SPECTATORS - Part 86
Plus, a new Artopsy from Niko Henrichon!
Well, at least I’m not last in my Rundle.
Brian here, and a friend recently roped me into an online trivia tournament called Learned League, and it’s a fun daily reminder that, while my areas of expertise might be narrow (NBC Saturday morning cartoons of the 1980s, etc.), they’re also shallow (I kind of remember two episodes of Snorks).
All I do is wake up and get things wrong, in a dizzying variety of categories. Here’s a recent question (which our 12-year-old immediately answered correctly) that made my stomach hurt:
In the linear equation with the general form y = mx + b, what word is typically used to indicate what is represented by "m"?
While you ponder that one (unless you also knew it instantly, in which case, BE QUIET), here’s the latest from my wise and worldly collaborators Niko Henrichon and Fonografiks, who bring some more NSFW pages of innocent folks being 86’d for our disturbing 86th installment of Spectators:
More numerological horror next week.
Rapidly transitioning to a nice palate cleanser… in last week’s chat thread with you generous paid subscribers in The Tower, we were debating “the single greatest ice cream topping,” and the conversation was bananas (though that fruit didn’t make the cut).
While there were plenty of contrarians who said that the only acceptable topping is additional ice cream, others, like Nike, were more… adventuresome:
When I was a kid I would put shredded cheese on my soft serve vanilla at the buffet restaurants. I still stand by it! Surprisingly good.
I toggle between repulsed and intrigued by that one, but I can unreservedly get behind behind this recommendation from Chris T.:
Up until a few years ago, I would have said hot fudge, no questions asked, but on the last big trip we took before the world shutdown, my wife and I were in Hokkaido, and ended up in this ice cream parlor called Milk Mura in Sapporo. We stumbled on to it at random, and were the oldest people in the shop by a decade, amongst a bunch of 20-something Japanese kids on dates. They served goblets of soft serve vanilla ice cream with tiny partial shot glasses of various spirits. You would pick your 3 spirits from a book of options (including 30 year old Japanese whiskey), and they would bring them out with a tiny tiny spoon for each different alcohol. You would scoop a little bit of the whiskey or rum or gin, and pour it on each bite of the ice cream as you went. A second goblet of soft serve was included gratis, should you need it. It was a revelatory ice cream experience.
Yes.
But only one commenter could go home with that out-of-print hardcover of Y the Last Man, and our faithful intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe randomly selected nap, who said:
A shot of espresso! Affogato all the way.
Thanks for writing, chums, and apologies to you diabetic and/or lactose intolerant readers for all my sugar and dairy questions of recent. I’ll shake it up in the future, perhaps with some more math problems?
Either way, if you’ve been thinking about joining us in The Tower, we’ll randomly select one (1) new or existing free reader who signs up as an Annual subscriber this week to receive a signed copy of DC’s latest printing of the Ex Machina Omnibus (co-created with the mighty Tony Harris), straining shelves at your local comic shop as we speak.
That chonker retails for $150, but membership in The Tower is only like three bucks and change a month, so if you’ve been thinking about picking up our collection AND subscribing here, why not roll those bones on a potential combo deal today?
Either way, you Tower pals make our wholly independent work possible, so the gents and I can’t thank you enough.
Calling all Upsher and/or Doff lovers!
This is your LAST CHANCE to pick up shirts/hoodies/prints/whatever from the Saga Threadless Shop that feature this beautiful Fiona Staples image of everyone’s favorite amphibiously gay duo…
…because that design will be “retired” on November 29th (also the day the next Saga trade comes out) to make room for a NEW exclusive offering that readers have been requesting for a very, very long time.
Alert your romantic and/or journalistic partner, before it’s too late:
And felicitations to Fiona, Fonografiks, and our fabulous French friends at Urban Comics for Saga Volume 11 being named an Official Selection at this year’s Angoulême International Comics Festival.
Merci!
Before I turn the controls over to Monsieur Henrichon for an eye-popping “Artistic Artopsy,” I implore you to check out the new Substack of wildly talented comic creator and dear friend Torunn Grønbekk, who’s foolishly giving away her invaluable paining of Allfather Odin to one of you lucky subscribers:
Along with being an amazing painter, Torunn is one of the smartest, darkest, funniest writers around, so what the hell are you waiting for?
All right, I’ll be back next Monday evening with some more Saga goodies to accompany your free Spectators, bur for now, please enjoy Niko’s splendor, and have a great week!
Hi everyone,
Today’s Artopsy will be about more than a dozen commissions I recently did for the convention I attended in Madrid.
Some of these were done at home, some others in the hotel and some were done on site. They are all kinds and sizes of commissions. Unfortunately, I often forget to take pictures of the commissions done on site. That’s something I should try to focus on in the future.
For information, I only do small batches of commissions to be picked up in person, at the shows I’m going to. For commissions delivered by mail, I will be dealing with my usual art dealer at: ESSENTIAL SEQUENTIAL
I am not planning to open a commission list very soon but when Spectators is finished, that’s something that will probably happen.
Here are some timelapse videos of the Kitty Pryde commission done at home.
The result:
And here’s the rest of them.
Ten more after the jump, thanks!