001: ESCAPE PODS AWAY!

HEEDLESS MOTHS: AN EDITORIAL

Hey!

A big Thank You to everyone who encouraged and supported this idea. I love you, ya crazy bastards!

We all know how we ended up here - mentally hyperventilating, ad-bombed and data-scraped by toxic (anti)social media and a dying, trigger-baiting internet that exists only to chase our dopamine-depleted dollahs. It's crazy: but in a decade or so, the tools that were meant to connect us have been weaponised into wedges to divide us. When rags like The New Yorker start running pieces called 'Why the Internet Ain't Fun Any More' then you know the jig is definitely up.

So why is it so damn hard to let go? Some of you have probably tried out - (or are still trying) - assorted federated networks, Discord servers or even a dumbphone option like Punkt, but maybe something's missing, something's not quite right. It doesn't feel like Home. Not yet, at least. Wherever me / you / us end up, it's gonna take a while for us to downshift and adapt from years of synaptic bombardment.

For me, transitioning away from platforms like Facebook and re-embracing a gentler, longer-form, more conversational format like a newsletter feels like a good (if not long-overdue) first step. It's time, I think, to stop gloomscrolling, take a looong deep breath and claw back some control over our own central nervous systems, to create novel Soft Nodes, autonomous networks and safe spaces - ones that raise our serotonin level, not leave us bloody knackered and gulpin’ for air like a beached goldfish - ones which nudge us out of 'fight or flight' and ease us into a state of 'rest and digest'. It's time to flock and swarm and swim together in new formations that keep the enemy guessing.

Okay, gonna stop now before I turn into some sort of sentient self-help book. Oh, yeah, one last thing: the name of this newsletter.

Back in the day, me'n three Somerset pals started a Punk / Post-punk fanzine called HUMAN DEBRIS. One of ‘em - Lurch, who I'd known since I was 12 - passed unexpectedly two years ago, so I decided to remix the moniker of our old zine, adding an 'E' to create something that feels like the perfect title for this cockamamie, seat-of-the-pants endeavour. Next time round I'll share a couple of unlikely-but-true stories about Human Debris.

HUMANE DEBRIS is dedicated to my old mate, and to the twin spirits of friendship and exploration.

Yer pal, Kek

I’m Kek-w, a writer of comics, films, TV and other strange fictions. I make music, art and a nuisance of myself. If you dig this newsletterzine and have a friend who might similarly enjoy, then please consider forwarding them the Subscribe url: https://humane-debris-ed6dfb.beehiiv.com/subscribe Or, equally, write a note on a scrap of paper and ask a crow to deliver it. It’s time to build our own weird lil micro-tribe. (Now I’m seeing lots of tiny ppl in fake bearskins with bamboo allotment canes singing songs in a made-up language).

If you don’t dig, then there’s an unsubscribe button at the bottom. That’s chill too. ‘No blame,’ as the i-ching says.

SLATE UPDATES

So. Here’s a quick update of my work slate - the stuff I can talk about atm.

INDIGO PRIME: BLACK MONDAY is currently running in 2000AD. Trans-dimensional capers written by yrs truly, with stunning art by Lee Carter and lettering by Jim Campbell:

NIGHTMARE NEW YORK: I’m currently finishing up the outline for the last episode of NNY, the historical horror series that I began with the late, great JOHN M BURNS before he sadly passed. The artistic reins have since been passed - with John’s blessing - to illustrator, David Roach, and colour-artist, Peter Doherty, both of whom I’ve previously worked with on SAPHIR. A Helluva team: David and Peter are doing an incredible job picking up from where John left off. Those were HUGE boots to fill, I know, but the guys have really stepped up and we’re all united in making this series a fitting tribute to one of the Greats of British Comics. When the final episode is outlined and scripted, that’ll be the end of my current swathe of work for Rebellion Publishing and I’ll be taking some much-needed downtime from corporate work to recharge me psychik batteries. But, ‘cos I’m a bloody glutton for punishment, David and I are already discussing a follow-up project.

EDWARD MONARCH POLICE MYSTERIES is a one-off, creator-owned strip - though, hopefully, it will lead into a longer series that I’ve been planning in Slow Time that expands the main character, his world and cast of supporting characters. It’s by myself, Mauro Longhini and legendary letterer, Annie Parkhouse. I wrote it back in 2022, while trying to recover from Long Covid, for a publication called 1900 (which might give you some idea of the time period that it’s set in), but it’s finally gearing up for publication via Sector 13 Comics. A dialogue-free ash-can edition of 1900 was recently announced, so here’s a lil tease for you:

Monarch is a Victorian occult detective who uses bizarre archaic technology as well as magic. Think: William Hope-Hodgeson’s Carnackie, the Ghost Hunter if he were an occult robot or some sort of living voltagepunk computer. The brief I was given was to write a strip set in 1900, but angle it as if it were written by an author from the 1870s who was trying to imagine the sorts of scientific marvels that might emerge 30 years later. And I take these sorts of brief very seriously, y’dig, ‘cos when you narrow down project parameters and adhere to them very tightly then all sorts of interesting and unexpected - and sometimes magical - stuff starts to happen. So, yeah, Monarch is a kind of Scientific Romance - Victorian Occult-Horror-SF-Detective Fiction. A warped Penny Dreadful - the Police Gazette crossed with Strand Magazine. When it gets closer to publication maybe I’ll share some of the origins / process behind the character and the strip.

Finally, I’d be daft not to plug a couple new creator-owned books you can get directly from me. First up is OTHER TIMES, a prose anthology collecting a pair o’pulse-pounding Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery tales: New-Old Skool High Adventure yarns that have sworn a blood oath of allegiance to the likes of Moorcock, Vance and Lin Carter. They’re shot through with ripe, Pulpy goodness. So saddle up your weird clockwork horse and grab a blunderbuss! Don your velvet cloak and floppy hat - let’s go! Your buckle will be well and truly swashed. You can snag a copy here, via my Bandcamp:

GHOST GOOSE is a micro-comic by myself and artist-designer, Andrew Richmond. Ghost Goose is the spirit of a bad-tempered, earthbound gander who haunts a muddy puddle or a ditch near you. When hipster gentrifiers open a pop-up artisan coffee shop in his neighbourhood, GG and his ecto-beak go on the offensive! Grab it here, goose-lovers:

Next time round, I’ll hep ya to a few other things I’ve been playin’ around with.

KID SHIRT’S CRATE DIGS

Gosh, most of you whipper-snappers are too young to remember the KID SHIRT blog I ran back in the early / mid Nowties. I was part of the, er, 1.6 Wave of Blogging, a fairly earlyish adopter - behind the Big Three (Blissblog, Woebot and K-Punk) and a few other brave pioneers - but ahead of the deluge that was to come a bit later. (It’s hard to imagine now, 20 years on, that there was a point at which blogging was, for a while, an obscure, super-niche preoccupation - or even a time when the word didn’t even exist!). I used to cover weird underground (what’s now generally known as No-Audience) music and some other more rando shotgun blasts of shit that’s probably best forgotten tbh. Part of me misses writing about music outside the rigid confines of magazines like Wire, but, equally, I have little interest in slipping back into the warm sleeping-bag of bleary-eyed 00’s blogstalgia. So, m’gonna gently start by pointing you toward some cool, interesting ppl and their gear in the weeks to come…

Liquid Library is a label based in Bristol, UK, co-run by my old pal, Owen Chambers. They put out varied and consistently brilliant music across a wide spectrum of genres. You can snag their gear here. I asked Owen to throw me a few words describing their output and he replied with this beautiful lil précis:

“Liquid Library is an "almost aggressively non-commercial" experimental tape label. Run on strictly anti-capitalist principles, we release a wide range of experimental music on small runs of tapes with custom hand made art. We also put on gigs in Bristol catering to the "no-audience underground crowd" usually based around legendary The Cube Cinema.

“ Our next releases as a label will be the debut from blown out/in the red lo-fi hip hop duo Death Rattle as well as a classic drone zoner from Zero Gravity Tea Ceremony.

“We are also collaborative with the queer avant garde puppet collective Bean Pig for a "living objects and sound" stage show at The Cube on May 10th!"

Owen’s main musical project is Carnivorous Plants, which he describes as “an ever shifting drone/noise project with no fixed members or genre. It has a binding focus on "Dawn Metal" or the ecstatic light and joy within the absolute pain and sorrow of noise. The next Carnivorous Plants album "Coral City Cameras" will be released on Liquid Library some point in the not too distant future and you can see us live at The Cube for the Enter The Noid gig on May 1st".

Dawn Metal? Oh, man, that’s so wonderfully Hopepunk. Thanks, Owen! Gonna try’n get up for one of these shows if I can. More musical shenanigans next issue-episode.

SOME EXIT CHILL

Before we hit the road, here’s a pic of my cat, Kiki. Aka The Pusser. That gal’s got it right. Soak up some Chill Kikiness; be more like Kiki. I know it’s tough out there right now - when ain’t it? - but try’n find a special little corner to call your own and inhabit it. Stick around, stick at it, keep going, your / our own special corner is around here somewhere, and - sooner or later - we’ll find it. Meanwhile, stay comfy-cosy. Later, cats…