This week: Silly Spotify, a sneak peek and lots of links!
🔗 Any text that is underlined is a link that can be clicked 🔗
Pfft, algorithms, amiright?
Last week The Story So Far released a new album. I would have had no idea if my friend Mitch1 hadn’t texted me. My response to his text should have been, “I know! So stoked!” but instead I said, “Wait, what?!” How did I not know one of my favorite bands had a new album?
Mostly because I’m not on social media and I probably missed a ton of posts about it. But also because the Spotify algorithm dropped the ball.
I listen to like five bands and they somehow failed to tell me one of those bands was releasing new music. Spotify dropped the ball, but you know who doesn’t miss stuff like this? Your friends. The people who know and love you.
Lately I’ve been leaning too heavily on algorithms to figure out what to watch, listen to, read, eat, etc. Do you find yourself doing this too? Try asking your friends. A recommendation from a friend is great because maybe it’ll be good, maybe it’ll be bad. Either way it will be an experience and something you two can talk about later.
Your friends are better than algorithms. Thanks for the reminder, Mitch.
My “ALSO” list this week got way out of hand so I have a sneak peek of some things I’m working on and a bunch of links. Enjoy!
Sneak peek
^ Character design for some comics. Any resemblance to my family is totally a coincidence.
^ A zine about selling mirrors on Marketplace
^ Something with all this yellow paper I got for three bucks. Any ideas?
Links
I didn’t know it actually took a village to raise a child until we had one. This post from Shannon Colón made me appreciate all the people that make having a kid actually possible. “Two parents meeting is actually ten people meeting.”
“AI can’t replace jobs that deal with human emotion.” An optimistic note from Lian Cho (also her book Oh, Olive! is very good).
I LOVE this colorful, vibrant installation by Morag Myerscough (via
).Andy Rementer made a comic with his dad about birding through chemo.
Last week I read Here by Richard McGuire and then through some cosmic alignment
shared the original comic here and a color version here.This book approaches time and place in such an interesting and seemingly simple way. Turning the page will transport you thousands of years or mere moments.
I love the way Jacob Souva has been writing about setting goals (here and here).
Here are some of my goals and how those things might/can happen:
I want to financially support my family. How? Teaching and design.
I want to help nourish my creative community. How? Participate, give and empower.
I want to develop my voice by consistently telling stories. How? Zines, newsletters and interviews.
There are times in my life where I hear the word “goals” and recoil. Ew. Other times, like right now, they are helpful.
Can Yang is so talented.
Beautiful 3D desert sketches in motion by Robinsson Cravents. The flat texture mixed with physical space reminds me of this Moebius style video game experiment.
One Million Checkboxes. Check (or uncheck) your day away.
Mattel is making games like Uno more accessible for colorblind players.
If you make photos in the Midwest check out the photography festival in Madison, WI.
There’s a lot of good stuff in this Robert Baxter post, but I especially love the Publishing as More of a Motion than an Act section. Here are some highlights:
Even when something is “finished” (i.e. “has reached the line I marked in my mind previously”) I’m already planning how it might be expanded/modified/appended in a future version (that line, previously marked, has shifted).
Many projects I’m working on are so big that if I waited to publish the thing in full it would be decades from now—so I must release some piece of it or it might die with me.
The limits and compromises of small publishing force us to blur the lines of “to publish,” and there’s fun to be had in the soft edges found here.
That’s all. Thanks for being here!
*while painting shirtless* “My dad doesn’t take off his shirt because he’s very quick and not messy.”
Comics I read this week:
Flake – Matthew Dooley / The Grande Odalisque - Vivés, Ruppert & Mulot
This newsletter was made by Mitchell Volk with help from Carly Volk and Knox Volk. It was written, edited, illustrated and animated between June 24 and June 30, 2024. It was sent from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, USA. It took 4 hours and 18 minutes to make. It was made with love.
Anyone else have friends with the same name as you?
Thank you for this wonderful post! So many good links here. I also love Richard Mcguire’s Here so much. One of the best graphic novels out there.
This is why I miss chronological feeds. The ecosystem of cool folks I was following always floated something interesting up to the top. The algorithm has unbalanced every platform, but it’s worst for me on Pinterest (which is why it’s been cool to discover Are.na). Rather than serving up an eclectic arrangement of images it now thinks I can only have one interest at a time so after searching for something this is all I see! 🫠
It’s also really special to get a recommendation directly from a friend. Even if you’ve already watched or listened now you can talk about it. Win, win.