I Have a New Show Out This Week. No, Not That One. Another One.
Newsletter #005
Hello friends!
Oh boy, oh boy, today’s newsletter is a doozy because gang we’ve got stuff to talk about. So let’s get right on into it.
As always, if you prefer controlled chaos to be a thing that finds you in your home when you least expect it, make sure you’re subscribed by doing the thing right here:
But yes, let’s get onto the news, starting with the fact that I have a new audio fiction show out right now!
GASOLINA
Back in 2020, I was approached by the folks at Skybound Entertainment with an intriguing proposition: would I be interested in adapting Sean Mackiewicz and Niko Walter’s Eisner-nominated comic book series Gasolina to audio? Going through the series with an eye towards adaptation, I found it to be violent, irreverent, outrageous, and shockingly graphic.
Needless to say, I couldn’t say “yes, absolutely, let’s do this” fast enough.
The full series is out now. It’s an Audible Original, so you can only listen to it on *checks note* oh, right, yes, Audible. But for anyone that’ll need to make the hike up to a different app, I promise you, it’s worth it. It’s twelve full episodes written by yours truly, filled with scares, thrills, larger-than-life villains, and absolutely kick-ass heroes. Tell them I sent you and take the plunge, you’re going to have a great time.
What’s the show about? Well, the full write up reads:
Newlyweds Randy and Amalia work at her brother’s sugarcane plantation in Veracruz, Mexico—where they are both doing their best to put as much distance as they can between themselves and their shadowy pasts. But it is precisely their ill-gotten reputations that makes Amalia’s brother turn to them for help when his son, 14-year-old Quique, is kidnapped. The men behind the crime are Los Queridos, a new cartel that has already made a name for itself based on their brutality and ruthlessness ... and for their eerily devout worship of a new saint, La Querida. However, what should be a simple hostage exchange proves to be anything but. Los Queridos have unearthed something ancient and primal, some kind of demonic, infectious force they are unleashing upon their enemies and their victims, and they intend to use it to wage the bloodiest drug war the world has ever seen. And it’s just a matter of time before our newlyweds are caught in the middle of it all, forced to be killers, outlaws, and leaders all at once if they want to live to see any kind of tomorrow.
So yes. Lots of violence, lots of scares, lots of gore, lots of guns, lots of four-letter words - just lots of lots. (Do take the content warnings at the top of the show seriously, though - this one goes really hard.) It’s a totally off-the-wall rollercoaster, and we spent a long time building it to make sure that it only ever gets faster.
There’s a lot more that I could say about this show, but right now, I’m mostly just grateful. Grateful to the brilliant Sean Mackiewicz for letting me play in this incredible sandbox he dreamed up and for letting me borrow his amazing characters. Grateful to the incredible cast - The Boys’s Laz Alonso (who speaks words like he can freeze your blood with them, because he absolutely can), Martha Higareda, Shadan Saul Guerrero, Yenni Ann, Umbrella Academy’s David Castañeda, just to name a few - for playing larger-than-life as believably down-to-earth as they do. Grateful to everyone at Skybound for making this show possible, to the sound team for designing the shit out of some wild concepts I threw their way, and to the absolutely without equal Gigi Saul Guerrero for leading this project, both as its director and as its lead star.
Want to know the thing I’m maybe most grateful for? They let us make this story about Latino folks fighting to hold onto their identity and their lives… and they let us make it two ways. In English and in Spanish. How fucking rad is that?
And now, I’m very grateful that you all finally have the chance to listen to it.
So if you need something wild and freewheeling and deranged in all the best, fun ways in your life right now? Check out Gasolina. And if you listen to it and love it, the way I love it, please leave a rating and a review on it. Let’s show the powers that be that we should make more shows like this one.
DRACULA DRACULA DRACULA
Surely that’s the only big thing that’s happening this week, right? Right?
Ha. Ha. Ha.
My new indie fiction show, Dracula: The Danse Macabre is also out this week! The first episode comes out on Wednesday the 13th because we are only human here and cannot resist the allure of doing spooky things on spooky days of the calendar.
I’ll probably say more about Dracula once the first episode is out in full. But I’ll say this much… it’s been fascinating to return to Gasolina, a show that is action-horror with big loud bombast, in the middle of working on Dracula, which is horror-horror, where the scares go down and get under your skin instead of rising towards a big, exploding crescendo. It’s fascinating to see what echoes they have in each other, especially as the character reckon with the concept of fear.
But anyway - even on the lead-up to the show itself, we still have a few bits and pieces trickling down. We’ve started to get really nice write-ups and recommendations from some of the people who have already heard the show. For instance, the amazing Lauren Shippen had this to say:
And you know Lauren would never lie to you.
Dracula: The Danse Macabre comes out this Wednesday, and then runs every other week through Christmas. You can subscribe to it now!
PATREON
As I mentioned last time, I have a Patreon now! It’s been fun to make Dracula: The Danse Macabre, but it’s also reminded me of how much it costs to make a show completely on your own. So for anyone that wants to help me keep making shows on my own and have more time to develop new properties rather than, say, writing audio description for TV shows (my most unusual side gig this year), it’s there to help make that dream come true.
I’ve started posting some fun things up there. You can read Peace, a full audio fiction play script that I’ve never been able to produce, on there for free now. I’m also doing Creator Commentaries, where I sit down and listen to some of my older stuff, talking about the making of as we go. By popular vote, the first Creator Commentary was for Time:Bombs. Just… all of Time:Bombs. The livestream was last week, but you can still watch almost two full hours of me talking Time:Bombs over on my Patreon now.
I’ll be doing a few more things before the month is out - including some commentaries for Dracula episodes on the off-weeks when there aren’t new episodes coming out - so if you’re at all intrigued, now’s a great time to click through to that.
QUICK HITS
Wolf 359 Daily: The saga continues. If you’re a fan of Wolf 359, you really owe it to yourself to follow along with Rina’s episode-by-episode, mission-date-by-mission-date breakdown of the series. The guide just reached The Empty Man Cometh, which is very much the episode where, for me at least, Wolf 359 started to feel like Wolf 359. Rina does a great job of comparing and contrasting this episode with Super Energy Saver Mode, in a way that made even me go, “Ahhh, that was part of what the change was…” So, really: check it out. The next stretch - Extreme Danger Bug, Am I Alone Now?, Deep Breaths, Gas Me Twice, and The Kumbaya Approach to round out the year - ought to be a very fun one.
What Have I Been Listening To? Out of Sight from The Beths’ 2020 album Jump Rope Gazers has been on repeat nonstop this past week. Not sure when it happened, but it’s really turned into one of my comfort songs.
The World: is one fire, and I have no idea what to say about it beyond just this: you exist, you matter, you are here, you are loved. Whatever you need, there are people around you that want to help. Lord knows I’ve asked for a lot of hugs this past week.
And that’s all for today! Listen to Gasolina if action-horror is your thing. Look for Dracula: The Danse Macabre this Wednesday is horror-horror is what you need. Just don’t let yourself get too horrified. Ask for those hugs.
Gabriel Urbina
11.11.2024