TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE November/15 - Last day to preorder the EVERFROST tpb is today!
Am I the old man or the sea?
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
Today is the final chance to preorder the EVERFROST trade paperback collection.
Not to bang on about it, but Monday is when comic shops finalise their order numbers for the book. Here’s 3 main points!
Trade paperbacks make perfect Xmas presents for people who like to read, and are either comics adjacent, or just starting to explore creator owned comics.
If you order 1 copy of this book, the comic shop is likely to order 2 - one for you, and one for the shelf. The reason being if you want it enough to preorder, then someone else will probably want it enough to pick it up off the shelf.
The whole series got a lovely breakdown review on Comic Book Yeti, praising many things - GO READ THE REVIEW NOW
The closer I get to release, the more I realise how perfectly I love this book. How well it took the whirlwind of narrative in my head and became something beautiful on the page. I’m excited to share this with the world in one final push!
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Marketing your comic.
I don’t think I’m usually very good at this type of thing. But someone who is, who just gets how to connect comics to readers, is Tyler James over at ComixTribe. And because Louie Joyce and I have a graphic novel coming out with them next year, I’ve been thinking about how to get this book out into reader hands.
Tyler has this great process of written tasks/questions/prompts to take yourself through when thinking about your comic and in doing so it’s gotten me to unlock some thoughts about the book that have given me greater insight, and made me even happier with this path we are going down.
I’ve really connected that this book is going to be the spiritual successor to ETERNAL in so many ways. Graphic novel, strange genre of fighting, introspective woman in the lead who channels her emotions through her weapons - and insanely gorgeous art.
But I also realised a little something else: this book feels to me like the exact thing someone would need who has grown up reading Raina Telgemeier and other Scholastic-type graphic novels, but is now 19, and looking for something to keep reading, and this sits right there, right in that pocket.
This comic has blood, and revenge, and family, and epic fights. But it’s a personal tale, and it has these lovely little moments. I believe anyone looking for that next step into adult comics can find a great landing pad here.
Beyond these thoughts, I’ve also been gifted more Louie Joyce art in my inbox, so that’s a huge plus for every week:
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Writing questions, writing answers.
Been putting some more time into breaking story on this pitch I want to send out soon. I have the story all mapped out, now I’m just rattling it to see which parts fall off. Like the bike test - where you lift your bike 10cm off the ground and drop it. It’s not big enough to snap it in half, but if the chain shoots off then you know it was never gonna make it over its first gutter.
This usually just involves me writing down questions, as always, and staring at the question, pausing and gazing soulfully into it like it’s a hidden message from beyond the stars. Then writing stupid answers, like a Beat Generation stream of consciousness, until I cross 80% of it out and then circle the part that makes sense. It’s always a weird process. And I realise I do this for maybe half the year, every morning. I can’t imagine this process is making me any more normal. Hopefully it’s making me a better writer.
The plan is to have the pitch ready to send in this week.
But then plan is also to mark ~90 papers [half film analysis, half short stories] this week, so that’s somewhere over 90,000 words of stuff to read, analyse, mark, record feedback notes on, probably reread and check marks, and then write a report comment on. So if the pitch isn’t ready yet, I’ll understand. My brain is pretty fried and I can honestly only do so much with it.
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ASD&D.
Got to play last week with my mates. It had been a while, for a variety of reasons. Was nice to just step into character and goof off. There wasn’t even a lot of rolling, I don’t think any fighting, it was just thinking about what to do, and goofing off. It was a pleasure to have some laughs and switch my brain off for a few hours.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
Top 100 Comic Book Stories on CBR - this series hasn’t finished running, so keep checking all month, but I recommend giving this a skim if you’re looking for things to read. If something sounds interesting, ask someone about it - online/social media, or reply to me, I might have read it and/or have thoughts on it. CBR has been running this feature biannually, I think, for quite a long time, and it’s always an interesting read. I don’t agree with everything on there, it’s a democratically selected list, and by the kinds of people who read CBR, so the list skews towards the superheroic, but not always. But the list isn’t about being the same as your internal 100, it’s about finding some new things. I skimmed through it and saw some absolute classic storylines I still love to this day: Hi, UNCANaY X-FORCE and IMMORTAL IRON FIST! I’ll reread those stories until the day I die, honestly.
FOULBROOD on Kickstarter - Christopher Sebela is back with a new crime comic, it’s about bees, and he’s funding the first two issues right here!
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, Ernest Hemingway - I read this over two days this week. It’s an interesting read. I wasn’t madly in love with it, but by the end I could see how it’s grabbed attention. It’s a big theme piece, and it does slowly become riveting as it moves along. The story is an old man who hasn’t caught a fish in 85 days, but then he goes out and snags a huge marlin and it slowly drags him further away from land, and from there he just struggles with the fish as well as his inner thoughts. It’s a pretty insular tale, but I think you could genuinely find two people with different takes on what it means.
What I took away from it: sometimes we focus too much on these goals that take us away from what matters. The old man has a coastal town, and a boy who cares for him, but he still ignores all of that to go out and nearly die to catch a fish, and when he does it becomes pointless as sharks eat away at it and he returns with nothing of value, though perhaps an interesting story. I think you could read it as inspirational, in that his tenacity never dies, but I really felt a sadness at the end. Days of work on the water and for nothing, and so he retires to bed. He’ll probably do it again the next day, though I honestly believe he dies at the end of the story. He lays down in bed, the boy cares for him, and the boy walks away crying because he knows the old man is about to expire. The boy probably fears this is his future, too, an inescapable masculine train line that goes through the same stations and arrives at the same end of the line.
But that’s just my read on it, informed by my own bias, and current cultural context. I think the power of this book is no doubt held in its ability to be interpreted. I could even draw a parallel between my own life, full of things I love and that love me, and that I turn on them at times to write stories in my office, or sell stories in another town. Hopefully I don’t do it to the level this man does, and hopefully I’ll feel my life has been better connected as I lay down on my own mattress one day, but it’s something to remember. I have the kind of brain that gets caught up in providing, sometimes, and not just being. The kids don’t care if I have cleaned all the dishes and provided them with toys, they care if I give them time. My job is to find a balance and try to make it look seamless.
Not too much pressure :]
TWELVE ANGRY MEN, by Reginald Rose - saw the play script for this on the school’s book list and grabbed a copy because I’ve seen the flick a dozen times [Henry Fonda, not Tony Danza, thank you] and don’t think I knew it was a play first. Devoured half of it yesterday over a coffee and marvelled at how well it jumps off the page. A truly inspired piece of writing about twelve men, each different, sitting in a jury room and discussing a Murder One case. The way it unravels each man, and shows a brilliant critique of society, is perhaps perfect. Dying to watch the film again now.
SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS - I liked this, a lot, and think it’s a great entry to the MCU. I thought Simu Liu was pretty brilliant as Shang-Chi, delivering everything you want from a Marvel hero, including the obligatory shirtless ab reveal scene. I really liked Awkwafina as his friend Katy. I thought Tony Leung was a thoughtfully acted villain. I also think this film is easily accessible and will be liked by a wide percentage of viewers.
What I didn’t really like was the script. Because the entire third act just became things happening because they happen and no one really earns the reveals or the upgrades or the success. I won’t mention spoilers, but when a character stumbles into a situation that’ll yield success by pure happenstance, or didn’t require any knowledge to be obtained or obstacle to be overcome, then it’s very uninspiring. It might *look* cool, or still be fun, but it’s hollow in terms of story. So that part fell apart for me, but I could still switch off and enjoy it, and that’s really the aim, so they hit it dead on, I suppose.
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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
Talking is just about the best thing. Find someone you can talk to, about something, about anything. Listening is just as good.
I just realised seeing a counsellor is like the real life version of me story breaking. I talk something out, and then talk five ways around it, and then I slowly get clarity. I find the same when I catch up with a mate in my backyard.
And the talking usually only leads to making me stronger, as does the story breaking [for the story, not me, story breaking drives me insane, ha].
The trick is having someone you can talk to, letting yourself be honest, and then actually doing it.
Huh, don’t think I’d ever made the connection before. This definitely helps me, so I hope it helps you - if you don’t have someone to talk to, drop them a line today.