My latest creator owned trade paperback lands on May 8 – Deer Editor from me, Sami Kivela, Lauren Affe, Jim Campbell, Dan Hill, Chas! Pangburn through Mad Cave Studios is our antler noir comic that we think you are going to love, and love so much you’ll want to own your own copy of the tpb, and you’ll want that so much you’ll preorder it from your local comic shop today, and they’ll be so intrigued they’ll preorder 5 extra copies because they know it’ll sell damn well for them.
But don’t take my word for how good my comic is, listen to these fine people instead:
If you want to hear me talk about Deer Editor, and other things, you can listen to:
The Cryptid Creator Corner Podcast – part of the Comic Book Yeti network. This one goes deep into inspirational texts and quality Aussie stuff.
22 Panels Podcast – an excellent chat about Bucky, and just so many other things.
You can also be swayed by the social proof of these reviews:
“This a captivating, energetic first issue, moving at an unstoppable clip…a must buy for everyone who loves a hard boiled mystery.” 10/10 – Theron Couch at Comic Watch
“Deer Editor delivers Fletch with a deer.” possibly my favourite pull quote, from Brett Schenker over on Graphic Policy
“Like an antlered version of Edward R. Murrow, Bucky is determined to use his talents to better the world.” and “Similar to David Aja’s work on Hawkeye, Kivelä’s thick black lines and dark shadows add to the noir elements of the story, making Deer Editor a graphic, deer-journalist version of Carol Reed’s The Third Man—and John Doe is Bucky’s Harry Lime.” both make me smile, thanks Ben Boruff over at Comic Bastards
“Honest reporters is almost as fantastical an idea as a talking deer!” Johnny “The Machine” Hughes makes me laugh with a 10/10 over on Comic Crusaders
Or maybe you like to hear from creators you trust. We’ll, here’s what some kind people had to say about Bucky.
The DEER EDITOR tpb is out in May [MAAATE!] and getting a preorder in now with your shop ensures they’ll have a copy set aside for you so you won’t miss out.
Within The Kind Red Building has 12 hours left over on Kickstarter – this is your last chance to get my biggest rpg ever as a print edition, or with some digital deals.
We’ve had an amazing February with nearly 200% funding drawing closer as a final ending place, and over 150 backers, so maybe you can help us hit 200 backers and go beyond 200% funded!
This solo journaling rpg is about a sci fi building crawl where you flee from one threat into the multi-levelled endlessness of so much more/worse/more and probably won’t ever make it out to live another day.
The pledge levels vary – you can buy in from $3, or go as high as $60 – it’s completely up to you.
I have to say: I had no idea how this campaign would go. I usually make comics and Kickstart comics, so it was a little bit scary to step into a different arena. It’s been really nice to have so many people check out the game, reach out with kind words, and support me to such a huge success. This month has been a real eye-opener for me and it’s energised me to keep creating and playing in rpgs alongside the other usual stories I write.
I also find every time I run a campaign I have someone message me within days of it closing saying they only just heard about it, so hopefully that’s not you and this message lands in time. If you want to share it with like minded mates, absolutely go for it.
The campaign ends on Thursday night [my time here in Aus]. It’s been really heartwarming to see the campaign continue to catch eyeballs and interest all month, as that’s what things like Kickstarter and ZineQuest should do, they act as a beacon and a hub and people come in for it all.
As a reminder: if you like these types of sci fi, then this rpg is for you:
This is the final 12 hours – so if you’ve been thinking about this writing game, then now is the time to click across and see which reward level is for you.
I got a stack of Deer Editor #1 delivered recently and they make a pretty stack. I’ll be taking them to conventions early this year, the first being the Geek Markets in Goulburn on March 16.
If you missed the single issues in stores – #1-2 are out already, and #3 drops on the 20th of this month – then you can prepare yourself for the TPB launch coming on May 8.
Bucky is finally going to be available in trade paperback collected form this May. All 3 issues, plus a bunch of back matter material, will be in the tpb. You can preorder this through your comic shop today so they put one aside for you when it lands on May 8th [otherwise known as the date, MAAATE! which is perfectly Aussie].
A John Doe slaying lures a journalist into a world of political intrigue, a wi-fi-enabled grotto, and a station locker full of secrets. For Bucky, an editor of the crime beat at “The Truth,” it’s all in a day’s work…
…but he also happens to be a deer.
Will he chase down his last story in this antler noir series? Deer Editor is perfect for fans of Blacksad and Chinatown.
Illustrated by Sami Kivela
Coloured by Lauren Affe
Lettered by Jim Campbell
Written by Ryan K Lindsay
Edited by Dan Hill & Chas! Pangburn
Published by Mad Cave Studios
The DEER EDITOR tpb is out in May [MAAATE!] and I’m going to push this as my biggest tpb launch ever because this is what readers deserve [and then maybe we’ll get more Bucky stories in the future!].
Make sure you tell your local comic shop to preorder and set aside a copy of the collection for you in May. If you read the single issue then you can tell them how much you dug the book and that they will sell a bunch of the tpb to those who slept on it, or were trade waiting.
You can also buy copies for birthday presents. Just have a lazy stack of 10 Deer Editor tpbs sitting around and then when a birthday rolls around, BAM!, it’s comic present time. Or, maybe your book club needs a new read. Buy a copy for each member and then talk about the crime genre influences and consider the book through a critical reading lens [a Post Colonial lens could yield all kinds of interesting discussion points].
I always appreciate the support, and it means a lot to me that anyone ever checks out my writing, so thank you.
I love going to the Lifeline Book Fair. It’s making money for a great charity. It’s a warehouse full of books. I never quite know what I’ll find.
This past week was no different, so here’s what I brought home.
The big win here for me was finally finding a copy of Michael Chabon’s MAPS & LEGENDS, which I’d never been able to find in the wild before.
Scoring the very slim early stories of J.D. Salinger for $1 is good value – it’s 3 previously uncollected stories.
I love writing rules, so having a copy of Elmore Leonard’s very specific, though often very helpful, 10 Rules of Writing is nice to add to the shelf. It’s a well prresented collection.
That cover for A CLOCKWORK ORANGE definitely caught my eye. Especially since I lost my copy years ago in the Great Book Box Misplacement Fiasco of [unnamed year], wherein I lost a bunch of Stephen King books and a box that I assume had a shelf of really good books on it and the main one I notice in absence is my copy of THE WANDERERS by Richard Price. I fear I’ll never find that book again.
The last one I’ll point out is the old pulp sci fi by Leigh Brackett. It’s great to find her old sci fi stuff, and it’s a popping cover.
Happy new year – 2024 is nearly here. I don’t know why, but typing 2024 seems really strange and futuristic to me, in a way no other year has for a very long time. I expect 2025 to be even stranger as we hit a quarter century down.
As usual, this round up is a series of things of things I imbibed and dug this year. I offer them up as something I advocate for you to try, also.
Also as always, I did a poor job of keeping tabs on what I consumed this year, and there’s every chance I’ve missed something pivotal. I’m sometimes decent at this – my Letterboxd has been tip top this year, and my Story Graph is also up to date, but I am not tracking my tv at all. Plus, my comic reading went way way downhill. I don’t know why. With this in mind, here’s the stuff I remember really vibing in this year, 2023:
COMICS
Who knew two digital comics would be the winners on the horizon for 2023 for me.
FRIDAY
This comic from Marcos Martin & Ed Brubaker continues to excite and shake me every time a new chapter drops. The story winds from an old school YA teen investigator tale into some really interesting swerves and curveballs, and every twist only layers on more awesome and intrigue.
Then there is Martin’s illustrations, with Muntsa Vicente colours, that bring the world to life in this stylised way that feels so specific that the other day I saw a lamp and instantly thought “Oh, that looks like Martin drew it.” Stunning worldview stuff.
This massive graphic novel has been slowly serialised by Niko Henrichon and Brian K. Vaughan on their newsletter over the past 2 years. It’s a story about a ghost watching the world after a women died in a mass shooting. It’s nasty in its violence and open in its sexuality and ultimately fascinating in what it shows us about the world around us through the present and the future storylines.
It’s got about a year to go, but I have found myself absolutely loving every week when a few pages fall into place.
I also really enjoyed the end of Chip Zdarsky’s run on Daredevil, and Phillips/brubaker dropped RECKLESS: FOLLOW ME DOWN in January which I loved, and their WHERE THE BODY WAS has landed, but I need to get my copy asap.
NOVELS
COMING THROUGH SLAUGHTER by Michael Ondaatje
I got lost in this book. The story is interesting, as is the story behind the story. Michael Ondaatje reading about the history of jazz and coming across Buddy Bolden and how he went mad at a parade and then records on him did not cover much at the time.
From this, Ondaatje draws out a wild mostly fictional tale of Bolden and his life and it’s utterly fascinating. The musicality of Ondaatje’s writing, using repetition and polysyndeton in a pacing way above all concepts of syntax and context, is so well expressed. It had me absolutely falling for this book and feeling in each moment.
I’m slowly working my way through the works of Ondaatje, and each book I sample just makes me consider his mastery of language and emotion in complete awe. I would put this up there with In The Skin Of A Lion as one of my absolute favourites of his.
EMERALD CITY and other stories by Jennifer Egan
I picked this short story collection up the other day for $1 at a charity stall and it is short so I thought I would slot it in before the festive season began and I could then travel with a larger book. This is the first Egan I’ve read, and there were 3 stories in this book that are fascinatingly brilliant. I think there are 1-2 that didn’t land with me, and the rest are super solid.
Overall, that’s a win of a collection, but I’m also glad to have stumbled across those few that are truly dynamite. It’s also nice to expand my reading into some slice of life instead of the usual genre-heavy stuff I read [especially short stories].
Teaching Novels with ‘Salem’s Lot and The Catcher in the Rye
I unlocked a really interesting angle on Stephen King’s tale of small town vampires. This is his Great American Novel. Except, the way he sees it, America is no longer so great [if it ever was].
The keystone to this was the prologue – it’s set after the events of the novel and it robs a whole mess of the dramatic tension that horror novels normally rely upon. We know the two who live, we know nearly everyone else dies, and we know the vampires really messed things up. By taking this tension away from the reader, king is signifying that the book isn’t really a lascivious horror novel [which King knew he’d be typecast as by writing about vampires] and instead it’s about the town, about the people, about America.
He then proceeds to show us how terrible America is as everyone in the town feels trapped in their lot in life [pun probably intended] and most of them are truly horrible – the main offenders victims of systemic sexism, and capitalism.
With this in mind, I loved teaching this novel again this year.
Whereas with The Catcher in the Rye, the best moment was getting the students to consider Holden Caulfield once they were about halfway through the book. He’s wildly annoying and fairly horrible and pretty much the whole class hated him.
I then got them to unpack *why* he is this way, what has made him into this person. Everyone could understand he was sad and scared and he ultimately just deserves pity – but they can barely give it to him even with all that in mind.
It’s fascinating to see Salinger presenting this absolute masterpiece of a Terrible Person, and then trying to connect up why he’s done it. I don’t believe he’s punching down on The Youth. He’s showing how bloody hard it is, and how no one will care, not even your readers.
A brutal lesson, especially when you realise you’ve actually fallen into the camp/trap of hating him, too. Which, I’ll admit, my first reading as a Certified Youth left me disliking the book because I hated Holden, but now as an Aging Man of Minimal Erudition I just feel incredible depths of sorrow for Holden, and I think Salinger putting this small fella up on the page in the shadow of WWII where teenagers were suddenly a new [and scary] social concept was a stroke of genius [though I fear a lesson perhaps not always yielded].
TV
???
I don’t know if I watched anything truly boss in the realm of television this year. I watched FARGO S4 and it was good, but there was something that didn’t land for me. I kept feeling like Schwartzman was out of place somehow. The overall Miller’s Crossing vibes and winding and intertwining plots kept me going until the end, but it didn’t feel as classic as the other seasons.
I didn’t yet catch the new season of THE BEAR or ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING. I did really really enjoy THE AFTER PARTY [was that this year?]. I’m also keen to watch MONARCH. Oh, and I finished BARRY S4 this year [I also think that was this year]; it was very bloody good.
MOVIES
This year had a whole mess of movies, I nearly hit 200 flicks for the year [I’ll try harder next year]. My trick to so many films was two-fold: have my kids discover quality cinema and constantly want to work in a film and one I’d want to watch with them; watch movies while I exercise. I got through a bunch, but I’ll separate into the new stuff, and some old classics [some of which I finally saw for the first time].
My absolute favourite film of the year was:
THE FABELMANS
Hot damn, this film scratched an itch within me. To see the creative birth of Steven Spielberg on the screen was one thing, but to have him do it in such a captivating way was a whole other level. I was captivated from the start to the end, everyone is acting at their peak, and it genuinely made me cry. A real cinematic experience [I only wish I’d gotten the chance to watch it on the big screen].
Other contenders from the year that was were:
ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
Now there’s just so much pressure for them to stick the landing on the third one to have the very best trilogy of all time.
This film pops just as much as the first, which is saying something huge, and seeing the Spot get the props they deserve on the big screen was wild. I also didn’t know this was going to break and roll straight into the next flick, so when I felt like we were nearing run time and there was no way the story could be resolved it was quite the internal shock in the cinema.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
Ah, what a true joy. The film just oozes charm and laughs and thrills effortlessly. That they captured the spirit and mechanics of a good session of D&D is wild. I really hope more comes of this – and I agree, having a whole new party in a whole new adventure is probably the way to go, with call backs to some of these characters along the way.
BARBIE
Insanely well put together. The ludicrous and the sublime somehow intersect in ways that almost shouldn’t work, and yet the result is one of the most thoughtful and also hilarious films of the year. It’s very Message First, but that doesn’t get in the way of the actors getting to crush it, the laughs landing, or the overall feeling of the film getting to land. Also: feels like this will be highly rewatchable.
CONFESS, FLETCH
Does what it says on the tin. Captures the charm of the book/character, gives Hamm room to breathe, and is a bloody good time from soup to nuts.
BARBARIAN
Bonkers. And 85% of this flick is perfect. The ending is a bit of a mudslide, but it doesn’t negate the quality. I’m glad I went in very very blind to this one, made it all the better.
TALK TO ME
This is good stuff. Low key Aussie horror, very well shot, and the nasty moments really pop. I just love that teens find a ghost communicating hand and use it to enliven their parties and this logically actually makes complete sense.
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS
It’s strange and unhinged and wandering, but once the narrative truly gets into gear the film clips along and has something interesting to say.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
This has a decent kick to it. I think I wanted it to be drastically better than the book, and it is, in parts, but not in some. The acting is wildly top shelf across the board, and some of the moments are stunning cinema. It is very good, but there was a little something missing that I still cannot define that just held this back for me. I’m keen to watch it again and see how I feel about this brilliant story unfolding.
And some of the oldies I discovered and loved:
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
I’d never seen all of this in one go. The songs are so catchy, but the whole thing is beautiful and brilliant.
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
Had somehow never seen this in one sitting. It holds up so well and it’s riveting from opening to close. This exploration of the pointless nature of war is so well put together.
SORCERER
Finally [FINALLY!] found a copy on Blu-Ray. It’s a good flick that sits alongside plenty of these older flicks as needing one thing to also think about: consider the context and technology of the time in which it was made. Much like rewatching 2001 this year, you have to unpack just how difficult or groundbreaking these things were and see it through the eyes of this spectacle.
METROPOLIS
And talking about trying to watch it through the prism of its time – this film is interesting. We watched the extended cut with the lost extra parts put back in, and it makes for a bloated film, but there’s some real shine underneath/within it all. Definitely worth our time, though I cannot see me revisiting all that often.
SUNSET BOULEVARD
Not only had I never seen this, but I completely had it mis-genred. I think I thought this was some kind of old Hollywood drama, about an aging screen queen, and that was maybe as deep as it went. In short: I’m an idiot who gets blinkers on sometimes.
This flick is a pulp delight that’s weirder than I’d have imagined, and completely captivating.
PODCASTS
HOW OTHER DADS DAD with Hamish Blake
This show continues to be phenomenal as Hamish chats with dads and they discuss modern parenting in a way that always has me laughing, but more so has me thinking.
Good fuel for moving forward in life.
Here’s to what 2024 brings – I’m planning on reading more and maybe hitting 200 films. Big goals!
Deer Editor #1 is a crime comic from me, Sami Kivela on art, Lauren Affe on colours, Jim Campbell on letters, Dan Hill and Chas! Pangburn on edits, and out through Mad Cave Studios and into stores on January 10, 2024.
You’ll spot us in the wild with this cover:
The preorder window is open now and you should ask your local comic shop to ensure they’re ordering enough copies, and can put one aside for you.
This comic has always been one of my favourite comics of all time. It mixes crime with newsroom drama alongside some weird political intrigue that swerves into conspiracy and weirdness very quickly.
I will no doubt be back soon with more fun and thoughts – but for now, please share the word, share the cover, and share your needs with your local comic shop and ask them to preorder Deer Editor #1 now so you don’t miss the antler noir train in 2024.
I’ll just come right out and ask it: have you subscribed to my newsletter?
The Two Fisted Homeopape is my main digital home, and it’s where I send out all of my comic release info, alongside other missives about writing, reading, and general creativity.
If you subscribe, you get my writing and info sent directly to your nominated inbox, it’s that simple. No algorithm, no endless scroll before/after my pithy thoughts. Just my main info, my voice, my writing, and it’s there waiting for you whenever you are ready.
I stopped posting to nearly all social media as I find them horrible places to be for your work and for your brain, and I no longer wish to sit in those playgrounds of despair and iniquity. But I still like actively thinking about my work and process, and I like sharing what I come across, and so I’ve been sending this email newsletter out for something close to a decade now.
I enjoy the languid style a newsletter can allow, the unrushed state of things, and the depth of thought I can finally get to. It’s definitely my preffered personal style, and I hope you’ll join me there.
I always say, the newsletter in like someone used the Head Key on me and opened up my dome so you can peek inside. You might dig what’s there, and I’ll be forever thankful, but just a heads up…
This sibling rivalry tale of kung fu, dragons, and deep hurt finally comes to comic shops this November.
For those who missed out on the chance to read A FISTFUL OF PAIN, the graphic novella from me, Louie Joyce, Thomas Mauer, and the team at ComixTribe, then you are in luck because we’ve got a special edition set for worldwide release in comic shops – and it’s set right before the holiday gift giving season!
Seriously, if you aren’t buying random comics for the erudite readers in your life as a gift, then you should consider it because the chance to read something new and awesome is always the goal for us all, right? And I can confirm this comic is both new and awesome.
This comic shop version of A FISTFUL OF PAIN is a much more affordable floppy edition of the tale, perfect for those who could not meet us at the hardcover level, and a perfect way to get mates to check it out who love trying new things while browsing the racks at the store.
WHAT IS A FISTFUL OF PAIN?
This comic was a decade of collaboration and mateship by me and Louie Joyce and I could not be happier with the resulting beauty of this comic. Here’s the solicit info:
Xin and Sloane spent their childhood fighting over the family pet — a four-ton, fire-breathing dragon! Years later, the estranged sisters reunite for a final knock-down-drag-out kung fu battle. From the award-winning minds of writer Ryan K Lindsay (Eternal, Speed Republic) and acclaimed illustrator Louie Joyce (Past the Last Mountain) A FISTFUL OF PAIN is a stunning one-shot about dragons, sibling rivalry, and kung-fu vengeance.
It’s all the things I love in a story – it’s a one-shot, it’s a genre mash up, it’s absolutely drop dead stunning, and the bleeding and still-beating heart beneath it all is dripping with the darkest blood.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?
There are two ways to get your hands on our comic.
You can preorder the standard store release floppy through your comic shop for $6.99 [details here], with this cover:
Or you can get a little flash by preordering the foil cover at $9.99 [details here], with this beauty on the lid:
Seriously, how good is Louie’s art on a cover? I’m in love with both of these, and for very different design reasons. I’ve been blessed my whole life with great artistic co-creators, and louie is hands down one of the most genius, lovely, amazing, and awe-inspiring people I’ve ever been given the luck to work with.
Our first release on Kickstarter was the ultimate hardcover experience, alongside the softcover release. We were happy to see this set a number of ComixTribe release records at the time. This comic shop release through stores is focused on being more affordable and so it’s the story in a floppy edition, with not much extra added in. This is the version that everyone can get their hands on and enjoy our wild tale.
I won’t lie, it’ll be nice to have something on the store shelves again this year after what has been a decent gap. It always feels like one of the final forms a comic creation story has, and so I hope you’ll speak to your shop about preordering this one so they know how many to buy. I know this comic sells crazy well on the convention circuit – the cover is a lure, Louie’s interior art is a crazy lure, and the kung fu sibling heartbreak mash up is definitely a lure. I’m going to have copies in Adelaide and Sydney in the coming weekends, and I’ll send out more details on this soon.
I should add, it also doesn’t hurt to give it some verbal or written big ups to the store, or mates, about our book because if you already backed our Kickstarter and enjoyed our book you can let people know about it and that’ll help push our preorder/sales numbers, too. Ultimately, I’m just insanely proud of this comic and I want it to reach as many hands, eyes, brains, and hearts as possible.
Thanks, as always, for your support in such things. I’ve withdrawn from pretty much all social media as it’s all guano, so I’m hoping the newsletter has enough outreach – feel free to share this email with a pal, or a store, if you get the feeling to – and we can launch in stores with some strong numbers.
Beyond this, stay tuned for some more updates. My brain is finally kicking back into creative mode after being fallow for a decent chunk of 2023, and I’m excited about some of the stuff my brain is cooking up. Seems I might have been in simmer mode on the back plate, and so the flavours are just turning into something new and exciting.
I love a good comics event. Love it. There’s something creatively energising about them, but they’re also great group therapy – the same people with the same problem get together all weekend to share tips and commiserations about this thing we love: comics.
Comic Conventions are cool, but they often feel more sprawling than my brain can handle. As such, enter Papercuts Comic Festival. I cannot wait for this event.
This weekend I’m flying to Adelaide to be a part of the Papercuts Comic Festival – it’s going to be a really cool set of events.
My schedule is a one-two punch.
Saturday – Creators in Conversation
I’ll be at the Library with Jessica Watson and Scott Wilson to talk about writing comics, with the awesome Dr Mike 2000 moderating from 3:30-4:30pm. I’m really excited to listen to them, and I might speak a few words myself.
Thankfully, this event is free, and there are a bunch of other cool chats on throughout that day. You can scope more details about our chat here– and probably catch me at heaps of those other chats.
Sunday – Market Day
In the Town Hall, comic people will be selling comics all day long and entry is free. Check out more details here – and seriously start clicking on every table holders’ links because there is so much great stuff being made by everyone.
I love that every single stall holder will have comics for sale. Just a whole hall full of people who have spent time making comics now spending a day selling them and putting them into the hands of readers. What could be better? ’m going to need time to really browse and buy on this day because there are a lot of people and comics I dig there.
I will be selling two graphic novels that I love dearly:
A FISTFUL OF PAIN HC
My latest, and the love I have for this sibling-kung fu-dragon mash up has no ceiling. Working with Louie Joyce to bring this to the world has been a career highlight. I’ll have to see if I can also bring any softcover versions – I’ll see just how many fit into my single bag for the plane :]
ETERNAL SC
I finally got some more in stock, and this viking ghost story I created with Eric Zaeadzki and Dee Cunniffe just always brings me joy.
I also want to take some others, but I’ll have to pack strategically, so I won’t make any promises.
What I can promise is that I’ll have a deal for those who buy a copy of both books. So come and see me on the show floor and I’ll flash you some discount.
I’m really excited for this show, and to see two of my oldest comic friends who live in Adelaide, and to see a bunch of other creators I haven’t seen since a pandemic obliterated any kind of normal con schedule.
I should also be at the Comic Arts Awards of Australia [formerly the Ledger Awards] on the Friday night, and there’s a Talking Pictures event on the Saturday night I’d also like to attend.
If you are in Adelaide, I really can’t wait to see you. If you are not in that SA vicinity, then maybe I’ll catch you at Oz Comic Con in Sydney the following weekend. And if not there, well, it seems like you’re avoiding me, and with good reason – I’ll pay that.
Have a great week/end, celebrating comics however you like to.
Happy new year – 2023 is upon us. I got a lotta problems with you people thoughts on this year’s media, now, you’re gonna hear about it! I love looking back and seeing what different and awesome stuff I got to sneak into my brain and enjoy.
I did a poor job of keeping tabs on what I consumed this year, and there’s every chance I’ve missed something pivotal. Que sera, etc. Okay, let’s spotlight what made 2022 a pretty good year for me:
COMICS
It appears this past year was a big time for rereads of old favourites that reminded me of certain feelings and thoughts I had about comics when first coming back to the medium after a long hiatus through my university studies.
The first reread came to me because I got Covid and had to sequester in my office. I took the chance to finally dive back into a formative run I’ve been wanting to reread in years. The run on Daredevil by Michael Lark and Ed Brubaker might be my favourite, for my favourite character, and it really holds up quite well.
DAREDEVIL by Michael Lark, Ed Brubaker, and friends.
The craft on display – Lark’s atmospheric art for this noir run, Brubaker’s pacing of short term goals and ongoing plot threads – is a thing to behold. The comic is epically readable and I absolutely tore through these single issues one after the other. The overall story – that of Matt Murdock as a broken man being led down a noir spiral until he’s completely shattered at the end is my favourite kind of take on literature’s longest running terrible man.
There are elements of the story that have aged less well – the treatment of Milla Donovan, Dakota North, Lily Lucca; do you spot the trend? There’s an element that it makes sense that the women in Matt’s life swirl amongst chaos because that’s the best way to break Matt as a man [and his best friend Foggy also gets shivved, so you could argue parity, but it would be a weak argument]. The onslaught of troubles for the women, plus the way they are often discarded once their plot purpose is served is a very noir trope, but one we would hope to be subverted if written now to give them more agency.
The villains in the run are all great choices – the Mr Fear storyline still being my overall favourite. What a way to make a guy who seems pretty silly [he’s kinda like Batman’s Scarecrow and his Fear Toxin, but slightly more goofy] and give him some strange levels of power and influence and gravity.
Ultimately, this is Matt’s show – and the way he is broken down, and the terrible choices he makes along the way, make for an interesting character study. The man really isn’t much of a hero, he just has a compulsion to help, but no real weighted centre to naturally do it in the best way. He’s emotionally driven, and conflicted, and wrong, and it’s got all the trappings of a 70’s cinema leading character and the team here lean heavily into that vibe and morality.
If people want to read Daredevil, this is often the first place I’d send them, and to return reminded me of all the little reasons why.
The other comic I reread was…
THE WALKING DEAD by Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard, and Robert Kirkman
This one actually started a while ago, but my brain went elsewhere. This year, while I was working through a stack of essay marking and then short story marking, I found my brain couldn’t process novel reading at night. The wall of text would make my head dip, and I found that frustrating, but I could read comics just before sleep. Maybe it’s the constant head movement due to needing to pivot around the page for each panel – yes, I do read comics like a bird hanging out on a street corner, my eyes fixed, my neck doing all the work, thanks for asking.
I initially, once upon a time as they were being released, read up to about Volume 23. Then I stopped, thinking I’d catch up, and just never did. Then the comic ended, and I realised I had a finite amount of trades to read, so it seemed like a good idea to claw back from the start and then slowly buy the new trades over the coming years through present-type events.
Rereading this, I found myself loving all of the old storylines from the first dozen or so trades. All stories I’d read more than once upon release – I used to reread from #1 each time a new trade dropped, but that soon ended as a routine.
Once past those trades, I could feel myself rereading these stories in a fresh way – it wasn’t all muscle memory. The book is good, I can confirm. Similar to my other reread, there are some problems when you read through a Feminist Lens. I wonder at which point I will be able to reread comics and not cringe at certain character elements that feel like they wouldn’t be written that way these days. Or maybe they still are written that way these days…I won’t do my due diligence and find out, not now. That’s a whole other post.
What I will say about TWD is that the longform character growth, change, and swerves are all quite effective. The idea no one is safe keeps the comic fresh, and while it does steer towards just being brutal for the sake of it, often it’s still in service of the story and the impact is not just on the reader, but also on the characters who survive.
Ultimately, I read to the end of Volume 25 and I’m excited to read beyond and to the end. Hopefully it doesn’t take me another decade or something.
Beyond rereads, I did read some new stuff, and I have been trying to think which comic would top this list and I’ve narrowed it down to two, each intriguing me and making me lean forward while I read it so I can study the story construction and the page layouts. Those books are:
LOVE EVERLASTING by Elsa Charettier and Tom King, and FRIDAY by Marcos Martin and Ed Brubaker
The thing I dig in both is that these comics play with old tropes and do something new with them. They want to bring a modern perspective and a different viewpoint to things that are very old. They want to surprise us. I like being surprised, as they often lead me to being delighted, and it means I read with no idea what is coming.
Though, to be fair, I never know what’s coming. I don’t engage with the act of prediction very well in storytelling because I’m like a tourist on their first boat tour ride – I’m wide eyed, mouth open, just enjoying the ride. Yes, I’m an idiot.
As for the comics, Love Everlasting is this straight up romance comic. It has all the old tropes of the romance comics of yonder years – thought balloons, women pining for that right man – but then at the end of the first issue it takes this strange swerve. Massive respect for doing 95% of the first issue as a straight romance comic, though, and really nailing that vibe, before completely pulling out the rug. It was like the first episode of WandaVision levels of commitment.
From there, the series has continued to show us various situations of Joan falling in love through time, and then having her time come to a violent end. I admit, I’m so curious to see where this is going, and along the ride it’s interesting to see what perspectives and thoughts on love are dropped.
Beside this comic sits FRIDAY – a brilliant weird noir take on kid detectives as we follow Friday Fitzhugh, a kind of partner to a kind of Encyclopaedia Brown character who returns to the home town after a year away at college and finds death, conspiracy, and more waiting for her.
The story is an intriguing blend of genres as we see Friday intuit and think about situations, but then we also see a police officer shed their skin. It’s a wild ride. I love Brubaker’s writing as much as I can love anything on the printed [or digital] page, but Marcos Martin’s work on this comic has been absolutely brilliant. The characters think and fear and squirm in every moment, but I find myself drawn back repeatedly to the environments. The street lights, the cove, the buildings. The town feels lived in – by both nice people and arcane horrors – and I could spend many books just soaking up this atmosphere.
I also want to mention DEADLY CLASS has been one of my favourite comics of the past decade. Wes Craig took some really wild and innovative swings with his art in this strange hyperviolent tale of assassins that’s really just writer Rick Remender trying to work out where he’s come from and where he finds himself now. It’s a great way to show that memoir is in all [many] of our works, and that you don’t ever have to write yourself or in a realistic fashion to be able to tell some of the most personal stories. I liked the end of this comic, the final arc was bloody gripping and satisfying.
NOVELS
THE YIELD by Tara June Winch
At the start of this year, I read the latest novel from Winch that’s all about language and culture and Australia’s history with both of these things. The book is a staggering work of heart and genius mixed together on the page. The book weaves between 3 narratives: the death of Albert Goondiwindi whose story then goes on to live in the dictionary of his language that he’s writing for his family; August Goondiwindi who has returned home for her grandfather’s funeral and then discovered a mining company is going to destroy their land, and Reverend Greenleaf who is represented in his letters from over a century ago documenting his work with the local Indigenous people and attempting to care for them.
The story explores Australia as a country in various stages of dealing with Indigenous peoples of the land, and the changes through time are subtly shown through narrative perspective, character interaction, and structural choices. For my money, the dictionary entries are my favourite as they are this chaotic and wildly roaming account of language as it pertains to one man’s journey. Albert doesn’t set his meanings out in bland didactic form, his explanations are stories, they have heart and meaning and personal connection. They show language as a living entity that runs through a man’s life and holds the memories as much as expresses them.
The book makes you think, and understand certain elements, and is a powerful study of the past that should push astute readers into action. The ending of the book aims to do just that, force action, and I can’t think of a more brilliant ending line that I’ve read in a long time.
COVEN by Marc Lindsay
Nepotism be damned – I love reading a book written by my brother.
This one is a new character, and a new genre, and a new level of awesome from my big bro. Coven is very much written in the same vein as characters like John Constantine – roguish magicians in a world of violent, grey morality. What plays out is a story of a killer and an investigation that’s a delightful blend of Michael Crichton mixed with urban magic.
I really hope Marc returns to John Coven at some stage as I think this is a world he could continue to tell done-in-one stories for a long time.
Teaching Novels with ‘Salem’s Lot and The Road
I found it really interesting and awesome to teach these two novels this year, and for different reasons.
With Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot, the students really looked into how style was used to build up the horror of the story, while also layering in more meaning. The long chapter ‘The Lot’ where the town is introduced through multiple characters over different hours of the one day was something that intrigued the students and showed that the focus of the novel isn’t the vampires, but is rather the lower case ‘e’ evil found in every small town.
With Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, I sold the book on the promise it was about hope. Beyond all things, it is a hopeful text. I think at the end of the unit of teaching, many of the students believed me. The text is so crisp, and the visceral feeling of the visuals soaks into your bones, and McCarthy showed the students how to make a whole lot of something out of moments where there wasn’t too much, at first glance, but there was a world of emotion beneath it all.
Ultimately, I could ask students – “So, the boy is found by the family at the end, and they are going to eat him right after the book ends, right?” Every single student disagreed, and this was the final proof that the text was hopeful. For all the destruction and tension and depression in that world, nothing in the book sets you up to believe the boy dies as soon as you close the book. You have hope in your heart because you believe that family and you know the boy is safe.
I also read WONDER BOYS by Michael Chabon and BURIAL RITES by Hannah Kent and enjoyed both deeply. Chabon’s was one I thought maybe too navel gaze-y, but I really dug where it got to in the end and I think doing some more thinking about the book will only improve it. Whereas I enjoyed Kent’s Icelandic tale of bleak acceptance a whole lot from start to finish. I also want to do some more thinking about this one to isolate exactly what makes it tick so beautifully.
TV
SEVERANCE
I am still thinking about this show. I don’t even think the high sell of the show would have gotten me to watch it, but rather it was the fact so many people I trust told me it was so damn good. It really is.
The idea of someone undergoing a procedure where they never remember going to work, which means that the version of them at the day job never has any memory of anything that happens after they leave the workplace is a good one. The idea that the working version just leaves work and instantly returns [in their mind] and their life is a terrible nightmare because of this is really fertile ground. From there, the show creates a company and a mythology that’s intriguing, worrying, and finally fascinating and insane the more the story spirals out and reveals the state of the game in which these people are caught.
The show has plenty of visuals and style to match the plot, and also the hidden meanings of the story. It pays to pay attention and it’s rewarding to slowly discover more and more beneath the surface of this show. It’s nice to have something smart on the airwaves.
ATLANTA
The 3rd and 4th seasons both dropped this year and the whole experience proved this show to be one of the best things from the past decade. There are certain plot elements that continued to weave through the show – Earn managing the rap career of his cousin Paper Boi – but mostly this show became an anthology showcase of race issues in America, and in this regard it truly shined. The cultural commentary was great, but the fact it was so deeply steeped in weird genre ideas was what pleased me the most.
I really enjoyed the Snipe Hunt episode that was all about using the build of a camping horror story to deconstruct the relationship of Earn, Van, and their daughter Lottie. The coiled spring aspect of how this story was told made the stakes of every conversation and moment amplify completely, with a kind of twist ending that really made me smile.
Then there’s the final episode. One that left me really satisfied, despite the open ended nature of the closing moment. Hell, I think because of the lack of specific closure in the final moment I loved it all even more. It’s not about which way that moment turns, it could be either – what really matters is that friends are together and that it should be enjoyed in that moment. The world is chaos and stupidity and insanity and you need to hold onto what you can.
These 4 seasons have been a joy, and I’d love to write stuff this absurd and insightful.
I also watched all 4 seasons of BARRY, and that show is pretty titanic in the scope of how funny it can be and how hard it hits. Bill Hader has always been a boss, so it’s good to see him leave something this meaningful in his work now. I’m also nearly finished THE BEAR and am finding it a really fascinating exploration of grief and the tension and conflict it causes – and this is shown both through the plot, but also the storytelling tricks they pull: so many cold opens, that episode that’s one long shot [it was one long shot, right? I’m not on social media so didn’t see any response to this, but it looked like and definitely felt like one long drawn out breath].
There was a second season of ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING, and it continued to be awesome.
MOVIES
PREY
The original PREDATOR might be iconic and damn good, but I think this flick jumps in front of it in wholistic quality and for the fact it is far less problematic. Both films are great, and perhaps it’s reductive to pit them against each other, but if I had to suggest someone start in on a Predator film then Prey would be my choice easily and 100%.
The action in this one is well directed and tense, the storyline of the main character matters and shows growth and has something to say, and the tightness of the plot keeps it all in line.
I cannot think of other new films that need to be on this list. I cannot think of other new films I watched and enjoyed. Ugh, I need to keep a better list, or maintain my Letterboxd. I did see CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, and definitely enjoyed it, but it was mid-tier Cronenberg, which means it was better than most things, but just had me missing some of his other stuff.
I just caught GLASS ONION and thoroughly loved every minute of it. If Rian Johnson can create comfort food quality like this every time, then I’ll line up every time. It appears TURNING RED might have been this year, and there was a lot I loved about that flick. LIGHTYEAR was also pretty damn rad.
PODCASTS
HOW OTHER DADS DAD with Hamish Blake
I already find Hamish Blake, the Australian comedian and presenter, a funny guy. He’s been great on radio, tv shows, and recently Lego Masters, and so I’d be inclined to give him a try in most things so giving his new podcast was an easy try.
But the fact his podcast is all about parenting, and not from an authoritative standpoint and instead taking an open, honest, and inquisitive stance, means I already deeply love this show. Hamish just brings on other fellas he knows and has a frank discussion about how they parent and how they view quality parenting. Every episode gives me multiple moments of reflection, consideration, and hope. It’s like all good professional learning – you hope to have some good things in yourself confirmed, and then you aim for at least one solid takeaway for the day. Getting a few solid laughs on the side is just the soupcon of flavour this whole dish needs to bring it home as a 10/10 recommendation for me.
Alright, that was the year that was [that I could remember, to the best of my ability, your honour]. All of these things have inspired me in some way, and will affect me as a person and a writer in some way, and I hope you also dug some, or found something new to dive into.
Here’s to what 2023 brings – and to me keeping some better lists :]
This one is a new character, and a new genre, and a new level of awesome from my big bro. Coven is very much written in the same vein as characters like John Constantine – roguish magicians in a world of violent, grey morality. What plays out is a story of a killer and an investigation that’s a delightful blend of Michael Crichton mixed with urban magic.
Without Fear 