Let's Get Animated!

Hello friends, and welcome back to Strange & Fantastic!

In honor of the impending release of my illustrated chapbook, Goodly Creatures, I wanted to devote August’s newsletter to all things illustrated and animated, so we’ll (mostly) be talking comics and animated movies.

© Paramount Pictures/Nickelodeon/Point Grey Pictures

So, let’s make like a (ninja) turtle and dive in. Cowabunga!

What’s The Buzz?

We’re just a couple weeks away from the release of Goodly Creatures, and I couldn’t be more excited!

ARC readers have continued to give it great reviews, which means more than I can put into words; it’s amazing to know this weird little story and project is resonating with readers, and I can’t wait for it to be available for everyone!

Goodly Creatures releases on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, and will be available in eBook, Paperback, and Kindle Unlimited formats. If you haven’t already pre-ordered the eBook, you can do so here—it’s only $1.99!

I’ve also been steadily at work on the first draft of my dark fantasy novel, Black Coral, and I’m happy to report I’ve finished drafting Part I (“Through a Door in the World”), which ended up clocking in at 28,563 words! I took a little break after finishing this first portion (writing a novel is very much a marathon and not a sprint), but I’m gearing up to start Part II (“Somewhere Beyond a Black Rainbow”) here very soon.

Lastly, I’ve had a surreal little story published online today by Wyld Flash. Considering I’ve spent most of the year working on longform fiction, it feels great to have a brand new short story released out into the wild. You can read “Feels Like the End of the World” here.

Fuel For The Reading End

I’ve loved comic books ever since I was a kid. My dad had a big box filled with the comics he’d collected during the 70s and 80s that he kept back in our shed when I was growing up, and sometime around the time I was ten or so, he pulled it out and gave the comics to me, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

In recent years, however, with the cultural oversaturation of superheroes—especially superhero movies (I’m looking at you, Marvel)—my joy in reading superhero comics has greatly dwindled. The never-ending, constantly-recycling-everything style of modern comics has become very tiring to me. That’s not to say I still don’t enjoy superheroes or comics for that matter—I still very much do—but the pool I choose to read from has grown much, much smaller. (For anyone seeking what I consider to be the ultimate superhero comic, you need to read Robert Kirkman’s Invincible run NOW.)

That being said, I wanted to highlight two comic book series I’ve fallen in love with over the past couple months: Mike Mignola’s incredible Hellboy series, and Kevin Eastman/Tom Waltz’s wonderful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot.

Hellboy (Mike Mignola et al., Dark Horse) © Mike Mignola/Dark Horse Comics

Hellboy, created and written by Mike Mignola, with art by Mignola and others, is one of the greatest comic book series I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. I don’t consider it to be a superhero comic at all—it’s much more in line with the pulp horror-fantasy adventures one would find in 30s pulp magazines like Weird Tales.

Mignola’s art is a wonder to behold, and while the other artists he gets to help out from time to time are great, Hellboy is at its best when Mignola is writing and drawing the series. So what’s Hellboy about? Well, imagine if Indiana Jones or Doc Savage was a half-man, half-demon ghostbuster investigating the X-Files’ most Lovecraftian cases, and you’re just scratching the surface. It’s wicked, pulse-pounding, old school pulp goodness, through and through. I’ll even go out on a limb and say Hellboy is better than Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman… (Please don’t hurt me!)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz et al., IDW) © IDW Comics

Written by original TMNT creator Kevin Eastman, co-writer Tom Waltz, and illustrated by a wonderful stable of incredible artists, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot comic book series is everything a TMNT fan could ask for and more. It expands upon the original Eastman & Laird Mirage comics era of TMNT while adding in elements from beloved the 1987 animated series and the films that followed to create what is ostensibly the definitive comic book version of our heroes in a half shell.

Yes, there are definitely superhero elements to the series (the original TMNT began as a loving indie satire of Big Two superhero books, after all), but thankfully it feels so much more different from the standard Marvel or DC fare that’s everywhere nowadays—probably because it feels like Eastman and Waltz are trying to tell a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end instead of infinitely rebooting the status quo.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a high-concept, action-packed, yet ultimately character-driven series that blends heart, humor, science fiction, superheroes, and even some mysticism into a colorful whole that has brought HUGE smiles to this jaded comic book fan’s face time and time again.

Viewfinder General

I was born in 1987, so I literally grew up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Some of my most vivid memories from my childhood involve waking up to find my parents had surprised me with a new TMNT action figure; I played for hours and hours on end with those figures (for the record, Leonardo’s my favorite, because SWORDS, and also blue is my favorite color). I say all this to point out that yes, I’m a BIG TMNT fan. I’m drawn to weird, wacky, absurd things, and that’s exactly what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are, so they hold a special place in my heart, and probably always will.

But when I first heard they were making a new TMNT movie, I was not excited. I thought it was just another cash grab (we’re living in a time of endless regurgitation of IP and endless nostalgia), and after the abominations that are the Michael Bay-produced TMNT films, I wanted nothing to do with another TMNT movie.

Until I saw the first trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.

I was hooked right away. The art style—which, according to director Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs. Machines), was meant to mimic the doodles a high school kid might scratch in their notebooks during class—was mesmerizing and vibrant, and the more I looked into who was behind the new film (Rowe, Seth Rogen, Ayo Edebiri and a host of other wonderful actors, plus Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on soundtrack duties), the more excited I became. Add to that the fact that for the first time ever, the Turtles would be voiced by actual teenagers, and Mutant Mayhem quickly became my most anticipated film of 2023.

I was not disappointed. Mutant Mayhem leans into the absurdity and weirdness inherent at the heart of the franchise with a truly youthful glee; but it’s also extremely well-written, and incredibly animated. It’s a rare film filled with both big-screen spectacle and small-screen heart, and I dare you to leave the theater without a big stupid grin on your face.

It is, hands down, the best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film yet.

Next up is Nintendo and Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie. I watched this with my four-year-old daughter, and we absolutely loved it.

It’s essentially a fairy tale, where down-on-their-luck Brooklyn plumber brothers Mario and Luigi are sucked through a portal into the Mushroom Kingdom, a fantastical land under attack by a beastly power-hungry turtle named Bowser; they must team up with the resourceful Princess Peach to stop him and save not only the Mushroom Kingdom, but our world as well.

The voice cast is great, the humor is actually funny, and the story has a timeless quality to it that I wasn’t expecting for a movie based on a video game. Even more impressive is how the makers of The Super Mario Bros. Movie use elements from the games in ways that are subtle and organic and actually serve the plot and characters, as opposed to just being nostalgia-fueled Easter eggs.

This movie, like Mutant Mayhem, isn’t just a cash grab, folks—it’s a genuinely fun, fantastic, and truly enjoyable movie for all ages filled with stunning animation: I’ve paused some of the scenes while re-watching just to take in what I was seeing, it was so beautifully rendered.

Also, Jack Black’s “Peaches” song is an earworm for the ages.

TV On The Radio Motorhead summons Godzilla to annihilate Earth…

For those wondering how I’d tie a music review into the illustration/animation theme of this month’s newsletter, take a gander at the art for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s newest album, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (yes, it’s a mouthful).

This album is AWESOME. It’s a concept record (if you couldn’t tell by the ridiculous and ridiculously long title) about the climate change apocalypse and involves Godzilla-esque giant lizard kaiju. Musically, the album sounds just as ridiculous: imagine if Motorhead and Venom teamed up with Tool and was fronted by the lead singer of The Animals, and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Signing Off

Well folks, that’s it for August 2023. Thanks again for stopping by and reading!

Take care, and stay strange.

—Austin

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please subscribe—you’ll get a free eBook of my short story, “Magus,” available EXCLUSIVELY for subscribers!

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I’d also love it if you considered checking out my debut chapbook from Alien Buddha Press, The Magic of Everyday Things, which consists of four short stories where the magical becomes increasingly inseparable from the mundane.