🥀☕️April Postcard Reveal!

Good morning, Blackbirds! 

The Spring Achives sale will open in just about an hour, but first, I have a surprise reveal for you all: The April Postcard of the Month!!

Normally, I wait until much later to share what’s in store for the coming month, but this time I have a good reason for an early reveal, and I’ll get to that later. First, a little bit about the postcard: 

Yes, yes, our favorite fellow Hemlock is back for another round! Today he gets to be the poster boy for a particular concept that has been brewing in my head as of late. 

“Modern Gentlemen” imagines an independently published periodical that depicts an alternate history of the 1910s-1920s in which transmasculine folks had access to a kind of community, culture, medical intervention and social acceptance that is recognizable to the modern transmasc individual. 

The idea for “Modern Gentlemen” is the crux of many of my personal interests. One of my goals for 2023 was to allow transmasc figures to take up more real estate on MBPS postcards — You all have given me the gift of being able to support myself entirely on self-directed work, and I think I’ve been failing to take advantage of the self-indulgence that that allows, with a little too much concern for what will have wide audience appeal. 

Another thing that ”Modern Gentlemen” expresses is the ultimate point of my interest in historical time periods — the ability for contemporary queer people to indulge in a romanticization of historical aesthetics without having to wrestle with the far greater difficulty — socially, economically, logistically — of being openly queer in that time. “Modern Gentlemen” explores contemporary transmasc culture and possibilities and interests, all in the wrapping of a beautifully imagined alternate past.

At present, I do not have any plans to make an actual “Modern Gentlemen” magazine a reality — simply too many spinning plates for that! But I will be continuing to explore it in MBPS illustrations for a while. I have several concepts for articles, advertisements, and other magazine contents that I’d like to explore, and I hope that whether you are transmasc or not, you will enjoy and indulge the tangent I’m going to take you all on!

And also, a second announcement! The reason that this reveal is early: A simpler alternate version of this illustration, which I’ve also included above, will be shared publicly on Friday as a DTIYS template! The DTIYS event will run for 6 weeks, and on Saturday, April 15th, a winner will be invited to be a paid guest artist of the MBPS, having their DTIYS submission produced as May’s Bonus Card! More details coming on Friday!

Your Society President, Penpal-in-Chief, and Creator for an Audience of Me, Marlowe Lune