Weird Vehicles

The walking trucks is a concept vehicle built in 1969 by General Electric. I was a quadrupedic vehicle designed for the US army to navigate difficult terrain.

Again in the weird vehicles department: I’ve been mesmerized by unicycle drag races. it’s something I saw in passing on pinterest. A strange single-wheeled motorcycle mounted straight to an engine with skis on the back. the driver doesn’t sit anywhere but rather splays his body across the whole thing. I had to do a bit of digging to find out the purposes of these bizarre vehicles. And I finally found footage of a unicycle drag race event. It looks fun and dangerous!

There is no steering per se and the vehicle is almost exclusively an engine with a wheel. It is entirely designed for a single purpose, to ride fast across a short straight line. Of course, I have some other more fictional uses for such a vehicle.

Freestyle Rapping in the Urban Wild

I have been listening to a lot of Harry Mack. He’s a freestyle rapper (freestyle is improvisation for the uninitiated). He’s extraordinarily talented not only at freestyling but at connecting with others through his talent. ONe of my favourite series of his are “Guerilla Bars” where he walks around town with his sound system strapped to his body and freestyling for the entertainment of strangers. It is not rare for him to gather a crowd around him which turns into a full on concert. Check it out.

Saint of the Week

Nicknamed “The Lily of the Mohawks”, St Kateri Tekakwitha is the first North American Indigenous to be canonized (1980). She was born to a Mohawk Chief and a Catholic Algonquin Mother. She lost her siblings to smallpox and herself contracted the illness but survived. She converted with her Father’s blessing but was mocked and ridiculed for it by her peers*. Thus, she fled to a Christian Mohawk village. There she received her first communion. St Kateri was known for engaging in intense acts of mortification such as making her bed with thorns in it. She remained a virgin until her death and those present at her death report her smallpox scars disappearing from her body after she died.

"This face, so marked and swarthy, suddenly changed about a quarter of an hour after her death and became in a moment so beautiful and so white that I observed it immediately." - Fr Cholenec.

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*Some sources mention violence done towards her for her beliefs.

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In a recent episode of the Comics Odyssey podcast, my co-host asked me how I define worldbuilding. I had never really thought about it and it stumped me. But I suppose worldbuilding is the creative work related to where the characters live. The geography, the history, the culture. And for my series, Spirit-Girl it starts in a humble little town called Hairy Bear.

It’s not a grandiose place. It’s not a tourist destination. But it is no less mythical. I see it as the mythical small town. There are some very deep and personal reasons for the 1980’s small town setting. To keep it simple - I love big ideas. I love the sense of vastness that comes from imagining layers of reality stacked on top of each other. Surface and depth. Elevation and distance. Space, time, and everything that might exist beyond the horizon. All of that excites me. But… I have learned, that none of it matters unless I can make one town feel like home. Home is where the universe finds harbour.

Somewhere Solid

A town is a smaller unit of the whole world that still feels complete. It has rhythms, conflicts, history, factions. And this town informs what the characters believe, who they ally themselves with and what they value.

Always coming back to the small is not a negative limitation. On the contrary, it gives imagination somewhere solid to anchor.

The Town as a Measure of Truth

When I am unsure about a story choice, I bring it back to the town. As I’ve discussed previously, I do have at least 30 issues worth of Spirit-Girl story beats planned out. And as Spirit-Girl’s story deepens, it will affect her town, her valley and her neighbours.

Some things will change dramatically, some will stubbornly or courageously stay the same.

I have designed the world of Toralin (the planet) and the entire cosmos in such a way that I can tell stories as big as I want to make them. But just like Hobbiton is the beating heart that makes the Silmarillion live, Hairy Bear is always there. In this big vast cosmos, the town is the heart.

What I Owe the Reader

When someone picks up one of my comics, I want them to feel like there is a big vast world available to explore. But I do not want them to feel like they are touring a museum. The reader should have a place they can come home to. A town with history. With routines. With familiar friends who will continue on even when the last page is drawn.

I am imagining a whole universe.

But I still owe you a town.

Time stamps

00:00:27 — Introduction

Overview of Spirit Girl 4 (final chapter), learning process, and inked pages review.

00:01:08 — Page 1 Layout

Diagonal composition, villain vs Spirit Girl conflict, story recap spot, DC Comics guide reference.

00:02:53 — Page 1 Inking & Character

Spirit Girl’s impulsive nature, Photoshop tweaks, lightboxing technique.

00:06:44 — Layout Experiments

Hand lettering, charcoal tests, wider gutters, mini-story bands, strip format ideas.

00:08:51 — Imprisonment Scene

Heroes captured by Stormhand, Ranger Dave’s value, strong Cerebus-inspired layout.

00:10:52 — Hiking & Dominance

Forest backgrounds, crows, Stormhand asserting power, upcoming color/tones work.

00:12:11 — Power Lines Sequence

Eye patch continuity fix (horizontal flip), potential cover page.

00:15:00 — Borderless Page

J.H. Williams III inspired borders, movement, chisel tip experiments.

00:17:41 — Storm & Tornado

Stormhand’s power escalation, double-page spread, inside-tornado view.

00:19:18 — Brutal Fight Page

Spirit Girl facing real violence, artistic influences (Otley, birch trees).

00:21:25 — Climax Pages

Stormhand’s upper hand, flare launcher, minor how-they-win tease.

00:23:25 — Closing

Video wrap-up, book release this summer.

The rise of AI art tools has sparked fresh debates around creativity, authenticity, and what it means to make art. AI empowers a single user to accomplish what once required many hands. As Mary Shelly so deftly explored in her now classic novel, technological advancement comes at a cost. Reflecting on indie comics from the 1970s, I think about the hurdles creators faced - not just in finishing projects, but in building supportive collaborative networks around their work.

Those comics grew from community and friction. The creators didn’t work in isolation; they forged friendships and connections. Though filled with technological and financial chokepoints, this process generated creative possibilities unique to the human experience.

Today, AI offers something else entirely. It can handle a lot of “dirty work”. A lot of which I very much dislike doing: SEO, marketing, transcription. For example, all the timestamps you see under the videos I post are generated by AI, from the transcripts which are generated by AI. Doing all this by hand would be a tedious nightmare and I simply would not have the interest or the time to do it.

But here’s the rub: when I look back at old indie comics - Such as Captain Canuck bearing Richard Comely’s personality - I see something AI can’t replicate. The wonky art and rough edges tell me something about the story of creating the book. I see the pressures of limitations in technology, finance, and time which all contributed in shaping the book into the form it now has and molded its character. As Neil Adams put it (reminded to me by Kenneth of ), your art style is a collection of your errors such as odd noses or unusually long legs. These quirks speak to who you are as a person. That style emerges from the friction of limitation which carves a space where your personality can shine through.

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Spirit and Flesh

So I ask myself: do I want to reduce that friction so much that my work loses its humanity? I want my hand, my body, every part of me involved. Creating comics, to me, is not just about the end product. I want it to be a process which forms me and ultimately would like my work to serve as some sort of legacy. Long after I’m gone, I want my physical presence embedded in the strokes, the textures, the “errors” only my hand can make.

There’s something profoundly human about creating with our bodies. Life itself - the ultimate act of creation - is flesh entwined. The more we distance creation from bodily involvement, the more the outcome risks being inhuman. Art is a journey of mind and body.

As creators navigating this evolving landscape, we face a choice. Can we embrace AI’s promise without losing ourselves? Or should we hold to the slower, fleshier process of creation?

I believe the most meaningful art will always bear the mark of a human hand and heart.

May interest in some comics made by my hand? Go here to find them.

Pocket Dimension is a feature at Comics Odyssey wherein I share inspiration which recharges my creative battery (like how Green Lantern charges his power ring from a battery he stores in a pocket dimension). Let’s get into it!

Canadiana

There is a village in north Manitoba called Churchill. It’s on the Hudson Bay coast. Not much going on there these days but back in the day, it was a hotbed of mercantilism. When the Brits figured out they could bypass the whole St Lawrence / Hochelaga (now Montreal) area, and get to the wilderness - and therefore the furs - via the Hudson Bay/James Bay, the Bay shore got more interesting.

Churchill is one of the villages that survived as a Polar Bear tourism town. Population is about 870 and the town is on a migratory route for Polar Bears due this bay area being the first to freeze, giving the bears access to ice floes and seals which they hunt. Polar Bears were once thought to be solitary animals but in Churchill area they have been observed forming alliances but only during the fall until seal hunting starts.

Polar Bears are one of the few land mammals who actively hunt human beings so in Churchill a siren sounds every day to remind people to stay indoors after hours to avoid bears. Also, it is expected that residents will leave all their car doors unlocked in case a resident has a polar bear emergency. They can hop in any car for safe refuge.

200 Kilometers down the bay shore is York Factory, a still standing - though not in use - Hudson Bay trading post from the old days of the fur trade which built Canada. I dream of visiting these places some day.

Miscellany

This man spent 21 years off grid on a remote Island of British Columbia. He has built an impressive array of buildings using mostly just a chainsaw and no tape measure. A former machinist who undertook a massive construction experiment. Very well worth the watch.

Saint of the Week

Saint Maximus the Confessor is known for tireless speaking for the truth of the incarnation. His message is now doctrine to essentially all Christians. But in his day, he was brutally persecuted for his ideas. The authorities, having tired of the brilliance of Maximus’ speech, cut off his tongue so that he could no longer speak and his hand so that he may no longer write. But they failed to understand that it is with his whole being that a man speaks. And today, St Maximus still speaks.

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Time stamps

• 1:04 — “Making Art for No One” and the idea of hidden creative work.

• 2:59 — A shift in mindset about art, audience, and vocation.

• 4:02 — From commercial thinking to art as something deeper.

• 5:46 — Why art matters even when no one sees it.

• 7:21 — Saint Thérèse, hidden work, and making art for God.

• 9:49 — Formation through process, not just results.

• 10:58 — The AI art debate and what gets lost.

• 14:12 — Handwriting, drawing on paper, and the body-mind connection.

• 16:20 — Technology as trade-off, not pure gain.

• 18:08 — A critique of the internet and modern tech dependence.

• 19:22 — Looking at the guest’s comics and artwork.

• 20:08 — Introduction to the comic project with the guest’s wife.

• 22:35 — The premise of Heavenborn.

• 24:00 — Nephilim, apocalypse, and worldbuilding.

• 26:35 — Strange imagery, visual designs, and comic energy.

• 28:54 — The title Heavenborn and publishing on Substack.

• 30:46 — Building a comics practice seriously over time.

• 31:12 — Finding a Christian comics community online.

• 33:12 — Thoughts on explicitly Christian art.

• 33:54 — Concept art and the cyborg pope image.

• 35:50 — Comics culture in Brazil and how people buy comics.

• 36:33 — Brazil’s indie comics scene and publishing realities.

• 40:07 — Comic conventions, artist alleys, and indie visibility in Brazil.

• 41:20 — Closing thoughts, future roundtable ideas, and wrap-up.

Canadiana

I have a fascination with Canadian ghost towns.

Ocean Falls was once a thriving company town in the 1950s. It featured one of Canada’s most popular hotels which had a barber shop, a dentist’s office and at one time, a school. It would have been a great place to grow up. It was nestled in beautiful wilderness but had recreational facilities such as a bowling alley and soccer field. By the 1970s, the mill - which was the town’s economic heart - was on its way to shut down.

A few people still live there but bears outnumber humans.

Here is another one - Kitsault, BC - an other old company town. But this one is maintained by the local population and serves as a mausoleum of the 1980s. Everything is frozen in at the point the town closed down. The lights are still on, but no one is home. See more photos here.

I fantasize about living remotely in a small town of just 20ish people. I dream of solitude, the wildnerness, the slow pace. But I watched this Ocean Falls documentary and read between the lines. Many people seeking these remote places aren’t necessarily the best team players. There are strange tensions between quirky characters, the isolation amplifies it, the lack of privacy as well. It’s not all like I imagine it in my head. Best be grateful for the place I’m at now and stay open to where it all takes me.

Here is that documentary:

the In the same vein, explore this abandoned doomsday house built by a rich man in the 1960s who abandoned it in the 1980s when the owner died. It is inaccessible except by hiking straight up a mountain. The only way to access it back when it was first built was by a tram. No roads, no waterways to boat up to, no landing strip to land a plan. He built a hydro electric dam for power, which still keeps the lights on at the house.

The house has two foot thick brick walls and bullet proof glass. The old rich man - Vernon - said it was to withstand forest fires, but a commenter on youtube claims to have managed the property and he says Vernon spent time in the middle east and became concerned about nuclear war. He also says Vernon had several of these fortresses around the world.

And, last ghost town featured this week, Anyox. You can get there from Kitsault. Anyox has two residents.

Saint of the Week - St Jean De Brébeuf (Patron Saint of Canada)

St Jean de Brebeuf was the first of Canada’s 8 martyrs. He was a Jesuit with a burning desire to bring the faith to the New World. He spent many years living with indigenous tribes of the current Quebec/Ontario region. He learned their ways and language. After being satisfied that he had a grasp of subtleties of the language he wrote a Huron language dictionary and began to tell the tribes of “the one who made all”. Though many loved St Jean de Brébeuf, gossip spread that he was an evil sorcerer who brought the plague. Plots to kill him abounded. Unphased, Brébeuf continued to minister to the sick, staying by their side where possible. Years of tension mounted until The Haudenosaunee tribe captured Brébeuf in a raid and brutally tortured him for hours in front of his colleagues. Throughout this ordeal Brébeuf incessantly prayed that Christ have mercy on his torturers. He died having shown no signs of pain.

Brébeuf is an important yet relatively unknown founding figure in the history of Canada.

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World War II left behind one of the most powerful narrative inheritances of the modern age: a deep suspicion of sameness. Nazism had monstrously forced unity into a flattened sameness and conformity. One race, one leader, one will, one approved identity - and everything outside that frame reduced to threat, impurity, or disease. The defeat of that system did more than end a war. It helped establish a cultural reflex against uniformity itself.

In storytelling, that reflex became manifest almost immediately. The old ideal of patriotic cohesion gave way to the delight of the mixed crew, the strange alliance, the improvised platoon. After the war, it was no longer appropriate for a hero to sacrifice his individuality to the service of his nation. Audiences wanted a squad of liabilities who could still somehow get the job done.

This was the birth of the ragtag crew and the seed of “diversity is our strength”.

The Rise Ragtag

You can see the pattern everywhere once you know what to look for. Sgt. Rock and Easy Company turn war into a study of mismatched competence. The Suicide Squad gives us fugitives, villains, and criminal specialists whose very illegitimacy becomes their strength. Alien traps a working-class crew in a hostile machine labyrinth, where hierarchy matters less than whether the group can hold together under pressure. Star Trek, also depends on this diversity = strength narrative. The Federation being the speculative future projection of this slogan.

After the catastrophes of the mid 20th century, no one wanted the old dream of unity. We had seen its dark side and the horrible nightmare it becomes when pursued to its extreme.

But we have now stepped through the dark mirror. Approaching on a century after forced unity, we live in the wake of forced diversity.

The Sacred Centre

This is where Eliade’s idea of the sacred centre becomes useful. For Eliade, the sacred centre is the point where a world becomes intelligible and livable. It is the axis around which orientation happens. Temples, mountains, altars, cities, and holy places are not merely locations. They are centres, places where the scattered world is gathered into coherent pattern. A circle can not have a perimeter without a centre. A world where the edge cases become the centre (the idiosyncratic make up the crew) in the end becomes incoherent. A circle can not exist without a perimeter and a centre being separate.

But do not mistake this for a screed against diversity. I am very much Eliadean in that I believe the centre does not exclude the edge. It is the centre which gives the edge coherence.

That matters because the ragtag trope often succeeds for precisely this reason. The group is full of incompatibilities, but the story provides an axis: a mission, a captain, a cause, a moral horizon, a shared danger, or some larger order that makes the strange mixture whole. Despite being unlike each other, the ragtag crew succeeds due to its subordination to a higher order. Without that hierarchy, the ensemble collapses into mere collection.

It is not the diversity itself which is our strength, it is what makes it whole which is.

This is why the trope feels so satisfying when it works. The delight is not in the idiosyncracies, it is in the symphony which makes them all sing. We are watching disorder submit to a higher pattern. The group only becomes real when it knows what it is gathered around. Ultimately, every individual is made whole by service to something higher than himself.

From Myth To Fracture

The postwar imagination celebrated diversity as a moral achievement, and in many ways that was a necessary corrective to fascist sameness. But over time, the promise began to hollow out as diversity itself became the aim.

This is the larger cultural crisis now. The consensus that emerged after the war is ending up in a society compelled and coerced by state and corporate control of social pressure to make diversity the highest aim. But once the transcendent higher order recedes, what remains is competing identity, ever-fragmenting. Each part insisting on itself. Each camp developping its own arbitrary moral language. Each group becoming increasingly unable to see itself as part of a larger whole. Unity is lost.

Where do we Go from Here?

In a recent article I discussed a return to proper order in storytelling and suggested that the indiosyncracies of the characters motivations and passions need to play second fiddle to the myth which gives the character meaning. I think this is true in non-fictional reality. We must redeem unity as a value and a myth, salvage all the good, true and beautiful in it and once again aim for it. We must appreciate the whole circle, it’s centre and its edges. Reclaim a vision where both have their proper place. A return to order means making the entire vision of the world whole.

I believe this starts with the individual return his life to proper order. But this is a blog about art. So you out artists out there: do you know what story you serve?

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In this episode, the conversation opens with a blunt announcement: the po…

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sPocket Dimension is a feature at Comics Odyssey wherein I share inspiration which recharges my creative battery (like how Green Lantern charges his power ring from a battery he stores in a pocket dimension). Let’s get into it!

This one will be a short one, I’ve been very busy with inking. Did you see the latest timelapse video from last Wednesday?

Art

These are old but possibly new to you. A bunch of amazing playlists about how to draw as taught by great comic artists! So much to learn here! Check it out here.

I’ve also been looking at this great 1837 painting of the Battle of Tours. Amazing!

Evocative Locales

From time to time I’m going to drop images of evocative locales. These are all real world places, no AI. I find the real world quite fantastical and I want to highlight this.

Here are images of The Maunsell Sea Forts. Red more about them here.

You can explore them by video here.

Saint of the Week - St Isidora of Egypt

A 4th century woman about whom we have limited knowledge. She was in a monastery with other women who regarded her with contempt because Isidora acted the fool. She busied herself with the dirty and difficult tasks such as washing the dishes. She never sat to eat with the others, nourishing herself only with crumbs she gathered from the others’ dishes. She didn’t drink fresh water with the others but sipped on dirty dishwater. She rejected the standard religious garb, instead wearing a dishrag on her head. She was mistreated and considered a demoniac but Isidora never retaliated.

By one account Saint Pitirim, had a vision. An angel of God appeared to him and said,

“Go to the Tabenna monastery. There you will see a sister wearing a diadem*. She serves them all with love, and endures their contempt without complaint. Her heart and her thoughts rest always with God. You, on the other hand, sit in solitude, but your thoughts flit about all over the world.”

St Pitirim found Isidora at the monastery. The woman fell down at the elders knees asking for a blessing. Saint Pitirim bowed down to the ground to her and said, “Bless me first, venerable Mother!” The other sisters understood and repented of their mistreatment of Isidora. Distressed by this fame, Isidora fled and hid and was never again seen.

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* Other accounts say ‘a rag on her head’ instead of a diadem.

If you want a transcript of the video AI translated to English, you can download it here.

Acadia V Secularism

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Acadians, Identity, and the Limits of Language

Acadians are the descendants of French settlers who established communities in what is now Atlantic Canada, especially in present-day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Their history includes their expulsion by the British from their land in 1755, a trauma that has shaped a strong sense of collective memory, survival, and cultural continuity.

For readers outside Atlantic Canada, the Acadian story matters because it raises a larger question that many minority cultures face: what actually holds an identity together? How does one defend one’s self against the creep of secularization?

The answer suggested in this essay - which serves as a personal meditation on the matter (I am Acadian) - is that language matters but has been fetishized at the expense of deeper cultural values which language expresses. Language is the vessel that carries culture, but it is not the source of the values it communicates.

On with the essay.

What Acadian Identity Protects

In Acadian life, language is often treated as the central marker of belonging. Many people are taught from an early age that French must be preserved, that Anglicization must be resisted, and that speaking correctly is a form of cultural defense. This was especially true of the region I grew up in which speaks a French dialect commonly called Chiac. This dialect makes nimble use of English-isms but Frenchifies them resulting in a mysterious third language with no written rules that can essentially not be learned by outsiders. Is that not a brilliant example of a bulwark against assimilation?

In school, our teachers forbid the usage of words like “Walkman”, “Whatever”, “Anyway” and so forth. Their concern is understandable. A minority language can disappear quickly when the surrounding society is larger, more dominant, and more powerful. But my argument here is that a culture can still lose itself even while fiercely protecting its language because it is what the language expresses which is primary in a culture.

The deeper issue is whether a community is prioritizing the preservation of vocabulary and grammar, at the expense of the moral and spiritual world those words are meant to carry in time. If the values behind the language fade, then the language can survive as a mask while the identity itself becomes assimilated.

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Beyond Speech Alone

An identity built only on language is incomplete. People can speak the language of their ancestors and still absorb the values, habits, and worldview of a different civilization.

In that sense, language is not the root of identity but one of its expressions. It allows a people to communicate their inherited beliefs, but it does not by itself create those beliefs.

For Acadians, that means the real question is not just whether the Acadian language is still spoken. It is whether the culture still carries the same inner sense of meaning, faith, and community that once gave the language its purpose.

History and Assimilation

Contrast British and French colonial projects in North America. The British project was less religious and more focused on law, commerce, and culture, while the French project was more tied to Catholic faith and conversion.

I believe it is clear that English Canada went the direction of the British project instead of the French one as it is largely a secular society. This is true even of French-speaking Canada though there remains some tension with the two. Acadians seem to have better resisted this due to being smaller in number and having less influence than Quebec. Their relative isolation means they have not had to deal with the pressure of performing on a larger stage like Quebec has.

Catholic Roots and Symbols

I propose that Catholicism is a foundational part of Acadian heritage. One does not need to look far to find essential Acadian symbols such as the flag and anthem as evidence that the culture was historically shaped by Catholic reference points and devotional meaning.

The flag’s main distinguishing feature is a star which represents Mary Star of the Sea. And accordingly, the Acadian National Anthem is “Ave Maris Stella”, a Catholic hymn. Le Tintamarre was similarly conceived by the church and was to begin with public displays of Catholic prayer in resistance to Anglo-Protestant encroachment. Tintamarre is still observed… without the prayer part.

I am presenting this not as a purely religious issue, but also as a cultural one. The idea is that ancestors did not merely hand down a language; they handed down a worldview, a moral inheritance, and a set of symbols that still point back to that older framework.

From this perspective, Acadian continuity is not just about speaking French with an Acadian accent or preserving regional expressions. It is about understanding what those expressions once carried, and whether that inherited moral and spiritual framework still lives on in Acadian families and villages.

Why It Matters Now

For English-speaking readers, this essay is relevant because it speaks to a problem that extends beyond Acadia. Canada is largely secular. Is this what our ancestors wanted for us? Is secularism sufficient for holding a society together? What do we learn of historically secular societies? Are they good models for our own nation?

That is the deeper challenge here: the preservation of our collective inheritance in the face of the great secularization project.

I received the 80s in fragments. I was in it, but as an outsider. I feel this gave me a unique perspective, allowing me to see the mythic in that era. And as such I have deemed it the most appropriate era to set my comics in. There’s a whole lot going on with the 80s, and we may explore this in future articles. But for now this newsletter explores the topic of the 80s as mythic time by way of a villain we will be meeting in an upcoming issue of Spirit-Girl.

Transmogrification

Outside the arcade in a small town, groups of people huddle, their faces glow eerie by the ember of their cigarettes. One stands off to the side. Snow crystals blink pink and blue by the flashing neon lights. This is where UHF - the boy who stayed too long - becomes a villain in issue 6(?) of Spirit-Girl. Raised on a diet of Atari and TV, he hovers at the threshold of his temple, the ARCADE. Inside waits a cosmos of signals: coins and screens ring like altar bells, the incense of his communion thickens the air with the fragrance of popcorn butter. The moment he walks in, time stops, the world fades, he’s a fighter pilot, he’s an adventurer, he’s a ninja. Most importantly, he’s someone else and not in his body. The bright lights broadcast dreams that penetrate his hypnotized eyes. He follows the commands of the screens which transmogrify him.

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The Outsider Peering In

As mentioned, pop culture came to me in pieces as a kid in pieces. Never as a full picture.

I grew up Canadian in a strict, fundamentalist home located on an an old orchard in rural New Brunswick. My village had a total of 2000 residents spread out over about 70 square kilometers - that’s 115 000 sq feet per resident which would fit 7 NHL sized Hockey rinks and a bit more. The nearest variety store was about a 15 minute bike ride from my home. They sold comics on a spinner rack but not many, and my parents watched over my interests like hawks. It was a better bet for me to purchase consumable goods as those left behind no evidence.

Conversely, I got virtually no supervision for my outdoor activities. Their suspicion of media was appropriately greater than that of the outdoors. As long as I came home for supper, I could spend my day climbing trees or adventuring at riverside with my dog.

Comics-wise I was limited by what the school library offered (mostly franco-belgian Bandes Dessinés). I eventually worked up the courage to buy a comic at a yard sale in my early teens. We also didn’t have TV. My father’s cynicism toward media rubbed off on me young. Perhaps, unintentionally, he opened another kind of vision for me: seeing a world alive beneath the ordinary, rather than in broadcasts.

Screens as Distorted Veils

According to Historian Mircea Eliade, religion can be understood not as a belief system centered on the supernatural, but as a type of human behavior organized around shared symbols, rituals, and moral commitments. In this sense, many patterns in secular society - such as political movements, social ideologies, or even fan cultures - exhibit what might be called “religious‑type” behaviours: they have icons (like the BLM fist or Pride flag), annual feasts and festivals (such as Pride Month), and even a kind of liturgical calendar with special dates that structures public attention and emotion. People declare allegiance by curating their social media, clothing, and bodies - through the display of certain slogans (Make America Great Again!), the purchase of certain products, the boycott of others, the displaying of tattoos, or clothing and hairstyles; all marking their level of devotion. But of course, without a higher order organizing principle, like God, there pseudo-religions are simulacra at best.

It is through this lens that I re-imagine the arcade as a temple for the screen addict: a site where attention and ritual behavior are ordered. In my comics, the arcade - a quintessentially 80s locale - is a temple devoted to the screen where cathode rays project a glow simulating the fire’s throbbing light. But this radiance deceives. It mimics visionary revelation (what’s that again about “beings of light”?). In this reversal, the sacred is exchanged with simulacrum.

The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. - Gandalf in the Return of the King

UHF’s face embodies this counterfeit glory (we may some day explore the mytheme of headlessness). His screen-eye beams outward yet perceives nothing, parodying the prophet’s vision. UHF can create nothing. UHF can only lie. Even his name - Ultra High Frequency - is itself a lie. UHF can only beam out what his master broadcasts. He is not there, he is only projection.

Below the paywall, I’ve dropped some early sketch designs of this villain below. Let me know which you like best!

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joy this relaxing timelapse video!

This week on ComicsOdyssey we do something different: We are publishing early for Henry to walk us through his Kickstarter which closes in a few days. Old-school superhero ethics collide with a chaotic 2020 alternate reality. Expect behind-the-scenes art notes, a quick tour of the major players (Ramjet, Juggernaut, Phantom Force, the Hippie Twins), and the story beats Henry used to translate mid-century heroism into a modern, multiversal showdown.

Time stamps

00:02:50 — Intro and what the episode is about.

00:03:32 — What BasedCon is and why Henry went.

00:09:49 — Superhero panel discussion begins.

00:10:50 — Superman, morality, and the core idea behind the comic.

00:15:15 — Looking at the book as a full-page spread.

00:18:11 — Ramjet’s origin and World War II setup.

00:22:05 — Ramjet’s armor and Korean War material.

00:26:58 — Juggernaut’s origin and 2020 riot setting.

00:33:43 — Mindbender, Chi Master, Phantom Raider, and team design.

00:44:03 — Tinnador plot, political manipulation, and Juggernaut’s turn.

00:48:26 — Dr. Detente and more character action.

00:53:01 — Captain Dynamo and the battle sequence.

00:59:38 — End of the preview and Kickstarter discussion.

01:04:42 — Hippie Twins and the immortality / DNA editing scene.

01:06:14 — Kickstarter ending soon and closing remarks.

Miscellany

The Annotator and The Scribe is a substack by a student of psychology and history living in the Southern Highlands. He found a dead man’s annotated library in a secondhand bookshop. That collection of books became the substack writer’s Virgilian guide into a world of symbolic analysis of tremendous depth. Highly recommended!

The Annotator and The Scribe

The Annotator and the Dark Wood

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2 months ago · 9 likes · 5 comments · St. James the Lesser +

I also recently stumbled on these high altitude photos of forest fires that I thought were stunning. More here.

Comics

I have been enjoying John Ostrander’s Spectre. I’ve not read any Spectre before this but as I understand it, he was created as a representation of Divine vengeance. Ostrander delves into the themes implied by this creation. It makes for a moody comic which touches more on theology than just about any other comic I’ve read. I think it’s theology is a bit wonky. But Ostrander is not writing a thesis, he’s writing a superhero genre story, fitting into a universe with pre-established parameters. For him to sacrifice this to make a point would just be bad writing (though he does drop the ball here and there on that front).

Mostly I like this comic for the visual atmosphere served to us by Tom Mandrake. Lettering is by Todd Klein and when I see a comic lettered by him, it is a selling feature. But I can’t find anyone else to nerd out about Klein letters with! Ah, the lonely path of a lettering nerd!

Saint of the Week

…is not a saint. At least not yet.

Esther Blondin, later known as Mother Marie-Anne, was born on April 18, 1809, on a farm in Terrebonne, Quebec.

Although she remained illiterate into adulthood, she committed herself to learning and, by 1833, became a teacher in Vaudreuil, Quebec. During her time there, she identified a major cause of widespread illiteracy: a Church rule prohibiting boys and girls from being taught together. Because many parishes could not afford separate schools, some priests chose not to operate schools at all.

In the spring of 1848, convinced she was guided by the Holy Spirit, Esther presented a long-considered idea to her bishop. She proposed establishing a religious community dedicated to educating poor children in mixed classrooms. Bishop Bourget initially rejected the idea, calling it disruptive and morally unsound. However, since civil authorities supported such schooling, he permitted a limited experiment. This led to the founding of the Congregation of Sisters of Saint Anne in Vaudreuil on September 8, 1850.

By 1853, the congregation’s motherhouse relocated to the Lanaudière region. The community’s chaplain often intruded into its governance, leading to ongoing tensions. After a year of conflict, Bishop Bourget, aiming to safeguard the community, asked Mother Marie-Anne to step down in August 1854. She accepted without resistance, believing this directive reflected God’s will through Church authority.

She was then assigned to lead a new convent, where she again faced mistreatment and was eventually removed from her position. Returning to the motherhouse, she performed modest duties while continuing to endure harassment until her death. Throughout these trials, she remained silent. Working in the laundry, she found purpose in quietly guiding novices through her example of patience, humility, and charity. When questioned about her situation, she replied simply that if Jesus wished her to do laundry, she would do it.

Blessed Mother Marie-Anne Blondin died on January 2, 1890. She was declared Venerable on May 14, 1991, and beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 19, 2001.

Her life stands as a model of humility and obedience.

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Being a solo comic creator means I do everything - writing, layouts, pencils, inks, colors, lettering, design, printing, trimming, stapling, even shipping. The downside is the gaps between stages. It took me four months to pencil this issue, which also means four months without inking. That muscle memory fades somewhat, and I didn’t want to relearn it mid-page.

So I warmed up - and worked at leveling up my inking game.

Here’s how I did it: I lined up every pen I own and filled an 11”x17” sheet with 187 one-inch squares, testing different lines and labelling according to the pen used to make those lines. It became both practice and a reference sheet I can use while working. I ended up with 124 types of lines from 23 different tools.

I ended up relegating most of my inking duties to two pens. The Pentel Touch and the Hunt 56 dip pen. The Pentel is a felt marker pen with a flexible tip. It allows for a moderate range of line weights and puts down a nice “round” line (a line with few frayed edges and textures). The Hunt 56 has a lot more personality and I use it more for backgrounds.

Now with my reference sheet, I can look up various lines I made and use that pen for appropriate circumstances. For instance, in the below page for Spirit-Girl #4 I looked at my reference sheet to find the right type of tool to make the evergreen branches poking out from under the snow in panel 1. I chose my Synthetic Sable #8 brush (turns out the pro standard is the #4 but I haven’t bought that one yet).

I think it turned out nice!

I’m trying my darndest to get one page a day inked - I have about 1-4 hours a day I can use to work on this. Which means there are about 25 days to go before I’ve completed the inking project for Spirit-Girl #4. This issue will be the final chapter of the first Spirit-Girl story arc. As you can see, it’s going to be the big confrontation between the titular hero and the supervillain Stormhand!

In the meantime I invite you to check out Spirit-Girl #1-#3 for free digitally at my store here.

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• 00:00–00:18 — Show intro and what Comics Odyssey is about.

• 00:19–02:32 — Kickstarter, Deluxe Edition, and extra process material.

• 02:33–07:56 — Heavy Metal, retro pulp imagery, and first impressions of Torpedo.

• 07:57–11:00 — The look and feel of the era: gangster imagery, monochrome, and style.

• 11:01–16:06 — Black-and-white art, Alex Toth, and the visual language of the book.

• 16:07–20:04 — Character design, period details, and why the art feels so strong.

• 20:05–24:10 — Page composition, rim lighting, silhouettes, and panel rhythm.

• 24:11–28:14 — The Torpedo character: flaws, comedy, violence, and storytelling tone.

• 28:15–33:20 — Background research, historical atmosphere, and visual authenticity.

• 33:21–36:22 — Sound effects, action pages, and how the book uses pacing.

• 36:23–40:12 — More page design talk, reflections, and the impact of the visuals.

• 40:13–44:03 — Later stories, different editions, and more appreciation for the art.

• 44:04–48:01 — Reading habits, learning from classic artists, and creative influence.

• 48:02–53:37 — Perspective practice, future projects, and closing remarks.