Netherworld Post Office

Netherworld Post Office creates joyous and spooky stories, comics, zines, and snail mail products about the Netherworld, a utopian setting full of monsters, witches, ghosts, mermaids, and more. Run by Atticus Q. Redghost ("atty" for short, they/them is most convenient, any are fine) and a small board of misfits and nonsense-makers.   Netherworld Post Office

[netherworldpost]

Drawing in the margins of my planning book. Humans have been doodling monsters and ghosts in the margins of planning books for maybe as long as there have been books.

Hm.

Oh.

Hm.

[netherworldpost]

Kobo Libra Colour (e book reader thing) is the greatest piece of technology I own.

Books. Connects to cloud things for things I own, connects to the library.

I assume it does other things.

[il-castagno-press]

I made a mini print recently 🍀✌️🏽

If you’re in the Chicagoland area you might encounter this print around the city, I’ve been leaving them around like a scavenger hunt haha. I feel like these prints will be part of a bigger project.

Website//Etsy//Instagram

[netherworldpost]

Lemon Peel!

[netherworldpost]

We've been following you for a long while, and while we have a better idea of What You Do now than we did a few years back, the reason we followed you -- and the reason we Stayed -- is because you are a certain type of insane. You're something of a role model for us for your willingness to tinker and rebuild and refactor.

All of this to say good luck and godspeed. I wish you well.

Cheers and thank you, I wish you well as well!

What I Do Now is an extension of what I've been doing more or less since the 90s. People want something, I figure out how to make it happen.

It's usually art. Or design. Or both.

Sometimes it is really straight forward, like logos for the community theater their partner is hosting a play in and they are funding it because they are in love.

So I draw pizza and then make silly logos about a fake pizza restaurant in the suburbs that wants to take over the city for an absurdist comedy with an audience mostly made up by the patron's business clientelle.

BEGIN SIDE NOTE

I literally cannot stress this enough, to everyone rich I ever come across: Fund weird art projects. Just fund them.

You'll look like a big shot "giving back to the community" (accurate but potentially disingenuous) (but artist can eat so I'll take it)

You (may) get a tax write off (I'm not an accountant)

You (will probably) have a surprisingly large amount of fun

Your clients will have a memorable experience because how often do executives find themselves in dingy community theaters watching a play with objectively bad dialog but performed with so much heart and happiness that you can't help but just be amazed and root for the hamburger stand being attacked, fending off said mutant pizza.

END SIDE NOTE

Sometimes it is stupidly expensive, huge, and complicated like a really specific (albeit tiny, I'm not a giant shop) corner of an international ad campaign that needs to be played in THIS COUNTRY at THIS TIME for 30 seconds to impress THESE PEOPLE for THIS REASON.

Sometimes I draw things that go onto packages and if you live in the United States and have purchased yogurt in the last 15 years you've seen it. You might not buy the brand I did artwork for but you've seen it next to it the one you did.

Or maybe not I haven't bought yogurt in ages, they might have rebranded. Hate it when that happens.

In the past, I've done art prints and stickers and color changing cereal spoons and buttons and t-shirts and patches and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of greeting cards and postcards.

I've helped independent artists with too much family money figure out how to build their own shop and become Very Important, at least for a little while, to snobby people.

The best part of that is seeing these snobby people at a party several months later and they do not remember me but I remember them.

Chef kiss.

Introduce yourself again, give me another opportunity to crack into your secrets.

I've helped independent artists without any money figure out how to put stuff online and sell it.

This has gotten -- look into my beautiful eyes -- this has gotten 100000000000000x easier than it used to be.

I'm bad at this these days because I don't understand social media outside of Tumblr. And this place is changing so subtly that i don't recognize most of the addresses anymore.

A long time ago I was the person who would sit with people who would want a giant web whatever and help them talk to the programmer.

Then I would talk to the programmer and figure out how to make it happen.

A long, long time ago I was the programmer.

Things have gotten... look into my beautiful eyes again... so much more complicated than it was.

And continues to. I am burdened with knowledge on how things Should Work and a reasonable idea of Why They Don't without the skill or tolerance to make them work.

sometimes i am in board rooms for [redacted business nonsense]

sometimes I'm in the middle of a field or by a lake shouting about evil trees

sometimes I am illustrating things that will be broadcast on the back wall of a rich people party

sometimes I'm designing the invites for said rich people party

the short(er) answer

I've built up a network of people over the decades that when they say "I need a guy to build a thing" (girl) (it changes) (whatevers) I'm on their roster of who to call.

If I can't make it I find someone who can because I've similarly built up my own network of highly specialized weirdos.

I've worked with start ups and individuals and giant corporations and everything in between.

I give lectures on why mermaid tails based on leg-bone structures are bullshit and whip up ghost stories as a party favor like an ornamental hermit.

I've been attempting to drift into semi-retirement for the last few years because I want to focus on my own things more and more and more.

There is no blueprint in how to get into this line of work and I'm finding the exit ramps are similarly self-constructed.

99% of everything I have ever done is invisible.

I'm kind of (massively) obsesed with spending a significant period of time giving back to the fabric of monster and myths and Halloween and lore that weave through the human experience.

Halloween and monsters and myths have saved my life countless times and provided me similarly countless opportunities.

I want to make things that are spooky, but not scary, silly and fun, and make people happy.

I'm actively shifting things away from back office client work (above) to front office (online shop, free-to-read blog and comics). The back office is robust enough to handle the inevitable ups-and-downs and it's my way of adding Halloween Energy to the world.

It has been a ridiculously fun ride.

[netherworldpost]

A few years ago, my largest business partner retired and forced me to crash things out to buy out their side of the back office. It Was Unpleasant.

This year, my biggest back office client is retiring. This had the opposite effect, as they cashed in all of their remaining contracts and budgets.

Within the same season, my last studiomate working for me is bound for bigger and broader things -- a rule I have had for many, many years...

...if you work for me, and you're more ambitious than I am, I will do everything I can and use every network I have to help you achieve your goal.

something something rising tides raise all ships something something but also supporting the arts starts with supporting the living something something don't get sappy on me brain not this morning

I love mail.

I love monsters.

I love newspapers.

For the first time in a really, really, really long time, if not the first time ever, I am taking a hard look at what this means.

The short answer is when I return, I stay in the mail / monster / story business but am existing the "Happy Birthday" greeting card business.

I'm tinkering with... everything.

Removing all of the cards that are not art prints (probably all but the one with the ghost at the mailbox) and revisitng the 10 Trillion Stories I Have Half-Started.

Not every card in the shop has to relate to a story -- some (most?) will -- but they will all connect to a character, or scene, or location.

Figuring it out.

Eating lemons as a snack.

Back to work.

no.

no no no no nono.

God. How many times have I ended a post with that?? "Back to work."

No.

Back to play.

Yeah, that'll flow.

Back to play, my fellows. I hope you can play with art today.

[netherworldpost]

A few times a year I have Dracula Breakfast with Donovan — we chat, gossip, share life going’s on. I came today and “I am a bit of a mess but okay!” And immediately “I am not okay!” as literally the best French toast I have ever had was served.

I am okay. I am having a “artist and protagonist summer”

(I don’t know what this means either, it’s part of the process I think.)

Donovan, as she has in at least 1/2 of the many years we have breakfast throughout the years, helped me sort my mental debris. Things are going to be fine, it’s just going to be a stupidly difficult and senseless year or so to figure it out.

I have been reading too many “sort out your whatever” things lately and most are crap but the ones that are good have at least one thread in common.

Make a plan.

With a friend.

Stick to it.

If you can’t make it that day, commit to a new day. Rescheduling is okay, committing to the plan is the critical factor.

You are a mess.

Your friends know you are going to be a mess and part of being a friend is helping you.

They will listen to your objectively stupid problems and say “wow that is horrible” and/or give you advice.

Staring at this in the back of a cab and I feel like this is a Very Special Halloween episode of Sesame Street (laugh)

This is stupidly sappy. My brain is in full sappy mode. Friendship really is magic. I am going to write so many letters tonight because I want nothing more than to offer joy and spooky happiness and that’s the path I have in front of me.

Also to seal up

Legitimately

Breakfast House on Grand

Moon’s blessing in French toast form. Statement possibly colored by a weird emotional state but definitely great.

I think we die a little if we repress too often our need to wear our heart on our sleeve.

[netherworldpost]

I am steadily realizing I was building Netherworld Post Office like a start up (my old job) instead of an art studio (what I actually want to do). I am working on fixing that.

With a start up: Think ahead, pivot, react, build up, build connections, find the right people, do this, do that, shift this, construct that.

THEN you make the art.

(Or someone else is making the art, but the entire point of The Post is I am making it, so I'm doing a billion things at once.)

I think this is the last crack in the

"I am working 24/7/365.25 and if I am not Doing Business then I am Failing as a Person."

machine running in my brain. It has steadily been winding down the last 2-4 years or so and I think it is finally stopping. I can start taking it apart and using the space for something else.

It's so seductive, Doing Business.

YOU THINK:

"I'm saving up to do The Thing I Want to Do someday." You fall into the trap of "I am very smart, I have much experience--" (potentially accurate) --

but get consumed, so quickly, by "--I am the only person who can solve Scenario." (very, very, very rarely accurate).

YOU THINK:

"I am raising the resources to do XYZ someday!"

instead of just reducing the scope of XYZ to fit what you can do today. You bloat out needs of what you want to do, seeking perfection, which forces you to return to Doing More Business to pay for it instead of taking a sharp look at what you ACTUALLY WANTED TO DO AT THE BEGINNING.

Nothing I do has anything to do with movies but as the quickest road from what I am rambling about to understanding, I have fallen into the same trap Hollywood is currently in.

Rather than focus on making a good story with supporting architecture, I am focusing on making layers of archicture to support the previous architecture.

I wanted to post something because I have gotten a lot of very kind and generous messages about pausing Netherworld Post, and I wanted to stress, this is a lighthweight existential shift.

Thank you

[netherworldpost]

Not a sad post. Starting there.

My biggest back office client is retiring

The landlord I have an office with is moving

I was able to transition the last crew mate to a better job than I could ever offer

Now it’s July (laugh).

EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE APPARENTLY

Now it is just Fang and I again.

And that’s more of a larges-scale collaboration than Normal Business, it’s not about money, we mutually help each other on projects and have for many, many years.

I won’t be back in August, so I won’t have the shop ready for Halloween or December holidays. Clearing up all the above.

I will be back, but I don’t know when.

PO BOX I will be getting a new post box — anything currently in transit will get to me — old one is paid up for months and I will keep checking it until it expires.

I AM LEGIT OKAY, NOT A REQUEST FOR RESOURCES The back office of The Post will hum quietly and pay for the public facing part.

Now that no one’s meal ticket relies on me anymore, I don’t have to hunt down work constantly to keep people fed.

It is (ha! was!!) mission critical to me that no one’s meal ticket was ever jeopardized by my shenanigans.

Now I am on my own!

And via external circumstances, I can/have to figure out what to do next.

I love mail, I love silly monsters, I love slice of life adventures.

“Blowing up life” has negative connotations.

Is there a phrase that has the same context of Absolute Total Change but with a positive connotation?

Even card prints as it was for the Post was built into back office client work.

Across the board, I can’t do what I was doing for the last several years.

It’s not a crisis.

It’s a blessing.

But it does require Absolute Change.

Cheers everyone.

Time for a steam room and a sit by the lake and a weekend of breakfast with friends.

[netherworldpost]

FOR INSTAGRAM (and maybe other Meta networks in the future?)

Since this is Tumblr, this is more of a PSA. I posted this on Netherworld Post's instagram, threads, and Facebook account earlier.

Good to know if you run something elsewhere. There are plenty of people talking about it, but Meta certainly has not made any giant announcement that I have seen.

Email sign up is available at netherworldpost.com and emails will (very) likely be our primary source of contact (if not exclusive) when atticus gets back in August.

Email and… sigh, laugh, Tumblr, the system that seems to survive somehow everything.

Time to study small scale advertising?

anyway

be good

or don't

you do you

[netherworldpost]

private accounts do not seem to be affected

i don't know what kind of accounts are, the NPOST account is a business, so maybe it's just business, I don't know

but whilst i have your attention, here is the email sign up link in post form... thx

Netherworld Post Office

Spooky greeting cards, original artwork. Monsters, witches, ghosts, mermaids living in a utopian dimension, celebrating Halloween every day.

[netherworldpost]

FOR INSTAGRAM (and maybe other Meta networks in the future?)

Since this is Tumblr, this is more of a PSA. I posted this on Netherworld Post's instagram, threads, and Facebook account earlier.

Good to know if you run something elsewhere. There are plenty of people talking about it, but Meta certainly has not made any giant announcement that I have seen.

Email sign up is available at netherworldpost.com and emails will (very) likely be our primary source of contact (if not exclusive) when atticus gets back in August.

Email and… sigh, laugh, Tumblr, the system that seems to survive somehow everything.

Time to study small scale advertising?

anyway

be good

or don't

you do you

[netherworldpost]

I am deep in Art Retreat Mode but have to give my producer her due.

As I was leaving she said “hey you should check out Instapaper. It’s a bookmarking app, it has tags, you will use it.”

I immediately dismissed the idea because as an artist my number one priority is not making art — as the title implies — it is steadfastly ignoring the suggestions of the business brains in my operation, despite her thorough and robust history of being Actually Correct — and it is, in fact, HER LITERAL JOB to develop these suggestions and implement them.

Instapaper is intensely absurdly useful and is immediately making my life easier.

This is not an ad or partnership. They don’t know I exist. They have a free version and a fairly cheap premium version.

Some of this text may or may not have been written by Fang after receiving attached photo because atticus is too busy kissing dryads or whatever the hell it is they do on these, generously named, quote, art retreats, sarcastic unquote.

[netherworldpost]

In my 20s I was brutally and artistically driven. In my 30s I realized to build things I would need to study Business and so that joined my sharpness and my obsessions.

Several near death experiences later as I lounge with head in the moon’s lap and her godly fingers drawing ever graying streaks in my hair, I am having what I call “an artistic and protagonist summer.”

The only damn thing I know for sure is there is enough for everyone and the best path in life is to make as much joy for self and everyone else everywhere as often as possible.

[grenadineghost]

*stumbles out of the haunted house covered in hickies*

[sanguinerosie]

@netherworldpost it you 🫵

[netherworldpost]

I'm just going to the midway at the fair to collect snacks for everyone and everything, then heading right back in, no one do anything I wouldn't do while i'm gone

[netherworldpost]

The site is on pause until mid August because I am having an Artistic & Protagonist Summer.

If you have an outstanding order there is a form on the site to contact my producer Fang whom will figure out what is going on.

As a side note I think invoices and shipping manifests are absolutely PRIME and FRACTION OF A PENNY real estate to print fun things that customers can cut up and put into mail and journals. Steal this idea.

I love you all and if you are into it will cup your precious face and smooch you wildly just before I turn around and, laughing, stumble into the sea for a few weeks.

[netherworldpost]

Sorry to say, the Scooby-Doo VW Bus picture from saltlifehippie is AI :/

I am so tired

[netherworldpost]

It makes me not want to reblog things

Which sucks

Because that’s the — and I am using a specific term for specific fucking reasons — the value proposition of tumblr

Every social media network has a “share” functionality, but the cultural structure of tumblr IS sharing

I hate scrutinizing every image I see

I hate going back and deleting old posts but I am not going to tolerate them

I don’t even want to be sharp or biting anymore.

I felt the rage and hate against the technology the instant I saw how it was made, what it cost, what it costs to perpetuate

I am left with a hollow, quiet, empty sadness that the art education and availability to the sloppists is so poor that curiosity in Making Things was never inspired within you, and continues to be a lack in your life.

I am equally sorry that that they exist in a toxic sea of artistic negativity towards anything other than a specific and rigid set of criteria separates out ACCEPTABLE vs NOT ACCEPTABLE.

There is no barrier to entry in making art. I can prove it to anyone whom doubts me by pointing to children of any country at any point in human history, including now. They are making stuff. Why can’t you.

God help me why are people allowing, demanding, machines have human experiences for them.

[netherworldpost]

Sorry to say, the Scooby-Doo VW Bus picture from saltlifehippie is AI :/

I am so tired