In An Old Box

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Hello from out here on the Thames Delta. This is Bowie. We took him in eighteen months ago, when his owner died, and now he is the garden supervisor.

The light is coming back out here. I’ve just ordered 200 litres of peat free compost to augment what I have left in the remaining compost bin - the other was half-emptied to feed a couple of plant beds, and what’s left in there needs turning and soaking. As you read this, I’ll be repotting the last of the fruit trees (that are still alive), chipping wood and using the electric mini chainsaw I was bought to tame some bushes and trees ready for the spring.

Yes, I have an electric chainsaw. Does that sound safe to you?

THE THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN CHAINSAW THIS WEEK:

• “Ground level comics” and something wonderful

• The News

• Some internet things

ORBITAL

GROUND LEVEL COMICS AND IMAGINE

There was a time in America when, broadly speaking, there were two main schools: the commercial action comic, and the underground comic. So you can think of Marvel, DC et as “overground.”

And then, in the Seventies, with the advent of specialist comics shops and specialist comics distribution, a few people had a bright idea. Finding a middle zone. Where you could do something different. “Ground-level comics,” they called it. And most of the things you love today emanate from that zone. Ground-level lead to what we think of today as “indie comics,” which created the space for Vertigo and Image Central and all the rest of it.

I found two copies of IMAGINE in the back of a bin in the very early Eighties. Weird anthology comics were not strangers to me, as I had grown up with 2000AD and WARRIOR had already happened and I was learning about the small press from GEN and FAST FICTION and Alan Moore’s zine column in THE DAREDEVILS.

(Yeah. Alan Moore was writing a zine review column in a Marvel UK monthly comics magazine called THE DAREDEVILS, at the same time he was writing CAPTAIN BRITAIN and NIGHT-RAVEN prose serials in that magazine. Writing about Eddie Campbell in a Marvel comic!)

IMAGINE was odd. It’s from 1977. I recognised the cover artist, because my dad had bought me a couple of copies of KILLRAVEN when I was little (1975-ish?), and this cover had the same artist: P Craig Russell. KILLRAVEN (more properly AMAZING ADVENTURES) was done in a period at Marvel where there was very little oversight, and editors-in-chief like Archie Goodwin could sneak out the good weird stuff without anyone noticing. Hence, a student of the form may want to look at the issues of AMAZING ADVENTURES by Russell and writer Don McGregor, who had apparently decided to re-invent the Marvel action comic in the purple-prosed style of a deeply stoned Thomas Pynchon.

(Alan Moore once noted that, in his more purple and over-written passages of SWAMP THING, he could sometimes look over his shoulder to see the shade of Don McGregor standing in the corner and shaking his head sadly.)

Anyway, I open this thing up, and the first story, by Lee Marrs (1) and Mike Vosburg is a magic-themed love story between a very thinly disguised Joni Mitchell (complete with probably-illegal extensive song quotes) and a Native American shaman who changes his appearance throughout the story in order to keep falling in love with her. Lee Marrs was one of the first female underground cartoonists, an Emmy winner and has a storied feminist history.

Which means she can get away with this: an “art monster” (2) narrative of sorts.

Mike Vosburg, by the way, did a lot more comics, but became an important film storyboard artist, an Emmy winner, and did almost all the faked-up covers for the TALES OF THE CRYPT tv show. You can’t scratch any of these old comics without revealing huge human stories and achievements.

Anyway. Look at this.

This was, I think, the first piece entirely conceived, written and illustrated by P Craig Russell. Out of nowhere, from Marvel comics to this richly beautiful Symbolist fantasy piece right out of Wagner and Bruckner. That is a level-up for the ages, and properly launches an extraordinary creative career (3).

The space between the Marrs/Vosburg and the Russell is the space from which a lot of modern comics emanate. Think about it - you stick romantic psychology and big fantasy visuals together, and you’ve got SAGA.

Whatever you want to do creatively, even if it’s not quite like anything anyone’s seen before - someone might have cleared the way for you, even fifty years ago. Have a look around.

Bonus: such a lovely story title:

(1) Lee Marrs, original underground artist and award winning animator

(2) “art monster”

(3) bibliography

Now: THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast, DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM. 2025: FELL: FERAL CITY new printing, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition

This is available as a print from the lordess.io store. Expect a major update to her store in the next couple of weeks.

OTHER

INTERNET THINGS

Does anyone have an opinion on Shopify vs Sellfy for selling low-price digital-only goods?

Gumroad is out due to their recent price-structure change, and I know some people looking at the digital-first space for some projects.

It’s currently in an “onboarding" phase, but Rumicat is looking to replace the late lamented TinyLetter. Go to the website, press “ask for an invite,” tell Nalden what kind of newsletter you’d like to do, get added to the queue.

Timeline apps have swung back round: the idea that you should be able to feed all your streams into a single app and have them arranged chronologically. There was a time when digital dashboards like this were my secret weapon for research gathering, before all the platforms walled themselves off from interoperability.

These new ones will connect up BlueSky, Mastodon, YouTube, Threads and the like. X is walled off and IG is always tricky. But if you’re staying on the streams, this may be a saner way to view them. And they may develop into something genuinely useful for the rest of us, if they don’t get poisoned.

I really wish more people had done things like Paul Holden’s A4.

GOT MORE TIME?

LTD

• FOGOU: I didn’t blogchain it, so start reading from the bottom.

• The Cat’s Meat Man

• morning computer rings and bubbles

• Record: A Modern View On Early Music

• Record: Neon Love Devotionals

I actually have a plan for LTD this year, which I am absolutely failing at but still. It needs more notebook-function, and to encompass the fact that I ideate on paper but compose at a keyboard, and sometimes that composition is of the free and improvisatory kind.

This letter has been zapped to you via Beehiiv and is sponsored by a newsletter I read every day:

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Time for me to rest. Time for you to rest too. Relax for five minutes. You’ve got time. See you next week.

W