t going to refuse, so I got to sit in a BBC studio and talk about comics and Thought Bubble for a good 15 mins – a truly unforgettable experience and a bucket list item for me. You can listen back to my segment here, at about 2 hrs and 18 mins in:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0k136rl

It was a wild 48 hours – I’m not expecting anything to come from the whole endeavour but it was nice to feel important for 15 minutes!

The Record

7 pages lettered for Of Ichor and Bone

We’re rolling on with pages for Asa and Sammy’s project; it’s lovely getting to see JP’s colours before everyone else too.

I mentioned it to a few friends at TB but I currently only have one project on the go (which is Sengoku, and a bunch of pages for a pitch/preview), and that’s intentional – this last month aside, it’s largely been a year of disappointment and personal failure on the comics front and I am very tired of constantly pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll back on me. I’ll get to the end of 2024, take some time to review my feelings and make a call on my future endeavours at that point.

The Tunes

We’re starting things off with a song from Anaal Nathrakh that encapsulates the only comment I’m going to make about politics this month, because quite frankly I can’t cope with any of it and I’m prioritising my mental health over rage/doom-scrolling. Sic Semper Tyrannis indeed. Next up is new Linkin Park – the album is a lot of fun, and sounds like classic LP from the Hybrid Theory/Meteora era in a lot of ways. The new singer was never going to replace Chester but she’s doing a great job of paying tribute to him. Gaerea are up next with a big slab of atmospheric black metal, and they’re followed by the crushing psycho/space-doom of Morpholith. The new Opeth album is another fun entry – it’s never going to reach the lofty heights of their classic era, but it’s fun to hear Mikael going back to the growls (albeit too sparingly for my liking). Harvestman was a Spotify discovery this month, and I listened to all three of the albums that make up this ‘Triptych’ project before I realised that it’s one of the guys from Neurosis doing it all. Still enjoyable psychedelic/droney/proggy/ambient stuff! Sojourner remain one of my favourite bands and I’m itching to hear some new music from them – it’s been 4 years since this album, plz give me more of it. Songs for the Deaf is (IMO) the best Queens of the Stone Age album, and I particularly like this track (and not just because I am partly deaf, and I like the idea of a song just for me..!) Lastly, we’re closing out this month with some nerdy shit – a trip-hop cover of a track from the Lord of the Rings which is good if you want some relaxing background music, and a rock/metal cover of the Imperial March, because we watched a great John Williams documentary this month and I think he’d appreciate it.

No links or movie recs from me this month – I’ll save those for next month and hope I’ve mustered up the energy for a “best of 2024” situation.

Thanks for reading and see you back here on NYE!

All the best,

Chris

October 31, 2024

October: (Not So) Spooky Season

Howdy folks,

It’s Halloween, and while in previous years I have wholeheartedly embraced the Spooky Season (with a month-long programme of horror movies and a general sense of joy and excitement), this year has been decidedly un-spooky.

The Usual

Given my absolute lack of time for anything this year, I gave up on doing a Shocktober programme pretty early – I didn’t have the wherewithal to curate a month of horror movies, design a booklet and actually sit down to watch them all. By my count, I’ve watched a grand total of 4 horror movies this month – Matriarch (which was great), the Hammer Horror version of The Mummy, The Rule of Jenny Pen (which I saw as the secret movie at Sheffield’s fantastic ‘Celluloid Screams’ festival and which was absolutely fantastic) and Immaculate (which I also enjoyed). I’ll talk more about those a bit later on!

On the plus side, things are feeling a bit less overwhelming – I had my assessment for the Data Analyst apprenticeship I’ve spent the past 13 or so months working on alongside my day job, and found out that I passed that with flying colours and a Distinction, so that’s a big weight off my mind. I’ve largely completed the fulfilment for Secrets of the Majestic (and have just sent an update out about that) and can hopefully relax a bit now and get excited for the launch shenanigans at Thought Bubble, and all the Brigantia Vol. 2 books are printed and piled up in my house so I can start fulfilling that campaign in earnest. Essentially it’s just admin work to be done on both those projects, and that’s great because I can switch my brain off a bit and just get things packaged up!

Currently the only thing on my slate for next year (and beyond) is SENGOKU with Andrew Browne – and that’s all written, so we just need to get a pitch together and see if there’s any interest. I’m excited to see how the pages come together (and looking forward to running yet another Kickstarter campaign for it because no publishers are interested..!)

The Record

• Logo designed and 12 pages lettered for Of Ichor & Bone (Asa Wheatley/Sammy Ward/JP Jordan)

Asa’s shared the cover with my logo design on it and pages for the story will be hitting his Patreon, so head on over and subscribe to that if you want to read a chivalric fantasy/horror one-shot comic influenced by Dark Souls, The Green Knight and more. We’ve made some strong stylistic choices with the lettering so I’m hopeful that it works for people!

Cover for Of Ichor & Bone by Asa Wheatley, Sammy Ward, JP Jordan, Chris Mole and Claire Napier. A female knight is wrapped up by a plant-like tentacle monster.

The Tunes

We’re starting off a bit softer than usual with a new track from Canadian “nicest man alive” Devin Townsend, from his new album ‘PowerNerd‘ (great title, fun album). Next is a blast from the past with the remastered version of this track from Mastodon’s excellent Crack the Skye album – I know the original back to front and this definitely sounds a bit crisper and bigger. Blood Incantation are up next with a track off their (wild) new album – I’ve listened to it twice and I still don’t really think I can describe it effectively! Haunt are up next with some throwback heavy metal and a suitably spooky album cover, followed by my favourite track from my favourite band’s best (IMO) album – I’m incredibly excited to see The Ocean playing this (and the rest of Pelagial) live tomorrow at Damnation Festival, it’s basically a perfect album for me. MASTER BOOT RECORD are up next to pound the cobwebs out of your brain with their very heavy electronica/chiptune death metal, and they’re followed by Japanese “brutal blackgaze” from Kokeshi – a Spotify discovery that I’ve enjoyed a lot this month. Woe are an American black metal band that I supported with Ba’al this month in London – very nice guys, and mammoth tremolo picking skills on show here. Lastly, we’re closing things out with two softer cuts – the BBC Proms version of Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine (I highly, highly recommend you watch the full Symphony of Lungs performance on iPlayer/YouTube because it is absolutely spellbinding and had me tearing up more than once – a truly magical experience!) and some classic Pink Floyd with Comfortably Numb, after a friend put it firmly in my head. Definitely not the worst pair of earworms to have to contend with!

Quick Hits

It’s a new section! I’m going to do some micro-reviews for the horror movies I watched this month, because this is my newsletter and nobody can stop me 😤

Matriarch (2022): definitely a slow-burn/tension horror rather than a jump scare one, but very effective at it – Kate Dickie remains undefeated in the category of “terrifying and eldritch mother figures”, capping off a trifecta that includes The Vvitch, The Green Knight and now this. I enjoyed the folkloric elements too, and some gross practical effects to boot.

The Mummy (1959): You know exactly what you’re getting with a Hammer Horror picture, and Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee never disappoint. Not scary in the slightest, but Lee does a great job using his physicality and size to overpower his victims and certainly looks creepy enough!

The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024): This absolutely fucking shook me. Set in a care home in New Zealand, where an arrogant and self-important judge (played by Geoffrey Rush) has been sent after suffering a debilitating stroke. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone because it’s so new, but John Lithgow is incredible as one of the other (creepy doll-toting) patients. The utterly crushing horror of essentially being jailed in your own body, reverting back to childlike behaviours and wasting away at the end of your life with nobody listening to you or believing you ruined me. It could have done with about 25 mins shaving off the runtime, but I wholeheartedly recommend that you seek this one out!

Immaculate (2024): Sydney Sweeney stars as a young American nun who travels to a sinister convent in Italy for a new start. Not as much OTT Catholicism as I might have liked (but my bar for that sort of thing has been thoroughly skewed by the Blasphemous games, which I love) but it definitely ratchets up the unpleasantness as things go from bad to worse. Sweeney is also very good – I think this is the first thing I’ve seen her in although she seems to be everywhere at the moment, and she throws herself into the more gruesome bits with gusto. The last scene in particular is HEAVY (in a good way!) Overall a solid movie, and at 89 mins it didn’t overstay its welcome at all.

That’s all from me for this month, I’ve rambled enough – enjoy your All Hallow’s Eve whatever you’re doing with it, and thanks for reading!

All the best,

Chris

September 30, 2024

September 2024: End of an Era

Hey folks,

I once again find myself up against it and writing this right before my self-imposed deadline of “the last day of the month”, for reasons that are hopefully clear and apparent! Let’s get into it…

The Usual

This month saw the conclusion of the Kickstarter campaign for Brigantia Vol. 2, and as you might expect, it’s put me in quite an introspective mood. The first issue came out in 2016, and while I appreciate that 8 years is an extremely long lead time for a 6-issue series, doing the whole thing on the side of day jobs and a million other commitments should probably count as a mitigating factor. Even with how long it’s taken, I’m very proud of the story – and if this volume ends up being the last comic I put out (not an unrealistic possibility!) I’d say it’s a pretty good way to sign off. It’s wild to look back at what I hoped for the series when I started writing it (released through Image was one dream), and my ambitions have dramatically scaled back as the world has knocked chunks out of my mental health and made this whole game much harder and less enjoyable the past 8 years. Now, I’m happy just to get it into your hands and put a satisfying full stop on the whole thing!

Anyway, the book is with the printer as I write this – I’ll have the digital ready to go as soon as Kickstarter finish up their processing bits and bobs and it should be sorted in plenty of time for Thought Bubble. I’m also closing in on completing fulfilment for Secrets of the Majestic – all the UK pledges have been posted out (except for the ones which are being picked up in person at Thought Bubble, and they’re all packaged up) and I’m making a start on non-UK pledges this week. Trying to fulfil two Kickstarters in one year always seemed like a wild idea, and I can confirm that it’s not the least stressful thing in the world, but at least it clears my slate without anything spilling over into 2025!

Once all the toilet books are out I can (hopefully) start looking forward to all the wild stuff we have planned for the convention weekend – specifically the Secrets of the Majestic exhibition at the Mercer Gallery, which has been a lot of fun to work on. We’ll be having an opening on the 15th November (the Friday evening before the con kicks off in earnest) which I’m hoping a lot of the creators will be able to attend, so if you want to hobnob with a bunch of toilet freaks, admire pages from the book and ask me why I came up with such a ridiculous idea in the first place – don’t miss it!

The Tunes

It’s that rarest of things, an all-metal playlist! And yes, I’m starting this one off with one of my own songs, but there’s a good reason for it – somebody used a brief snippet of the heavy intro for this on an Instagram reel that went mini-viral last month and the result is that at time of writing, my old band Northern Oak have almost 3000 monthly listeners on streaming – not bad given that we split up in 2016 and never reached a fraction of those numbers back then! Anyway, I’m still very proud of this song and it has some of my best riffs in it, so there. Next we go into a couple of black metal blast songs – new Kanonenfieber (an extremely anti-war one-man BM project from Germany), followed by the atmoblack of Autumn Nostalgie and Fen, both of whom I’m looking forward to seeing live in the not-too-distant future. Bolt Thrower are in here as a tribute to the excellent Space Marine 2 which I’ve been playing this month, and they’re followed by a new Linkin Park song which goes harder than I think any of us were expecting – the new vocalist is never going to replace Chester, but she’s doing a great job based on the two singles they’ve released thus far. New Devin Townsend is always worth the time, especially when he’s going for more of an uncomplicated metal sound, and I really enjoyed the Mastodon/Lamb of God collab – it basically sounds like Leviathan-era Mastodon, and since that’s the best Mastodon album (a point that the other members of Ba’al do not agree on!) it works for me. I have a soft spot for this Testament album and their particular brand of bouncy thrash metal, and on the theme of “bands that a teenage Chris built his whole identity around”, we’re closing out with a track from the new Nightwish album that’s also very enjoyable.

The Links

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/how-capitalism-incentivizes-the-destruction-of-art

I particularly enjoyed this longer-read article about how capitalism is a destructive force, spun out of all the hoo-hah over the cancelled Coyote vs. Acme movie, and it made me contemplative – without wishing to sound like a boomer, a lot of movies these days are shit, and there’s a real surge towards lowest common denominator, focus-tested to fuck storytelling where the goal (from the perspective of the people funding the whole thing) is to make as much money as possible, not to actually produce a good movie. Ironically, that approach doesn’t appear to be paying dividends with the number of “sure thing” blockbusters that have flopped dramatically in the past few years rising all the time – yes, the pandemic absolutely played a part in some of that, but I think that a lot of audiences are savvy enough to recognise when they’re seeing something inauthentic or jaded. There’s probably an equivalent for this in comics as well, but I don’t consider myself qualified enough to talk about that so I’ll let someone smarter than me run with it..!

And that’s all from me for this month – it’s extremely soggy, I’ve spent large chunks of today stamping around in the rain both with a dog and on the way to-and-from work, and right now the sofa and a hearty pasta/bacon/cheese/veg dish is calling my name. Enjoy the rest of your weeks!

All the best,

Chris

February 29, 2024

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..!)

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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

December 1, 2023December 31, 2023

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

October 31, 2023

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

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

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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

May 31, 2023

May 2023: In The Toilet

Good afternoon, folks!

It’s been what you could charitably call an “extremely busy” month over here – the day job has kicked up a notch or so, and I’m in the middle of preparing for a huge recording session with Ba’al next month so I’ve been bouncing from project to project like a pinball with anxiety. Still, it’s good to keep busy, right..?
Chris Traeger from Parks & Rec explaining his philosophy for avoiding despair

The Usual

Big news this month is that we finalised the list of stories/creators for the Secrets of the Majestic anthology that I mentioned in a previous newsletter, and we’re well into the planning stages! I’m very happy with the list of people involved – there’s a good mix of established creators and some newer up-and-coming talent, plenty of very good friends of mine, plus some names that I frankly cannot believe I get to put in the credits section 🤐

We’re planning a Kickstarter campaign for the book in the next month or two, so will do a big reveal of all the creators soon – given how niche the project is (comics about a very specific toilet beloved by Thought Bubble attendees!) we’re really going to have to hammer the pre-launch to ensure we can meet our target and get this thing made. Here’s a very sneaky peek at something I spent my bank holiday Monday putting together for it:
A spooky, glitchy video of someone walking into a very opulent bathroom...

I’m hoping KS will let me set up another campaign this soon after the Art of Professor Elemental smashed it’s way to a hugely successful conclusion (£13k raised, over double our target!) but I guess we’ll see – very glad I’ll have the capable assistance of the Prof with fulfilment for that one, doing it all on your own is somewhat stressful!

Lastly, Brigantia work continues apace – Alaire is about midway through Volume 2 now, working on issue #5 (the second volume will contain issues 4, 5 and 6) and the pages she’s turning out are absolutely phenomenal. Here’s a sneaky peek to show you what I mean, I raved about this on Twitter but I’m doing it again:
An extract from a page in Brigantia Vol. 2, showing a scroll with ancient artwork on against a more realistic background.

The Record

4 pages written for my SotM story
6 pages written for the Mad Cave Talent Search
8 pages lettered for The Phoenix

Actually did some writing this month! Obviously having a few short things to work on was helpful – I decided to have a crack at the Mad Cave Talent Search because I had an idea for a story set in the Nottingham universe, and thought it’d be worth rolling the dice. I’m not expecting anything to come of it but if nothing else it’ll be helpful to put my name on their radar! I should also have a bit more lettering to do over the coming months – both lettering my own stories and working for other people.

The Tunes

I love The Muppets unreservedly, and the new show Muppet Mayhem (which landed this month) is utterly delightful – chaotic, funny and heartfelt. So of course I had to open this month’s playlist with the Electric Mayhem’s biggest hit! From there it’s a sharp turn into atmospheric black metal land with Fires in the Distance and Non Est Deus – I’ve been listening to a lot of new music in May and these two albums stood out. Eyes of Argus have done the heaviest, sludgiest Steps cover imaginable (yes, really) and then we’re into trippy psych-doom territory with Lunar Chamber. I look forward to every new album from The Ocean (my favourite band) eagerly, and their newest doesn’t disappoint, mixing their signature proggy/heavy riffs with a lot more electronic elements to great success. From there we’re going down synthwave street with Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan (yes, that is a real band name) and their concrete 70s dystopia version of the Blade Runner soundtrack. They’re followed by some chiptune/vapourwave hip-hop courtesy of Kill Bill: The Rapper, and then a very weird (but good) track I discovered on Bandcamp – Whatitdo Archive Group essentially soundtrack movies that don’t exist, and this one sounds like it could be from an imaginary Moebius adaptation. Lastly, how about some righteous fury? Benefits are a sort of hip-hop/grind/noise/garage collective from north-east England and this song hit me like a lightning bolt, a sneering takedown of flag-waving “patriots” who are happy for the country to turn to shit as long as they can lord it over people who don’t look like them. “Wave yer fucking flag” as a snarl of absolute derision – it’s powerful stuff.

The Link(s)

Like the rest of the planet (seemingly) I’ve been pouring hours into the new Legend of Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom, since it was released. It’s an absolute masterpiece – somehow expanding on the wonderful Breath of the Wild, refining it and presenting tons of new mechanics. Most importantly, it very much feels like a game where you can solve puzzles however you want – there might be one “right” way to get past this pool of lava, but you can try a bunch of things and one of them will probably work. It’s intellectually stimulating and satisfying in a way that most games have forgotten how to be. Plus Link hums snippets of classic Zelda songs when you toss ingredients into a cooking pot and it is ADORABLE.

Anyway, here’s an interview with the developers which delves into why it’s so good: https://www.polygon.com/legend-zelda-tears-kingdom/23720150/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-abilities-eiji-aonuma-hidemaro-fujibayashi

And here’s an article about the fashion and how you can absolutely turn Link into a gender-bending twink if you want to: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-style

And that’s all from me for this month – thanks for reading and have a good rest of your week!

All the best,

Chris

April 30, 2023

April 2023: Raining, Pouring

Good morning, folks!

As is always the case – I’ve got not one but two things to shout about this month, so I’ll dispense with the customary preamble and get straight into it!

The Usual

First: Kickstarter campaign shilling time! At the start of this week, the good Professor Elemental and I finally (after several years of trying to get it off the ground) launched the Kickstarter campaign for The Art of Professor Elemental, a 220-page collection of almost all the comics we’ve made together. I’m talking the anthologies (Prof Elemental Comics 1-5), the tie-ins (Apequest, Nemesis) all the other stuff! Plus there’s a load of other art and text in there as we take you through ten years of steampunk silliness with, I hope, a nice dollop of charm and humour.

The campaign is located here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrismole/the-art-of-professor-elemental

As of right now, we’ve raised 115% of our target (£6951), and we hit the funding goal in less than 5 days! Which is frankly ridiculous, and I’m intrigued to see how much higher we can go. Please do take a look and back if you’re interested – we have digital tiers as well if you don’t want to pay for the physical book and just want a solid collection of 10+ years of my comics-making life!

Anyway, next thing on the agenda: TOILETS!

Cover for the Secrets of the Majestic comic anthology. A checkerboard floor and an unusually grandiose bench.

Pitches close for the Secrets of the Majestic anthology which I announced TOMORROW, on May 1st. We’ve had a great spread of ideas so far, and I’m amazed that people actually wanted to pitch – we’ve also got a handful of BIG NAMES in the mix, who I’m not going to reveal just now, but… let’s just say it’s [Redacted] and [Redacted]. Exciting, yeah? You’ve still got time to send through your pitch if you’re interested, here’s the link!

Next step will be to trawl through the pitches with my co-editor Gary, send out the acceptance/rejection emails and get cracking on (another) Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds so we can pay everyone. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we won’t be able to get it out for this year’s Thought Bubble (because it’d require a mad rush for all the creators, which I don’t want to do) so we’ll set the launch for next year’s event!

Speaking of Thought Bubble – very pleased to announce that I’ve been accepted for a table this year! However, because an inconsiderate relative decided to book their wedding on the same weekend as this year’s con, I’ll only be able to do one day and have thus only applied for a half table. It’s going to feel very weird not doing the full-power TB experience but hopefully it’ll still be a successful con! And I will of course make the sojourn to the toilets 😎

The Record

• 4 pages of second draft/notes on Serpent of the Deep (with Gustaffo Vargas, for Fractured Realms)
• Finished the page-by-page outline for The Black Rubric sequel, which currently stands at 50 pages
• Outlined my own pitch for Secrets of the Majestic

Bit of a quiet month on the productivity front, but I’ve made up for it by outlining a few things and advancing some other creative endeavours. I also bought a lute (after years of wanting to), which I’m counting as a massive achievement:

Chris with his new lute, looking wistfully off-camera.

The Tunes

This month’s playlist starts off very low-key, with some tracks that Spotify apparently categorises as “gloomcore” by Air Hunger and Tales Under the Oak. Forest vibes! They’re my shit! Next, Queen Florence is back with a new track which I love – no further analysis, it’s just her usual brand of gothic melodrama with catchy/soaring vocal lines and it’s AMAZING. Blood Ceremony are up next, a long-time favourite of mine with a new track – their last album was fantastic prog-psych-rock with a Jethro Tull feel, so I’m looking forward to more of the same. Afsky are our first step into the “atmospheric black metal” part of the playlist, with this lush track – they’re new to me this month and I’m mildly annoyed I hadn’t listened to them sooner. The same applies to Saidan, with their Japanese myth/horror take on black metal – the cover art is very Junji Ito, which is a good sign (to me, anyway!) Dawn Ray’d are a phenomenal band from the UK underground who couple fierce leftist/antifash views with black metal, and their new album is an absolute punch in the face – vicious, angry, but full of hope. Highly recommended. This month saw news that one of my favourite bands of all time (Agalloch) are reforming for “limited shows”, which I am extremely excited about it because I somehow never managed to see them live – wherever they play, I’ll be there with bells on. Couple of classic heavy metal bangers to see us out – new Sex Machineguns (Japanese speed metal, another long-time favourite) and the almighty Judas Priest closing the playlist with Hellrider, which is one of the top-5 most fun songs to play on my personal list!

The Links

Not a link this month, but a recommendation – we recently watched the Thai movie ‘Hunger’, freshly released on Netflix, and it was genuinely excellent:

Poster for the Netflix movie Hunger. A female chef stands in front of a wok which is dramatically on fire, while two other chefs loom in the background.

It’s not lost on me that two of my favourite films watched this year (the other being The Menu) both dig into the intersection between class and food, specifically fine dining. I like eating nice food, but I can say with some certainty that I’ll never be as awful as the rich people in movies like this who treat food like yet another status symbol – spending vast sums of money on “exclusive experiences” and culinary delights that they utterly fail to appreciate. Anyway, the film kept us guessing throughout and had some brilliant, tense scenes – it’s not as stressful as The Bear, or as dark and twisted as The Menu, but I will always enjoy seeing an arrogant, misogynist culinary school graduate humiliated for vastly over-complicating a simple and wholesome dish like fried rice, and the lead actress (Chutimon Chuengcharoe) is an absolute revelation in the role.

And that’s all from me for this month – thanks for reading! If you’re in the UK, I hope you enjoy an extra day off tomorrow as we celebrate May Day/Beltane.

All the best,

Chris

March 31, 2023April 30, 2023

March 2023: Slowly, but Surely

Howdy, folks!

I’m writing this month’s newsletter on a train on the way down to London (for a tattoo session), in a rare example of “Chris decides to actually use his time productively instead of doing everything on Saturday morning” – long may it continue!

The Usual

There have been a couple of things on the creative ledger this month which I think are worth sharing – firstly, at time of writing there are precisely 12 hours left to go on the Kickstarter for Fractured Realms, a Norse horror anthology from the team at Limit Break Comics that I was very happy to be accepted into.

Cover for the Fractured Realms comic - a Draugr on the prow of a longship.

Here’s the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulcarroll/fractured-realms-a-norse-horror-anthology

I’ve put together a tight little slice of psychological horror with my good friend (but somehow first-time collaborator) Gustaffo Vargas, and I’m excited to see how people react to it – I pushed myself a bit with this one and I hope it’ll show on the page when we’re done. The Kickstarter is fully funded, so at this point you just have a few hours to jump in and pre-order a copy of the book – and trust me when I say you will want to!

Next, but still in anthology territory – on Wednesday I announced/opened up submissions for an anthology that I’m running, entitled SECRETS OF THE MAJESTIC. It’s an extremely niche in-joke of a premise – basically, the men’s toilets at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate (the location of the Thought Bubble mid-convention party for the last few years) are ridiculously ostentatious and grandiose, and I thought there was mileage in a collection of stories exploring some wacky and wild theories about why they’re like that. The reaction to my announcement tweet was huge, so it turns out there are a lot of very talented people in the Thought Bubble crowd who are keen to explore the mystery of the toilets!

The cover for the Secrets of the Majestic anthology - the famous toilets!

The (incredible) cover is by Laura Helsby and coloured by Dearbhla Kelly, and I already know that we’re going to have some fantastic creative teams in the book once submissions close – if you’re keen to take part, you have until May 1st to team up and get your submission sent in! Here’s the link: https://forms.gle/MpNTKA42U5Xj2fUk8

Lastly, my good pal Professor Elemental and I are embarking into the Kickstarter mines ourselves with a collected edition of “The Art of Professor Elemental” – a vast Hardcover collection of (almost) all of the comics we’ve made together and tons of other artwork besides. If you found my work via the Prof and are keen on a hardback collection of steampunk whimsy for your bookshelf or coffee table, please do sign up for the campaign here to be notified when we go live (which will be in the next few weeks!): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrismole/the-art-of-professor-elemental

In non-anthology news, Brigantia Vol. 2 continues at full speed – Alaire has been absolutely crushing the pages, and has now all but finished the first issue (of the 3 that will make up the next volume!) Her work looks beautiful, and I can’t wait to share more of it with you. Send her your prayers and blessings!

Lastly, a recommendation – don’t ever listen to Eve of the War from the Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds musical, because it’s far too catchy and it will be stuck in your head for a good few weeks (as it has mine 🙃)

The Record

5 pages written, another story outlined
Logo design for SECRETS OF THE MAJESTIC

I had a pretty tight deadline for the Fractured Realms story this month, so that consumed a lot of my brain space – much as I dislike commuting to the office for the day job, never underestimate the usefulness of having roughly 90 mins a day walking/sitting on trams/walking some more when it comes to thinking of ideas and bashing a script around in your head. This was also the first month in a while where I didn’t have any lettering work lined up, and I’ll be honest – much as I enjoy being a “comics professional” on the side, it was nice to have a bit of a break! We’ll see if that changes next month…

Plus, now that Space Cowboys has moved into the very early production stages, I need to spin the wheel and decide which of my other longer story ideas I’m going to pick up and write next. There are a few in various stages of completion so it’s going to come down to which one I’m the most enthused about – which means I have to beat down my usual “all my ideas are terrible” self-doubt, and that’ll be a fun task!

The Tunes

We’re starting this month’s playlist off on the relaxed/light end of the spectrum, with (for my money) the best track off the Frozen 2 soundtrack – All Is Found. It might not have had quite the same seismic impact as the first film, but Frozen 2 was genuinely very good and the soundtrack is full of bangers, but this one always gets me in the feels. Next up is a chilled hip-hop classic courtesy of De La Soul, whose discography I had a dive through this month. We’re taking our first steps towards heavier ground with Lotus by Soen – I wasn’t familiar with the song before this month, but I’ve been asked by a friend to learn it for a recording project and it’s got some great melodies. Quest Master are a Spotify discovery – crunchy vapourwave/chiptune goodness for all your lo-fi adventuring needs! Chthonic have been one of my favourite bands for a very long time now, so new music from them is always welcome and this track promises great things from their next album. The same applies to Tribulation, who I love – although this song sounds like they’re taking a lot of inspiration from Ghost, it’s still great. REZN were new to me this month but my listening notes describe them as prog-doom and very good – this one is worth your time if you like big weighty riffs and soaring clean vocals! I was a rabid Trivium fan back when they burst onto the metal scene with Ascendancy, and while some of their albums after that left me cold, I’ve gone back to their later releases in recent years to re-evaluate them. This song in particular stands out – it’s not especially complicated but the refrain hits like a freight train. New Babymetal is a little less silly than their previous releases, but it retains all the hallmarks of their sound – epic J-pop vocals, crunchy riffs and polished production. I would still absolutely love to see them live, it’d be a hell of a show! Lastly, new Liturgy dropped a few days ago and it’s already making a strong push for AOTY status – glitchy, electronica-laced black metal with shrieking vocals, this won’t be for everyone but I love it.

The Links

Just the one link today, and it’s one I shared on Twitter a little while back – a piece published in the Guardian which looks at the links between the Guardian’s owners and the slave trade: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/28/slavery-and-the-guardian-the-ties-that-bind-us

The essential message of this piece (and the accompanying scholarship) as I understand it is that British people can’t claim that we abolished slavery earlier than the US and therefore don’t bear any responsibility for it – we as a nation continued to profit hugely from slavery, and need to be honest about that fact. Colonial history still isn’t widely taught in the UK (I didn’t learn anything about it in school, and I have two history degrees – it wasn’t until University that I had cause to do some academic reading on the subject) and we’re long, long overdue a reconciliation with the darker elements of that history.

I’ll leave it there for today – the wi-fi on this train is somewhat spotty! Thanks for reading, back Fractured Realms and consider submitting for Secrets of the Majestic if you have a toilet story to tell – and have a great April!

All the best,
Chris