TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE November/08 - No time for trashy zombie tv, Dr Jones.
Hayfever? More like, an ancient curse laid upon my face.
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
To the whiteboard!
Breaking this story and I’ve typed up a synopsis that works fairly well. Now I’m back onto the whiteboard in my office to kind of spot check and tidy up some things. I wrote up there for my two main characters: WANTS - CONFLICTS - NEEDS
This is just to show me my throughline on the plot that makes the most clear sense. I need to ensure that with all of the fiddling and twisting and fun I have storybreaking, I don’t neglect the basic character arc that matters the most. This 3 point attack always brings me back and allows me to shake the story and see if everything can hold on tight. What is driving this character into action, what’s stopping them achieving this goal, and what do they need to overcome this obstacle or to learn in the end.
Sometimes it’s these simple lenses - character plots, 5 act structures - that get me to rise above the bullet train that is every narrative as it hurtles through my brain and just ensure I’m actually on tracks, and there are tracks ahead of me.
Unless I want a story that’s a speeding vehicle full of people carving through a suburban building, or into a densely packed forest full of poor animals and buried secrets.
Otherwise, it’s these old ass structures that somewhat keep me in place.
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SPEED REPUBLIC coming in February 2022.
Mad Cave Studios have announced SPEED REPUBLIC will launch next year in February. This future car race action story set across Europe is a five issue miniseries with Emanuele Parascandolo on art, Michele Monte on colours, and Joamette Gil on letters. It’s all created and ready to come out and I’m so excited for it to land.
Here’s the cover:
I’ll let you know when it’s in the next Previews magazine so you can know how to let your shop know you want to preorder the whole 5 issue run.
It’s nice to have the first half of 2022 already set for a release each month, I won’t lie.
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ASD&D.
ZineQuest 2022 is coming [I assume, right?].
I’ve created a short zine of educational D&D content that I’m going to throw up onto Kickstarter in February of 2022 when the next ZineQuest round happens. In it, each year, people make and fund these little RPG Zines, each campaign being fairly small and sensible, and really this is just something I *want* to put out into the world. It’s a collection of lessons around D&D content that I’ve used and found productive and so finally found the energy to put it into the one location.
I won’t be looking for much money, or aiming to generate crazy expensive add ons or anything, this is just a chance to get some educational D&D stuff further out into the world in an organised way. Hopefully that sweet inner slice of the Venn Diagram between D&D enthusiasts and Teachers find this thing, and it finds them well.
I am considering what fun little videos and marketing tools I can come up with, but for now, I’ve wrapped production on all of the words of this Zine and I’m happy with how it’s come together.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
PLATO’S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE on Kickstarter - this is a comic adaptation of the original text, and it’s illustrated by one of my favourite artists, a good mate, and my co-creator on SKYSCRAPER, Mitch Collins! Get in on this today!
MOTHERSHIP rpg on Kickstarter - I’m in love with this rpg, and dying to play it, so seeing it all put together into a beautiful box set is so very very tempting.
SCARLET RANGER on Kickstarter - Ro Lamb has created this awesome comic and you definitely need to check it out.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
MONSTERS by Barry Windsor-Smith - I finished reading this beast of a tome and it was definitely good. Harrowing is another thing I’d label it with. The book is called MONSTERS, and its cover is definitely confronting, but then the book slowly takes it all further. I love the almost reverse storyline in that we explore one young kid, Bobby Bailey, and where his life is at as he joins the marines during the Vietnam War, but is then funnelled into a crazy experiment that goes horribly wrong. From there, we slowly delve backwards through time to see the steps and situations that have led to this moment.
It’s like a set of nesting dolls where each is more monstrous than the last. We are shown how evil becomes an echo down the chain of life, and how most people don’t have a full view of what came before them, and this repression of events and lack of true insight allows isolated anguish to fester into really terrible things. It’s a huge lesson to learn, because knowing and understanding others builds empathy, but just knowing that we should/could know more about others builds an idea that there are more ingredients to the recipe for empathy.
There are some difficult sequences to read: cannibalism occurs and it’s fairly off-putting, but there’s a moment of domestic abuse that’s just starkly heartbreaking. As that scene unravelled, the use of panel layout/size and dialogue just completely reeled me in.
I couldn’t ever recommend this book as a pleasant or fun read, but if someone was ready to be a little challenged and had the stomach for the emotions to come, then this is a bit of a masterpiece. It lands in your belly like a block of ice that you have to trust will thaw appropriately.
Y: THE LAST MAN tv episode 1 - Finally got around to checking this out and I really enjoyed the first episode. It takes what is a masterful debut issue of a comic and tweaks it in a few ways to fit the screen, and does so quite effectively. We still care about all of the characters, but they’ve been unspooled a little more, and the plot has been tightened perhaps a touch to give the audience focus. The #1 issue does bounce around quite a lot.
The interesting thing for me is that the guy playing Yorick doesn’t feel *exactly* like Yorick from the page, but I do feel connected to him as a character. I’m keen to watch more of this, and watch more I shall. Hopefully the news of the first season being canned is soon followed by someone else picking up the show and continuing it somewhere else because to see this 19 year old comic finally hit the screen and then thud into an early cancellation is a terrible way to end the decade long hype I’ve felt around this adaptation.
DAY OF THE DEAD tv show - whereas, I was also psyched when I heard about this new adaptation to the small screen of George A. Romero’s classic zombie flick. But I watched the first 10 minutes of the pilot and...it just wasn’t landing for me. It felt...I dunno...trashy. Now, I’m all for trashy tv, and trashy zombie fare, but I don’t know that I have much time for it. My problem is: I can’t quite put my finger on it. I fear it might be the acting, everyone seems a little “daytime television” in their line delivery and action. One teen sees his father is a zombie as they are escaping and it’s just, honestly, a terrible reaction. I think they’re trying to show the disconnect between father and son, but the complete lack of emotion doesn’t really work effectively for this at all. Guess they can’t all be winners, right? And I have to prioritise my time because there is a slew of good stuff I do want to watch and so little time to get to much or any of it.
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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
A news article said this has been the worst season for hayfever sufferers around these parts in a long time. That would explain my eyes on fire and my face imploding and oh my god I am so sick of it all!
Worst part is: I love spending time in my garden, but I seem to always return looking like someone put a curse on the front half of my skull. I know my kids think I’m goldbricking and just don’t want to run around my house playing Shadowlands, but I return every time feeling like my head has been dunked into itchy powder.
For anyone else feeling the effects of such a terrible facial malady, I salute you [while applying a cold wet washer to my face].
I love the whiteboard section. Always nice to hear about the process!
I saw the SPEED REPUBLIC announcement and I the book sounds really cool. Can't wait to check it out! Congrats on having the full run ready to go. That's a rarity, must feel good!
I've never heard the term "Goldbricking" but I'm going to have to add that to my vocabulary. Always fun to learn new things.
Hope you get over the allergies and hayfever. Sounds miserable. My wife did some deep cleaning around the house this weekend and the dust she stirred up is reaking havoc on several of the children and I. But once things settle I'm sure we will be better for it.
Have an awesome week. Can't wait for next Sunday's installment!