June 2024 Newsletter

Folks it's here: the big hot time known as "the summer", during which the pools are sloshing and the barbecue grills are shrieking, flames hungry for meat. But what's better than listening to all that? LISTENING TO SOME DANG PODCASTS, THAT'S WHAT.

May saw CMRN and Danni continued their Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough for MAGES & MURDERDADS, delivering you not one but two episodes in which they clean up the game's second act and, apparently start the game's plot?? That sounds weird but I don't play videogames, I'm just a lizard who watches these videos and writes this newsletter. Anyway, if that wasn't enough CMRN/Danni time for you this month, you should also check out the Patreon podcast, in which the guys go long on the Fallout Magic the Gathering sets, which you may be hearing about from another vector… soon? But in the meantime, you can ALSO check out CMRN's short video essay about taxi games and pair it with his and Danni's exploration of the fantasy horror-flavored tactical RPG Skald.

Speaking of games, which I don't think we ever actually stopped talking about, GAME STUDIES STUDY BUDDIES this month saw Michael and CMRN go… rather long on the actually rather short THE WELL-PLAYED GAME: A PLAYER'S PHILOSOPHY by Bernard De Koven, which might be one of the strangest volumes ever read for the show. If you wanna check it out, it's available on our Bookshop page along with the next offering for GSSB's The Summer of Game, Dan Pinchbeck's DOOM: SCARYDARKFAST.

And you know what else is "scarydarkfast"? If you said "alien parasites and chitter their way out of your butt" then you'd be correct, and also, you've maybe already listened to May's episode of JUST KING THINGS on 2001's memorably weird sci-fi body horror yarn DREAMCATCHER. And over on the bonus feed, we were joined by Em from Abnormal Mapping for a rollicking good bonus time discussing the bizarre, bizarre, bizarre Dreamcatcher film adaptation. Next month will cover the Dark Tower tie-in epic, BLACK HOUSE, and the bonus ep will be our yearly Sewer Special Q&A, in which we answer questions sent in from curious listeners like yourself! Going forward, we'll try to answer at least one of these on every bonus episode, so send those to thequestionsewer at gmail, and maybe your turn will come up in the near future!

And if you just can't wait for question-answer action, the bonus episode for SHELVED BY GENRE this month was our big Q&A over the entire Earthsea series. As usual Austin was there, as he was also in attendance on our main episodes where we finished up the Earthsea omnibus with some essays and short stories, and then did a palate cleanse with the slightly supernatural Hallmark romantic comedy, THE GOOD WITCH. Soon we'll begin our next unit on the horror manga of Junji Ito, and if you feel like reading along, our Bookshop page has you covered.

So there you go–hope that helps cover over all the barbecue shrieks. As the summer continues, we'll be hard at work here in the podcast vaults, making things to help you blot out the wailing of the autumn winds and, after that, the ragged sobbing of the snowfall. But for the rest of the summer, at least, "enjoy it"--and maybe we'll have some new shows and/or some returning old favorites to delight you in the heatful times to come…