Elsewhere: 2023 Is Gonna Suck - But It Doesn't Have To
A new article is out at The Beat, and it isn't exactly a "future's so bright" thing.
So it actually happened. I hit the deadline. My first piece in well over a year is up at The Beat. You can read the whole thing at this link, and pop back here if you’d like for a very small bit of bonus information.
Behind the Scenes
I wasn’t sure what to work through as my first piece back. The topics here are easier to come by, because I’m writing in a space that’s mine. The Beat is Heidi MacDonald’s domain, and I don’t take writing there lightly. (Truly, I’ve been told on several occasions that I’m far too hard on myself in that regard.) So I asked the kind folks who work there what they’d like to see the most out of a few options, and they leaned heavy into “what 2023 will be like, vs what 2023 should be like”. I don’t think I landed that last part, mostly because I cracked over 3,000 words by the time I got around to that section, so I attempted to wrap things up and leave some cards on the table for later. In all fairness, talking about what we should be doing is a series of columns itself, so maybe that was all for the best.
I talk about a playlist that I have called The End of the World. It currently lives on Apple Music and looks a bit like this, if you’re interested in what the store sounds like on Sundays. There is a version of this on Spotify, but I don’t have that tidied up from a time when the playlist’s mandate was broader.
I’ve been getting a lot of great feedback about this Substack from folks who come in the store, and folks who I know because of the internet. Had a wild moment where I found out that my piece about Dark Crisis and Nightwing was passed along to folks at DC by a creator whose work I enjoy, and it made my week. It is one of the few bits of writing that I’ve been proud of in years, and I’m happy that I seemed to be on the mark in terms of “vibe checks”. Thank you all for your kind words, and by all means, keep reading and pass this space along to anyone you think might enjoy this kind of discourse.
Tomorrow’s weekly feature about selling this week’s comics will be touching on three different titles this week that are big for three different companies. Feel free to take a guess below, or suggest titles you’d like to see me talk about. I can’t promise I’ll get to the book in tomorrow’s feature, but it will help me get to know the kind of things you folks are interested in.
Talk with you soon,
-B.