Update September 2026
- Buck Bloom
- 21 hours ago
- 6 min read
OMG! Another update blog already?! Like, Zonks!
Full disclosure, I’m writing this a week in advance from release because I have the time on this Wednesday (8/26) to write. Also, I was “better late than never” last update so trying to avoid that.
Work has been work, no new updates. Cthulhu knows what my work schedule will be like in the future. I am really hoping they hire someone soon. Doing later shifts just throws off my mojo. I actually tried to cross train someone from another department but they were not feeling it. And I do not see anyone else from other departments being cross trained.
So, what has been going on for me? Well, I just got done earlier today writing chapter 28 of Last Job 2. Zach and I are so close in finishing this book that we are talking about cover art and beta readers. I actually need to do a sketch of the back cover, Zach already texted me his front cover.
I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. Relistening to “It Was A Shit Show” about the behind the scenes of movies and a few shows and video games. I think I have mentioned this podcast before and have been listening to them while walking a lot. I just cannot sit and watch anime or anything right now because I feel just antsy because of my later work shifts.
So, yeah, I still have not written anything of mine, beside working on Last Job 2 with Zach. One thing that has been bubbling back into my interest is “Call of Cthulhu” RPG. In the morning, during breakfast, I listen to podcasts. When I’m not eating, I am on my phone, like most people. I stopped looking at the Google News feed because too many stories are uninteresting or too depressing. So I have been shadowing the website of Chaosium, the game publisher of CoC. And it happened . . .
I saw on a blog on Chaosium that there was a Humble Bundle for 14 titles by Chaosium. None of them were CoC but I had been interested in Chaosium’s “Basic Roleplaying” Core Book which was in the bundle. I donated and got 14 PDF digital books, which are my first digital book purchases ever, and had to download them off of DrivethruRPG. And down the rabbit hole I went.
So much digital literature and gaming is available on DrivethruRPG. I have been on the site a lot lately, browsing through so much of CoC material alone. But before getting further down that abyss, I became tempted to buy some books on Chaosium. And I bought one physical book that is an anthology of werewolf stories, called “Mark of the Beast.” Which is being shipped right now, after a week of waiting . . . but a PDF copy was included with my purchase. Fascinated by the new digital book in my possession, I browsed Chaosium’s digital store. And then I bought more digital books from them.
And after getting comfortable with buy digital books from Chaosium and browsing DTRPG, I found that a lot of CoC was on sale and . . . yeah, I bought some stuff. One digital book I bought is a core CoC book, Pulp Cthulhu, and the bulk of stuff digitally I bought equaled that book’s price for a physical copy.
It is strange how comfortable I have become when buying digital books when I had been all about physical books most of my life. I still want a physical copy of things but . . . where to put them when I’m done? And the limitation of space aside, there is also the ever growing limitation of material available for the physical to continue. Recycling is a thing but something has to be sacrificed to make way for the new. And as for digital, it is limitless, technically.
I guess the glimpse into the digital age has caused stars in my eyes. A famous urban myth quote from Stan Lee: “Comics are like boobs. They look great on a computer, but I'd prefer to hold one in my hand.” I just discovered while doing search that he did not say that but it sounds like something he would say. And yeah, I like comics but as I have discovered after owning 5,000+ comics, they take up space and it gets to be a mess. And I like boobs but owning 5000+ physical boobs would take up a lot of space and would be a huge mess.
Digital is something I personally have mixed feelings about but I’m slowly warming up to the idea of owning a digital book over a physical one. One of the books I bought from Chaosium is out of print, called Blood Brothers, and the digital version cost about ten dollars. A physical copy goes for almost a hundred. Collector’s ambition aside, that is more than I am willing to spend on a curiosity. And I like what is in Blood Brothers and in the other digital books I have bought, but I now do not feel the need to own the physical copy.
But then again there is nothing more satisfying than reading a physical book. Eyes away from a screen, with a light upon the page, sitting in a comfortable chair, that is a feeling like none other. Stan Lee actually was all for both digital and physical coexisting. Which sounds more like the business savvy man we knew him for. And I’m also down with coexistence.
I discovered on DTRPG that they have a section for comic books too. And Valiant, my favorite little indie publisher, is still going strong. They got “Street Fighter vs. the Valiant Universe” on sale, which is rad. And honestly, with the closure of comic book stores and the fading interest in owning physical books, selling digital is how companies like Valiant can survive.
Just recently, I read that Sony is no longer going to print physical discs for their PlayStation. In all honesty, I am surprised it took this long to finally happen. So many video games are being sold digital, and only digital, that physical discs are going the way of the dinosaur. When I’m out doing errands and pass by the electronic section, the shelves of video games being sold are shrinking. Soon, only the consoles will be the only thing available. Or will they?
While playing around with my new smart TV, I found that I could play games on it. And not simple little things, I could play DOOM on it. And playing using the “cloud” which is still something I’m trying to figure out. The game is not even digitally on your device but on a server and you play on the server, not your device, through online.
My brain is melting thinking about this. 🔥🧠
All of this rant aside, any books I write and release will likely be sold digital. And as time goes on, a physical copy will be more of a novelty then what it was the standard for so long. I will still want to own an author’s copy and put it on my bookshelf. But the vast majority of book sales are digital these days. And sadly, books are not as big as they once were decades ago. So many more media entertainment rivals books now. But the ironic thing is that all of it can be made digital. Movies, music, games, and books, all of our entertainment is now brought to us through “Ones and Zeros”.
Buying and selling digital goods has been around since the dawn of the internet. Perhaps, technically, digital goods could exist as long as electricity has been a thing. As Egon from Ghostbusters said: “Print is dead.” And it took me a while, but I am coming around to it.
It is scary to me. But also exciting. Masterpiece or trash alike, whatever I write could be sold as a digital good. At a decent price too. Damn. The sky is the limit . . . or the limit of those future date centers being built. Ha!
And random tangent, as I close out, I want to someday write about a topic that I discovered on DrivethruRPG:
This is not something made up for CoC. The Australian Military, armed with machine guns and thousands of bullets, in the 1930s went to “war” with thousands of Emus. And apparently lost. I am so tempted to buy this scenario as a gag game session with friends. So good!
And with that!
Good Luck and GET DEM EMUS! YEE-HAH!
—Buck
Join the digital addiction #notsponsored
Chaosium
DrivethruRPG
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