TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE July/18 - What about writing brings me joy?
Also: how many kids do I need to have before I *win* parenting?
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2022 -- bounce.
Finding a pace.
One thing I find kinda difficult is working out what success actually looks like. Whatever milestones I hit always feel kinda fleeting, and the desire to chase more is always present, but I’m trying to balance that with being realistic.
I’ve long felt like in comics “more is more” - so getting published once doesn’t matter, getting published again matters, on a forever loop. But what’s the point in that? Is it to do as much work as possible? To do the best work possible? Or to enjoy doing the work as you go through it?
I love Aditya Bidikar’s newsletter Strange Animals - they are an amazing letterer and general brain about comics/work/life. Over the past few years, they’ve gotten to a bit of a pinnacle point in their work - awards, sales, critical success, working for DC/Image. They’re inspirational and aspirational in most every way - and recently they announced cutting back on their work in a huge way. Overload and burnout and physical ailments all built up and the choice had to be made - even though there is a choice where you push through and just trash yourself, but you get a bunch of *content* on the shelves, they’ve gone another way and it got me thinking about those lines we draw.
What success am I chasing? The most? The best? Or the joy?
It got me thinking about parenting. I didn’t just keep having kids because it was physically possible, and when I roll down the street in my 3 Toyota Taragos all linked by occy straps just showing off my 27 children, I realise I’ve ascended to Parenting Nirvana.
I’m not aiming for my kids to be the top of their class, while also excelling in sport, the arts, community service, speed chess, and competitive sleeping, and so the 8 hours of drills I put them through each night is in service of me eventually getting a Fat Parenting Gold Medal around my neck because my kids are The Best and I won.
No. I mean, mostly parenting is just a game of survival. But beyond that, it’s supposed to be a fun lifestyle that *you* chose. I try to enjoy being a parent. Don’t get me wrong, it’s frustrating as hell at times, and it’ll make you doubt yourself, and you’ll still spend some time studying to do it better, and it consumes a massive percentage of your daily thoughts and actions. But I also want to enjoy it because no one asked me to do it, I signed up to it, and it’s actually pretty awesome that I get to do it.
Now take that last paragraph and consider it about my writing.
I have an audience, I have publishers willing to work with me, I have collaborators who trust me, and I have stories to tell. It’s not about the most, or the best, it’s about enjoying the ride. Every frustrating, mind-bending, punishing, and inspiring page.
Hopefully it comes through in whatever words I produce - here, and the ones alluded to below :]
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Is time running out? Have you preordered my 2 upcoming trade collections?
I have BLACK BEACON and SPEED REPUBLIC coming out in late August in their final collected formats and you probably need to have your preorders in with your stores now/this week.
Stores order less of these because they’re more expensive so they don’t want stock sitting around. They order a few for the week of release [whatever is preordered, maybe +2 for the shelves] and then if you want it and it’s gone you can ask and they’ll order in another really quickly. So if you want this when it drops, it’s usually pretty important for you and your shop to have the preorder in.
These two trades close out two stories that have been sitting with me since pre-pandemic times. It’s always a little bittersweet to put that final cap on things. But onwards to the next thing, thankfully.
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Something special is coming. Really special.
Oh, man, this book from Louie Joyce and me and Thomas Mauer is so close to the finish line - and I had to write a little copy for it so I wanted to share it with you all because just writing it gave me a ripple of excitement.
“Why This Story Is So Important To Us...
Some ideas sink their teeth into you and never let go. A Fistful of Pain is one of those comics. It all probably comes down to wanting to tell stories with your mates. Louie Joyce is one of my best friends. He's also one of the best artists I know. Mashing all of that up into creative rocket fuel is always the dream. That's why I went to Louie with this idea...a long time ago. I had this story about kung fu sisters and a dragon and heartbreaking emotion and I knew it only existed in a Louie Joyce World. His art style is the only thing that could breathe true life into this world and so we created a spark from which coals would smoulder for years. This book has been a constant in our friendship for over half a decade, and as we both found paths and success with other books and publishers, we always returned to this. It was always going to happen, but it had to happen right.
The joy of sitting at a table next to Louie at a comic convention and seeing his latest work on this story on his tablet is something I always looked forward to. And the art and the story just kept getting better. We initially were going to do this as a shorter one-shot comic, but then Louie wanted to expand moments, and new scenes came to us, and over the course of many years and conversations and rewrites [and redraws] we built up this beautiful graphic novella. It's got all the heart and fighting and scales I initially imagined, and now so much more. This book has been worth the wait, and the chance to completely do it right with Tyler James and his massive heart and brain at ComixTribe is just the best.
In every creator's journey, you get to make a few things that are truly special. I remember spending years working with Eric Zawadzki and Dee Cunniffe to bring ETERNAL to life, our Viking ghost story graphic novella at Black Mask, and A Fistful of Pain has been a similar process, and a very similar outcome - we present to you something that sat in our relationship for years and is now ready for your hands. We know you'll dig it.”
This comic - [THE LADY KUNG FU PROJECT] - is something so damn special and I’m crazy excited to unleash it very very soon. Here’s a little peek at an image or two you might enjoy :]
Seriously, so excited for this!
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Don’t forget to order your copy of BACKSTORY :]
My comic with Jen Vaughn and Teo Acosta is sliding into its final week of funding so we can finish and print this one-shot story up and we are amped to hit that finish line and fully fund - but we will need a touch of help to get there :]
If you like my one-shot stories, or supporting indie comics, and you can throw in some coins, or share the link, then I thank you. Here’s the sell copy of what this is about:
“This story is for fans of twisted tales of superhero adjacent insanity and teenage discovery, somewhat like Yellowjackets, The Hood, The Boys, and Lord of the Flies meets Glee by way of Green Lantern's ring.”
I mean, that doesn’t sound insane, right? The Beat gave us a little love - which we always appreciate.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
Tom Brevoort writes about an old Daredevil story - I dig Brevoort’s newsletter as it rambles around his brain, which holds decades of Marvel knowledge from working there, and shares it in esoteric and thoughtful clumps. This newsletter is all about an old Gene Colan/Stan Lee storyline where DD fights Cobra and Mister Hyde, and Brevoort digs into the heart of why these old issues work and don’t. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the old Daredevil comics as they were insanely stupid and with that known and shown up front you could then work on Daredevil fighting Namor and somehow holding his own, or Matt creating a fake twin brother to fool everyone into thinking Mike Murdock was in fact Daredevil, or we get awesome villains like Man-Bull - my number one choice to dust off and breathe new life into. Anyway, enjoy Brevoort’s long post, and then sub to his newsletter, it’s good stuff.
The maths behind rolling 2 dice for advantage in D&D - this is interesting, but also fascinating to watch how this guy’s math brain works. A quality example of teaching.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
ABBOTT ELEMENTARY - started watching this sitcom on Disney+ and it hits home pretty well after two decades of teaching in that arena. It’s also funny in the way a sitcom should be - I switch off, I laugh.
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Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
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POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
There’s buying books, and then there’s reading books. Then there’s the time in between both things.
Recently, we had the LifeLine Book Fair that’s always a staple in this house and I hit it up with the kids and we got ourselves a tidy little haul in an hour of being there:
This haul could easily be half a year’s worth of reading for me, I go so slow lately, but it’s also an investment in future times. And honestly, just browsing the lanes, and my own shelves at home, is a kind of creative fuel. There’s definitely a word for someone who enjoys buying books even when the reading of them might be years away. The Germans surely cooked up a word for this affliction, right?
But in my defence, your honour, THE ROAD is a copy for me to transcribe my teaching notes into [ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is one I want to read now that I just reread this bleak post-apoc tale]. THE ARRIVAL is also a copy for work, as is UNDERSTANDING COMICS. I’ll read KIDNAPPED and THE EYES OF THE DRAGON with the kids. And those two sci fi paperbacks were like a buck each, and they’re just beautiful covers :]
I love STRANGE ANIMALS. Aditya is so candid and honest, it is such a breath of fresh air compared to the over-hype / sale sale sale newsletters so many people push in the industry. It is one of the things I like about THE TWO FISTEDHOMEOPAPE and MAN WITH A HAT as well.
I think the last STRANGE ANIMALS did an amazing job of highlighting some of the problems and concerns around a monthly comic release schedule without saying "these are some of the problems and concerns around a monthly comic release schedule."
I love comics, but I find the stories are a lot stronger when you can sit down and read 60-100 pages at a time, and that would buy the creators more time to sit down and enjoy the process rather than push a deadline. Maybe I'm just a little too invlolved with it all but I see more benefit for both the creators and the fans to stick with TPB/OGN releases.
Just sort of feels like we are chasing our tails sometimes.
I am excited to finally get around to reading BLACK BEACON and SPEED REPUBLIC! Both of these have been on my list for long enough. Time to devour and regurgitate!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Always full of amazing insight!