More Bobby Campbell news

Bobby Campbell has released a newsletter full of news.  

-- The Kickstarter for Tales of Illuminatus No. 3 is fully funded. But pledges continue to June for everyone to get their goodies.

-- Bobby reviews a new Alan Moore collection that has a bunch of stories you've probably never read.

-- As I mentioned here earlier, Bleeding Cool and Grant Morrison like Bobby's comic book adaptations of Illuminatus! (Bobby: "If you told me 20 years ago I'd be working on an Illuminatus! comic book that Grant Morrison had publicly proclaimed as "brilliant!" I would not have been surprised at all, because I used to be an arrogant brat with delusions of grandeur. I still am, of course, but I used to be too!")

-- Bobby has a touching new comic about growing up with his older brother.

Read the whole thing for even more news!

New podcasts: Grant Morrison and Mike Gathers

 Grant Morrison has appeared on a recent episode of Douglas Rushkoff's "Team Human" podcast. Bobby Campbell recommends it as an especially great conversation. See Bobby's art above. 

The Non Serviam podcast, episode 74, features Mike Gathers. He's interviewed by Lucy Steigerwald.

"For NSP 74, we spoke with Mike Gathers about the politics of Robert Anton Wilson!

In addition, we talked about libertarianism, techno-optimism, the limits of the left-right spectrum, and Mike's recently published book with Hilaritas Press titled, A Non Euclidian Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005 containing many previously published political articles and interviews of RAW."

I've provided YouTube links, but both should be on most podcasting apps. 

Bonus news: Afroman won. 

Three new podcasts

Three new podcasts sombunall of you may be interested in:

The Team Human podcast, featuring Prop Anon, Grant Morrison and Douglas Rushkoff,  The focus is on Prop's Chapel Perilous biography of RAW. 

Jim O'Shaughnessy, the Reason Magazine interview. O'Shaughnessy is a major RAW fan who helped with the fundraising for the first issue of Tales of Illuminatus. And he does talk about RAW in the interview -- interviewer Nick Gillespie has posted a clip on X.com. 

Also, Jesse Walker appears on the Non Serviam podcast, and I am told RAW comes up in this conversation, too. 

I've supplied links but these should also be available on your favorite podcasting app. 

'Magick Show' Kickstarter continues

The Kickstarter for Magick Show, the Richard Metzger "documentary collection," is continuing. See the website for updates. As of today, $27,757 was pledged toward the $65,000 goal, and there were 29 days to go.

Here is a profile of Grant Morrison from the Times (of London) that mentions Magick Show. ("Morrison has now offered to share his skills, agreeing to cast spells and create personalised magical symbols to donors to a Kickstarter fundraising appeal for Magick Show, a documentary on modern occultism created by Richard Metzger, the American broadcaster and author.")

The Dangerous Minds website has been doing daily "Magick Show Diary" pieces with various guests; scroll down for Douglas Rushkoff interviewing Metzger about the project. Sign up for a newsletter at the website.

Kickstarter begins for Richard Metzger's 'Magick Show' documentary

Trailer for Magick Show 

A Kickstarter has begun for Richard Metzger's Magick Show, a documentary billed as "A sprawling documentary project made BY occultists FOR occultists!"

You can donate any amount to help the cause; rewards start at $99. If you kick in $10,000, "Grant Morrison will personally cast a spell for you! Includes live consultation with Morrison to define your personal goal, after which he will create and charge an original, one-of-a-kind sigil artwork and ship it to you," plus you are named an executive producer and you get various other goodies.  (More from Grant Morrison here.)

Grant Morrison to aid Richard Metzger's 'Magick Show' documentary

Grant Morrison (Creative Commons photo, details).

 Announcement via the reviving Dangerous Minds website:

"Grant Morrison is to offer three individuals a 'personal magick spell cast just for them' as part of a new crowdfunding scheme on Kickstarter to fund the post-production of Magick Show. A documentary described as a 'masterclass in the occult' and created by Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds and Disinformation, and produced by media theorist Douglas Rushkoff.

" 'I'm thrilled to be part of this momentous occasion,' said Grant Morrison. 'Quite simply it's the best show about magic ever made! The best, least sensationalized, most informed presentation of what contemporary magic is and how it works that I've ever seen onscreen.' Morrison looks forward to becoming part of the Magick Show community. 'It is time to call together the next generation of occultists, expose them to their lineage, and initiate them into the larger culture of practising magicians'."

RAW biography now to come out in August 2024

Douglas Rushkoff (Creative Commons photo By FRONT from Belfast, Northern Ireland)

On Facebook, Toby Philpott spots some news: The new Gabriel Kennedy/Prop Anon biography of Robert Anton Wilson is now listed as having a publication date of August 6, 2024.

This is the second time the book has been delayed by Strange Attractor Press; originally, the book was supposed to come out this fall, and then it was delayed until February 2024. I know Prop worked really hard on the book and I really want to read it; I guess we just have to be patient. Perhaps it is a positive sign that Strange Attractor wants to make sure the book is done right. 

On Facebook, Prop replied to Toby that he believes this will be "the last push back." 

The publisher's announcement lists the book as having 304 pages and introductions by Douglas Rushkoff and Grant Morrison. 

Ongoing series on Alan Moore and Grant Morrison

 

Elizabeth Sandifer (Twitter account photo)

I don't plan to wade through this myself, as I am busy right now with other priorities and not particularly a fan of the author, but "Last War in Albion," an ongoing series of blog posts by Elizabeth Sandifer, is about Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, apparently exploring their work and their rivalry. I assume sombunall of you will be interested:

"Last War in Albion is an ongoing feature of this site, currently running on Mondays. It is an ongoing critical history of the British comics industry focused primarily on the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. Its primary narrative runs from the publication of Grant Morrison’s earliest professional comics work in 1978 through to the present day, although its style is characterized by frequent digressions both forwards and backwards in history.

"The structure of Last War in Albion is an ongoing serial, with each entry following directly from the end of the previous one. Topics are often covered over two or more posts. Jumping around will thus produce some confusion, although hopefully a pleasant and entertaining level.

"The nature of this project means a lot of crawling around through the archives and trying to piece together timelines of decades old events. This at times requires tremendous practical help, and several people have provided various forms of material support in writing this project. To wit, I would like to extend special thanks to Meredith Collins, David Dovey, Ben Hansom, Andrew Hickey, Pádraig Ó Méalóid, Lance Parkin, Alex Reed, Matt Feltman, Roger Whitson, Anna Wiggins, and, of course, Jill Buratto. 

"The blog versions of Books One and Two were written prior to Morrison’s use of they/them pronouns."

Grant Morrison (and Bobby Campbell) on magick

Grant Morrison has a Substack newsletter, Xanaduum, which in the usual Substack fashion has a mixture of free issues and ones that only can be read by paid subscribers.

Many of the postings are about magick, including the latest piece,  "16/10 BEYOND THE WORD AND THE FOOL Pt3," which is one of the ones that everyone can read. 

There are four comments (typically with Substack, only paid subscribers may post comments), and two are from Bobby Campbell. Part of Bobby's comments:

"I fell down that most illustrious POP MAGIC rabbit hole way back in 2002, with unbelievably awesome results, and can maybe share some insight on this specific journey.

"First off, the only problem with magic is that it works!

"(At least from the practitioner's point of view.)"

"So basically, be prepared for success and be careful what you wish for."

Bobby also talks about that (and Grant Morrison) in the recent podcast I posted about earlier. 

Breaking news: Daisy Campbell! Grant Morrison!

A new RAW Trust newsletter from Rasa, with real news:

New Daisy Campbell book

"Hilaritas Press is absolutely delighted to present our second non-RAW title with the publication of Daisy Eris Campbell's mind-bending monologue, Pigspurt's Daughter. To accompany the run of the play, Daisy printed a booklet containing the play's monologue. After getting that booklet in the mail, and reading the whole play in one sitting, I was convinced that Daisy's writing would wonderfully add to the titles in the collection at Robert Anton Wilson's publishing house, Hilaritas Press. Daisy loved the idea and asked writer John Higgs to compose an introduction. Meanwhile, we assembled two dozen photographs from the performance (and a few other places), making Pigspurt's Daughter our first full color book. As a cool extra, we've also included a review of the play written by Jason Watkins. Jason's review won the Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism 2019."

Buy here (Kindle $9.99, paperback $15.23). More information. 

Grant Morrison writes piece for new Ishtar Rising

(Releasing a lot of pent-up news, Rasa also announces Grant Morrison has written an essay for the new edition of Robert Anton Wilson's Ishtar Rising, out soon from Hilaritas Press. Rasa, from the newsletter:)

Almost two years ago I got a connection to Grant Morrison (New York Times best-selling author, Comics Legend, Chaos Magician, creator of The Invisibles and other great graphic novels), and I asked him if he would be interested in writing a Foreword or Afterword for one of our upcoming RAW editions. He was interested, and so I sent him a list of the books we are republishing. I had an idea of which book he might think would be obvious for him, but I didn't suggest a particular book. He wrote back:

"The obvious one is Sex, Drugs and Magic but I might also consider Ishtar Rising as I've been working on Wonder Woman for the last couple of years and the concept of the 'goddess' - and the rise of female power in the Aeon of Ma'at as Kenneth Grant might describe it - has been on my mind a lot and may yield some interesting insights."

He did settle on Ishtar Rising, and his insightful essay, included in our new edition, seems to well reflect his meditations on the goddess. Here's a taste of Grant's essay:

"Ishtar sets out to interrogate a culture whose denial and repression of the breast, and by extension motherhood, the Milk of Human Kindness, womanhood and femininity in all its expressions, is a breeding ground for essentially Fascistic repression, judgmental censoriousness and a profound lack of empathy — what Wilson describes as fundamentally patrist attitudes.

"In place of the armored hard body of Corporate Man, that modern exemplar of successful sociopathic toxic masculinity, Wilson offers a matrist vision of oceanic orgasms, Free Love, Tantric sex, common sense, and boundless creativity."

Butterfly Language on words and magic

Grant Morrison. (Creative Commons photo)

Val, the Butterfly Language blogger, has a new post up, "Robert Anton Wilson, Grant Morrison, And The Magick Of Words," on the connection between magick and words. It's not a terribly long post, and rather than try to summarize it, I will point you to it.

New RAW biography slated for spring 2018 release

 Multimedia artist, musician, activist and now author PropAnon.

The new biography of Robert Anton Wilson by Gabriel Kennedy (also known as the musician, writer and activist Propaganda Anonymous) is slated for release in Spring 2018. The book was turned in to the publisher a few weeks ago, so "God willing and the creek don't rise," as they say down South, that should be a pretty firm date.

As we get closer, PropAnon will be doing a lot of promotion for the book, which of course you will hear about here, and Prop also tells me there will be other RAW news soon, so don't touch that dial, which is pretty mixed metaphor for a blog, but old people reading this will remember "listening to the radio" and will understand the expression.

In the meantime, here is my interview with PropAnon after the book was announced (Oz Fritz was a producer for one of his recordings!), and here is PropAnon's more recent Grant Morrison interview.