Hi 👋

For some reason I found myself scrolling through my photos app and landed on a drawing series I did in 2021. They're little more than doodles, coloring-page shape logic. It's a good mental exercise, though.

The Knives by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

It's been really fun reading new Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips work as standalone graphic novels. I will always love the individual issue format, but the older I get, the more I come to appreciate collected editions and OGNs, if for no other reason than shelf logistics. I have a closet full of short boxes that represent a hobby measured in cubic feet. The Knives finds the duo (with Phillips' son Jacob on colors) back in the world of Criminal, an off-beat crime series the pair have been fleshing out for 20 years now. Criminal was how I discovered these two, although they both have done work with other characters and publishers and genres. The Knives finds some familiar characters in new situations, and brings the series up to the present in a lot of ways. There will be more books coming, and even a TV show based on the book.

I'm not sure Brubaker translates well to television, but I'm glad he keeps trying. I was excited for TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG, the collaboration he did with Nicolas Winding Refn that streamed on Amazon Prime. Ten episodes of the weirdest, sexiest, most horrific shit you've ever seen on TV, an artifact of when the big streamers were throwing money at auteurs to make 10-hour movies with little or no commercial appeal. It's good, but you can barely see Brubaker through the Refn.

Rabbit Trap

Rabbit Trap is relatively small movie with only a few things to say, but what it does it does well. You had me at Dev Patel folk horror.

A couple, one of which is some kind of recording artist, move a ton of recording equipment to a remote cottage in the Welsh countryside in the 1970s. The cottage is one of those picturesque places that must exist in real life but that I have a hard time imagining isn't surrounded by power lines and cell towers. Maybe I'm just an American in that way. Anyway, I want to go there. They set out to record spooky nature sounds for some kind of project, and stumble across a young boy(?) who proceeds to give away the entire plot before attempting to install himself into the couple's life. The finale is weird and gross and leaves you with more questions than answers. Folk horror should do that. If you feel like the mystery is completely solved at the end, I would probably exclude it from that particular subgenre.

Anyway, if you like watching Patel stroll through lush forests, have psychedelic experiences in faerie circles and spend copious amounts of screen time staring, worried-looking, into the middle distance, then Rabbit Trap is for you. It's available on Kanopy with most library cards, I believe.

Dungeon synth

I'm amazed at how prolific the Heimat Der Katastrophe label is. They put out new dungeon synth cassettes on the reg, many of which include bespoke pen and paper RPG adventures folded in with their j cards. You can of course listen to all of it digitally on Bandcamp, which is what I usually do. I'd go broke if I paid international shipping for every cassette release.

I spent a good part of the last month down with the flu. I'm several weeks past day zero and still waking up with a frog in my throat, although it's a little better every day. I hope you and yours are healthy. This influenza A variant that's going around is no slouch.

I've been collecting tabs and it's time to dump them here so I can close them.

• Strudel.cc is (perhaps yet another) music programming platform. I remember playing with Sonic Pi ages ago, but I like that Strudel seems to be browser-centric.

• I did about 3 days of last month's Advent of Code before getting stumped/distracted.

• I haven't been really into desktop flight sims in ages, maybe ever really. But the open source Flight Gear piqued my interest again.

• Look at these illustrations by Ninn Salaün

• This might be niche, and maybe you don't need shampoo to bring you joy, but maybe you do..

• Wig Shop continues to be a place I browse regularly. Comic shops and comic news sites are absolutely clogged with cape shit, and I have little to no interest in that. But comics as a medium still brings me great joy, and Wig Shop is one of the best online purveyors of the good stuff. Or at least the weird stuff.

• I love weird little online mags. Foofaraw seems like a great weird little online mag.

• Although I've been leaning back toward traditional tools lately, I still dabble with Procreate. I've wonderered if anyone's had success with any accessories like the PenPad? I'm tempted.

• I love a good tutorial, and I love a good web map tutorial best.

• Should I order a $120 Asaro head or ask someone I know with a 3D printer to make one for me?

• f*te seems like a cool kids version of Letterboxd? Here's a list Jessa Crispin made for people that enjoyed No Other Choice?

I've been playing around with the formatting of these link dumps. Do folks like seeing the full URLs when sharing links? Or are hyperlinks OK?