Lets Go for a Ride!

Find the project here!

Welcome back, everyone! Have I got a special post for you today.

We've been talking a lot about fresh ideas and new blood in the entertainment space. It's easy to point out defects and flaws with the way things are now, but few ever try to point out solutions to move forward. This is mostly because there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer. The fact of the matter is that we are more divided than ever, and creating art and entertainment that can link us together is a much more difficult feat than ever.

The only thing to do is to work for it. It's just a natural consequence of the state of the modern world. Without shared culture, it's more or less a free for all.

But one thing the state of things allow for is new ideas and new approaches to art in a way we never considered before. See today's example, one I wanted to highlight for myself, that being Jacob Calta's 365 Infantry project. It's quite ambitious, so I'd like to talk about it today, because I don't think anyone is really giving it the views it deserves.

I first caught attention of creator Jacob Calta floating around PulpRev and Iron Age spaces, a creative guy with a lot of love for art and entertainment and a million different ideas rolling around in his head. Not only does he also compose music (I hired him to not only create the Star Wanderers' themes, but also for the ongoing Phantom War serial on the Patreon, for a very good reason), but he is also a writer of action, adventure, the weird, and everything in between. so when I discovered his project, 365 Infantry, I was surprised with its scope and ambition.

The best place to learn about it would be on the official site here, so I will also include some choice quotes as well as the above primer video for newcomers. There is much to discuss.

"365 Infantry is multi-narrative digital magazine like no other. It concerns the many friends, foes, and dangers of the 365th Infantry, a fighting force for freedom waging war on A.C.E.S., a computer network gone mad with power in the last city on Earth. The series stars a cast of hellraising wolves and their magnificent machines as they take on all manner of dastardly villains and bizarre creations in a future of post-atomic anarchy and technological tyranny.

"Born from classic sci-fi, film noir, westerns, and more, 365 Infantry tells of paradises lost, psychological torture schemes, gruesome frontier justice, and at the heart of it all, a war with a computerized goddess, all realized through vivid prose and striking illustrations.

"The series is broken up into five “branches,” covering two serials, two episodic stories, and one anthology, with a wide cast of fun and unique characters exploring this strange anthro future through pulp thrills and thought-provoking concepts and storylines."

Welcome to 365 Infantry!

At the heart of the project is a world where the machines have won, chaos reigns, and all that remains to fight it are anthropomorphic wolves who love of guns, bikes, and being cool. there are different main strands of stories for the project, but they can be overwhelming if you are new to it all. I knew I was a bit flummoxed where to start with it.

However, there is a simple answer. You can either read the serials on the site, or you can do what I did and buy the yearly anthologies which include all the stories released that year in order and you can read it for yourself without getting lost in the weeds. The very first collection is not only available for purchase on amazon, but it's also available as an add-on for the Kickstarter.

Yes, that is the highlight of today's post. Mr. Calta is looking to grow his project and keep it going, and the easiest way to do that is to introduce new readers. Jump right in and enjoy them all, or pick the style that most suits you. Whether it be the war against the machines, urban chaos and violence, or high speed action, each strand has its own character. However, the main character is the setting and figuring out just how all of this fits together.

If you are interested in dipping your toes in for a quick read, I might recommend the one that first caught my attention called Acc Cult. It gives a good framing of the world, the threats, and the sort of thing one has to watch out for in this wild world. It's also a very quick read.

And then after that, you can check out the Kickstarter here!

It's an entire world of action and adventure to explore (there's even an audiobook radio show!) which has no shortage of stories to dig into and explore. As someone who has been following Mr. Calta's progress for a long time, I asked if I could write a post to highlight his project, and I hope I am doing it justice with everything I've showed you so far.

Truth is that the world is an exciting place with much wonder to discover, and it feels like our art used to reflect that more than it does now. With the limiting shackles of outdated genre expectations holding us down we are free to do anything, and yet we choose nothing most of the time. I for one would like to highlight a project that instead does everything.

And you do have everything. There are many different tiers available in the project's Kickstarter, all of which offer many stories for you to enjoy. Explore for yourself to choose what looks most interesting, though I personally recommend the yearly collections as the best place to begin. you will also see Mr. Calta grow as a writer along this journey with us.

Whether you prefer physical, digital, or subscription, you have your pick of format. As said, there is much to choose from!

There is something for everyone.

That's all for today! Thank you for letting me share this project with you and I hope I successfully showed a side of the NewPub sphere you might not have considered before. There is a lot out there, much to sift through, but much more than we could have imagined even a decade ago. 365 Infantry is a result of this new space.

With over three years of stories currently out and about there is no shortage of 365 stories, so take a look and see what satiates your curiosity. There's simply too much to go over, even in a post like this. All I can say is to just dive right in!

Back the 365 Infantry Kickstarter here, and have a blast. It's a good time. That's all I've got today so I'll see you on the next post!

There's a lot of cool stuff on the way! I can't wait to show you when it's time.

Check out the Psycho Mission serial on the Patreon! We've just reached Chapter 7. Join and get the first book as well as a slew of podcast episodes and extra posts!

Weekend Lounge ~ The Cost of Flops

Welcome to the weekend!

We've gone over slop enough recently, so lets talk a bit about what happens when you rely on it for so long that it destroys the very industry you operate in. The above video from Red Letter Media decides to wade into the obvious reality that Hollywood is dying. Their conclusions might be different than some, but it is still very obvious as to what is happening.

The "success" of the Minecraft movie is a very telling one, and also depressing to think about for those who enjoy the artform. It is essentially a Snakes on a Plane, but successful. In other words, it's a movie that has made money due to the death of the medium.

for those who don't remember, Snakes on a Plane was a bad movie that had no marketing budget except to try to reel in folks with how bad it was. The entire marketing campaign was a meme before memes. You didn't want to see the movie to enjoy a quality product or have a good time at the cinema. They wanted you to watch something bad and give them the privilege of handing them money for it. It was an "intentionally bad" movie before that trend got kicked off. In essence, it was ahead of its time in a lot of ways.

However, it bombed. The mainstream audience still wanted good movies. They still wanted quality and effort put behind it. It was a sign the industry still had life in it because the audience still had expectations for the industry. They no longer do.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Minecraft Movie is only popular because it's a meme that people want to laugh at. They're going to the theater to trash it, to run roughshod over the place, and to cackle ironically at the product made to entertain them. I am not even discussing the quality of the movie itself: as RLM above shows, this is who is seeing the movie and this is the reason they are going to the theater. This is a sign of a dead medium.

As we've also discussed before, there is a lot of issues internally, as well. Sound design is a mess. The masters are retiring and dying off without sharing their secrets. CG is decaying despite requiring more people than ever before (to also work even longer hours). The overreliance on ancient IP is wearing out its welcome, even though nothing new is being made that can seem to connect with audiences. All of this is a sign of an industry that has lost the plot and has no idea how to move forward. That's without going into how those inside the industry appear to have no connection of understanding of their audience at all anymore.

It's all just a giant cluster of confusion.

On top of it, as they also report, the other movies on the highest grossing films of 2025 (so far) list, are all bombs. None made their budget back, and considering how much they spent to be made, breaking even wouldn't even be enough. All of this is the clearest pattern of a dead industry on the way out. It could have been avoided, but we are past that point now.

No one is going to the theaters for "Hollywood Magic" anymore. They are either going to laugh at it, or not at all. They are attending IP farm entries less and less, and walking away at increasing rates. Not even the overseas market is interested like they once were. It is a sign of the times and another market that the 20th century is over. We aren't going back to where we once were ever again. All we have is what lies ahead. And we have no idea what that is.

And for those who keep pointing excitedly to their own TVs in the comfort of their own homes: There's still no money in streaming. No one has yet to figure out what a hit is or how to even measure it. They will continue to strike over this issue, but the bigger problem is that there isn't any feedback on the level of the box office or Nielsen ratings for streaming. Especially not in the online space where bots and paid agents clutter social media space. These are glorified ads more likely to annoy potential audiences than anything else.

All of this is also without going into the loss of shared culture. There is no reason to watch something you aren't sure if you're going to like if there's no one to talk about it with. What's the point? Water cooler talk has changed.

In fact, everything has changed. That is how the passage of time works. While the world we grew in is long gone, so is the world of even a decade ago. Old systems are falling away and will eventually leave the field clear for new ways going forward.

We're going to have to explore it ourselves, it seems. That's fine. There are plenty of excited creatives in indie spaces willing to do what they can to entertain you instead. until we figure out how to rebuild again, this is our best bet going forward.

Personally, I have the Psycho Mission serial currently ongoing at the blog (with a just-released podcast episode about it here!) as well as other projects on the way. But I'm also just one of many working as much as we can in a landscape with no real direction forward. There are plenty of others, including one below I'd like to end today's post on.

I would once again like to thank you for reading. It's been a long ride so far with no clear destination ahead. I appreciate you joining me as we figure out our path through the wasteland. Hopefully one day we'll find the way out.

Until next time!

For something new, check out the 365 Infantry project! Wolves, motorcycles, guns, robots, and the apocalypse! There's nothing quite like it!

Weekend Lounge ~ Today the Slop, Tomorrow the World

Welcome to the weekend!

It's been a bit of a weird couple of weeks, and I've spent it in a little bit of shock. This is mostly because I did not realize how much the entertainment industry has deteriorated behind the scenes in such a short time. It's actually amazing to look at, and I wanted to share some of what I've seen today. (Hat tip to Pipkin Pippa and her viewers for some of this knowledge. Their ability to discover cringe kino remains undefeated.)

We've talked a little about what slop is and why it's here, but I don't believe we discussed how it's going to be like living through the era of entertainment its going to bring forth. Long story short, it's going to be around longer than you'd prefer. It's going to change everything, while changing absolutely nothing at the same time. To explain how will take a bit.

For a good summation of how things are now check out the above video. It isn't going to stop there, either. Just as we've accepted deteriorating standards in entertainment over the years, we're eventually going to accept the very things we used to laugh at as parodies on old Mad TV and other sketch shows of the 20th century as normal. It's not just a joke anymore. Now it's real.

We wanted it, and now we've got it.

Again, the era of slop did not fall out of the sky. Audiences did not decide overnight they were fine with automated beltline production fashioned around the shallowest of tropes and clichés to be consumed and then disposed of instantly for the next. They were trained to be that way for decades by an industry that wanted walking wallets instead of patrons. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of art at the heart of it.

Do you want to see what entertainment is going to become? Watch the video below. Do not skip around, do not stop early, and do not turn down the volume: give yourself the true experience of the future and watch the entire thing. This is the exact product the industry has been striving to fashion for decades as it normalizes lowering standards in both creativity and production quality. This is the future of slop.

This isn't a joke. There's no punchline here. It isn't a parody channel or an old sketch from when comedy shows were relevant. This is a real channel with over a quarter of a million subscribers on YouTube, and this is the level of content they produce. This video is only one example of it.

The channel in question isn't alone, either. There are plenty of others, some of which make similar product based on web novels that span hundreds of chapters. Yes, authors are also responsible for the state of things as they are. We can't just excuse it with the desire to "get paid" when we are contributing to things like the above existing and being normalized. Creating is about more than just making money. There isn't any attempt at connection here, just trope lists checked off (or subverted!) to give the audience the bare minimum to swallow before moving on to the next thing on their playlist. It's deliberately designed to be forgotten.

We don't want to admit it, but this is the future of the entertainment industry. We are pushing towards this every day we accept a Borderlands movie or an Avatar sequel. Accepting the bare minimum is not making anything better, and we know this, but we don't seem to want to do anything about it. We've been trained to excuse a downhill slide as an all or nothing proposition, as if the people in charge own us lock, stock, and barrel.

This is the future we chose.

And to be honest, it might be too late to do anything about it now. The genie is fully out of the bottle. It isn't about AI: it's what lead to AI being used in the first place. No one actually cares as long as it gets them their content faster. That's a truth we have to accept, and one we've allowed become reality. It can't be escaped. It has to be faced.

This is what a growing number of audience members want to consume. This is the direction we want to go in, as an audience. It's just slapped together clichés, vague characters and ideas, and the lowest possible quality threshold. What's worse is that they even have member's content.

I'm not kidding. Here is the only comment on the above video:

This is the future of mainstream entertainment.

We all know this, even if we won't say it out loud. It's a completely avoidable future, but it requires the sort of effort we simply do not wish to engage in. That is what makes it inevitable. The slop future is just ahead. 

I wish I had a more positive end result to tell you, but we all know this is the end of this road. It doesn't go in any other direction than this one. All we can do is push for more and support those who wish to do as much. At the end of this road lies normalized slop, and it's getting closer every day. Letting Hollywood take your money is not going to fix it.

In fact, they will make it even worse. They already are.

Unfortunately, that's just the way it is now. Who knows what the future holds from this point forward, but it will only change if we push to change it ourselves. Simply waiting for the old dying industries to wake up is a losing game. We either more forward together, or this continues, and the slide down into the slop only becomes more pronounced.

The future is up to us, so lets build it together. We have to work forward to create something else: a new way forward. I believe we can do it, together.

Have yourself a fruitful Easter and I'll see you again soon!

Psycho Mission is currently running! Check out here!

Psycho Mission is Go!

Find it Here!

Finally, it's begun!

The next instalment of the Phantom War series, Psycho Mission, is now starting on the Patreon. Join now and you can catch up with part 1, as well as get the full version of the track composed by one Jacob Calta, on top of the near 20 episodes of the podcast. Quite the bang for your $5. Right now, three chapters are up, and will be coming two a week until we reach the end by May. Join up now, because it's going to be wild!

After the events of Phantom Mission, Menace Beach has only deteriorated further with the gangs now turning even more violent. A large group called the Dead Heads are now throwing their weight around, demanding loyalty from the others. They even arranged a big brawl to decide which gang gets to be king of the city!

But is that all there is to it?

Trash is a member of the 47th Street Psychos, a young man with no way out but through. With a collapsing city, a mysterious girl missing someone of her own, a detective with more guts than sense, and a creeping menace hiding in the shadows, can he fight against a world that wants to exterminate itself?

And why is the sky rumbling?

The Phantom Mission is over.

The Psycho Mission has begun.

Read it here today!

Chapter 2 is already up!

As you can tell, I haven't posted much recently because I was trying to get all of this together. After this instalment, there is one more book to go, Final Mission, which I have only begun outlining. In the meantime I am also planning for a crowdfund for a physical release of Phantom Mission. The plan for that is this summer. We'll see how it all shakes out!

In case you couldn't tell by the description, this series is my most bizarre one so far. There's a lot of action, a lot of weird, and odd turns I did not expect when I began this journey. As a consequence, the last book is probably going to end up longer than the first two. It's just unavoidable with how out of control it became.

I wanted to thank everyone here and on the Patreon for your support. It's been quite the journey over the years, and I never would have expected doing what I'm doing now without you.

At the same time, there are other surprises on the way. I have a book in the works with a publisher, a few short stories coming down the pipeline (and others still waiting for submissions to open), and of course the Phantom War serial. On top of it there is a big unannounced project I've hinted at before that is shaping up in crazy directions.

I've got a few more ideas for a serial after Phantom War is done, and there are many short stories I have to get to on top of it. you might wonder just what I could possibly do once that one finishes (Trust me, it gets nuts in ways I did not anticipate), but there is a plan. I might not always know what it is, but my muse seems to. Regardless, there's a lot of cool stuff coming up.

I hope you're having a fruitful 2025 so far. We're almost a third of the way through already. It's been a strange one, but it really does feel like we are in the midst of a shift. Who really knows what it'll be like when we come out the other side?

Anyway, have a good week and I will see you again soon enough. The next Psycho Mission chapter should also be released tomorrow, so look forward to that.

We've got a lot of surprises ahead! As OldPub crashes and burns, NewPub soars over the remains into a whole new world.

I 'm eager to see just where it ends up!

Read Psycho Mission (and more!) on the Patreon!