This makes 4 months in a row! I think changing things from being strictly start-of-the-month really did a great job at unsticking my ability to produce these newsletters. Real happy to see that working well.
I’m trying to get through this website redesign so I can get back to more exciting TTRPG and writing projects soon, but I ain’t rushing it. I still want it to be Good! I’ve got a direction, now, and am remaking the whole thing from scratch.
Ideally, I no longer rely on any third party tools. At least, nothing that requires someone else’s servers to work. I just don’t trust big tech companies, and the headless CMS I use to handle the image hosting is going googoo eyes for AI right now, so who knows how long til they go belly up? Raw HTML, CSS, and JS is the plan. No libraries.
I’ve enabled comments on the newsletter now, testing the waters with that. Say something when you’re done reading, if you’d like!
Since we last spoke, I…
Worked on redesigning my personal website.
Launched the GUTGUN lore website.
Finished writing the GUTGUN PROPHET lorebook.
Made a gift for a friend.
A website that hosts past, present, and future stories from the world of GUTGUN! Currently there are two lorebooks available, but I’ve got more planned for the future!
Cool Things
The Venture Bros.
The Venture Bros. is one of my favorite shows, and I believe it still stands as one of if not the best adult animated comedy series. I had to check through the history of this newsletter to make sure I hadn’t already recommended it! I rewatched the series this month, in the midst of some bad chronic pain spikes, and it still holds up pretty well.
The Venture Bros. is one of those long-form works where you get to watch the growth of its creators over its twenty-year lifespan. It’s something I often delight in seeing! And, this growth is not just artistic— but personal, as well. It’s no secret that adult comedies— be they filmed or animated— circa 2003 were plagued, to say the least, by every “ism” you could think of.
Early seasons of the Venture Bros. are shockingly tame for their time, and aged a lot better than their contemporaries. There are still a few elements here and there that feel icky, but it’s not so offensive that it makes me want to stop watching the entire thing. (There are like, 3 episodes I do skip every rewatch, though.)
Another growth vector is in scope. The show starts seemingly as nothing more than an adventure-of-the-week comedy beat with great care for background continuity (if a wall breaks in one episode, it’ll stay broken until it’s fixed several episodes later)— and becomes a dramedy by the final season. Every season piles on more and more details, worldbuilding, and story beats that steadily snowball into some fantastic drama in the latter seasons.
It’s good early on, too. Those first few seasons are still quite funny, but there’s no emotional kick til around season 3.
The comedy hits well, too. The Venture Bros. is a parody unlike any parody I’ve seen before or since. It is not satisfied with simply taking the cartoons, comics, and other stories that inspired it and making fun of them— it instead elevates those parodied elements into their own, unique characters that stand on their own.
Dr. Orpheus, for example, is a parody of Marvel Comics; Dr. Strange that delivers every line with grim importance— even if he’s just buying groceries— but he’s also a key supporting character. He’s a foil, in a way, for Rusty Venture’s immorality. A voice of reason, someone who cares about and tries to help others.
I could ramble about this show for many pages, but I’ll leave it here. Watch The Venture Bros., the proper watch order is as follows: S1 > Christmas special > S2/3/4 > Shallow Gravy special > Halloween special > S5 > Gargantua-2 special > S6/7 > Baboon Heart movie.
Sings: The Inimitable Sound of Archie Henderson
Jazz Emu has been one of my favorite musicians for some years now. While his focus has been on comedy, every album has had a few serious songs sprinkled in— or songs that shift from comedy to heartfelt halfway. Both cases are wonderful, and part of what has long elevated his work for me.
It was inevitable that he’d eventually make a 100% serious album, and that time has finally come.
Sings: is a much more tender, slow album than his prior work. There’s a lot of raw emotion here, and the talent shown before really helps it shine. This is a breakup album, so it doesn’t connect with me as well as a lot of his prior serious work due to my being aromantic and quite rarely resonating with that topic, but I still greatly appreciate the artistry and skill at play.
The lyrics are well written, woven as well as I’d expect his work to be. The music itself is wonderfully and skillfully layered, and I’ve listened through the album every day since it came out.
It’s a great listen, and one I’d definitely recommend!
indestructible type*
The asterisk is part of the name, actually. indestructible is a type foundry I recently stumbled on while gathering fonts for a client project, one that has a fantastic assortment of font families!
This, to my delight, includes a faithful modernization of one of my white whale fonts: Cooper.
On top of the delightful (pay-what-you-want!) fonts available, their website’s design is great as well! The page for their latest font, Marauder, is particularly enjoyable. I’d check them out if you’re in need of some quality (affordable!) fonts, or web design inspiration!
Prompt
Each month I provide a prompt to inspire you to create something in any medium you like!
This month’s prompt: Hope
Readers can share their work in the #sharing-grounds channel on my Discord server!
Interested in a commission? Contact me!
