Wallet Bots, Capsule, and Usagi
Recent Work
Here are the rough draft opening pages of a manga I’ve been building for a future international contest. It reads right to left; I'm building toward a Japanese translation and an international audience. I’ve also returned from a vacation hiatus with more clarity than I left with.
Worth Your Time
Capsule, by Nathan Derr
Nate has been my best friend since our college days; we made Head Curry Comics together, and he’s been one of the biggest catalysts for where I am now creatively. He’s been putting out music for years.
His latest album, Capsule, recorded in Portland between 2023 and 2025, is my new favorite of his. The music feels like it’s speaking from a strange, luminous cave that suddenly appeared in your local park; warm and deep and a little removed from the surface world. Nate has a gift for taking a sample and electronically stretching it into something that exists entirely outside of reality. My favorite track is Adrift, for its balance of Rhodes-like keys and a guitar that sounds like it’s phasing out in a time machine.
Usagi Engine, by Brett Chalupa
Brett Chalupa has been my bud for a decade and a supporter of Chromatic Arcana since its early days. We’re currently collaborating on his game NEOGEAR. So when Brett released Usagi, a free, open source 2D game engine built in Lua, I wanted to share it here; I love video games, and know a handful of you actually program.
What I admire about Brett is the way he keeps moving — small, relentless steps, always keeping the developer community in the loop, never making a big deal out of it. His love for video games is genuine and contagious. The Discord around Usagi tells the story: people are raving that it’s ideal for shmups, which makes complete sense once you know him. Lua is apparently approachable enough for people brand new to coding, which means Usagi lowers the floor for anyone with a game idea and nowhere to start. Worth knowing about!
Closing Thoughts
Something shifted recently in how I think about Chromatic Arcana. I’ve been working through The E-Myth; the core idea is that a business runs better when you stop acting as the only person inside it, even if you’re a one-person operation. I broke CA down into departments: Studio, Shop, Audience, and Admin. I’m building it as a holistic system; each area has a job and runs on its own logic. An especially useful aspect of this has been writing runbooks for everything I do, which I can return to for consistency and improve as I have new ideas with future iterations.
It sounds clinical for a creative practice, but it gave me something I didn’t expect: more freedom through structure. When the work has a place to land, you stop carrying it all in your head. The higher view makes the day-to-day lighter. I can see where CA is going in a way I couldn’t before; not just the next piece, but the shape of the whole thing. What comes next is really exciting, and I can’t wait to share more.
See you next time,
Zach
Thanks for the kind words! And also new Nate album, heck yes! Can't wait to listen. Excited for what you've been up to and all your creative pursuits are always so inspiring to me.