Peregrine Lake – A Weekly Webcomic Written by Trae Dorn and Drawn by Ethan Flanagan

So say you’re sitting down to dinner after a long day of travel. You’re in the dining room of one of the historic inns in the Indiana State Park system — let’s say, the Potawatomi Inn at Pokagon State Park on the shores of Lake James. You order food, sit back, and then realize something important.

There’s a good chance your waiter is a Nazi.

You see, he’s wearing an iron cross necklace. And while it’s true that this symbol isn’t exclusively associated with white supremacists, in the context of an American wearing that symbol today there are very few cases where it isn’t. Like yeah, it’s associated with biker culture here too, but nine times out of ten when I’ve seen someone with this symbol on them (and it wasn’t a He-Man reference)… they’ve been a Nazi.

So you’re sitting there, and he brings you your dinner, and in your head you’re asking yourself “Is this a Nazi?” He compliments your outfit. He asks if you’re staying in the hotel tonight. He’s overall being pleasant. But, like, in the back of your head you have to keep asking yourself if you’re safe here.

And it sucks, because this place has been a haven for you for over a decade. You stop here a couple of times a year even though it’s far from where you live. You’ve told all your friends and family about it. It’s been a part of your personal story for a long time. And now? Now it feels different.

And for the record, I did tip him. Did the normal 20%. Because I might be wrong. He might not be a Nazi.

But I’m never going to find out.

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This morning I went down to Collector’s Con here in Eau Claire. It’s a fun little con, and I stopped by last year too. I thought about selling there (since I’m at, like, literally every other con in town) but a week after Evercon was just too much to plan for.

I’ve done two cons in a row before, and it almost burnt me out. I need at least a weekend off between.

This is convention season though, and events are packed tightly together. Maybe too tightly together. Because, as I literally just said, I was at Evercon in Wausau last weekend. That same weekend I had friends at Anime Milwaukee. Oh, and I also had friends at MarsCon (the Minnesota one). The region had a long running Gaming Con, Anime Con, and Scifi Con happening simultaneously.

And here’s the thing — those are all cons I would go to… and that I’d want to sell at. I mean, sure, AMKE has a highly competitive artist alley and my odds of getting in there are nil, but it’d be nice to, like, have a shot, y’know? And I’m trying to get into scifi cons, but there just aren’t that many anymore. With all three on the same weekend, I had to make a choice.

There was a point in time where con organizers went out of there way to make sure they didn’t conflict with other events. Hell, we used to worry about being a few weeks away from another con. When events ended up on the same weekend, it was an anomaly. Now? Well, let’s just say these three cons will all be on the same weekend next year too.

It’s just… it’s just frustrating.

Like all three of these events have organizers who I am sure care deeply about the community they serve. Like I genuinely want all of these cons to succeed, but I feel like they’re not thinking about the other cons in the region. Like the stronger the entire scene is, the stronger they become. When the Wisconsin con scene was at its strongest a decade ago, it was because all of the events were working together.

I just really hope 2028 won’t see this pattern repeat. Because, y’know, I’d like to go to MarsCon or AMKE again some day.

But maybe that’s just me.

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If yoiu don’t spend time in the odd corners of bookish and queer social media, it’s likely you’ve never heard of Paul Castle. Hell, even if you are in them, you may have scrolled on by, never to take note. But for those of us who have had him slide across their algorithmically driven feeds, he’s become fairly infamous over the last few years. Paul is a blind creator who makes couples content with his husband Matthew, but more importantly for this discussion, he is the writer and illustrator of children’s books that he independently publishes.

Now, I’ve never read his books, so I can’t comment on whether they’re any good or not. I have seen the illustrations though, and they, honestly, look very nice. His books are queer positive, and his determination to still create this work with his remaining vision is admirable. If that were all there was to talk about, this would be a potentially feel good story, and I probably wouldn’t be writing about it in my personal blog.

But, y’know, this isn’t the end of the story by far.

You see, if you follow one of Paul’s accounts long enough, you’ll inevitably end up on a video where he stands in front of the camera, crying about how some obstacle has gotten in the way of his books getting to people. Maybe a bookstore supposedly cancelled an order. Maybe it was something else. Paul will always frame this as his book getting “banned” and that anyone not working with him directly is an act of persecution. This will result in a spike in sales of his books from his TikTok shop. I won’t go into too many details, but others have detailed things on multiple occasions if you want to dig into this. I’m not here to argue about the veracity of his statements. I have doubts, of course, and I’ve definitely been critical of the tactic of “pity marketing.” I made a video in June of 2025 where, after he started talking about how he wanted to start publishing other authors, I said that people should avoid it. My reasoning was pretty simple — the only advantage to working with a “publisher” that small is that they can help you get into bookstores.

And the one thing Paul Castle has proven is that he’s bad at getting his books into bookstores.

I made other videos too, but the pity marketing is not the point of this post. My big problem is what happens after Paul Castle makes his videos. That’s where the real trouble begin.

You see, inevitably his millions of followers will go after anyone who criticizes him or does some sort of perceived wrong against him. When one of his videos talked about a bookstore owner named Tanya, his followers went and attacked a completely unrelated woman who shared a name. Now this could be chalked up to an overzealous fanbase acting on their own, but it’s rather clear that Paul Castle is more than happy to rile people up on purpose too.

Almost a week ago, Castle made a video on his PaulCastleStudio account dragging up a video from three months ago, claiming that someone who criticized his marketing tactics had been ableist. Never mind that the video he points at doesn’t make any ableist statements, and just points out how manipulative his marketing techniques are. Paul claimed he didn’t want people going after her, but while he censored the person’s face, he didn’t censor the name on the wall behind her.

The creator has now received a barrage of harassment across multiple platforms, and has made a response to the entire situation that is chilling. I’ve gotten a handful of harassing comments on a YouTube Short from October, because people found it looking for her. And it’s not the first time he’s done this. When an Ingram employee was critical of one of his marketing tales, he went after her. When he printed some books through IngramSpark, and she happened to get assigned to his account, he made another video complaining about it. That person also got harassed by his fans.

He knows that if he calls someone out that this will happen, and since he keeps doing it — it’s apparent he doesn’t care.

And I guess I just wanted to write down how incredibly fucked up that is.

It’s also interesting to note that he seems to exclusively target women. My masculine presenting, nonbinary ass has never been singled out. Don Martin, who’s been highly critical of him, has never been singled out either. Maybe it’s just coincidence. Maybe Martin has a bigger platform as a traditionally published author. Maybe I’ve been too specific and controlled in my criticism that it doesn’t give him enough ammo. Maybe it’s just because the demographics of bookish spaces just lean towards women.

But it’s odd that a pattern seems to bubble to the surface.

Anyways, this is a weird post to put a promotional tag on, but remember that pre-orders for Welcome to Peregrine Lake: Peregrine Lake Chapter One can now be made through BookShop.org and Amazon! The book is out May 1st.

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