TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE May/24 - Not For Your Consideration
Complete absence of visual delights - sorry. Enjoy all the *words*
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
The slings and arrows of awards season.
Everyone knows you shouldn’t care about awards. We tell each other, we tell ourselves. We know it.
But do we believe it? By we, I definitely mean just myself. Because I’ll be honest, I work great with external validation. It’s how you know you’re doing well, or are on the right track.
Thankfully, there are other ways to know this, also, and I hunt those things down just as voraciously - am I proud of my work, does it strike a reaction in others, am I satisfied and happy and enjoying my efforts? If I can tick enough boxes then I’ll continue to write every day. The moment it wanes enough, I guess I’ll stop.
But something that tops up the coffers is an award. A genuine appreciation and recognition that you are on the right track. It feels objective, even though we know it’s subjective. But, whatever, it works. I know it works because I won two awards for NEGATIVE SPACE in 2016 and I’ve been riding the fumes off those highs for years.
Since then, nothing. Which I’m mostly fine with, because not everything is going to be an award winner, and sometimes other stuff is just categorically better. I can see why BEAUTIFUL CANVAS might not win an award - I think it’s amazing, but I can see how it’s niche. I can understand a world where, *gasp*, I’m not the best.
Though I will admit when ETERNAL got a round of snubs, I realised I cared less because that book was fucking amazing and if it can slip past people’s radars then I can see how an award isn’t an absolute lock about anything in this world. Which sounds crazy arrogant, but don’t worry, I know Eric Zawadzki was 90% of why that book is a stone cold killer. But it won nothing, and I still felt epicly awesome about making that comic and selling it and having it in the world.
It taught me to not worry about awards. A true blessing in the mind of a creative.
Cut to this year: a complete snub through local awards season. Not a single short list. Now, looking at what gets shortlisted, I’m always nodding along, loving so so much of it. But I’ll admit this year gave me pause...I had to consciously take stock of what I’m doing for a minute.
After 2019 yielded no new releases for me, it was nice to come back in The Hell Year and put out SKYSCRAPER and the first volume of SHE. Are they ‘The Best Work In Their Field’ … eh, I dunno. I did okay with them. I can honestly see how something that’s wild, fun, violent sci fi like SHE would not trigger a single award nomination muscle, and I’d be fine with that - I knew what I was making with that.
But SKYSCRAPER. I’ll admit I was a little crest-fallen. It’s a newspaper sized puzzle box of a mystery that’s got crime, sci fi, history, and beautiful art/colours from Mitchell Collins and Simon Robins and I thought we all worked at our A+ peak. I made this one to be something special, and I think we nailed it.
I guess I’m still allowed to think that. But it getting no recognition gave me a little ping, I’ll be big enough to admit it [but small enough to have felt it].
I won’t go on a rant about how I deserve anything, I don’t, and I won’t shit-talk what did get nominated, of all I’d read I can say every single thing deserved their spot, and a few that missed out deserved theirs, too, and I won’t trash the awards or their systems, I always appreciate them and what they do. I’ll just be honest about how my head processed it all - I was disappointed. And I had to remember why I make comics - because it’s an itch I constantly need to scratch, and because I believe I do it well.
I still love my two comics from last year, they continue to sell well at cons, and online, so I’ll keep proudly putting them out there. But I’ll also make sure to check myself and wonder if I’m doing my best work. I think doing that daily helps me push things forward.
I will also consider if I write for awards, or write because I like weird shit. Anyone who’s read enough of my work knows the answer - it’s the latter. And I don’t need validation to keep going - I’d just like it. I know I’d like it, I’d love it. But I also gotta be hard enough to go on without it, or find it elsewhere, because in the end I get to make comics and have people read them and on any scale that’s pretty amazing.
It’s hard to mope about and consider myself a failure when I have two sci fi minis releasing for the rest of the year, something in the chamber for next year already done, and a tv option deal helping me pay some bills right now.
I rarely write for a fad, or because I think awards will love it. I write because something strange lodges in my brain and I have to explore it. This past week reminded me of that, so here’s to what else might stumble out of the darkness of my thoughts. May you enjoy it.
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One week until EVERFROST #1 drops.
Well, one week and two days, but who needs pedantry around these parts?
I got a whole lot more excitement for this than nerves. It’s been so so long coming - and I think a lot of my readers are going to love this. Hopefully some new readers, too.
I won’t bang on, you’ve no doubt heard enough - but prepare yourself to go in 9 days from now and collect your copy from your Subs pile, or grab it off the shelf if you’re a chaos agent and you hope there’ll be one waiting.
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The work.
Plenty o’ work this week. Cooking my brain in the pre-dawn hours, while also writing about 20,000 words of report comments during the work-a-day. It left me tired by Friday night, but that’s always a good excuse to snooze through whatever movie we choose for the kids to watch that night over pizza.
I’d noticed a similar pattern in the past - work until exhausted, feel the effects, have a sleep in, or two, and reset things a little for the next month. But now I don’t do sleep ins on the weekend, I’m up to write, so instead I’ve seen a tendency to nap through a movie’s middle, or miss the end, or both if it’s a rerun of Disney’s MAGIC CAMP. I got one kid that doesn’t mind me taking up half the couch on them. Now it’s Monday morning and I feel fresh and ready to tackle the week ahead.
But last week I scripted this 5 page intro for [THE SHARP INK PROJECT] just to start getting into the voice of the world and such, and while it took me like 2-3 weeks t break *how* I’d approach the scene, it only took about 3 days to bang out that intro scene. I think it came out pretty well.
I then set it aside and came back to the SHE Vol. 2 script and have reread it all and found that I like it quite a bit. I think this is a huge level up from Vol. 1 - which was itself quite an old script, so I’m hoping I’m much better now. I can see it needs a little rewrite in a few places, some additions to tighten things up, a little rewiring of the timing of things, but I’ve been tinkering all week and it’s really feeling good.
I also reread the script for BLACK BEACON #4, and was really happy with what I found. The events are good, the pacing is great, and the escalation pushes it into the final 2 scripts after that. For now, Seb has to work on a few things to get #1 ready for print in its single issue, which lands on July 07, I just found out.
This means you have one final week to get your preorder in for the single issue journey of BLACK BEACON, starting in issue #1 - and it’ll run for 6 issues. Expect a separate email from me later in the week with all the good details. But if you can’t wait, just tell your LCS you want BLACK BEACON #1 from Heavy Metal set aside for you when it lands in July.
In fact, I saw that once EVERFROST #1 kicks things off, I’ll have a new issue out every 2-3 weeks nearly for the rest of the year. That’s more RKL than even I can handle, but hopefully it all sells well.
Speaking of EVERFROST, make sure you’ve asked your LCS to set aside all 4 issues as they land. I’ve got #2 going to print soon, we are tidying up some of the back matter, and we’ve got one really cool thing planned for it.
I’m hoping if I can keep the print schedules running for both comics, and then I can wrap scripting on SHE Voll 2, then I can start to write something new - and I’m hoping that’s [THE SHARP INK PROJECT], but you never know in this game. I’m sure I’ll find something to keep me busy.
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Oh, also, Patreon - script annotations.
For the month of June, to celebrate the release of EVERFROST #1, I’m going to release a page of script a day with annotations so you can see my thoughts behind writing this comic, and compare them to the pages as you read them, and that’ll give me a daily schedule for pretty much the whole month.
You can get in on this for just $1 for the whole month - sign up here and I’ll kick off June 01.
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ASD&D.
My school group is finally diving into some of the D&D homework I’ve set - as they realise that homework gives you XP, which levels you up, which gives your character more HP and more cool stuff to do.
This week saw 2 awesome maps, a clay model, a cardboard set of armour, and some really great articles written in the style of journalists who live in the world of D&D. Been fun to watch them all sink into it and have fun.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
This article about a TikTok Mansion is absolutely fascinating - I really could quote a dozen moments/chunks from this thing. It talks about the way people sell themselves in our online culture, and how vapid it’s becoming, and now it’s chewing up and spitting out young people. But then it posits a thought that a lot of society is going that way - we aim to please, not inflame, we hope to be granted acceptance and promotion through external things. We become toothless tigers hoping for a steak smoothie from the faceless mass of the world. It’s a long one, but I haven’t read an article this engrossing in a long while. It made me both sad and determined, for my own future, and for my kids.
DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI has a newsletter launching - I’ve been a huge fan of Swierczy’s since about 2008 when he took over writing THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST, and I’ve read nearly every single one of his crime novels. He’s not on social media as much as he used to be, and so I’m stoked to see him start a newsletter. If you dig crime and writing and pulp, sub right now.
DON’T LET YOUR DEAD ONES DIE on Kickstarter - gorgeous, gorgeous art on this creepy one-shot.
KNOCK DOWN DRAG OUT RPG on Kickstarter - this country noir rpg rulebook looks pretty damn cool. Makes me realise Kickstarter often has some of the most interesting writing in the RPG field on there.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
FANTASTIC MR FOX by Roald Dahl - I enjoy reading this to my class because then we can begin a journey of exploration about character in story.
I can ask them if Mr Fox is a hero or a villain?
And I can dig into *why* Boggis, Bunce, and Bean act the way they do.
The disparity between how people are portrayed, how they are physically shown, and what they truly speak through their actions is a great character study for young readers. Because Mr Fox is a thief, and the farmers are just protecting their hard work, but most don't see it that way initially - and obviously, Fox is stealing to feed his family, and the farmers are just horrible to everyone around them, so there are layers to peel back, there's no one single read on them, so you can easily argue either way.
But the trip up always comes when you realise Fox cares for all these animals, and yet completely murders the 4 chickens before stealing them and doesn't think twice about it. Which opens up a whole can of worms about class levels in the animal world, and that's great discussion.
I don't use the book to make people think something different about the characters, I use it to show that you *can* think something different about characters.
DESCENDER - been reading the HC of this Lemire/Nguyen comic, and it’s very bloody good. Lemire is always a masterclass writer, and I dig this robot sci fi.
NOMADLAND - started watching this flick about people in the States living in RVs, and sometimes just cars, and I don’t know what tone it’s trying for, but I just found it really bleak and a horrible indictment of that entire country. So, it’s a good flick to have been made, but I don’t know I’ll say I’ve “enjoyed” watching it. Still gotta muster up the mental energy required to finish it.
Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
Am hoping to be in Melbourne for a Con in a little over a month. If I can go, I should have EVERFROST #1, and BLACK BEACON #1, and all the usual SKYSCRAPER, ETERNALS, SHE stuff to sell.
Crossing some fingers to pull it off and have a bit of good time with my family on the side.