I've been busy y'all and it's been pretty awesome. On Thursday I got to visit Dirty Work Studio and hang out with my friend Sid, and new friend Natalie. We talked a lot about riso stuff and it was a lot of fun! I can't wait to hang out at the studio more and explore the possibilities of creativity with risograph work! Gods, it's so fun y'all.
During the studio time, I had time to work on some sticker designs I've been rotating in my mind and that is where Doctor Who, and Gallifrey Audios come in to play. I'm not gonna lie and say that I've been hit with the Doctor Who special interest since I was around 14 years old, and it's grown with me in so many different ways. I remember being a young thing falling asleep listening to the audio drama range (and waking up at the weirdest times) and I remember when I first fell in love with the expanded universe.
The Fourth Doctor is pretty important to me not gonna lie, Tom Baker's madness got me through some of the hardest times of my life and I am forever grateful to him for keeping my spirits high during the greatest lows. Circling back around to stickers, I went ahead and made a couple Doctor Who themed ones that will be posted in my shop update later on this week.
I've been really loving the vibe lately, spring has sprung and I've got that echo in my step that things are gonna be alright. The cycle continues and I grow and bloom onward. Today I revisited one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes, The City of Death. Written by Douglas Adams under a pseudonym it is one of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever, actually, seasons 16-18 are pretty solid in general and I very much love that era for one reason and one reason alone:
Enter in, my Blorbo, Romanadvoratrelundar. Introduced as a cocky post grad student, turned into a manic pixie science girl, she is everything to me, and I guess I take a lot of influence from her in particular. She even got her own spinoff series, Gallifrey that also stars former companion Leela, on their adventures as President and Body Guard of Gallifrey. It's very homoerotic, and season 2, episode 2: Spirit is probably one of my favourite body-swap episodes of all time.
What I love about the Gallifrey Audios is how bold they are - Gallifrey is a political planet run by the machinations of a race of Aliens that don't age. Things get weird, like - fighting parallel versions of yourself type weird, and its something so nostalgic about it (it's first episodes were released in 2004, when I was 6 years old) and as someone who grew up watching Doctor Who, it's pretty special.
I talk about this because now, I am helping out with the Gallifrey Relisten Zine that is in the works with friends Moshke, Heartshaven, Polarity, and Chronic. We are planning on bringing the garage style fun that comes with making zines back into the fanzine scene, and I am excited! I am doing pieces for the episodes Warfare, and Extermination, which are both very intense, guttural, character pieces that really explore Romana as a character, as well as her various traumas.
There's a lot that is gonna be happening in the next few months and I am so damn excited to see where everything goes - all my passions and drive is coming true and it's been an absolute blast to embrace myself fully and the weird, wild things that happen in between.
Because of this, I've been designing stickers that vibe well with me and my own ethos, weird, wonderful, and made by hand. I love the meditative process of laminating the sheets and cutting them out. It feels very good for my autism and I am very happy.
