I know, I know. I ran super late on the latest Artificial Ink Drops newsletter.
Yeah, what happened with the monthly release?
July was busy! Bimonthly is still somewhat monthly. Between a few new part time jobs (at a bar, vineyard, and event venue) plus #HotVaxSummer and the various creative stuff you’re about to read about today, I’ve been swamped!
Drain the swamp.
Keep your politics out of my newsletter.
Move it along. We don’t have all day.
No, we do not. In fact, over the weekend of Friday July 16th through Sunday the 18th, I only had 48 hours. Artificial Ink participated in the Asheville 48 Hour Film Project among 30 other teams. Per usual, each team must incorporate the same elements: character (Joe or Jolene Detweiler, painter), prop (a pill), and line of dialogue (“I'd really like to know what goes on in that head of yours”). At the kickoff, genres were pulled from a hat— Artificial Ink got suspense/thriller— and we went off to make a movie in two days. Check out our attempt GALLERY OF TERRORS embedded below in 4K definition.
My team was kept intentionally small this year, myself as its producer, writer and cinematographer. While I created the script document, the story was also brainstormed by my brother Joe Kendrick who also edited, Aaron Fields who was also assistant camera, and Rome Widenhouse who was also the director. James Martin played the lead with Daniel Henry supporting. Erich Reinhard appeared for a small cameo, also the Man beneath the Goat. Ethan Saut was our Best Key Grip Boy, Sirus Widenhouse operated sound, and Alisha Hawthorne co-produced. We ultimately won an award for “best use of genre” so you can safely and unbiasedly say the short was thrilling and suspenseful.
NO MEAN FEET, aka the Bigfoot dark comedy short film written and directed by myself and starring Joe Kendrick, is now nearly completed with only two more shots undergoing CGI edits before it’s ready to play the festival circuit, not just film festivals, but more Bigfoot and Cryptid focused events too. We want to screen the film to the right people and/or sasquatches in disguise.
I’m nearing the start of production on my next short film, a sci-fi comedy titled 4SIGHT, co-written by myself and Rome Widenhouse, which will involve some of the most talented Asheville local cast and crew. Alisha Hawthorne is cast as the lead character with supporting roles from Lauren Rivas and Franklin Rodriguez. I will direct, Sam Zeilender will DP, Rome Widenhouse will be 1st AD, and Catherine Wityk as Line Producer. There are two scattered early production dates leading up to the full weekend of September 18-19th.
During the pandemic, at least from April 2020 to now in August 2021, I wrote 33 poems in accordance with various classic structures including sonnets, odes, elegies, villanelles, limericks, and acrostics. I’ve entrusted a few of the dedicated poets in my life to read these pieces, and provide feedback before some are published in a zine-style chapbook. Keep your eyes on this newsletter for more info. I’ll probably include one of them next time.
None of that was nerdy enough for me.
Really? Because it was all still pretty up there.
I’ve remained content with my content for the Watchtower Database YouTube channel with videos like an essay on how Joel Schumacher’s live action BATMAN feature films affected the animated series and vice versa, an interview with Justin Erickson of Phantom City Creative who created over 40 unique posters inspired by BTAS episodes published in an art book from Mondo, plus coverage on the recent BATMAN: THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE SEASON II and JUSTICE LEAGUE INFINITY comics. I also recently recorded an upcoming video on the 1930s radio show sensation The Shadow!
LOST DOMINION #3 hits ComiXoloy for digital download on August 18th with print copies coming sooner than later. Adam Mullen wrote the issue with art by Marcelo Millicay, and script edits/lettering by yours truly. LOST DOMINION as a series grows in artistic quality with every issue as team members improve upon their comics chops. The first two issues are already available to read online, if you feel inclined, and look out for an upcoming Kickstarter campaign to fund TALES OF THE LOST DOMINION spin-off anthology series.
I’m in development with that same Adam Mullen on an additional anthology tentatively titled JOLT! which will include multiple unconnected 6-page short stories with twist endings, including the pitch mentioned last newsletter, which was rejected by SATELLITES but now fully written, reformatted from 3 to 6 pages, and titled “Dance on the Razor’s Edge.” I’ve got two other stories in the works for JOLT! including a short first submitted to 2000 AD’s FUTURE SHOCK segment titled “Bar Game of the Gods”, and a sequential art take on THE REPLICA RAID franchise if you can really call those films a franchise.
You just did, so I guess you can.
So I did, and so it is now. I’m also sifting through other varied freelance work that I can’t freely mention at the moment because I’m right in the middle of it, but some of which involves feature film prewriting and development for a product based movie, and independent music promotion and songwriting. Not only am I writing on behalf of other musicians, but I’m working on songs of my own. I’ve always wanted to release some original recordings.
Where can we listen?
Nowhere right now. If I ever had old music up on Soundcloud or MySpace, it has long since been taken down. Again, this newsletter is the place to find out more when there is more to share, but I’ll tell you what stuff you should be watching on your TV and listening to on your iPod or whatever now.
Netflix released an adaptation of the SWEET TOOTH graphic novels from Vertigo Comics that were originally written and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, who is personally one of my favorite living writers. The live-action series takes what that works best from the books, published across 40 issues, but reshuffles things for the episodic format, now set in Colorado rather than Canada with supporting characters introduced much earlier. Basically, a virus dismantles society as we know it, resulting in the arrival of human-animal hybrids. Maybe part of that sounds familiar? Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey’s production company Team Downey developed the series, and I am just personally overjoyed that it exists in such high quality as it does.
Currently playing in theaters, THE GREEN KNIGHT was directed by David Lowery, and starred Dev Patel as Sir Gawain in the retelling of a classic Arthurian legend. When the Green Knight comes to Camelot for a Christmas game, he allows Sir Gawain to strike him, but will repay the stroke one year later. Gawain severs the Green Knight’s head, but a year later, Gawain embarks to find the surviving Green Knight and assumably offer his own head in accordance with the rules. Definitely a dark fantasy story in the vein of John Boorman’s EXCALIBUR from 1981, but with that moody modern aesthetic we’ve come to expect from A24 Films. I caught the film while it was in theaters in a concentrated effort to support the box office for an original concept over some remake or sequel. Hopefully Hollywood paid attention.
Why would Hollywood care? We barely do.
Hey, now! You listen here…actually, yeah. Listen up for this thing.
Red Harp is an alternative folk band fronted by Garrett Kelly, and local to the Birmingham, Alabama music scene. I grew up listening to their early demos and private recordings, and caught shows whenever they happened at the Bottletree venue that since evolved into what is now the Saturn. Red Harp recently dropped a 5-track EP titled “The Heartfelt” which is their first available on Spotify alongside the single track “Restless.” Check out my favorite song from the new release, “Cursed Chaos” embedded below.
That’s all, folks. Let’s see if I put the bi in monthly for the next release!
Good-bi.
What are you doing? Leave!