Hi, My Name Is…
Long time no post here. I was blogging for a while over at Substack, but that was mostly a continuation of my old “life update” blogs here which I’ve now hidden. A few project updates, a lot of bellyaching, sharing plans for things I might never get done, etc.
And I was bored typing it, I can’t imagine too many other people would be interested, either.
But here I am about a month out from the release of my first book, Bring Me the Royal Flip-Flops: A Noah’s Archipelago Comics Treasury, and everyone and their dog says ya gotta blog.
Everyone except David Gaughran, who wisely points out that blogging makes little difference to book sales and calls it F tier marketing, that is. But even he says you can if you wanna.
Thing is, I have written a blog on and off across several platforms and websites for probably 15 years or more, just not consistently. And frankly, I’ve done it kinda badly but I keep doing it and the notion of not having a blog of some sort when I’m self-publishing is somehow disturbing.
In my last Substack post, I said I was going to start a Wednesday blog that was more focussed on my stories and fictional worlds. And I think that is a good thing to do, kinda a reference manual of sorts with extra tidbits for worldbuilding and character backstories etc., but I thought maybe first I should give a reintroduction that’s a bit more in-depth than the bio I have on here (I really need to rebuild this site, but that’s a job for Future Me).
So… hi… my name is Pyra Draculea. I changed it when I was a 19 year old goth twit and I don’t get too bent out of shape as to how you pronounce it. (I say it Peer-uh, but my dad and his whole side of the family say it Pie-ruh and it’s been like that for about 30 years.)
I used to make industrial noise rock as maQLu, but I recently pulled all that old music off of digital distribution and I’ve hidden hundreds of old posts from that website. I just mention it because it’s part of the backstory that colors my work now, along with my time as a college radio DJ and an indie record label publicist who was terrible at her job and an audio engineering student, etc. (It shows up more in the Ricky B. The Rock N Roll Rat stories, but there are shades of my history in Noah’s Archipelago, too.
Let’s talk about my projects, shall we?
- Ricky is a punk rock rat-dude who idolizes Sid Vicious and works as the go-fer in a major recording studio working for his boss Big Mike who has produced all sorts of famous bands. Currently I’m working on a collection of funny Ricky-narrated short stories that I hope to have out at the end of this year called A Year In Ratsville, along with a graphic novel called Ricky B. Goes to Sea which I should have out in spring next year, and I have a few other books involving Ricky in the pipeline, too.
- Noah is a stay-at-home dad by day and cover band rock star by night, singing in 5 different bands including a U2 tribute, a Creed tribute, and a Bon Jovi tribute. I used to do a webcomic about him before deciding I’d like to work on bigger book projects instead. Come October 2026 the first collection of comics from that project will be out, with I think 3 or 4 further comics treasuries to come. I’m also working on a short story/coloring book featuring Noah called The A-Z of Noah’s Job History, in which his daughter Ursula’s third-grade homework assignment leads to a bet between Noah and his mother-in-law Agnes as to who’s had more jobs. I hope to have this one out in January.
- My first comic project, however, was Zamo the Destroyer, which I started in 2006 as a webcomic and did for about 3 years. Zamo was loosely based on an actual iguana I had for about 10 years from 1994 to 2004, mixed with spoofing anthropology (because once upon a time I was an anthro major and believe me, most of them richly deserve to be spoofed). I never did get a Zamo book done back in the day but plan to release one next year.
Not a comic, but another comedy project I’ve had was The Nick White Show, a weird YouTube comedy with dolls as cast members that focused on the antics of the second-biggest rock star of the 1980s.
Aside from comics and comedy per se and music, I’ve also done a decent amount of podcasting over the years. Past podcasts included Under My Skin with Pyra Draculea (which suffered from being an audio version of my blogs mixed with bitching about news stories), The Rock N Roll Blather Show (rock news snark), and fictional podcasts starring/narrated by “Zamo” and “Ricky” (The Zamo the Destroyer Show running with various degrees of consistency and regularity from 2014 to 2021 and Ricky B. The Rock N Roll Rat – Podcast Edition running for a dozen episodes from 2023-2024). I have plans to start a new podcast in the coming months, but I think I’ll keep my mouth shut until it actually launches.
I guess you can start noticing a pattern in themes here: I’ve been heavily influenced by my lifelong obsession with rock n roll, particularly ‘80s rock and ‘70s punk. Which occasionally makes things weird in my daily life in a small town on the west coast of Canada… let’s just say I learned quick not to bring up having known guys who worked with Tommy Lee whenever people gush about how Pamela Anderson lives up in Ladysmith because apparently “eww… Tommy Lee is gross!”
(OK, but Pamela used to fuck Tommy and bred with him, so if he has cooties, why doesn’t she? Not casting any shade on Pamela, BTW… just the hypocrisy.)
Well… I learned to be a daywalker and smile and not talk about what I do. I don’t mention The Nick White Show’s treatment of scuzzy rock stars and the groupie sluts who service them. I mostly show doodles of Noah and Ursula arguing about whether or not to order pizza for dinner. Ricky’s girlfriend’s cousin Myles gets drawn guzzling coffee, not punching baristas who get his order wrong. Etc.
I guess this is a good enough overview. I spent some time looking up suggestions for fiction authors to blog about (“blog writing tips because there’s totally not already 543 million shit blogs telling you to add more descriptive language and giving tips on how to make your dialogue sound completely and laughably fake in the name of sounding more literary!” “tell us your inane political opinions!” “tell us about the time you were embarrassed in 4th grade that has no relationship whatsoever to your stories!”) and you need not worry that I will write about any of that garbage.
Instead, my rough plan is is to post on Wednesdays (albeit not necessarily every Wednesday, just when I think I have something worth posting). Topics will include a rotation of:
- Worldbuilding: Some aspect of one of my stories’ worlds (eg, maybe the arcade Noah’s son Duke hangs out in or Ricky’s prized 1983 Ratswagen Rabbit hatchback and how many rolls of duct tape he used to keep the passenger seat attached to the floor)
- Character back stories or Q&A
- Project updates
- Deleted scenes
- And more: Could be book/movie reviews pertaining to topics (maybe Sid & Nancy for Ricky? Or when I read the next The Way of The House Husband?). Could be research tidbits related to what I’m writing (there’s a whole lot of obsession with the Oceangate/Titan shitshow that was background for Ricky B. Goes to Sea as just one example). Could be about my influences… all sorts of stuff.
Release announcements will be separate posts.
Lastly, do sign up for my newsletter:
It comes out every Monday and aside from a couple quick project updates, I also have some exclusive blurbs from my characters. For example, this week’s newsletter had a few poems as written by Myles… only one of which involved punching a barista. (Lil’ dude has some issues, OK?)
There’s also fun stuff I’ve watched or listened to this week and other goodies, so sign up… don’t make me send Myles after you.
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