Danny Robinson's Patreon

The Headies. From left: Grant Robinson - keyboards and vocals, Todd Purse - drums, Danny Robinson - vocals and guitar, Billy Frolic - guitar and vocal and Justin Vavala - bass guitar. Yes, it's the same Todd Purse who is the 'Tales of Illuminatus' artist. 

Danny Robinson, who made a soundtrack album for Tales of Illuminatus No. 2 as "Danny and the Darlings," now has a Patreon. As Bobby Campbell says, he's "he's sharing demos, shop talk, lyric sheets, background lore, and vegetarian recipes as he endeavors to get his forthcoming album pressed on vinyl!"

Here is more information on the soundtrack album; you can read my interview with him and you can read up on his new punk rock opera. 

Rock album includes 'Illuminatus!' song [UPDATE]

I did not hear about it at the time, but in 2019 the Philadelphia rock band Eye Flys released the EP Context. And as Bobby Campbell mentioned in his latest newsletter, the album includes the track "The Triumph of Hagbard Celine." As with most Bandcamp tracks, you can check out the song before deciding whether to buy it. I had trouble making out some of the lyrics, but I did hear "submarine" and "immantize the eschaton" and other words.

"This is an album of commanding, lean noise rock absolutely brimming with vitriol," says the band, describing its music. More information here.  

Update: Please help Bobby with the lyrics; see the comments. 

Does Hagbard Celine shave? Maybe!

 

In his latest newsletter, "By Hagbard's Beard," Bobby Campbell explains how he wrestled with a particular question with his Tales of Illuminatus! comic book adaptations: Does Hagbard Celine have a beard or is he clean shaven? I'll let you follow the link for Bobby's solution!

Lots of other interesting news and bits at the link, don't forget to click through Bobby's links! For example, Bobby is working on his plans for a Maybe Day event on July 23 in Berkeley, California: "I've been scouting venues and bugging the locals. Speaking it into existence one step at a time :)))"

Technical difficulties at RAW Fans Germania

 

Robert Anton Wilson Fans Germania is an excellent website of RAW material maintained by Martin Wagner. The main website is currently down because of technical difficulties. Martin is addressing this, but in the interim, please use the site archive. 

Mass market paperbacks are going away

 

A fascinating article in the New York Times details a major cultural shift for readers -- mass market paperbacks are going away. Of course, the Illuminatus! trilogy originally was published as a trio of mass market paperbacks.

I used to buy many mass market paperbacks. I still have my original paperbacks of Illuminatus! But nowadays, when I buy a cheap book, it's an ebook. I have hundreds of books on my Kindle, most of them purchased on sale for a couple of bucks or so. Mass market paperbacks used to be the easiest way to be able to read anywhere. But because I have a smartphone, and a Kindle app on my phone, I have a big library I carry everywhere I go. 

What we read last month

What Mark Brown read:

Cocktail Time by P. G. Wodehouse  1/3/2026 
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin  1/14  
The Night Life of The Gods by Thorne Smith  1/22   
The Charwoman’s Shadow by Lord Dunsany  1/29
Llana of Gathol by Edgar Rice Burroughs  1/31

What I read in January: 

A Kiss for Damocles, J. Kenton Pierce.
Hellenistic Philosophy, John Sellars.
Red Heart, Max Harms.
Beyond Control, Jacob Sullum.
The Fourfold Remedy, John Sellars.
Forged for Destiny, Andrew Knighton.

As usual, the rest of you are invited to post in the comments about what you read last month. 

RAW and his editors

 

Michael Johnson's latest Substack, "Ezra Pound and Robert Anton Wilson and Publishing and Editors," examines RAW's general disdain for the editors he worked with. There are lots of interesting comments to the post. The piece is "part one," and I am really looking forward to part two. 

Bobby Campbell on the Robert Shea anthology

 

One more item, if I may, from Bobby Campbell's latest newsletter: 

"Wanted to make sure I mentioned this wonderful addition to the Illuminatus! canon, an excellently crafted spotlight on co-author Robert Shea. My enthusiastic review is enclosed below:

Meet Bob Shea! The legendary co-creator of Illuminatus!, Hodge to Robert Anton Wilson's Podge, a luminous man of letters, friendly suburban zen buddhist anarchist, and visionary creator of better tomorrows, that you are most welcome to enjoy today!

Tom Jackson has crafted a perfect introduction to Robert Shea's literary labyrinth, a guided tour of his revolutionary ouvré, wherein Shea's unique voice delivers enlightening epiphanies as casually as an old friend discussing the weather.

Make no mistake, the mystic mystery of Illuminatus! continues right here and now!

More on the book here. 

In a comment on my recent post about the latest Hilaritas podcast, podcast host Mike Gathers said the podcast on the Shea book and the Vincent Murphy podcast were two highlights in the 2025 podcasts. I thought the Shea podcast was good, too --- not because I was on it, but because Mike Shea told so many wonderful stories about his father. 

Maybe Day event planned in Berkeley, California, in July

Wilmington Comic Fest at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware 1/10/26

Bobby Campbell's latest newsletter has an announcement that I think deserves a separate blog post, so that it can get a little attention: " I have set my sights on an in-person Maybe Day event in Berkeley, California on July 23, 2026. We'll see!"

I hope this comes together, and of course as I learn more, I will share here. 

Bobby of course is the founder of the annual Maybe Day celebrations on July 23, and the more recent midwinter Maybe Night events. At first, these were online celebrations, but recently Bobby has shifted more toward in-person events, such as his Wilmington Comic Fest conventions. 

I am a big fan of the possibilities of the internet, but there also is something to be said about in-person meetups. I certainly loved my time with Gregory Arnott and Bobby at Confluence in Pittsburgh, and I got to meet up with Gregory and his wife at another Confluence. 

Free 'Tales' webcomic and other Bobby Campbell news

 

In his latest newsletter, Bobby Campbell announces that Tales of Illuminatus No. 2 has now been released as a free webcomic, so that everyone can now read it. Print and digital copies remain available, as the free version likely won't be around forever. 

"I'm super psyched to have this out in the wild, and hopefully catch more folks up on our illuminated tales as we ready the next installment," Bobby says.

Bobby has combined two separate newsletters, previously on Substack, and moved to a new platform,  ghost.io, for a combined newsletter, Gloria Discordia. If you got the previous newsletters you should be getting the new one; otherwise, sign up here. 

I'll have a separate post on some of Bobby's other news, as I don't want it to get lost in the Tales announcement. But you can go ahead and read all about it. 

History lessons

A couple of history offerings that caught my eye, one of possible interest to RAW fans and one  that might interest Robert Shea fans.

RAW was a World War II revisionist, and I recent ran across an announcement from Thaddeus Russell for an online course, "World War II: The Great Blowback," scheduled for Feb. 9-12:

"To most Americans, World War II is the only 'good war'—the one conflict you’re not allowed to question without being accused of bad faith or worse.

"But over the last two decades, a growing number of of scholars has been assembling a very different narrative: that U.S. policy under Franklin Roosevelt turned regional wars into a truly global war, guaranteed the realization of the Holocaust, and was principally responsible for producing the greatest catastrophe in human history.

"This is the new history of the Second World War that I’ll be presenting in a 4-part live course at Unregistered Academy."

More information here.  

While I am open to World War II revisionism, I admit to being cool to the "Allies made Hitler did it" school. Speaking of which, Russell's Substack also has a recent interview with Darryl Cooper. 

Meanwhile, Tyler Cowen recently did a mini-review of Jack Weatherford's  Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China, which covers the period of history in Robert Shea's two Shike novels. Tyler wrote, "A fun and good book, think of it as explaining how Kublai Khan beat Song China but subsequently lost to Japan.  The Ainu play a role in a wide-ranging and still historically relevant story."

Scott Apel's wild novel

I have just finished reading The Uncertainty Principle?, an oddball detective novel (or maybe, as the text says, an "anti-detective novel,") by Robert Anton Wilson's longtime friend, D. Scott Apel. It is quite a wild ride, and I found it hard to stop reading. The hero is private investigator Alec Smart, there are I think three  novels that feature him. 

Several real  people appear in the book under fictional names, including Robert Anton Wilson, Arlen Riley Wilson and Philip K. Dick. Here is one of the descriptions of the RAW character, "Timothy Aleister Finnegan,":

From my perspective, I stood facing an avuncular guy who couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a writer. He was middle-aged, a few inches shorter than my six feet, but well-matched with his wife. He had a large, round face which tapered down to a pointed gray goatee, and he wore his salt-and-pepper hair slicked straight back against his head. He looked like nothing so much as the unlikely offspring of a cherub and a satyr. He had an infectious smile, accentuated by laugh lines radiating around his sharp blue eyes. In those eyes was a hint of endearing devilishness; a touch of the Trickster. The cherub as confidence man. There's an old joke that says, "After you shake hands with him, be sure to count your fingers." I felt like if I counted mine now I might find six. 

The Uncertainty Principle? is available as a paperback (about $15) and a Kindle ebook (about $1).  I have published a couple of interviews with Scott, here is one. 

John Higgs does David Lynch podcast, makes appearances

 

Want to know more about the new John Higgs book about David Lynch? Check out his podcast on the "Highly Irregular" podcast with host John Bernard. 

More news, including UK appearances to discuss the book, on the latest free issue of his Substack newsletter. There is also a paid tier now, as the newsletter explains.