iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Watched loads of horror movies way too early without fuss, but for whatever reason the Father's Day sequence of Creepshow really got me. "The Red Skeleton" was a persistent fear for like a solid summer. And my grandfather never missed his chance to joke "well I always thought he was funny."

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's October! Enjoy some short webcomic ghost stories from the haunted corners of the Arkansas Ozarks. In fact, that's most of the corners around here. www.backwoodfolk.com/ghosttowns/

"the reliable narrator has a story to tell you"

Four panels approaching a man by a fire. As you get closer you see the man's face is an open skull. Even closer and you see his very alive eyes sitting in his sockets.

"Take a seat by the fire, and I'll tell you a story. If you listen close, you might see it."

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Been futzing with that rarebit template a bit in the background of everything. I dont have anything fancy to show yet but having fun. Feels like the heir apparent to comicpress in a lot of ways with a lot less headaches.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's October! Enjoy some short webcomic ghost stories from the haunted corners of the Arkansas Ozarks. In fact, that's most of the corners around here. www.backwoodfolk.com/ghosttowns/

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Welcome back to the Po’Dunk Farmer’s Market where you might never wanna leave! Drop by Gilly’s booth if you *really* wanna stick around.

Po'Dunk Farmer's Market Booth: Gilly Preserves by Gustav Carlson

Man: Cute Farmer's Market.
Woman: Bizarre selection though!
Who finds an undertaker at the Farmer's Market?!!!

Old Mrs Dool: Pardon Lil ol me!

Are Ya Still Offerin' Home Preserves

Gilly: Until the Judgement Day Mrs. Dool.

Mrs Dool: Now Don't Sleep on Gilly's Booth! His straweberry jam won the blue at the county fair!

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I will say, it's been fun really doing more posters and flyers this year.

nwa film club presents
OVER THE GARDEN WALL
with a very special performance from Christopher Felton
October 17 at Crisis Brewing

Fall Menu from Handshake
Costume Contest
Food- 6pm Music- 7pm Show at 9pm

BYOCHAIR highly encouraged
10%% off bar tab for walking biking or ride sharing

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I dunno dude, some things are better served in a local alt weekly than a national newspaper.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In the parking lot of the grocery store watching the social contract get shredded again.

The Seventh Doctor WHO screaming "IF WE FIGHT LIKE ANIMALS WE DIE LIKE ANIMALS"

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Been building up my music library again. Found some relics of a different era when I lived with a dude who ran a cassette label. Plays like a time capsule already. Lotta good buddies on here and a good number kept it going bigger and better (including the roommate!)

My hand holding two tapes that say TAPE DAD

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'll have an illustration in @crossroadsfolk.bsky.social's second issue! Had a lot of fun putting it together and I can't wait to read the rest!

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Webcomics and digital releases for comics only remain an evolutionary dead end because we keep shooting them the moment they crawl on land.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Some days you just wake up to a mystery rooster on the loose in your yard. Where'd it come from? No idea. No one in my neighborhood even has chickens.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The increasing uncertainty of the future and constant sense of doom being perpetuated by every single headline is setting the stage for a pretty devastating cultural resurgence of YOLO.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Right up to lettering the last stretch of Issue 3. The beautiful threshold where its no longer back and forth dialogue and narration but mostly exclamations and sound effects.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

When I check the box for no signatures on a comic Kickstarter questionnaire I need you to know it's not because I think you aren't important. I just don't wanna cramp your hand any longer.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

America is really at its capacity for people that are aspirationally L Ron Hubbard.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

There's a lot of handy tips on how to do comic storytelling and then there's a whole lot more preferences that get dressed up as rules and said as ultimatum.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I keep getting mad at the whole hot take industrial complex while also signing up for the factory tour every single day. Might be a little on me at points.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Editing dialogue sometimes just a struggle between "This flowery line is too mechanical!" vs "This mechanical line is too flowery!" until the sun goes out.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A lot of character work in Issue 3 has been figuring out which character is the kind that says "bigfoot" which says "sasquatch" and who's the weirdo dropping "hairy biped"

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

"Well, it's video game commercial day again"

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Something grimly revealing about the people most inclined to sell folks on the idea that AI is alive remain the most hellbent on using it as a little servant.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

"I'm Tom Cotton here on my family farm in Arkansas"

The worst green screen you've ever seen in your life.

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ghoulnoise @ghoulnoise.com · 04/09/2026

Helloooo Happy Bandcamp Friday!!! Buy me a coffee or metro fare by getting a copy of Last Day of Summer, it's perfect for this very specific time of year! The pools are closing soon... #bandcampfriday #summer #fall ghoulnoise.bandcamp.com/album/last-d...

ghoulnoise.bandcamp.com

Last Day of Summer, by Ghoulnoise

5 track album

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I have a short story I've read at events that always elicits a couple of "oh it's the one where the dog dies" by friends and it brings up two immediate thoughts. First that it's wild how much of a narrative shield we expect on precisely one kind of animal. And two, the dog doesn't die in the story.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Honestly the more something's budget is touted the more turned off I am. Brain does disconnects when you show me something evoking an 80s-90s crime thriller and then tell me it cost more than anything ever made.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Oh hot dang I dug the hell out of Camp Miasma.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Taking this media regression stage even further. Listening to terrestrial radio and calculating what kind of caller I will become.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The migratory patterns caused by actively hostile platforms really suck for building anything. Not breaking any new ground with my morning frustrations, but here they appear again.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I never type and delete more posts than on bluesky's monthly -soon to be weekly- rural discourse day.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Been helping my mom digitize and back up old photos. Some fun ones from my childhood on a goat farm.

My mom putting a very chubby baby me on the back of a goat buck.

My brother and I pretending to drive the tractor

The artist at work for an audience of one goat and its kid.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

The illustration ends of work is always funny in contrasts. Some days you're in conversations about very buttoned up and professional work and some days you get an e-mail asking "hey man, how are you at drawing Bubsy?"

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I'm a more panels the better kinda guy when it comes to making a comic. I wanna see every beat of a character processing their emotions. I wanna cycle as many expressions and feelings through a conversation as possible. Probably where I have my most fun honestly.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Ah dang, The Odyssey did not work for me. Been on a real string of accidental contrarianism with my theater trips lately. Re-igniting the accusations of being the group movie grump.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I'm acutely aware that I'm more of a magpie than an idealist about my physical media tendencies. But really discovering its strongest perk this year, completely avoiding election season campaign cycles.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Listened to this beast over the last couple weeks. Really my strongest take away was to remember why we had a strict "no pranks" household in college and my early twenties.

Gigantic three volume books on tape set of Stephen King's Needful Things

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Every time I see something about using AI for research purposes I go and check and see if I'm still the head of media relations for a major Wall Street Firm.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Been wondering lately if you can build a social media site/online community -whatever- with much intentionality. Think it's kinda gotta happen on accident. Otherwise everyone just sees it as ground to be claimed for their particular style of online.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Fun project from earlier in the year. Pinpoint, a local pinball bar, had a pirate themed pop-up and commissioned me to do a comic setting up their concept. Originally posted in three panel installments through their various social media accounts. Had a blast on this.

THE LEGEND OF TOM HORVEN -and the Lost Souls Tavern-

The notorious rumrunner, CAPTAIN TOM HORVEN, was more loyal to the bottle than the compass.

In his rum madness the stars abandoned him, and he'd run his ship into the storm blackened night.

As he sank, he screamed to the the ancient gods beneath the tides to spare him and his precious rum...

The ancient gods beneath the tides answered Tom Horven's drowned pleas... but only at a steep cost.

The deal required a payment in flesh,so Captain Tom Horven gave the ancient Gods his face.

In exchange he'd live forever as the sole proprietor of a tavern for all the lives claimed by the sea...

Deep below the waves a lantern flickered as invitation to all of the ocean's forgotten. Thus the LOST SOULS TAVERN was born.

No charts of the living can mark its location, yet every lost marine somehow finds their way to the door.

So listen closely when the waters calm, and you might hear laughter from beneath the waves as Captain Tom Horven welcomes another to drink away eternity.

STORY BY BO COUNTS

ART BY GUSTAV CARLSON

Lost Souls a Pop-Up Event Only at Pinpoint.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

You can find both issues of Backwood Folk on itch for just a combined $7! Two full 48 page issues of small town ghosts, mystery creatures in the woods, and local gossip. Download them now over at backwoodfolk.itch.io

backwoodfolk.itch.io

Gustav Carlson

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

backwoodfolk.itch.io

Gustav Carlson

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Was in Eureka Springs over the last few days and really taking it as an invitation to revisit Sean Fitzgibbon's incredible graphic novel on the history of the Crescent Hotel. Sean's a great friend and put together one of the best comics out of the Ozarks. www.seanfitzgibbonart.com/what-follows...

seanfitzgibbonart.com

Sean Fitzgibbon — SEAN FITZGIBBON

Sean Fitzgibbon is a 2021 Artists 360 recipient and a 2023 recipient of the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Award for graphic nonfiction “What Follows Is True: Crescent Hotel.” He h...

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Fishing on the Buffalo River this year? Better be careful out there! I hear the Catfish Hands are really bubbling up this season. CATFISH HANDS a new and free THESE GHOST TOWNS ARE FULL webcomic short! Available now at www.backwoodfolk.com/catfish/

CATFISH HANDS
by gustav carlson
illustration of a catfish with a hand erupting from its mouth. The hand is grabbing a scale. In the background abandoned canoes and kayaks bob in the Buffalo River.

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Zoe TunnHELL ➡️ NYCC @zoewithasword.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

We've been hovering around 1.5k to 1.1k left to go for the last week and we've only got 9 days left in the Kickstarter, PLEASE help us get this one across the finish line

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Hell of a whiplash moving from Gillian Anderson reading a story like a lullaby to Mitch Pileggi snarling at me for two tapes.

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

No one has ever exuded more excitement on film than the "HOT DAMN IT'S THE SOGGY BOTTOM BOYS" guy

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Welcome back to the Po’Dunk Farmer’s Market! Lilian Vaughan would like to remind all visitors that pasteurized doesn’t mean straight from the pasture.

PODUNK FARMER'S MARKET BOOTH: UPPER BUFFALO SAANENS

Lilian while milking a goat:OH NO, THIS IS JUST FOR SHOW. I ONLY SELL BOTTLED GOATS MILK.

Couple with blueberries:
THATS A REAL SHAME, I CANT IMAGINE IT FRESHER THAN STRAIGHT FROM THE GOAT.
The goat Lilian is milking begins firing off pellets of poop and she screams:
NANNY BERRIES!

The woman to the her partner who is tossing a blueberry to his mouth and missing:
GORDY, DONT WASTE THOSE!

Gordy picking up a nanny berry instead of a blueberry:
FIVE SECOND RULE! SEE? STILL FRESH.

Lilian in horror: AND STRAIGHT FROM THE GOAT.

BACKWOODFOLK.com

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Gustav Carlson @backwoodgoat.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Forums sucked in a lot of profound ways, but I do miss the power posters that kinda annoyed everyone being localized and kept at scale. Now they all have substacks and fandoms and too many of us take that seriously.

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