Work notes: TSK activities during this week consisted on promotion and setting the Patreon portraits treat. 

I was talking recently to students in the class I give, mostly young authors and editors on indie publishing projects, and I was a bit surprised to hear their reactions to the possibilities of Patreon or crowdfunding logistics. In a few words, they thought that these solutions were not for them, that they were out of their reach. All the crowdfunded or patron-supported projects they could think of, at the time of the discussion, were made by semi celebrities, really popular streamers, influencers. We discussed, later, tactics to reach or create audiences, but I was left thinking about how they envisioned these systems in 2021, the huge gap that young people perceive today between a base level of media usage, and the unreachable level of almost divine scale where social media climbers, those blessed and exponentially boosted by the algorithms of the day, set example. And, honestly, these are the people that get chosen as templates in the very patronage websites that use some variation of “creation first” as advertisement mantra. I realized, first, that no one is buying that discourse among those who are considering to start with their comic or project today. But at the same time, it’s frustrating to see how the huge popularity of the few has the effect of undermining the motivation to do new things in today’s landscape. The future web in which all tools and all kinds of audiences are finally out there, supposedly within grasp, has proven to be a dense, rigid network, solidified around fewer nodes, less chaotic and decidedly unfriendlier than it was only a few years ago. 

In my case, I guess it’s really fortunate to have been able to start in a different context and keep going through the creation or preservation of the niches where I can share my stories and interests with others. The Discord server is great, the audience in my Patreon is really supportive, and whenever I’m allowed to pierce the net of some of the more exposed outlets or social media systems, the response is good. But promotion, as I mentioned in the beginning of the post, takes considerable time now, and that’s just one of the characteristics of the work now. This is something to explore further in future posts.

On Patreon.

The post with the open call for October portraits is live and public, and these are the “character classes” I designed to inspire which type of ghosts the patrons will ask for their portrait:

If you’d like to join my Patreon and get your portrait as ghosts, the timing is perfect.

From the Secret Knots Discord.

Recommendations of aesthetically interesting, comic-inspired games: Koldun mentions Sable (though it seems it may have performance issues), LTK shares Zineth

professionalbanjoist recommends the webcomic Barbarous

What Else is There

From the National Library of Sweden Flickr: “Celestographs or coelestographs are photographs of the sky taken without camera or lens.” Beautiful, and also, If you make digitally layered art, these make for some really cool textures.

Into The Odd remastered, a tabletop rpg on Kickstarter. Possibly TSK-ish as we say on the Discord server, I really like the way it looks.

More in the spirit of the season: Tales of Mystery & Horror by Edgar Allan Poe, read by Christopher Lee. A bit over 2 hours, YouTube link.

Good Night. (Music)
Vangelis ft. Stina Nordestam: Ask the Mountains.