This is a comic I made for a NTBTS fanzine (titled Nirvanna the Band the Show the Discord the Zine). At first I didn’t know what to contribute, until nearing the end of the deadline, when a thing happened on Letterboxd.
Nirvanna the Band the Show is the greatest show ever made. I first heard of NTBTS in late 2021 when I saw Update Day shared on Twitter. I then watched the series and became obsessed. I can’t express how much it feels like it was specifically made for me. Afterwards, I watched The Dirties and Operation Avalanche (movies made by the same people) and Matt Johnson became one of my top 3 favourite filmmakers. I travelled over an hour just to watch Blackberry in cinemas.
In September 2024, a Letterboxd account supposedly run by Matt Johnson was discovered and shared in a NTBTS Discord server. One of the reviews on the account was a negative review about Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, stating that it made Back to the Future look like Bicycle Thieves by comparison. Shortly after the account was discovered, it was deleted.
For my contribution, I wanted to represent as many facets of the NTBTS world as I could. Thus, this piece is full of references to NTBTS and Zapruder Films adjacent productions, including but not limited to: objects representing Kazik Radwanski’s features that Matt Johnson appears in, a little poster of The Kid Detective (a movie scored by Jay McCarrol), and a Flash t-shirt Matt wears in Matt Johnson Live At Comic-Con.
The complete fanzine with everyone’s contributions can be downloaded here: https://uguubella.itch.io/ntbtstd-zine