Storycomic Weekly Newsletter: March 14th
ALWAYS POSTED A WEEK EARLIER ON PATREON
🚨 Storycomic Patreon Update for Creators 🚨
If you're an author, indie comic creator, game designer, or storyteller looking for more visibility, the Storycomic Patreon is one of the easiest ways to get your work in front of a growing audience.
For just $5 a month (about the price of a cup of coffee), you get some real promotional benefits:
🎙 Front-of-the-Line Recording Access
I’m often booking podcast interviews three months in advance, but Patreon members jump to the front of the line. This is especially helpful if you have a time-sensitive launch, Kickstarter, or new release coming up.
🔗 Permanent Show Notes Promotion
Your website or project link will be included in the show notes of all interviews as long as you’re a member.
📣 Social Media Promotion
We’ll regularly help promote your projects across Storycomic’s social media channels.
And remember, the Storycomic podcast has over 30,000 downloads, so it’s a great way to get your work discovered by readers and fellow creators.
For the cost of a coffee each month, you get promotion, visibility, and priority booking.
If you’re a creative looking to grow your audience, it’s a pretty great deal.
👉 Join us on Patreon and let’s share your story with the world.
I.M. Aiken brings small-town Vermont malfeasance to the page in Stolen Mountain
On this episode, I’m talking with Vermont author I.M. Aiken, whose fiction is set in the fictional town of Trowbridge, Vermont—a place that feels familiar in all the best and worst ways. Her newest novel, Stolen Mountain (Catalyst Press), is a legal thriller with real heart behind it, and it wastes no time dropping you into trouble.
The story follows Brighid Doran, an EMS Captain turned sleuth, who starts paying attention to The Branston Club, a swanky ski lodge project being built in her rural town. The deeper she digs, the more heat she draws—from small-town politicians, crooked cops, and a growing pile of deceptions that threatens to blow back on everyone she cares about. At the same time, Brighid is trying to hold steady through the repeated deployments of her wife, Major Sarah “Sam” Ann Musgrave, which adds a raw, human tension to every decision.
In our conversation, we talk about building a town readers can return to, writing suspense that still feels grounded, and why Vermont stories can carry big stakes without ever leaving the back roads.
Tae-Yeon Lee on building a big indie swing: Return of the Rooftop Koreans
In my newest interview, I’m joined by Tae-Yeon Lee, creator and writer of the 140+ page graphic novel Return of the Rooftop Koreans—a full-color, perfect-bound book that mixes real history, contemporary tension, and high-energy action into a story with real bite.
We talk through the behind-the-scenes realities of building a project at this scale: developing the concept, making worldbuilding choices that can hold up over a long page count, and coordinating an international art team to keep quality and consistency strong from start to finish. Tae shares practical insight into what it takes to not only create a book like this, but to launch it in the indie comics space with confidence—down to format decisions and marketing considerations.
What stood out most is how Tae balances humor and self-awareness with thoughtful social commentary. The conversation becomes a look at how comics can explore community resilience and generational identity through genre storytelling—without turning into a lecture and without losing the entertainment value.
If you love indie comics, want to learn from a creator who went big, or you’re curious how history and action can share the same page, this episode is well worth your time.
Project Update: Basketball Season Slowing Things Down
Progress on Appliance is still a bit slow at the moment, mostly because basketball season at the radio station has been taking up a lot of time. Between preparing for the broadcasts, running the board, and getting everything lined up for game nights, the evenings have been pretty full.
That said, the project hasn’t stopped entirely. I’m still checking in on it when I can—reviewing sections, making notes, and continuing to chip away at the edits. It may not be big leaps forward right now, but the work is still happening.
Once basketball season wraps up, I’m hoping to carve out a little more focused time to really dig back into Appliance. For now, it’s a matter of balancing the busy season at the station while keeping the project moving along in the background.
Book Review: Primitives – A Wild Journey Through the Ruins of Humanity
Primitives by Erich Krauss is the kind of post-apocalyptic adventure that grabs you early and doesn’t really let go. Set roughly thirty years after a catastrophic event known as “The Great Fatigue,” the novel imagines a world where a misguided cure caused most of humanity to regress into primitive, animal-like beings. What remains is a scattered population of thinking humans trying to survive among the ruins of the old world.
The story follows two unlikely heroes on opposite sides of the globe. Seth Keller lives in isolation in the desert with his scientist father until a shocking discovery forces him out into the dangerous world beyond. Meanwhile, Sarah Peoples lives in a tightly controlled colony in Costa Rica, where she too uncovers a secret that sends her fleeing into the wilderness. As the chapters alternate between Seth and Sarah, their separate journeys slowly move toward a shared destiny tied to the survival of the human race.
What makes Primitives work so well is the balance between action and bigger ideas. On the surface, it’s a fast-moving survival story filled with danger, travel, and strange encounters in a broken world. But underneath that, the novel wrestles with a deeper question: if humanity caused its own downfall, does it deserve a second chance?
Krauss builds a vivid and unsettling world, yet keeps the focus on flawed, determined characters trying to find meaning in it. Primitives is gritty, imaginative, and thoughtful—a post-apocalyptic adventure that delivers both thrills and something to think about long after the final page.
Personal Update: Turning the Page Toward Spring
It feels like we’re finally starting to turn the corner into the beginnings of spring, and with that comes the end of basketball season. This past week marked our final week of games, and now it’s officially all wrapped up. Broadcasting the games is always a lot of fun, but it definitely makes for some long days and late nights. Still, it’s a big part of what we do, and it’s satisfying to see another full season in the books.
At the paper, I’m also starting the process of transitioning more fully away from the previous owner and taking more direct control over the week-to-week aspects of running it. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but mostly exciting. It feels like another step forward in really shaping the paper into what it can become.
This week was also the final stretch of school vacation for Iggy. One of the highlights was bringing him to work with me for a day. He had a great time poking around, seeing how things run, and just being part of the day. Those kinds of moments are always special.
One funny realization this week: a new expansion for World of Warcraft came out, and I barely had time to play any of it. A few years ago that probably would have been a big deal—but honestly, it just reminded me how much I’m enjoying the work I’m doing these days. When you’re excited about your day-to-day work, missing a little game time doesn’t feel like much of a sacrifice at all.
My Work Helper this week
Long day for the kiddo