This is the twentieth edition of The Voice In Your Head Is Mine. The date is September 28th, 2020. If you're receiving this email and have no idea what's going on, well, fuck. I guess I blew it. Or maybe you blew it. Either way, you're here and this is Zac Thompson's weekly newsletter.
It’s the early morning on Monday. I spent most of the weekend catching up on sleep and trying to claw back some of my sanity after doing twelve days straight of ten+ hours. At a certain point my brain starts to feel like sludge, I can’t really think of things that deeply, and my storytelling ability seems to go out the window. But, I’m happy to report I feel alive again. So that’s good.
Rejecting Nostalgia
We’re living in an era where our nostalgia for things is being weaponized against us. This is especially true in the entertainment we consume but it’s also a vast undercurrent in our current social and political discourse. This pervasive idea that things were somehow better at some indeterminate time in the past is bullshit. And we should all rally together and reject it.
Nostalgia is just leftover emotion that we’ve imprinted on things. When it comes to storytelling or entertainment, it’s often weaponized against us by showing us images that have no inherent meaning on their own. It’s all over things like the most recent Star Wars films. Moments that really mean nothing more than a wink and a nod for a diehard audience. To assure viewers that the things that matter to them matter to the people creating the art. But I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit and it’s being used against you. But you probably already knew that.
Al Ewing and Joe Bennet’s IMMORTAL HULK plays with weaponized nostalgia in really interesting ways.
After a few years working in the North American Comics market, I see nostalgia everywhere. Most major publishers are having conversations about wooing lapsed readers or applying to a solid “guaranteed” audience of folks who were spoon fed genre work throughout the 80’s and into the 2000’s. The problem is - this audience is shrinking and most young readers have no nostalgia for such things. They yearn to see themselves and their diverse world reflected in the art we create. And we can only respond in kind. Repeating the past is part of why the world’s staring down giant problems that have no clean and easy solutions.
I can only speak for myself, but I’m not interested in stories that wink and nod at the past. We’re at a point in history where the past always exists. It’s always available and ready to be downloaded. So what’s the point of creating a bunch of art that tries to recapture a lost feeling when the feeling’s already there?
Nostalgia by its very definition is just trying to recapture a happy feeling. But there’s nothing like that sense of discovery provided by a good story that envelopes you and offers something new. And part of that new offering can certainly be in conversation with the past that came before it. Looking at you Scream.
But good art shouldn’t be designed around simply hitting familiar beats to give an audience some semblance of a feeling. Comics is shackled by this idea, locked in a past it can’t escape, stuck in formats that are difficult to access or understand, beholden to a single distribution method because that’s the way things have always worked.
I wish I had more of a point than simply pushing you to ask more of your art. Please, just start there. Find new things to love and enjoy. Find something original and talk about this week. No sequels, spinoffs, prequels, or other bullshit like that.
I could go on and on about the specific problems holding comics in the past but I don’t want to bore people. If folks are interested in hearing about that - let me know!
Children of The Fang and Other Genealogies
This week I had the immense pleasure of reading through a good chunk of John Langen’s Children of The Fang and Other Genealogies - an incredible tome of short horror fiction. These are stories that revel in the traditions of weird fiction. This collection is hard to pin down but after reading half of the book, I’d say it’s my favorite book of short stories after Nathan Ballungrud’s Wounds or Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. It’s really that incredible. If you need something spooky to devour this Halloween season - look no further.
Prince of Darkness
This past week, as part of trying to recharge I watched the two pieces of John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy that weren’t as fresh to me. And you know what? I was absolutely blown away.
Let’s start with Prince of Darkness. The movie is about a research team that finds a mysterious cylinder of swirling green liquid in a deserted church. If opened, it could mean the end of the world.
It’s an ensemble cast movie that features some really primal scares and imagery that I completely forgot about it. It’s absolutely haunting in how it slowly mounts to a boil and manages to channel a lot of the paranoia that made The Thing work so well.
If it’s been a bit and you’re looking for a profoundly original horror movie to watch this Halloween season - look no further. Here’s some great visuals from the film to whet your appetite.
In The Mouth of Madness
Similarly, I took in in Carpenter’s In The Mouth of Madness last week. Which I didn’t like ten or so years ago when I first saw it, but now… I adore it. It might be one of my favorite Carpenter flicks. This one stars known hunk and horror icon Sam Neill as an insurance investigator who begins discovering that the impact a horror writer's books have on his fans is more than inspirational.
It’s a meta-commentary on how the media we consume affects us. But it’s also a weird Lovecraftian descent into confronting something so overwhelmingly incomprehensible that it shatters your reality. This movie feels criminally slept on and is undoubtedly more relevant now than ever. It gets my highest possible recommendation and would work as an excellent double feature with The Prince of Darkness if you’re feeling so inclined.
Here’s some of the great visuals that await you.
Tiny Scabs
This past week has been insane. Sincerely feeling a lot for my friends in America right now. Know that the whole world is watching and we’re rooting for you to oust the big orange fucker. Good luck.
Tim Heidecker released a super serious album with Weyes Blood this past week and it’s stunning. A folksy album about our current anxieties that’s compulsively listenable and infectious. Highly recommended. Here’s “Oh How We Drift Away.”
This piece from the New Yorker draws an interesting connection between QAnon and the Aum Shinrikeyo doomsday cult that sprung up in Japan during the ‘90’s. It’s a disturbing read that feels urgent.
This week’s playlist:
Seeee Yaaaa
Lots to do this week. Already running behind but the world’s insane and that’s okay. Give people space, show up and lead with compassion. Vulnerability is your greatest strength. Don’t lose sight of the future you want for yourself.
Z