Granite Con 2025 --

SENTINEL 4 is on sale!

Hello friends,

It’s been… well it’s been a long 10 months or so.

I’m actually sending this message from deep within a jungle. So you can imagine the difficulty in sending an email right now.

…

Ok. It’s a metaphorical jungle. But still.

I’ve been chopping my way through a thicket of daily tasks of modern life, a [rewarding] job that seldom slows down (hi boss!) and a busy social calendar with a lot of D&D in it. Maybe too much? … Nah.

Amidst all that, I have been remiss in keeping you all updated on the progress of the latest SENTINEL issue. I should have sent a raven MONTHS ago.

Here’s the big update: It has taken longer than I had hoped, but we have successfully completed the print job for all variants of SENTINEL #4. Woohoo!

Now I just need to get the digital book in a good readable place (bear with me, I’m not an Adobe expert). I have friends helping with that …in exchange for money.

I am on my hands and knees begging your forbearance. I have had these since July. But as you’ll see, I’ve had an eventful summer.

Somehow Granite State Comic Con has caught up to me — it’s this coming Saturday and Sunday! The good news is I will be there, and I will have the fourth issue ready to sell. For those of you who are still owed a book by backing my Kickstarter, please feel free to come by my table for your rewards. I should have all of it with me, so you can pick it up at the con if you’re planning on attending.

Otherwise, if you would like me to mail it still, and have not yet filled out your Backer Survey… then you need to, well, do that to get your rewards. So, DO THAT please. I’d hate to see any of you not get the rewards you pledged for.

Mailings should be coming in the October/November timeframe.

Anyways, back to GraniteCon. For those of you who have grown accustomed to finding me in the Armory side of the con, I will not be there this year. Rather, my table will be located in the Expo Center. That’s the bigger room on the south side of of the hotel.

Alas, I do not have a map to show you yet, but look around and you’ll likely find me.
Unless I’ve gotten free of my shackles and started wandering off. This has been known to happen.

Summer 2025

I’ve done a lot, seen a lot, learned a lot. I’ve spent many hours chasing the joy and camaraderie of tabletop roleplaying, I’ve unplugged and counted the turtles and birds on nature walks with my squire (mentee from Big Brothers Big Sisters), enjoyed solitary evening walks, discovering new music (and rediscovering a love of music), run into old friends at festive community events like the Manchester Citywide Arts Festival, Glendi (local Greek food festival) or my own neighborhood block party, and I’ve done a lot of reading, writing and soul searching.

Nowadays, ‘soul searching’ has a sort of negative connotation because people only seem to only bring it up in a public apology for some misdeed. But soul searching is a thing you can do at any time, without being motivated by guilt or being caught in the act of doing something wrong. Sometimes we just need to dust off our hearts and check in with them to make sure you’re being true to yourself and taking good care of yours. Take it from me, it’s worth it, from time to time.

Lately, I’ve been embracing a lifestyle that eschews the constant need to be productive [when not at work], that is skeptical of full calendars and fully programmed days, that whispers ‘no’ to the voice in our heads that shouts ‘HURRY!’ and that seeks out and finds a headspace that can slow down time to be more present and attentive to the people you love.

All this business. The jungle, if you will. It encroaches upon you and dominates your life unless you draw a line and start to say ‘no’ to some things. That’s why setting healthy boundaries has become so important, at least in my life, but I suspect for others too. The powers that be, the social media algorithms, whatever, they promise to keep you from thinking your own thoughts and feeling your own feelings. We think that benefits us, but really it benefits them. And they’re coming for every hour, minute and second of your life. At a certain point you have to not let them.

It’s easy for the empathetic among us to feel constrained by our own desire to do no harm, to such an extreme that we fail to protect ourselves. We may not want to take up machete and chop away, (to say ‘no’), but those vines will grapple you. They will strangle you, if you let them.

I think in our modern, capitalist world, where we’re so busy holding down jobs and paying rent and meeting the needs of others, we’ve all forgotten how to live contemplative lives. We’ve all forgotten how to meet our own needs. We’ve filled every waking minute with chores, work and constant distractions, usually from screens large or small. And when we do finally get a fleeting minute to ourselves, we are wracked with Protestant guilt for not spending that spare minute doing something “productive.” It’s no wonder there’s a mental health epidemic.

What the heck is Ryan talking about? I thought this was a newsletter about this comics?

OK, here’s what’s happened: I turned 40 in May and my mid-life crisis has been manifesting as intentional leisure, marked by the incessant drafting of philosophical pensées and characterized by a constant self-admonition to ‘stop and smell the roses.’ And now you’re all stuck listening to my pretentious, wise-man-on-the-mount shit.

Hope you enjoy the ride.

You may exit at any time. :)

Gee, what else have you been up to, Ryan?

I’m so glad you asked.

I’ve been writing new stories, which I’m really quite proud of, firstly for D&D games I’ve been running monthly (Wondrous One-Shots with Ryan Lessard), and then I think these will be adapted into a series of novels and short stories, which I’ve already begun drafting. They’re a blend of scifi and fantasy.

One way to deal with the DOOM is world building. If I had an addiction, it might just be that. I can spend hours on a completely different plant of my own creation and it is glorious.

For some reason, I’ve been really into making a corporate oligarchic cyberpunk dystopia set in the waning days of an fallen republic. But, like, with magic.

Can anyone imagine what a billionaire might do with magic spells called “Modify Memory” or “Mass Suggestion?” Actually, you might have some idea already.

In some ways, a lot of this writing has been a welcome escape from the dark times we are living in. But nobody wants to hear me talk about that.

I’m constantly reminded that we humans are here to create. That depression is often what happens when our ability for self-expression and creativity is stifled, and that even when things seem hopeless, we must find ways to seek out joy and solace to balance out the constant vigil. To be kind amid the rancor. To chase what we love, not what we hate.

What else?

In June, I built six bookshelves and rearranged my office during a weeklong staycation — in order to more property display my many Star Wars Lego sets, mainly, but also some choice graphic novels and trades. I even found the time to build a Lego set (I have a lot of unopened boxes). In July, we celebrated the first birthday of my nephew — nearly every other July weekend was some extended family birthday or gathering.

August didn’t happen. Does anyone remember August happening?

And I guess that pretty much brings us up to present. Now, I’m finally getting around to playing the 2018 Spider-Man video game for Playstation. I love it. (Though, it too, strangely, has not proven to be the escape from overt military-in-the-streets fascism that I hoped it would be. Given the direction the plot takes. The irony!)

I actually do have a lot more to share, but I will save that for the next time I find a window of opportunity.

Reading Recommendation:

I think I will start giving recommendations for books, comics, shows, movies etc.

Here’s one: Anything by comic artist and humorist Tom Gauld. I follow him on Instagram, devour his comic strips regularly and have a printed piece of his hanging in my office.

I recently bought about half a dozen of his books online, which are collections of strips that have published in major magazines like The New Yorker or newspapers like the Guardian.

I just love his sense of humor. It is one of those things that feels uniquely me. If that makes sense. So this is also kind of an experiment. If you deeply connect with the humor in these comic strips, reach out to me and let me know. We can start a fan club.

That’s all for now. (Love you, Mom.)

Be curious, be caring and be kind.

Bye.

Ryan