Cartoon Gravity 42

First of the year, and a brief bulletin because I'm already swamped with stuff and want to turn my attention to the next instalment of Dressing Up Dogs.

Where are we now?

Bad Memories

I've just finished a new draft of the script and we're now working to get all parties to the table so that we can get the finance signed off for a July 2026 shoot. This is the film industry, so there are a host of things that can go wrong between now and then (and even between when I type these words and when you read them) but this is the closest we have come.

If this works out, it looks like we have another movie lined up right behind it with the same money-people.

If it doesn't, I will have a tantrum and break some shit and then I will figure out another way to do it.

Crowley

The rough edits of the main recording are done. We still have one big scene and a bunch of readings to record at the end of the month, and then we will be on the home stretch.

Mythos 4

The second draft of the Mythos 4 script went out to the production team on Friday. We have dotting and crossing to do and then we can firm up dates, times and places to record at the end of this month.

Other projects

I finished a new movie script over the break, and I think this one I'm going to put together myself to shoot in Europe sometime soon.

I also got word just this morning from the US that the script for a TV show I wrote a while back is now doing the rounds and is garnering some very positive attention... We'll see where that goes.

"Dressing Up Dogs"

As mentioned at the top, the first instalment of Dressing Up Dogs, which is a kind-of look back over my career so far as a way to take stock and, hopefully, extract some wisdom from seemingly disparate events, is up now and won't go behind the paywall until the next instalment lands. Hopefully that will happen this week.

Into 2026...

Clearly, this year has started as a roaring bin-fire from a geopolitical perspective. I also note that, closer to home, the far-right Reform party have candidates knocking on doors while all the other parties are burying their heads in the sand, hoping against reason that Britain won't decide to elect some more fascists. The English swastikas flapping from lamp-posts throughout rural England suggests that, should these dense racists prove capable of finding a polling station, we may very well be in trouble.

We don't usually do politics around here, for good reason, but let me just say that, however bad things might be, however useless the incumbent party may seem (and Dear God, they do seem useless), there is never any excuse whatsoever for a human being to vote for a fascist candidate. Farage is a fascist, his party is a fascist party and if you give them your vote, no matter what bullshit excuse you try to furnish yourself with, you are a fascist.

This is a sensitive topic for me, because ever since The Haunter of the Dark was released I have been receiving sporadic messages and e-mails calling me "woke" because I made the bad guys ACTUAL FUCKING NAZIS. Usually these messages contain some notion along the lines of "Is it fascist to love your country?" To which the answer is no, it probably isn't, which is why there was no mention of the bad guys in Haunter "loving their country"; we just talked about them being ACTUAL FUCKING NAZIS. The line between that and some kind of erroneous patriotism has been drawn only by the complainants, and says far more about them than they probably want it too.

Put simply, not all patriots are fascists, but all fascists wear the cloak of patriotism.

And, to be even clearer, you're not dangling a limp St George's flag from a lamp-post on a roundabout because you're a patriot, you're doing it because you're a racist.

Where were we? Ah yes, 2026. I hope this will be a big year for the Pleasant Green Universe; if all goes according to plan, I'm going to be able to make a few announcements on that over the next month or so. Let's not tempt fate here though...

As for Cartoon Gravity, Wednesday Wonders will continue for as long as there are wonders to behold, this newsletter will also continue, and I plan for a lot more creative non-fiction stuff on Cartoon Gravity Pro - about writing and directing, but also about less obvious subjects that I nonetheless hope will be of interest.

Selfishly, the more I can make this site and the Pleasant Green site pay for themselves through subscriptions, the freer I will be to devote time to them, and to the creation of more prose, audio fiction, and film and TV work based in the Pleasant Green and Kaleidoscope Universes - that stuff has to be created, at least initially, without paymasters in order for it to be creatively interesting and consistent. So if you can, please take out a subscription either here or at Pleasant Green (or go crazy and do both?!).

App and Analogue Stack

Finally, it wouldn't be a new year without an update on the app stack, and on analogue tools (I am going more and more analogue this year)...

App Stack

• Sunsama has just transformed how it deals with its "backlog" items, and that has turned it into a great standalone to do app and time-blocker. I love this system and find it uniquely calming. I am also feeding in a Trello board to let me get a handle on the delivery of all the Kickstarter elements.
• Capacities is my notes app of choice right now. I ping around these, but keep coming back to Capacities because it is jut better than everything else, and is being developed a lot faster.
• Mind Node. I mentioned this in Wednesday Wonders recently. I love a mind map, and have started using this for all kinds of workings-out, not just story stuff.
• Aeon Timeline. This has just had a big update, which I have not yet kicked the tyres on, but Aeon is a story-organising tool par excellence.
• Arc Studio. This has been my primary screenwriting tool for a while now, and it just gets better and better.
• Vivaldi. The demise of the Arc browser had me searching around for a replacement, ideally a non-US one. Vivaldi is Norwegian and works incredibly well across desktop and mobile.

Analogue Stack

• The Hobonichi Cousin is my day-planner, and I could not love it more if I tried.
• Uniball Jetstream. I use these pens constantly, and I use Jetstream refills in my Drehgriffel pens too. It's gel ink that is incredibly smooth but which dries almost instantly.
• Dingbats Notebook. The Dingbats A6 is the pocket notebook that travels everywhere with me. I pair it with a Drehgriffel pen with the Flow Blue ballpoint refill, because the combo works very well.
• MD Codex. I have decided to keep a proper diary this year, as opposed to a journal/commonplace book, and that is happening in the Codex, which lays flat and offers an (undated) page-per-day. Lest anyone be concerned that I have gone all the way Drehgriffel, the diary is fountain pen only.
• Travelers Notebook. Longer form ideas and workings-out happen (again via fountain pen) in a Travelers Notebook housed in a leather cover from the fine folks at Galen Leather in Istanbul.

Recommendations

Mr Scorsese on Apple TV is a fantastic documentary series. I was initially wary, worried that it would just be a retread of all the behind-the-scenes stuff Scorsese fans already know. But it isn't, it's genuinely comprehensive and interesting and very human. It may even prove illuminating to those couple of readers I know of who have had bruising encounters with the man himself...

Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd is one of the best books I have read in a long while.

This Directors' Round Table is really interesting, and it's kind of heartwarming to see how well they all get along.

And now Sunsama informs me that I am getting behind on the day, so I bid you adieu and head off to a delightful hour of admin.

Until next time...

Fuck it. Send.