Category: Comics

State of the Dread: January 1-7, 2023

My wife knitted this scarf for me a couple of years ago, and since the Pottermore quiz sorted me into Ravenclaw, she added the patch. It is a lovely gift and I love whipping it out at Christmas.

Writing

I owe a Round Robin chapter to my friend Nate, so I need to get on that. Once it’s done, I’ll finish a draft of HOWLING WILDERNESS and set it aside.

I started a Substack. It’s called the CrackerStack. It replaces my Patreon, because you can do a paid subscription there and I’ll put some paywalled posts every month. Otherwise it’ll be for book and movie reviews.

State of the Dread will now be a weekly accountability segment. I’ll still share other things here.

As always, hit up Upstream Reviews for fiction reviews.

Reading

Gonna blast the absolute daylights out of a lot of books. This week I will finish GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, HOGS IN THE SAND, and INTO THE LIGHT on audio. If I have time, I’ll read AN HONEST PRESIDENT.

I’ve also got a new Lady Mechanika graphic novel to read from the library. Used to own those in print, but I sold them all after volume 6. Long story. I’ll post about it on the CrackerStack.

My ongoing reads in print are AMERICAN MUCKRAKER and SAVING FAITH.

Drawing

I sketched this at Church this morning.

Video

My latest on the channel, which you should sub to here:

Audio

Always sub to the Radcracker Podcast. I record those in the car on the way home. Slice-of-life, what’s on my mind, that sort of thing. It’s funny and insightful and I love doing it.

Fitness

I’m in a fatchat with some gordo bros who are looking to lose weight. Very exclusive, you can’t get in, don’t ask. This week I’m doing 100 push ups per day, counting my calories, and working on stretching my useless arm so that it’s better.

Video proof of the push-ups will be in my Instagram stories every day.

And now for something local…

“Uncle” Ethan Van Sciver was one of the early “comicsgaters” who left the mainstream industry and had massive success as an independent artist. His CyberFrog comic has already grossed millions of dollars and will continue to rake in the cash. He’s got an eBay store with cool merch too.

I didn’t know that he grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He mentioned that in one of his videos this week, covering that nutjob who threatened to blow up all of SLC if the courts didn’t finalize his divorce.

Uncle Ethan goes on to say he’s not active right now, but he’s not shown any hostility toward it, so that’s cool. He’s just a chill guy drawing fun comics. Give him a look.

I got my Battle Brick Road package

Dropped a new video last week about this comic that I backed on IndieGogo. It launched in 2020 and the campaign just cleared $100,000 gross.

Cool concept, very cool artwork, all around great effort by the creators. What have I been saying? You’ve got to love your work if you want others to love it too, and these guys clearly loved this project.

Because of how IndieGogo works compared to Kickstarter, you can still buy a copy of this even though the campaign is multiple years old.

Not sponsored or anything, I just want teams like this to keep winning.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/battle-brick-road#/

Channel Recommendation: ThatUmbrellaGuy

In the last week or so I’ve discovered the channel for That Umbrella Guy on YouTube, who is both a comic creator and a news commentator of some sort. Kind of hard to quantify because he specializes in a few different things.

Mainly he’s gained fame for covering the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp saga over the last two years, to such an extent that he’s even named in the case by the defense (Heard).

He’s also got an Indiegogo set up for his ongoing comic series, which looks really cool, and I’ve backed it at the level where you get all three comics.

Anyway, his commentary is interesting and entertaining, and it’s brought me up to speed on the craziness of this whole ordeal pretty quickly. The trial has concluded its first of what is expected to be six weeks. I’m never one to follow tabloid sagas, but since it’s in a court of law, there’s a level of reality to this “reality TV” thing that is hard to fake.

Plus, TUG is jumping in with Rekieta Law in the coverage, who I also find entertaining and informative.

So if you’re inclined, do check it out.

State of the Dread: December 2021

May be an image of 1 person, beard, nature and tree

There’s a lot that I did better in 2020 than 2021, namely production on this site. I’ve had sprints where I scheduled posts every day, decided it was too much work, and then went months without anything at all.

At the end of those long stretches I always regret neglecting the site. It’s kind of my main thing. When I get yeeted off of every other platform due to being too spicy and/or based, I’ll need this to be my fallback. So I guess I’d better maintain it.

Here’s the skinny for now:

GENERAL:

I spent the first two weeks of November in Pennsylvania for work. No laptop, so little production, but I took my phone and managed a decent first draft of my current WiP, called SIGNATURE WOUNDS. I got through a round of edits on it and sent it to a friend for beta reading, once that gets back and I’ve implemented his feedback, I’ll get it recorded and put it on the podcast.

Other than that, work has been very demanding, what with it being the holidays. We’ve had a few guys quit because the time commitment is high. Sucks, but I get it. I did 50 hours in 4 days last week alone. I’m also making more money than I ever thought I’d make as a nurse, before I dropped out of college, lol. GO BE A TRUCKER.

WRITING

“State of the Dread” will return on a monthly basis.

The aforementioned SIGNATURE WOUNDS will be followed by a very short story in an anthology edited by Rob Kroese, whose books I enjoy a ton. I’m gonna stay mum on the details until it’s ready to go, there’s just a hard deadline on it so I’ve got to put it ahead of other stuff.

After that, the big project for 2022 will be the first installment in my Brimstone world, called THE KORBADELL JOB. It’s a blue-collar epic fantasy, a sort of Lord of the Rings meets Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’ve pitched it before as “blast crew goes to Mordor.”

Unlike earlier installments on the DreadPennies Adventure Hour, this one will be released in episodes of 30-45 minutes every week until the first one is done, just like you’d tune in for a TV show. That’ll give me time to generate some art for hype.

I also write book reviews over at UpstreamReviews.com. Excellent site, great people there.

READING

For the most part I’ve stuck to my goal of reading less in 2021, and I’ve only got 6 or 7 books on my “Best of the Year” list right now. I’m slightly disappointed, because that’s a success rate under 10%, but whatever. I expect that in 2022 I will keep this pace.

I’ll read fewer books, but they’ll be longer and more substantial. I actually finished DUNE in 2021 and got extremely into it. I like that feeling, I’ve really missed it. And there’s a ton of source material for me to get involved in down the road. My wife has read EYE OF THE WORLD a few times and I might take another swing at The Wheel of Time as a result.

VIDEOS/PODCASTS

This is a category now! Haha. Thanks to everyone who subscribed to my YouTube channel, I want to make more of this stuff. Nothing has gotten near as much traction as my Mayflower Pilgrim video, so it’s not the biggest priority in the world, but once or twice a month I’ll throw something up on there.

As for the podcasts, I think I’ve figured out what I’m doing there. DreadPennies Adventure Hour will be the primary vehicle for audio fiction, while The Radcracker Podcast will cover book and movie reviews, as well as thoughts I’ve had during my nonfiction reads. I’ve loved sharing that stuff since the days of the Brother Trucker Book Club podcast. It’s easy to record that stuff on the fly or when I’m multitasking, so it doesn’t take a massive time commitment.

DRAWING

Haven’t done as much of this as I might have liked, and I haven’t read a lot of the art books I’ve acquired in the last few years. I think one of the main reasons is that last year I did a Draw Every Day challenge, and this year I didn’t. So for 2022 I’m going to go through the exercises in my Etherington Brother books one by one, and post my progress on Instagram.

I’ve been focusing more on drawing my own stuff, for better or worse. A lot of guys on Insta get popular by drawing Marvel or Star Wars stuff in their own style, and I don’t want to do that anymore. I drew a Jeep with a Captain America paint job, thinking I’d do that for the entire Avengers lineup, and after one vehicle I asked myself What the heck are you wasting your time on this for…and didn’t have a good answer. So whatever I do, it’ll be strictly Graham Bradley/Dreadverse stuff, unless I’m telling a joke.

FITNESS

Got back into weightlifting for a few months in the spring, before life went ape-nuts crazy at work. It hasn’t stopped going ape-nuts crazy, I’ve just decided not to be a twit about it and get back into the gym at least twice a week, plus endurance exercises at home with my sons.

The other big thing is I’m going to get on the Intermittent Fasting wagon again. I’ve had a lot of success with that in the past and need to stop making excuses. Here’s a good book I read on the subject.

OTHER

Look, life is always going to be busy, and sometimes that’s a legit reason, other times it’s just a bad excuse. Proper planning prevents poor performance. Or as a great man once told me, “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” And he’s rich as h*ck, so he’s right.

Another thing I’ve decided to go cold turkey on is swearing. I really struggled with that in SIGNATURE WOUNDS, because the MC is an Afghanistan veteran, but I don’t care. I create work to magnify my talents and create an alternative to the mainstream, which sucks butthole. I guess that’s a form of profanity even though I didn’t say the naughty word. Progress, not perfection. I hold the priesthood, I should be better on that front.

Anyway, that’s where things are at for the final chapter of 2021. I’m going to work and enjoy Christmas. You do the same. Be rad, drive safe, see you out there.

The Hardest Part is the Concept

It would be pretty cool to come up with a home-run concept for a web comic that people could identify with, so that I could monetize it and make a trashload of money.

Nathan W. Pyle did it with his Strange Planet idea, and it has worked to great effect. There’s also the Heart V Brain stuff done by Awkward Yeti. Very relatable, very shareable, and so on. Both those guys have a million followers.

I think I finally stumbled upon something that I can make work, at least in principle. Gonna stick it in the old rock tumbler between my ears and see if I can’t knock the rough edges off. Maybe it’ll be a one-shot, maybe it will grow legs.

After all, Charles Schulz had no idea what the hell he was doing in the beginning, but he kept doing it, and 50 years later he was sitting on a mountain of new income year after year.

I think I finally know what to do with all of the lousy texts my brother sends me.

Anyway, cryptic as hell, but I don’t care. I’ve got a concept and I can do something with it. Get back to work.

Wow, I actually miss Netflix for once.

I canceled Netflix in January 2019 and never looked back. Closest I ever came to missing it was when S3 of Cobra Kai moved to that platform. I’m just not comfortable funding their overt pedophilia and sexual subversion, so I can’t bring myself to slang dollars at them.

When I heard they were doing a superhero series, I shrugged because meh, who cares? Everyone’s got one these days, they’re all vanilla at this point. (And thanks to the CW, they’re even becoming the kind of dreck that killed them in the 90s).

Then Jupiter’s Legacy dropped, and all the YT channels were talking about it, so I checked out vol 1 from my local library, and I was thoroughly impressed.

Jupiter's Legacy, Vol. 1 by Mark Millar

I remember thinking more than once that this didn’t feel like the kind of story you were allowed to tell any more in America. A story about country, family, legacy, and people who strive to do the right thing despite all the odds.

There’s nothing happy-g0-lucky about it either, as the hero team fails over and over. They used to be on top of their game, but their legacy is failing, they can’t control everything, and their families are suffering the most. All that’s just the beginning.

Vol 1 was awesome. Not a ton of language, one scene of sensuality, and a fair bit of violence at the highest emotional scenes. The story and characters were incredibly strong though, and I am really stoked to dig in to the rest of the series.

Still not gonna sub to Netflix again though.

HOMEWORLD is now live on your podcast machine! Listening is mandatory.

It’s finally ready! I’m excited to share this one with you. I mostly recorded it on my phone in my car whilst parked at work before my shift. Good acoustics in there, better than in my office, and doing it in chunks helped me to get the pacing and intonation right.

I’ve had this story swimming around in my head for years and years, so to finally have it out in the open is a relief. I hope you guys like it.

Patreon is here, to back the podcast financially.

Google

Apple

Spotify

Anchor

Other links

New Episode Monday! SLEEPLESS HOLLOW # 4 0f 4

This is it, gang! The end is here! Where did Josie end up? What do Silas and Kay do? Does Ichabod get away with it?

Find out in episode four!

And here is some artwork 🙂

Josie watches Silas die in 1776. I drew this one on a sketchbook in a pickup truck during a night shift.
The gang heads out into an exciting new future.

The latter part of the book didn’t have as much art as that middle part. 2019 threw a wrench in my plans pretty hard, what with family trials and the like, so I had to pare back the roster.

Hopefully in the future I can illustrate a few more pieces and release an “author’s preferred edition” or something. For now, I have plenty to get around to.

Episode one is here.

Episode two is here.

Episode three is here.

Find the show on Spotify, and tell your friends to subscribe!

Available on Apple Podcasts as well!

Behind-the-scenes podcasts are available to Patreon backers here.

Thank you everyone for tuning in this month! Next week, WITH ANSWERABLE COURAGE kicks off!