#Hollow Press

[strange-house-art]

Lucca Comics & Games lets go!

[fght-ff-yr-dmns]

Vermis by Plastiboo

Reading this for a second time, instant classic.

Which side would you choose?

[doshmanziari]

For a gift, I recently received @plastiboo's first Vermis book, which reads like a strategy guide for a nonexistent dungeon crawler videogame, and was inspired to do doodle several musical pieces for a similarly themed, nonexistent title. I leave it up to listeners to assign their own contexts for these tracks.

[strixludica]

I recently finished reading the Vermis manual.

A lot of people who read it seem mostly concerned with he implied mechanics of the fictional videogame, which is a cool and interesting discussion, bit I think the themes are an even deeper well to explore.

I think it's quite curious how Good and Evil are treated as both opposed metaphysical forces of light and dark AND emergent human behaviours.

I mean, the flavour text for the Good Flesh talks about striving to keep hope going in the face of opposition and disappointment, while the flavour text for the Evil Flesh isn't some villain monologue, just a sort of resigned justification about how Darkness is invincible and we're all doomed anyway, so You might as well be evil.

Even with the character classes, there are some scary, messed up people in there, but the only one that is completely 100% evil isn't the dark sorcerer that literally weaves nightmares out of shadow, it's the little gremlin who consistently does not give a crap about other people.

And don't even get me started about the fact that the Moon is both the force that allows your living corpse to dream of alternate pasts and makes it confront the Fog Spirit in the swamp. Is the Moon a trickster? A mercurial force of both good and evil whose only consistent trait is dealing with illusions? Or is it maybe a guide for the lost and the dead that uses visions and dreams to shepherd them through the Darkness?

And if so, why is it showing the dreaming corpse alternate pasts? Is it mere passing generosity, or is there a grander purpose behind these visions? Something it must figure out? Something that might get be done to heal this world sickened by greed and neglect?

[vintagerpg]

Which flesh is your flesh? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, well, we don’t find out the answer to that question, but we DO check out the mysterious RPG-inspired art book Vermis I, by Plastiboo. This gorgeous artifact takes the form of a strategy guide for a videogame that doesn’t exist and draws clear inspiration from the Souls games, early videogame RPGs like Shadowgate and a whole wealth of tabletop games. It’s gorgeous and unsettling and deeply intriguing and, hands down, one of my favorite things I’ve added to the shelf in a long time.

[animehouse-moe]

Animehouse at TCAF 2023

So for the uninitiated, TCAF is the Toronto Comics and Arts Festival, and it was held this weekend from Friday to Sunday. Sadly, I could only make the Sunday so I was unable to attend Mayuzuki's panel on the Saturday, but at the very least I made the signing on Sunday morning! All that said, this is just a little post sharing my thoughts and purchases from the festival as I had a great time and wanted to share that with people that were unable to make it there.

I'll get the boring stuff out of the way, my thoughts on it. It's a really cool and fun festival, I got there a half an hour before it opened since I had travelled from outside of the city, so I got myself a really nice spot in line. I was really surprised at how lax it was lining up, there were maybe a dozen people total in front of me, and the line only really started piling up in the last 15 or so minutes to get in.

Once I was in I got to take in the layout, which was rather cramped. I get it, they're operating it out of a library, there's not a whole lot of space. But I do still think it made for a bit of a suffocating experience when squeezing past people to walk in the narrow pathways between booths and bookshelves. Given the attendance, and the fact that it's free entry, I feel like they could really afford an upgrade if they required purchasing a pass for the festival. I'd 100% support it because it means the people that are behind it and participate in it as exhibitors could expand what they're doing and offer even cooler stuff.

Now, this is a comics and art festival, so I don't quite have a right to complain or voice my opinion, but I'll do it anyways. I love how they're integrating manga into the festival and using it to pull in people that might not otherwise experience comics in the more genuine sense outside of what's marketed by Marvel and DC. But I do also feel like they might try a little more to get a stronger response from that demographic. Both Denpa and Glacier Bay Books were there, and I feel like it's a bit of a missed opportunity to not have had them run a panel or anything for manga fans.

And last but not least, programming. I think it's really awesome that they're being proactive in getting younger audiences engaged in comics that exist outside of those big name ones like I said earlier. It's great to see them foster and encourage an interest that will help keep an industry going in the face of being overtaken in the public eye by superheroes.

Alright alright, manga stuff! Jun Mayuzuki was obviously the main attraction for me at the festival, so I made a B line for the signing table right when the festival opened. While I was there I bought this poster.

And I got this one for free with the signing.

And then of course there's the actual signature. I'm a bit (well really a massive) geek for this stuff so you know I had to get Mayuzuki to sign a JP copy of Kowloon Generic Romance volume 1 (real name omitted/edited out). It was a really great experience and Mayuzuki was incredibly nice, and seemed happy/surprised that I brought a JP volume to get signed.

Now, following that I've still got some cool stuff. Glacier Bay Books had a booth there and were selling some of the volumes they carry, so I picked up a pair I didn't have. Their quality really is incredible. Such a nice weight in the hands, the binding is tight without being rigid, and the paper quality when comparing to something like Viz is just stellar. Oh, and the color of the paper is dependent on the volume (Karman Line is blue/white while Mermaid Town is black with a red trim on the edge so the pages look red from the outside)

And Hollow Press came by and surprised me! These dudes are from Italy and are a horror publisher so I was super surprised to see them come all the way to Toronto for the festival, so I 100% had to pick up some stuff from them (not pictured are Grayworld & Crystal Bone Drive by Tetsunori Tawaraya because Tumblr is squishing the image horizontally for some reason). They've got really similar quality to Glacier Bay but put out a lot more smaller books than them. Still, great stuff (and for those in Canada, both Glacier Bay and Hollow Press titles are carried through The Beguiling!)

So yeah, a really awesome day where I got a lot of really awesome stuff. Being in Canada, there's not a lot of conventions or festivals that are easy or affordable to access, so a very grateful hats off to the team for bringing stuff to the general population that they can experience both in person and online!

[owldecibel]

making lore books for media that doesn’t exist outside of said lore book is kind of brilliant and an ingenious way for storytelling in this day and age. Plastiboo is such an incredibly smart creative. I saw that hollow press has a category for these kinds of things which included three other artists and their collections. and I thought wow u know what I would seriously love to see more and more people do this. what a pioneering idea

[adornesibley]

Rip it apart, put it back together: a Newsletter

Reading: (rereading) The Reddening by Adam Neville, (rereading) John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin, The Echoes by Evie Wyld, (rereading) Camp Damascus

Finished Reading: (rereading) Black River Orchard

Podcast: N/A

Playing: Cyberflesh (details below), The End is Nigh, Dread Delusion

Making: Zines, DOOM levels

Writing: Project E

Word Count: 154046 (PARTY POPPERS!)

TLDR: Bog Crow revival, NeW zInEs, Horror comfort, CYBERFLESH DEMANDS PAIN, Old web/ new site, SEND ME PETS!, The great word culling

A tragedy happened a while ago that I am yet to return from. My kittens ate my Bog Crow. And by that I mean that I had worked tirelessly on the second edition of my Umbralexicon TTRPG zine and then, before I got a chance to scan it, the kittens tore it up. The kittens are alive and well but the zine has been in a drawer. I haven't been able to even look at it long enough to figure out how to start fixing it.

This morning, I gutted my Patreon and chose to use “anachronism” and “bog crow” as my tier names. So, I had to look at her… and now I know how to fix her. Expect updates soon.

But, if you haven't seen, I've been making zines! It feels so good to pour myself into art. To become lost (in the sauce) in my feelings enough to be able to express them in ways I feel may be helpful to others and helpful to myself. It is so much better than just crying in the shower… that might make a good blinkie actually… like an advertisement for making art. “Are you sick of crying in the shower? Have you had enough of trying to scrub the tear stains out of your pillows? You should try ART!” 

And so, I’ve tried art. I made two zines in the past week. The larger of my two projects is called EVERYTHING’S FINE & FUCK THE OLIGARCHY: An alternative guide to alternatives, and is available on ITCH and my website. The other was a stream of consciousness zine to vent some awful feelings. It’s called “i scared” and is also available on ITCH and my website.

With how awful and terrifying the world is I find an odd comfort in re-reading horror novels where I know what’s going to happen, and just how bad it’s going to get before it’s all over… I’m still thrilled with my progress when it comes to reading this year, but I need some literary popcorn to get me through this particular moment in history. Also Evie Wyld is my comfort blanket, and I am thankful for her every day.

So, my sibling is the sweetest and got me a big surprise for the holidays. They didn’t tell me what they were sending for Christmas, but I suddenly got a very large box from Hollow Press. Turns out, from a large list of wildly cost-varying items, my sibling bought the single most expensive item I sent.

WELCOME TO CYBERFLESH.

This is, essentially, an old-school dungeon crawling board game! I never owned one of these styles of game back in the day, but from what I know about Heroquest and Space Hulk, it’s kinda like those! In terms that I can confirm it’s actually like, it’s essentially an analog version of a roguelike dungeon crawler. With random events, loot, mutations (modifiers you can/ have to get as you play, some of which are detrimental.), a large cast of enemies and bosses, and semi-random layouts, there’s a hell of a lot of replayability. I have only managed to survive through about half of the game so far, but it has still been a blast.

I do feel it is pretty imbalanced for singleplayer, but I already have a house rule that I feel benefits the game significantly. If you end up in a “combat phase” and have three or more enemies, and survive, you get a piece of loot, regardless of what the enemies say. This is one of the most unforgiving parts of the game, I feel. You can have combat that you cannot run from, and then receive no benefits from it at all, and lose a bunch of health… Pretty much if you get a big fight early on, and none of the enemies give loot, you should just reset the game. @-@

It’s also playable with up to two other people. (They say four, but the fourth player is just the “GM” who does all the rolls for the enemy, and reads out the events, which is something the players would be doing anyway.)

I would buy the hell out of an expansion for this. With extra enemies, playable characters, loot, and events. Heck even a sort of sequel for what happens just outside of the “Stomach Prison” part of the world that this game takes place in.

I have strongly considered scanning the front and back of a card and bashing my own custom cards for this… if you glued two pieces of paper front to back, it’d be close to the same thickness as the playing cards in this game.

I do want to note also that there is SO MUCH replayability because you can only ever have 8 random events on the board in each game, which leaves plenty of chances to replay and experience events you missed on previous playthroughs.

My one other big gripe is that the “Bookbox” is just a gimmick which makes me sad that the book that’s glued to the box wasn’t just a book that I can remove and put on a shelf…

I have been lovingly programming and adding to my Neocities over the past few months~ It has been such a joy to work on and learn HTML and CSS. I seriously cannot recommend making a personal website enough. It is so freeing~ Because there’s no algorithm over there you are not incentivised to make ANYTHING… so you’re free to make whatever the hell you feel like. 

On the note of doing whatever I feel like, I’ve felt the need and pull to make a calmer version of my site. I haven’t made it any less colorful, but I have been altering all blinkies to either have much slower frame-rates or less movement overall so that the website is less overwhelming and stimulating for folks who have a hard time with that. I get that not everyone experiences calm when completely bombarded with visual stimuli like me. XD It’s like listening to breakcore while I edit. It soothes me~

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ATTENTION ALL PET OWNERS⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. I wanna make a zine called "The Pets of Neocities" If you would like your fur/scale/fin/feather/shell/water/rock baby to be included, please email me a pic of them with a little bio. The zine will be free & downloadable & printable. I love the idea of making community projects & this came to me & hasn't let go XD Email photos w/ names and bios of pets to adornesibley@gmail.com!

Culling words from Project E has been cathartic AF. I once looked at her hulking, monstrous form and said “she’s beautiful! Change nothing!” But now I'm taking a chainsaw to her and leaving behind so much torn flesh… I think she's Becoming. But also I worry… am I stripping her of all that is me? By whittling her down am I making her look like all the other girls with their perfect word counts and their lack of conjunctions at the beginnings of sentences? But I continue on. And I keep hoping and praying and cursing and loving this beast for who she is. Beautiful in all her forms.

Support weird. Support our right to resist and protest the injustice in our world. Do it with your words, your art, your actions. They are only billionaires with our money. They only have power which we allow them to have.

Also, no, Tumblr, I'm not dead, just elsewhere. XD Feel free to reach out on neocities, or Bluesky.

[plastiboo]

[bobfishpresents]

❤️ European based @MicheleNitri-hollow-press publishes great comics both... @hollow-press

[strange-house-art]

My book AGE OF ROT, the new ”Lore Game Book” published by amazing Hollow Press will be previewed end of October in Lucca Comics and Games. Available on Hollow Press webshop in mid-november

[fght-ff-yr-dmns]

My copy of Vermis has finally arrived and boy was it worth the wait.

It's so creepy, but also calming and pensive, if that makes sense.

It's a guidebook for a game that doesn't exist...

I just absolutely love the art, takes me right back to those dungeon crawler NES games.

I'd really like to take part in a Vermis themed D&D session.

Definitely one for fans of retro gaming, horror art, pixel art and general work similar to that of Berserk and Bloodbourne, Elden Ring, Dark Souls etc.

[mxmegane]

Vermis acquired!

[krazydraws]

I don’t want to feel better.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Market based mistakes.

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[ahollowgrave]

-- mistletoe. pt i.

(feat. the very handsome Ryss of @oneiroy)