Without Fear

Ryan K Lindsay – Writer

Month: July, 2014

July 30, 2014

Buy CMYK Magenta This Week

This week sees me become a Vertigo published creator. Pure. Insanity.

magenta cover

The CMYK anthology series from Vertigo Comics seems bent on injecting new creators amongst old favourites to tell short stories tied to some form of mild colour theme. This week sees the release of the Magenta issue, and within you can find the story GLOVES with Tommy Lee Edwards art, John Workman letters, and words by me.

I cannot tell you what a privilege it is to have a story with Vertigo. This is beyond a wild dream come true. Then to get this creative team, I’m a lucky man.

I hope you’ll consider picking the package up. It’s got 80 pages of superb stories – the brilliant Jody Hauser and Nathan Fox deliver what I think is the story of the issue, so buy for that alone. Our story shares an ink wall with Fabio Moon so that’s beyond comprehension in my world. There’s also a Michael Moreci story, and plenty others.

If you dig the stories then tweet or facebook the creative team, share with your friends, enjoy out loud. Anthologies for life, guys.

Advertisement
Leave a comment
July 7, 2014

Parent Nightmare Fuel Conversation, July Edition

I’m the one who puts my nearly 4 year old son to bed every night. It’s a lovely time of day where I read books with him, give him kisses and cuddles, and generally load him up on my love that he misses daily while I’m at work. After I’ve read him two books, I turn the light off, lay on the bed with him, cuddle him, and we talk.

Lately, he’s been asking me if he can ask me some questions before I leave. We haggle on how many questions, and usually settle on 2-3. Mostly they are just ‘Dad, are there monsters in the house?’ or ‘Dad, are there trees in the house?’ or ‘Dad, are there worms in my room?’ Weird things for a 3 year old kid to wonder but who the hell knows how their crazy brains work, right. He’s usually concerned about possibly nefarious things being in the house that might cause him harm, but not too concerned. I always tell him those things not only aren’t in the house, but I would never let them in the house. I tell him monsters are just pretend, and that trees are out in the garden. The conversation nearly always ends in him laughing and telling me he knows monsters are just in books, etc. It’s all fairly innocuous.

Then, tonight he asked for only one question.

‘Dad, is Gary Loggins in the house?’

I laugh, what a funny name. He nervously laughs with me.

‘No, who is he?’

I can feel the room get colder as I say this. I put on my brave face but my feet are hanging off the edge of the bed, I’m on my belly, I could not be more vulnerable.

Vulnerable to Gary Loggins and whatever agenda he’s running in the dark hours of our lives.

My son then replies.

‘Gary Loggins is no one’s friend.’ – Oh, god, there’s an origin story right there – ‘He’s just a monster. 100 years old, I think. He knocks down houses and he’s a statue above the streets.’

I mumble something about Gary Loggins not being in the house, though pretty clearly my voice gives away the fact I can’t confirm this with hard data of any sort. I leave the room.

I start cleaning the kitchen and about five minutes later I hear three thumps come from my son’s room.

…

True story.

Leave a comment
July 2, 2014

Throw It All Into The Pot Until You Have Jam

An artist I’ve been wanting to collaborate with for ages recently hit me up about doing so. We’ve been dancing for a while, slow old white man shuffling (maybe with me throwing in some of Elaine’s kicks) but now we’re grabbing hold tight and making some moves.
But, I had nothing in the chamber. I’ve got some pitch ideas being saved for…something. I just knocked another one-shot up a gear with a new artist. I actually just recently got into a space where all projects were kind of looking snug, at least for the time being. So we are chatting but I don’t have a thing to just whip out. Which is weird. I’m used to having a thing in my back pocket, all ready, to just conveniently display and from there it’s easy.
So, I just started chatting with him. What genres would he want to do? What do I think he’d be killer at? What could we make work? Real loose stuff. Reeeaaal loose stuff. Like “Action, yeah, crime, cool.” Loose. Well, not that loose, but loose. You dig?
And again, I can’t stress this enough, but I nearly always have something sitting around ready to sling. I’m never caught out without some ideas. And I haven’t done the whole “What story would you want to draw?” type question before because I can’t be certain I can yield a good story from that. Story, for me, can sometimes take time, so I like to preplan.
So we had our chat and I left to allow percolation to occur. I then promptly passed out at my desk with FEAR AGENT HC VOL 2 in my lap. A sure sign I was overtired.
Somewhere between sleep, being woken up to French toast and coffee, and driving to work, a few of the genres started to mash up. An idea bubbled, a character was trapped in that bubble.
The day might have looked like me teaching and being social to people but really I was just hacking away at the forest of story to find the one strong oak on which I could hang my hopes.
Tonight, in the living room while emailing and prepping an ep of ORPHAN BLACK, then at the desk, and then in the baby’s room with her on the shoulder going back to sleep and me pacing in pitch darkness, it all came together.
My mind is a bower bird and throughout the day it collected strands of things and by the time night came, I was ready to build with the assembled accoutrements.
The outcome: a one-shot with a character, a location, a world with a history behind it, a small supporting cast, a major conflict, an (I hope) interesting resolution, and an overall theme to the story. I never work like this but this has worked. Here’s why.
The Artist – I dig his style, so I broke story down through the lens of him. This helped refine story ideas, beats, paths.
Just Jam, Man – it was us just throwing genres and silly words and ideas out. My brain picked out the best and made them work. I have my storybreaking ways – questions I ask myself (and ask the characters) but that’s another post. For now, the tip is – just throw stuff to the wall, see what sticks. In this case, it started with two key words. Two words and I dreamt a world.
Here’s hoping we can build it. Stay tuned.

Leave a comment
%d bloggers like this: