WEBSITE OVERHAUL AND BACKWOOD FOLK IN 2025
Howdy friends and readers, weird times. Get sick of saying that, bet everyone gets sick of hearing it too. Afraid as always it’s a longer haul than anyone cares for. I’ll probably be blaring the Dead Flag Blues on repeat like I have the last year and change. So much so that my fiance jokes that my response to most news is “the car’s on fire.” Jokes.
Anyhoo! Enough of that, I’m not smart enough to give you the news, and there’s plenty of better people to help with the panic. On with Backwood Folk news, which I am qualified to deliver.
I recently did a massive overhaul of the website. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little inspired by Alejandro Bruzzese’s call for more focus on websites as cool extensions of the artist. As well as his own very cool website. I have to imagine like many, I’m utterly sick of social media. Not even a new development for myself, as I was always pretty terrible at using it as a vector for advertising and my work. Which is fine, my focus has traditionally been my local market through events, radio, public access, and the like. More my preference too. I like talking to folks more than I like shadowboxing inscrutable algorithms or feeling like every corner of my life must be in service to the brand. Even more so I just resent the whole enterprise for dwindling what was a robust ecosystem of websites into three apps designed to make you feel like shit. Fortuitously, during these thoughts my fiance found a website similar to the StumbleUpons of our past. And buddy, did it just make me want to have that kinda website again. The one you just want to poke around for the sake of touring someone’s head.
So that’s what I hope I did in this website overhaul! I especially suggest visiting the Po’Dunk section of the site. There’s so many more places to visit, bonus comics, little tidbits of the town’s history and so forth. Best yet, it’s not a completed project. As I continue on with Backwood Folk more places and people will reveal themselves here too. I keep calling it an online diorama, and that feels right where I want to be.
In more direct comic news, Backwood Folk Issue 2: Dry County Spirits is well on its way. I hate giving predictions on releases when the world is a little more reliable, so I especially won’t give one today. Suffice to say it’s way closer to done than it is not. I’m exceedingly happy with how it’s coming out too. More ghosts, more witchcraft, and more small town gossip. But a little bigger, and you can start to see the shape of things to come in this one. For now the plan is for the release to look pretty similar to the first one. Big 48 page oversized release for print, and digital downloads available as well. If the world decides these plans aren’t adequate, I’ll adapt.
I also plan to use this blog more frequently. I’m longwinded and full of hot air, it’s my natural environment. Sometimes it will be news, sometimes thoughts. Maybe even some thoughts on what I’m readin’ and watching. I also will be responding to comments if I get them. I’m not delusional though, I get it’s a website in 2025. There may be six of you clicking on websites. But I’ll respond like it’s the millennial update of ham radios and the like. We’re all hobbyists in these corners I figure.
If you really *want* my socials, fine. I’m mostly active on bluesky and letterboxd. But I’m not putting that kinda crap on business cards anymore. Ain’t a business proposal, I’m just trapped with the mind of someone raised on internet forums.
Other tidbits!
–We Always Lie to Strangers, the podcast I’m on with three other friends just recently launched a patreon! It’s a podcast on Ozarks history, folklore, and more. And the Patreon will be home to bonus episodes. Good way to toss support all the work Sharp Woolston puts into it, as he does the lion share of work in writing and editing. You can find the Patreon here!
-Currently reading Neil Compton’s The Battle for the Buffalo River. One of the comprehensive histories of the fight to prevent the Buffalo River to be dammed as well as becoming the first National River of America. Unfortunately, it proves relevant again from a few different standpoints. Couple of our state congress people seem intent to doom us to repeats of the Hog Farm fights of a few years back.
Rather unfortunate timing too as this happens while a lot of our regional billionaires were recently flirting with a re-designation of the river (as well as buying as much of the Arkansas Ozarks as humanly possible) Anyways, suffice to say this stuff will appear in Backwood in some capacity. Feels like artistic malpractice to do a contemporary story set around the tourism industry of the Buffalo River and not address it. Let’s say I’m a little concerned from every angle. One where we get to dump pigshit in the Buffalo, and another where the Waltons and Sarah Huckabee Sanders get to launder a land grab as conservationism. Maybe they do mean well for our region, but I’ve never lost money betting the billionaires have selfish and rotten intent. Bad news at home too you know?
I’ll have some more announcements soon, and pretty cool ones too. Well I should anyways. Who knows how anything works any more.