crankin'

Hopefully this video clears some stuff up about Jimothy! (There are captions for anyone who needs them)

I'm happy to announce that, together with a roster of great artists, writers, and actors, I've been secretly working on a huge multimedia podcast project. And it's called:

The city of Palmyra has been cordoned off, deemed contaminated. Supposedly, everyone's been evacuated. But we know it's not true. Inside the Exclusion Zone, the Feds, shady companies and hateful militias vie for control of the city, and strange horrors straight out of nightmares lurk around every corner. Meanwhile, those who got left behind are just trying to survive and stick together in this hellscape.

This project will smuggle information out of Palmyra. Apart from the many stories found in our podcast, you'll find recovered footage and documents belonging to different factions and survivors within the city. You can now listen to episode 1 of the podcast!

You may also presave the Kickstarter so you'll be notified when it goes live in a month! We'll be using it to fund our first season and make zines! In the meantime there will be plenty of extra content and cool art coming for you! Follow us at @american-abyss for our first batch of stories! I'm so excited to show more over the coming months! Please dig in and stay tuned.

Here's a sneak peek at some of the horrors I've worked on so far:

Original

Paid service with no ads: Well, if they're not funding it with ad revenue, they need to charge us something.

Paid service with ads: Well that's bullshit.

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.

joshua odjick for esquire