It’s summer halftime

Hello, kind readers.

We are halfway through the summer. My big work projects are done, I’ve shipped all the preorders for SMALL BITES #2, and I have finally gotten an opportunity to take a break. And like many people, now that I have a breather, I am initially at a loss as to what to do with it.

First, some housekeeping is in order…

FREE HANDS #3 is finally live on Kickstarter!

It has been a long break, but I am happy to announce that my pirate adventure comic, FREE HANDS, is back on Kickstarter for issue #3. As previously reported, the book has a new artist, J. Schiek, of Old Devils and an array of other great books. There’s a bunch of great art on preview on the Kickstarter page, but I wanted to share with you folks that we have three different covers! Using the links in this newsletter, you can get a signed edition of any of the three covers, by new regular artist J. Schiek, original artist Matt Rowe, or special variant artist Fell Hound, for a discounted rate.

In this issue, the crew has escaped from the Royal Navy in the Atlantic and stumbled across a disabled French vessel, while the nameless survivor continues to goad the Boston legal establishment in the depths of High Hill Church.

Also, as most readers know, my interest in pirates and Boston history goes beyond comics—I’ve worked as a curator and head of interpretation at a number of historical institutions, and for this campaign, I’m doing a special Pirate History Tour of downtown Boston. It’s going to be on the late morning of November 7 in downtown Boston, and you can get tickets along with your copy of Free Hands #3, either with the “Pirate History Tour!” tier or as an add-on, where you can also get more tickets.

It’s going to be fun! About 90 minutes, and I’ll show you all the places around old Boston with stories connected to pirates like William Fly, Captain Kidd, and more, as well as make some of the connections to FREE HANDS and what inspired it. We’ll start somewhere near Boston Common (TBA) and end in the North End.

Summer Reading & Viewing

Now that I’ve wrapped up the opening of my new place-based film project, RUCKUS!, at Old South Meeting House in Boston, I’ve been trying to actively avoid history for a little bit, with varied success.

Incidentally, please go see RUCKUS! if you’re in town.

I’ve also been continuing to steer clear of social media where I can, have cancelled all my streaming services, and became a member of Boston’s last video store, The VU in Jamaica Plain. Turns out the owner, Kevin, lives a few blocks from me and will entertain any inane conversation I want to have about movies as long as my subscription is up-to-date, so my wife and I have made visiting the shop an almost weekly activity. It has also prompted me to watch some stuff I’d never have otherwise watched, including a post-apocalyptic, extremely cold war movie called “Robot Jox,” in which societies settle their differences with life-sized Rock’m Sock’m Robots.

It is extremely bad, and I liked it very much.

This has been a really nice development, and as more people start to realize that they miss physical things, human interaction, and a life with limited options at any given moment, I feel like I’m living a better life just by seeking out video stores, book stores, and record stores, and talking to clerks about stuff to see where it will take me. This is also how I recently ended up with a copy of Eric Dolphy’s “Out To Lunch!”—apparently a landmark jazz record that I would never have gotten to if I was relying on the algorithm, but that I very much enjoyed after being talked into it by a guy at the record store.

I’ve also had some time to read some comics.

Among the better stuff I’ve cracked into was Armies, a Humanoids rerelease of a 1970s collaboration between Metal Hurlant founder Jean-Pierre Dionnet and artist Jean-Claude Gal. It’s essentially a collection of vignettes in the heroic fantasy genre, which is purports to have invented as a comic book subgenre. I don’t know enough to accept that as true, but what I can say is that it is extremely good writing and excellent art. Gal does really interesting things with the page, particularly with his panel layout.

I got it a while ago from Humble Bundle, and it happens to be available again right now, and proceeds go to Reading is Fundamental, which is nice. You also get Moebius’ whole run of the Incal for $25, so it’s pretty solid.

I also came across a pretty good interview with Ed Brubaker (Captain America, Daredevil, Criminal) that sent me down a rabbit hole of crime fiction, and I found myself as surprised as he was that “A” is for Alibi by Sue Grafton is not terrible. It’s certainly not high art, but for a beach read, you can do worse (like David Baldacci).

I said I was trying not to read history books

I did, in fact, fail. And in doing so, I made quite a few leaps. Bear with me.

I dabbled a bit in The 10-Cent War, edited by Trischa Goodnow and James Kimble (whose Mobilizing the Homefront is a piece of academia that I greatly admire).

It’s an interesting collection of essays, which I haven’t yet completed, but it did remind me that comics were a large part of American culture before the 1950s, when the American industry was attacked by HUAC as “unamerican.” Reading this alongside Armies was instructive.

Whereas the aftermath of WWII relegated American comics to the kids’ table, where they have largely remained, Dionnet referred to comics as “minor arts” in his Armies introduction, highlighting that they aren’t the creative ghetto in France that they are in American culture. They’re a well regarded art form, sometimes also called “the ninth art,” alongside architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, poetry, cinema, and television. 

With so many French comics creators held at such high esteem, and the content of French comics (called Bandes dessinées in France and Belgium) being decidedly more adult than most popular American works, I was left to wonder what it was that allowed for mature, adult themes to be acceptable in France, as well as Belgium and Japan, where comics are regularly read by adults, but not in the US. 

Certainly some of it is cultural. France in particular has been aggressive in treating different mediums as art forms–I’ve met dozens of French people who work in video games, VR, and AR who have relayed that the French government sees these mediums as extensions of and possible additions to film, which the nation has a long history of supporting as high art. But Belgians actually read more comics than the French per capita (33% of book sales in Belgium vs. 15% in France), and the Japanese surpass French comic readership as well (41% of all book sales). Meanwhile, the US has a dwindling comic readership, representing about 10% of total book sales. Additionally, France, Belgium, and Japan all have higher overall annual reading rates than the US per capita. 

Again, I don’t think there’s one specific answer to why comics are so much more widely consumed in these places than in the US. Some of it was certainly due to government treatment in the different countries, but I found myself thinking about transit as well, and how the nations with higher comic readership also tend to have more widely available and better transit options. Surely a culture of reading cheap, disposable, and entertaining literature that is easily grabbed off a rack has a stronger market in nations where one doesn’t sit behind a steering wheel for a quarter of their non-work hours.

This is what happens when I’m left with free time.

Other people are making cool stuff…

As usual, friend, acquaintances, and people I’ve come across are doing stuff I’d love for you to check out.

BRACKISH
by Jonathan Hedrick

Two families have lived for generations on separate sides of a Florida swamp. The Tappers control the freshwater area where they make their moonshine, and the Saltzmans control the saltwater side from which their family fortune has grown from the abundant tourism. A truce was made a century ago to end their constant feud over the brackish part where their lands unite. But when the youngest Tapper son and youngest Saltzman daughter fall in love, the truce is broken and both sides of the swamp will never be the same again.

Brackish ends today, so don’t miss out!

DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT
By J. Michael Donohue

Days Without Incident is the story of Beth and her friends living life as those today is their last day alive...because it is. What this group of teens doesn't know is that the slasher of legend, Old Man Brody, is more real than they know and he's thirsty for blood. So, a night that starts off as a party quickly spirals into a fight for survival where only one shall survive. 

I love this whole series, and I definitely recommend you check it out.

Mystery James Returns from the Grave
By Ally Russell

The second book in a creepy duology about Mystery James, who was found as a baby in a cemetery, lives in a funeral home, and can smell ghosts. This time, spring break takes a terrifying turn when Mystery suspects a ghost has entered her home…and refuses to leave.

This book is by my friend, Ally, who has been tearing up the middle grade genre for the past few years. The first book in this series was an absolute gem, as was her most recent book, Down Came the Spiders. If you’ve got kids in your life and you want to scare the hell out of them, I give you the RL Stein of the 21st century.

IMMORTAL COIL
By Gerald Von Stoddard & Frank Martin

In this issue, the Faceless God continues the search for the fragments of the trapezohedron, once complete, a second Ragnarok will encompass the Earth and cause the human race to become extinct. Secrets are revealed, horrors are unleashed and time is running out. The grandchildren of Odin are reunited and stand at the brink of cosmic oblivion but after having spent a millenia apart, can they come together to fulfill their true purpose or will it be too little too late to stop what’s coming?!

This book is also in its last 48 hours, so move fast. I’m a HUGE fan of these guys, and I can’t stop looking at Von Stoddard’s artwork.

Appearances!

Come see me in a few places this August.

Pages & Pints
Mayflower Brewing Company
Plymouth, MA
Sunday, August 16, 12pm-4pm

Come hang out with me and a bunch of authors, publishers, and book shop people, and get some books to satisfy your reading needs while drinking local beer. This one’s FREE!

Plastic City Comic Convention
Hilton Double Tree Hotel
Leominster, MA
Saturday, August 22, 10am-4pm

A comics-centric comic-con? What a concept. I’ll be slinging books and hanging out all day, so come say hi! This one’s $10 to enter.

That’s all for now.

PLEASE BACK FREE HANDS TODAY