Our First Comic! We're Publishers! Plus EOY Substack Round-Up
Prelaunch for our very first comic is LIVE, baby! And shoutout to all the Boozeletters and Toonsletters we've loved in 2023.
Big big news for this one, folks. Our very first comic, which we will be crowdfunding starting January 15th, now has its prelaunch page up, and you can sign up to be notified on launch.
ARMAGEDDONQUEST by Ronald Russell Roach is a long out-of-print 80’s underground comix classic that we are resucing from obscurity, and I cannot wait to share it with a modern audience.
AQ is an irreverant, coming-of-age adventure blending the style of Golden Age Marvel, 80's manga, the OG black-and-whtie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles, and the sometimes adult sensibilities of Robert Crumb, about a reluctant Antichrist and how he deals with being a villain to the whole world from birth. The entire series is already complete, clocking in at just shy of 900 pages! This first issue will sport a brand new logo, new cover colors (by M Sorcier), new variant covers, and new book design. We hope to do 3 issues in 2024, with three more + a first trade collection in 2025.
AQ #1: TAZIO is a fat 52-PAGE comic book, telling the story of Antichrist Tazio's first life experiences on planet Earth, in a small town in Italy. His mother wants to kill him, his best friend is a literal buffoon, and his Prof Xavier-style mentor is a gender-fluid individual whose age, sex, and temperaments shift with the phases of the moon.
I got my hands on Ron's Armageddonquest back in the 90's, and read the whole thing on a long 16-hour family road trip and had my mind completely blown! I’ve since name dropped AQ as one of my "Top 5 comics of all time", only to find that hardly anyone else has ever heard of it.
I befriended Ron over over a decade ago (he's based in Copenhagen, Denmark) and have long wanted to bring his epic comix masterpiece to the comic reading public. To date, there has never been anything quite like AQ, in all these years. It's high time we can discuss the comic and modern day readers will finally know what I’m balthering about!
Who is Ronald Russell Roach?
Ronald Russell Roach was born in Seatlle, Washington. In the early 1960s, he studied at the Western Washington State College in Bellingham, majoring in English Literature. He travelled over the world and was part of the 1960s and 1970s hippie scene. His first published comics was "Space Bum", which was published in the Spaced Out Comics book by Print Mint in 1972. He continued drawing his own comics throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He created 'Armageddonquest', a mini comic book that was published under the Starhead Comics label from 1984 to 1986. He completed all 800+ pages of the series in 1992.
In Ron's own words: "I consider the telling of tales to be a kind of shamanistic thing that people do and have always done, in many different ways & forms, simply because the human spirit refuses to be contained just within the Here & Now - pretty philosophic, huh?"
Our FINAL Final Livestream of the Year! Tonight!
We squeezed in one more before we take a gd break, but it’s a doozy, folks - a 140 Page holiday-themed sci-fi adventure that doubles as a love letter to John Candy, TAFT STURGEON: HOLIDAY IN THE STARS is an OGN you need in your life. Come discover more about the book and what wintery wines we paired it with!
Our Favorite Substacks of 2023
This was our first year on the platform, but it’s been so much fun discovering all the many boozeletters and toonsletters that proliferate around these here parts. Our favorites are…(drumroll)…
The Author Stack by Russell Nohelty - Incredible advice for writers at nearly every phase of their careers, especially as it relates to the modern author ecosystems of online, social media, email lists, retail sales, crowdfunding, conventions/shows, Substack itself, and so much more. I’ve known Russell for over a decade now, and he impresses me to no end, on a nearly daily basis.
Oenosthesia - Blending Wine and Music by Dr Jo Burzynska - Wine and Comics pairing was born from the science behind wine and music pairing, and Dr. Burzynska here dives deep into this. I was thrilled to find someone writing so deeply about this topic here on Substack. We hope to match her carefully curated style of pairing, and plan to introduce music pairings in 2024 as well!
Blake's Buzz by Blake's Buzz (Blake Thomas Morgan to you, yo.) Blake has been a huge supporter of the show, and his own comics media presence and takeover of the indie AND mainstream sphere in terms of comics coverage and cheerleading have been an endless source of inspiration for me. I have no idea if we’ll ever break it as big as he has, and even if we do it won’t be quite in the same way, what with our weird ass wine half to everything, but Blake is 100% the poster on my teenage self’s wall, and maybe one day I’ll be as big as him. Or maybe one day he’ll be as slim as me. Or maybe we can just split the difference between us ;P
Creative Praxis by John Ward - This is a relatively new find for me, but John has been collecting a number of amazing studies on comics crowdfunding and the comics ecosystem in general that are absolutely choice. His latest collects a number of them.
Survives on Wine by Kate - I keep swiping her recipes, album suggestions, and the wines she pairs with both of them, PLUS she creates original art. My fave of which are her tasting graphics/images like this one. Just a wonderful stack that I recommend to all.
Steven’s Substack by Steven Prince - Monster Matador was one of the very first comics we paired on the show, and Steven has since been a guest on the show and as we’re both in LA, a damn good drinking buddy. If you’re a comic person, you need to be following his stack, and reading his comics.
Fingers by Dave Infante - one of the funniest and deeply researched independant journalist stacks that covers the alcohol industries on the whole of Substack. You don’t often find this level of integrity, serious journalistic chops, and sense of humor in one place, but you do at Dave’s Fingers. Worth the price of admission a dozen times over.
Krista’s Substack by Krista Parkinson - Krista has been helping folks get their first foot in the entertainment industry door for many years now. I was a subscriber to her email newsletter for a looooong time, and she just recently made the switch over to Substack. I have a story about a time when she personally helped me out - she’s the real deal! - and that should be dropping in the New Year. I kind of want it to go alongside news of my own on the day job front, but I’m still twiddling my thumbs until I can announce it! Hopefully January!
a month's worth of Aubrey by Aubrey Sitterson - possibly the most insightful, if very occassional, comics writer on Substack right now. He can drop a dramedy comic about sci-fi/fantasy interspecies relationships and then wax poetic about non-fiction doorstops on Palestine only to switch right back to fucking Gor pulp novels. He is everything, in one. And his prose writing, which he shares here as well, is absolutely electric.
Fermentation by Tom Wark - One of the first Substacks I discovered, I think because of Elizabeth Schnieder of “Wine For Normal People” fame? (Who is not yet on Substack but shoudl be!) Anywho, Tom blew me away with his deep knowledge of the wine industry, it’s history, and it’s current tribulations from a business, legal, and marekting perspecive. Tippity top stuff.
Monster of the Week by Jessica Maison - I’ve only recently been diving deeper into actual WRITING substacks, by which I mean stacks where author’s predominantly post writing/prose/stories, vs. news, art, or updates. And Jessica’s has been my hand’s down favorite thus far. Her “Monster of the Week” entires are imaginative, sometimes authentically scary, and always with a subtely and craft that envious. And she actually drops them WEEKLY. Insanity. She writes, comics, too, and will without question be a guest on the show next year, so give her work a peak now, yeah?
BANDITTOWN by Daniel Freedman - A writer who Renton Hawkey (*rent) turned me on to (and he even came on the show!), and I have since been in love. His roughly monthly Substack posts drop sneak peeks and what he’s got cooking, and they are consistently jaw-dropping. Daniel’s a writer to follow, with books that continue to mesmerize me. And hey, look which preorder just showed up on my Kindle the pther day! (Daniel’s BIRDKING VOL 2!)
And while we’re here, yes, Ronin Digital Express and Fistful of Yenby Renton Hawkey (*rent) - Renton was our very first guest because his comics are amazing, he’s a complete champ, and put up with us having no fucking idea what we were doing with a third person on camera with us yet. Renton’s been quiet as of late, but he promises it’s because he’s got lots brewing, and I cannot wait to see what he drops next. Expecially that Fistful of Yen!
Whew! I know I’ve missed some folks, I read a LOT of you these days! And I love it all. But the above are definitely the Substacks that defined my 2023 more than the others. Here’s to what 2024 will bring. Cheers everyone.
Super cool!
Well huge congratulations and cheers to all the good Kickstarter vibes! Again thanks for mentioning my little wine corner of the world!!!