THE FULL LID
10th June 2022
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Welcome, friends, to The Full Lid, your weekly 5 p.m. chunk of pop culture enthusiasm, career notes, reviews and anything else that I've enjoyed this week. Think of it as email, but good!
Congratulations! You made it through the week! To celebrate, enjoy Kane Pixels' incredible creepypasta series The Backrooms, where liminal spaces and found footage collide.
Know where that doesn't happen?
Contents!
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Contents
Ms. Marvel
One Night in the Catacombs
Signal Boost
Where You Can Find Us This Week
Department of Received Esoteric Print Goods
Signing Off / Playing Out
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Ms. Marvel
Editor's note: Minor thematic spoilers. Ms. Marvel is rated UK 12 / US TV-PG with content warnings for mild cartoon violence.
Meet poster as mission statement.
From the joyous colours and pop street art vibe to the combination of Pakistani and New York imagery to Kamala Khan standing tall and slightly apart from her family, this is the show at a glance. It's like the animated sequences from the end of the Jon Watts' Spider-Man movies let loose or the art style as dimensional overlap of Into The Spider-Verse. Only this time, there's Kamala, a self-described 'brown girl from Jersey' front and centre. In the space of a couple of days and a single episode, we see her mediocre school life, her evolving relationship with her family, and the moment her world changes. |
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This whole sequence would be a highlight moment for any episode. There are like three more. It's glorious. I want to watch each and everyone one of these YouTube videos. I want to nominate them for Best Fancast.
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Which sounds super angsty right? Yeah, take a look at the chap pinned to the paper by thumbtacks up there and stop worrying. Adil & Bilall's direction is exuberant and FUN. The wit and effervescent joy of the first episode is expressed the same way Kamala expresses herself: through art. The faculty of Kamala's high school are named for the original creative team on her book. Kamala has a video on her Youtube page called 'Bitten by a Radioactive Feminist?' that seems to be about a certain attorney-at-law.
Editor's note: Squeeeeeeeeee!!
In a sequence that's almost impossibly charming, a text conversation between Bruno and Kamala is played out across the neon signs of the store Bruno lives above. Every opportunity is taken to remind us of just how joyous and energetic Kamala's world view is, just what an artist she is. This kid sees things differently, and right now that's her weakness. It's about to become her superpower.
Mapping Kamala stepping into her power onto, it seems, helping her family make peace with their past to build their future, is an intensely clever storytelling choice. Iman Vellani does long-suffering, and goofily enthusiastic, like no one on Earth and Kamala is the most instantly likable protagonist Marvel have had since, well... Tony?
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Video Description: In a scene from Captain Ameria: Civil War, Spider-Man adorably interrupts the pre-fight trash talk.
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Thanks, Tony.
Kamala has about as much luck as Peter, too. The show's exploration of what Kamala thinks is going to happen and what does is where its pathos and humour both live. A fantastic sweet moment where her parents try and meet her halfway (well... some of the way) with AvengerCon starts with Zenobia Shroff as Muneeba and Mohan Kapur as Yusuf doing physical comedy and ends with an awful, hanging moment of familial conflict. Bisha K. Ali, showrunner and writer for this episode embraces how hard Kamala is trying, in every sense, and the show is remarkably honest and kind-hearted about how untidy family can be. I can't wait to read a lot more reviews from critics with similar lived experiences.
That constant tension nbetwene who Kamala is and who she wants to be stretches from an early beat where Kamala's two best friends bet on whether she'll fail her driving test to a closing confrontation with her mom after the convention. Everything lives in that tense, messy space where effort and aspiration and expectation all collide to feel like Kamala herself: fizzing with potential.
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Now THIS is how you credit your writers!
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And she's not alone, supported with a fantastic ensemble cast. Shroff and Kapur are fantastic as Kamala's parents. Saagar Shaikh is great as Aamir, her seemingly-perfect older brother and the rolling, good-natured bickering the pair engage in is going to be familiar to anyone who has a sibling. Kamala's right hand dude, electronic genius and 7/11 warrior Bruno Carrelli is played with gentle intelligence by Matt Lintz as is her friend Nakia, played by Yasmeen Fletcher. All these people love Kamala and she loves them. That deep, thrumming bass note of support grounds her in her community even as she begins to grow out from it. This brown girl from Jersey knows where she's from. The show's future, and Kamala's, are both about where she's going.
I am so glad that Ms. Marvel looks and acts and feels like no other Marvel show to date because that's absolutely the point. Heart a mile wide, a visual style that will take your breath away, and one of the MCU's most instantly likable leads have given a strong first impression. It's absolutely worth your time, and I'm yearning for more.
Ms. Marvel streams on Disney Plus every Wednesday in the UK. There are no bad places to start with her in comic form. We'd recommend the G Willow Wilson original run, the Saladin Ahmed run or Danny Lore's run on Champions (Kamala in a team, with Miles Morales and others!) in particular. Find them at your local comic store, my local comic store, or the South American River.
Ms. Marvel News is curating threads of reviews from South East Asian and Muslim writers. Swara Salih over at Io9 is also doing really good work about the show.
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The payoff here is glorious but the extended unease of what comes before is, if anything, better.
Video description: A young filmmaker finds himself trapped in a nightmarish dimension of empty spaces, pursued by something unspeakable.
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One Night in the Catacombs
It's no surprise I'm a massive fan of indie RPGs, especially the invention and freedom of movement and play that so many indie creators embody. Friend of the Lid Monica Valentinelli's latest, One Night in the Catacombs, is a nimble hybrid that's one part game, one part sandbox. In it, you and up to three other players play... yourselves. In this world you're influencers attending an exclusive party held in a newly discovered section of the Catacombe di San Gennaro beneath Naples, Italy.
As Valentinelli explains:
'...When I sat down to write this game, I wanted to offer a party game that was easy to learn and customizable for groups who knew each other and those who didn’t. This is the reason why I opted to call players "Guests", why the game’s story hooks are presented in letters, why you can play as a LARP or TTRPG, and why the host of your party a customizable "Maven" who can guide your evening with a light touch or a firm hand."
Your evening is defined by three envelopes. They describe the entrance to the catacombs, the alcove of the catacombs and the shrine you end up in. Things get interesting as the players must choose a costume for the evening and discovery they've become something other than human. They have one night to explore the catacombs, retrieve the relic central to their role, discover what they have become, and enact the reversal ritual. The catacombs are uncharted, but not deserted, and not every guest has the same objective.
What warms the cockles of my postmodernist gamer heart is that Valentinelli maps the unknown of play onto the unknown of the catacombs. The rules gracefully describe actions which guests can take, those actions in turn helping them define not only the physical space but discover just what they've become and what to do about it.
Here's a great example from the text:
...Taking an Explore Action in a narrow hallway might reveal what chests, crypts, traps, doors, etc. are in the area. You can also use Inspect or Investigate to find magical Relics and scrolls that possess supernatural powers, too. A Smash Action, to break a shuttered window, might expose an ancient well that draws fresh water on the other side. Or you might Hack a rope and a chest of priceless gems drops from the ceiling!
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The text is open and easy to engage with; the illustrations carefully chosen and evocative.
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The rules embody the game and empower the guests. The self discovery of what sort of creature you've become is mapped onto the search through the catacombs which in turn is mapped onto your own discovery journey through the game. Self discovery becomes narrative discovery becomes discovery of play.
While the framing narrative is designed to establish the expectation of the guests in competition with each other, the default prize is control of the narrative -- a neat way of depersonalizing inter-guest conflict while ensuring everyone has the opportunity to drive the narrative. The story is territory and destination, the guests both participating and creating.
One Night in the Catacombs is a gem of a game. The appendices break down how to run it as a LARP or a TTRPG in addition to the party game model. In addition, Valentinelli includes various extra relics and powers and some fun hints at possible places the game could go in addition to a narrative framework that emphasise creative thinking and innovation, while still incorporating methods of combat if desired. I'd love to see this run in the catacombs under Nottingham or Edinburgh, or what creatures inhabit the largely forgotten chemical rocketry relics of the US Space Program. You could run a cold, nasty, paranoid Arctic Research Station with this game or a cocktail party with wine, nibbles and occasional murder. The brilliance of it is in the mercuriality. See where the night will take you.
One Night in the Catacombs is available now.
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The decompressed way Kane is telling this story, continually using limitations as strengths is amazing. This is all exposition but it absolutely shrieks with tension.
Video description: A voice describes a plan by the Async Foundation to solve the world's housing issues among others as a test on a mysterious portal triggers, turns the horrific yellow of the Backrooms dimension, and fades.
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New reader? Looking for a back issue?
Buy me a coffee?
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I am an absolute mark for this sort of fragmentary storytelling.
Video description: Missing persons posters are superimposed over a graph showing the massive increase over time in amount of people missing. The door from the previous video is open and people in full containment suits make their way through the Backrooms. They find a desiccated corpse of one of the missing, apparently covered by some kind of fungal growth.
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Signal Boost
Featured Boost
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Fiction
Gaming
- Heaven's Vault, the critically acclaimed archaeology linguistic exploration game from Inkle Studios, is getting a limited edition physical release for Nintendo Switch and PS4. Pre-orders open this Sunday.
- Quest Friends! says 'For folks who would rather make their own cartoon adventures, we've got a companion tabletop game called Under the Neighborhood! With Amphibia ending and the Owl House going on hiatus, now's the perfect time for fans to make their own stories.
Hashtags and Shenanigans
Podcasting
- Iszi Lawrence says 'I do the Terrible Lizards podcast about dinosaurs. Me and palaeontologist @Dave_Hone this series we are learning all about flappy flaps (pterosaurs)'. I cheered a bit when I read the words 'flappy flaps'.
- Desperado Podcast says 'Hi Hi! We make Desperado, an urban fantasy audio drama that follows 3 avatars of Death as they fight to protect their heritage from modern day crusaders!'
- Echobox say 'We make echobox, a Greek myths retelling audiodrama, the gods are the most famous celebrity fam and echo is spilling all of their secrets. we're currently doing crowdfunding right now to pay our LGBTQ and BIPOC cast and crew!'
- Hand in Glove say 'Hey! Just dropped our first trailer and episodes release July 4!'
- Quest Friends! says "Quest Friends! Hereafter' is a comedy actual play podcast where the worlds of the living and the dead are only a plane ride away. It's inspired by cartoons like The Owl House and Amphibia. We've got five episodes, so now's the best time to try it out!'
- IcarusPod says 'We're a woman run indie audio drama getting ready to start our season 2! A group of young adults are funneled into a development program for travels to Mars. An adventure/suspense story about signing yourself up for a career without a way out.'
- Mark Bologna says 'I have a podcast all about New Orleans called Beyond Bourbon Street. Also just published a travel guide by the same name on @GlobePequot'
Crowdfunding
That's this week's Signal Boost! If you have a project you'd like to see here get in touch or check Twitter for my weekly call.
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There is no monster in this video. Knowing that will not help.
Video description: Snippets of a video warning employees to never enter the Backrooms in groups of less than three bookend a video taken from an expedition. One member is separated from his colleagues and gets lost. He finds what may be human remains in a lecture hall and an old farmhouse, seemingly dropped in its entirety into the backrooms.. We last see him catatonic on the floor of an office as an alarm sounds.
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Where You Can Find Us This Week
Accents for Fun and Profit
ArchiveCon!
We had such a great time! A fuller YouTube playlist of convention events is in progress, but for now here's the Twitch VODs of our panels:
Twitch
- On Wednesday we chatted to amazing Friend of the Lid Lillian Boyd! Music! Horror movies! Bert the cat! SUCH a good time! So much Show Notes!
Podcast Land
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Content Warning: The actual next video in chronological order is Autopsy Report. We went with Motion Detected to let you engage with gore on your own terms.
None of these sets are real by the way. This is CGI and its astoundingly well used.
Video description: Footage recorded by motion sensitive cameras. Most of it is images of researchers coming and going. One, when enhanced, seems to be the legs of a human, floating near the ceiling, the rest of the body obscured by the wall.
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Department of Received
Esoteric Print Goods
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Khōréō is a one of our favorite of the newest genre fiction magazines and these postcards are gorgeous!
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NEW JEN WILLIAMS BOOK KLAXON!
Friend of the Lid and all around badass Jen Williams latest, Seven Dead Sisters is available now! Here's the blurb:
'Alizon Grey is being driven to her death, caged in the back of a cart ready to be burned to death as a witch, and for killing her father. When the cart is attacked and she finds herself loose, we follow her journey as she tries to reach safety even as the story of her life—mistreated and the last of her siblings—is gradually revealed. Alizon has had to fight for her life before now, but this time wins all and the truth will be revealed.'
We recommend Portal Bookshop in all things.
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Ignyte Award Voting Closes Today!
Voting is open to all and free! You don't have to vote in every category! Come take part in the cutting edge of the genre fiction conversation and cheer on a truly excellent group of finalists!
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Signing Off / Playing Out
Thanks for reading, folks! I hope the week was good and at all points full of the feral energy of Tom Cardy advocating Louis Theroux as the avatar of conflict resolution. And...possibly...also as the God...King...of...space.
Yeah. Anyway!
TFL returns next week. Check my Carrd for all the places you can find me, including the Twitters, where I just found out one of the active Mars rovers has a pet rock (Meghan's awesome and a super worthy Twitter follow). Follow us on Twitch to be notified when we go live.
TFL is a free weekly newsletter. Here's how you can support it and me:
And thank you!
Playing us out this week is The Pixies! One of my favourite bands! Who have a new album out at the end of the year and this single out now! Because, you see, There's a Moon On and that means this?
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is a Full Lid.
Video description: Video for "There's A Moon On" by the Pixies
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