Behold! Your weekly letter from me, Warren Ellis No Images? Click here ORBITAL OPERATIONS Hello from out here on the Thames Delta, where I am dealing with a problem that I caused myself by writing an episode outline that was wrong and stupid and somehow hidden until I started writing the episodes in question and discovered that Past Me is a fucking idiot who has screwed with my life again. NEWS: I have none. I think something is getting announced next week. Right now I'm just immersed in the show, writing, recording, casting, listening to music passes, approving designs and key animation segments, all the things at once. Paying very close attention to my calendar, because I have three crucial marks to hit in the next month or else everything falls down. I can relax a tiny bit, or at least slow down a little, after June 7, so right now it's just getting to that point without dying. I can die after June 7. I'm writing this bit on Saturday, and my brain is fully rebelling. "Warren you want to write a philosophical detective story, you find writing novels so easy" "Warren you want to invent your own superhero comic you looooove superheroes" Someone come over here and just slap a leash on my brain, I have vampire jump scripts to write (When Kieron Gillen interviewed me in Leeds last year, he forgot the title CASTLEVANIA and had to refer to it as "vampire jump game". So now it's Vampire Jump Show forever) I love this story. A thousand-year-old shaman's bundle proven to have been loaded with tools for multiple drug use. The discovery of both harmine and DMT means they could either have been making small batch aya or a snuff. Both of which were identified in a pouch made out of three fox snouts! Here's a WORKPLACES EDC for you. And now, the news. THE NEWS, With Lordess Foudre: created for Orbital Operations by Lordess Foudre Lordess Foudre Instagram - Lordess Foudre print shop This is a fun thing I read: Hyperverbal, very inventive, deep dive into conspiracy theory from someone who did all the reading from way the fuck back and probably has some Art Bell saved on tape or mp3 somewhere. Well worth a look. Writer Patrick Kindlon is really hitting his stride. Also impressing me this week is THUMBS by Sean Lewis and Hayden Sherman, which Image showed me three issues of. I found a preview. Its final order cut-off is Monday, so drop your local store a note and tell them you're going to want to see a copy. Sean Lewis is a clever writer, and I think Hayden Sherman is one of the great new artists of the last few years. (By which I mean, like, if I were able to do regular comics still, I would murder all his collaborators and litter the space around his house with bear traps) Oh my god. Juan Santapau just released a new online comic, and it is fully insane. ORGONE NOIR. Stick with it all the way through. Me too, Laura, me too Juan is one of the unsung geniuses of the medium. Oh, look at this crazy thing I just found: Art by Mike Hinge, from a long-forgotten short in 1970s HEAVY METAL, as surfaced by the excellent 70s Sci-Fi Art blog. ++ SPEKTRMODULE I can no longer find this for sale anywhere - it's the extra track on Brian Eno's NEROLI, called NEW SPACE MUSIC, and somebody has gotten it on YouTube. It's an hour long, and have a relaxing listen to it before somebody takes it down. I'm actually really pissed off I can't find that package for a reasonable price. As noted on LTD, I am re-building my personal media library, which involves finding CDs and DVDs that have been scattered to the four corners of my house over the years, and buying new CDs and DVDs because I can't keep relying on the internet (and a solid connection) or digital storage for this shit. This does not stop me spending too much money every week on Bandcamp. Clearly I have problems. If you're just joining me and have forgotten why you subscribed: I'm Warren Ellis, author, comics writer, public speaker, screenwriter, producer, Doctor of the University of Essex, visiting Professor to York St John University, Patron to Humanists UK and writer/co-producer of CASTLEVANIA on Netflix. Please add warrenellis@orbitaloperations.com to your address book so I don't keep getting marked as sp7m just for sending you an email with four fucking links in it. If you enjoy this newsletter, perhaps you'd like to infect your friends with it, by driving them to http://orbitaloperations.com and forcing them to give me their email address. Forward them your copy of this newsletter to see if they like it. I post during the week at LTD. You may also enjoy some of the thinking that goes into this newsletter. Okay, I have to go fix this script, because there's something in the outline that is bad and stupid and wrong and breaks the story. You are not bad or stupid or wrong, and you get to walk away from any idiot who insists otherwise. You are your own damn person and you get to run your own damn life. You're good. Hold on tight. See you next week.