TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE October/31 - Paddling Into Waves
There be little horror content here: except my brain, on offer.
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2022 -- bounce.
Am I obligated to write about scary stories today?
My scary stories tend to be more real world lately, and involve me as the main character as I say “So I turned to look out the window, only to realise…my neck was all jacked up and I could nary turn more than 15 degrees to the left!” *GASP*
The idea of a slasher killer instilling fear into my heart just feels like a relic of this ancient form and its spooky customs. But if you want some killer horror content go to John Lees’ newsletter, he just did a countdown of his Top 100 Slasher flicks, and it’s an awesome read!
Every Hallowe’en I reflect on the fact I used to be a real horror junkie in my teen years, somewhat into my 20s, and then I just dropped off the map. I went from having seen every VHS from the hallowed horror haunt of my local Blockbuster, and Major Video, and Civic Video, to now missing most releases in this category. All my students were telling me they saw SMILE recently and how awesome it was and I had to admit, from the sound of it, I could envision a decade ahead of me where I never watch that flick. It just seems like it’ll languish in my C Tier forever and my A Tier always has something in it to watch.
Interestingly enough, those same students are all studying films to look for social issue messaging. And like good burgeoning critical minds, many are complaining that not all stories are trying to be didactic and “affect thought and change” and the films I’ve given them to choose from are all very much “Here Is A Message, Child” films, and sometimes they just want to switch off and watch a silly film and when they do they won’t need my lessons about viewing how social messages are presented because some films are just not trying to be about anything important, and so they aren’t about anything important.
I asked them to give me the basic details on the plot of Smile.
I then told them, instantly, that it sounds like it’s about trauma. How it can be passed on, how it can feel amplified, how people hide it through toxic positivity. Had a few students instantly like this:
I said I’d need to watch how it’s presented to see what it’s really saying about this topic, but that it’s definitely there. A quick google showed many others have a similar thought.
I’ve always liked the way horror films can present an idea in such an amplified and excessive fashion. It might not be where I run to when given the chance to watch something, but I’ll always respect it when it’s done well. I always thought I’d be a horror writer myself, but that’s not been the case in the slightest. You never know where your own stories are going to take you.
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Pushing the boulder.
Something stops being Sisyphean if you are on a flat and even surface, or if you crest that mountain. That’s writing sometimes. I either have no context of the degree of the place I am at, or I’m so close to getting over the tip of it, and I just gotta keep going no matter what. If I can stop the boulder rolling backwards, I can really do something special.
I guess thinking you can tip that mountain apex is what we call hope.
I like to think when I’m writing there are just some weeks where I’m paddling into the wave. It’ll take me up and dump me down hard, or I’ll get a moment of bliss as I cruise back in towards the shore, back where I started, but having done something cool and I’ll want to do it again. Probably.
This past fortnight has been a lot of paddling and not giving up. I’ve been tinkering with these two pitches that’ll go out…soon, I hope. Waiting to hear on one thing and then that decides the next steps.
So for this one thing, I’m aiming to include a Choose Your Own Adventure aspect to it. I wrote 13,000 words of this about 5 years ago in the hopes I could eventually use it. The words were mostly formed on a family holiday while everyone slept. I wrote in a Field Notes journal I kept in my pocket. I even lost that journal and was very worried for the words I’d lost, but because I’d labelled it with my name, it was handed in and I got it back. The relief, there isn’t even an appropriate measure for it yet. Though I do wonder if the person who found it read what I’d written and was all the worse for having peered into my dark Draft One brain.
So I’ve been taking that CYOA text and tinkering and mapping and rearranging it all. Thankfully I already did a map of each story thread years ago. If this comes to fruition and makes it onto the page, I am going to be so excited.
Then I’m prepping a new script, so writing the plan out in order, kicking the tyres to make sure they still hold the chassis of this thing up. It’s the final issue of the story, so it needs to be a smooth, smooth ride.
I’m also prepping a month of Noirvember writing prompts/samples.
I’m writing a story title and intro page for each of these, and I’m hoping I can hit that monthly deadline of daily words. Time shall tell.
The plan was to toss them into twitter and then my site and then a weekly round up of them here, but twitter is sitting on the edge of the table and wobbling and just waiting to fall and crash. Musk now owns it, and he’s previously said he’s open to reinstating Trump on there, which might mean others like Alex Jones suddenly have the chance to reappear.
Just today Hillary Clinton posted about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the Speaker of the House in the US, and Musk responded by citing a dodgy-ass website [which is now currently unable to be viewed] and intimating that there is more to this story, perhaps.
Hell, perhaps there is, but some dodgy “news” outlet and the fact the story isn’t clear means the owner of twitter should be doing a lot more than throwing out some cat amongst the pigeons rubbish that’s more harmful than it is helpful.
But in saying that, I haven’t left twitter yet because it remains like Musk at this stage: something dubious and worth a side-eye, but hasn’t completely 100% flipped into the camp of abhorrent. For everything Musk does that’s disagreeable [hating pronouns, disliking political correctness, the lame kitchen sink joke] he pushes something that you don’t quite hate [electric cars, gun background checks] and he becomes this erratic nebulous figure. But I think that’s the aim - never tip even 90% bad and it’ll confuse people enough to just not do anything.
Though when people show you who they are, and he has, then sometimes you should act before it turns to catastrophe. In which I am saying, I do wish to delete my twitter, but it has also been a good location for community, reading recommendations, news, and more.
I guess everything has its time. And it’s better to take a stand on your own ground than elsewhere on your back.
In short: you can definitely find my Noirvember prompts here in this newsletter in some format :]
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The Dark Side of Frictionless Technology - an article about how we are being dulled down a little by having everything be so easy, smooth, intuitive, and expected around us. This article genuinely made me think about what tools I use, what outcomes I expect [demand], and what skills I add to myself.
I’ll admit, there aren’t many skills, but I have sometimes enjoyed adding a new ability to my roster of things I can do. Playing D&D was an awesome thing to crack and understand [and somewhat master]. Learning the system was fun in itself, but then being able to share it with my kids, and then numerous students, and even some staff, really gave me a sense of unlocking a little mystery that provided a little bit of manna for the soul.
Gardening has been a good mental release - I recently built a kiwi trellis wall out of 4 old wooden pallets and it was nice to figure out how to get them in and level and satisfactory. I could have bought a trellis wall, or got someone to install one, but it was a good brain task to take the 4 pieces of wood destined for whatever comes next in their life, consider the possibilities, and then start making them. It was also a chance to brainstorm with the wife, and learn from her experience and intellect, and that’s always something that makes me level up.
There were even two major moments that gave my brain quite a bend.
To screw the pallet onto the support spike I’d driven into the ground, I could either drill in some short timber screws, which I worried wouldn’t give enough grip, or I had much longer and stronger timber screws, but they had a hexagonal head, not a phillips/flat head. My drill could not manage this. So I paused for a minute and tried to figure out how I could make this work - I’m sure smarter minds than mine make this connection instantly, but I took a moment to just pause, not rush, and think it through.
The first step was to consider what does have the ability to turn a hexagonal head - that’s my socket set. Can I drill with a hand ratchet socket set? No, not really. But if I pre-drill a hole, I could screw into it, so I found a drill bit that was the width of the screw, but not the thread, it would go in easy-ish, but not loose because it would still have wood to bite into.
So I drilled the holes, and screwed them in by hand with the socket and they gripped exactly like I wanted.
The second issue was as I put the second wall up, the right hand side, there was something wrong with what I was hammering down into, and the result was the first pallet ended up not quite level. In fact, it was an alpine slope.
I’ll admit, part of me was tired, and thought - bugger it, just finish up. But, and this was key - I paused. I considered how I’d feel if I finished and the left side was flat and the right on a Bobby Brown lean, and I knew I’d hate it. Realistically, just because it was a Sunday arvo didn’t mean I had to rush to the finish line. Life is a marathon, not a sprint [which just means the exhaustion never ends, so just learn to live with it, right?].
So, I paused.
I knew the steps, I just had to walk through them and become okay with them. I needed to unscrew the bottom pallet, pull out the wooden spikes, and work out what was wrong in the dirt. Turns out, I was hammering into a big root and it was twisting the spike, and in turn moving the pallet. I removed the root, flattened everything out again, this time working on the ground to be packed and level, and then put the spikes in, the pallet on, the screws in, the second pallet on, screwed again, and now I love this wall.
And the thing about gardening is I’m still mostly useless at so many things, but it’s nice to tinker, and see some stuff work, and just try again if it fails.
Ultimately, I see writing in a similar style. I’m certain there are more things I’ll never know and master than there are things I do, or have done, well. But it’s nice to have something to tinker with. Something I can share with others - and sometimes it has a really positive effect. When readers have let me know how much a story of mine means to them, it is truly one of the best things ever.
I try to consider a script as something I want to get right, not just dash off before the sun sets on a Sunday arvo. I want to step back, scale back, try again. Do my best.
Hell, I wonder how much the small goals [gardening] inform the big goals [writing] and then go onto inform the best goals [parenting, being a husband]?
Honestly - I reflect well, but I know in the moment I get easily frustrated, dejected, annoyed at myself - but hopefully it’s all sinking in somewhere along the line. Hopefully the reflection just means I’ll do better next time, and want to do better next time, and ensure there is a next time.
Hopefully. Because in the end, sometimes you get something that’s fairly simple, but it makes you proud every time you look at it.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
SURVIVANT #2 on Kickstarter - a road trip crime comic by Jhomar Soriano and very Good Bloke Danny Djeljosevic [and coloured by Mark Dale, who did awesome work on CHUM with me back in the day]. I really liked the first issue, so I’m all in for the latest hit on this one!
GET LICH, OR DIE TRYIN’ on Kickstarter - what a title!
BIXBY GRANT, PRIVATE EYE on Kickstarter - this comic is about a mummy detective after biker werewolves, and what could be better, honestly?
MEAT 4 BURGERS on Crowdfundr - this comic from Becca Carey and friend of the ‘Pape Christof Bogacs is a warped look into the world of fast food employment that appears some kind of Kaufman-esque Severance trip about identity and the hustle that is high-pressure short-form employment. Looks damn good, really.
Brian K. Vaughan interview klaxon - this is a good chat that starts with some questions I’ve heard before, but ends in some really interesting places. Reading this made me want to open a script instantly and pour some brain into it. That’s the good stuff.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
HOLLOW HEART by Pauls [Allor & Tucker] - sat down the other day to flick through this and became completely stuck in the story once more. The way they structure the emotional core of this story is really something phenomenal and I wish I could write with half as much emotional maturity and clarity before I’m done with stories.
If you missed this one, get the trade today!
THE CRIMSON CAGE by Alex Cormack & John Lees - this story is Macbeth set in 1980s wrestling and it’s so damn good. Cormack knows how to bring the nasty to the page, but it’s the way Lees writes it all that makes me care about every character. You know where it’s going, but you can’t stop watching. A really brutal and beautiful tale.
NOBODY - I watched this Bob Odenkirk flick and I have to say…
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The hell was the point of that flick?
A mild-mannered suburban milquetoast guy turns into a lethal ass-kicking action movie killer and in doing so relocates his virility and passion to live a full and emotionally rich life?
If the message is: you should not ignore who you are and you should be true to yourself and that path points towards true purpose and internal calm and happiness…cool, that’s a good message. But to do it by turning the average Odenkirk into a hyperviolent messiah of inventive murder is just…the wrong gd message.
I’ve seen this described as “wish fulfilment” and I think we can stop telling men to wish for a more aggressive lifestyle. The guy is such a “loser” at the start. The wife doesn’t care about him, they sleep with a [pillow barrier between them, he is not respected at work, and his teen son thinks he’s a loser. But he can turn all of that around by smashing in teeth and stabbing fellas and rigging a warehouse as a death trap for those who will hunt him.
It is the wrong message.
I really thought the flick would turn around and have it all be a dream, and have him resolve his problems normally. Or he’d do all of this terrible stuff and it would make his daughter [the one person who loves him unconditionally from the start] to see him as a monster and he’d see that this way lies darkness. Something.
But instead his wife loves him more, his respect rating goes through the roof, and I will repeat: that’s the wrong damn message.
Can’t properly express my disappointment that this flick - which is highly engaging, and the deaths are entertaining - is still telling dudes who are unhappy with their lot in life to fix it with some aggression and then things will turn around.
Massive disappointment - which is interesting because I grew up on 80s/90s vigilante fare, and did my very fair share of enjoying the heck out of it.
I guess knowing that men seem to continue to think that violence will somehow yield a suburban answer worries me a lot. This film doesn’t worry me so much as just disappoints me.
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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 [in that order] 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
Social media, and the absurdity of it as a location, perfectly summed up by Scott Snyder in his newsletter - definitely sub, he writes from the heart and knows so much good stuff about comics.
Here’s the quote:
“When you scroll it's, like, one post is like a deeply moving personal post, the next thing is political messaging, and the next thing is, like, “look at my cat eating cheese!” And that whole space is just so cacophonous that it's hard to make connection there.”
Logging onto twitter is like having someone grab the remote control and switch channels every 1.2 seconds, you get whiplash from how much it swerves. The tone and content is just completely everywhere possible, all at once, with no filter, no course, nothing. And that’s even including me curating lists. I never heard it put so well, and it explains everything I hate about it. And everything I love about newsletters, they have so much more of a throughline [even ones that are a dog’s breakfast like mine].
And it’s not just about not wanting to be slinging all over the road of content all the time with no gd clue what’s coming next - it’s about giving your brain the ability to focus. The idea that our brains and attention should be able to sustain on something for longer than 1.2 seconds is of great importance to me right now - for myself, for my students, for the world.
I might be learning more [that’s definitely true], but I’m connecting less [and that’s where the empathy lies].
I’ll take more quality and care over just “more” every day of the week [or maybe just every second Monday, when this newsletter fires off].
Guard your brain like you’d guard your passwords; train your brain like you’d train your body to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.