I’m back from SPACE, still collecting my thoughts, but I saw on YouTube that Steve Keeter and Larned Justin did a quick video review of Hologram #4 on their show. I have it cued up for you here:
I greatly appreciate Larned and Steve giving the book some time for comment as it comes out. They’re providing an incredible service to small press creators and fans alike by sharing their thoughts and also by simply sharing the existence of small press books. Strange, what with so many social media groups, channels, websites, apps, etc. — it’s still genuinely challenging to know what this amazing community of creators is up to! So their efforts are both informing and entertaining along the way.
The guys mentioned the “sadness” of the story on their reviews of this and other issues, and I won’t dispute that there’s an element of that in the mix. It also is only one-third of the way through a 12-part story, and life never is a bunch of roses day in and day out. So keep the faith!
Seriously, there’s a larger picture to this first arc that I look forward to talking about. It’s all scripted; I know where it’s going. Most likely, I’ll share my thematic notions as a forward in the collected edition of the 12 issues once they are complete. It’s hard to talk about it openly until the entire story is presented, which is one of the big drawbacks to short-installment storytelling in the minicomics format. I don’t want to give everything away, and I’d like the larger themes to present themselves organically just as they are presented to our hero Joe every day.
So I’ll bite my tongue, confident that some of the larger plot points will shake themselves out by the end of this arc. I’ll also say that the last page of Chapter 12 is dated on Christmas Day 1991, a long way from the end of the story on New Year’s Eve, 2021. Some things just won’t resolve themselves quickly. Funny how life is.
Every tomorrow is a new day when you are Counting The Days. Search for the joy in each and every moment, and you might find something to grasp onto…something to keep you going as you continue looking for deeper truths.
Every issue of Hologram (now up to #5…getting mailed out today!) is available for download for free in PDF form via the Library tab at the top of every page. You also can order paper copies via the Order tab.
Phoenix Productions 