Ah..here we are, safely on an Arsenic Lullaby email. Away from the rest of the god awful internet.

You young people out there might not believe this, but the internet used to be fun. The was a social media platform called Myspace and there were days I could not wait to get on it. and now...most of the internet is a giant toxic mental health disorder popsicle that we all periodically take a lick off of, and eventually you are what you eat.

...Let's just sit here. and enjoy the lack of sh*t popping up on our screen ruining our day.

I have, in the holster, a whole blog on how legitimately dangerous the internet is about to become, not just for ones mental health and cognitive abilities (which there are several studies showing how profoundly it is doing that) but to one's own mental autonomy.

I go into the limited amount of personality types there are, and how uncomplicated the physiological test are that determine which type someone is, so that they know how best to go about helping said person. And how the amount of data big tech has on all of us is far beyond that and that data utilized via the processing power AI programs have, makes it relatively simple to, instead of helping us, present information to each of us in a customized way to drive us to an opinion we did not ourselves come to...every single time we look at our feed.

That's the crib notes version of how the longer you are on a social media platform the less you are...you.

BUT...

I'm starting to realize that there's another possibility. That there might just be so damn much data out there and so many variables that said nefarious endeavor is a mathematical impossibility that never gets beyond semi functional.

We're into what now...ten years of them trying to get targeted ads to work? Here's the targeted ads I get.- ads for something I already bought that I would never need two of, ads for relieving back pain, and ads for boner pills. What...which person do you think I am, google? The guy who wants to "have sex like you did in your twenties", or the guy with chronic back pain?  Because one cannot be both of those things.

I don't want to have sex at all after non stop scary diagrams of spinal columns with bulging discs and red flares super imposed on them.



"Let's... just hold each other, baby...sitting upright...with good posture".

You know...psychosomatic illness is something that happens to people, it should be against the law to bombard us with this sh*t.

My back hurt all day on Tuesday and I was trying to figure out wtf I did to it ...then I remembered what I did to it...I sat through three different back pain ads while trying to watch a History Guy video on youtube. I guess the ad algorithms deemed that because I watching a video about the straw hat riots in the 20s that I'm an old man with back pain.

Anyways...It may be I'm spending too much time on content about the 20s and 30s, but the flappers were all smoking hot, weren't they? It's clearly not just my opinion, back then the families all had like 8 kids. Did they have condoms then? I half way remember the Egyptians used lemon skins as diaphragms...don't take that as fact, I have no idea when, where or how I heard that.

hold on...

Okay, I checked. Condoms date back to the 1600's and were made out of animal intestines...I think I'd prefer getting the clap. 

Back to what I was saying, Except for that search just then on the invention of condoms, my time on the internet is pretty PG, believe it or not.  So I don't know what the boner pill ads are showing up for. Maybe, because I did a search for sex robots for the last blog? But that doesn't make sense. What would I need a sex robot for, if I can't get a boner?

Anyways...If trajectory/pattern of shooting and missing with the targeted ads transfers to them trying to manipulate me with political agendas...I guess I can look forward to a lot of Ugandan propaganda. I'll have heated arguments in favor of Blood diamonds.

I have no idea if they have diamond mines in Uganda. But I'm sure I will, just in time for AI to have convinced us all to launch nukes at Sweden over attacking some country we never heard of four days ago, because it doesn't even exist and all the footage we saw was fabricated.

We will all die in a nuclear holocaust because of an AI video that someone will notice that the dead child in has six fingers, just as the mushroom cloud consumes his city.



Anyways...

I had planned on doing a little how-to as far as placing shadows to aid the composition of a page, but my brain's been beating me up the last couple weeks with good ole "imposter syndrome".  Is that the internet doing that to me? Like my psychosomatic back pain? Did imposter syndrome exist before the internet? Hmm, I guess it did...





One would think that would stop being an issue once you've reached a level in your career, and skill, such as I have. However, the diabolical mind that made up all the great Arsenic Lullaby stories, has had no trouble superseding my success. It just changed the angle from "you suck" to "you suck...now". It's ingenious, really. Because it can be used in perpetuity. I can finish the best work I've ever done and it can slide in with "well...that's it. That was your swan song."

That kinda inner voice comes and goes...it's the nature of the work. All the same, I'm gonna put a pin in that how-to thing til next time.

How's about I just say something uplifting...because there is a thing that can save us from the dystopian hell hole we are all currently living in, despite many of us not realizing it... GenZ.

A large percentage of them loathe the dystopia they we born into, the petri dish that the internet is, the soul sucking uninspired architecture that keeps replacing what was...they know how interesting and colorful and fun the world was two decades before they got here, and they know what it's turned into...



 and I get the impression that they're kinda pissed.

You can save us, GenZ...you can make the world fun again. and it has to be you and it needs to be now. You need to start steering the cultural ship, and I'm not talking about with causes and social issues. I'm talking about creating simple human joy. 

A human being, or several, expressing themselves creatively in a way that connects with others...may very well be the pinnacle of our species. Some part of the human mind we cannot define any better than "imagination", convenes a complex fabricated thought/idea to other human minds, in way that translates and creates in their minds... a mood, an emotion, an understanding of something that does not actually physically exist.

There may be nothing more complex and miraculous that we are capable of, than that.

In recent human history, generations have left their mark/left a timestamp, by doing this on every available front. The music, art, fashion, comedy, movies, done by GenX are starkly different than those of the boomers, that were different than those of the WWII generation, and so on...

  Those in every generation who are able to do this to great effect, had great effect on the world in which they live. In the emotion/energy it brought to others in and of the work itself and in collateral inspiration...most of which they will never even realize.  Think- the ripples from throwing a pebble into a pond, analogy

With that understood, GenZ, now's the best time for you to get in the game.

Before half my readership reads on and thinks my attitude it that it's too late for them, and to give up on their dreams, just hold on.  I'll ease your ire momentarily.

*side note- I loathe phrases like "creative voice". But in this case, I can't think of a simpler way to phrase- a style in a creative medium that is uniquely your own.

*second side note-I'm dealing with trying to explain things that are not quantifiable...so it might get messy, just please do your best to understand my meaning.

The optimal ( I said "optimal", everyone else...not "only") period to "find your creative voice" is roughly when you're 17 thru 27.  That is the sweet spot. That is when you are trying to make sense of the world as it exists in that moment in time, as a by-product of that world. You are trying to understand the very thing that created you. You are interpreting and reacting to it...with no life experience of anything that came before to accurately compare it to.

I'd simply say viewing the world with "fresh eyes" but it's a deeper than that, because you are about to be, or are now "a grown up"..."on your own".  Your mind is instinctively processing and interpreting things as a means of survival. It's not just fresh eyes, it's more acute, more profound, and driven. Think back ,older people, to when you were in your 20s. Where you head was at emotionally and reaction-arily. Everything hurt more, everything was more exciting, everything was more maddening, everything was worth the risk.

When your brain is operating in that gear, that is when you want to be learning how to express yourself creatively.  It is when you'll best swerve into truly making/doings things that are your own..."find your voice".  Once you do that, you can use it your whole life, but you can't go back to this moment if you don't capitalize on it.

I'm...really not sure if I'm explaining myself properly. That all felt repetitive and clunky. It might help if I explain why the period in your life before that age is not optimal for finding your "creative voice".

Some 5yr old child prodigy masters the piano or guitar...what is he actually doing other than preforming a task? He's learning, having fun maybe, but there's nothing profoundly creative going on there.  He's not bringing anything to what he's playing, because he has nothing to bring. Not compared to someone who's 20. He hasn't had his heart broken, crossed swords with human nature in any way he can understand or re interpret, he doesn't understand triumph or failure on any profound level, he's not been thrust into a world and must now figure out how to navigate through it.  No angst, dread, ambitions, urges, beyond what the five year old mind can understand.



And when he eventually does have all those things weighing on him, he will have already learned how to play the piano. So, none of the mistakes or techniques or alterations of how to play it, that he would have developed by learning while he has all that going on in his mind, will ever come into fruition.

Please, understand my point. I'm not saying don't pick up an instrument until your 20. I'm saying there is great value in learning a medium at the time you actually have something to say through it. It's like this, Orson Wells said many times that he was able to come up with all the innovations and advancements in film making, only because he had no idea what he was doing or how anything worked, he only knew what he was trying to say.

The skill to communicate creatively and the urge to communicate creatively as a reaction to being thrust into a world, developing together...that's the optimal formula.

That's why developing a voice before the sweet spot I mentioned is not optimal. Why after is not optimal is easier to explain...



You can't unlive life. All the trials and tribulations and heartbreak and confusion of those early years of your life...eventually those are a memory, as opposed to where you actually are in life and in your head.  Eventually the world that created you is gone, replaced. and your interpretation of the world that now exists, is through the lense of having experienced a different world to compare it to.

Before I go any further...Yes, absolutely, there's always outliers, late bloomers. You could very well, with much effort and dedication make some great work that has some connection to a great many people. Frank Miller does exist.

I should explain who that is to all the non comic book people reading. Miller was a writer/illustrator of a bunch of fairly ordinary work for Marvel Comics for many years, and then later in life, he changed his style entirely and created the landmark series, Sin City.




 Tina Turner existed, Diamond Dallas Page Existed. Many great talents didn't truly hit their mark later in life. I even know a few myself, and the world's a better place because of the joy their work brings to it. But examples such as these, are not quite what I am talking about, in that they were not part of a moment that defined their generation.

 I'm talking about the tips of the spears of the creative vibe for a generation of people.



I'm talking about people like say, Todd Macfarlane in comics, Kurt Cobain in Music, George Carlin in comedy.  Where the medium in which they worked can be marked in time, as before or after they came on the scene.

GenZ needs it's versions of that, and WE need their versions of that.

Every generation has it's battles to fight, be they literal or ideological. Fighting to make the world a better place, fighting for freedom, justice, acceptance, ect ect ect...That's all very well and good, But just as important for every generation, as leaving their mark on serious problems, is leaving their mark on the culture.

It's as important as any other fight your generation has and gives more weight to any other fight. Because, in taking over creatively, without even one of your creative enterprises mentioning ANY other fight going on, you are still showing the world... that you, are in fact, the ones currently steering the ship. And that you are bringing more to the table than just a fight.

If you have a creative urge, were born with that preinstalled software between your ears...call it a gift from God, or the randomness of the universe...I would say you should probably do something with it. I would say there are people out there who need you to.

In the non-stop available content world you've grown up in, it might seem like it's all been done, and you can all just make do with what already is. But that's wrong, on both counts.

Take Pearl Jam or Nine Inch Nails, tips of the spears for GenX.  What were they singing about 90% of the time? Weird new abstract concepts never before delved into? No...they were singing about well worn subjects.  Angst, fear, heartache, longing. But, when they did it...it was different, new, and it meant something to us...because they were us. Trying to make sense of the world that created them.



NIN March of Pigs                                    Pearl Jam  Black

When a Stone Temple Pilots song comes on, it hits me nostalgically because of where I was in my life when I was listening to them...and where the world was. There's a kind of impact that wouldn't be there if when I was at that point in my life I was listening to the beach boys, and today I heard a beach boys song. Because the beach boys were not us. They were not struggling to navigate the same world that we were struggling to navigate.

Good Vibrations might be one of the greatest songs ever produced...but it had nothing to do with me, or the world I was living in. It wasn't created in the environment I was. But, Big Empty by Stone Temple Pilots was, and I could feel it. And when I hear Big Empty, it's not a song I listened to then..it's part of a moment in time.

Do you get what I've been saying here? This goes for art, comedy, writing, fashion...it's all connected.

And there's the other issue, there ARE going to be new songs made, and movies, comics, art, fashion ect ect...either YOU can start making it and steering the ship or the corporate powers that be will do it.  And you know how that's gonna go...





Those two images up there, they're a metaphor for the entire culture. One of them will be the future.

Previous generations made their identity known in every creative aspect including how they dressed.  From 50 yards away you could tell what generation they were. GenZ does give me hope in this regard. You all...well...you all dress like the mannequins at Kmart in 1990... BUT it's a look, and I'm old and I don't like it, so you must be on the right track.

I can't imagine your fashion is going to do much for the birthrate, but what do I know...maybe you all think each other looks hot dressed that way. I can't get my head around it...and that's a good thing. I shouldn't be able to...I'm not from your world.

Many have pointed out that the millenials never really left a mark on the culture. Didn't have their own sound, their own look, didn't...in mass...make a dent. While this is pretty undeniable, I'd like to point out this is not because they were lazy, or less skilled or less driven. It's because they got knee capped. Every factor that fell into place for GenX during childhood, that turned them into creative alpha predators...fell the opposite direction for the Millennials. Just one on a list of many things that they got screwed on.

Whatever the reason...we are in f*cking decade 3 of the decade of GenX.

Everyone reading this who is GenX or older...I want you to imagine it is 1995, except every song is big band music, and Jack Benny is the most famous comedian, and the top movie is a reboot of Cassablanca. The whole culture is still in step with the WWII generation that came of age thirty years earlier. That is the world that GenZ is living in right now. It is STILL all GenX run, gen x influenced, based on GenX mythos, as far as the eye can see and ear can hear.

I'll make my point with one example. When's the last time there was an edgy, innovative property that became a phenomenon and pushed the envelope?

Uhm...sorry Douglas, Pretty recently actually...Rick and Morty.



Right..Rick and Morty...

 Rick and Morty's creators are genX.

What?

One's of them's older than I am. See what I'm talking about, now?

This is wrong. Time marched on, but culturally we never turned to the next page. There should still be some remnants of GenX making noise or existing as masters or legends...but we shouldn't still be steering the whole ship.
 
I don't know about the rest of you, but it's starting to make me sad. Because,
I've been part of a creative cultural change. I contributed in my own very small way to that creative moment in time. I was one portion of water that was a giant wave that overtook the levy.  For that matter, so was everyone of us who supported all the GenX talent. And it feels awesome, and it felt awesome...and I want that for you GenZers.

I want you to be able to look at the culture before you all showed up, and after...and see the dramatic difference. I want you to feel the change happening as you are in it, and know that you are, in your way, part of the moment in time when your generation captured the minds, hearts, imaginations of everyone else. 




Because, it matters.

Because, it's contagious.

You putting out some creative work that connects, because it's pure and passionate and unique...that is what inspires people. Not just other creatives...everyone.

 An architect maybe starts to realize he/she's not happy just crapping out no nonsense, boring structures that look like housing projects during the soviet union. A restaurant owner decides he/she doesn't want his place to look like a hospital cafeteria. Some business owner realizes having a vinyl wrap with his companies name slapped onto the fascia ain't good enough...a cool lit sign in the shape of the logo is something he'd be more proud of.



and pretty soon...everything doesn't suck anymore. You can do that. For all of us.

Remember who is talking here. I ain't never been accused of being a Pollyanna or looking at the world with rose colored glasses. I'm not talking about pie in the sky, let's hold hands and sing kumbia. I'm talking about how we have observed that the human creative ecosystem works and spreads, throughout history. The pop culture gets a vibe and everything else starts to reflect it.  Everything about the 1950s looked and felt like the 1950s, the cars, buildings, signs, ect, ect.

The world, society, it functions better when people are happy. Art, Music, architecture, entertainment that hits...this all has an effect. We're in a sea of strip malls, gray cars, rebooted movies, old/bad music. There's an unispired, joyless, passionless ambiance to it all. Change that, and you change everything.

You want to be heroes, you want to save the world. This is how you do it. How it's actually done. And we need you to. You're the ones who have to turn it to the next page. It's not our providence. It's yours.

Let me make sure this is clear- what you do has to connect. It's gotta hit, matter to people. A parade of streamers who are hot for 6 months and burn out, and a deluge of half clever tik tok videos ain't gonna cut it. You can't goon your way into taking over the pop culture. In all mediums and generas you need work where people go "holy sh*t...that's good." OR "What the f*ck is this?!".  Work that's profound in some way. Work that they ain't just going to forget in 2 minutes, or ignore altogether.

You have to start all that NOW genZ.  Start playing music, start performing comedy, start making things, start writing things, start doing things. In real life. Pick an instrument, a medium, a genera, and start developing those skills while your brain is figuring out the world, and they will intertwine/merge/contribute to each other as they develop.

To all the creative types out there, older than GenZ, none of this is an excuse for you to stop, or give up. It is a rarity when someone hit's their stride late in life, but their work is valuable and unique because of that.  Also, as much as the culture needs new people who don't quite know what they're doing...it also needs veterans who do know what they're doing. Our importance hasn't gone away, it's just changed. And if we all have to start trying harder because there's someone hot on our tail, that's a good thing.

Some side notes/insight...






You are growing up in a world where all the technical expertise and knowledge is there for your learning. I've done many blogs here going into technical minutia, and I am telling you...don't focus much on all of that. Don't spend your time rabbit hole-ing into all the expert level techniques of whatever medium you choose. It's good to know, sure, but this is the sweet spot in your life where you can get by on sheer visceral energy and un-honed talent. Your time, right now, is best spent doing.

Just create with reckless abandon...the refinement will come on it's own. Your top priority now, in whatever you put out, is getting the point, idea, mood, energy, passion across. And getting IRL human reaction to it.

Forget the minor endorphin hit of the ambiguous appreciation of "likes"...the reaction to your work from an in person audience, is orders of magnitude better in all aspects. AND you will learn/realize that the music or art or jokes that connect the best, are the ones that are the most unique to you.

We pretty much all start of kind off doing our version of whoever we admire...the more work you put out, and the more you see your work reacted to, the faster you break out of that. 

Developing a creative compass is more important that any technical expertise. I may have said something along these lines before but it's all worth repeating. First thing you learn when you get up onstage to do stand up comedy...and it's often a brutal lesson...is there are things that are clever/understood as funny, and then there are things that actually make people laugh. The difference between technically sound and making a real connection...that is what you need to learn. And the best way to do that is seeing the reaction to your work from people in real life, in real time.

NOW...It wouldn't be advice from me if it ended with just nebulous ideas and no practical applications.  

You want to do music, comedy...find a club and perform at some open mic nights. You want to be a writer...find some open poetry reading event and read your work out loud, or have someone else do it. You want to be an artist or make comic books. Make some work, get a table in an artist alley. Plenty of comic book pros started out making bare bones, homemade stuff, printed at office max and stabled together themselves. Do that, make things, show people. Introduce yourself, introduce your work, don't be shy don't feel like you are in the wrong for doing so. They brought themselves to the venue, if they didn't want to find anything new or interact with anyone, they could have stayed home. Be confident, be polite, be proud of your work.

GET REACTIONS. LEARN FROM THEM.

You can do this. A live audience can seem scary, intimidating people. So can showing your work to complete strangers. BUT here is the thing to remember about complete strangers...whatever their reaction, you're probably never go to see them again. AND no matter what their reaction, you made something and put it out there...and they...didn't.  

Worst case scenario, no one likes it. Who gives a f*ck? Did anyone die? Did your car break down? No...someone you'll never see again didn't appreciate the thing you did before you did the next thing.

The next thing I say, is not to be self aggrandizing it's to say-- if I can do it, you can do it. I am...now...outspoken, gregarious, and unshaken by any crowd of any size and any disposition, BUT that's not where I started out. I was as introverted as any of you. and nervous and averse to getting onstage. It can be terrifying. However, part of me didn't gaf and wanted to find out if what I wrote would hit or not. If you are a creative soul, you have that part in you too. Put that part of you in the drivers seat. It'll take over. You'll be fine, it'll seem like your watching yourself in a dream.

Don't worry about bombing, don't worry about screwing up, don't worry about negative feedback. Go do it. Go make things. And if it doesn't work, retool and try again. If the crowd doesn't get it, but two people are blown away, that's the start of something. Try a different crowd. Try a different crowd and retool. Get better, get comfortable, get confident, find your voice, and keep honing it.

  You can do this. We need you to.

Anyways...

here's this weeks comic. From the achieve- The Baron Von Donut Love Story.

Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade

Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade


Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade


Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade


Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade