We are in the thick of the convention season. My Subaru Forester is getting back into the groove of hauling a full load several hundred miles. Meanwhile, I am looking at my load wondering what the hell I can do differently.

Most of the time, when I write an entry for Fighting the Good Fight, I want to come off as coherent and sure of myself as possible. Yes, I promote doubt and think that uncertainty is a clearer path to truth than rigid, black and white thinking. But, something I wish had more solid, or certain answers is how I pack my stuff.

An oft obscured secret in the comics and art show scene is that no one has a good resolution for lugging their wares around. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t artists with a packing set up that they like. In fact, there are several artists who are happy and content with how they pack things in for a show. I am claiming that no one has a one-size-fits-all, actually good solution to packing.

The vast majority of the work I take to shows is 12x18, or smaller. You’d think there’d be a perfect, affordable storage solution to packing up pieces that are all the same size and lay flat, but there isn’t. If there is, I’m far from aware of it, and so are the majority of artists I meet. Storage solutions are easy to lock down when you’re looking for long-term, heavy duty, stationary options. It’s the mobility factor that becomes the pickle in going to shows.

When I am at conventions, I am often shocked at what folks use to bring their product with them. There’s plenty of creators who fly with their stuff and pack suitcases with clothes, prints, and books. While I’m not ready to have my unmentionables keep something you might buy safe, I get it. However, there are oodles of people who keep things in an array of sad looking cardboard boxes, ill-fitting tote bins, and anything in between.

Aside from my massive metal walls, I try to keep everything concise. I know too many people who can take several hours to set up and tear down, and I don’t want that. On good days, I can tear down in about forty minutes, and I love that. I also love getting everything in, and out, of an event in one load. But this means I am heavily prioritizing speed over optimal security for my goods.

Since 2017, I have sworn and lived by the Greenmade InstaCrate. The two things I positively love about InstaCrates are that they stack nicely, and that they’re perfectly square all the way down. The major flaw with most totes and plastic tubs is that they’re designed to nest into one another, meaning they taper at the bottom. Ultimately, a taper means that optimal storage of flat items is restricted to the space at the bottom of the tub, not the top. What I hate about InstaCrates is that it’s ever so slightly smaller than I need for lugging around 12x18s comfortably. Sure, they fit in the crate, but good luck getting your fingers in there to get them out. Everything is just a bit too snug which comes with a greater risk of damaging my items. Add to that the fact that no crate is designed for the mileage I’m going to put it through with their modular design, and I’m perfectly at risk for blowouts and catastrophe.

In my mind’s eye, I can perfectly imagine a storage solution that holds my artwork in a format that is horizontal, but upright. It’s padded, and heavy duty, with a weight limit of at least fifty pounds. It would have a lid, and it could stack with counterparts of itself, and they’d all fit perfectly on a cart.

What madness am I living in that has me fantasizing about boxes? Is this what adults do, construct perfect storage units?

It feels like I am asking for the impossible. I need a solution that I can part out and pack into the Subaru with ease, and it needs to hold all my stuff like it loves it. When I ask other artists, they all propose simplistic ideas that, when I consider them, all cost an arm and a leg, or ultimately result in options that are less ideal.

There are no perfect solutions.

There are oodles of poor and middling solutions that all leave me unsatisfied.

Travis and I spent a good deal of time debating various options while winding down from iMagicon, in Minot, North Dakota. We have the same crates, so it’s easy to discuss what we do and don’t like about them. But it’s more than what we experienced at iMagicon. For the last several years, every show we do together comes with the chance that one of us will mutter, “there has to be a better way.” The moment it slips out, we’re immediately down the rabbit hole of searching for something. Anything.

We find so much nothing that here I am, writing a newsletter that could be summed up as, “old man yells at box.” Am I destined to build my own? I hope not. Am I doomed to being frustrated forever? I better not! It’s just a box. It’s just a box!

But it’s not just a box. An optimal traveling storage solution means a lot when headed off to shows. Right now, the challenges of the disorganized crates I have make reorganizing them a chore I loathe. It’s hard to ensure my products are secure and safe, and it’s hard to find a better way. I want things to be the best they can be, but I don’t want to agonize over it, either. Being critical of my packing options is unfortunately leading me to paralysis.

While I do my best not to pull my hair out over boxes, I’ll throw it to you. Do you have that perfect solution I’m not seeing? If you do shows, what do you do differently? What works for you and what doesn’t? Let’s spiral into madness together.

Today’s Tune

I’d like to say that the, “this counts?!” mindset really pushed me forward creatively. It’s a license to say whatever you want to say. It’s professional permission and support that your idea, whatever it is, is a good idea. And that may be. I can’t argue that most ideas are bad ideas, or meritless. But running headlong into any old idea has never been my goal. I think the Kevin Smith approach is great encouragement when it’s time to start, but I always strive to say something when committing to a project.

I’m always aiming for a profound artistic experience. Moving a project along can be challenging when I’m not convinced it has something valuable to say. I’ve had numerous works trapped in limbo because I just don’t feel that profound feeling I need to move through it all. It can really hang things up.

When I think about the volume of creative output I could have, I think back on an NPR film discussion comparing and contrasting Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese. The discussion came in the wake of Scott taking shots at Scorsese after a negative response to Scott’s Napoleon. Ridley Scott stated that he’d made four films in the time it took Scorsese to make Killers of the Flower Moon. In the NPR discussion, the hosts mused that there was a clear difference between the two directors. Scott seemed like the kind of filmmaker to move fast, say yes a lot, and tackle dozens of different things. He was throwing darts at boards and a lot of them landed. The misses sort of faded out of memory.

Scorsese, on the other hand, is meticulous. He has a specific vibe, generally speaking, and his work is all carefully crafted. That means, when Scorsese drops a film, it’s functionally the height of his mastery. Which leads to a lot of criticism if the audience doesn’t receive a new Scorsese film as if it’s a masterpiece. NPR made the comparison that both men are old, and that Scorsese is trying to make sure everything he can say before he’s gone. Meanwhile, Ridley Scott appears to want to say as much as he can, even if it means speaking without a point.

You can probably tell that I lean more toward Martin Scorsese. If the point of this entry wasn’t clear enough, I’m sure my adoration of his gangster work is apparent enough. But that doesn’t mean I think I’m as meticulous of a craftsman as Scorsese. And, it doesn’t mean I don’t envy the Ridley Scott approach.

I want to have tons of work coming out.

When I look at the work I have coming out, the profound artistic experience I am crafting is often more profound for me. I’m intensely focused on perfecting my figurative work. I’m trying to challenge myself with new ink approaches, washes, and different approaches to color. I’m back here, trying to impress myself with various techniques that I have no evidence lands for most audiences. Every now and then, someone mentions how a particular piece looks, or feels, and I can tell they get it. They’re having the type of experience I’m having.

Considering This is My Private Life and Violet 9, I have two different schools of thought. Private Life is about moments in my life, or inside my head. It’s one of the few things I put out into the world that holds onto the weird. I’m not afraid to exaggerate, or create vignettes that come off surreal or bananas. Violet 9 is an entirely different beast. I’m trying to create something sexy, something sensual. But I don’t want it to be that shallow. It’s a religious criticism, for me. The strongest entries are pinups, sure, but they’re taking a stab at expectations and faith.

Both webcomics have their hangups, however. I find myself questioning the artistic merits in any old scenario for Private Life. I want these entries to tell you something about yourself instead of just showcasing absurdity. But, I often forget how profound absurdity can be. Several things I love are absurd, and often with little other purpose. I don’t know where I’d be without things like Space Ghost Coast to Coast, or the Adventures of Pete & Pete. Both shows embraced the strange and unusual simply because it felt good, and both had me finding that profound artistic experience I’m looking for.

Violet 9 often gets its highest views when I’m delivering sex appeal and as little plot as possible. But, I don’t feel fulfilled just doodling some nude characters, and passing it on. I start to feel divorced from myself, even if it seems to be landing. The latest episode featured a melancholy satyr as I ask readers to decide if a character, Lilith, can be redeemed, or if she’s doomed. I felt more myself with that satyr. There’s something in me that will always be drawn to illustrating the quiet, somber moments. To quote Michael Stipe, “when I write, I tend toward melancholy.”

Who am I to decide what a profound artistic experience is? We can find ourselves in both the Ridley Scotts and the Martin Scorseses. And, more importantly, we can just as easily not find ourselves in them either.

Right now, I am working on Fregoli and a oneshot, Low Red Moon (inspired by Belly). Both are crawling along at a snail’s pace. I am using script layout dabbling with Low Red Moon to push me harder in Fregoli. While it’s slowly working, I find myself questioning both what kind of experience I’m having, and what experience a reader might have. I want both of these to be meaningful to both myself and to you. But I can’t promise any of that.

Kevin Smith might tell me that as long as I’m loving the exercise, it won’t matter. I’ll get the work done. Maybe Ridley Scott would tell me that he wrote six treatments as quickly as I wrote two. And, I’m sure Scorsese wouldn’t return my phone call. I want both of these scripts to read better than these newsletters. I want you to read them and I want you to see that I put years of experience and care into them. But, again, there’s no promises.

A profound artistic experience is more than knowing a piece of work counts. To me it’s that lasting feeling like a good meal. You can still feel it on your tongue hours, or days, later when you think of it. A profound artistic experience might make you ask questions, it could make you memorize all the characters’ names, or it could make you scour the internet for how the hell it happened. To me, the best experiences make you want to get up and give that experience to someone else, like a revolution.

The truth is, the profound doesn’t necessarily live in mastery. It doesn’t always live in perfectly crafted scenes and sentences. I don’t know how to bottle and deliver the profound. But I know it exists, and we can find it in conquest and surrender. Whether you’re finding it through the act of creating, or you’re moved by the sound of a guitar, or the conviction in a delivery, I think we can find it anywhere we gain control or agree to give ourselves up. There’s no promises or guarantees, only the freedom of the adventure in pursuing it.

Today’s Tune

During residency breaks on a single day, I chewed through half of the Friends of Eddie Coyle. Higgins, the author, has a similar skill to Mark Twain who can tell you everything about a character by crafting their voice and accent with impeccable skill. I’m also shocked how thoroughly each chapter can fill its pages with dialogue. If you pulled all the dialogue from the book, you might be lucky to have ten pages of prose left.

It’s incumbent on me to finish Eddie Coyle. The thing I wrestle with is an ongoing listlessness that tells me I need more literature while being absolutely addicted to my brain oozing out my ears while I scroll through slop on my phone. There’s a lot of discussion in the academic and scientific world about the effects of attention fragmenting, and what it does to our brains. I’m a victim of it all the time. Hell, just trying to find information on attention fragmenting, had me opening extra windows I didn’t need and skimming through off-topic concepts. It’s a damnable mess.

Humans get hooked on rewards easily. It’s something we have to struggle against, but often cave to. Just about every lick of technology we’ve developed in the post-internet landscape has been about immediate gratification. Everything is built on the Pringles mindset: you eat one, and then another one, and just another one. Eventually, after scrolling just another length of social media, or tabbing over to just one more task, or watching just one more reel, we’ve spent a phenomenal amount of our time knowing well that once we popped we wouldn’t stop.

Admittedly, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World had a formative impact on me. I read the book at 20 while working at a swimming pool. I remember thinking that the world Huxley proposed was one we needed to be concerned about, but was ultimately one we’d dodged in the 1940’s. However, now with the doom and dopamine of my phone, I feel like I’ve become one of The Director’s perfectly conditioned children. In Brave New World, children undergo rigorous conditioning to impart both a love for nature, but a resistance toward exploring wilderness. In my world, I feel I’ve become conditioned to long to read, while resisting it at any cost with my phone.

There is developing evidence that reading, especially reading books, can help rewire our brains and fight against fragmented attention. That’s an attractive proposition. However, one of my personal concerns is creativity. I feel there is a correlation between my decline in reading and the amount of available thought and imagination I have to create something new. I have associated this decline in mental creative assets with my shifting from listening to music toward primarily podcasts, and my shift from reading to being a phone junky. I’ve made leaps and bounds in putting music back in my life, even liberating myself from Spotify. But, reading hasn’t been the same journey.

Long ago, when I first set out to create my own stories and develop my own work, I kept a pitch journal. In it, I would jot down ideas, regardless of their value. I’d note what things they might be like and note the general premise of the idea. If it came to me, I’d create a log line, to tie it together neatly. At one point, when I was trying to decide which of my several dozen ideas had legs, I ventured to the mall and talked to strangers. As opposed to accosting random mall-goers like an evangelical, I wandered shops until someone asked if I needed help finding anything. I took that chance and pitched an idea at them. “Hey! Would you read a book that was like Adventure Time meets Horizon Zero Dawn with a little boy and a tiny dinosaur?” I might ask. I’d tally their response, and work on whatever idea got the best response.

Maybe there’s a better approach to getting random sampled feedback, but it lit a fire in me for a lot of my earliest work. I feel like my creative well is dipping dry more frequently than I care to admit. I haven’t scribbled pitches in years. It feels like the relationship between what media I am consuming is a major driving factor behind this drought. It holds me back and makes me hesitate on so many projects that it’s embarrassing.

In 2021, I was on residency in Schuyler, Nebraska. It was a summer camp program in which students and I played a roleplaying game, then created comics and illustrations based on our experiences. During most residencies, I try to relate my storytelling techniques to comics, film, and television. I want to cover most of the media kids I’m working with are likely to experience. I have always run into kids who try to claim they have no taste or interest as a tactic to deflect working. However, this Schuyler residency was the first in which I had a student stop dead in her tracks and have a crisis. She needed help coming up with things to relate storytelling to because she couldn’t remember the last book she’d read, or the last thing she watched that wasn’t a reel. I remember the look on her face as she said, “I don’t think I have a favorite movie.”

This student’s lack of a creative relationship to media was shocking. Now, in 2026, I’m firmly rooted in the fear that she was an oracle for who we all might become as our relationship to storytelling and media changes. I don’t want to be bookless. I don’t want to be pitchless. I want my head full of wonderful nonsense. I’m hoping my entire relationship to media is changing for the better.

Today’s Tune

It seems unavoidable that the Monday after Planet goes quiet. I spend half the day in the car, driving back, and I end up exhausted like a kid home from camp. While Travis and I have done better each year at getting to bed earlier and treating ourselves well, the massive crowd and sensory input always wears me out.

Perhaps you’re wondering how Planet went? My last entry focused on taking more risks at shows like Planet Comicon, and I feel like I did mostly that. After staring at booth set ups past, and considering what succeeds at Planet, I feel I put a good presentation together. I had limited prep time, and a limited budget to build on, both thanks to the rocky start to 2026 I’ve had. But, that didn’t affect me as much as I worried.

I live in a variety of worlds, when it comes to shows. While I don’t prioritize them as much as I probably should, I often put on a display that leans more on an art fair aesthetic. Then, at the same time, I do a good deal of cryptid and monster work commingled with my figurative work that has a dash of fan art. I want to be successful off the figurative work, but — as I’ve said ad nauseum — fandom shows rely intensely on folks pointing at your work and screaming “I know what that is!” Sincerely, I had a young woman step up to my table this weekend and tell me that my work is, “all very good, I just don’t know who any of these characters are.”

Planet swarmed with people. Despite overlapping with No Kings, Planet had record numbers. As usual, the crowds are rushing towards celebrities they’re dying to meet. And, with a record turn out, the show easily became a series of lines within which attendees prepared to filter into other extremely long lines they could queue up in. It seemed overwhelming, and I’m impressed with just how many people were willing to make six to eight hour lines a priority.

Though the intensity of the celebrity drive pushed people to the back of the event hall, the sense of being lost in the sea of other artists didn’t appear to be more prominent than usual. I did better than I expected, sales-wise, but I didn’t reach the goal I had set for myself. It left me with mixed feelings, as always. In many ways, it was just another show. But something did stand out to me that I can’t overlook.

My volume of sales was down considerably from years past. It’s still intensely clear that folks have less money for artwork given the state of the world. Stickers sold far better than prints, which is not surprising. On the other hand, commissions have returned, which is a relief. From 2022 through 2024, commissions were make or break for bigger shows. If I could land five or six commissions, I’d be busy and doing well. Because they have such an impact, I have done what I can to announce commission openings online, especially to members of the Brimstone Order who get discounts on work.

Perhaps because of the open commissions announcement, and perhaps because they really care, I had two patrons send me pre-show funds to help community members, and new customers, get work they want by offering discounts. These two patrons functionally sponsored matching funds coupons for ten different sales. It had an incredible impact.

Not surprisingly, even the cost of a $5 sticker can be too much for some folks these days. While it’s easy to feel like everyone has short arms and deep pockets, I do my best to remember that getting into massive shows is expensive, and everyone still has a celebrity, and lunch, in mind. Thanks to two Brimstone Order members, if a conversation was productive, but the customer couldn’t commit, I could offer things like a complementary sticker, or a discount on a piece. It felt even better letting these customers know that someone who supports me wanted to make it happen. In fact, two of my commissions could be locked in with discounts that made the decision easier for customers.

I can’t consider this opportunity a regular thing. And, I can’t overlook the impact this situation offered. But, as far as my records are concerned, it had a significant, and changing affect on how Planet Comicon went for me. Frankly, I’m in awe. The Brimstone community consistently makes my fight a fight worth, well… fighting. Planet Comicon felt mundane because I could take advantage of the privilege that had been given to me and I couldn’t be more grateful.

These words might feel different in a week’s time. I am tired. I am grateful. I am preparing for a nice little break. I can’t wait.

Today’s Tune

It’s almost time for Planet Comicon, the biggest comics convention in Kansas City, and one of my biggest shows of the year. Since the beginning, I have used Planet as a measuring stick and a way to reflect on my work and what I’m doing. In years past, I have looked back on Planet after going, but this year, I want to make predictions and try to look forward to what I might expect at this show.

Not only is Planet Comicon one of my biggest shows of the year, it’s also one of my first big shows ever added to my roster. Planet has been a rollercoaster of failure, success, and connection. All of this gives me waves of feelings that I can hardly simplify and put into neat little boxes.

There’s a calculus that ought to fit into every pup culture event that I hardly take into account as often as I should. Simply put, pop culture events, like comic conventions, are about making money for the show runners. Even if they’re non-profits, operating costs and funds for future shows keep their wheels turning. On the surface, pop culture events are a chance for show runners to collect your favorite creators and celebrities in a place and setting that lets you meet them. That’s really cool. But, as time marches on, putting together a show gets more and more expensive.

Artist alley exhibitors and vendors are a necessary part of the equation in a successful pop culture show. Exhibitors and vendors fill out the floor. We provide artwork and knickknack that you impulsively buy because you might recognize the characters we’re putting in front of you. However, one of the major reasons exhibitors and vendors exist is to subsidize the cost of the show. We cover a portion of the rental for the event center. We cover costs that make celebrities more affordable. The show runners only need to keep exhibitors and vendors happy enough to make it through the weekend and maybe sign up again next year.

There’s no guarantee we’ll sell anything. While it’s not against the show’s interest that we make piles of cash, it’s not their prerogative to make sure we do. The most important thing to a showrunner is to pack the house, and make sure attendees are happy. Broadly speaking, pop culture events succeed when their guests are attractive enough to anyone and everyone that people show up. When I’m a guest, I bring out Dylan’s Drink & Draw, which is frequently a top rated after dark event. In that instance, I become a draw to come out to the show.

When I’m tabling, in a traditional sense, I’m just another exhibitor on the floor. While I do have fans and friends that look for me and are excited to see me at a show the size of Planet Comicon, my attendance isn’t necessarily in the show runner’s equation of what’s bringing attendees to the show.

Planet Comicon is the type of event that looks like a sea of booths and attendees. It can be overwhelming amongst what is usually twenty rows of artist alley that lead through massive vendors to huge celebrities. I’m just one of those little tables hoping to grab your attention at the show. All of this has me considering what makes me stand out and worth stopping for.

I find myself reflecting on my argument about cheeseburgers vs sardines. In that argument, I propose that widely appealing, often easily digestible, and quickly recognizable characters constitute cheeseburgers. These artists aren’t better or worse for pursuing cheeseburgers. But they’re often required to live on the cutting edge of popularity and chase trends to keep you coming back for a cheeseburger when everyone offers cheeseburgers. The sardines, on the other hand, are specialized treats for refined, or specific tastes. Sardines are from niche creators that might not sell to a general audience and expect those with a taste for their niche to find them.

I identify more with sardines. My work is extremely model oriented, leaning more into traditional art. I do create some fan art, but it leans more into model collaborations than any artist I’ve met. The bulk of my work features challenging concepts like demons, monsters, cryptids, and religious criticism. I’ve also put a ton of time into making my work of the highest quality I can. I have honed my line art skills to a degree where it has been pointed out that it feels digitally rendered. I think that digitally mastering my inks, and coloring my pieces is tied up in that reception.

Because of this, I have been heavily considering showcasing my original inks side-by-side with the colored prints. I am more process-driven, which often improves my conversations. For Planet Comicon, I have been contemplating how I could start representing my work in this way, but I don’t have a solid answer. In the past, I have been of the conviction that I ought to put my work up in whatever display seems the most successful from the past year. I play with it more at smaller shows. But, at most of those small shows, I’m a guest. I have more going for me. This year, I want Planet Comicon to be more experimental.

We’re in a tumultuous time where gas prices are flirting with $4. Everything is more and more expensive, and the drive for folks to pay to enter an event to go shopping and drop a few hundred bucks on celebrities is tempered by the looming cost of living. The entire time I’ve attended Planet, I have had to contend with the cost of entry and the interest in celebrities and hope I can snag the last $20-50 in your budget. As the temperature in the room increases, I think it’s going to be more, and more important to stand out and grab our audiences by the face.

I think that, by 2028, we’re going to see several artists and creators drop out of the industry as things become less friendly, and the wealth divide widens. I have been open that none of us are immune from the fact that general folks have less and less money to play with. I think the sardines will feel the pain before the cheeseburgers. But, we’re all going to see friends and colleagues filter out of a reliance on events.

I don’t want to drop, which means I need to fight forward by providing more of what’s been successful and find ways to present the story of my work better. Throughout this post, I have shared images of various booth set ups over the years at Planet Comicon, and other events. I don’t know what my setup will look like this weekend. But, I’ll take suggestions, if you have them! Here’s hoping it’s a year at Planet I’m excited to write about next week.

Today’s Tune

For the first two decades of my life, I considered myself an avid reader. I wouldn’t go so far as qualifying myself as voracious — I never had goals to read fifty books a year. But I read.

I know many of us are having a reckoning. We’re aware that we’re addicted to our phones, and we’re horrified by how readily we hand our identities over to tech overlords. I know it’s a drum I can’t stop beating, because beating it feels like a duty I can uphold.

Between writing last week’s piece on leaving Spotify, I have had struggles and challenges maintaining my music server. I haven’t given up, though. Even when my demeanor suggests I’m just going to throw in the towel, I’ve fought through and learned new things to make it work. That’s fighting a good fight right there. In celebration of my success getting more and more music back in my life, I keep thinking I’ll get back to reading. I’m almost forty, and I rarely read anymore.

When I was in Brownville, I bought a stack of books off the arts council. Most of them had some historical significance, and I convinced myself I was keeping them in good hands. I snagged a few Anatole France novels (author of Revolt of the Angels), Steinbeck’s The Wayward Bus, Tolstoy’s Master and Man, and a copy of George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle. All of these books rest neatly on a shelf in my home office. They’re next to every other book I need to read. Well, they’re all on that shelf except for Eddie Coyle. Eddie Coyle has had its own adventures in the last several months.

One evening, I grabbed Eddie Coyle, and thought a nice, vicious gangster novel would be good bedtime reading. Either the violence or my general non-reader reprogramming kept me from getting more than a chapter in. Eventually, convention and residency season kicked in and Eddie Coyle found its way into my back pack. “I will get some reading done on the road,” I deceive myself regularly. This morning, I packed my bag up to hit my local coffee shop in order to write this and to prepare for Frogman Festival, in Ohio. All along the way, Eddie Coyle came along for the trip, unread.

I hear the sentiment from several people that they just don’t read anymore. However, from my perspective, it feels like a uniquely me behavior. Cathryn reads at home. Travis reads when we attend conventions together. Hell, all of you read this. It’s a sticky situation being a reading enthusiast who writes around 1,200 words a week who can’t seem to crack open a book.

I find myself horrified that we’re living in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Classical conditioning was key in Brave New World’s dystopian utopia. Children were rewarded for liking things like the outdoors, but punished when enjoying outdoor activities. Conditioning was deployed to make people agree with the system while feeling free and choice driven. Everyone was meant to appreciate beauty and nature, but spend their time in regimented roles and jobs with prescribed leisure activities. When I have time alone in my head, I fear I’ve handed over the control in my life to companies like Apple and Facebook who encourage me to hold onto the principles I have while never acting on them. It’s a neat and tidy system that encourages us to feel fulfilled without the fulfillment.

It reminds me of the equally horrific Enertron device in the year 2300 in the videogame, Chrono Trigger. By 2300 the world had succumbed to drastic climate change, and people lived huddled in domed cities, struggling to survive. A crucial factor in their meager survival was the Enertron machine. The Enertron could keep you alive and relatively healthy, but had the critical downside of leaving you hungry. Life became prolonged discomfort with endless hunger pangs. It’s hard not to see the ongoing relationship with our devices as an intellectual Enertron machine. Our engagement is designed to make us feel connected and give us the sense of action, while leaving us still hungry.

I love getting lost in stories and I sincerely miss reading. Aside from reading advanced copies of comics from colleagues and clients, I am horrified at how infrequently I actually open a book. Somehow it seems easier to rage against Spotify and create my own music server that strains my technological literacy than to say, “this next hour is for reading, damn it.”

I don’t like ending an entry in this newsletter without offering some form of action. I want to make sure we each pick up our shields and march back into the fray, ready for one more round. But, I’m at a loss when it comes to this situation that I’m in. I know that every day is a new blast from the bullshit hose that floods our lives with the latest revelations of the destructive system we’re in. We can’t become listless doomers, though. We’re a community that can tackle anything when we work together. Reframing our relationships is important. Eddie Coyle deserves my time, and I deserve its story.

Right now, I am preparing for ten days on the road. Two conventions bookend a residency. The entire trip will be over 1,600 miles for me and Eddie Coyle. I don’t know if I’ll actually read the book, but I am hoping I at least crack that cover once. I want to break the cycle of unfulfillment and apathy. I think Apes of the State said it best, “It’s all fun and games until we tear down everything that holds us back.”

Today’s Tune

I spent the weekend in Fargo with some great folks at a little comic convention. While there’s plenty to say about being back on the road, we’re tabling that for now. At the end of the show, a bunch of us met at Kroll’s Diner, a staple in North Dakota. As we sat down, and ordered drinks, I pulled out my phone and opened Pokémon Go, spun a few stops, took down a Pikachu raid, and looked up, across the table. There were six of us, and we were each on our phones. I sat in that silence until it broke.

I know we’re all aware that we spend too much time on our phones, scrolling through slop. We’re hooked like smokers in a pre-1990’s world. I’m hooked and I have no idea what to do about it. That quiet moment in the diner felt forgivable. We’d just had a long day at a convention. We’d seen each other all weekend. We probably needed a minute. It still cast an uncanny sense of posthumanism over the table.

If you haven’t kept up with tech news, dumpster fires abound. Companies like Discord are entertaining the idea of collecting people’s IDs for age verification despite their frequent security breaches. TikTok is open and shockingly honest about their addictive formatting. And, my nemesis, Spotify, is playing with AI slop in an attempt to coopt our ears that means even fewer dollars getting to real artists. Legislation can’t keep up with ingenuity and I’ve been sold my whole life that it’s a good thing. You have to, “move fast and break things,” if you want new breakthroughs. It doesn’t matter if the thing they’re breaking is our mental health, or attention spans, and our support of one another.

While all of that intensified into an intellectual forest fire, the same companies have turned into landlords. They’re selling us the convenience of communication in exchange for our little free moments. They’re renting us music, movies, and TV shows while slowly stripping each art of the humanity that goes into making us fall in love with the things that become culture.

I have no answers about what to do in the face of the oligarch tech bro takeover. I spent the first thirty-five years of my life thinking it was all for the best. I could get ahold of my friends and colleagues on Facebook, who needs to talk to them in person? Streaming services stopped my buying of DVDs and CDs in exchange for a few bucks a month and the convenience was out of this world. Eventually, I’d gone all in on renting my experiences. R.E.M. drops a re-release or a benefit mix? Why buy it? It’s on Spotify.

It’s so convenient.

That moment of silence at Kroll’s reinforced my solidifying conviction that instant gratification and the convenience of buying it is the leading biological failure of our species. We’re all just so damn easy to hook. That moment of silence was soothed by my internal monologue knowing that I’m finally in the late stages of breaking up with Spotify. I may be irreparably hooked on Facebook, and twisted up with Discord, but I am making progress because Spotify won’t be getting my money much longer.

I talk about leaving Spotify a lot, I know. But I am finally working through the steps to leave it as far behind as I can. It’s been a challenge, though. And, I have to admit that it’s been anything but convenient. I’m a music enthusiast. I pay for a household account so we both have access to anything the service has to provide. However, I have an iTunes account full of music, a modest Bandcamp collection, and a hard drive with 180 gigabytes of music. I needed to find a way to become a master of my own collection.

Thanks to connections through the Brimstone Order and the Brimstone Clubhouse, I was able to get educated on running an independent server. While I had a grasp on what I needed to do, I didn’t have the hardware, or funds, to get it off the ground at the same time that I was promoting the abandonment of our playlists. Over the last few months, community members helped me get my hands on a ZimaBoard, a singleboard server. Once that arrived, I needed to get some cabling, and a hard drive and I was off to the races.

With a little work, I was able to start importing music I own to the hard drive and I established a Plex server in my own closet. The new music server has a wonderful interface that feels a lot like Spotify and all the music is from albums I already own. But that’s the first pickle.

I don’t own all the music I listened to on Spotify. My plan is not to stop spending money on music, but to slowly populate the server with music by buying it as directly from artists as possible. This means Cathryn and I will have to live with the discomfort of having some of our favorite artists just out of reach until we can buy them.

The second pickle is server access and maintenance. Getting to a plex server isn’t as cut and dry and sharing your data and credit card and having most every song on the planet. Ensuring we both have access hasn’t been as simple as I wished. Furthermore, keeping the server online and accessible has had a few hiccups that make it feel like I just don’t know what I’m doing.

I own boatloads of music. I love supporting bands I care about. And, on top of that, I am an artist who spends most weekends asking folks to buy my work. I don’t want to feed into exploitative systems that feed off artists. I am utterly exhausted paying rent on things I could otherwise own. I’ve been guilty of using ubiquitous apps and programs because they’re convenient and everyone else is using them. It feels like it just makes sense.

I understand that establishing an independent media server isn’t accessible for everyone. Getting the hardware, having the catalogue of media, and investing the time to maintain the server, is not going to work for all of us. It’s tough. No one wants to carry a Walkman and CDs anymore. It’s the opposite of convenient. But our conveniences are consistently exploited to separate us from our money and to separate artists from their fans. If I could, I’d get us all independent servers. That dream is doomed to go unrealized.

I don’t know what to do about those moments in which we give up our attention to our phones. I don’t know how to get back the moments of boredom that let our minds wander to new, beautiful and creative ideas. But, I do know that taking any steps toward technological independence is a step toward breaking habits. If you can’t set up your own servers, consider buying tracks from artists and using iTunes. Or, stay on streaming and consider moving to Qobuz, or Tidal. Do your best to stay aware of the policies and practices of the companies you support, and always be willing to walk away. In a world in which the most moral choice is to make money, your wallet is your voice. Quit giving the worst actors the most of your wallet.

I’m so excited to break from Spotify that I feel like I might just be able to change my relationship to everything on my phone. Maybe the day will come where I can be present, in the moment, or even just a little bored.

Today’s Tune

With all of that in mind, I want to share a story of social failure that has recently closed a chapter in my life.

I’m not perfect, but I’d like to think that I’ve become someone more developed, beneficial, and mature, than I was. Sure, that comes with age. But I’ve changed more than I notice in my day to day life. I used to be convinced of the supernatural. I used to believe in frequent alien visitation so much so that I filed reports with Bigelow Aerospace and NUFORC. I held firmly onto notions that magic existed and was just ever so out of reach. I’ve gained many new skills and tools in my growing skeptical toolkit that has made me less credulous.

As a kid, I loved the idea that magic could be real. Who wouldn’t love that? It’s what every YA fantasy novel offers: a chance to be a very special boy who actually is the main character. For me, magic wasn’t just about reuniting with the dead, flying, or casting spells. Imagine how powerful it would be to cure disabilities? Of course I’d cure mine, but I’d cure anyone and everyone who wanted it. I would do unimaginable good.

These dreams were easy to cultivate with the right friendship, and I found that in second grade. We’d just moved to Sioux Falls and I made a friend, we’ll call Stephen, who remained one of my very best friends until high school. He lived just around the block from me, which made spending time with Stephen convenient. We loved Nintendo, and movies, and explored a lot of the same music.

By middle school, we’d discovered The Shadowlands, a website dedicated to the supernatural, and we started calling ourselves investigators. We walked streets at night imagining ghosts and monsters like hellhounds. We’d cast spells and collect odd artifacts. We knew we would be the ones to unravel all sorts of magic. We were close to the answer, so very close.

Middle school brings changes like puberty, which made Stephen and I more like oil and water. Stephen grew through a lot of challenges in his life, and we were drifting apart in school, too. Everything built up to us splitting as we were headed to different high schools. But, instead of a simple drift, my foul and unkind mouth met the blunt end of his knuckles and we declared one another enemies. Frankly, I’m sure I demonized him more than he did I.

Flash forward to our mid-twenties, I find myself dealing with a reckoning. Relationships were falling around me and I was starting to work on who I was as a person. Because I manage guilt in a really rough way, and because I’m stuck on television, I decided it was only right to take up the Earl Hickey path to reconciliation: I made a list of people I needed to apologize to.

Stephen was at the top of my My Name is Earl list. I wasn’t necessarily looking to rekindle lost friendships. But, I needed to put fires out on burnt bridges in order to strive to burn fewer of them moving forward. Stephen accepted the apology quickly, and things went quiet for a while. We’d added one another on Facebook and that seemed like that. There were a few exchanges here and there, until a few years after when we agreed to get drinks.

It’s always nice to reminisce and laugh about old times. I think most old friends do that. But, at this point I was becoming a more responsible person, a version of the person I’d like to think I am now. I let go of all the magic and was less convinced of most things in my life, especially less convinced of trying to rekindle anything from the past. A night of laughs and memories wasn’t something that was going to steer me into patterns I’d been working to separate myself from.

In hindsight, I think that night should have been the end of that relationship all together. We walked away on healthier terms. I could hardly ask for anything better. However, we kept a distant social media connection, and that led to the failure in question.

To be frank, I hate social media. I am certain it’s deeply unhealthy for me, and I don’t think there’s anything genuine to be found in the vast majority of what we put on our socials. But, I am a public figure who gets paid a pittance by Meta for stirring the pot on Facebook. Self-promotion and events don’t get attention like politics and rage. With the following I have, and the community I have built, I feel it is incumbent on me to stand up and place myself shoulder to shoulder with my most vulnerable neighbors. Because of that, it’s extraordinarily easy to post anything perceivably political and have people come out of the woodwork at me.

I agree that echo chambers are a huge risk for us as we interact with the world. However, I am not convinced social media is, or ought to be, the world. It’s supposedly for connecting with people, so I view it as a space to cultivate a community. It’s okay to block, unfriend, and moderate an online community. As a matter of fact, I think it’s important to moderate a community if it’s going to have any standards. But, I digress.

The moment we entered the MAGA era, Stephen came roaring back into my life. Stephen was the master of making me the center of attention by bombarding my content with hyperbole and emotional attacks. I tried evidence and appealing to his better nature. I tried throwing him to the wolves, so to speak, and letting the community argue with him. I eventually found myself deleting and hiding his comments in order to have some semblance of sanity. The arguments flared no matter what I did, or what I posted.

I could have blocked him right away. I could have accepted our relationship as concluded and moved on, but I didn’t. My reasoning came down to three points: 1) I didn’t want an echo chamber, 2) I made more money when he raged, 3) I thought I could save him. That was the most important part. I thought I could change his mind.

Over the course of years, I attempted to have one-on-one text conversations with him about what he believed and why. Through these conversations, I was impressed by his phenomenal skill to Gish Gallop. Stephen could throw out wild ideas after unfounded claims over and over. He leaned impeccably on whataboutism, always confronting questions with more, “what about this?” and “what about that?” He often failed to recognize that I strived to align with values and principles instead of political figures. But he seemed to run off a script that was blind to my perspective.

What struck me most was how quickly he brought things back to magic and faith. Stephen seemed to hate the fact that I’d become open in my atheism. He offered me claims that he did connect with real, undeniable magic. Stephen assured me that he had harnessed clairvoyant techniques that could predict the future and even steer him from harm or help him find missing items.

I exhausted myself attempting to build tests for him to provide evidence, channeling my inner James Randi, but I could never keep up. Health issues, time crunch, and living my life kept me from holding him accountable. I found myself covered in his, “I pray for you,” sentiments, and his Q Anon-like viewpoints every time we interacted.

The internet is a miserable tool for meaningful discourse. The humanity that is found talking in person is sucked away into the vacuous engines of outrage we’ve constructed. Eventually, I found myself at the receiving end of endless comments and videos from rightwing TikTokers, apologists and their evidence for the validity of the Shroud of Turin, and uneducated little graphs that called me a Nazi. I found that begging people to love each other and stand with their neighbors only lathered me in vitriol. It sucked.

I miss that night Stephen and I had drinks. I wish that was the last time we’d ever interacted. Every interaction since has pointed to the fact that no amount of truth, evidence, and reasoning can lead someone out of a world of bullshit. It wasn’t that way for me, why should I expect it to be that way for him? I had to work for years to improve my perspective and to accept the many ways in which I was, and can be, wrong. I had to leave everything I knew behind, when — from my point of view — Stephen had only ever become more ingrained in what he’d always embraced.

I couldn’t change someone’s heart by arguing with them online. It hurts and I hate admitting it. I’ve blocked Stephen recently. It’s both a loss and a relief. And, I’ve told myself that if his magic really does work, he’ll find a way to reach me psychically. Do I believe he can? No. But I’ve got the line open just in case his multiverse of magic really does exist.

Today’s Tune

Before we dive into this, I want to say that I do have a back log of a few entries, but I am writing this raw. We’re well into 2026, far enough that we can’t say that the year is just starting. The year might not be in full swing, but we’re not caught up in 2025 outside of taxes. That being said, this is a time of year I think we all get really hungry.

I don’t mean that we’re ravenous for food, necessarily, but that we’re longing for something to happen. If you’re in the hellscape that is self-promotion on the internet, you’re probably trapped on social media wondering where your engagement is, or why your subscribers are dropping off. A lot of times we see meteoric growth when something starts, and then it finds equilibrium and becomes routine or mundane. What we started with excitement might not be holding attention, and we start to worry that it sucks, or worse, we suck.

I find the last several weeks of winter to be like this every year, and I am just as guilty as anyone else of suffering through creative ennui.

“Am I relevant anymore?” we might find ourselves saying.

“Is my work any good?” I know I’ve wondered in these daylight starved days.

It almost all concludes in, “what am I doing wrong?”

When that final thought leaves my lips, I’m doomed. This is the time when I find so many of us feel that way and we start drafting plans, changing things, and creating new ideas. It’s not a surprise my most recent webcomic, Violet 9 came out on Valentine’s Day last year. It’s most likely a part of the vicious cycle we creatives feel this time of year.

I can’t entirely define why this happens this time of year, but I have some ideas. The first reason that feels self-apparent is the cold and dark. February, though warmer this year than most, is cold and unforgiving. So many of us are trapped in doors, unable to enjoy even a minute of sunlight. Add to that the fact that we live in silos. We’re more disconnected than ever, seeing fewer people than ever. Then to top it off like the most unfortunate whipped topping: we’re broke. Christmas and New Year’s Eve took us for every cent we have, and with new years come tightening of belts and reassessments all around.

As someone creating stories and worlds largely seen online, it can feel like a sucker punch. That ever delicious growth slams to a halt, and inside our silos can feel like solitary confinement. It’s happening to all of us, to some degree, but we’re all too isolated to see outside our own little vacuum of torment and solitude.

What can we even do?

I’ve given a couple talks on growing and engaging audiences. I have a unique perspective, though. I have projects coming out of my ears at this point. Some were born during these dark and ominous days, others weren’t. But I have several platforms in which I publish and display my work. Webcomics live on Webtoon and Global Comix, Fighting the Good Fight lives here on Substack, and I try to make everything redirect to Patreon in some way. I don’t just do one thing really well which is a pickle. Striving to be a jack of all trades online is a supreme way of stretching yourself so thin you practically vanish. When people ask me about something like Patreon, or Substack, I am obligated to tell them that I’m not necessarily successful because of any one platform. I put a lot of energy into all these platforms, and it’s a ceaseless balancing act that I cannot perfect.

People like to ask if adding another stream of things to do is the key to success. If they just make the right BlueSky or Facebook posts, they’ll open a door that will flood them with fans and attention. I don’t know about that. I’m aware some people wake up one day and suddenly they’re hot stuff. But there’s over eight billion people out here and most of us striving for eyeballs and fans don’t have that experience. When it comes to diversifying streams of activity and adding more and more channels, I’m guilty of doing it, but I often recommend avoiding it. The two things I think we ought to have are perseverance and grace.

If these darker days are hard on us, they’re probably hard on our communities, too. If we want to hold them, we’ve got to hold course and graciously accept that some followers need time. Other times, as people reassess their goals and interests, we’re going to lose people. I lost people from the Good Fight (comic) when I started Champions. My audience shifted again when Together With Goblins came out, and again when I started Violet 9. None of that even flirts with Dylan’s Drink & Draw! I refuse to settle into one genre, or one vibe, and that comes with the territory. It’s good to thank those who hang in there and remind them that they’re pillars of what we do.

Would I like a thousand subscribers? Or ten thousand? Or a million? Yeah, obviously, absolutely. That would be beyond fantastic. But, I’m not there. I could throw in the towel. It would be easy. I could change what I’m doing and chase some other avenue. I could add just one more thing. But, as I’ve come to accept, it’s better to whole -ass one (or a few things) than half-ass two (or several) things.

It’s dark and expensive this time of year. It’s cold (usually) and isolating. Don’t waste your time doing things you don’t love. Life isn’t very long and we all spend so much of that time building someone else’s dreams. Sure, you can add areas for people to discover you. Add one more thing, and one more thing until there’s nothing left. I’d rather tighten the screws and simply things to make what I am already doing serve me the best.

I have too much going on all the time, but I’m not going to add something I don’t want to do, or what doesn’t ignite something in me. Social media isn’t built for us, it’s built for the shareholders. Of course no one sees us there. Real fans ebb and flow, and some last forever. Growth isn’t fast, and it isn’t always comfortable. Eventually the right people will find that what we do rocks.

Now that I’ve implored you to do less, be sure to subscribe to Patreon, Webtoon, or Global Comix because This is My Private Life comes roaring back this Wednesday!

Today’s Tune

Back DateBotz

This is a prose writing exercise for Fregoli, written from the antagonist’s point of view.

Rain hammered the asphalt. Florida Grove’s cobbled alleyways swelled with veins chasing their way to gutters and drains. The water raced its way to the Raritan River, making haste for the Lower New York Bay. Every drop desperate for the Atlantic, the horizon to the old world. Gepetto stared out the window, eastward. Just as he’d run west, to New York, he felt the pull to the Atlantic. Something tugged at him, luring him back to Europe. But his work wasn’t done. Thriving in modernity meant sacrificing the freedom he could have shared with the rain.

A middle aged blonde woman with hair curled tight lay in the bed across the room. Boring, Gepetto thought as his hand ached. Reaching with his left, he tried to rub his right hand. It always ached when it rained. And, just like every second Gepetto spent lost in thought, caught up in the moments in between, he’d forgotten he had no right hand. Even after fifteen years, phantom pains still haunted him.

Gepetto shifted through the room softly. Whoever she was, and whatever she thought they might mean to one another was nothing. Gepetto never held onto notions like love. Sex was warmth at best and a way to kill time at worst. He had a job to do, and the day was young. The rain afforded him cover as he rifled for his round glasses. The world came into greater focus, making it easier to slip into his clothes. Before long he’d pulled his long coat over his shoulders, running his arms through the sleeves. Gepetto fumbled quietly with a small attaché case. As the lock clicked open, Gepetto looked at the woman who shifted in bed, grateful he did not wake her.

Within the case, Gepetto kept a series of papers and newspaper clippings. The papers were in various languages. Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English clippings lined the case. Several names were circled, James Cavalcanti, Pete Verro, Tomas Fregoli, among others. There’s so much work to do, Gepetto thought as he moved the pages back into their place. Beneath the pages, nestled neatly in the case rested a Portuguese Savage Model 1907, a case of bullets, a pack of Eva cigarettes, a book of matches, and a wooden prosthetic hand. Gepetto pulled the hand free and lifted his sleeve up in order to fasten it to his right wrist. It never became particularly easy to put the hand on, but Gepetto liked how it made him feel normal.

After attaching his hand, Gepetto pulled a cigarette and the matches from the case. Eva cigarettes were some of Italy’s best. He couldn’t imagine having traveled without them and having to suffer through rationed mini-packs of Chesterfields. The idea almost gave him chills as the Eva slipped between his lips. He struck a match and lit the cigarette. Quietly, he slipped the matches back in the case and clasped it shut again. Dragging on the cigarette, Gepetto reached for his wide-brimmed hat he’d left on a chair. Hopefully the hat would keep the Eva lit in the downpour.

Without a word, Gepetto picked up his attaché case and headed into the streets. His overnight companion never woke, she’d never see him again.

The booming war business swept through Florida Grove, New Jersey. If it wasn’t obvious with the fliers encouraging locals to do their part, it was clear with every little business shifting toward the war effort. To Gepetto, it was all a joke. War was just a greater expression of criminality. Everything people did was insincere. There was a rot in the heart of everyone, and the more one came to find themselves right, or empowered, the greater the rot became. Gepetto wasn’t a hypocrite. He was just as rotten. The only thing that set him apart from gangs and the war machine was the clarity that he was no different.

Gepetto’s thoughts drifted to Slick’s Garage. Another small-time business caught up in government contracts. Old Bill Van Zandt was called back to active duty, leaving his wife and daughter to run the shop on their own. “Lucky Bill,” Gepetto mused, puckering on his cigarette. Bill, or Slick, as the locals called him, was on Gepetto’s list. Anna, Bill’s daughter wasn’t, but Gepetto couldn’t control who got in the way of his business. She took her father’s bullet. It was poetic.

Gepetto watched the morning pass in a café. The rain slowed, but the clouds never parted. He couldn’t shake Slick’s. Usually, business never bothered him. It wasn’t the fact that he’d shot the wrong target that ate at him, though. That didn’t matter. It was the face of the kid who was right there as Anna died. It looked just like that twenty-something gangster, Tomas, he’d dropped just weeks before. Work never bothered Gepetto. But he knew that face. He knew that face was gone. It wasn’t possible. Gepetto folded his hands, flesh and wood, on the table. There were just a few names left, then he’d get out of this country.

So much of Gepetto’s time was spent lingering. Spend a morning in a café, waste an afternoon in a doorway, then pass an evening watching a target eat from across a restaurant. The hard work came at night. Tonight, Gepetto’s list gave him the name Michele Soprano, proprietor of Salvor Shipping. He’d done the work and knew exactly where Michele would be. As the sun set, Gepetto would cross the Raritan and take Michele out before he ever returned home. Clean and simple.

Gepetto passed the evening rereading his copy of Zorro he kept tucked in his coat pocket. It never got old. He liked to see himself equally masked behind his glasses and hat. Plucking out bits of corruption and rot made him believe he was just as heroic. The whimsy and grandeur gave Gepetto just enough confidence to make the march across the Raritan River feel predestined. Luckily, the rain was gone. Only trickles in the streets were left as reminders of the heavy, gray day. The clouds gave way to a full moon that rose, illuminating Gepetto’s path divinely. Michele had minutes left. Everything was in Gepetto’s hands.

Certainty convinced Gepetto he’d moved on from the night before. The clash in the garage faded from his mind as lies of righteousness filled his head. However, as quickly as certainty gripped him, it fled. The dappled moonlight shifted under the parting skies, revealing that face again, emerging from the other side of the bridge. “Impossible!” Gepetto gasped.

“It rained that day, too,” Tomas’ voice carried from an uncanny face.

Gepetto’s coat billowed in the breeze as he opened it to grasp the 1907. He’d taken the gun from its place in his case and tucked it in his coat before heading across the river. Now, it was in his hand early.

As soon as the gun emerged, the phantom of Tomas pulled its own. “I’ve spent all this time trying to live for both of us. Trying to make what you did right. Then you took Anna. There’s not room enough in here for three of us! I tried. I’ve tried so hard. But you can’t bring anyone back when they’re gone,” Tomas seemed to negotiate with himself as his face twisted and changed. Somehow, now, in this new light Gepetto saw Anna. The young woman from the night before waved a gangster’s gun in his direction.

Gepetto wavered as he squeezed the trigger. Shots rang out, one, two, three. A weapon known for “ten shots fast” ran through its rounds. For the first time in ages, Gepetto missed. The ghastly image stalked toward him as he shifted toward the rail. Gepetto no longer felt like a hero. He felt weak, and mortal. His right hand stung. If the moonlight didn’t reflect so perfectly off his glasses, the ghost approaching him would have seen fear in his eyes.

As Anna’s image moved toward Gepetto, it changed again. Gepetto had never seen anything like it. This time the face changed to one he’d seen several times and simply ignored. Some kid. Some wannabe gangster who was there when Tomas went down. A kid who’d been mixed up with the Cavalcanti family, but never on the list. This time he looked like Tomas, but not exactly like him, more like a brother.

A shot rang out from the young man’s gun. It struck Gepetto just above his heart. Gepetto’s weight threw backward as it struck him. Surprise and shock became him as he tumbled from the bridge. His 1907 flew into the air. The attaché fell from the loose grip of his wooden hand. Then, like so many drops of rain, Gepetto began to fall. His attaché case clattered open on the bridge. Papers floated through the air, joining Gepetto as his back crashed into the Raritan river. One with the trickles of water that raced for the bay, Gepetto felt the pull again, toward the Atlantic. Life was cold, and fleeting. Warmth left him entirely. Time rapidly found itself stopped as Gepetto’s eyes focused for a final time on the moon that lit the night. Gepetto wished it would rain forever so he could drown in peace.

Today’s Tune

Are there heart strings connected
To the poison coming out of your mouth?
Are you super-connected? - Belly, Super-Connected, King

Back in October, I had an artist residency in Centerville, South Dakota. As usual, I led a handful of classes in creating their own comics. Mid-week when we were on a good roll, I took the opportunity to play music while kids work. Rural kids know pop music, and they love country music. They’ve never heard of ska, and they’ve almost never listened to bands like R.E.M. or Oingo Boingo. I have a specific taste that is often niche, and I can’t help myself but curate songs for these classrooms.

I know it, you know it, and everyone knows that I am currently in a state in which I cannot stop listening to Belly. In fact, it’s a whole Tanya Donelly kick. Whether it’s Belly, Throwing Muses, The Breeders, or her independent work, I have been spinning Tanya’s tracks constantly. Having the opportunity to play music in Centerville was an opportunity to spread the Tanya Donelly around.

Kids always find my taste to be unusual. Their parents and I might be the same age, but we’re from vastly different worlds. Sometimes I find a kid that’s actually listened to Nirvana, but it’s rare. I’ve noticed students are surprised to hear women create music that doesn’t sound just like Taylor Swift and the other popstars they’re constantly hearing, so Tanya feels like a gift to share.

In Centerville, one young lady mentioned to me that I listen to spooky music. I was taken aback. I mean, it did track a bit, but it felt off. First, we listened to select Oingo Boingo songs. As the thesis I am bound to write will state: Oingo Boingo created the sound of Halloween as we know it. It was October and I had to play some. However, she didn’t share her opinion until I played Belly. I didn’t know how to react to the sentiment.

I attach myself to music in the same way I latch on to movies and books. For me, it’s about the writing. Genre, like all storytelling, is simply the clothing that dresses up a song or a band. Sure, there’s a janglepop vibe I’m attracted to, but it’s typically the lyrical quality that I stay for. I hear stories that I get hooked on in Tanya’s song writing. I’ve never thought about anything she’s produced as spooky. I had to sincerely chew on that kid’s opinion.

I think that student only drove me more towards playing Belly more and more. Something I’ve been able to accept is that the vast majority of the music I love has something dark to it. I’m not here for death metal and overt aggression. There’s something I prefer to things that have a cursory sound that isn’t overtly dark. Most of the jangle and grunge I hold onto is recorded in minor keys, but that’s not consistent. Sometimes you can jangle as upbeat as you want, and still harbor something moody and dark. Just like my love of ska, you can record something groovy to dance to that has the lyrical quality of something somber. There’s something magical there.

When I look at acts that top my list of favorites, they, in some way, embrace these themes. That’s probably why my friend, and colleague, Dave Wheeler says I listen to, “sad boy,” music. I’ve fought the claim for so long, but I think he’s probably right.

I’m often a bizarre, or clownish, character. Cathryn once described spending time with me like being in a sitcom. I talk to inanimate objects when I’m nervous or excited, and strange things happen to me in memorable ways. I struggle not to make everything a joke when I’m in public, but inside I’m stewing on something. My life can sound like the horns of Bite Me Bambi while having the inner content of Garbage. In ska terms, it’s all very Streetlight Manifesto.

Tanya Donelly can deliver the darkness with ease. Belly records and performs songs that belong on pop stations yet build stories about loss, death, and struggling against tyrannical legal systems. That’s what I hear in my head when I think about fighting a good fight. We have to be able to turn the fight into a dance, even if it feels like grim work. Tanya’s mastery is delivering one helluva vocal range that I can only describe as haunting. It’s ethereal and sets a mood I cannot get enough of.

Moods have created all the stories I’ve fallen in love with. The stories that make me want to make stories. It’s complex and dichotomous.

I used to consider myself a voracious reader and film watcher. Both ignite something in me that puts pencil to paper. I have spent the last several years, though, criticizing myself for reading less and less and taking in new films as infrequently as ever. It feels like a tragedy we’re all experiencing. These damnable smartphones have us hooked on scrolling and looking at pictures, or flipping through reels. I tell myself almost daily, “I’m not gobbling up stories the way I ought to.”

It’s not true, however. My hands and eyes may be co-opted and consumed in my phone, and I ought to work on that. But my ears are still my own. I’m still listening to things that make me want to act. Sharing Belly with a bunch of teenagers pushed me even further into loving them and exploring the full catalogue Tanya Donelly has crafted. Somehow having to reckon with the fact that her work might be spooky has me tearing apart lyrics like never before. Tanya creates letters to her readers that reveal something inside us all while crafting new and meaningful folk stories. It’s better than my favorite meal because I just can’t stop consuming it.

I owe it to that kid, to Dave, to Tanya, to jangle, to ska, to Michael Stipe, and many more for revealing to me how much it matters that everything I do has some darkness in it. My superheroes aren’t perfect boy scouts, in Champions. My pinups aren’t bright and bubblegum, they’re moody even when they’re sensual. We’re complex creatures who can party the night away, even when we know we’re the only ones who can stop the world from burning down.

Today’s Tune

It feels weird writing this weeks before you’re bound to read it. It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and sharing these thoughts feel more important than ever. (I have had to update and amend this since MLK Jr. Day)

When I think about fighting a good fight, I think about a lot of things. I’ve gone through studio rebrands, art style overhauls, and over a decade of creative growth. However, the concept of fighting the good fight sticks with me.

Years ago, I’d gone through a reckoning. I needed to work on myself. Maybe we all go through that in our twenties. But, the person I wanted to be didn’t line up with who I wanted to be. I looked to things that revealed my need for change for guidance on how to change. I went through social upheaval and started a lot of my life over at that time. It’s hard to line up who I am with who I was, and I’m grateful for that development.

The concept of fighting a good fight has shifted over the years. Things have moved from simply self-improvement to navigating a career and maintaining healthy skepticism. It’s less about me and more about us. That’s a healthy change.

In 2009 I lived in Minneapolis. I lived in Stevens Square. It wasn’t glamorous. In fact it was a neighborhood with a bad reputation. But, I could afford it, with a ton of help from my family. 2009 was a divisive time. The Housing Crisis led to a great recession which made every aspect of life harder than usual. I couldn’t find work to make rent, and if I didn’t ask for money to drive back to South Dakota, food was hard to come by.

The neighborhood I lived in, just off Nicollet, supported me — and my neighbors — in numerous ways. Both my school and a local convenience store would go out of their way to make sure I had food when it was clear things were running low. People in my building kept to themselves, but we had solidarity. A general sense of, “we’re in this together,” hit me for the first time in my adult life.

When I look at the world today, It feels like we have more turmoil than ever. But I challenge the truth in that. Growing up, I had an education and upbringing that established a firm understanding that, broadly speaking, social troubles were solved. The Civil Rights movement happened and now we’re all one big family. Women’s Suffrage happened and the sexes are equal. An ADA exists and folk with disabilities, like me, were treated like the rest of us. It was cozy and comforting to buy the narrative that everything that was bad was bad. It was, but isn’t anymore.

They’re killing our neighbors in the streets. Renée Good was shot by ICE in the Central Neighborhood, an area filled with friends, allies, and loved ones. Alex Pretti was shot by ICE just a few blocks south of where I once lived in Minneapolis.

From a perspective that all that is bad was behind us, I could see that those seeking further progress on rights, or improvements on things like healthcare, or scrutinizing gerrymandering, or seeking to level wage gaps were extremists. At best they were delusional, at worst they were socialists or communists. It was a simple perspective, and it created a black and white outlook that made life easy.

There’s rarely one definite thing that changes our hearts and minds. If I dig through my life, I can find numerous pieces of evidence as to what changed me. Leaving faith was my biggest change, though. The less I became worried about what was going to happen to me after I died, the more I realized how important it is to improve our here and now. Regardless of what happens after our lives, we need to do everything in our power to make a better today. We only have evidence for this life, we should make it the best it can be for everyone.

They’re killing us in the streets. Sure, I have ties to Minneapolis. But these aren’t just my friends and neighbors being targeted, they’re not just Minnesotans, or Midwesterners, they’re Americans. They’re people. Fascism, Christian Nationalism, and Accelerationism, are actively attacking all of us. If it’s not bullets in our heads, it’s the threats those bullets lob at all of us. How dare any American speak up, or stand up.

I wish one thing could change hearts and minds. It’s the driving force that makes me want to debate, even though I choke it down and hold it back. If wishes worked, I’d wish that my more conservative, yet compassionate, neighbors and family could look to places like Minneapolis and see injustice folding out before them. I’d wish they’d see that everyone is our neighbor regardless where they’re from. I’d wish they’d rise up as champions for the disabled, the poor, and the foreign, and stand up against the wicked like Job. (Job 29:15-17)

It feels impossible to plead with our family and neighbors when our country has turned on its own people. We’ve taken the tax dollars of the poor and working classes and turned them into violence against them. Pepper balls, tear gas, and bullets define our country that dares to call itself the greatest nation in the world.

Civil Rights never ended. Women’s rights never ended. Disability Rights never ended. Anything good and valuable is something we have to strive for constantly. So much about progress includes compromise that only ensures we have to fight forward for more life, more liberty, and a greater pursuit of happiness. We can never allow selfishness and separation to convince us that the world is not our problem. We are the world.

Fighting the good fight never ends. We have to have the courage to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the weakest around us. We must rise to the responsibility of picking up others when they cannot lift themselves. We must stand against the intolerant and evangelical.

Fighting the good fight was inspired by fiction, and reflected in life. From rebels pushing against a tyrannical empire in Star Wars, to scrambling for the truth against silence in the X Files, to literally fighting the good fight in Buffy and Angel. The fight led by folks like Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Harvey Milk, and Thomas Paine is unceasing. It is incumbent on us to carry their torches and strive for a better tomorrow, even in the face of authoritarian fascism.

When this year started, I chose Able Gamers as a non-profit to support through the Brimstone Studios website. I love them. They make gaming accessible for everyone. It’s an amazing cause that we will support more in the future. However, I cannot stand idly by. The Brimstone Order currently offers an inclusive and supportive space. To do more for our communities, I am transitioning our support, right now, to Indivisible Twin Cities. They’re an independent, volunteer-run civic engagement organization fighting the ongoing authoritarian agenda.

Today’s Tune

So much of life seems to be about lining things up perfectly. I find myself frequently being made to hurry up and wait on clients and collaborators. Other times new projects and ideas take an aggressive hold and I can hardly move forward. Pair those challenges with working environment struggles, or technology hurdles, and it can feel as if things aren’t exactly in their place, everything stops working.

Do you remember Pee Wee’s Big Adventure? In the beginning, he starts his day. Like most of us, Pee Wee doesn’t forget that breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day. While I’m busy pondering the validity of that claim, Pee Wee turns on a fan, which blows a pair of pinwheels. Then, he lights a candle and slides it under a string which drops an anvil on a lever and springs an egg rolling contraption to life. Suction dart guns receive the egg which rolled down a series of hamster tubes in time for a drinking bird to prepare to crack the egg over a heated pan. Pee Wee giggles, his day immediately made by the Rube Goldberg Machine he’s perfected just to prepare his breakfast.

My breakfast is about as far removed from Pee Wee’s machinations. It’s oatmeal, mostly. Unless it’s Monday and my local coffee shop makes me the most millennial breakfast imaginable: avocado toast. No, this isn’t an entry about how avocado toast is putting me in the poor house, this is an entry about Rube Goldberg Machines.

In the few seconds I permitted myself to imagine characters I know who build chain reaction devices, I can only think of two that design these machines for good. Pee Wee’s breakfast doesn’t harm anyone, and it’s clear he’s not a superhero of some kind. The other character that comes to mind is Freddie Jones from Scooby Doo. That guy could cook up some claptrap! Sure, Freddie’s machines hardly led to the intended outcome, but he was trying to catch the bad guy.

On the other end of the spectrum, chain reactions are often left to characters like the Joker and his ilk. For whatever reason, the Rube Goldberg Machine is synonymous more with madness than it is genius. Sure, a string of silly reactions that lead to breakfast seems like madness. But isn’t it more likely an exhibition of engineering excellence? Whatever the truth may be, we see the craziest scum and villainy utilizing these devices to trap folks like Batman. Sometimes it’s a trap, sometimes it’s a death machine. Results and intended outcomes vary.

You don’t need a description of chain reactions. You’re a smart reader. But I need to interrogate them because I am doing everything in my power to be a put together little monster who stays on top of everything. Freelance work is not unlike spinning plates. And, I can tell you that I’ve never spun plates.

People love giving the advice, “fake it until you make it,” while turning around and admonishing the behavior of conmen and tricksters. The Amazing Criswell, in Ed Wood, said, “If you dress nice and talk well, people will swallow anything.” Criswell’s words aren’t as sparkly as his suit jackets, even though he’s saying the same thing as our common platitude, but it doesn’t sound as positive. It lacks the allure of rise and grind. It lacks the overconfident machismo that we gobble up.

Both of these oversimplified platitudes are a mental set of clothes designed to hide Rube Goldberg Machines, in my experience.

I’ve never been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, but I often think I get what it might be like when it comes to keeping myself on top of everything. It’s hard to keep a perfect schedule while remaining flexible. It’s challenging to aim straight ahead when new things pop up. New ideas, new clients, or new projects. Anything new can add another domino to the rally that will eventually land on a switch that turns on a light, which powers a solar panel, and ultimately ignites the fuse to my doom.

Instead of relying on the tired cliche of faking it ‘til I make it, I like to see myself more like Buzz Lightyear. In the first Toy Story, Buzz is convinced he can fly. To demonstrate, he takes a flying leap off Andy’s bed and becomes the egg in his own Rube Goldberg Machine. He bounces and flourishes around the room, leaving Woody unconvinced. Buzz wasn’t flying, he was, “falling with style.”

Here’s the thing: I’m not breakfast-ready Pee Wee. I’m not a dastardly villain trying to secure my richest despite some meddling kids. And I know I’m not Batman falling for the Joker’s clever trap. On the contrary, I’m somehow all of these characters.

If you freelance, or if you run any independent project, you’re probably familiar with the Rube Goldberg Machine that is life. I’m working hard on a comic, or a print, or a commission, and somehow I’m adding lengths of string, hammers, and bowling balls to a machine that exists in the vague periphery of my perception. It’s nearly subconscious at this point that I add kinks to my plans, extra dominos to the device, while finding new things to work on and avenues to pursue. Eventually, the time comes and the Pee Wee in my head turns on the fan. The Buzz Lightyear in me takes that credulous leap and tries to fly.

It’s impossible not to come out the other side with bumps and bruises. Sometimes the machine goes off in beautiful success. Other times, the machine treats me like Pee Wee’s egg and Freddie’s monsters and I get cooked or tangled up. It’s never the best experience for me. But it’s an experience I repeat, time after time.

This is an ode to working ahead on even one thing, like Fighting the Good Fight. I am officially a week ahead. I am extremely excited about that. I owe a lot to both of my editors, the secret Brimstone Studios ghost editor, and new, collaborating editor, . When I’m on top of things, they can make them shine. However, I can’t help but nervously shift my eyes around the room looking for any sign of a new series of chain reactions that will strip this all out from under me. Somehow, I’m my own Joker and I can’t see the machinations until it’s too late. Will I stay on top of things? Or will things slide into explosive, butter-coated oblivion?

Today’s Tune

We are 168 posts into this newsletter, Fighting the Good Fight. It’s January, and I’m sitting in my usual spot in yet another coffee shop, doing everything in my power to convince myself that I am not only getting ahead of my publishing schedule, but that I’m about to be so on top of 2026, it’ll never be the same. When I consider what it will feel like to not be playing perpetual catch-up, I have a hard time resisting the urge to reflect and wallow in nostalgia.

Maybe it’s the time of year. Cold has wrapped itself around us, and there’s a disquieting silence. I find it hard not to reflect on things like the entirety of 2025 and the good moments I remember from working on projects like this newsletter. I remember snippets like a highlight reel of days when my fingers wrote faster than ever, or my headphones played just the right thing, or perhaps the coffee and breakfast hit me perfectly, and things came together swiftly.

A lot of this started in Coffea, a Sioux Falls coffee shop and institution. Now I’m in a place called the Grain House. It has its similarities to 2011-14 Coffea. It’s a bit rustic, but things just aren’t the same. I don’t sit at a bar. There isn’t a bar. I don’t have conversations with the baristas, and I certainly don’t get roped into their banter. In fact, I can’t name any of the staff here.

Maybe that’s okay. Times are different. If it was twelve years ago, I’d be toiling over a comic page about my life. I’d be drafting oblique references and caricatures about the world around me in a desperate attempt to expose on the page just how unkind it can be inside my head. Back then, I’d be listening to the din of the coffee shop and not pumping Belly into my ears ad nauseum.

Jump back only six or seven months, and my routine was somewhere in the middle in a shop called Renn’s, right in the middle of Iowa. I knew the staff, and was friendly with the owner. Just about everything I wrote from 2022 to mid 2025 was drafted there. Several of my art pieces came out of Renn’s and some were even inspired by artwork that hung in the shop. I miss Renn’s right now. It feels like a lot of quality work happened there. But, I’m acutely aware that I’ve felt the same about Coffea. And, I’m neglecting countless hours at other shops like Caribou, or Café Diem. It’s easy to credit my successes to the exact right conditions.

On December 5th, 2022, I published the first real entry in this newsletter, Nostalgic For Now #1. I shared a gif of Andy Bernard, from the finale of The Office, wishing he knew he was in the good old days before he left them. Not only was I longing for a time from over a decade before its publication, I was making an argument that nostalgia was a negative emotion. Largely, I still agree. I think some of the most damaging turmoil we have in the world is those wishing for a better tomorrow clashing with others who would do anything to return to yesterday. It’s so hard not to sink into nostalgia and long to reappear in a time that just isn’t anymore.

Winter is a time where things move slowly for me. I’m not doing as many events, faces I have grown used to seeing regularly have become rare, and I toil away privately on things. Maybe that’s the perfect recipe for nostalgia. If I could go back to summer road trips with Cathryn, I would. If I could find myself at the end of a packed Dylan’s Drink & Draw, I would. It’d be amazing to wander into a room filled with all my comic convention friends, or cryptid friends. I’d breathe a healthy sigh of relief to saunter into my old seat at the end of Coffea’s bar and have one of my old barista’s pour me the same drink without asking.

Those things all wander away. There will be new trips. There will be new nights of events. There will be new tables packed with colleagues and friends. There will be new coffee shops and places to draw inspiration. But seats won’t fill the same. Cars are bound to change, even if the miles and miles come roaring back. Marching forward often means fewer cups of caffeine, more water, and different faces. That bar I once sat at is unrecognizable and all the baristas I knew by name have moved on to their own bigger adventures. While finding us all back in the exact same place is a thought that fills me with emotion, it probably won’t ever happen again.

I am still mapping out this year, and preparing to get as much done as I can. I feel like I have so much to make, and so little time. I want to put up a good fight as a creator, a good fight as a citizen, and a good fight as a friend. As each one of these words hammer out across the screen, I’m one letter closer to staying ahead of things. That’s not something I could say in 2025. The moments I wish I could get back are dotted with forgotten senses of urgency. I’ve held onto those victories but forgotten the ache of brain fog, writer’s block, and every other creative struggle. It’s too easy to idealize who I was several months ago, or years ago, because the struggle stays in the present and the victories remain stuck in time.

In this way, I can see the path to wishing for yesterday. But, I wasn’t better yesterday. I might have been a day younger, or a bit less tired, but today I am drafting new wins and putting another foot forward.

The world around us is loud, violent, unkind, and unforgiving. The likes of language and image models threaten everything we stand for. Oligarchs, capitalism, and data hungry social media companies make it all the easier to think that several years ago things were better. But, if they were so much better, I’m not certain they’d have led us here. Maybe we were safer, or more secure in the past. But, like gallons of bygone coffees in shops that I might barely recognize, I can’t have those days back. I’m better off pushing forward and striving to make a tomorrow that puts today to shame, and makes those bygone days proud.

I’m here, right now, in the Grain House. I’ve drafted over a thousand words and you may have made it to the end of this entry. We did that together. I might have tasted Coffea for a second. I could have heard a crowd ramp up with energy, just slightly. I think I even heard a friend laugh, an echo of an evening past. All of that is where I came from. This is here, this is now. This is where I am. A step toward where I’m going.

Today’s Tune

If you made it this far, huge shout out to our new sometimes editor, !

I am not an artist, I am a writer. Or at least that’s what I have identified as for most of my life.

I knew from a young age I wanted to write comic books. I loved telling stories, and my favorite medium was sequential art. Even to this day, the sequential writing style of comics works my brain and brings me a level of dopamine that gets my blood pumping!

My love of comics at a young age led me to self-publishing a collection of short comics in high school, The Trail Run. Since then I’ve been self-publishing, doing webcomics, small press, anthologies, and even working with larger publishers. From Big Guns Stupid Rednecks, The Adventures of Punk and Rock, Sanctuary, and a bunch of other stuff full of adventure, crass humor, and fun, comics have been my art form and love language.

Yes, I am a comic writer. But, what would happen if we limited ourselves to only one art form? What happens to our untapped abilities?

One of the scariest things we can do is jump off a cliff without looking. Whether that be saying “hi” to a group at the bar, or buying a new style of underwear, a jump is terrifying. Along my life’s shit show of a journey, I’ve jumped into other writing mediums and have started to experiment. Sometimes a comic isn’t the best way to get an idea or concept across. I began to try my hand at prose. Yes, the long form of writing that leads to novels and novellas. Unlike comics, when writing prose you have no one else to rely on. It’s not doing a portion of the work and passing it off to a partner, but having to rely on yourself (and a trusted editor, like Dylan who edited Odds and Ends for me).

I did a collection of short stories called Odds and Ends, a novella (The Normal) and a memoir, Don’t be a Dick. All of which I’m proud of. When I first thought about writing in other mediums I told myself it was a waste of time. I told myself things like, “you want to write comics, so why would you write other things?” or “you know your prose isn’t good, why are you wasting time on it?”

A jump always begins with fright. When I go back and re-read Odds and Ends, I acknowledge that it’s pretty awful. But, this acknowledgement only happens because of growth and never giving up. Learning from your mistakes and progressing forward, no matter how scary the journey may be, will lead to more growth and getting better. I’m getting better at writing pros because writing in prose has pushed me to look at things in different ways.

If I had listened to my self dialogue I would never have written my memoir or made my way to Substack. If I hadn’t worked on any non-comic projects my post here would not be as exciting or engaging. Writing prose and getting out of my comfort zone helped develop my written communication skills.

And here I am today, taking another leap and breaking my limits through another writing style, text interviewing. Text interviews are a low rent flexible type of interview. Unlike trying to schedule an interview, text interviews can be done whenever and wherever. Middle of the night, on the toilet, or both. Text interviews don’t allow for follow up questions which challenges the interviewer to write good questions to elicit the necessary response from the interviewee. I had no idea interviews would be rewarding, but I’m loving it. Even if some interviews don’t get many reads I am proud of them.

If I had limited myself I wouldn’t have found my enjoyment of prose and interviews. In short people, don’t be a dick and limit yourself. Take a leap, it’s worth it. You’re worth it!

Enjoy your week everyone! I’ll be lurking in the comments section to answer any questions.

Austin Allen Hamblin

Austin is an Iowa based writer with a massive resume of work in comics and prose.

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I want to catch my breath.

I am typically the kind of person to criticize New Year’s Resolutions. Generally, I think it’s unhelpful to set goals that are unrealistic and too aggressive. In my opinion, that’s why grand scheme goals like intense weight loss, dramatic personality changes, and the like are unattainable. However, after the whirlwind that has been 2025, I think it behooves me to set some goals for Brimstone Studios.

Fighting the Good Fight

I keep reflecting on a reader that asked for more topics and broader perspectives. I am setting a course to do exactly that. When I look at some of the things I want to do more of, I know I want to consume more stories, more music, and more perspectives. I love writing the reactions to recent events, but I think there’s more than that in my head and I want to work it out. With the non-stop vibes of 2025, it’s been hard to think that any given event or adventure has left enough of a mark on me, and that’s heartbreaking. If it wasn’t for this newsletter I’m not even certain I would remember the majority of things I accomplished this year.

I want more thoughts here. Critical thinking and deconstruction aren’t just for events, sales, and faith experiences. I could — and should — make space for critical discourse covering media I’ve consumed. It’s more important to take apart something I love, or has inspired me, and examine the parts I’m bound to carry with me and why, than it is to simply mention the things that build Brimstone Studios.

Additionally, I have revised the submission guidelines for 2026 and am striving to feature more guest writers. Fighting the Good Fight is about striving for truth, understanding, empowerment, and reaching our goals. We can only benefit from other people’s stories, I already have a few folks lined up to feature early in the new year and I can’t wait for you to read their submissions!

Dylan’s Drink & Draw

Dylan’s Drink & Draw has been a constant success throughout my career. That doesn’t make it without struggle or challenges. Dylan’s Drink & Draw is a lot of work and I provide all the supplies. It can be time consuming and expensive. That’s a key factor in why Dylan’s Drink & Draw now has its own website and merchandise! I have plans slowly coming together to create new and unique merchandise you’ll just gobble up.

My plans for Dylan’s Drink & Draw in 2026 are to take it to new shows and new cities. The event creates partnerships in ways I would never be able to do on my own. I’m hoping that, as the gameshow spreads, it will create connections that could lead to sponsorships and lasting relationships with the events that feature it.

It’s entirely possible I’ll have events that centralize Dylan’s Drink & Draw more than other Brimstone Studios artwork and content.

Comics

Webcomics

I thought I’d take a break from comics after Champions. But, on Valentine’s Day 2025, Violet 9 took off from being a card game idea into a casual pinup series. I have garnered over 8,000 reads across its two primary platforms. That blew me away. Reflecting on that success, and comparing that to This is My Private Life, I grew a greater appreciation for the work and focus required to create a valuable webcomic. I need to take time to deconstruct my hesitance to care about metrics. However, considering the growth I’ve experienced in 2025 has me eager to continue in 2026.

A part of that growth is a planned hiatus in January to get my series’ in order. This is My Private Life is slated to return in February as a pen sketched comic that I plan to keep quick and succinct. The reason for the hiatus is to not only plan release windows for either series, but to get ahead on both of them. I have started seeing financial success on Global Comix with Violet 9. In response to that, I want to pursue better practices on monetizing a webcomic on that platform. Webtoon still sees my greatest interaction and readership, which is why I prioritize Webtoon in most instances. This new plan will create early access on Patreon (for the very best folks) and early access on Global Comix to lure new readers. It’s a big plan. But, I hope that the simplicity of both series should keep the workload similar to one webcomic.

Comic Books

I am still slowly working on Fregoli. I hate to say that. It’s way behind schedule. As we break into the new year, I have Fregoli to write, a collaboration to draw, and a one-shot half written. They’re all time consuming and managing my time between commissions and regularly scheduled content is hard. It’s been my pickle all year. Currently, my outlook is, in order to get these projects done, create a minimum of a day a week that I solely work on large projects like these.

Additionally, I think getting two to three weeks ahead on Fighting the Good Fight, Violet 9, and This is My Private Life will create room for me to take one week a month and make them “Batcave” weeks. Back in my college days, I had a roommate that would disappear into his room and emerge with stunning finished projects. These stints of him vanishing into his room would often take a handful of days we often referred to as him going into his Batcave. Curating Batcave time may be something I need to get these projects out there.

Prints

Events require variety. Returning to events often requires new work that shows returning crowds that you’re not stale. I’m usually rushing new work a week or two before an event in order to have things ready. I already have several of the events for 2026 that require new work lined up. I am planning to roll these out as far ahead of time as humanly possible in order to get the highest quality work and prints possible. I have been longing for prints that offer more than my peers and I cannot do that without being ahead of the game.

In my line up of new work I have a handful of cryptids for new shows like Squonkapalooza, a list of characters to do as cosplayer collaborations, and aspirations for new striking statement pieces drawn from models. All of these pieces are slated to explore darker inks, washes, and simplified, powerful colors akin to Watch the Skies and Green Eyes.

The year has a lot in store and I am trying to spend these waning days of 2026 preparing to make all of these parts fall into place so they not only work, but serve me best. Wrapped up in all of this will be residencies, events, and trying to live a life. I have games I want to play, movies I want to see, and things I’m eager to experience. I’ve no certainty over what will make everything come into being the way I hope, but I feel like getting these thoughts in order is a great first step to a successful 2026!

So, lay it on me, what do you have planned for next year?

Today’s Tune

With hiccups in mind, and only one more Fighting the Good Fight left this year, I wanted to take a look back on some of the struggles throughout 2025. But, I’ve been hyper focused on skepticism and critically stabbing at creator ecosystems in the last several weeks. I don’t want to go out on a sour note. I want to take today to weigh some of the failures and consider the successes from 2025 to reflect on how, even when things go sideways, they still have highlights worth savoring.

Events

This year’s events have been all over the board. 2025 has been a year of people tightening their belts. The economy hasn’t cultured trust, which has made predicting good events nearly impossible. Shows that were a grand slam in 2024 were anywhere from abysmal to fine in 2025 with very few knocking it out of the park. The Brimstone Studios coffers felt it significantly this year. In fact, it was easy to think I wasn’t meant for most of the shows I attended when it came to finances.

There’s been a lot of repercussions to tough shows. I’ve had to make fewer new products, and I’ve had to pull back on spending around events. 2024 wrote promises that 2025 couldn’t keep, and that made every inch of those challenges harder to march through with my chin up. The longest lasting outcome, however, is that I am trimming events in 2026. If an event has been a constant failure, then I’m cutting it.

On the other hand, Dylan’s Drink & Draw (DD&D) continues to be a smash hit. I’ve made numerous contacts throughout the Midwest through DD&D and have seen it blossom into a truly marketable event. 2026 looks like a year that is ripe for an all out rager for Dylan’s Drink & Draw. That blows my mind and has even sparked conversations about finding ways to promote DD&D more prominently while I’m at shows where an artistic presence isn’t serving me best.

When I look at events from a personal perspective, I feel this year was paramount for connections. I feel like I’m finding real fans in certain areas, and that’s powerful. Furthermore, I have made some incredible connections with new creators that have cultivated into powerful relationships. My ongoing friendship and connection with folks like Dave Wheeler, Travis Bentley, Drew Brockington, Adam Hoppus, and so many more has felt more cemented than ever before.

Comics

I have had a tumultuous relationship with the comics industry since Champions wrapped. I have accepted that I don’t work quite as fast as the industry, writ large, may want. In 2024, before my health issues, I had set my sights on illustrating covers. I love the pinup work I’ve been doing, and covers seemed like a good fit. Aside from having one major cover project utterly fall apart last year, covers didn’t come my way in 2025. I don’t even know how to approach the subject, or what to say about it at this point. I’m still interested, and I’ll still put the feelers out there. But the concept seems insurmountable at the moment.

On the personal side, I have a lot of irons in the fire. It’s something I’m always working on condensing. But as if the fires were burning my house down, I seem to find more and more fires every time I turn around. My progress on Fregoli has been middling. It’s not abandoned, but it’s not ready. I’m not happy about that. But, I do feel like I am getting my feet under me.

Violet 9 has been a tremendous amount of my creative energy, outside of focusing on Dylan’s Drink & Draw and pinup. Though the series is simple, I’m striving to understand my analytics and fans while putting as much energy toward making each pinup page as good as it can be. I have been using the series as practice for drawing more swiftly and for pushing more into controversy and heavy inks. I like it a lot.

The best thing to come from Violet 9, personally, is the insights into how growth works. Violet 9 has grown faster than any online illustrative project I have embarked on. Currently, the series has over 5,100 reads on Webtoon, with seventy subscribers. GlobalComix has started kicking me payments for readership. They’re micropayments, but payments nonetheless, and that’s huge.

These metrics have me scratching my head, and excited. When This is My Private Life debuted, I struggled with accepting modest readership. The internet has a way of making you feel that if you don’t have a minimum of hundreds of thousands of views, and thousands of subscribers, you’re a failure. I have over 13,500 views across Private Life and Violet 9 on Webtoon alone. Those aren’t insignificant numbers. I receive over a hundred readers a week. Most people never get a hundred people to look at their work.

Webtoon and GlobalComix are significant platforms I’m investing more and more interest in. In fact, Champions just went live on GlobalComix and debuted with 150 readers on the first weekend!

I have a slowly burning iron in the comics fire that is a collaboration with a writer, Lan Pitts. It’s slated to take a bunch of my focus this winter. I can’t wait to share more!

Fighting the Good Fight

Every Monday, I descend on a local coffee shop to hammer out the latest Fighting the Good Fight, this very publication. It’s my favorite way to start a week. I was hoping to hit three hundred subscribers by December 31st, and I’m twelve away. We’ll see if we get there, but either way, I am utterly blown away that you all tune into this newsletter. I think I’m still hitting the target of sharing stories about navigating a creative career and healthy skepticism. But, that doesn’t make this publication free from shortcomings.

Early in 2025, I relaxed my rules for guest submissions. I wanted to give our editor more time to make each submission shine, so I took away the deadlines. I often had writers submitting at the last minute, and that made editing a mad dash. As it turns out, removing deadlines killed collaborator submissions all together.

Furthermore, I tried having themed months for this publication. It didn’t work. Often, these entries are a reaction to recent experiences. Those experiences don’t have themes. I had hoped that themed months would guide guest submissions. Ultimately, themes made it harder for me, and did nothing for guests.

Recently, I had a reader email me asking for broader perspectives and different topics. I don’t want to lose track of the goals of this newsletter, but I hear you, reader. I’ll be gathering new guest submissions in 2026, and I am officially moving submissions to a quarterly format. To start submissions, the first opening closes February 1st, 2026. If you’d like to write a guest article, please reach out through Substack, or email me. I’ll also be doing what I can to bring in different topics from time to time. I love the feedback, it means oodles.

2025 was a challenging year. But, it wasn’t without its victories. I think I’ve really refined what Brimstone Studios is and does and that’s helping me carry the vision. If you want to give back the studio, or Fighting the Good Fight, here’s the best ways to get involved:

1. Become a Patron

2. Buy something in the Brimstone shop

3. Subscribe to this newsletter

4. Share this newsletter

5. Follow Brimstone Studios on Webtoon

6. Follow Brimstone Studios on GlobalComix

7. Hire Dylan’s Drink & Draw

8. Comment on these newsletters

You’re all amazing. We’re dialing in 2026. Let’s make it even better!

Today’s Tune

I’m a very public person with a robust presence on the internet. I do my best to not give my information to everyone. I like going through my email about as much as I like taking phone calls: I hate taking phone calls. Having to dig through promotions and junk to get one or two valuable emails is exhausting. Not to mention the pressure we all feel to respond instantaneously.

Over the last couple of months, I have had to make some hard decisions. After moving to Northwest Iowa, I closed my studio in Mainframe, in Des Moines. It was a hard thing to do, especially because getting the studio was a goal I had for half a decade. The moment I set foot in the region’s largest collection of artist studios, I knew I had to find my way to be one of those artists. I hold adventure dear and knew that a move would be a new chapter, a new adventure, so I took everything in stride.

Having a studio is like going to events. They’re both advertising opportunities. It’s not hard to focus a studio or an event specifically on sales when sales make the money happen. But a presence anywhere is about community and growing recognition. It’s about balancing sales and an audience in order to keep both healthy. I’m not the best at it.

One thing I do know is that my audience isn’t generalized. It’s often not Midwestern and reserved. When my audience appears in the Midwest, it’s not in mainstream venues. I’ve got a fairly specific niche. Because of that, and the loss of my studio space, I’ve pivoted to putting more time, energy, and cash toward my online presence. I’ve taken several weeks to beef up my website, and I’ve pivoted it to Shopify for better controls, universalized sales portals, and streamlined analytics. There’s a lot I like about it. My goal is to treat my website more like a studio or event and put my energy into it being a platform that advertises my work. Of course, the goal is more sales, more Fighting the Good Fight readers, more webcomic readers, and a bigger audience.

Anytime you put your contact information out there, you’re going to get spam. We live in an oppressive system that believes in Ayn Rand’s Dickensian and heinous concept that making money is somehow tied to moral virtue. The American landscape is expensive, unforgiving, and riddled with complications. Unless you’re one of the few at the top, making another few bucks can be everything. Take a look at who we, as a culture, view as successful. Success, goodness, and happiness are all tied to money. We apply concepts like genius to people like Elon Musk who came from inherited wealth amassed by exploiting workers. But he made money, so he must be good, smart, and virtuous.

Leave it to me to take everything back to anti-capitalism. But, take the persistent idea that money equals virtue and pair that with the onslaught of emails we get every day and the pressure we have to respond immediately. Once you’ve got both of those, put your contact information on a platform like Shopify and wait for the con artists to roll in.

“Order Alert On Dylan Store!” exclaims someone calling themselves Brand Builders. They have a gmail address, so they must be real! But that’s not the best part. No, the best is reserved for the onslaught of “(no subject)” emails. All of them come from faceless people I’ve never heard of who call themselves experts. Take a look at this one from my new pal, Emmanuel.

Emmanuel has discovered one teeny tiny flaw in my expertly crafted website that is preventing my organic growth. I just have to get back to him and he’ll show me how to fix it. He’s a real pal. I haven’t responded to Emmanuel, but I suspect he’ll want me to chat with him on WhatsApp, or even to get dashboard access to the Brimstone website. I don’t have WhatsApp, and he’ll be disappointed that I can’t give him dashboard access.

How do I know that’s what Emmanuel wants, though? He could be one friendly, web savvy guy who just wants to see me, his buddy, win. I could say that for every other “(no subject)” email I received in the last forty-eight hours that have asked explicitly for WhatsApp and/or dashboard access, though. Some of these helpful actors guarantee I can make $30,000 in the next two weeks! It’s almost too good to be true! And that’s just it. I have a webstore, so clearly I want to make money. I’m obviously not a Fortune 500 company, so I’m probably interested in some insight on how to make my sales increase. The website indicates I’m an American, so my only path toward virtue and the American Dream is to make that money fast and big. I’m probably a little desperate because healthcare is phenomenally awful here. It all means I must be looking for one simple trick.

I have a history of romanticizing certain conmen. The likes of Grunkle Stan have charms. Characters like Stan Pines are full of heart, and he’s scamming you with fur-bearing trout. What’s more charming than that? But the reality is that most con artists rely on snake oil and urgency. The online snake oil often arrives as, “one simple trick.” These mountebanks hold a proverbial genie’s lamp that can solve every problem you’ve ever had. But, as I’ve come to understand, cure-alls cure nothing. Perhaps in bygone times, “one simple tricks,” separated desperate people from a few bucks, but in these instances, folks like Emmanuel stand to separate us from all of our money. If they can get into sales dashboards, they inch closer to identity theft or bank account piracy. At the very least, they may attempt to convince me to transfer money to them in exchange for expertise that could still lead to compromising my information.

It’s exploitation. Exploitation is unfortunately the name of the game in most systems, and it’s the reason for the season. “Don’t delay! Get this great deal!” is the gentle side of the exploitation of our urgency. We need to make money, we need to pay bills, and we need to survive. The more we need, the more vulnerable we are to simple tricks that take advantage of our willingness to believe. The sad truth is that there aren’t three ghosts that schedule visits to the misers, the architects of our systems, and the snake oil salesmen. There’s no chance these people will wake on Christmas morning excited to be alive and mournful for their behavior. It’s incumbent on us to hold onto our skepticism.

The cold and dark of winter can make it even easier to cave to cure-alls and Emmanuels. Hold onto your friends, your family, and your communities. Everything takes work and time. Most of all, hold onto your doubt. It can be a light in the dark. Doubt everything.

Today’s Tune

I don’t miss lugging around batteries, or unique AC adapters for single devices. After having a car filled with CDs in the early aughts, I was excited and relieved that an iPod and a cassette tape adapter could kit out my car with hundreds of albums. Hell, I could charge my Game Boy Advance SP off the car’s auxiliary outlet!

By the mid 2010s I’d sold my soul to the iPhone, like most of us. And, as my Sony MDR-7506 headphones wore down from extreme use, I became hellbent on finding good, affordable wireless headphones. I had the kind with corded earbuds and plastic carriage that sits around your neck. I watched friends go through Beats like they were disposable. I went through several different earbuds. They all sucked. I’m sure someone out there can recommend a nice, expensive set of Bose headphones. But after the last several pairs, including some abominable Raycons, I’m out of the wireless game.

I know I harp on Spotify and tech companies ad nauseum, and I’m about to do it again. Every writing guide you’ll ever find says to write what you know and right now I know the fight with technology as it pertains to music really well. But I know you know Spotify is destructive and greedy. If you didn’t already know, I told you so in Thankful for the Fire, Serfing the Net, and Let’s Burn Down Our Playlists. I’m trying to hold someone else’s feet to the fire today: mine.

My advancement from a battery collecting goblin, to an iPhone dependent goblin with a monocle wasn’t extremely fast, but it was never a hard choice because I’m easily caught up in new, flashy things and their promise of convenience. I’ve had several fun, flashy things that lose their allure pretty fast. As it turns out a new way of doing something isn’t always the most convenient and the novelty wears off. I’m looking at you Amazon Echo. You’re just a voice controlled light switch and timer I should have never invited in my home.

Convenience is a powerful thing. We don’t live in a world where free time is celebrated. If we can do something faster, or do two things — three things, or four things — at a time, we demand that as a norm of ourselves. While I largely blame our work culture for the vile acceptance of overworking ourselves and wearing too many hats, convenience conveniently conditions us to make these behaviors feel normal.

I’ve always credited Weird Al for saving me from the boyband era. While everyone around me was trying to decide if the Backstreet Boys really were edgier than NSYNC I was debating if Running with Scissors would be as good or better than Bad Hair Day. I wasn’t as well-rounded as a listener needs to be to get every reference Weird Al made with his parodies. But, Bad Hair Day served as a convenient catalogue of references to music and style I’d come to love as an adult. I got a lot in one place, which was nice and made branching out easy. It was a valuable convenience.

Everyone knows how the convenience of malls crushed downtowns, and how the convenience of big box stores and the internet came to crush malls, or how the internet crushed them all. Time is valuable, so it becomes easy to justify doing everything all in one place. Eventually, the convenience came with voice activated spybot advertisement machines that sell us the lowest quality version of any given item. I’m not blaming anyone other than myself, though. I am constantly trapped in the convenience box.

Spotify is my biggest problem. It gives me access to so much music that I love, all in one place, while supporting the musicians the least. It’s just barely more supportive than piracy. And, to make matters worse, it takes away our intentionality. Instead of seeking new music with purpose, we can let Spotify serve us what it thinks we want. Sometimes it shows us new artists, but it loves showing AI slop. The more we look for vibes and convenience, the more we’re a part of the problem.

What’s worse for me is that I have gone to great lengths to cut Spotify off, but it’s the most toxic relationship I have right now that I just can’t quit. Earlier this year, I received a We Are Rewind cassette player, to take me back to the analog days. It’s a quirky thing that lets me connect with the old tape hiss. But I rarely use it.

A few months back, I was tired of wireless earbuds not charging, and one or the other bud not connecting. The tech is neat and convenient, but trash. I ditched my last buds for a wired pair of Koss Porta Pros. While they never need charging, I do have to take a moment to coil them into their case for safe travels. I do everything in my power to not get exhausted with the little ritual. The headphones have already out paced every wireless set I’ve had, and they sound great. They’re worth the thirty seconds of coiling. I’m worth those thirty seconds.

For the last month, I’ve been threatening to kill my Spotify. I’ve been laying groundwork to put together my own independent media server. I love giving my money to the artist instead of Spotify. But right now I’m handing money to both because, though groundwork is necessary, I’ve not taken the crucial steps to actually setting up a server. Am I just lazy? Or am I hooked on how convenient Spotify is? It’s so easy to change nothing. That status quo is hard to fight without intentionality.

Intentionality is everything in my opinion. There’s a part of me that romanticizes marching toward the analog. I want to put every song I own on cassettes and dedicate myself to the new cassette player, but I think that’s more of a daydream. Setting up a media server for my home makes much more sense, and can serve the convenience dopamine fix once I break the status quo and just do it. My intention is to be a better custodian of the arts I consume, and I know it will serve that intention well.

Currently the best approach I have to consuming my media with intentionality is in the evenings while cooking. Cathryn and I have started a regular routine of turning on the radio, or picking out a record and playing it. Records can be hard to pick if we don’t have something in mind. But, we bought everything we own because we love it. Anything works, but the beauty is that we picked it up, put it on the turn table, and listened to it. Without baking some intention into what we own and collect, things we ought to enjoy become props and clutter. A record is meant to be played, not to be clutter. And, every time we play it, we play it for free with no subscription.

I am still striving to break up with Spotify. It’s going to be hard. I have a lot to implement to get our collection into a media server. And, I just got my Spotify Wrapped which gave me interesting insights and little jolts of dopamine that makes me sentimental toward an app that I know does magnificent harm. It’s so incredibly hard.

My plea for you this winter is not to jump into the analog the way I long to, but to take a moment to consider your conveniences and how they serve your goals and intentions? Are there things you’re hooked on because they’re easy, even if they don’t support your ethics or goals? What can you do to be more intentional in how you interact with the world? We’re not going to tear down the corporate hellscape all on our own. But the more we act with purpose, the more our collective action becomes a movement. Take a moment and consider walking those three blocks instead of driving. Take a few seconds to discover where your goods come from before you buy them. Maybe pick up a CD, a tape, or a record, and play it on purpose.

Today’s Tune

Belly, Seal My Fate Acoustic

It’s the holiday season and that means shopping for most of the world. As an artist, I’m always managing the truth that, in order to make this a business, I have to sell something. In some respects, I hate that. Art is about saying something, and the more I strive to commercialize my work, the less it has room to say anything. It’s a fine line to walk. I want my art to say, “this is a monster and it’s haunting, or beautiful, or both,” and I want a lot of my art to say, “my beliefs should tell me this is scary or wrong, but maybe it isn’t.”

On the other hand, selling artwork is cool. When someone buys something at a show and makes a real connection with me over the work, I feel like I did a good thing. When someone I’ve never heard of half a world away buys something on my website, I feel like I’m finding my crowd in ways I could never imagine without the internet. Added to that, the religious scholarship hobbyist in me says that the holidays are mammon’s time, and cash reigns supreme. Why shouldn’t I do whatever I can to carve my own little piece of the pie?

With mixed feelings, I dedicated a ton of time over November to flesh out Brimstone Studios’ website and to break Dylan’s Drink & Draw into its own domain. I set up a boatload of new products, I added print-on-demand prints, I created branded Dylan’s Drink & Draw merch, and I bought some advertising on Instagram.

Instagram is a place I used to love that became a place that exhausted me, which in turn became a place I begrudgingly use to do whatever I can to have some semblance of an audience. Instagram is riddled with ads for junk on Temu and other dubious sales platforms, and I dropped some of my hard earned cash on being one more of those ads. Why the hell did I give my money to Meta then? I don’t have a great answer to that.

I do my best to stay on top of scams. I’ve had a fascination with how con artists work for years. My interest in bad faith actors often overlaps with my interest in what faith is and how it works, and it’s easy to see a throughline from a willingness to believe in one thing leading us to believe in anything. It frightens me, and yet I still find myself in an ecosystem that is rife with scams and fraudulent behavior. If you’re not already aware, Facebook and Meta are both constant streams of con artistry, according to the AP. Along with joining endless knockoffs and dropshipped balonium, creating ads on Meta platforms puts me shoulder-to-shoulder with rip-off accounts that Meta is happy to keep running. But I ran the ad anyway.

The truth is that I had some desperation. Meta runs ecosystems I’m familiar with, ecosystems I open constantly even when they aren’t serving me best. I get feedback from family, friends, and fans about things I post on Facebook and Instagram. It’s enough to keep me there, even when my trust in these ecosystems is nearly gone. What adds to my frustration in handing my money over to run ads with Meta is knowing that online anything can be falsified. My advertisement received about one thousand more views than my other posts. It was supposedly shared several times. It has comments from seemingly real people. And, my website claims to have received hundreds more visitors than usual. But, if Meta lets bad actors run rampant on their platforms, what confidence should I have that they don’t throw bots at my ads to give me the warm fuzzy feeling that it works?

My sales were fine. Better than a normal Friday, but nothing to write home about. I didn’t spend a boatload of money on my advertisement because as trapped in the Facebook and Instagram hellscape as I am, all of this ran through my head as I paid them. Furthermore, I’m aware that even with effective advertising, I need to have a product consumers want. As I said in Cheesburgers Vs Sardines, I’m aware that I have niche work that isn’t broadly appealing. So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by middling sales. But if I’m going to pump a great deal of my money into getting eyes on what I offer, I don’t want to sink into scum.

Where can advertising dollars be spent that aren’t scams?

Maybe it’s not just me having a rough go of the shopping season, or 2025 for that matter. The AP says that Salesforce is also reporting that, “Order volumes fell 1% as average selling prices rose 7%. Consumers also purchased fewer items at checkout, with units per transaction falling 2% on a year-over-year basis.” Those numbers aren’t huge, and when I consider what they mean to me, I see sales closing with one fewer product per transaction and my overhead costs going up. I don’t have the funds to buy all American made goods. Tariffs are hitting all small sales like a brick.

What alarms me most about the AP’s article lies in the headline and the bulk of their news, “AI helps drive record $11.8 billion in Black Friday online spending.” AI is leading the charge on making online sales. It makes my spine shiver and my skin crawl. I don’t use so-called AI. Aside from the Reddit regurgitating slop at the top of Google searches, I hardly interact with large language and generative models being sold to us as Artificial Intelligence. These AI companies are hoarding our data, systemically stealing written works and artwork, and gobbling up clean water and energy. If that’s not bad enough, AI is largely built to please and create echo chambers more powerful than social media. It’s structured to keep you happy with the results of your inquiry, even if the results are wrong. Doing so makes you a happy customer as opposed to a more empowered, knowledgeable researcher.

When the likes of ChatGPT starts telling you what companies to trust, and what companies have good products, I start to worry the entire internet is a scam. I know it’s not just me. Search your favorite platforms and you’ll see the concern everywhere. Consumers and content creators alike have fatigue from systems and ecosystems they used to trust falling to dubious practices. Google recommends whatever some Redditor says paired with whomever paid the most to get your eyeballs. Amazon features products with fake reviews that are often knock-offs or forgeries. Your social media pushes you ads for crap from companies you’ve never heard of, and big box stores seem to step in stride. Call a Casey’s General Store and try to order a pizza and a pint of chocolate ice cream and you’ll be confronted by an AI that serves to only make customer service worse.

The internet has gone from a fun place to experience new things to a cesspool that relies on our addiction to convenience and feeds off our credulity.

I want to create good, challenging, and appealing artwork. I want to sell worthwhile prints and merchandise of that artwork. It should be as easy as that. Unfortunately nothing is that simple. There are a few avenues to advertise that are less tainted by Enshittification. A lot of outlets urge Influencer Marketing, which I can see some value in. While influencers, especially podcasters, and YouTubers, may be paid to shill dubious items and services, several of them can and will sponsor good artwork and creative content. Advertise where you see your audience going, after all. Emails, like this newsletter are paramount in today’s online hellscape. You choose to be here, and that means we’re having a conversation. Word of mouth is still the king of spreading the word. If you love something, your friends might too.

I hate feeling trapped. I hate feeling like everything is a scam. Rising costs, flip-flopping tariffs, fake products, fake accounts, and con artists are everywhere right now. But we don’t have to be trapped in these silos built by bad actors. As we face down the close of the year, and I am preparing a course to put myself out there the best I can, I am reminded that our power lies in our communities. I’m writing this in a coffee shop that does nothing but build community. I can easily taste and feel the value in what they sell, and I can utilize their space regularly. I’ve got to focus on being a coffee shop, so to speak. I need to create the best work and products I can while providing you space to be genuine and find others like you. Others like us.

Everything might be a scam right now, but together we’re less susceptible to bullshit.

Before I kick you to a cyberpunk song designed to fight the man I gotta tell you that the Brimstone Studios store has 15% off everything today. If you want to help me, this publication, or support artwork, grab something! If you want to be the cream of the crop, join the Brimstone Order!

Okay, go destroy the technocracy.