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Status Update
I have a cold and I’m behind on everything, so I’ll just quickly note a few things.
Latest writing and podcasts
- The latest Sewer Mutant podcast is on Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, a comic that was at least a decade ahead of its time. Ninjas before Frank Miller and Larry Hama. A grim ‘n gritty reboot before Alan Moore. De-compressed, cinematic storytelling before Miller. A healing factor before Wolverine.
- Our episode on the Death of Captain Marvel is out as well. We talk about the birth of the direct market, character deaths in comics, and the death of a superhero as metaphor for the death of a parent.
- I also wrote about how comic book speculators weren’t the problem, it was how the industry reacted to them.
- And over at klintron.com, I wrote about what we know about what little was released by the industrial super group Tapeworm
Media Diet
Tabs
‘Non-survivable’: heatwaves are already breaching human limits, with worse to come, study finds
What the return of the superstar artist means for comics
Music
I recently discovered Miss Grit. Yves Tumor comes to mind as a comparison, not so much because they actually sound alike but because they exude a “weird pop” vibe, just in different ways. Their new album Under my Umbrella is darker and noisier than their debut Follow the Cyborg, which is poppier but more haunting.
The Nine Inch Noize album is cool too.
TV and movies
Some recent viewing:
- Ready or Not 2
- The Drama
- Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen
2026 is the year of the fucked up wedding.
Also great: Big Mistakes, Sugar.
Podcasts
- Behind the Bastards did a two parter (Part 1, Part 2) on AI psychosis and how generative AI chatbots are exhibiting behavior associated with cult leaders. Host Robert Evans speculates that this is due to the combination of chatbots being programmed to maximize interaction time with the fact that they’ve been trained on a codex of essentially all digital text the AI companies can get their hands on–including books by cult leaders, self-help books, and forums full of kooks convincing each other of increasingly bizarre shit. It’s the most interesting take on AI psychosis I’ve come across.
Books
Green Bone Saga author Fonda Lee’s new book Last Contract of Isako is fantastic.
A quote from the book: “Young people like Martim are motivated by fear of failure. Old hands like her and Kob are just trying to redeem themselves for failures already made.”
A quote from Lee about the book: “This book is also entirely off trend. It’s not cozy, it’s not romantic, it’s not funny or youthful. It’s a bleak, cynical, corporate thriller without any romance, starring middle-aged people.” (From this interview)
Logoff
Well, this should be enough to keep just about anyone busy for a while. Until next time, that’s quite enough out of me.