Kicktarter, Comics, Interviews, QRD, Robert E Howard, The Usual

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So I answered questions for another interview about the comic Kickstarter today & I sent off the questions for a couple of interviews for the next QRD.  Got asked to write an article my Kickstarter to be featured on a major comic site, so we’ll see what happens on that.  I also made a page cloning my Kickstarter for those who prefer Paypal to Amazon for making payments.

So in my painless research & geekery over Robert E. Howard, I bought a copy of the poetry book he gave to Navalyne Price that she got offender by & threw away.  It’s The Songs of Bilitis by Pierre Louys & looking through it I way more understand the reaction of her throwing it away than him giving it to her.

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Books, Music, Comics, & Dreams

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

Some of you might know my buddy Ben Vendetta who ran the zine Vendetta for years & wrote for Dagger & The Big Takeover & ran Elephant Stone Records.  He has a book about to come out called Wivenhoe Park.  It’s funny how I seem to have a lot of friends (as well as myself) kind of moving on from rock & roll to books a bit lately.  I wonder if it’s a natural shift of getting closer to 50 than 25.  Anyway, here’s the little trailer for his book:

Back in May there was a noise festival I took part in (vaguely headlining, or maybe just playing last) called Ingrown Fest.  Anyway, here’s some performances from it associated with Silber.


I’ve started printing up some of the comics for when the Kickstarter gets completed.  Pretty excited about it going as well as it is.  Though I always have in my brain that it should be going a bit better than it is.  My personal goal is to get 200 backers & I’m currently at 57.

I did print up Ultimate Lost Kisses #13 drawn by Jason Young.  Still need to add it to be available to order on the website.  I also came up with my 20 questions for doing an interview with him for QRD.  Only 32 other catching up interviews I want to come up with questions for before launching into some more QRD series interviews.

I was going through a bunch of stuff looking for my copy of the super limited If Thousands release IO which will be re-issuing & I found some old recordings that I’m going to need to sort through to see if they should be heard or not.  Including the original The Undermasks recordings, which was my attempt at instrumental no wave in 2001.  Getting to the point where I have a lot more work than time again, but at least it’s mostly work I like doing.

Last Night’s Dreams:
My grandmother is trying to walk, but she can’t remember how to use her walker & is leaning against the wall instead I keep moving the walker in front of her & putting her hands on it, but she keeps letting go & leaning against the wall.

I wake up at my girlfriend’s house & I can’t quite tell if I’m hungover or just haven’t had enough sleep.  We go into the kitchen & she has a pie she’s going to warm for breakfast & she’s going to put the whole thing in the oven & I tell her to only warm two pieces or the rest of it will end up gross.

I’m recording a song on my new little 8-track & it’s just me singing “rise” every 18 seconds with varying field recordings in the gaps in between.

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2 Responses to Books, Music, Comics, & Dreams

  1. hi brian says:
    September 6, 2013 at 7:50 am

    the concept of youtube ads for books is weird to me.

    • Brian John Mitchell says:
      September 6, 2013 at 8:32 am

      People are making YouTube ads for every thing these days. I see some people making them for individual concerts. I think the thing is that people are lazy & YouTube is an easily digestible & sharable medium.

Comics, ULK, Unspeakable Forces, QRD, & Irata

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So I’m finally done with most of what I can do to promote my Kickstarter campaign for making my next 20 comics.  Made a couple of ads, posted it in newsgroups, contacted press folks, sent out a newsletter, & did an interview.  I already reached my low goal to cover my ink/paper/postage & now am reaching for my goal to get to pay the artists what I think is a fair rate.  To make it there I need 200 new subscribers, but I’m currently at just 34.  No idea if I’ll make it or not.  But I’m trying to be mellow about it.  At least partly mellow.  I guess the thing I have left to do is remind the artists that it’s in there financial interest to tell people about the project.

In other comic news, I’m working on the layout for Ultimate Lost Kisses #13.  I should have that printed up tomorrow.

I hung out with Darin today & there may be another Unspeakable Forces EP before the end of the year.

Gathering a bunch of stuff together for working on the new Silber releases & the next QRDs.  I’m halfway between overwhelmed & happy about all the things that are going to be happening.

Oh & the newsletter came out today.  If you aren’t on the mailing list or didn’t get the email, you can read it over here.

I don’t think I posted it in the blog before, but here’s a video from Irata.

IRATA – Keeper’s Maker from Onramp Branding on Vimeo.

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Comics, Etsy, QRD, Shade, found, dreams

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So I just launched a Kickstarter comic campaign to drum up subscribers.  It once again proved to me, Kickstarter is hot for comics as I nearly doubled my modest goal in a single day.  It’s kind of a weird thing that my comics don’t sell very well over the Silber page for ordering.  So I think in the near future I may change around the layout of my comic pages on the Silber site to have videos of me talking about them & see if that makes a difference.

Over on Etsy I am not having a lot of luck.  I am getting a few people “favoriting” some of my stuff, but so far no sales.  I realize now after having listed all thirty some items in one day, that the way Etsy is set up, I would have been better off listing ten items & waiting two days & listing another ten items; which is how I’ll roll next time if I get the three sales necessary to pay the expenses for the listings.  We’ll see what happens there.  My understanding is I’m about two or three years late for jumping on Etsy for really generating many sales, but I’m still slightly hopeful it will work.  Part of the problem with it is that I’ve never been on it as a buyer, which makes it hard to come in understanding how to appeal to buyers.

I doubt you noticed, but I removed the mailing list form from the blog & replaced it with a few links.  I’ve been getting nine out of ten subscribers to be false/spammers & since spammers love blogs, I figure it’s probably coming from over here instead of from the main Silber site & QRD.  Hopefully it will make a difference as far as clogging my inbox.  I’m trying to organize things a bit to have less email clutter in preparation for the tour with The Independents in a few weeks.

I’ve started working on some of the questions for the next QRD & a few behind the scenes things for relaunching Silber proper next month.  More news as things come to fruition on that….

So back in the 1990s Shade was one of my favorite comics.  I was totally surprised that DC did this one minute short that is fairly true in spirit to the thing I love.

Found piece on my now full memo pad I’m retiring:
I’ve been going through some emotional trauma lately. It’s kind of embarrassing to still have your life a tumultuous wreck when you’re approaching 40, but that’s what I’ve let happen to myself. I can’t eat or sleep & I’ve resorted to taking pills to make myself numb & unconscious. It was dumb at 20 & I’m not sure if now it’s more idiotic or more understandable. The pills make me even more nauseous. So I’ve been losing weight. About a pound a day, sometimes more. I lost enough weight that my grandmother’s wedding ring fell off my hand. I feel it means something; I’m not sure exactly what. Does it mean I’m abandoning my grandmother’s ghost or her ghost is abandoning me?

Last Night’s Dreams:
My grandmother’s been in a coma for I don’t know how long.  Rather than leave her in the bed all day, every morning I disconnect her IV & oxygen sensor & cannula & put her in the chair she sat in every day when she was well & reconnect them.  It’s finally gotten to the point where even I know that she isn’t going to wake up again & so I don’t reconnect anything.  I’m just squinched up on her chair with her crying, trying not to yelp.  She opens her eyes & turns to the TV & says this is a funny program as if she’d just fallen asleep for a five minute nap.

I’m going on tour with The Independents for the winter & when I get to Will’s house I realize I’ve forgotten my work gloves, coat, jacket, & toboggan.  I’m not ready for this trip at all.

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Remora – Music from Last Night

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So I got a new loop pedal for the Remora rig, the TC Electronics Ditto.  I’m pretty happy with it.  I’m actually getting pretty happy in general with the idea of spending a few nights a week just fooling around with my guitar hammering out some ideas that are nearly totally forgotten a couple days later instead of trying to write what I mistakenly refer to as pop songs.  Anyway, here’s four Remora ditties.  “delicate breath” is basically a classic Vlor style song.  “impromptu beast” is classic Remora.  “movie worm” is me trying to rip off mwvm, which I can’t.  “safe place” is a little bit crappy, so I put it last.




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Etsy, Comic, Dream

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So I made an Etsy page for the Silber Buttons.  It took a few hours to get it going & I guess I spent about $7 doing the listings.  If things work with the buttons, I’ll go ahead & put up the mini-comics & puzzle boxes as well.  We’ll see how it works as a discovery engine.  I know that having my buttons on my site isn’t really making them move too quickly.  So, we’ll see what happens.

I got a draft done for a comic about an alien with post traumatic stress disorder.  Pretty clearly inspired by a friend of mine, but you set it in outer space & it feels a little less like you’re just telling someone else’s story instead of your own.  Anyway, it’s part of a planned series with stories starring the silberspy from our logo.

Last Night’s Dream:
I get in an argument with my father that culminates in me saying, “I’m going to give you respect because the bible says I should rather than because you in any way deserve it.”  I walk out of his house without shutting the door behind me & just keep walking.  Every few blocks I turn around & he’s following half a block behind me.  I’m the one that’s an asshole.

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2 Responses to Etsy, Comic, Dream

  1. hi brian says:
    August 21, 2013 at 8:10 am

    i thought your logo/mascot was from spyVSspy?

    • Brian John Mitchell says:
      August 21, 2013 at 9:19 am

      He is probably accidentally/coincidentally. The original one was the orange one with yellow wings & a halo (from 1998) that sometimes comes up in a blurry photo in the top right of the main website. A couple years later I made the white one who is the main one that you see around. After I started using it on the early Silber releases it was pointed out to me that it was Spy vs Spy & I guess it is. Later it was pointed out to me that it was a plague doctor mask, which it also is. So yeah, it’s a mystery & my ability to know the real answer waxes & wanes over the years.

Funks & Dreams

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

Not a lot has been going on.  I let myself get in a bad funk over trying to fix the Yahoo script.  I finally got something vaguely rolling.  I just don’t have the expertise to get something that I like to be the solution.  But anyway, I’ve still been lucky because I’ve had a crap ton of dreams lately & I’ve gotten some work done towards some comic stuff & writing some random vignettes like I did 20 years ago (see the past two entries).  More news when I’ve let myself get to feeling better.  I should be getting back on track for the work I was planning to do a few days ago.

Recent Dreams:
She says to me, “I’ll be your property, but you’re not what you own.” It feels familiar, like a song lyric I can’t place.

I’m walking the streets of a town I don’t know.  I’m probably on tour.  At a corner by a stop sign, half buried in the dry clay soil, is a harmonica.  For a moment I think about digging it out, but I already own enough harmonicas.  I should leave this one to be someone else’s prize.  Hopefully a child’s.

I’m watching a documentary called “The Doves Shall Carry the Work of God’s Spinners” about people in the Appalachians making yarn & clothing in the same way they have for a few hundred years.

I’m working in a grocery store stocking shelves.  A woman comes up to me & thanks me for being so helpful & then asks me if I can open another register for her.  I forgot how much I hated working retail.

I have a little figurine of Mickey Mouse as The Flash.  I give it to Joe Grunenwald & he tells me he’s been trying to figure out a way to steal it from me for months.

While I’m working a construction job a friend from college walks by the site.  I take my right glove off to shake his hand.  He makes eye contact with me & walks away.

I’m being auctioned off as a slave & it’s announced that even as meat I’m worth at least a penny per pound.

I’m trying to cross a river on a barge, but it starts to sink in the middle of the river.  I don’t think I’m strong enough to swim to either bank.

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Long Sleeves (short story)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt in summer.  It’s been a long time since I had to.  Fifteen years since I stopped putting stupid scars on my arms.  But today it’s cold outside.  Or at least it feels cold outside to me.  I’ve been losing weight, wasting away.  I’d probably feel cold regardless of the temperature.  Everyone I know assumes it means I’m an addict again, even more pathetic at my age.  I just want to crawl under a bridge & die.

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2 Responses to Long Sleeves (short story)

  1. Peter says:
    August 20, 2013 at 11:48 am

    He crawled under a bridge and died, but then regenerated into a heavy sweaty dude who was kind of into horses and really liked cilantro. Ugh!

Departure (short story)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

I wake up at 4 in the morning.  It’s my last night in the same bed as her.  I can’t go back to sleep, so I get up & drink two beers while looking out the windows I’ll never look out again.  There’s a tall old man wandering around a construction site as security.  There’s a woman waiting for a bus eventually joined by two other women, but I go back to bed before the bus comes.  I half hope to wake her as I get back in the bed.  That she’ll either want to have sex with me or tell me she loves me, but for once in my life I either don’t wake her or she pretends I don’t.  I lay my right hand on her side & pray to God to heal her, to take care of her & watch over her since I won’t be able to anymore.  She was always a damsel in distress, but she didn’t want to let me save her.  She doesn’t want to be saved.  I understand.  Owning a debt you can never repay is hard.  Changing is even harder.  I thought that while broken apart, we could be whole if we were together.  I was wrong.  I’m always wrong.  God, please watch over her.

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Aww Man….

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So I’ve been having a couple pretty good weeks.  Asked to do a couple interviews, some of the releases getting reviewed & airplay, starting to record again, a few new comic collaborations set up, positive feedback on my writing, a couple of orders coming in, some friends getting excited about doing material for the Silber relaunch (tentatively next month).  Just really good stuff happening in general.  But then the past 24 hours have come & gummed up the works & thrown off my plans for the next couple of days (at least).

First off, my good friend Shaun Sandor announced he is ending his record label Blondena.  I totally understand it & I’m glad to have been involved with his label (on a couple of comps, plus of course the Small Life Form: Satsop release).  But it still makes me a little bit sad every time a friend ends their label.  I try to keep in mind hard work is its own reward as far as my own continuing.

I tried to do my first icing process to increase the alcohol content of this nasty stuff I made from fermenting corn syrup.  But I accidentally left it in the freezer for two days instead of two hours so it all froze.  I guess I should try that again at some point in the distant future.

Then I found out that Yahoo plug-in I use to stream MP3s throughout my website is discontinued.  Which sucks.  I found a replacement that kind of halfway works for on the blog (it plays individual MP3s, but won’t go through everything on a page as a playlist – which doesn’t matter most of the time on the blog).  But I’ve spent about 6 hours now trying to get something that will work on the main site.  Most things don’t work for streaming multiple songs in a row.  Most things won’t work across multiple devices (read as tablets & phones) which really really sucks.  I think if I’d been aware of this happening a month ago when I was really down about the label I would’ve just abandoned the label forever.  As it is, I’m hopefully just frustrated for a couple of days & someone will find the answer I need to fix everything (because who knows how many thousands of other websites are having the same issue).  We’ll see what happens.

On the positive side, I did find out about something when researching for a new player that I might add to QRD pages in the near future.  There are now little plug-ins that you can add to a page to get a computer voice to read the page to you.  So that way people could listen to QRD interviews when they are working on other stuff.

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