Take Cover! It's a Flying Jellyfish!
Cover art updates, my art in a movie, and the latest UFO sightings!
Happy New Year, Explorers!!!
(Wait, it already started?…TWO WEEKS AGO?? Okay, well…)
I have been busy over the holiday season with traveling and starting a new work year, so I’m off to a slow start. However, I do have some cool updates for you on my comics and art work:
The Airship Covers are in Production!
I have two covers being made for my 20 page one-shot, The Airship, being published by CEX! Cover A will be by the same artist who created the internal pages, Nico Longoria, and I am excited to announce Cover B will be by one of my favorite convention artists, Karen Hallion! I really wanted someone who’s work fit the story about women pilots in the early 1900’s. Karen’s work felt like a perfect match with her influence of art nouveau styles and the success of her popular She series featuring famous fictional and non-fictional women. I am so honored she agreed to work on this project with me!
The goal is to have those done by the end of this month, and then it will be on to finalizing how the book will be put together and distributed. I know this has been a long time coming, so I hope I will have a way to get you your own copy very soon in 2024.
My Art in American Fiction
Format: Feature film
Director: Cord Jefferson
Production Designer: Jonathan Guggenheim
Where to watch: Wherever you can find your closest art house theater
I am also proud to finally share that I have a satirical piece of art featured in a major independent film right now, American Fiction! An old friend, Jonathan Guggenheim, with whom I used to perform comedy, has been building a career for years as an art director and production designer on independent films. He has reached out to me a couple of times for pieces he felt my style would suit, which is how I ended up with this Ruth Bader Ginsburg piece in the film.
American Fiction is a film about how racial stereotypes are perpetuated in American media. It is a deep examination of the publishing world where Jeffrey Wright’s character, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, sets aside his true author identity as a college writing professor to write under a more “marketable” pseudonym to sell books. The pseudonym author is, of course, writing about a stereotypical black “real world” experience—that doesn’t exist.
I finally went to see the film a few weeks ago, and it is a fantastic piece of work. The script is smart, funny, touching, and will leave you thinking for a long time. All the acting performances are wonderful, and the producers and performers have been getting nominations from many major award ceremonies including the Golden Globes!
If you want to read more about my experience working on this job, you can check it out here:
Jellyfish, Triangles—What will these wacky aliens think of next?
Did you see the latest UFO video leaked out of a US army base in Iraq?? They’re calling it the “jellyfish” UFO, and when you see it, you will understand why. Plus, an air traffic control recording from a pilot in December describes a sighting of a floating triangular object. Follow the link below for videos and Casey’s hot takes!
As always, Next Stop Unknown does not like to promote any questionable sightings without a more skeptical counterpoint argument. This week, Judy O’Malley, Casey’s wife, gladly provided her perspective on the events—sort of.
Next Time!
Over the past year, I have been meaning to do a deep dive into a writing structure that is used almost exclusively in eastern storytelling called “kishotenketstu.” This style of story structure is often credited as the reason eastern stories strike such a different tone from western stories in animation and comics. However, despite many analyses of the structure by many a video blog, I have had a hard time really identifying what actually sets kishotenketsu apart from a classic western three or four act structure.
Recently I came across a video that I thought pointed out one distinguishing feature I found compelling: the kishotenketsu stories often lack a clear antagonist that must be defeated to resolve a protagonist’s central conflict. This concept opened some doors for me that I want to explore in more depth. Unfortunately for you, I did more research and planning last weekend into my own first-time visit to Japan later this spring (!), so this deep dive is going to have to wait.
In the meantime, if you would like to learn more about what I am talking about, here’s the video I was referring to that uses some Studio Ghibli movies as examples. (SPOILER WARNING if you have not seen My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, or Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind):
Sterling Martin is a writer, artist, and designer living in Chicago, IL. His background includes drawing, writing, theatre, teaching, improv & sketch comedy, and whatever else he can get his hands on to be creative. You can find him on the internet at:
Instagram: @sterfest.art (but it’s really starting to test my patience)
Website: sterlingmartin.design
Tik-tok: That’s the one you make videos, right?
Linkedin: I’m pretty sure I have one of those
Facebook: Ugh, do I have to?
Congratulations on all of this, man!
I'm looking forward to watching the video. I once did a presentation on kishotenketstu for my co-workers but I really want to learn more.