TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE November/28 - Quiet Quitting the Bird
Lotta pro-union sentiment in here. You’ve been warned.
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2022 -- bounce.
Tiiiii-iiiiii-iiiiime, is on your side.
No, it isn’t.
But I find it interesting to see what we do with our time. Some new age thinker, mega-bot-follower count, thought confederationist type on social media was discussing who people spend their time with. Turns out there was a study in the US about this, so instead of using this online free range thinking person’s homemade graph designed to go viral and get them links-and-clicks, I just googled to the source and found some interesting stuff.
This graph is really interesting:
I have to assume Australian data would be fairly similar, what with our Little Brother syndrome down here, so I’ll just play with this data like it’s true for me [as true as any collective data is for any individual].
At my age, I’m spending nearly as much time with my coworkers as I am my own kids. This makes me reflect on having chosen a good new work place and how thankful I am to be surrounded by people I dig. It’s a makes a huge difference to each morning as you prepare to face the salt mines and set the feet to grind.
The time with kids line makes me a little…pensive. I won’t say sad, the kids should be allowed to go off and live their lives. But to actively see the line tell me I’ll spend less time with them in the coming years is something I’ll need to remember. At times, it seems like they are relentless, always wanting something else, always there, and this is a good thing. Their desire to play a game with their old man will diminish soon, we might not watch the same tv/movies, they might need to study more, they might get jobs, partners, parties, more sleep. The times where they’d pester me to get up and make pancakes might be gone, and I know I will miss them. Might as well appreciate it now, right? And isn’t the purpose of any of this data to make us think - to make us realise how much we should appreciate what we get?
I can also see that partner time tracks pretty consistent, and then charts upwards. Makes me happy/grateful that I married someone I like spending time with; seems there’s going to be a bit more of it in the coming years.
I look at the time spent alone part, and it’s so much. But what’s that include? Probably a lot of the stuff you have to do - bathroom, the commute, etc. I’m thankful to get 2 hours every morning to write, and exercise, and whatever I want. It’s why I want to use that time so wisely - to tell my stories, to be truthful to my creative side, to fulfill myself in another way outside of work and in a solo capacity.
I could easily segue into why I don’t want to “replace” twitter with anything else should it burn down because that’s time thieved away from this chart - time I could better spend alone even, or with someone else. Which is why I don’t feel bad that I’m quiet quitting twitter. It’s a moral decision alongside one for my brain. I’ve long been winding down my use of the site. For all the good it has done my writing career, and there is a lot in that column, it was just becoming something else over the past few years. Far less discussion, far more yelling. But I still had comics mates there and I could curate my view into it.
But then the recent corporate takeover just sunk it for me. The fuzzy line in regards to what is safe speech on there, the mistreatment of workers, it was all being dismantled in real time, and live on the timeline. But then they reinstated Trump’s twitter [not that he seemed to use it], but it was a signal. Let’s go back to the old ways. Even though that specific path led directly to an insurrectionist movement on Jan 6. I’ll firmly state there’s a direct line between the two. So to play with that line again shows a gross level of negligence and it was a line crossed for me. So, I’m out.
I see they’ve now lifted bans on previous suspended accounts, and it’s clear moderation is going to blow over there, so I can only vote one way. The site is free, I’m the product, so I’ll vote with my wallet that way - I’m out.
I don’t really want anything else in my brain that’s such a sinkhole. I saw a lot of comics people tried different things, and the one that’s stuck for the moment is Hive; so I’ve joined, but I won’t be using it like it’s Twitter 2010. I’ll stick to email, and then plenty of phone free time, and enjoy my attention while it heals.
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What do I want to make?
I never consider myself a horror writer. Damn, I don’t know what kind of writer I am.
But reading the latest issue of FRIDAY makes me want to infuse more horror into my work. There’s just something so visceral about the way it can present to the reader and gain a reaction anywhere from disgust to delight [and plenty in between].
The next two images are…somewhat disturbing. Not in an overly horrific way, but they are decently gross. You’ve been warned :]
And
Both of these panels really sell the grotesque nature of what Friday is up against in a way that gives me that childhood delight of seeing Bernie Wrightson art.
But look at this opening contract - there’s trouble afoot, the sky is funky, and yet Friday runs face first into it because that’s what heroes do. The colour is just touching an innocent person, and she’s having none of it. Straight into the page turn. Perfect.
Go buy all of FRIDAY digitally as a Pay-What-You-Want pick up on Panel Syndicate!
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Quick writing update.
Actually been fairly productive this fortnight.
Am inching really close to finishing the final script for this story I’m writing for next year. The 24-page plan was tight, so scripting it has been pretty cruisy.
I had two contracts pass my desk this week. One a continuation of something exciting in the tv space, and one a comic thing. Both have kept me afloat with things to do. Always something to do.
Looking at next year - I’ll be pitching some new stuff soon, but might also have something else to develop. Maybe. The thought seed is firmly pushed into the brain soil, and a little water each day might yield something. Lord knows, I’ve thought on this one before, so there’s plenty of nutrients around to draw into it.
Sorry. All fairly vague. For now.
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Other Stacks.
I’ve been in love with
's writing for as long as he’s been writing. He has to be the strongest talent in the most versatile ways comics has in the modern era - he’s crushed it from hard crime in SCALPED to weird Marvel stuff with GHOST RIDER and then big Marvel stuff with THOR, and STAR WARS. So to see him have a new creator owned book out is a cool thing - to see him release script pages for the first 5 pages is even better 🤯Click here to read Jason Aaron’s script for ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE END OF THE WORLD #1
Then
also dropped some process goodness over on his substack - I’ve loved Ed’s work a long time, though he was self-publishing for years [centuries?] before we met, so I can’t claim to have dug his work for as long as the graphite’s been hitting the paper.Ed just wrote about how it’s been 10 years since his first properly published big work - COMEBACK at Image/Shadowline - and he lays in some other short reading material and pitch stuff.
I remember reading Ed’s pitch for COMEBACK at the time - I’d become mates with him through knowing Kurtis J. Wiebe, who wrote GREEN WAKE, which remains an all time classic for me. Ed was gracious enough to share some of his early stuff with me and I was always blown away by the ideas and his brilliant ability to deliver them through precise characters and intriguing scenes. He just kinda nailed everything he wrote, and when he made COMEBACK with Michael Walsh and Jordie Bellaire, I remember loving every issue as it came out - I should dig out those back issues and give it a decade-later re-read.
Ed continues to work on very cool stuff now, a lot over at DC, and you’re probably already subbed to his newsletter, but just in case you aren’t - you know what to do.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
A FISTFUL OF PAIN gets an 8.5/10 review on Comical Opinions - “the melodic rhythm of the story presents itself like an epic poem. Lindsay and Joyce’s pacing floats and weaves like the dragons in this issue to make you feel like there should be a soundtrack playing in the background.” - That’s one damn fine quote :]
The LICHES Method - a way of describing rooms/locations when you DM an RPG session. It’s clear and clever - a great 1-2 punch of learning for those who enjoy the improv and scripted style of setting the tone of the moment and giving enough information for the players to muck around with.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
ENOLA HOLMES - The YA story of Sherlock Holmes’ little sister. I watched both of these films recently, and thoroughly enjoyed both. I found it interesting that the first seems firmly about gender and female rights, with some class struggles thrown in on the side, and the second film is firmly about class struggles, with some gender interplay on the side. These social issues are baked right into the complex crimes of the story, and I hope the meat of them is digested by people alongside the awesome thinking and innovate crime fighting [and smouldering Henry Cavill].
For years, Hollywood seemed intent on making Unions look terrible - just a bunch of lazy teamsters who overly confuse things when really we should leave it up to the bosses to be independently magnanimous and look out for their workers and not making another dollar off their backs. This article on Dismantle Mag does a good job at summarising how unions have been shown on film for the past century.
But Enola Holmes 2 is a fiercely pro-union story. Almost didactically so. And in an age where we see union news in regards to places like Amazon and Starbucks, I am not shocked. I am also pleased. I grew up with vague anti-union sentiment, and it colours the lenses through which you see the world. But I’m thankful that when I started working I had a co-worker instantly tell me to join the Teachers’ Union because she’d spent the past 3 decades fighting for sick leave and better working conditions and if we didn’t hold the line then it’d get bargained away.
I’ve now spent 2 decades in the union and have watched my ceiling salary as a classroom teacher nearly double - though I’d have to see what inflation is, I’m surely we might still be slipping behind. But I also know that we wouldn’t even be this far along with our wages if it wasn’t for our union pushing it each and every time we bargain with the government for a raise. They always lowball first and we have to push back just to gain any ground. I talk about unions in my house a lot in the hopes my kids will grow up just believing in unions and the work they can do.
Coming back to Enola - it makes me wonder what the social issue for the third film will be. Will they continue to load their agenda? I hope so.
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Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
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Who is Ryan K Lindsay?
I’m an award-winning Australian comic writer. I’ve been published by Black Mask, Dark Horse, ComixTribe, IDW, Mad Cave, Heavy Metal, Vertigo, and a few more. Kickstarter has been a home for many short comics. I often get to collaborate with great mates, and this brings me joy.
I write about balancing this creative game alongside a full teaching load [currently College English] and a lovely family load and the forever melting brain that is modern man. I think about a lot of stuff, I still don’t know if it’s the right stuff. ymmv.
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POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
I wrote a solo rpg called THE LIGHTHOUSE AT KINDRED ROCKS - you can get it here for free/pwyw
So imagine how stoked I was to see someone played the game and wrote up their 4,000 words of what happens in their story.
Read Kaden Ramstack’s playthrough of my game here!
Genuinely so excited to see someone use it in such detail, and the stuff they came up with was superb story fodder. It’s a part of their Solovember quest to play one solo rpg each day for November. Browse their site, there’s a lot of other really good stuff in there, too.
I really appreciate the time and attention you take from the other lines on that chart to write this. I ALWAYS enjoy it.
We haven’t watched Enola 2, but will, and I agree with you about both the quality of the series and the importance of unions in general (though I grew up in Kansas, a US State with anti-union “right to work” laws).