TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE Apr/05 - Catching angry meth-head wasps.
Wherein, I discover what isn't a side hustle.
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
A new week.
I’ve ended another teaching term and I realised something: I wasn’t completely exhausted at the end of this term because it was 9 weeks instead of 10. It felt weird to end a term and not be completely dragging my carcass over the finish line, and it made me think - why the hell do we have a teaching term where everyone is dead at the end? I know I’m not the only one, but maybe it was just mental this time because I knew it was “one week less” and if we made every term 8 weeks then I’d be dead by the 8th week. I dunno.
Just got me a little sad thinking that I’ve taught nearly 70 school terms and I’ve ended every one pretty dog tired.
As I’ve slid into the two week break, I’ve learned a few new tricks:
The 4am Start - I’ve decided to switch up my writing timetable. I’m no longer staying up late, I’m getting up early. It’s not been a full week yet, but it’s working out alright. If I go to bed before 10pm, I’m fine when the alarm goes at 4am. This then gives me a super solid 2 hours of writing before the kids wake, and on the weekend I can still work a little longer while they slowly rise with less need to rush into the day.
I’m still managing to exercise a bit after 6am, so hopefully I can get into a good groove for the next two weeks and then continue it into the next term if it’s feeling good.
Mimosas - they’re pretty delicious.
Reading is The Good Stuff - I’ve been reading some books and comics. It’s been nice to carve out time in the daytime to sit back with a good book. It’s relaxing, it’s brain training, and I like getting in front of the kids and having them see me read. They have a holiday challenge to read every single day, and they’ve been smashing it.
Overall, it’s been one of those weeks that’s busy, productive, connected, relaxing, and overall very enjoyable.
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EVERFROST - Launch Hustle
Tried something a little different with my comic launch hustle this past week. I made a short video.
This video is a screen recording, where I just show Sami Kivela’s comic on my screen, and I’m in a little corner webcam, and I hype what I love. It’s nothing innovative, but I like it, and I want to see if it helps. The software I use is a Google Chrome Extension called Screencastify, and I’ve been using it for class/teaching for a while now, but I wanted to see if I could apply it to comics and promo. It’s an experiment. View it here to see if I failed/succeeded.
When you’re launching a comic, you’re trying to find what works constantly. Is it a good social media image? A quote from a fellow creator? A tweet an hour, every hour, until launch day? Some things I know will work - some I don’t, or I’ve never seen before. So I’m happy to try.
Hopefully everything I do reaches a few people each time, and someone sees it and wants to support the comic, and that’s all I can ask for. If this video brings in 3 readers, it’s probably worth my time, and the gamble that it could have been more, because it’ll certainly [guaranteed] bring in more people than doing nothing.
Beyond that, I finally sent out the first issue as a preview PDF to the press people I know, and a few new ones I could find. Early response has been positive, which is nice.
I also hit up a good mate who I wanted to write the Foreword and he agreed, so that made me happy.
I always match my project to a certain person and ask them to write a foreword. HEADSPACE had Kurtis J. Wiebe, NEGATIVE SPACE had Christopher Sebela, SHE had JOHN LEES and now EVERFROST has [REDACTED]. They all match up really well, and you’ll notice BEAUTIFUL CANVAS and CHUM didn’t have forewords and that’s because the assigned people could fit it in, so I didn’t ask anyone else.
We have another 2 weeks for people to preorder EVERFROST through their comic shop, so hopefully the word is getting out.
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John Lees Diss Track.
So, apparently I have found myself in a Newsletter Battle with John Lees, the Glaswegian Adonis known for writing some of my favourite comics like SINK and the Foreword to SHE Vol. 1, as I wrote something about JAWS and a “creator’s best work” and he spun it into some thoughtful gold in his own newsletter, so I’m going to reply in kind, in public, to continue the public heckling. He said:
“I found [Ryan’s thoughts] to be a quite fascinating topic of discussion, and at first I intended to write a lengthy reply to Ryan about it via email. But then I figured that what I had to say might be material the rest of my pals might also want to hear. And so Ryan and I's communication instead shall play out on a public forum like two hip hop artists sharing diss tracks on each other. Though in our case replace "diss" with "compliments" - have I mentioned that Ryan is a lovely guy, a talented writer and dashingly handsome too?”
He wrote a whole bunch about how creator’s might view their work differently from us mere mortal consumers, and that they’d be chasing the next high in a way that makes them feel like that current/next thing is their best work - otherwise, why pursue it.
And I have to agree - you hear a lot of people say their best/favourite work is whatever they are working on right now. I always dig that response, and it’s nearly always true. You put yourself into everything you create, so naturally, that’s the pedestal you put it on.
I always think whatever is being released is my pinnacle - see EVERFROST right now, and how much I absolutely love that comic. I also don’t know how to pick my “best” work because I don’t even know what I’d base that on. Did I do my best work, in story, or theme, or was it received the best by readers, reviews? It’s easy to see ETERNAL as my best, because I swung for the fences with the format and the collaboration, and it was reviewed well, but so was NEGATIVE SPACE. I thought Sami and I did amazing things in BEAUTIFUL CANVAS, but then I look back at HEADSPACE and realise Eric Zawadzki and I came out strong with some things in there and it’s become the book that keeps on giving.
I mean, DEER EDITOR will always hold an insanely special place in my heart. But is it my “best”?
Does trying to ever quantify this just waste my time? Probably. But it helps to know what I think I did well so I can maybe replicate it - but repeating success always feels like trying to catch angry meth-head wasps with chopsticks made from cooked spaghetti. I have no idea how I did it last time, so cannot formally walk through the procedure to replicate it.
My stories come as they are, and I do my absolute best every time, that’s all I can promise. Having watched John work on many comics over the years, the one thing I can guarantee from him is that he swings for the fence every single time, and he continually excites me - anything else is just picking a personal favourite out of a catalogue of complete bangers.
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ASD&D.
No D&D for school or with my mates. A sad sad day.
But I have been stewing on what I can DM next for my mates.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
Robert Kirkman interviews Frank Miller - this is a great 20 minutes of just chat.
Stumbled across an old chat with Matt Fraction on GQ - herein he talks about CASANOVA, one of my favourite comics.
Elsa Charettier has a YouTube channel - I am always floored by Elsa’s desire to learn more about comics, and then apply it into her own masterful art, and so here we get a chance to learn alongside her, which is going to help every single one of us make better comics. Sub to this!
THOUGHTSCAPE COMICS on Kickstarter - I’ve already read this, and it’s some seriously gorgeous sci fi short stories!
INFERNO GIRL RED on Kickstarter - this looks gorgeous, Mat Groom is a good writer and dude, and it’s somewhere in the vicinity of the Radiant Black Universe. Buy on sight, people.
KILLEROO back on Kickstarter - the latest Killeroo comic, about a kangaroo/man type character, is on Kickstarter, and it’s a war comic, and the artwork looks bloody ripping. Go check it out!
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
ACTION TANK Book 2 - I finally read the second volume in Mike Barry’s amazing series and it did not disappoint. He’s one of the best Aussie creators at using the comic page as a unit of space or time. His layouts and design are so damn precise and masterful, they excite me to my core every few pages.
THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK - Been slowly chipping away at this and it’s pretty good. I think I can take it all with a grain of salt, but like the best professional development or learning, it isn’t always about teaching you something new and instead it’s just taking something you know and ignore and bringing it into the spotlight. It’s nice to see things I can take on board in my reading.
Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
Being home for the holidays means more time in the garden, and something occurred to me - I really enjoy being in the garden because I have absolutely no aspirations in this field.
I’m not going to grow prize winning flowers. I’m not growing the largest pumpkin in my county. I’m not even trying to just sell a few extra punnets of raspberries. I’m just out there being average and enjoying myself.
Now, tbf, I don’t want to be an abject failure at anything out the back, but I also won’t be too shocked if I am. And that’s what frees me up to just exist.
When I teach, the outcome matters a whole bunch. So I push myself to be the best teacher I can be, which means I want to be the best teacher I know.
When I write, I aim to be the very best writer possible for me. And I aim to be one of the best I know. I genuinely do. It’s a lot of pressure, and I only hold it myself, but it is always there, every morning waiting for me at 4am.
Even when I parent, I want to be damn good at it. Most of what I do I push myself beyond what I see as average, and I demand more of myself at all times. I don’t actually think I’ll be the best in the world at anything, I don’t think I can be truly exceptional at that level, but it doesn’t hurt to aim and then expect maybe 5 degrees lower.
In fact, this was a joke with my therapist last year. I expected to be the best at a lot of things - and not in a competitive way, but just in a way where I’d know if I was doing it or not. She said there was no award for Best Husband or Best Dad or Best At Therapy, and while I know this, I also know that shouldn’t stop me pushing. And, to be technical, there are awards for writing and teaching, and I’ve won some and been nominated for others, so it’s not insane for me to be aiming for that, right?
But I was able to see, I exercise, but do not expect anything from it other than to feel better. I can just do it for low stakes and enjoy it. I don’t read to win awards, or go for a walk with my wife, or ride my bike. These are all things I haven’t turned into a side hustle and so it’s just a place for me to relax and find mental calm.
Gardening is now that for me, too. I think having the time to find a balance where I can teach, parent, husband, and write - and then also read or garden or walk means my days have a balance between pressure and stress and not.
Hopefully I can continue to find that balance through 2021.