Starting this week, you’ll no longer receive Strook via Substack, but via Lettership. I’ve been hoping for a great European alternative to Substack for quite some time—not just to write my newsletter, but especially to discover and read other newsletters. It was a great idea by Ernst-Jan Pfauth and Aydın Bahadır to just go ahead and build it. Along with Lubach, Alexander Klöpping, Milou Brand, and Intentioneel Leven, Strook is among the first newsletters on Lettership. It’s great to be part of that with my personal, niche newsletter.

As a Strook reader, you shouldn’t notice much of a difference. You can’t comment directly under the newsletter yet, but feel free to send me an email.

For now, here’s another roundup of what I’ve drawn, read, played, and listened to.

Drawing

Every year I make a birthday poster for my kids featuring something that’s been on their minds that year. This is already the 15th poster I’ve made. My daughter recently took out a mortgage with Tom Nook in Animal Crossing, so she’ll be busy with that for a while.

Reading, Gaming, and Listening

Wherever you go. Always make a soundtrack. That’s Stacey Rockford’s advice in the game Mixtape. My kids’ enthusiasm got me in the mood to game again myself. That’s how I discovered Mixtape, a nostalgic ’90s story about three friends spending their last night of high school. You experience the story through a “mixtape” of events and memories.

Whenever something important happens, Stacey introduces a new song that fits the moment. The mixtape starts with the delightfully neurotic DEVO and is followed by bands like the Smashing Pumpkins, Portishead, and Iggy Pop. Shoegaze, soul, ’80s power rock, new wave—it’s all on the mixtape.

Sometimes it’s a point-and-click game. Other times, it’s a skateboarding or baseball game. All wrapped in a thick layer of nostalgia for camcorders, cassettes, and floppy disks. You can’t go wrong—it’s actually more of an interactive story than a game. And a mixtape, of course. For four hours, I had no idea exactly what I was playing, but I came away with 25 songs and a whole bunch of new favorites. Wonderful.

Like the ’60s surf band Harpers Bizarre. Musically, they fall somewhere between the Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel.

Don’t worry, next week I’ll definitely be back with a book. See you then!

(Oh, and it’d be great if you could add this email address to your contacts—that way, it’s less likely to end up in your spam folder.)