Human Remains (1994) by Darren Raye and Sean Scoffield
This comic seems to place a lot of weight on appearing serious.
“Sophisticated”.
So we open with…
… a bunch of title pages, and now that the reader is in a properly serious state of mind…
… it’s a story (in three parts) about a guy in a strange bowler hat?
The artwork (by Scoffield) is really strong, but there’s a disconnect between what the words are saying and what we’re seeing. That sort of thing can be used to great effect, but here I’m not sure whether it’s just because the illustrator didn’t actually read what the writer had written. Like that woman — “she wears the face of obvious pain”, but she seems gleeful instead.
And here we’re seeing a thirteen year old girl? Who looks fine?
It’s odd, but there’s too few of these panels to say whether it’s purposeful (as a verfremdung thingie) or not.
Anyway, despite the portentous look of the book — it’s like it’s designed to make you roll your eyes at it — it’s pretty good? It’s got a mood going, and while what the author seems to be getting at isn’t all that interesting, it flows well.
And then you read the last page:
Where the author poo-poohs all the philistines that aren’t getting his pure geniusly genius. Most bizarre of all, he says stuff like “Human Remains is one man’s vision” — but Raye didn’t do the artwork on this. Raye doesn’t mention Scoffield at all, so I started wondering whether Scoffield just did the colours on the cover or something minor, but nope: He’s credited as the sole illustrator.
So, yeah. A bit high on his own supply, this Raye guye.
But like I said, it’s a pretty good book, so why wouldn’t he be?
This seems to be the only book Raye has writing credits for, while Scoffield seems to have a few more.
Human Remains (Black Eye) Newcomers Darren Raye and Sean Scoffield bring the reader three interwoven tales that stand alone and yet make a whole tapestry at the same time. Writer Darren Raye is able to sculpt an engaging atmosphere in each of these three stories that pulls the reader into the foggy wet city the story takes place in. On art chores Sean Scoffield renders the stories in a style somewhat reminiscent of Dave McKean but still stamped with Scofield’s unique style. Yet another excellent Black Eye!
That’s the only review I’m able to find, so I guess it didn’t really make much of a splash.
This was originally going to be published by 2d cloud, I think? But then things happened.
Anyway — readin’ time.
This is a hefty collection of work done mainly between 2014 and 2017, and mainly riso printed.
The longest piece is this one, which is a kind of… er… creation story?
(Exit) Knarr: Breezy
The artwork is lovely.
The stories are mostly science fiction-ey, but returning to the same general themes. These are all narrative pieces, but it’s sometimes kinda vague what’s going on.
It’s a compelling book, but it feels non-optimal to be reading these pieces in collected form? I’ve read a couple of them before (I think), and if I remember correctly, they were stronger read separately? I may well be misremembering — who can remember what happened a decade ago anyway?
His Name is Alive: Hope is a Candle
13:51: Hate Revisited! #3 by Peter Bagge (Fantagraphics)
I somehow missed the first two issues, but I’ve seen on the Twitters that people were kind of going “uhm… uhm…” about this series instead of the expected “yay”.
Oh, right. Well, first of all, the printing is just odd? It’s on ultra shiny white paper, but the printing looks… smudged? I thought it was lo rez or something first, but it’s not. It’s just badly printed.
But I’m impressed by how Bagge has gone back to his old rendering style. I mean, in his last few books he’s gone for a more streamlined look, but this is how I remember his stuff from the 90s.
And… the book basically reads like it’s from the 90s, too? But with updated “issues”.
It’s fine. Pretty amusing in places, and I’m sure the people Bagge wanted to piss off were pissed off by it.
Nicola Ratti: Automatic Popular Music
14:11: French Girl by Jesse Lee Kercheval (Fieldmouse Press)
This is a collection of vignettes, all told in this mode.
They all circle around themes of growing up and parents and stuff.
It’s kind of hypnotic. It’s ace.
Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz: The Invisible Road: Original Recordings 1985–1990
14:35: Pfft! by Sindre Goksøyr (No Comprendo Press)
Man, this colour palette is kinda yucky, right? Is it the Drnaso influence? I think he started this trend…
This book is about the most annoying people imaginable — just one annoying asshole after another?
It’s like the author has kept a notebook for decades where he’s made a list of all annoying things that people do, and every two pages we get another scene of some asshole doing something annoying.
Then it shifts abruptly into being about childhood, and we get one scene of abuse after another.
This is the most depressing comic I’ve read in a while, and not in a good way.
repository: Xiu Xiu
15:26: Crush by Tillie Walden, Tegan Quinn and Sara Quinn (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
I picked this up because I quite like Tillie Walden’s comics. I do have an album by Tegan & Sara, but I know virtually nothing about them.
This is all kinds of confusing, though. I thought they were from the 90s? Well, perhaps I’m just misremembering and they started in the mid 2000s?
What the… live streaming?! OK, this isn’t about the real Tegan & Sara at all, but is about two contemporary 13 year olds called “Tegan & Sara” who are in a band together!? OK, OK, resetting…
Arthur Russell: In the Light of the Miracle
Even after resetting, I’m just mostly confused here, because it turns out that this is the second book in a series, and they have a gazillion characters that basically look the same.
And… They go on dates? At coffee bars? At 13?
Belong: Realistic IX
And it’s like… Walden crams so much stuff into these pages. Or perhaps it’s the Quinn sisters? Because it feels like every spread would be a ten minute scene in a TV show. It’s exhausting.
OK, OK, I’m not the target audience. But… I don’t think this book quite works. They go over the same conflicts so many times — it feels like they could easily have cut the “plot” and verbiage down to a quarter, and if they’d then kept the same page count, it might have been something.
Black Cab: Games of the XXI Olympiad (2024 remasters collection)
16:50: Bernadette Magazine #1 edited by Angela Fanche and Katie Lane
I got this from here, but I see it’s sold out now. Typical.
This is an oversized anthology with short pieces — mostly around three pages.
Varied approaches — some illustration, some photo pieces, and some comics.
It’s good — it’s got a good flow. It doesn’t have a theme or anything, but it works as a whole anyway.
17:35: Krononautens påske by Niels Søndergaard/Jens Thegler (Carlsen Comics)
This is a time travel thing — some time travellers from the Attilan Empire in the year 4000 after Attilla the Hun conquered the world travel back in time.
Stuff ensues, and it’s most entertaining.
However, they spend quite a bit of time in the middle explaining at us for pages and pages, and we’d already understood everything, so that was a drag.
But still: Good fun. And impressively grody artwork.
Dummy: Free Energy
17:55: Ta imot by Lars Fiske (No Comprendo Press)
This is told as one long monologue, with text flowing through the pages in various ways.
It’s pretty hypnotic.
Halfway through, the book shifts from being a somewhat ordinary coming of age reminisce to being about just one thing: Comics. So we get page after page of comics that were important to Fiske growing up and as a young adult, and that’s fun — I’m sitting here going “yes, that book, and that book, and that book”, all comics I love — but it’s a bit of a head scratcher. I wonder what the reviews are like… Hm, looks like they’re positive? Well, I liked it, anyway.
Smoke Bellow: Structurally Sound
18:19: Unwholesome Love #23 by Charles Burns
Burns released a book of book covers (to books that didn’t exist), and I wonder whether that inspired him to make an actual book to fit one of the covers?
Anyway, this is wonderful. Burns is obviously having a lot of fun here, and it’s a thrilling read. It’s a story in three chapters, or three interconnected stories — they all connect in weird and unsettling ways.
It’s weird that Burns does perhaps half? a third? of the pages in this way, though — just silhouettes. It’s stylish, but…
Nia Archives: Silence Is Loud
18:41: Fielder #3 by Kevin Huizenga
This issue of Fielder is even denser than normal. But very enjoyable. And confusing, because in the first story here, Glenn Ganges is a painter in Italy? Ganges is usually a stand-in for Huizenga, so that’s odd.
The other part of the issue has two commissioned pieces — the one about the Eames Brothers didn’t quite come together, I think, but the one about Segar’s Wimpy is wonderful.
David Allred: Apocalypse Rose
19:35: Star of Swan by Margot Ferrick (Breakdown Press)
This is amazing.
It’s also one of the most disturbing things I’ve read in my life. Wow.
19:49: Santos Sisters #7 by Grek & Fake
I like the sash that says “President”.
Anyway, this is as amusingly odd as always. I’m still not sure where they’re going with this, but… And they seem to be starting a multi-part story in this issue?
These are probably real ads.
20:04: Batman by Zdarsky/Jiménez/Morey (DC Comics)
It’s been years, probably, since I’ve read a new DC comic book, but since they’re doing a new thing, “All In”, I thought I’d give it a go?
Well… I thought the “All In” thing was going to focused on making things easier for new readers? But this is, like, very deep into some sort of scenario.
Pile: Hot Air Balloon
But I guess you don’t really need to know the backstory, and I guess it does feel like the start of something.
It’s OK, I guess? I think I’ll give it a couple more issues, but it’s not exactly gripping.
Oops! I messed up. I have to copies of Atomic City Special #1, but no copies of Atomic City Comics #1. So this blog series is going to be less than complete, but I’m not fixing that, because I already covered this material over on the Kitchen Sink blog.
So there.
Instead let’s have a look at the three issues I do have.
From the sounds of the editorial, it seems like people have been going “we liked your earlier, funnier stuff better” at Stephens? And I can indeed understand people being disappointed at not getting more comics in the vein of the original Sin series, because that thing was a lot of fun.
This series concentrates on the super-hero parody/pastiche/whatever that Stephens had started in Sin Comics, so it’s a lot more straight forward. But when I say “concentrates”, that’s not really saying all that much when it comics to Stephens: We’re still talking basically stream of consciousness plotting.
Which I’m a fan of — I like gags, and Stephens puts a lot of them in here, too — but it’s also frustrating, because when Stephens drops in these scenes of “serious plotting”, you already know that it’s not going to go anywhere.
(Is that woman up there inspired by Kim Deitch, by any chance?)
It’s loopy and it’s fun, and it’s less Flaming Carrot than it used to be? Now it’s more Zippy.
It’s also fun to just look at Stephens’ artwork — I mean, he was always good, but he’s getting more and more stylish. That’s a nice spread to just contemplate. Some of those panels are giving early Jamie Hernandez.
Yeah, the letters pages are all “godd, but Sin? that’s was great” vibes.
Heh, that’s a good nightmarish sequence.
And the storyline (as you might kinda call it) sort of wraps up in the third issue, but not in a very… intentional way? These are the last two pages. So it’s hard to say whether Stephens knew that this was the end of the series or not.
Because the issue mentions the Special:
And the special reprints the two chapters that appeared in Sputnik magazine.
But adds a final third chapter to wrap up the story, so that’s nice.
I have to say that I liked reading these comics better than I liked reading the collection, for some reason or other. In the collection the aimlessness was more of a problem than here, somehow.
NOt many comic creators take chances like Jay Stephens. After finally finding a comfortable home for the “anything goes” format of Sin Comics, Stephens hos decided to drop everything and start Atomic City Toles, new comic that features, of all things, superheroes! For mo$t artists, a switch to superhero comics would equal a rise in sales, but Stephens runs the risk of alienating the fans who have grown accustomed to his wacky, irreverent humor and offbeat funny-animal characters. Stephens started off in minicomics and graduated to Sin, a full-sized comic published by the late Tragedy Strikes Press, Sin featured Stephens’s bizarre creations, including Nod, Irwin. and Dave, who were simplified, abstracted versions of Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck. Just after picking up steam and gelling five issues Of Sin published, tragedy struck and Tragedy Strikes disappeared from the face of the planel bringing Stephens’s comic to an abrupt end. IA sixth issue was completed, but it hos never seen print.} Luckily, some of the loose ends from the company were picked up when former Tragedy Strikes editor Michel Vr6no started Black Eye Productions, the publisher behind most Of Stephen’s current work, Black Eye put out issues of the new and improved Sin Comics before Stephens replaced it with Atomic City Tales. Stephens’s neve’ superhero work seems to be more of an evolution than an abrupt shift of direction, The original version of Sin featured the Sinister Horde, who starred in c superhero strip ran alongside Stephens’s quirky Land of Nod stories, as well as the adventures of Badman, a crime fighter who was actually a thinly disguised Joy Stephens. When the new Sin Comics series debuted* Stephens killed Off most Of his funnyonimol char- acters to make room for superhero comics that prefigured the characters in Atomic City Tales. EVen the wacky characters in Sin and Sin Comics, like Stephens himselfi were fans of cheesy comic In fact, Atomic City Tales has the same humor and many of the unexpected twists that are trades mark of Stephens’s work. In Atomic City Toles, Stephens has created o comiC that doesn’t neatly fit into one specific genre, isn’t really an “alternative” comic because it’s about superheroes, It can’t be o modern superhero comic because it isnit ogrim and gritty,” It’s not like the musty and moldy retro-super- hero comics because the characters and situations are ypdoted and distorted with a ’90s bite.
ATOMIC CITY FAILS SULLIVAN: Let’s talk a little bit about Atomic City Tales. STEMNS: I know you don’t like it. [laughs] SULLIVAN: I like it. STE*ENS: I like to tease you al»ut that review, SULLIVAN: It was a positive review. STEMNS: I know. It was just a very qualified review. good, but — [laughs] I We seen SIRLIVAN: Nou I understand that you had all these outlets for the funny characters that I love, even though couldn see any Of them. STEPHENS: If I could do everything at once, I SIRLIVAN: Butyour letters pages in Atomic City Tales •were hysterical. You wouldthink in a super- hero—dominated industry, everybody would go “wow, Jay’s doing funny superheroes. Yet you seemed to get all the nutcases writing in saying, This is 0K, but cvby don’t you do some more Nod. You be very patient, gritted teeth, *Just let it go for a little bit, you’ll see I’m doing good stuff anyway. STEPHENS: I got almost nothing but negative mail. Very few encouraging letters. What can I tell you? I guess it was a failed project. SULLIVAN: And yet it continued over two publishers. STERENS: The Atomic City story is a sad one. SULLIVAN: Tell it. STERENS: les a long, drawn-out story. les almost a tragedy from the beginning. SULLIVAN: Why? STE*ENS: I begged Michel to do it, then I had to insist he pay me, which was a new thing at the time, and then it didn’t really sell. Let it be known, though, that publishing-wise, everything Ive done has been at the worst possible time. I mean, Tragedy Strikes entered publishing right at the beginning of the glut, and by the time I was doing Atomic City Tales there were thousands of new crappy superhero comics out there. The competition on the rack was unbelievable. m not making excuses, m just saying it had something to do with it. so it was a really hard go, and I think Michel became embarrassed that he “‘as doing Atomic City Tales. He was focusing on more and more so-called highbrow material, and was very proud of it. Even though my stuff was selling better than that stuff, I think he was kind of nervous that he was doing this book that was more rooted in pop. We were both happy when I decided to shop it around elsewhere. So we left on amicable terms, and I began negotiations with Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics. Actually, Zongo Comics was supposed to do it, because rd met Matt at San Diego in ’94, and gave him copies. He very interested in picking it up, and promptly passed it over to the people at Zongo, who rm sure he believes are very capable [laughs] individuals. Maybe theyre more capable now, but it was a nerve-wracking experience. They wanted more than they should have been asking were a new company. It was a terrible contract. SULLIVAN: Were they frying toget control wer the tharac- ters? STERENS: Theywanted all control. They wanted to be able to make movies and cartoons and not pay me anything for it. Embarrassing, ridiculous control. And what was worse was that the negotiations dragged on for almost a year.
Thanks to Black Eye, Sin came back in January 1994 with a new and im- proved #1. Merv celebrated by peeing all over Dave’s comics and then setting them on fire. Things were back to normal. Or were they? (Cue spooky music.) Because with the very next issue, Sin folded again. This time, blame Stephens. He had decided to concentrate on the Big Bang saga he launched in the new Sin #1. Nod and his pals may show up later in their own title, but for now it’s action time. “There’s a growing trend in alterna- tive comics toward longer stories,” says Vrana. “It’s an important way for younger cartoonists like Jay to stretch themselves. And rather than having two sides to his book—one crazy and funny, one straighter—Jay’s going to do it all in one storyline and be fun and crazy with the Atomic City Tales char- acters.” Vrana also says Stephens will be broadening his audience—unlike Sin, Atomic City Tales probably won’t carry a “For Mature Readers” tag. (Stephens calls his new comic “border- line mature. Expect a humor/horror/romance/ac- tion book, incorporating comics influ- ences from the Avengers to the Archies. That’s right, the Archies. Sneer if you must, but the Riverdale High gang are now tres chic, having in- fluenced comics such as Love and Rockets, the standard-bearer for inde- pendent comics. “There’s a lot of Archie Comics in Atomic City Tales,” Stephens says. “When I was a kid, I thought the Archies were neat, because they seemed really real.” Stephens laughs, scarcely able to believe what he’s saying. “I thought, ‘This is how real people are.’ ” So if you can imagine a nuclear- powered Jughead double-dating with the Hulk and beating up an all-ghoul grunge group, you’re halfway to Atomic City. Be prepared to have some fun when you get there—because if there’s one thing Jay Stephens can’t stand, it’s a sour superhero. “One of the reasons I’m doing Atomic City Tales is that it’s painful for me to know that the corner store closest to me has an issue of the Pun- isher—no bright colors, bullets flying everywhere and a high body count. It’s so bleak and depressing, it makes me glad I grew up in the ’70s. “Superheroes aren’t serious. People should stop trying to make them so real. The whole charm of them is that they’re not real. There don’t have to be guns—it’s fantasy. You can make fun things happen. ”
Unfortunately, Stephens isn’ t doing Sin any- more. Last year, he switched to a book called Atomic City Tales, a superhero spoof that suffers from similarities to too many projects, includ- ing Michael Allred’ s current Madman Comics. Longer narrati ves, full characterization and more “realistic”-lookingcharacters don’t provide the same manic charge that zaps you on every page or so of Innd of Nod. Even those devices that served Stephens well before falter inACT. When the artist moped around Sin in his Badman costume, it was enjoyably ridiculous. In ACT, Stephens’ fre- quent appearances are distracting — it’s not clear what he’s doing there, and his character seems annoyingly bland. Chief ACT villains The Maniac Gang have some of The Sinister Horde’ s amusingpettiness, but Stephens seems less happy-go-lucky now. For sheer fun, noth- ing so far in the new series has matched the scene in Land of Nod when Dave, who re- sembles a sort of deconstructed Donald Duck, has a panic attack over the “serious” direction of his favorite comic, The Sinister Horde. His buddy Merv (a melted Mickey Mouse) takes one look and flings the comic away, exclaiming “Poo! Whata reek!” (Merv should write for the Journal.) The controversy rages in the ACT letters pages about whether Stephens has taken the wrong direction himself; he admits that older readers tend to prefer Sin. Perhaps they (like this reviewer) have already seen the vperhero genre lampooned too many times. Stephens himself seems baffled by some readers’ unwill- ingness to have fun with superheroes, and is sticking to his guns. Certainly, given his track record, Atomic City Tales is worth watching; once Stephens finds his feet with the book, it may embrace the unexpected the way Madman Comics decidedly has not. (When Nod had a cameo inACT#3 , you could practically hear the geezers cheering.)
Draw! #16, page #34:
Tragedy Strikes went out of business, and then the editor there started his own company, Black Eye. I did Atomic City Tales and a new Land ofNod series for him. But he was stretched too thin and folded shop. And then Kitchen Sink picked up Atomic City, and then they folded. The disasters just kept mounting. Really, either my sales would drop so badly that I would be forced to quit a book (I was getting food from the local Food Bank while working for Kitchen Sink—couldn’t even afford one meal a day on my own), or, more often than not, the publisher went out of business. J was striking out in comic books in every attempt I made. But, ironically, I was get- ting tons of outside illustration and cartooning work based on those same comics. So that’s why I say I failed upwards.
Vrána had edited the (very good) Reactor Girl anthology, and here he’s starting a new one. Reactor Girl was quite unassuming, but Vrána seems to want to class things up here. We have “Departments” and “Features”, but no “Manifesto”.
And it’s magazine sized, and is printed on aggressively white and shiny paper, so it seems tailored for, say, being sold in hipster record shops, perhaps.
Which makes it kind of odd that Vrána starts off the series with the first part of a nonsensical Jay Stephens super-hero parody thing.
More apt is Dylan Horrocks… but these single page introductions to the “departments” seem rather portentous.
It’s a solid story, though, about racism and stuff.
Carol Swain does a vignette about punks as zoo exhibits, and this is perhaps the most relevant story in the issue — if this is aimed at music stores, that is.
There’s even a 7″ included. I’ve been listening to it while reading this issue, and it’s pretty OK? The band is called Daddy Carbon, and there’s no explanation as to why it’s included in the magazine. Discogs says that it’s their only release. Perhaps they were friends of Vrána?
It’s a Toronto band…
Nick Craine does an illustrated interview with the guy who was going to adapt Yummy Fur to the movies. That never happened ,of course.
Craine does his best to make the interview thrilling, but… it doesn’t quite work.
C’mon. This sort of thing just feels like wasting space in a magazine that’s only 48 pages long. But I mean, reprinting some Adrian Tomine is probably a good idea, anyway.
So the first issue is mostly people already published by Black Eye.
The second issue is completely different. Daniel Richler and Dominic Burgatto do a long pieces about… I have no idea.
That’s followed by an even stranger piece by Ian Carney and Aidan Potts. If they were going after the record store market, the first issue seemed pretty well conceived. While I like the artwork here, using half the issue on things that impenetrable doesn’t really sound like a good choice for the long term survival of this anthology.
Brian Biggs provides a brief (and funny) respite.
And then it’s back to scratching your head with Vincent Aliberti and Sean Scoffield, which, again, has compelling artwork, but is pretty opaque.
Speaking of compelling artwork — has anybody ever done a real collection of Jeff Johnson’s comics?
I guess these are reprints, but they’re the best thing in the issue.
So: One pretty good issue, one pretty bad issue, and it’s over.
I guess they saw what the sales were on the second issue and decided that that’s enough.
Sputnik #1 (Black Eye Productions) I Inentioned once before that I felt that you get more bang for your buck with many anthology comics, and Sputnik definite- ly falls into this category. With work by cartoonists like Jay Stephens, Adrian Tomine, and Dylan Ilorrocks (whose work I’ve rec()mmended previously), this magazine format comics slick, intelligent, and poised to make a big impact on the business with it’s cross- market potential! It even comes with a vinyl 45 single!
From the ashes of Tragedy Strikes press comes a new imprint, Black Eye Productions, with its flag- ship anthology, the very classy Sputnik. Featuring Sweet production values and a care for detail, it looks great and reads even better. Editor Michel Vrana has tapped several artists from the former company for this smart, stylish, and engaging pre- mer Issue. A jam-packed 48 pages (plus an extended-play 45 rpm record that is, at best, unnecessary), the book includes a visually engaging Randy the Skeleton story by Ian Carney and Aidan Potts, an allegorical episode from Wai Out Strips’ Carol Swain, and a nutty “Atomic City Tales” segment from Sin Comics’ Jay Stephens, the only cartoonist who dares a con- tinued Story (and who suffers accordingly). Longer segments, listed as “departments,” are even better. “Feature Fiction” Offers Dylan Horrocks• nine-page “Black Sun,” a tale of xenophobic bigotry. It’s a rich, convincing intru- Sion into some odd territory. ‘Mini-Comic Pro- file” is devoted to the conspicuously worthy author of Optic Nerve, Adrian Tomine. He contributes three deft, fully realized vignettes (and a back cover), each demonstrating a mastery of the mini format. Nick Craine subverts the staid Q & A format in an “illustrated interview” with Bruce McDonald, the Canadian director currently at work on a screenplay for Chester Brown’s Ed the Happy Clown. ne dis- cussion is submerged in a quirky narrative that takes place in a car (a location where Craine’s Cheese Heads have had some memorable moments). It’s an ingenious construction that emphasizes texture over text, experience Over inforrnation.
Spoiler pic above — don’t look at it unless you want to see how this epic turns out.
OOPS
Anyway, I’ve had an all-in-one computer sitting on a kitchen counter for over a decade. It hasn’t been the same one, because it’s broken down at least once, but basically the same size, because I thought I would be using it to watch TV while cooking, or possibly looking up recipes and stuff.
So it has a (wireless) keyboard, and is kinda bulky, with a big external power pad (cleverly hidden in the box next to it).
But as it turns out, I never use it for anything but playing mixtapes while I’m eating breakfast, really.
I was rooting through a box of various bits and bobs, and I found this 6″ HDMI screen I’d bought at least six years ago, but had never used for anything.
And I started wondering — perhaps I could just radically shrink the kitchen music player setup? I mean, the only inputs it needs is “pause”, “volume up” and “volume down”. I don’t need any keyboard, really, because it’s just playing mixtapes, one after another.
But what should the setup look like? I could use my impressive carpentry skills (ahem) and make a box… or I could buy something like this wooden box, cut a few holes for wiring and the screen and stuff, and stash a Raspberry Pi inside? Well, sounds like a fun project, I think?
And I even had a Raspberry Pi 3B+ in the same box! I had originally thought I’d use a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, but I need to connect at least three USB things to the Pi (touch screen, volume knob and Tellstick dongle), so I’d have to use a USB hub… Using a Pi 3 seems like it’s going to be less fiddly.
(Banana for scale.)
Installing Raspberry Pi Desktop is trivial, and then it starts an Emacs that controls the mixtape playing, which again runs mpg123.
And to my shock, mpg123 stutters when playing. Even if there’s nothing else going on! I disabled pipewire so that it’s just playing straight to ALSA, and playing straight from RAM disk. Still some stuttering. I replaced the crappy SD card with a less crappy one — yes, still stuttering.
Disk /dev/sdb: 29.81 GiB, 32010928128 bytes, 62521344 sectors
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 8192 1056767 1048576 512M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 1056768 62521343 61464576 29.3G 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdc: 29.72 GiB, 31914983424 bytes, 62333952 sectors
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1 8192 1056767 1048576 512M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc2 1056768 62521343 61464576 29.3G 83 Linux
By the way, how annoying is it that “32GB” cards have different sizes, eh? I was just going to cat the one card to the other, but the first card was vaguely bigger, so the file system ended up corrupted. So I had to shrink the file system on the first SD card before I could cat it over…
Anyway, but if I switch swap off, and renice the mpg123 to -20, it seems to work?
Still, it’s kinda shocking… I didn’t think that a Raspberry Pi 3 would be this underpowered…
Still, I seems to be glitch free now? If not, I’ll have to upgrade to a Raspberry Pi 4.
And the screen seems pretty good! It’s a touch screen, too, but I don’t think I’m actually going to use the touch for anything? Perhaps something’ll occur to me…
Hm… and perhaps I should run xscreensaver on it? It’s not OLED, so the screen probably doesn’t need saving, but perhaps it’ll be fun. (I don’t really enjoy xscreensaver demos on large screens, but perhaps on a small screen like this, it’ll be stylish.)
[time passes]
I haven’t gotten all the bits for the control unit, but I’ve got two boxes — the other one is just going to have a bunch of electric stuff inside.
Looks like basically the correct size.
So I just need to cut some holes in it for wires, and the wires are going to be at the back of the box.
The wires themselves don’t need a big hole, even if there’s going to be a few of them going in three different directions, but European Schuko plugs are big. So I either need to cut the plug off, thread the cable through the hole, and mount another plug (which I’ve done before, but is, er, not quite halal), or do a big hole…
So I got the brilliant idea — this box has a lid, so why not just face the box with the lid inwards and cut the holes in the lid! Then I just need space for the cables, and not the plug!
So I bought this nice little saw made for cutting out jigsaws and stuff…
And presto! Smaller holes!
I think this might work?
I wasn’t sure whether to paint the boxes white or black, so I went with red.
Now that’s red, dude. Might need two coats, though.
Oh, yeah, right — this box is replacing this eyesore, which I’ve had here for a decade.
And that’s because there was a lot of electronics stuff that I had to have in here — several adapters, an amplifier, and well, stuff. The speakers are now integrated, so no amplifier needed, and I can get rid of a few of the adapters (mainly the big one to the all-in-one computer).
Yeah, scorch marks. That’s what we want to see!
(I think it’s from one of the adapters.)
So I’m replacing all of that with this power unit, and cramming it all into that smaller red box I’m making.
So red.
But it’s not quite… even? I thought paint went on more even than this. This is the fourth coat, I think.
OK, just red is too boring, so let’s add some black lines.
[time passes]
OK… Things are basically working now, and there’s no stuttering, but the Pi 3 dies once a week. That’s not acceptable.
Hm… what to do, what to do…
[time passes]
After dealing with Raspberry Pi 3 instabilities for a few months, I just gave up and used a Pi 4 I had here. And I’ve been testing whether it’s stable for a few weeks (nothing to do with procrastination; no ma’am), my kitchen has looked like this.
But it’s stable — except that wifi drops to unusable (30% packet loss) if I angle the Pi 4… just… so…
Anyway, I’m tired of having the mess here, so I’m finally going to start cutting the box. Should I have the volume knob here?
Or charmingly unsymmetrically here? (Only the know will be visible from this side…)
Because the knob pops off and I can just poke this pin through.
But how should I cut the bot?
It would be easier to just cut through the central connection area, but it would perhaps be prettier if it’s super duper flush; i.e., cutting out the box for the entire metal area… Hm…
Nah, too much risk of over-cutting, and that’d be a catastrophe after all these coats of paint. I don’t wanna paint no mo!
I’ve got my cutting implements here, but I’m not sure which one to use… using the electric jigsaw seems so … brutal .. for such weak and brittle wood.
OK, measure once, cut twice…
Once, twice…
These are the wooden drills, right?
Drill baby drill. So pretty.
OK, I’m gonna try to use the jigsaw… gently…
Oh my god! That thing cut through the wood like butter! I thought it was going to chew it up and make splinters and whatnot, but it’s perfectly smooth and nice.
Look!
OK… Even with just the central part cut out, it looks quite OK? That is, if you’re looking at it straight ahead, you can’t see a difference, and even if you’re examining it, it’s fine.
OK, drilled a hole for the knob, too. And I had to re-jigsaw some bits to make the screen straight. Pretend you didn’t see that.
But but but… How the earth am I going to fasten these things? I thought that would, like, be obvious, but now that I’m staring at it, it’s not.
I thought I might use this thing to wrap around the button somehow, but the wood is so thin that I can’t really screw anything into it.
OK, I can use double sided Gorilla tape for the screen — that’s not going to face any pressure, but the button? Hm…
OK, I just Gorillaed it all, because I’m fed up with it.
Let’s see whether it works for the button, but I’m doubtful.
OK, assembling it all…
Some leftover bits…
It works!!!
Hm, I could even use it without the knob… just with an industrial pin poking through… Nah.
The knob needs to be filled with something half way up so that it doesn’t slide too far in when I jab it, though.
OK, I need a shorter extension cord, because that’s gonna be tough to fit into the box. But whatevs, *jam* *jam*.
Nooooes! The Toslink/3.5mm adapter broke!
This thing! Because I need to use an optical connection to the KEF speakers, because the AUX is just ridiculously noisy:
Completely unusable.
Hm… do I have any spare Toslink/3.5mm adapters? Can’t find any… Oh, well, I have to do some shopping tomorrow. Ain’t gonna finish this project tonight grrr
[time passes]
OK, I got this today…
And it fits! Although I plugged it into the mic port, so it took half an hour of debugging to find out why there’s no music.
Oh, right, the new, shorter outlet thing doesn’t have a USB port. Well, I’ll just use an old Iphone charger?
Nope; that sent the Pi 4 into an endless boot loop. How about this Ultimate Ears charger, then?
Success.
So now I just have to jam this all into the box… Will it fit?
Yes!!!1!
Well, that’s OK.
Oh, yeah, I was gonna Sugru the knob. But Sugru is no longer for sale in any stores here — all the stores have their own knock-off products that kinda sorta do the job (but according to all reviews, kinda suck — the end result is very hard instead of being silicone soft like Sugru).
Feels like Sugru, though.
There. I’ve jammed it two thirds full.
And… it seems to be about the right amount? I can jab the button now without it sliding further in. Well, I guess I’ll know after it’s dried whether I have to do anything further.
Oh, I forgot that I left the plastic clingy thing on the screen for protection while working on this…
Well, that’s a lot more room on the bench than there used to be! Now I can, like, bake more cakes. Or something.
I should have painted both boxes the same way — and I should have gone with an X on both, or perhaps none, because those stripes don’t look very intentional (although I was thinking of Plastic Man when I did them).
Well, they’re gonna stay that way now! Hah! This took three months and was totally worth it.
