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Three places to hear my THOUGHTFUL VOICE

Here’s a video about me and my workshop! This is where I come to work each day, and where I ship your orders of stickers and pins and stuff from.

The video was made by Jesse Thorn’s Bullseye, the NPR interview show. It was one of a series on creative workspaces that Jesse showed as part of a lecture tour! Now it’s online, for the rest of us.

I love it. I think it really captures the things I like best about my work.

I also spoke with Jesse and his co-host Jordan Morris this week on their comedy podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go! — an hour-long freeform conversation about important topics such as my busted toe, a deer that has a bad day, and the permanent smell of cabbage.

(Note that there’s some NSFW subject matter in part of it.)

I was also on JJGO back in 2011 and in 2013! And on Jesse’s prior interview show, The Sound of Young America, in 2009. In that one I actually talk about Wondermark a little.

This week I was also on Tom Merritt’s Daily Tech News Show! This one is a very Wondermark-heavy interview. We dig deep into the weeds on the strip, including the TRUE SECRET ORIGINS of the entire sick elephant storyline.

(Which, by the way, you can now jump right to the start of by visiting sickelephant.com.)

There’s just about a week left in the Kickstarter for the new book!

We’ve just hit a stretch goal which now makes the book 132 pages, instead of 128 (and, as I mention in the latest project update, way more than 110, which I had totally forgotten was the original plan).

Projects like these are fun, of course, but they’re also important chunks of my income AND useful market research as to what form future projects should take. So if you’ve been considering it but haven’t pledged yet, you’ve got just one more week to do so.

You can even get just a digital copy if you don’t want to own yet another book! I get it.

As I say in the update linked above:

…The truth of the matter is that the minimum print run on this project is going to be over double our current backer count — so the more money this campaign raises upfront, the less capital I’ll have tied up in inventory and the more money can go into my baby’s mouth.

Which is a big deal to me! I guess if you don’t know the baby personally then it’s probably less important to you and I RESPECT THAT. He’s a pretty good baby though.

Just to lay out the facts of the matter for those who are interested in the nuts and bolts. As the video at the top of this post implies, I like nuts and bolts! We’re all pals here, let’s be straightforward about this thing.

My many thanks to the folks who’ve pledged so far! I know it’s not for everyone, but the folks whom it is for, I want to make sure don’t miss it. So I’ll keep yelling about it!

[ Wondermark Volume 5  (+ previous volumes too!) on Kickstarter ]

I’m doing a Reddit AMA on Tuesday 10/23 at 12pm PDT / 3pm EDT

On Tuesday October 23rd, I’ll be doing a Reddit Ask Me Anything open question & answer session!

Ostensibly I will be there to promote the Wondermark Volume 5 Kickstarter (still chuggin’ along with a bit over a week to go!), but I will be happy to discuss whatever anyone asks. You might even say that folks can…ask me anything.

I’ll post the specific direct link on my Twitter once the session goes live — or just go to reddit.com/r/iama; there should be a pretty obvious link somewhere easy to spot. UPDATE: Here it is!

The session will begin at 12 noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 7pm GMT and will go for an hour or two, probably, or as long as folks seem interested and keep asking questions.

This will be my third AMA! I did one in 2013 when the Machine of Death game was underway. You can read that one over if you’re interested in seeing what I had to say about things FIVE YEARS AGO!

Maybe my opinions have changed in the interim on a variety of issues, but then again maybe they haven’t! There is only one way to find out.

I also participated (as part of a larger group of Machine of Death contributors and other authors) in another one not long after that; there’s some good stuff in there too, I think.

SPEAKING OF Machine of Death, the book series of which I was one of the co-editors, I got the chance to share some pretty cool stuff (I think) on Twitter on Monday.

My co-editor Matt told an EERIE HALLOWEEN STORY about how we witnessed what appeared to be a SPOOKILY ACCURATE Machine of Death prediction:

(click through to read the whole thread)

I then used that story as a jumping-off point to tell another, similar story about how the Machine of Death, though fictional, often somehow seems to know more than you would expect about actual people’s lives:

(click through to read the whole thread)

I think it’s an interesting story, but I also used this thread as an opportunity to post a bunch of MOD-related pictures and videos that I’ve taken over the years just for archival purposes, without ever really having a place to put them or a purpose for posting them. I hope you check it out!

KICKSTARTER UPDATE: Initial goal reached!!

Thank you so much to those who’ve checked out the Kickstarter campaign for the new Wondermark book! I’m pleased to announce that we have met our initial funding goal and the book will definitely now be produced in the spring!

Now, the question is just “How many pages will the book be?” Any additional funds we raise will go toward making everyone’s book longer and contain more comics. I’ve been announcing updates in video form on the campaign page.

There is also a digital-only tier, if you don’t want an actual physical book taking up room in your life!

If you need to see a series of jokey graphs before deciding to back, well, I’ve got that too.

There are still a few weeks left to back the project, and as I write, we’re close to 15K, at which point everyone’s book gets 4 pages longer.

[ Wondermark Volume 5 on Kickstarter now ]

Podcasts Well Worth Your Time for Oct. 2018

Embed from Getty Images

Here are some more podcasts (a couple individual episodes, and a mini-series) from my recent listening that I really enjoyed, and thought you might too!

(Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any transcripts for these first two episodes.)

Lexicon Valley: “The Rise of They” (Website / Overcast )

English pronouns are evolving. It’s time to embrace it.

Lexicon Valley is a podcast about language — often about how English has developed and changed — hosted by linguist John McWhorter.

In this particular episode, he traces the deep roots of the singular “they” in English, as well as the many ways “they” is used today.

Citations Needed: “The Media’s Bogus Generation Obsession” (Website / Overcast )

“Baby Boomers are bloating the social safety net!” “GenXers are changing the nature of work!” “Millennials are killing the housing market!”.

The media endlessly feeds us stories about how one generation or another is engaging in some collective act of moral failing that, either explicitly or by implication, harms another generation. It’s a widely-mocked cliché at this point, namely the near-constant analyses detailing what Millennials have “killed” or “ruined” lately — everything from Applebee’s to diamonds to top sheets to beer to napkins.

The first rule of drama — and by implication, the media — is to create tension. But what if tensions that actually exist in our society, like white supremacy and class conflict, are too unpleasant and dicey to touch — upsetting advertisers and media owners who benefit from these systems?

To replace these real tensions in society, the media repeatedly relies on dubious and entirely safe points of conflict, like those between two arbitrary generations. It’s not the rich or racism that’s holding me back — it’s old people running up entitlement spending or lazy youth who don’t want to work!

I appreciate listening to Citations Needed, because they cover issues and trends in media from a perspective far outside the mainstream of political thought. (A past episode on Modern Money Theory was particularly interesting.)

They’re very good at deconstructing “common sense” or “received wisdom” ideas — in this case the notion, so prevalent in mass media, that “generations” are any sort of accurate descriptor of anything, or useful for any purpose besides generating business for marketing consultants.

Mini-series Recommendation: Slow Burn (Website, with transcripts / Overcast )

Even recent history is rich with surprising subplots, strange details, and forgotten characters.

On Slow Burn, Leon Neyfakh excavates the strange subplots and forgotten characters of recent political history — and finds surprising parallels to the present. Season 1 captured what it was like to live through Watergate; Season 2 does the same with the saga of Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

I didn’t listen to the first season of Slow Burn (about Nixon’s impeachment), but I really enjoyed this latest season, about the Bill Clinton impeachment scandal in the late 1990s.

It’s eight episodes long (and some change), and describes the events surrounding the impeachment in methodical detail, including many new interviews with parties involved.

I was in high school during that time, and I remember hearing the broad outlines of the story as it unfolded without following many of the finer details.

The series walks through it in a way that clears up a lot of the blind spots in my recollection, which I think is useful just insofar as it’s nice to be well-informed about history — but it also looks at what happened with an awareness of how attitudes around sexual harassment and assault have evolved over the last 20 years.

Transcripts are available of each episode on the show page, and the season was introduced with an article in Slate.

BONUS LINKS: In a previous post, I recommended an episode of Futility Closet (a show which I still highly recommend, generally).

Last month, I also contributed a lateral thinking puzzle to this episode of Futility Closet, and submitted a piece of reader mail which was read in this episode.

I’m a participant!

[Previous podcast  episodes worth your time.]
[All previous things worth your time.]

Sick Elephant Notification Forms

Reaction to our current story arc (which starts here) has been fascinating to see!

Thank you for the many kind (and even the few less-than-kind) emails. And for your own sick elephant suggestions — though I am perfectly well stocked, believe you me.

I know this has been going on for a while. And I assure you that this plane is on a gradual and appropriate glide slope to its narrative conclusion.

HOWEVER, if you’d like to parachute out now, I UNDERSTAND. Put your email into this form and I’ll let you know when this storyline is over:

OR, if you happen to be of the opposite opinion, you can always put your email into this form:

What does this accomplish? WHO CAN SAY. Maybe, at some undefined future point, elephant fans might get something special in their email! THE WORLD IS UNCERTAIN.

Our Kickstarter campaign for the new book is proceeding apace!

Thank you to everyone who’s reserved a copy so far, I am very excited for you to get it in several months.

If we beat our funding goal, any extra money raised will go toward making everyone’s book longer, with more comics included – so please spread the word!

The new book will not, alas, contain any sick elephants; the contents come from a bit farther back in the archive.

(Though if you’ve read the past books, you know that Norbert, the hero of the present story arc, has made a small appearance in each.)

But here’s one thing I am including: over on the campaign page, there’s a link to a free download of my last book, Emperor of the Food Chain:

This is so interested parties can see firsthand what a Wondermark book is like, without me giving away too much of what’ll be in the new book!

You can download the book even if you don’t back the project — it’s just a “thank you!” from me for visiting the campaign page.