Itsy-Bitsy Art Stuff

Hello bedlington terriers,

How are you? I see you've redecorated - I love the new art deco aesthetic. Brave choice.

Did you spot Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, the comet? I sure didn't. I'm rocking a 10” GSO reflector telescope these days, and somehow still missed all the announcements of the thing, making my amateur astronomy career pointless.

Housekeeping first of course: if it's all the same, I hope it's all right if I charge you for art bills. My brilliant illustrator Valeia and I are working on a fairly long form thing I've already banged on about before, a five part video series about how we'll ever reach a decent future where humans aren't cocks and money doesn't matter. I appreciate Star Trek already did this, but they rarely swore and no one did drugs in that universe, and I reckon that's something that could be improved upon. All silliness aside: Valeia has been working her bottom off on illustrations (the same lady who kindly did the Big Oxygen art) and we'd like to make more, lots more, and if you're down for funding that, then that would be fantastic. And if you're not, entirely understood. As is tradition, I'll leave a week before charging any of you – if Patreon isn't your thing, then please bail – god knows I don't want to induct you into something you weren't intending to sign up for. I'll attach some of her wonderful stuff below as a proof of concept anyway.

So, the project originally began as book. The book will be out much sooner than the videos – I'm attempting to finish it up now. I got to wondering ages ago now what it would look like if actual adults existed – how do humans behave if they're fully realised? It seemed like scifi was the only way to do that - an unusual genre for me, I know. Obviously, I'll send it to you folks first as a PDF and KDP file, zero charge when it's done. If you could potentially sit tight for a few more months, I promise a new book is coming, it's just being a little difficult to get out. I wander around these days oscillating between screaming at a keyboard and cleaning it out so it behaves better, and neither tactic seems to help.

If you care about being in the loop, I'm also working on a video script about grieving and the Tao Te Ching, but it's all notes, and I admit I'm not my best self at the moment. I can hardly ask you to wait around for me, but forcing anything usually results in terrible work. So I will gently ask you to give me a spot of time, a month at most, and I promise new stuff is coming online.

I'm not sure if this will translate terribly well, but The Beatles released a song 11 months ago, their last, a Frankensteinian mashup of something John Lennon left behind originally, and the modern members recycled and set a wonderful string score to – well, Giles Martin set a wonderful string score to. I was attempting to eat lunch to it today and broke down into my lentil shepherd's pie. When it gets to the bridge, someone has edited in George and John playing alongside them, and as artificial as it is, my god, just try not to feel. I grew up on Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers, and it felt like a rather fitting send off.

In any case. If you could give me a wee bit of time, I'll gladly attempt to make sad art things, but everything is in somewhat of a state of disarray and I'd quite like to just fund my brilliant illustrator to do her best and finish what we started.

Again, if you want to opt out, please do, there's zero obligation and I would only ever petition you here if it came down to an actual project – totally understood if we part ways. If you stick around, thank you ever so much, I hope I can make good on the investment of trust.

Just thank you more than I can say for sticking around and I hope I don't disappoint. This stuff is always unpredictable and strange, and I'd rather like to do my jolly best to entertain and depress. The feline has suddenly fallen asleep on the chair next to me and god knows I'm going to upload that. Her little paws are spilling all over the side of the chair and I can't believe I get to live in the same timeline as this creature.

Thank you and cheers and massive love as ever, rather excited to show you new things soon,

Ex