What Do You Want in the Silber Blog?

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

Just wanted to take a quick poll to see what you would like to see here in the Silber blog.

If the Silber Blog started coming out regularly again, what would you most like to see?

 
pollcode.com free polls

 

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Still Moving Forward

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

Just wanted to do a quick little blog to let some of the curious know what is going on with some release date stuff.  The flood through off my life schedule a bit & consequently there are new releases from Azalia Snail, Dyr Faser, & Electric Bird Noise available on Bandcamp, Spotify, & pretty much everywhere else; but not yet on the main Silber site.  I had work on two of my day jobs today & work on two of my other day jobs tomorrow & then going out of town for a Silberian baby shower for the weekend.  So I’m not sure if I’ll be able to squeeze in the time to get them up on the Silber site tomorrow or not (my one job has downtime, but I’ve been trying to dedicate that downtime to working on comics), but sometime next week at the latest & then the newsletter comes out & I start the promotional campaigns for these releases.  Then finish up a batch of comics, maybe put out a new issue of QRD, then another batch of releases.  It’s all happening.

If you want to check out the latest release on Spotify, you can do so here – https://play.spotify.com/user/silberspy/playlist/4nuz7tocaNt9OkFetPsHhG

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The Flood, Not The Fall

Posted on July 22, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

At this point I imagine most people who read the Silber blog heard about my parents’ basement flooding. It’s where I kept the overstock back catalog of Silber releases.  I probably threw away about 10,000 water damaged CDs.  No insurance of course.  It would be easy to look at it as a $20,000 loss, but I’m trying to play things positive.  The fact of the matter is pretty much none of those CDs were going to sell anytime in the foreseeable future.  In fact I’d been debating what to do with them, if I should just throw a bunch of them out anyhow so it’s good to have my mind made up for me.  The remaining discs look much more orderly for a third of them being missing. If you are living in flood zone, used
Flood Sensors to protect yourself and your family from flood.

There are a few things I lost that I am kinda bummed about, but as they had been sitting in the basement of a house I haven’t lived in for years, how important were they?  Some guitar pedals that were pulled from my rig for unreliability that I should have given away in the past.  Bass drums drying out that may not be salvagable (but I haven’t played drums in a band since 2010).  My rejection letter from Schecter about being a sponsored artist.  My Cartoon Network contract that they broke.  A Remora banner made for a festival show by some fans in rural Kentucky.  A bunch of mix tapes & CD-Rs from friends that lived in my past two dead cars.  Some indie comics from the 1980s & 1990s that I would probably never read again anyway.

It’s all good.  The whole thing just helps me to realize that I’m moving forward.  That the world is changing in ways that make my life easier.  Life is good & I’ve been really blessed to manage to do all the things I have done.  Thank you all for our interest & support.

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Good Quarters & Other Things

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

So I’m working on the Silber Paperwork for the end of the quarter & somehow this has been the best one in a couple years.  There’s a perfect storm of reasons (a couple distro checks that only come once a year, starting to accept weird ads on the site, plus orders & people actually using the Silber Spotify playlists, a couple hundred dollars in button orders), but it’s awesome & I’d like to thank everyone who has helped to spread the word or even just cared about the work I do over here.

There’s some shenanigans going on in life that may slow down production here at Silber again in the near future, but I’m going to do my best to continue getting some work out.  Chip away at things that need to be done at least a little every single day.  I have a comic half done that I’m writing drawing & art in from two that I need to lay out.  Sixteen music releases waiting for me to get ready to promote & distribute.  A couple records I’m working on.  A lot going on.  But it’s going to happen.  Life is good.

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FCIO – Bad Company – Goodbye Krool World

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

badcompany-gkwI found out about this comic from Martin Newman (Goddakk, DRLNG).  It’s a sci-fi war comic that was published in 2000 AD, which sounds okay; but when I found out it was written by Peter Milligan (Shade, X-Statix) I was in for checking it out (also worth noting Steve Dillon of Preacher fame did some of the art).  It’s a bit of a cross between Starship Troopers & Heart of Darkness with a diary of a green soldier becoming the hardened man needed to survive.  It’s not great, but it’s fun & good & worth checking out.

badcopanel01

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Finally Checking It Out – Shatter

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

shatter-cover
Shatter is an 80s comic & its claim to fame is it was the first comic book drawn with a computer.  I think it was done with a first generation Apple Mac & one of the interesting things in the notes of the book is Apple wanted to be distanced from the book because they wanted to be machines for businessmen, not toys for artists.  Anyway, the art, design, & visual storytelling in this are solid.  It’s clearly influenced by blade runner & the story is adequate though not amazing.  If you like dystopian sci-fi comics or quirky pieces of art technology history, it’s definitely worth checking out.

shatter interior artYou can read more about Shatter on Wikipedia….

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Silber Newsletter – June 14, 2016

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

Hello,

Hope all is going well with you.  As mentioned last time the increased feeling of financial stability (if not actual stability) has created a dramatic increase in productivity here at Silber.  The new releases from a couple weeks ago (Chvad SB, Yellow6, & Anda Volley) seem to be getting some attention & that makes it feel like the label is thriving instead of declining.  The weather is hot & the days are long, but things seem good & promising & the future seems unstoppable.

M is We is back with us for an entry in the 5in5 series.  Post punk & proto goth somewhere between Christian Death, The Germs, & Cabaret Voltaire.  Good stuff & only 5 minutes to check out.
Buy or listen on Silber: http://www.silbermedia.com/miswe/feelslikefivedays.shtml
Buy or listen on Bandcamp: https://silbermedia.bandcamp.com/album/feels-like-five-days
Listen on Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/6SkL1A9fzdycePg0H6FHNk

Bronze Eye & LD Beghtol collaborated for a 5 minute EP of experimental pop music.  I’m pretty stoked about this EP because the two of them got together because of LD’s 5in5 last year.  Helping artists discover each other & work together has been a goal of Silber from the start, so this is awesome for us.
Buy or listen on Silber: http://www.silbermedia.com/5in5/beld-adventure.shtml
Buy or listen on Bandcamp: https://silbermedia.bandcamp.com/album/adventures-in-love-and-culture-onceability
Listen on Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/4yKIDimUAPOAT1YCEdBlqM

Lycia offered up a special with us.  First 50 people to order a physical copy of any of the Lycia or Lycia related releases (Mike VanPortfleet, Tara VanFlower, Black Happy Day) through Silber will get a free download code for the new Lycia album A Line That Connects.
http://www.silbermedia.com/lycia

The new QRD is out in time for Fathers’ Day with a half dozen more installments in our artistic dad interview series (Tanner Garza, JB Sapienza, Jason Handelsman, Jon Madof, Josh Doughty, Loïc Josinski) plus more installments in our guitarist (Casey Harvey (Thrushes), Gabriel Douglas (The 4onthefloor)), touring musician (Nathan Amundson (Rivulets), Aaron Snow (Landing)), & cartoonist (Jeff McClelland, Peter Kuper, Josh Howard) interview series.  Please help spread the word if you can.
www.silbermedia.com/qrd

New Releases coming soon from Dyr Faser, Cloaca, Azalia Snail, Ms, Koyl, Fullness Off Lack, Jon Dawson, Moodring, Hotel Hotel, Lum, Electric Bird Noise, & more in the coming weeks.  Thanks for your interest & support.

Hrt
Brian John Mitchell
www.silbermedia.com
https://www.facebook.com/silbermedia
http://twitter.com/silberspy
https://play.spotify.com/user/silberspy

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Somewhat Relevant – Penny Dreadful #1

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

Penny-Dreadful-#1If you haven’t seen the Penny Dreadful TV show, it’s worth checking out.  Doctor Frankenstein, a good witch, & a cowboy fighting vampires… wait… that sounds awful… but it really is good with high quality acting, costuming, & cinematography.  So even though comics based on other media generally suck, I showed my wife the preview art & she told me to pick one up for her.  It’s a real let down for me.  The art is stylized & I like that it doesn’t look super comic booky, but I can’t figure out if it’s because of the writing or the art that I’m not sure what is going on.  I can’t tell if it’s a prequel to the show or an expansion of the first season or something that happens between seasons.  It also clearly doesn’t have the ability to stand alone, in fact being a fan of the show I still can’t tell you what’s going on.  So yeah… don’t bother… even if you are a fan of the show.

Penny-Dreadful_interior

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Somewhat Relevant – Rom #0

Posted on June 6, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

Rom #0So for those not in the know, Rom is a failed toy from 1979 & a moderately successful Marvel comic in the 1980s.  Because of the comic being based on the toy there are weird licensing issues that have caused Rom to not be reprinted & both drop into obscurity & gain a cult like following.  So anyway, I liked Rom as a kid & while I haven’t re-read the whole series, I have read a couple issues in the past couple years & they still seem good.  The basic storyline is an alien has his body fused into robot armor so he can fight some weird shape shifting magic wielding demonic aliens called Dire Wraiths & eventually he lands on Earth to fight them & interacts with the various Marvel heroes.  So it’s kind of a sci-fi/horror/super hero hybrid.  So the rights that make it non-reprintable also made making new stories unpublishable, but one of the owners of IDW is a big fan & fought to get the rights to continue the series.  Knowing he had such love for the character, I had pretty high hopes for the reboot & I’m sad to say I was really let down.  For me it felt like a fan comic I’d see & not buy at a local convention.  I didn’t like the art & the story was nothing special.  I think there is potential to tell more stories in the Rom mythos that are good, but I don’t think it’s going to happen this time out (nor did it last time out with 2000’s Space Knights mini-series).  I’ve waited thirty years for more Rom stories, but I’m totally satisfied with the old ones & think I’d be fine with him staying dead… even if I admit I’d get a thrill from John Carpenter making a movie about him.

rom interior

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Lately

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Brian John Mitchell

Okay, I haven’t been posting anything lately.  I do want you to know there is a lot of stuff going on.  The new QRD is done except for converting everything to html.  There are ten 5in5s waiting on me to finish up the label end of working on.  There are two comps waiting for me to master & get the artwork done for.  There are two albums waiting for me to do the label end of things on & another album waiting for the band to finish up some art.  So once I get things rolling they should start coming out pretty quickly.  But getting things rolling seems a little crazy lately.  Currently I’m working 4 part time jobs in addition to Silber & taking care of a baby & it is about as ridiculous as it sounds.  My hope is still to get as much quality art/music out to the masses in as timely a manner as possible.  I have hope.

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