Joel Jessup

Thermal lance is just an amazing phrase. I almost became a professional criminal so I could say it more often. Instead I just say it to myself every morning in the mirror.

The question of our time is how do you artistically rebel — and win — against a totally flat cultural landscape? And before my readers, who I assume are all approximately 36 years old and very tired, say, “so what, who cares?” This does matter. I mean, just look around right now lol. You know things are bad when even OpenAI President Greg Brockman is posting stuff, like “Taste is a new core skill.” If people had taste, your company wouldn’t exist, Greg. But if everything is just attention now, and attention is completely commodified by algorithmic tech platforms, how can you push back against that? Well, I am slowly coming around to a theory on the new cool: You have to essentially pre-deplatform yourself. Culture right now is determined not by human teams of editors and producers picking and choosing what youth culture gets the spotlight, but, instead, by the unthinking algorithms that power YouTube and TikTok. Which means the only things that have the level of scarcity and danger required to be seen as cool by young people will, slowly, but surely, be whatever is unacceptable on those platforms.

A post so smart I'm almost afraid to share it.

www.garbageday.email/p/the-only-t...

Purrder she Purred, a Hisses Purrphy Hisstery

He has the best sidekicks in that. A little kid! An Elvis impersonator! Frank Miller!

It's the best movie adaption of a packet of crisps

Don't set your gritty detective novel during the Winter Olympics, or the sentence "He entered the room holding a Luger" will be needlessly ambiguous

Screaming Guy Rolling Down Hill In Wheelchair Hopefully Part Of Olympics

Hell yes! Give me an escape room in a bowl with deep lore

I was going to joke about Spaceballs and then I remembered it is about a bunch of rich, arrogant people using their superior technology to steal resources from less militaristic societies...

It's because he is the ultimate teacher and therefore has eyes in the back of his head

Life, liberty, and the purse soup of happiness

My first thought was that it was some kind of XCom-alike spin-off of Maniac Mansion where you send the Edison family on missions

Congratulations! That title absolutely pops as well.

Text: The Snakestone Girls, publishing next year, is touted by the publisher as darkly 'lyrical', 'sweet' and 'beautifully realized.' Literary agent Sophie Hicks has negotiated the sale of Kit Whitfield's new 'feminist folk-horror' novel The Snakestone Girls to Anne Perry, Publisher at Arcadia Books (The Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror imprint for Quercus). It is due to be published in 2027. The Snakestone Girls follows the lives of misunderstood and powerful nine-year-old Lettie and her beloved brother Henry. He is sent to study in an English coastal town with Caroline, who conceals her magical abilities in order to prevent accusations of witchery, and instead 'supplements her income by selling fossils on the beach'. These 'three lonely people will finally be drawn together ... only to be torn apart' by prejudicial beliefs and the power of magic. Whitfield is the award-winning author of works including In Great Waters (which was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award) and the recent Gyrford series (In The Heart of Hidden Things and All The Hollow of the Sky). She also teaches writing workshops online and works as a film critic. In relation to this deal, Whitfield said that the novel was 'a joy to research' and that 'in tough times we need stories that acknowledge how dark life can get but still give us reasons to hope' - a promise that The Snakestone Girls seems bound to fulfil. The publisher Anne Perry associates the novel with the works of 'Andrew Michael Hurley, T Kingfisher and Alice Hoffman', proclaiming that 'Kit's lyrical prose is as sweet as a black cherry, but darkness chases every bite.' Screencap from trade magazine Bookbrunch.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

My next novel, THE SNAKESTONE GIRLS, will be published by Quercus in early 2027. It's a Jacobean tale of witchcraft, described by my agent as 'Fossils, feminism and found family.'

'Kit's lyrical prose is as sweet as a black cherry, but darkness chases every bite.'

Ask me anything!

Gargoyle's Quest! Unlikely I know

I was going to say that Del Toro stole the DJ from Khaled's name to use in The Last Jedi. Then I looked it that movie up and realised it hasn't come out yet. Then I started looking up if Del Toro has been in anything else with DJ Khaled. If I like a joke I'll do everything to keep it alive

It ain't the size of the fire in the brain, it's the size of the brain in the fire. Or something. You're a great guy, Jack.

Warioland: SML3

Meanwhile the Dairy Prince grows ever more covetous of the crown

Is there any actual serious precedent, in literature or film, for anyone doing that old comedy movie thing of removing the eyes from a painting so you can watch people from a secret room?

Related: cutting holes in a newspaper if you're a spy on a train.

I think that's the Louvre's new security plan for the Mona Lisa

Can't unsee a happy whale hugging her head

It's ironic that Death Metal was a spin-off of Death's Head 2, who was already a 'not your daddy's' version of Death's Head. Not your daddy's daddy's Death's Head? not your granddaddy's?

I spent a chunk of the nineties trying to get in on the ground floor of 'new' comic characters. War Machine. Thunderstrike. That weird version of Ghost Rider who had a demonic head. And yes, Death Metal.

The iOS version on the phone is very tough to control but has the advantage of making the levels look like little paper craft dioramas

I'm eating my kids' gingerbread houses. In all fairness they refused to do it themselves.

"You neigh it's your birthday! It's my birthday too, yeah!"

a screenshot of text from a website. it reads: The History of the January 1 Birthday The tradition dates back to the early days of organized horse racing, long before electronic timing and online records. Race organizers needed a simple way to group horses by age since a horse’s age often determines what races they can enter. Instead of tracking every horse’s exact birth date (which would have been a logistical nightmare), they decided that all thoroughbreds would share one official birthday: January 1.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HORSES! IT IS HORSE BIRTHDAY! HORSE!!!!!

Mines are dark, is it something to do with that?

Intellectual Property... in space! 😁