Without Fear

The issue that launched thousands of dollars of crowd fundraising for Sami Kivelä and myself. For a dumb comic idea, stemmed from a poor joke about typos, and written on my phone, I feel like DEER EDITOR has taken on a life of its own. And in all the right ways.

This issue was my first foray into crowdfunding and Kickstarter in a solo way, and it felt like another step up in my comic making career. I only had a few credits to my name so far, I was still quite green, and this was my first time dabbling in tablet pages – and I wish I could pinpoint the reason why I went for them here. I can’t remember why, the book has seemingly only ever existed in my head in tablet pages, but I’m crazy glad I did.

Then you bring in Sami and the whole things comes together like crisp morning Lego snapping into place.

I love DEER EDITOR. I love Bucky, and the world he is in, and collaborating with Sami, and I hope one of all of those things never ends. But for now, I want to celebrate what we’ve done and do something new – I’m going to write annotations over 2 years after the issue came out, and over 3 years since I wrote the script.

Let’s see how much I can come to hate myself over the coming pages, shall we?

For those playing at home, I’m going to number tablet pages, and I’m going to read from the Broadsheet PDF [which contained a tonne of extras and fun stuff] – so, drop the needle on them antler noir tunes.

COVER

It’s probably stupid to say it, but this cover feels iconic to me now. The amount of times I’ve sold the red cover at shows, the amount of time I spent looking at it, and the quality with which Sami nails it.

I asked him to do something Saul Bass inspired, and this is what came back and I fell in love. That silhouette is killer.

You’ll also notice that Kivelä features after Lindsay on the cover. I asked him repeatedly to put himself first but he just wouldn’t, and the guy who controls the design controls those things. I vowed to get him back for this, and our two follow up series have had his name first, sucker.

But in total, the cover sells crime, death, urgent red, and a hint of an anthropomorphic beast.

CHAPTER ONE

I can’t remember whose idea it was, but we went with these chapter breaks in the digital version basically because why not? They look gorgeous – Nic J Shaw designed it simple and elegant – and it’s a PDF, you can go as long as you want, really, within reason.

I feel like the quote sets things up, build intrigue, but doesn’t give anything away.

PAGE ONE

I’ve come to love establishing shots, but not always of buildings and the usual fare. I want to know about a character, usually, so something about them gets a quiet moment to intro.

As such, Bucky is a journalist/editor, so we open on his desk. I scripted a lot of this, but Sami made it his own. I remember getting this page through and really thinking we were onto something.

I also wanted to denote the snowy Xmas vibe [because Shane Black is my jam – no, honestly, that’s why this issue is snowing] and I wanted to use the lyrics to SILVER BELLS, but I soon realised I couldn’t do that without incurring some hired goons on my doorstep, so I did the next best thing – I ripped the lyrics off and made them my own. Swapping the word time for crime is a personal career highlight.

I also really wanted a subtle double entendre in that opening caption where Bucky says he gets one phone call and suddenly ends up in the morgue because he then goes to the morgue to chase a story, but also because he’s going to ‘die’ in the end of this issue.

I know, Spoiler Klaxon, please, but most of you have probably already noticed that there are more issues in this series. Because Bucky is alive. But this comic initially started life as a one-shot, and I think the OG plan was for Bucky to die. So, had we never gone back to the well – and I assumed Sami would get busy elsewhere, and/or our Kickstarter campaign would do average at best – then I played it like this as all we’d get.

But the campaign did well. And Sami turned away some other work just to keep Bucky alive, so he makes it out of issue #1, but I still liked the foreshadowing of this opening caption, so I like that it remains.

As for the items on the morgue table, I wish I had added some other weird stuff on there, like a can of Spam or a torn out page of MOBY DICK, but I didn’t and now I never can. Oh well, I guess you’ll just have to imagine what movie John Doe saw before he kicked the bucket.

PAGE TWO

Anyone who pledged for the Radio Drama knows the coroner speaks with a thick Maine accent. Kinda.

I look at this page now and wonder why I didn’t start with the John Doe on the street, and then the Pinto clipping him, and his head getting bashed in. But instead we get another guy talking about all the action. Because I love to start comics hella engaging :[

The biggest thing this page gets right is building the page turn/swipe reveal of Bucky. Otherwise, this guy might as well be named Coroner James Remar [I hope some of you get that reference].

PAGE THREE

Bucky stands, proud, defiant, aloof. This first panel sets up a whole lot of who he is.

I introduce the sniffing aspect of his character early so we can use it later.

Bucky line of “Goddamn useless corrupt asshats.” still rings tinny in my ears, it’s a mouthful. I think your mistakes do haunt you on the page forevermore.

PAGE FOUR

And so our opening four page scene ends. The casual relationship between Bucky and the coroner is set up, so we can use it again effectively later, but it isn’t the kind of thing that’s a series opener, to be honest. But we live and learn.

This is all good, standard stuff, it works, but it doesn’t elevate. I’d completely restructure these pages now, if I had my druthers. But, for now, they set up Bucky, and they set him on the course.

PAGE FIVE

This page is about introducing the location of Walter’s Bar, but it’s also about introducing some voice for the book. This is a pulp book, I want it to have that prose voice over feel, like you just dug it out of an underground secondhand book store. It’s similar to what I was going for in CHUM, but maybe dialled back one or two.

I think I was still finding my voice with Bucky here, I didn’t have him quite so nailed down as I did by the time I got to scripting #3. I had my ideas about him, but it’s really only after having them go through a few things that you see how they react and how they truly are.

PAGE SIX

It’s during this scene that we hopefully get the idea that no one cares there’s a walking/talking deer just shooting the breeze.

I also dig the interplay with Walter and Bucky, they work well and he’s a blast to write. And looking back, I can see this issue was about bouncing Bucky through certain pulp levels to get him to gather the info he needs to proceed – like a lot of quality pulp does, and often needs.

PAGE SEVEN

I don’t consider myself a funny guy – on the page, in person, on social media – but Walter griping that he’s not a hidden mic and so didn’t record the conversation of two randos in his bar tickles me every time.

But then I come back down to Earth with a thud every time Bucky manhandles that ashtray. Gah, nasty shit makes my skin scrawl.

I’m also noticing, on this page and seven pages in, that each page doesn’t completely have as much to talk about and dissect as other annotations purely because each page is really half a page, and I didn’t want to jam pack every page because that would be rubbish for Sami, and it’s really not how tablet pages work. The norm seems to be 2 panel pages, with 3 the max, and yet I average 3-4 generally, so here I’m trying to keep it simple, give the page room for text, and make sure I build to some kind of reason to turn the page.

PAGE EIGHT

I wonder how many readers still have no idea who/what Jo Malone is? I probably could have worded that whole second panel better.

But the matchsticks led here, so then the credit card has to lead to her.

I also haven’t nailed down why Rachel was in Walter’s. We never explain it, though I know how to make it a few different things depending on what we might need it for down the track.

PAGE NINE

I really wish this page wasn’t killing a woman. That’s a big change I’d make to the issue, this could most definitely be a dude.

Bucky mentions his smell, again, and then he references John Doe’s key which was there all the way back in Page One.

I love Nic J Shaw’s white balloon against the silhouette.

PAGE TEN

Sami did great work on this page, considering the density built into it. There are so many little elements – and some of them are like her presence in Walter’s, we can use, or tweak then, as we see fit anywhere in the future if need be. Some of these things are locked in stone, but many of them were me just throwing things against the wall to see what stuck.

Of course, in a room with a dead woman Bucky decides to case the joint. Until the foot creak on the threshold, and this takes place on a real paper page turn, too, so it’s a properly set up deal, as well as for tablet.

PAGE ELEVEN

Adrian Brody flees the scene, and I love Sami’s designs on ‘other’ characters.

This page is just planting another seed to capitalise on later. Plotting this stuff out was hard work, I remember, ensuring so many things get set up, and connect in ways that might only ever matter to me.

And here the journalism puns begin, with Bucky talking about chasing down a story and having to literally chase this story on foot. It’s not high art, but there are a tonne of newspaper quotes and words in the world, and I slowly wanted to work them all in.

PAGE TWELVE

This page is pivotal for me because it shows the parameters of Bucky’s ‘powers.’ He can run super fast, but only in short bursts. Because he’s kind of unfit, the running wears him out. His antlers are pretty bloody strong, but he’s not a superhuman/deer.

PAGE THIRTEEN

I love the way Sami drew the newsroom, the cube farm aspect of it all. The depth and world-building Sami goes to always impresses me.

Here we meet Dan, completely modelled [in pretty much every aspect] on actual editor for this book, and great mate of mine, Dan Hill. Yet again, this scene provides Bucky with someone else to bounce off, but this relationship very obviously feels different to me than Bucky with the coroner or with Walter. There’s actual respect at play here, subtle, but there.

I’ll also make no bones about the fact Dan calls the killer the ‘actor’ and I stole that term from Richard Price who I first saw use it in FREEDOMLAND [a great book, though not his best, that’s still THE WANDERERS].

PAGE FOURTEEN

I dig that Sami went for tall panels on this one, it shows his range when using the tablet page. He’s so good at fitting everything in there and never really feeling crowded.

This two page scene with Dan shows me how much stuff I was burning through in this issue. All overall scenes were mapped out as 4 pages, so two print pages, and this interaction with Dan moves the needle a little and it’s only 2 tablet pages. I tried to get into scenes and bounce out. Partially because the genre demands it, but also because I figured if this was to be a one-shot then I could not dilly-dally, I needed to get things on the page and then move them off. Shit had to be done, so you rocket through scenes, you strip back, and you make shit happen.

This inset panel around the phone was possibly the first inset panel I ever scripted. It’s a device I love to use, I think I first consciously recorded it into my brain from Aja on his IMMORTAL IRON FIST run. Having the phone vibration in the panel gutter is just sublime.

PAGE FIFTEEN

I mean, look at this page, there’s no waddling about, it gets in, gives the info it needs, in a nice and interesting way, and it moves on. I know I didn’t script #2 as tightly, mostly because I knew it’d stand on its own but also form the middle of the triptych I knew I could build. I mean, and this is a long bow to draw, but consider THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, there’s no need for it to completely pack in and tie up as much as A NEW HOPE did because it comfortably knew it was the middle of the trilogy and it could lob up balls that wouldn’t be swung at until 3 years later in RETURN OF THE JEDI.

I’d love it if all 3 issues were this tightly plotted and delivered, but the 4 tablet pages per scene/sequence rule set up here was actually very hard to do because I was constantly trimming panels and refining dialogue and getting it just right. The next two issues I got to let the characters have moments, to take breath, and that in itself was another kind of challenge as well as favour.

I just scripted something about ‘white noise’ in Bucky’s caption, but wasn’t thinking it’d be actual final dialogue, but then Nic grabbed the idea and put that tv white noise screen into a kind of thought balloon and I fell in love.

PAGE SIXTEEN

Those envelopes are there purely to set up his escape in the third act of this issue. I wanted to seed this idea that people hated Bucky, like a kind of subtle racism going on, and that’s why he got shitty letters and eventually an assassination attempt via the cake. I don’t know who sent the cake specifically, but I know I’ll continue to use this idea in future tales [if we get that chance] because in today’s global climate, well, of course there’d be people who believe Bucky is an abomination.

The cereal test is a phrase used in newsrooms to gauge whether news is fit to print in the newspaper, or on the front page specifically, because if someone can’t stomach it over their morning cereal then maybe it’s a little too far. It was a term I dredged up and filed away in the very early stages and it definitely stuck so I’m glad I got to use it here.

When I started in on this book, I googled around for information about deer and journalism. I like to believe that’s what BKV does before he starts anything, too, so he can drop factoids into his work and look smart. I look smart, right?

CHAPTER TWO

Boxing references will always win out. Chess a close second, but boxing is just the greatest metaphor to strip. Plus, I find boxing fascinating. The idea it’s this gentleman’s game when it’s the most brutal form of competition you can imagine, and yet it does hold this rarified air, which fascinates me in its duality. I like duality. The way things are and aren’t at the same time is an endless source of inspection for me.

PAGE SEVENTEEN

I love Randy, he’s just one of those scenery chewing characters everyone loves to write because anything goes as soon as they open their mouths. I think I scripted the shirt but that hair is all Sami.

I scripted this grotto scene, because of course Randy rolls like this, but forgot this was set in a deep Shane Black winter. So Sami drew in those column heaters around the place and it’s such a glorious save and solution from him, but it also says a million more words about this guy and his place, and everyone else there, that I never would have known how to string together. Those heaters are one of those pure blinding collaborative moments that you wish for every time you hook up with an artist.

I’ve also realised that Randy is introduced with that thick black background behind him and above and I’m realising Sami also introduces another character in the third issue in the exact same way. I will have to keep an eye out for this trick now, because I love it, and want to be able to script it so Sami knows I pay attention and I care.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

Bucky being annoyed by the ‘horny’ comment and correcting to antlers was something that came into the first draft instantly as Randy’s introduction and it never swayed. I love it when a moment comes to you fully formed and survives all the edits and drafts and you still love it two years later.

So we’ve just met Randy and we’ve set up that he obviously knows Bucky, and now we push into Bucky getting to what he needs, and then we build to the page turn.

PAGE NINETEEN

The absinthe comment I like, but something about it, like 5% of it, just doesn’t quite click into place for me. I can’t even put my finger on it, and I dig 95% of it, but that niggle remains. I wish I knew what it was.

Bucky pretends to be drunk enough to just wander on by and the driver from earlier pulls a Lando reveal so we know he’s there. I love the Lando reveal.

PAGE TWENTY

The simplicity of this page, the way Bucky has played the angles, and pulled an audible when the guards where there and he knew they’d know him. I like writing Bucky as the smartest guy in the room. Sometimes.

I’m also astounded at how much Sami put into this page. From memory, I edited this page heavily down from 5, or maybe even 6, panels. Now, the door kicks and we cut straight to them looking out the window – I trust you’re smart enough to imagine them crossing the room in those gutters.

Then Bucky leaps off the roof and my heart swoons. This panel was one of those perfect collaborator moments where I realised I was in love. The body language, the silhouette, that snow, it’s all perfect – it’s also got that DARK KNIGHT RETURNS vibe rolling on and who doesn’t dig on that?

PAGE TWENTY ONE

This establishing shot is yet another one of those moments in my writing career where I worked out that artists work way harder than writers. This panel is ace, and no small feat, and it’s also beautiful. All Sami.

Whereas the second panel is a true marriage, my idea, but it totally relies on execution to work, and Sami’s character designs, even for the background, are always so varied and intriguing that I knew this would work. And it totally does, playing the scene out, giving us what we need, and other things.

This panel/page is an exemplary reason of why I like comics, and why comics can do things that only work so well in this medium.

PAGE TWENTY TWO

The mechanics of making this page work are all on Sami. Fitting the gun in the hand in shot, showing how the gun is hidden, using that middle gutter to split Bucky but not move him. That’s all Sami problem solving the page of script I gave him.

I also love how Bucky cuts through the shit. He’s straight up, and I think that’s a reflection of how I decided to script the book. If scenes are short, there’s no time for ball tickling. Bucky has to move things forward, constantly.

PAGE TWENTY THREE

Now, this gutter divide I did script, so the reader wouldn’t instantly look down, they’d be locked on the guy with the gun in Bucky’s neck, and not glance out of that panel. Then we follow down and realise he’s not in as much danger as you might have been feeling.

Again, notice this guy entered scene only last page, and now he’s gone, having played his part, and the next part of the sequence is about to hit Bucky.

That breaking a story/story breaks you line is another one of those things you jot down early on in the research phase and you know you’ll find a place for it. This one I’m 100% happy with.

Though, strange fact, I initially gave the guy grawlix as he ran off in that line, then I realised all the other shit that goes down in this issue and can’t remember why I thought I’d need grawlix, so you’ve ended up with the full F swear. I hope you’re happy.

PAGE TWENTY FOUR

I love the black panels, the pause for the words to soak in. It’s a cinematic device to me, the voice over on the black screen before the fade in [or after the smash cut out – or both in this case] but it’s also something that plays different in comics because we aren’t used to having panels devoid of illustrations. So white strips, black space, other colours, I’m having a play with all of them over time.

I seed in the girl’s jasmine scent here so I can speed up her next scene.

PAGE TWENTY FIVE

The first panel here is set up to capitalise on the hate mail Bucky gets and deliver the coup de grace – the poison cake for later. But look at how Dan delivers it, he knows it’s from Bucky’s hater and yet he’s still all smiles about it, and Bucky is not. In this panel, I’m squeezing in Chekhov’s cake as well as showing the difference between these two men – one optimistic, one pragmatic.

Having Dan hack into someone’s email and then discover someone else is also hacked in there and deleting stuff at the same time is actually a thing I’m quite proud of. Him taking screenshots and getting what he can before it all disappears seems like good journalism to me. I usually don’t feel inventive or even smart enough to come up with cool stuff like this, but this one time I feel like I nailed it.

No, I don’t know how Bucky uses an iPad with those nails.

PAGE TWENTY SIX

We have both Bucky and Dan off to chase the next lead, Dan exits, and then the next piece walks in.

This close up of Bucky with the nose bandage, blood showing through it, is my clearest nod to CHINATOWN. We are forever in debt.

The scent moment pays off, and we get one of those good panel/caption ellipsis hold overs. Even better on a page turn, but in this comic it’s all about compression.

PAGE TWENTY SEVEN

I never have Bucky hit her back, he never lays a hand on her. It’s all restraint.

This moment is one of those reversals they say you should do in your stories. Give the character something good, and then take it away from them by making it into a negative. It’s supposed to keep the audience on their toes, they say.

But I’ll be honest, as much as this helps the plot because ‘Jasmine’ here has clearly been affected by something/someone, it’s all just set up for the next page.

PAGE TWENTY EIGHT

Bucky flipping Jasmine over and then pinning her to the wall with his antlers was another one of those things I wanted to see the character do from early on. Antlers would have to be a great restraint, despite the fact Jasmine could be kicking Jesus out of him with her legs, surely.

I also like that Bucky stops her without hitting her, and also flips her completely over his head, somewhat hinting at his levels of strength.

A lot happens in the gutter between these two panels, and initially I scripted it with way more beats so the reader didn’t get lost, but here I think anyone can draw the connection easily and surmise what took place in the gutter for this transition to make sense.

PAGE TWENTY NINE

I think this is the only full half page split vertically and silent. There’s no ‘huge’ reason why I left this panel silent, I just didn’t think any caption/V.O. was needed when his body language sells it all so truly.

Then we catch up by having a talky panel next, the cop and Bucky, sparring, and Bucky getting in his great last line. Bucky, to me, truly is a man from an older time.

PAGE THIRTY

And yet, despite Bucky’s reticence, and his shot back, the cop is fine with him. I’m hinting at larger world connections where Bucky clearly gets on well with the cops – until he stops being helpful – and they’re gonna treat him relatively straight.

Bucky writes on the notepad and I’ll cop to me doing this to ensure everyone followed me along for the next two pages. I wish we had Bucky write more on that notepad. Oh, well, live and learn.

PAGE THIRTY ONE

This whole locker thing is a personal riff on the locker used in GET SHORTY. How I don’t have Dennis Farina in this comic, as a cameo, just baffles me now.

It took me forever to work out a way to script the fact that Bucky already had a copy of the key made. I must’ve scripted it as like 5 panels and I slowly pared it down and now I’m really happy with how it’s all landed.

PAGE THIRTY TWO

The call in by the flunky is a textbook move, so I coupled it with the enigmatic darkened figure in their study plotting danger. I love his gramophone in there.

I fill this page with text but don’t actually show what’s in the bag. I think that’s a rookie mistake. A little touch of what’s there, a hint, something would have felt a little more complete. Though I do like the slab of captions juxtaposed against his one word.

And you can see here that these chapters really end on little breaks, a chance to get up and stretch the legs.

CHAPTER THREE

This quote has become the back cover quote for all the print versions and I kind of dig that. I think going through your issue and highlighting the lines you think are top shelf, the ones that sing, that sum up the theme or tone of the piece is a fun exercise. Especially if you can’t find one, because I think that says a lot.

It would probably be a good exercise to go through the comics of others and try to find that one line. I liked how Hickman’s FF run had those quotes on the front cover for the first little while.

PAGE THIRTY THREE

I love the building of The Truth. Sami doesn’t really know it, but the building he drew looks like it came straight out of my childhood, it feels like something I know, and that pleases me so very greatly.

A nice silent page, captions aside, that ends with a click. I’m trying to build tone here, I’m hoping you are a little worried. I’m also hoping you dig my whole tree metaphor. Sometimes I feel like I nail a line and that final line here just wraps up so much of what I want to mean about it all.

PAGE THIRTY FOUR

I hate the word “ain’t” – I always teach my classes that ain’t clearly isn’t contracting two forms of anything and as such it needs to die in a fire. But. I will put the word in the mouth of a character because I think it says a lot about someone if they use it, and also when/where/how they use it.

Again, the ominous tone on the page, the way the thug just walks in and sits down so confidently. It’s the way he carries himself that matters, not what he says. Which is why he says so little, and it’s not a threat. This is just matter of fact business for him, and that’s the biggest problem/sign.

PAGE THIRTY FIVE

I’m not one for writing a lot of tough guy dialogue, but I clearly hear this guy in my head and it mostly rings true. I can see/hear him going through these motions. I also had to work hard so it felt organic enough that Bucky would be able to introduce the cake into the scene.

Why did Bucky keep poison cake on his desk? Well, y’know, just in case.

PAGE THIRTY SIX

He’s saying no to the cake as he accepts a piece of it. That right there says a whole lot about this guy. Then the way he shrugs off his doctor. I like that he has a doctor, that he’s got problems. After writing this page, I felt I knew him a lot better.

Oh, look, Sami dropped another one of those half ink backgrounds.

PAGE THIRTY SEVEN

Did you know deer process toxins differently than us. They do it better. So I figured with Bucky being the weird hybrid he is he can have all kinds of special ‘powers’ and one of them is the ability to really shrugs off toxins.

The caption about them finding his body in the car was a scripting gaffe I tried to fix and failed. It’s meant to imply that Bucky is going to drag the guy down to his car and it was put in there after the art came in and I realised that him leaving the poisoned body on the press room floor might not be good for business. But the art had already come in. I tried to script around it, but nothing fit. Not even what I ended up going with. One of my biggest failures in comics, though it doesn’t kick in the guts as much as I thought it might. Huh, maybe time does work.

Wait, why is the Leaving City sign visible as you drive into the city? Man, I scripted that, this page is not my friend at all.

PAGE THIRTY EIGHT

Randy is so deplorable, it’s fun to write. Though it makes me look like kind of a hack, I’ll admit. Or, I’ll admit to worrying about.

I like that Bucky ignores his surroundings, he’s literally just there to hide out and do his job.

This set up to the page turn says a lot about who I think Bucky is…

PAGE THIRTY NINE

Y’see, Bucky’s an arrogant. Fool. He just rushes in, thinking he’s got the info so he’s untouchable. It’s a fool’s play, but it’s the kind of thing people do a lot before thinking all the pieces on the board through. And while I think Bucky is a great journalist, this story is also about him being overly sure and missing the story. It’s about his fallibility, and how he has to fix it.

PAGE FORTY

There are a lot of throwaway lines in the captions that explain away the need for extra scenes, or pages, or even panels. I don’t want to show Bucky threatening the mayor with his story leaking upon his death to establish that Bucky isn’t going to die here. I throw in mention of a ‘standard journalist/scumbag deal’ and it tells us all we need to know. Most of us have seen crime fiction where someone’s information will leak, to the police, or the public if they die or don’t check in by a certain time or use a specific code.

Mayor Jackson also not being worried about Bucky should be his first sign he’s stepped into the brown and smelly. But Bucky doesn’t read that stuff, sadly for him.

PAGE FORTY ONE

Nothing says cocky like ‘telling your villain how it is while munching an hor’s douvres’ cocky. Though Mayor Jackson’s ‘laughing in the face of this shit’ cockiness comes close.

PAGE FORTY TWO

Having Bucky walk his stupid ass right into the trap was a big moment for this book. I think like the pulps of old, I wanted this fallible hero, this fool, who mostly just stumbles into the right things while being beat up for the wrong things, and this page/moment was perfect for that. He never should have gone back, but here he is and here’s how they treat him.

And you’ll notice the crowd doesn’t care. No one ever questions anyone in power, they let all sorts of shit fly.

PAGE FORTY THREE

And with that, the Mayor spits on Bucky [metaphorically] and has won. Because it’s always darkest right before the dawn, right?

That placement of the “I’m an idiot.” caption is just genius from Nic J. Shaw because it’s almost hidden, and a lazy reader will skip it, which they can and the book will still work, but as an aside beat this works perfectly.

PAGE FORTY FOUR

Huh, I just realised Bucky goes to sit on his car and stare at the horizon to centre himself exactly like Standard does in CHUM #2. That’s subconsciously weird – though I do like to sit at the surf and just look out, so I guess it’s me projecting my own safe/calm place. Who knew that happened?

Bucky drives a convertible because of course he does.

This page is Bucky gathering himself and then firing himself into the final launch, but it really doesn’t read as too stirring. Nope, not at all. When you are supposed to be asking yourself what does each scene/page do, why does it exist, I may have failed on that one. I mean, it allows for the transition to get him to the house, but I think it does it poorly. There should have been something else that sets him in that direction. Lazy.

PAGE FORTY FIVE

In the first script, Bucky drives up the street, he screeches his breaks, he reverses towards the woman, and then he gets out. It was just too much. Having him screech his tyres here – subtle as it is – is more than enough. Eliminating that ABCD storytelling and just dropping crisp single letters is the most important aspect of editing/rewriting. Well, it definitely was for a younger Ryan still wobbly on his green legs.

This page has much better build, it goes a new place, builds a new tension. Much better, more effective for the reader.

PAGE FORTY SIX

A big conversation – that took a long time to edit just right – and another build to a tense moment. This final scene at least hits a decent stride.

The idea he can smell and hear the tiniest things that hint at truth, lies, etc means Bucky is my antlered Matt Murdock, and I’ll never shy away from admitting he totally is. I mean, they are actually two very different men, but that idea of the truth at their core, and many of the abilities, is totally swapping over and that’s no accident.

We end on a boxing term, because of course we do. I’ll run out of them eventually. Or I’ll just study harder to find more obscure ones.

PAGE FORTY SEVEN

I have Bucky react to what he’s figured out, but I consciously chose for him to not tell us. I didn’t want to completely spell these things out. He mentions it about ‘family’ in the second panel and I’m hoping people make the connection, especially if they’ve worked out how much of an influence CHINATOWN is on all of this.

The tiny ‘PFT’ sfx pepper the page, the blood blooms on her coat, and, again, the reader is expected to keep up.I really went back and forth on whether to be so obtuse, but in the end that’s the kind of thing I like to read, so it’s mostly what I’ll always write. There’s nothing wrong with a reader having to do a little work.

PAGE FORTY EIGHT

We end on a splash, and this moment was always the point of the issue. Bucky is so certain, and he finds the connective tissue he wants, so he takes it at face value and assumes he’s nailed it. But that’s just not how it works, so he’s overly confident and it gets him shot.

Then we end on that red bar, mostly because this was a digital only Kickstarter campaign, and you can do whatever the hell you want with a PDF so putting that red panel isn’t going to alter print prices or specificities so we went ahead and did it.

And that’s the end.

BACK MATTER

THE TRUTH by Ryan K Lindsay – an essay

I often bang on about how I wrote this comic on my phone while walking the summer streets of my neighbourhood at night with my baby daughter strapped to my chest.

I mention it a lot because it was my moment where I realised I would not accept excuses from myself. It was when I realised I was a writer, and always would be. It was a nice feeling to just power on, despite the world seemingly telling me I couldn’t at that very moment. The world’s a dick, what would it know?

You find yourself in weird places, you have weird places you find within yourself, and if you wanna make those two things connect and make art – then you can.

DEER EDITOR is one of my favourite things to have created, partly because of what it is, partly because of how I did it, and partly because of when it came about for me. But mostly because it started Sami Kivelä off on a relationship that’s lasted a very very long time, and only gets better with age.

I hope these thoughts have been of some help.