TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE Apr/12 - Tales From The Worm Citadel
Even the worms want you to preorder EVERFROST #1
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
Putting the pro in productive.
This past week has been a stretch of hustle and hard work. It’s felt really bloody good, too.
I’ve written another 8 pages on SHE Vol. 2, and it’s clicking together well from the page-by-page outline. I had to sit for nearly 2 hours the other morning to crack *how* I’d do a certain 2 page sequence, but then I could see it and the pages came out in 20 minutes.
I’ve done a tonne of EVERFROST press and prep.
I posted about my working history with Sami Kivela - and then I assembled a bunch of review quotes from the last time Sami and I jammed, which was BEAUTIFUL CANVAS.
I’ve sent out an early PDF of EVERFROST #1 to some of my creator friends, so it’s been nice to get positive feedback from many of them. It’s also been nice to have an excuse to reach out and reconnect with some of my old mates.
EVERFROST #1 got an early review - we scored a 5/5 at Comic Crusaders, with Johnny Hughes offering some really lovely thoughts - check the review out here!
So the 4am start continues to work for me. Might be easy because I’m still on school holidays, but we’ll see how I go when teaching starts back up.
Off the page, and outside of the office, I’ve kept busy around the house. The composting worm farm continues to take up about 40% of my daily thoughts. Both bins are doing well, with the one I’m letting sit really turning into a rich soil - we chopped up a whole pumpkin we’d grown so I had a tonne of pumpkin skin, which is so hard, and I didn’t want to tax the newer worm bin, so I tossed it into the fuller bin and that worm citadel absolute obliterated that stuff. It’s amazing to watch, sometimes.
I’ve kept watering the raspberries and we’re yielding a punnet a day, roughly, so that’s some good savings. The amount of money we don’t need to spend on fresh produce always makes me happy, and is why we’ve bought some kiwi plants and are hoping to get them fruiting in a greenhouse over winter, as well as some beetroots and maybe tomatoes, too.
We bought a new bed and managed to dismantle the old bed and assemble the new bed in record time, and with 5 minutes to spare before I was picked up to play D&D :]
I also recently bought a big wooden cable drum and finally got some time with an old mate to start working on it to turn it into an outdoor table. I don’t know how long it’ll take us, but I’m excited just to go along for the journey.
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Happiness, shared.
Jason Aaron is a hell of a writer. He’s written some All-Time Classic comics - SCALPED, PUNISHER: MAX, THOR, GHOST RIDER - and usually his comics are brutal af. THOR is the stand out, mostly.
And yet this week he wrote something that just filled me with absolute warm happiness, and it was in his newsletter.
Jason Aaron wrote about what makes him happy, and in there he put this photo that just completely captured my heart. It’s his shelf of Conan novels - he wrote a killer run on the Conan comic recently - and above it is a set of candy jars. It’s this battle mixed with sweet photo that made me think of the dichotomy creators often live as.
Aaron is known for pretty blood soaked stories, and yet his happy list was full of candy, and tiki bars, and just pure and simple pleasures. I won’t lie, it made me smile. He’s so good at writing, he set out to share happiness and did exactly that.
It also made me think about the things I love - and why it’s important to write about such things from time to time. It’s good to reflect, and if you reflect well, then you’re just shining that out, aren’t you? Here’s some of mine:
My family.
This week one kid hosted a Babysitter’s Club meeting, for crying out loud. Another kid cried at the end of SOUL. The house is filled with their piano practice, or them silently reading for 10 minutes a day as per the school challenge, or us all playing Uno Flip [ a great variation of a classic game].
My wife has made pumpkin scones and pear and brie tartlets [alongside the beetroot and onion tartlets], and she’s brought brunch mimosas back into my life, and she’s put up with me having a 4am alarm, and we’ve gone for long walks where we talk about everything. She inspires me daily to be a better man, and that in turn flows into all aspects of my life.
My mother turned 72 last week. She old. But she’s wise, and it’s always nice to hear her laugh.
My brothers are preparing to sell the Dickens out of their latest two novels. They are my oldest connections to this world, and my best connections to el cheapo movies, and comics, and ragging on each other. I always love seeing them launch new novels into this world, and I’m nearly halfway through THE GODS OF SILVERLAKE, which is bloody spectacular.
Chili and Lime corn chips.
I don’t overindulge in much food anymore. I stopped eating chocolate for a New Years Resolution about half a decade ago and just never went back, and with it has gone a lot of sugar. But if I need a treat, or I’ve earned one, I’m more likely to crack open a bag of these delicious salty and spicy treats and just gorge myself.
Green thumbing.
I’m not very good at it. But be damned if I don’t love messing around with the yard. The wife does the heaving thinking of what to plant, where, and what else needs attending to. I just mow the lawn and compost all the fruit peel that comes from feeding these kids, and I also recently took a red basil seeded and potted it - really hoping it likes the view in my office with my other two friends.
Philip K Dick.
Take me anywhere near where books are sold and just take me straight to the D section in sci fi. I’ve been hunting for PKD novels for over 25 years, and I’ve done it in scores and scores of small Aussie towns, as well as New Zealand, China, France, Italy, and a few other places, I’m sure.
There’s something about this shelf of dusty old paperbacks that just makes me happy. Like it’s a life well spent.
In fact, just expand this one to anywhere selling books, preferably secondhand, where I can get that old paper smell, and just browse through rad old covers. It’s beautiful soul food to me.
Notebooks.
I own more notebooks than I could count, and I can’t count them because they’re mostly all over the place. I dig notebooks in a very hands on way because I try my best to use them.
I have notebooks for each project I’m working on, and also for D&D stuff, and teaching stuff, and mental health stuff, and for Bullet Journals. I love random notebooks, but I also try my best to use the damn things. I don’t want to shelve a notebook thinking it’s “too beautiful” and then never put it to work. If I have some pages bound together, they need to eventually hold something. I use expensive notebooks, really cheap ones, ones with tacky covers, and ones that feel amazing under your fingertips.
Right now, roughly estimating, I’m probably using about a dozen notebooks for various parts of my life.
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A shared love.
So much of comics is just people supporting people. You buy my comic, you aren’t supporting the Monopoly of the House of Mouse, you’re supporting me. You’re helping and making me make money so I can do more of this.
It’s really appreciated.
So colour me “HELL YEAH!” when I saw Big Tim Stiles throw me and the new comic, EVERFROST, some love in his very own awesome newsletter - link here - sub while you’re there.
Telling me you think it’s an awesome comic = 100 points to the Good Place.
Telling your friends you dig the comic = 500 points to the Good Place.
Telling people on social media, repeatedly, you dig the comic = 900 points to the Good Place, each time
Telling your newsletter subscribers about the comic = 5,000 points to the Good Place.
It’s one of the first things I tell people about breaking into comics. The support. People are so genuinely awesome and supportive and they want to help whenever/however they can. It’s what makes comics feel like a home. The people I see at conventions feel like a little family, the global support you slowly rally, feels like a community that’s got your back.
Plus, it’s always exciting and inspiring to see people you know making amazing art/stories. It always gives me a thrill.
Tim has a Kickstarter soon for the next issue of his comic GORILLA MY DREAMS, which I insanely love. It’s very much in the family of books where DEER EDITOR came from, and he and artist Ahmed Rafaat create it with as much passion and craft as I ever could on my books. Click here to get a notification when it launches.
It even features a cover by my DEER EDITOR co-pilot: Sami Kivela!
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ASD&D.
Many of us nearly died in this last adventure. It was awesome. I’m shocked at how much I’m willing to just try things and be totally happy if it kills me.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
THE LAST HOMICIDE on Kickstarter - is Frank Martin the most prolific creator on Kickstarter? I love seeing him come up with new stories/genres and get this stuff into the world. Wondering how long it’ll be before a publisher takes aim at him.
GARDENER on Kickstarter - the art in this looks gorgeous, and the big ol’ HC is surely gonna be a nice addition to shelves.
An Aussie Comics Calendar on Kickstarter - sadly, not the creators, just the artworks, but still, it looks cool and supports great indie Aussie creators!
WAR PRIEST #1 on Kickstarter - this one looks pretty dang cool.
SAVAGE SASQUANAUT on Kickstarter - a comic about bigfoot in space, that looks heavily 80s inspired. I love *RAD* ideas.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
FRIDAY #3 - well, this digital comic from Marcos Martin/Ed Brubaker just continues to be an absolute visual feast. This issue has enough pages to let us explore the town of King’s Hill some more in moody slow ways, then see how Friday connects to more pieces of it, and then kick us all in the guts by the final set piece. Just a brilliant comic that inspires me and tops up my energy fuel tanks just by reading it.
MALEFICENT 2 - or whatever it’s proper subtitle is. I didn’t originally watch these flicks, but they’re basically just D&D-lite stories of kingdoms and queens and intrigue and winged Fey and weird forest creatures. They’re not amazing slices of cinema, but they are definitely watchable. I write about them here because this fact about them caught me off guard when I first watched them.
Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
When I read Jason Aaron’s newsletter, I instantly went and bought some of his Avengers comics on ComixOlogy [because they were on deep sale, but that’s not the point].
If, after reading my happiness, you’re also filled with a need to read some stories, well, please speak to your LCS about preordering EVERFROST. We have one last week to push things, so I’ll send another email out shortly, and I’ll hit up social media as best I can, and then we’ll see what’s up. Here’s one of my favourite writers in the world, Lonnie Nadler, telling you why you need this comic in your life:
If you have already put in a preorder, or you’re gonna trade wait, or you just think I’m an idiot [Hi, Paul!] then maybe just spread the word with your pals about the book. Word of mouth is such a strong tool for independent comics.
Thanks for helping out, however you’re doing it, because it’s hugely appreciated!