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oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Oats Gulwick
@oatsgulwick.bsky.social
280 followers 300 following 1.3K posts
latentoats.com - the comic a diary

https://latentnarratives.blogspot.com/ - comics read the wrong way

VT USA
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oatsgulwick.bsky.social
What perfect album came out the year you turned 16?

Hard to get more perfecter than this:
Cover for Tom Waits’ SwordfishTrombones
November 17, 2025 at 10:56 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Image of an 8 Track Stereo Tape Cartridge still in shrink wrap and pink Island Records logo-ed cardboard box of Brian Eno's 1975 Another Green World (album cover visible on the 8-Track through a display hole in the pink box.
November 15, 2025 at 3:04 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
If you see this, post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it.
Album cover for Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" featuring several vintage 60's cars driving on the autobahn in a soft-colored painting.
November 9, 2025 at 3:42 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
That homunculus?!?
Screenshot from Manhattan with Diane Keaton, Wallace Shawn, and Woody Allen.
November 2, 2025 at 10:59 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
(turns out it was a brief review)
Picture of a blood-spattered room with an inset that reads "Caption this with the 2nd to last text you sent."
October 27, 2025 at 1:31 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Shout-out to that time my spelling-challenged coworker inadvertently advocated for seitan.
Cropped image from a Microsoft Teams chat in which a (redacted user's) comment notes, "I'm a gluten for punishment I guess"
October 25, 2025 at 7:36 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
“Golden More-Tough-Than-Mean” 062220

The concept is that it’s noir, only it crowbars in a history lesson, so in the trope where the detective delivers exposition at gunpoint, he annoyingly spouts some sacred geometry (rectangular cuboid = coffin) right before plugging the crook.
#latentoats
Comic with four panels L-R. Titled “The Latent Narratives of Oats Gulwick” & episode named “Golden More-Tough-Than-Mean.” Dated June, 22, 2020. The first panel shows a headshot of a noir detective in a raincoat and fedora, a strong diagonal shading cropping the frame from upper L to lower R. His face takes up the lower half of the frame and is drawn in high contrast. There are seven text boxes making up the upper half of the frame (on top of the shading) that read: “...square root of two as the metaphor of the root, the principle of transformation. Ancients saw expressions of platonic solids in nature as expressions of similar principles.” The second panel shows the same detective L of frame in waist-up portrait, casually pointing a revolver toward the reader. Next to him is a woman in a light dress. The background is largely blacked out with light bleeding in using vertical hatching lines. Details are hard to make out in a manner that could generously argued to mirror the moral ambiguity of the scene. Figures are impressionistic. The text boxes at the top of the frame read: “The question is, which platonic solid manifests your true nature?” The third panel shows a man depicted from the chest up, with both hands raised above his head. He is in a tuxedo, the depiction is too high-contrast to make out details. We can only see his nostril, eyebrows, and receding hairline. The text boxes read: “No? I have a hunch.” The fourth panel shows the reverse shot, only this time we are looking past the man being held at gunpoint, and we see the detective, still holding the revolver, beneath the upheld right arm. In this case the strong diagonal is suggested by the torso and arm of the man held at bay. The text reads: “A rectangular cuboid.” And a closing box at the bottom of the frame reads, “Next: battling bootleggers with pythagorean justice!”
October 22, 2025 at 6:33 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Drop an old person you're going to turn into in the future.

The bitter, cynical, and impossible-to-live-with Max Von Sydow from Hannah and Her Sisters.
Screenshot from Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). Max Von Sydow as Frederick, seated, facing left. In background, Barbara Hershey as Lee, working frantically in the kitchen, facing slightly right. Frederick is unaware of Barbara's state of mind, and is on a diatribe about televangelists, stating (captioned on screen) "If Jesus came back and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."
October 21, 2025 at 6:31 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
"Refutation Iteration," dated, appropriately, April 1st, 2019. A favorite; it came together effortlessly and just works. The drawing style is consistent and conveys a sense of character without being cluttered. When your entire life is a constant reminder that you're doing it wrong. #latentoats
A four panel comic "The Latent Narratives of Oats Gulwick" titled "Refutation Iteration" dated April 1st, 2019. In the first panel, we see a man with a thin moustache and black-rimmed glasses in a white shirt and tie sitting at a desk in a cluttered office, head in his left hand and right hand writing on a pile of paper. He appears bored or tired. The desk is very small and piled with papers. Behind him there is another man in a dark shirt with thin rimmed glasses, leaning over his own small desk working on his own pile of papers. This second man is saying "NOPE." without looking up. There are tall filing cabinets in the background. The second panel shows the first man standing with his back to the reader, now outside at a newsstand in a 3/4 length light-colored raincoat, light-colored trilby hat, and carrying a briefcase. He is looking away from the newsstand agent and at a newspaper display. The news agent, standing in dark suit and flat cap, hands a folded newspaper toward the man in the raincoat and says, "NOPE." The third panel shows our man with briefcase, raincoat, and trilby at the back of a line of men and women boarding a city bus circa. 1965. They board from the front entrance on the right side of the bus, and the identifying card for the route in the window reads "NOPE." The fourth panel shows our man, trilby still on head and briefcase in hand, raincoat now draped over his arm, entering the front door of his home. It is dark outside and he is on the threshold of the open front door. There is a staircase in the foreground leading to the second floor, and he is facing a living room with curtained windows, a comfortable chair, end table, and lamp. On the table sits a black cat who is looking up and greeting him by uttering the word "NOPE."
October 21, 2025 at 1:46 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness.
Still from Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire" featuring Bruno Ganz and Peter Falk having a one-way conversation at a Berlin sausage stand. Falk, gesturing with both hands in a manner that says "the idea is too large", is saying (subtitled in English on screen) "There's so many good things."
October 21, 2025 at 4:48 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Actors of #bluelights weave their way through junkets describing the show by outlining characters & story arcs but what the show is really about, from start, is trauma and how communities carry generational pain. Happy Columbus Day, USA. tRump is ensuring that theme's relevance for years to come.
Promotional still for the BBC police procedural Blue Lights.
October 14, 2025 at 2:55 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
I did see Stereolab this weekend, so that was a good thing.
Stage photo of Stereolab playing Theatre Beanfield, Oct 4, 2025, Montreal. Shot from balcony. The band is bathed in incandescent blue light.
October 6, 2025 at 1:55 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Seen in Montreal, Oct 4, 2025
illuminated sign with removable lettering made to spell out “marginalized bodies and ecosystems continue to resist”
October 6, 2025 at 1:52 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
@hehitsithigh762.bsky.social What else can I get wrong here? It was Nolan Ryan pitching for the Rangers against the Athletics, June 11, 1990. It's not the first time I've made careless (and have been told, dangerous) mistaken remarks involving the Red Sox. I apologize for the mistake.
snapshot of framed photo of Nolan Ryan in windup on the pitcher's mount in Oakland on June 11, 1990. Also matted in the frame are two tickets from the game: Oakland Athletics hosting Texas Rangers. Ryan threw a no hitter. The man in the photo is definitely not Roger Clemens, and only a tired old idiot would publicly declare him as such.
October 6, 2025 at 1:37 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
More AI reassurance. Comedian Ellie Taylor on Travel Man, with host Richard Ayoade, in a legendary sweet shop in Madrid. Ellie has just tried a violet-flavored sweet, and reassures the confectioner, while still chewing, "this is nice." The youtube transcription interprets it as "You have to die."
Comedian Ellie Taylor on Travel Man, with host Richard Ayoade, in a sweet shop in Madrid.
October 3, 2025 at 3:07 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
If you see this, QTP with a gif of a vampire who isn’t Dracula.
October 3, 2025 at 12:11 AM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Photo of a suburban front door and short walkway with a black 'welcome' mat with white lettering that reads "Please Tolerate Our Disgusting Neighborly Interface".
September 26, 2025 at 8:42 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Fixed it.
It's that absurd photo of (L-R) President tRump, King Charles, Queen Camilla, and First Lady Melania Trump at Windsor Castle, in which tRump is staring off into space with a vacant look, Charles is consulting with Camilla over a table of ... is it something to do with upholstery? ... and Melania hovers off to the right, standing stiff and with an absurdly large, wide-brimmed purple oval hat that completely conceals her head and face, leading to many comments that she looks like a standing lamp. Only in this version of that photo, Melania's face has been revealed and the concealing purple hat is on the President.
September 21, 2025 at 9:44 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
From Domesticity Isn't Pretty: A Leonard and Larry Collection by Tim Barela, c. 1993 Palliard Press, Minneapolis
Alt text in sub posts (too big for char limit)
September 17, 2025 at 6:09 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
I would have been about 14 when Gregory's Girl first came out and, as a naive American, the scene in which Gregory applies roll-on deodorant directly to his shirt really drove home how exotic life in Glasgow must be.
Still from Gregory's Girl, 1981, dir. Bill Forsyth. Gregory, just dressed from showering after school football practice, is apply roll on deodorant directly to his shirt.
September 1, 2025 at 6:11 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Alien Earth: plucky children use extraordinary powers to protect Earth from immigrant invasion featuring advanced dental hygiene.
Still from Alien Earth of adult Xenomorph baring clean, healthy, shining silver-toned choppers.
August 30, 2025 at 9:53 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Amazing how quickly I went from ‘this little bean is doing his best to help me focus’ to ‘this little bean is caught in a depressing, endless cycle of sock-making and material acquisition with classic Existential overtones’. How do I free him?!?
A naive Kafka character proxy surrounded by the empty material rewards of Capitalism.
August 28, 2025 at 1:13 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
The automated subtitles starting strong, before quickly giving up on the phonetic translation. "Desire" indeed.
Screenshot of youtube video playing Seri Ishikawa 'Desire' with automated English subtitles interpreting the Japanese lyrics to read "day night / my blue cheese today"
August 25, 2025 at 9:20 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Me (right) congratulating the Monday workday on a job well done.
two normal shlubs shaking hands
August 18, 2025 at 9:00 PM
oatsgulwick.bsky.social
Stop scrolling, & post two characters who bring you joy and happiness.

(The first two to come to mind for me:)
Promotional still from The Detectorists featuring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones as Andy and Lance in their field outfits with gear.
August 6, 2025 at 6:07 PM