Without Fear

Ryan K Lindsay – Writer

Tag: annotations

July 4, 2017

RKL Annotations – BEAUTIFUL CANVAS #1

Beautiful Canvas is a comic from Sami Kivela, Triona Farrell, Ryan Ferrier, Dan Hill, and myself through Black Mask Studios.

 

We launched on Wednesday the 28th of June to some great reviews and responses.

Below are my annotations. An inside look into my brain as I reflect on our making of this issue, and a chance for me to unpack what I’m seeing in the work now, and how I feel it connects on a broader spectrum. I hope you dig, and find something that’ll help your mind think/make comics in the future.

If you want – you can also listen to these views on SoundCloud on The Crystal Plumage, my podcast about this comic :]

THE COVER – SAMI KIVELA

I love Sami’s covers. The guy is always on fire, every book feels different, and even every cover has a very specific flavour. I could look at Sami’s covers forever. But when we talk specifically about this one, you have to think about how it launches the book. It presents the isolated character, which is so very important to this story. She’s alone. And she’s holding that gun, but not in any power pose. She’s a woman with violence in her world, and she hasn’t let go of it, but she’s feeling a little defeated, a little reflective.

Juxtapose that with the white pregnant silhouette, surrounded by a city aflame, which wraps up a lot of Lon’s fears. She’s bringing a child into a world on fire, and it’s in turmoil because of her actions at times. She fears for her child because it might grow up to run across someone just like her.

It takes that parental doubt and mixes it with self-loathing all at first glance. I know you won’t get all of those things, but they’re there, they’re waiting for you.

And let’s give it up for Ryan Ferrier’s logo. The boxing ropes building that angle for the words to read on. The fact there are two types of canvas onto which you can create your beautiful images. There’s paint on the easel in your workshop, and there’s blood on the mat in the boxing ring. Both are beautiful, in their own way, and that concept of brutal beauty runs through this book. Ferrier nailed it on this one, especially with such a bold logo that can read with any colour, against any background. Something we do take advantage of.

THE COVER – CHRISTIAN WARD

I mean, what do you say?

Christian Ward did a variant cover for our comic. And it’s bloody gorgeous. I first saw it on my phone, I was between teaching classes, and I just stopped. I mean, how do you process something like this? Dude is a beast, and this cover is sublime.

Cut forward then a month or more and I find out on twitter, while chatting with Christian and someone else, that the blue skin he’s done is actually a sonogram. I mean, I’m an idiot for not noticing, but watch my head explode on hearing this. The cover is so simple, and elegant, and I’m still in utter love with it months later.

I also LOVE her eyes and the blood splatter on her.

PAGE ONE

I’ve already written a lot about this page, our opening contract.

Read about Page One here

I love this page, it’s a beautiful melding of character and tone and story and I think it’s the best opening page I’ve ever been a part of. I actually think it’s sold the book just as well as our covers have.

PAGE TWO

And we instantly change the scenery, where we find a very different Lon. Kicking back, relaxed. Or maybe just switched off. Maybe this is her with her shields up, not like the first page which is very much shields down.

You’ll also notice there is no caption to guide you through space/time. I want you to pay attention, this is important. Don’t assume anything, don’t be lazy. It’s on you to keep up.

This page drops all the exposition the first doesn’t. It sets up Lon through how Milla sees her. It sets up Milla through her actions, and her words, and her tone. And it sets up their interaction, their job roles, and what Milla wants Lon to do.

I had a blast writing this dialogue. Milla’s voice came quickly and easily to me, and was a blast to bash out every single time she’s on the page.

Then I pull a Remender and start the dialogue here…

PAGE THREE

…and end the line here.

I know, I know, Remender didn’t make this up, it’s just a trick I learnt consciously from his work, UNCANNY X-FORCE was doing it and I dug it.

So here we have Lon on the job, this is the main problem she’s been thrust into that propels the narrative forward. On Page Three. Because I didn’t wanna mess around, there’s little point waiting, let’s get this party started.

Milla wants someone in this house dead and so we show you the house with the most deplorable person yammering away. I want you to think she’s the target. Her house is a mess, she’s a mess, and you know there’s a kid there, so I want your protective gears turning.

Then we just ratchet it up with the coke on the carrot – which is something a mate of mine gave me a note on [that no one would snort coke off a carrot], but it was just too fine a visual to pass up. Plus, it keeps the carrot in her hand for the next page.

PAGE FOUR

This page!

I could write an ode about this page. This here is pure distillation of what collaboration over years becomes.

When Sami and I started working together, on the pitch for what would become CHUM, I guess it was pretty straight forward. The pages were standard, not too many panels, and with room for Sami to stretch.

Then, before we made CHUM, he and I made DEER EDITOR, and it was through creating 144 tablet pages together that I came to truly understand the beast Sami is. I knew what he was good at, I knew where I could push him. I knew where I could tease him, and leave him open, and he’d create mayhem and beauty. There’s a page deeper into the first issue of CHUM where Sami took a fight scene and created a mural of violence. It’s gorgeous.

So, by the time we’re making BEAUTIFUL CANVAS, I like to think we’ve become a great and complementary machine. The fact this page came out in the pitch pages proves that to me [because, boy, do we go even further as the book progresses]. I set this page up as a page of fury and calm, a page of stupidity and precision. It’s Sami and I together completely.

The slow intro, the mum snorting and then looking up, it gives way to a crescendo of humanity across three panels. And Sami imbues those three panels with amazing timing and body language. Lon stands, ready, a coiled spring – she shoots, precise, one shot, all energy coming out her hand and gun, nowhere else – and then she holsters, not even looking anymore, she’s not lascivious, there is no doubt. This is a hit.

Playing that against the mother, coked to the gills, throwing a carrot like it’s her weapon, when the knife is clearly there, and having her huddled, and then full body aggressive, and then thrown straight back. It’s some glorious motion.

But it’s Sami that makes it flow, like a river of blood through a diagram of humanity. He put these inset panels in, he decided to draw focus, and slow us down even further, so we’d feel the hit, and so we’d have to see Lon. It’s a beautiful page and I managed to not need to overwrite it at all.

I am growing.

PAGE FIVE

The first page we see Alex Ellroy, and I’m completely selling you on where he is at the very start of this narrative. He’s small, quiet, withdrawn, 2 pages back we could see he plays board games with his dolls. He’s just this little kid, and then we see his reaction to his dead mother – because Sami draws faces better than anyone – and we get that hug as he says “Thank you.” and we can only imagine his origin story.

Poor little bastard.

Which is why I don’t waste time on the moment. Get in late, and definitely leave early. Cut to the car, show Lon’s decision in action, not even her making the decision, just show the reasons for the decision, build to that moment, then let the reader know it’s been made.

This is what we call a ‘lock in’ for the protagonist. They are making a choice to veer off, they are funking up their own story. It’s always the best way for things to go the shape of a pear, rather than just shoving providence into their face and giving them no agency.

PAGE SIX

It’s one thing to write a dead girl. It’s another to have Sami and Tree bring it to life. Jeeeez, it’s heartbreaking.

This sequence was the lynch pin for me and the mission statement of this book. Lon might be locked in, but it’s uncertain, it’s all reaction, she’s flying by the seat of her pants. So we have the boy press her on it and she just doesn’t know. She’s in a crisis of faith, and so when in doubt she doesn’t – but just not killing the boy does not tell her what comes next.

It’s also all kinda seed for Alex’s journey. He’s in for a wild ride, and he needs to discover this truth as well.

Intercutting this with the flashback, and never telling you what’s when and where, was my way of hoping the audience is really with us. This page is the test. It’s layered, tough to read, and I hope that slows you down. Soak in that dialogue from the flashback, think about what Lon is going through.

PAGE SEVEN

Lon doesn’t know. This is where she’s lead herself. She doesn’t know if she’s good. She doesn’t know if things with Asia are good. She just flat out doesn’t know.

And yet she drives on.

I love how Sami draws Lon’s face up close. She’s a beautiful character, and yet you should be so sucked into her emotion that you don’t quite register it. The story should elevate her beyond eye candy completely.

Then that last panel – now you can really tell we were ending our pitch pages, can’t you? I wanted the pitch pages to be this whole opening scene, and here we close it. Lon drives off with Alex, towards the city, and the colours are sublime.

I dropped that ‘movie title’ in here because the book doesn’t have captions, and I mostly dig that, but sometimes I use my words as punctuation, so this really threw me not having those beats to end scenes on. So I invented a work around. I didn’t want to just write captions when I *really* felt like it, so I didn’t get that lazy, instead I invented these movie titles to drop into the story at strategic moments to unpack the characters, and maybe a little of their lives or world around them. I chose THE HITWOMAN WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE because it’s a beautiful phrase, and it’s also a shout out to Dario Argento. This was my way of sending up a flair to my people, and those who dig Argento should now know we are connected through this story. We’re going to be on the same page, and I hope you’ll sit down a while and listen to the story with me. I hope we get some time to enjoy this together.

PAGE EIGHT

I love the bold scene-opening panel of this sequence. A huge vertical panel, all Sami, which is interesting because there’s also a lot of talking on this page, but he still spends all this real estate on setting the scene. I dig it hugely, because Tree coloured the ever-loving hell out of it, and because Sami drew in that clown head up in the foreground and it’s creepy and awesome and speaks volume to the tone of the scene.

We then meet Eric and Agent Keely. The gist of things is that Eric screwed up his life and ended up sentenced to this weird purgatory gaol of an abandoned fair on a boardwalk somewhere.

Why? Well, like Keely says, it’s to do with Milla Albuquerque. From there, I don’t spell too much out. I’m not interested in having these two characters, who clearly know each other deeply, conveniently lay out their cards on the table as if the other person doesn’t know. I want oblique references, I want the bare minimum. I know that might not be great for all readers, but it gives this scene what I wanted – familiarity between the two men. I want the reader to finish this page and know how these guys interact, and what their overall beef is. Eric screwed up, he’s his own problem, and Keely has to come check up on him.

I also gave them takeaway coffees for two reasons. One, it keeps them busy. They can sip, or brood over the steam, or spill their coffee, or throw it away over the side. This is action through which we can continue to tell the story. When Kelly spills his coffee making a point in Eric’s face, you feel it.

And, two, these coffees mean Keely stopped on his way there to get 2 coffees. That’s a stand up move, and deserves a little respect.

PAGE NINE

Here we drop that bomb that Eric’s isolated here for some kind of protection, and protection FOR others. It’s a bizarro witness protection program. I think I had recently read Darwyn Cooke’s SLAYGROUND adaptation from the Richard Stark novel and the fairground as crime scene idea was juicing in my brain.

I think I would have scripted this two page interaction about two dozen times. Never able to make the Jenga fit into place, never quite happy with it. But where we got it to, I am happy with it. This was given a final script after the colours came in. I was tweaking this whole sequence right down to the wire. Because you always know when it’s second best [or for a while, it was maybe fifth best], and in indie comics there is no excuse to not take the time, get it right, and then happily move on.

The moment of Eric working out how to break free is also obliquely set up and explained. Eric has this little ball, like a geotag, where they were tracking him. He’s found it, removed it [with a knife, I guess], and now he’s unfettered, and with a mission. Which I want you all to connect/assume involves Milla :]

Then we cut to the final 3 panels and Sami absolutely nails these. The ease with which he shows flow. The inset panel of Keely dead, and that gorgeous sky from Tree. This is a 2 page talking heads scene, and yet Tree and Sami make it feel like so much more.

But do you know the science of what’s going on – how’s that tag work, what happened to Keely specifically? Well, maybe wait and see…

PAGE TEN

This page, and sequence, slowly came around to become something I dearly love. Lon laying her heart out on the line, a truthful and honest moment. She’s on an old ass phone because anachronisms please me. And she’s eating noodles because that’s what Rick Deckard would do. Truly.

This is just Lon talking, but hopefully you’re also gleaning some information – the time frame, Lon’s feelings. I dig the pacing of the flashback, and that final panel with the restaurant finally established is my way of finally pulling back from Lon. We’ve been up close [and personal] with Lon, so it was time to see the world around her a little bit again.

And I only use the L word when I mean it, and I write Lon like she’s the same.

PAGE ELEVEN

That loaded pause leads to one of my favourite bits of this comic. I can remember coming up with the idea that Lon was rehearsing on an empty phone line. I was stoked to have a little more business on the phone that wasn’t just Lon and Asia actually talking. It gave it more of a cycle.

Lon’s views of love are her own and in no way represent the company to which she is contracted.

I was glad I built all that white space in the middle, a gap in which our two leads find a quiet space to talk. So I built that gap in the middle into things. And then I kept redrafting as I went along, always refining. I find I constantly was refining and redrafting dialogue in this book to give enough information away, but never at the expense of character. Who they are, and why they are, matters more to me than actually what they do. So you sub one for the other whenever you can – or both at the same time if you are good enough, and I so rarely am.

PAGE TWELVE

I couldn’t figure out how to cut to after their conversation – I wanted to give them privacy. Sometimes, you get more power from not hearing the specifics, I think. The caption came to me and it feels helpful in an odd way – because a 5 minute and 8 second conversation is a long one in my books. Certainly long enough for Lon. And I like how it reads on the page.

Then we get this layered scene that is my meagre attempt at what I like to call “JAWS scripting.” It’s where conversations occur in the foreground and background and you don’t need to hear all of both of them, you just need the general idea of both. So we get this lovely back and forth between Lon and Alex, because they’re bonding, and I want them to become tight. This means whatever I do to them later on will hold some gravity.

And against this, we have the waitress, who seemed so damn nice, reporting back to…someone.

Vague, or annoying – you decide.

PAGE THIRTEEN

Yes, truly meet Milla Albuquerque.

That pot plant with the ‘Believe’ written on it is totally stolen from my office. I have the exact same thing. But Tree coloured this one green, so it looks better than what I’ve got.

Then we cut to Milla and I dig the stance Sami gave her, and the triangle framing, but mostly I just love that skyline. That’s Sami and Tree just being electric gods together. And I think it’s enough to maybe distract from the blood on that watering can, maybe.

This page is quite simply a thesis on how Milla operates, and how she views the world, and what Lon is working against. Milla lumps gardening in with revenge and love and every emotion and action is just an ingredient for her – just a colour on her palette. If you marry this mindset against Milla hiring Lon to kill Alex, and most likely having hired her to kill plenty of other people, then you get a fairly decent insight into Milla. I don’t connect all those dots here for you, but I guess some readers will, and I thank them for it. I also hope they enjoyed the work, and the results they get.

Then we get that hand in the pot. That was a visual that came to me instantly when wanting to really reveal and introduce Milla. I may have been missing HANNIBAL from our screens. You know, that show about beautiful mayhem and blood? Yeah, it’s informed Milla in quirky little ways.

PAGE FOURTEEN

Panel Two is the stronghold here. Milla divulges exactly what Lon was sent to kill Alex for. It was a test.

A test for what, you ask?

Well, maybe by the end of #1, and certainly by the start of #2, you’ll have enough to piece together what was supposed to happen.

And as for Moore, he gets hinted at, and then Milla pretty straight up explains his connection into this story. Because I can’t always hide everything from view.

The final panel of Milla saying “People just want to die for their craft” is my best attempt at a BKV page ender, albeit incredibly subtly. Y’see, she’s talking about Moore’s tenacity, but she’s also hinting at the fact the guy hung up in front of her has voluntarily put himself into this position. He’s down with being a part of Milla’s beautiful canvas.

See, I told you it was subtle.

PAGE FIFTEEN

I absolutely love all of these weird fuckers.

Why are they here? Well, because I want this world to be weird. Not by having every single element and thing weird, but by showing that weird resides in it. They also exist as a subtle hint to the fact this world has started experimenting on people. There are ways to make people more than human. This opens up the story for the final page of this issue, and the crux of the problem at the heart of the story, and we make this a lot more concrete in the back matter page of The Truth.

You can also blame this scene on PREDATOR. I love that intro scene of the ensemble, so I did my best to poorly ape it here. Writing these freaks was a lot of fun, and a chance to try out a few voices I would never use to headline a comic, but that intrigue me nonetheless. The bird guy’s sqwarks are my favourite, by far.

Plus, that bottom panel with the moon and the cloud and the kick ass car. A hell of a thing to behold.

PAGE SIXTEEN

I love ELO. I think Dan Hill secretly loves Ello. Blame him for the joke, it was his idea [at which I LOL’ed and put it straight into the script]. It’s also yet another nod to this reality being different. Ello became the titan in this story.

I love Sami’s design for this car, and you see how it works in action here and it’s just glorious. Then I cut this moment with a panel of Asia talking to Lon on the phone in the past because I want you to feel the stakes of this moment for Lon. I want to ensure we are all on the same page – perhaps this is one of my few times of overtly handing across information in this book. Even though I’m still not giving much away.

PAGE SEVENTEEN

Poor Lon. Getting her ass kicked like a good pulp lead. These freaks giving her a good ol’ tenderising, and I need them to be good at it because I need her knocked out.

That panel at the bottom where she’s landing on her head/neck, man, that body language from Sami is dynamite. Those legs are all over the place.

Also note the fine as silk SFX from Ryan Ferrier.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

Meet Moore.

This guy sucks.

Which is why I intro him in such a predatory manner. The guy’s just filth. As he talks to himself, you should get a feel for who he is.

I dig the little moment of the assistant handing the phone across to Milla and she’s over it, and over Moore. Her flippant line sets up their relationship in totality. She kinda hates him, totally needs him, will be vitriolic towards him, but she’ll keep him around, and obviously for a reason. He’s good at his job.

PAGE NINETEEN

Oh, also, the 6 panel grid on these pages. I love the 6 panel grid, but have never really written for it. Sami nails it for this sequence, proving once again he’s smarter and more useful than me.

This is the needle scratch moment for Milla. She was assuming Moore would check in with footage of Lon attacked by Alex after the hit occurred. Or, maybe as a test to see if Lon could still do it. Instead, she’s told neither option occurred, and the plot has swerved away from her. This scene serves a purpose, to make everything clear to Milla, but it also allows us this character interaction, which in itself unpacks these characters more.

Then you see that elephant chair and you realise Dan Hill is really one hell of an editor for suggesting it. Whereas the business with Moore and the pizza is all me. Because he’s just that callous – eating her old food, and stepping over her dead body. Like I said, he’s pure filth. But even filth is art if presented right, right?

PAGE TWENTY

Look at Off-Brand Killer Croc with his Liefeld pouches going to use housing his mobile phone.

Lon gets a little GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS on the phone, and we don’t know to whom she is speaking. That’s on purpose, because maybe you just can’t trust anyone moving forward. Maybe it’s Milla doing a funny voice, maybe it’s her flunky, maybe it’s Asia, maybe it’s Alex…?

You’ll have to wait and see.

Sami with the inset panels of character deaths. Absolutely dynamite. And man did I have to work hard to figure out how each one died, and if one could maybe be alive for later as an Act IV come back. But, no, they are all dead here.

PAGE TWENTY ONE AND TWENTY TWO

And again we fracture the structure and take you back to that first scene, that fateful phone call Lon had with Asia. I hope readers are keeping up by this stage. Because that opening page, now, it should hold even more weight. It’s the moment Lon finds out she’s going to be a parent and she’s just killed this other kid and she’s just mentally crumbling, and so this moment has ghosted over the entire issue. This is her dilemma, this is her fear.

That concept of just breaking a shitty burner phone in half will always take me back to Mike in BREAKING BAD. Such a boss move.

So Lon runs off to find Alex, and when she does, he’s this dangerous little creature. He’s got them iron fists glowing, there’s something wrong with him, and there’s something wrong with Lon. It’s a dangerous moment to pause on.

I want you guessing about what comes next. I want you interested, and worried, and intrigued. I want you invested in what happens in the next moments. Because from what you know of Lon, she’s unhinged, and dangerous, but she’s also clinical and rocked by enough death this week.

Can I also say, that image of Alex with the flame hands, and the red mist beyond the trees, man, it’s killed me to not share that image online because I’m so in love with it. Also kinda proud of that Movie Title panel I dropped in there.

And that’s the first issue. I hope it sells the next 3, right?

BACK MATTER

Truth, Beauty, Erudition – choose one

Coming up with Back matter Essay titles is hard to do, but damn if it isn’t fun. HEADSPACE had ‘Brain Waves’ and CHUM had ‘Get In the Fucking Sea’ [which always made me smile]. And this has the above, which I am still happy with – which is the main test to pass.

These pages will just be me being truthful, unpacking my head a little, and connecting with you personally [I hope]. This one was fun to write.

JAM SESSIONS

But then you get to turn the page and see Sami Kivela draw Philip K Dick and you know all is right in the world. This pin up is so gorgeous, I’d already preordered it from Sami before he even drew it. It’s my favourite author, and my favourite artist, jamming together, in a book that’s my best thing so far. I needed this in my life, and it’s already proudly on my office wall. I’d told him about the essay series we were thinking of doing, and hit him up to do a spot illo for it, Sean Phillips style, and he just dominated it.

The fact it’s followed by a Jam Session between me and longtime top mate Dan Hill is just pure candy in my pocket. I love chatting to Dan about stuff, he always makes me smarter, and I love doing these, so the whole back matter selection just fills me with gleeful joy.

THE TRUTH

Then there’s THE TRUTH page, which was a dumb idea I had, that Sami didn’t have time to execute – and then we did it anyway :]

I’ve made this page completely non-essential to the narrative, but gee it slips a lot of little hints in there you might like to further enjoy this world we’ve built. These newspapers are ‘in world’ items showcased here for us all to look at and enjoy, but also to study. Each story is picked for a specific reason, and they’ve been crazy fun to write.

And that’s the comic. If you picked it up, thank you. If you enjoyed it, well, thank you muchly. If you’ve told your mates, shared the good word, lent it out to a mate – that’s the good work from on high you deliver, praise be.

This comic is a work of passion, and it exists because the creative team is committed to making comics. We love that you wanna read comics, and read about comics, too. Thanks, and we’ll see you in 4 weeks for #2 – the opening pages are just dynamite.

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February 20, 2017

RKL Annotations – DEER EDITOR #1

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.

DE_cover01_small

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.

1 Comment
January 30, 2017

RKL Annotations – CHUM #3

So quickly begun, is so quickly done.

And so here lies the end of CHUM

We hope you dug it. Making this comic was a long time – planning it out, working up pitch pages with Sami, getting the greenlight, having Sami score another paying gig so we waited, and then finally making the beast, working with Mark Dale for colours, Nic J. Shaw for letters, wrapping it all up, and then announcing, and soliciting, and now releasing. It’s been a section of my life, but only 3 months on the shelves – no doubt less with the delay of #1.

It’s strange because for the years of hard work and patience, sometimes all that matters is that final scattershot of release because a narrative massaged and held and planned is not complete until it connects with an audience. A story is a social contract that requires someone on the other end from the creators to catch it.

And CHUM has been well caught so far. Reviews and readers have been loud, and we behind the curtain have been proud. So, thank you, and we hope you accept this loquacious gift of process thoughts and oversharing wherein I deconstruct the last issue as something for you to enjoy after you thought you were done. This post is written to enjoy as well as somewhat instruct. We hope you get one good thing out of it, but ymmv.

Let’s go, roll the #surfnoir tunes one last time, pally!

CHUM_Cover_03

COVER

I know that Sami’s cover for #1 was instantly recognisable, and it sold the book perfectly in one hot take, but this cover is my favourite from him. There’s something ballsy about going greyscale with a single colour shape over it. It shouldn’t work, it shouldn’t grab the eye, and yet I cannot ever take my eyes off this piece whenever I scope it.

There’s a lot to dig into on this one, oh, the portents. The world is grey, it’s fading, and Summer sits on a board and watches. Is she accepting a noir ending? And she’s kind of in the stomach of the shark, so is that about her death? Or is it a rebirth through blood, using the sharks to enact a transition to the new world [this grey expanse, as opposed to the brighter colours inside the book]?

Sami brought his cover game to town on this one, and all of his 3 CHUM covers, and I’d gladly put them on my wall and forever point at them whenever someone enquires about my #surfnoir neck tattoo.

CHUM_Cover_03B

VARIANT COVER

Justin Greenwood, ladies and gentlemen. Making it look simple, and crushing the game as always. This cover also uses that single red, and it puts us right into it, into the mouth of the beast. That sense of being eaten, being in your final moments, is palpable in this cover. Moving the logo/credits into the mouth is just a stroke of genius.

PAGE ONE

Another splash for Standard tiled with captions. The guy has his own motif now.

But I really put this page up front because I wanted to instantly show Standard is alive, and I wanted to hide his body so you didn’t see his hand just yet.

PAGE TWO

But then we cut away to Hannah, because I have not forgotten about her, I promise.

And this whole page shows the ineptitude of the Island. Hannah calls the cop to help her with the criminal and he’s at her house, because of course he is. He’s also still being a pain in the ass to her, despite his current situation. That’s commitment to getting your hate on.

PAGE THREE

A page balancing that line between exposition of where Summer is and the general issue start sitrep as well as giving you something to chew on and enjoy. The ‘stabbed you in the back’ offer and flip was always the mark to build up to before the reveal of how Summer could be gone if she was just handcuffed to Standard.

And if you’re wondering why Summer didn’t just unlock the cuffs, well, there are multiple explanations that fit. She didn’t care and wanted to done as quickly as possible. She looked for the keys and couldn’t find them either because Standard didn’t have them because he’s that much of a shit cop, or they weren’t readily apparent and so after a cursory glance she elects to speed things up a little because, remember, she is fleeing the island after having just snapped and attacked hannah.

PAGE FOUR

Hannah chases the story and Standard just wants to chase the person. These two characters always want different things.

This page got rewritten a tonne, just to get the beats and character out while still moving the story towards what happens next.

It also makes me laugh that Standard can’t find his hand – in my mind, Summer cut it off, felt terrible, and absently took it outside with her. It;s in someone’s yard now.

PAGE FIVE

“This island, man, fuck it.” – this is the explanation of Standard and what he does next. It’s personal, and convoluted, and weird, and stupid, but it’s also completely who he is.

I worked on this script for too long trying to ensure I had Standard’s motivations down right for going to track Summer instantly at that moment. But then I realised, this is the tipping point for him, the explosion of activity. He refuses to stand still, to call it in, to do anything rational. He knows he’s probably actually going to die, and so he’s just got to keep moving. People do dumb shit, especially guys with hurt pride.

Then we set up the singing like a bird segue into there being a whistle from somewhere/someone else. This transition was in an early draft and just remained because I couldn’t let it go. It strikes me as one of those early BKV things that’s a kaiju suit baring all of its seams and seals for you to see.

PAGE SIX

We cut back maybe an hour, maybe less, but I don’t tell you that. I let you figure that out by how this scene plays out at the end. I figure, if the timestamp will become obvious eventually then you can wait and earn it, and maybe even go back and reread just to soak it up all the more deliciously.

I mean, this is Summer, after cutting of her [ex]husband’s hand, calling her casual ‘friend’ to do whatever needs to be done with Standard’s body. It’s pretty cold on her end, especially as I like to believe she knew Standard wasn’t done and this would be the end of Penny.

See the comic he’s reading – CURRICULUM. Yeah, coming soon :]

Oh, also, he drives past a kangaraoo. That’s pretty awesome.

Penny sets up his own page turn, but…

PAGE SEVEN

…it doesn’t land like he wants it to.

Standard walks out, you can feel Penny’s head dropping the needle, starting to back peddle. That face he makes is amazing, and even his “She said she needed something planted.” line sounds dirty in my head as he says it, and makes no sense for that time of night.

Standard replies and I think I overwrote it. Nuts.

PAGE EIGHT

I always knew Standard hated Penny, and I knew it was just inherent. So while part of me always wondered if I should seed it in through a scene, the other part of me likes that we never showed the reason, but always showed the hate, and in the end Penny dies seeing the hate and never himself knowing the reason. It wouldn’t be fair if we knew and he didn’t. So Standard just confirms he won’t be telling Penny, and then…

PAGE NINE

…we get the outcome of the tense situation…within the same page spread. Because somewhere along the line I assume rewrites forced this moment off a page turn and I never found a way to get it back, I guess.

It’s a chump move from me, and a reminder that proofreading your script is about theme, and dialogue, and clarity for the artist, and all that, but it’s also page turns and a little counting.

I do love that SFX killshot, though.

Standard goes full pulp on this page, the pain meds are kicking in.

PAGE TEN

Hannah’s getting pretty mouthy at a guy who just killed someone. Yup, that’s who she is, she tenacious – and she knows Standard isn’t going to shoot her.

And we get confirmation Standard knows he’s dying, as well as that small beat where Hannah still offers to save him. Which is sweet, and I dig it, but Standard is unsalvageable at this stage.

PAGE ELEVEN

Hannah gets a moment of clarity and I hope I wrote that first panel with truth in it.

I also dig the caption response, like even the narrator is backing Standard.

When Hannah yells out her big reveal, that she found out Summer was pregnant, I consciously didn’t want to have this seeded throughout the comic. I wanted Summer to just be a femme, to be cold, but then the seed behind the plan moving forward NOW would finally trickle out. But it’s just the spark, the flame was something building from years of kindling.

You can read Standard’s responses a few ways. I take it in that stoic male way. Her words change nothing, and he wants her to know this. As it says, actions speak louder than words.

PAGE TWELVE

I take for granted how gorgeous Sami and Mark make everything – look at that night sky. This is why collaboration is amazing, because it’s take me half a page of words to get something that fantastic.

I love a silent panel, a moment of character contemplation, but I struggle to place them into pages where I feel they ‘fit.’ I always consider the weighting of the page, the balance, the symmetry. I can’t just have random panel 6 of an 8 panel grid be silent, I don’t like it, it doesn’t feel right. But here, Summer silent on the pier, Sami nails that idea of a sharp line down that’s silent, and then stacked to the side is words – that balances for me.

That idea that fed sharks won’t worry about someone in the water, or that they sleep at all, was something I wasn’t certain about. So I was going to research it, to keep authenticity, but then I realised this was Summer’s assumptions I was writing. If I could be unsure, so could she. It felt right that she wouldn’t quite know it all, or be wrong. So I googled nothing. It felt good. Your characters are allowed to be wrong.

The page ends with little flashback panels, and Mark nails the idea with the colour wash of those moments. I also wanted to have the present and those past shots loosely intertwine through a word or idea. Considering it would take her all night to paddle away on her board, and old Summer didn’t want to sleep was subtle, but it met my requirements for a linked scene change.

I’m just spoiling any fun to be had at all by this point, aren’t I?

PAGE THIRTEEN

And then the flashback dovetails neatly back into the present. Old Standard telling her she’s not alone, right as Present Standard arrives behind her is somewhere between unnerving and creepy. I hope.

By this stage of the comic, I’ll admit, I’m dragging things out. I knew plotting it, that Issue #3 had room to breathe, so I’m letting this whole water interplay take however long it takes. And considering how much ground we covered in the first two issues, it was nice to let something breathe.

Standard is shooting at her, and in flashback telling her it’s okay and they’ll work it out.

PAGE FOURTEEN

I like that Standard can swim so well with his stump hand, and the other holding a gun. I like that his gun fires in the water. But most of all, I like that he went swimming with that damn hat on.

It’s almost like a civil argument, but with bullets. In other words, it’s completely messed up, and it’s a look at how relationships go wrong, and toxic, and I know this part feels leaden but I like where it goes.

The flashback reveals Summer finally pregnant and it’s to Penny and that’s a kick to everyone involved.

PAGE FIFTEEN

Standard jumping out of the water here was a complete reference to the end of FRIDAY THE 13th.

And just the fact Standard isn’t shooting here, he isn’t even really trying to kill her, shows how much his actions were impotent rage [no pun intended]. It’s him totally unable to access, nor deal with, his emotions. It’s sad, as much as it is lame. But it’s all real, just through the hyper lens of a pulp crime tale.

Because Standard’s line to her shows this is all personal. This isn’t about the law anymore, this is a tantrum, the dying throes of a relationship gone supernova, and Standard has no idea what to do.

PAGE SIXTEEN

Summer screams “FUCK YOU!” and it’s the personification of her whole story. All this shit from Standard because of her actions and his perceptions of them. Damn, she’s no response to a man, she’s no other side of the coin. She has her own path to run, and she’s got her own desires. That he thinks he can control the situation and discussion is nothing but frustrating to her. As it should be.

Standard hits the board and it breaks open full of money and drugs. ‘This’ was the plan, load it all into a hollow board. ‘This’ was one of the first things I knew would feature in the story. The bag of drugs and cash gets taken, through force, and then gets hidden inside a board. To hell with what the physics of the situation might say, this was their plan. Now it’s ruined.

I probably didn’t make that completely clear. Maybe. I don’t know, show don’t tell, y’know?

PAGE SEVENTEEN

A moment for Summer to compose herself, a moment for Standard to go through whatever is happening below the water, and a moment for the reader to consider all of this cash in the water.

Remember, breathe.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

Standard reemerges, the shark dealt with, and he gets a final moment with Summer. All this bullshit and they get this moment, it’s perhaps overly lucid, but it builds to my favourite exchange in the book. Summer tells him she lost the baby – which says even more about her motivation to get moving now, doesn’t it? – and Standard’s dulled reaction is priceless. It’s dawning on him that there’s so much going on that he doesn’t get, he can’t continue to be that selfish, that myopic, he should have looked broader, been empathic, felt others. A great lesson, if perhaps too late for him.

PAGE NINETEEN

Standard hates on the Island, a personification of what they dislike about their own actions there, a Wicker Man into which they pour their mental bees.

The sharks fly in, Standard’s back is to them but he knows it, and both remain calm because this business right here is about them. Come what may, will come, but this is them connecting for the first time in a long time, and definitely for the last time.

It’s hard not to see Standard as sacrificing himself for her safety, which says a lot if that’s what he’s doing. Or maybe he’s just giving up, the Island wins, the Island and its shark enforcers.

But down Standard goes, down into the dark, true noir.

PAGE TWENTY

Standard maybe deserved this, or it was the best he could ever hope for. It’s certainly all he had energy left for. Poor bastard, poor witless bastard. And thus ends our tale. A tale of a man stitching himself up into his emotions so tightly that he’s basically embalming himself before death. A tale of a woman who needs to get away, and does it all to make it happen, and how is now so very close. A tale of darkness and terrible choices and the folly of man.

PAGE TWENTY ONE

Coda. Hannah at her desk, and she’s got all the stories – because from her perspective, how do you sort the wheat from the chaff?

I’ll be honest [refreshing after all the lies above?], I rewrote these final two pages many, many times. I had othertakes, followed other characters, watched other deaths. I had one with Summer in another place, another time. I watched Summer also die. I watched Hannah sit there, never writing anything, because she’ll never know. I took so many looks but I couldn’t figure it, which shit me to tears. I nearly always set out on a narrative with the coastline of the destination in the map. And I had the end of the final act, but not the coda, and this was where the meaning finds its resting place.

Every time I rewrote these pages, I hated myself a little more, and I kept leaving these pages on my ‘to do’ list.

Then, in deconstructing the story, and realising it’s very much Summer’s story, I came to some realisations. She shouldn’t die. She’s the femme, she has to win somehow, on some level. So I wanted her to live, but I didn’t want to tell you that, so I had to show you. Then the line about the sharks washing up dawned on me and it all made sense.

If sharks are washing up, they’re dead, so who killed them?

And who is inside them?

Hannah should get most of what she needs for her story, and we get to end on a splash of Summer in the water, unbeatable odds, and we get to nod and smile and know she manages it somehow. Because Summer Stanwyck can do anything, and more importantly, she will do anything.

Once I finally wrote ‘this’ sequence, I finally knew I had it stitched up. This made me happy.

PAGE TWENTY TWO

Which leaves us with the final page. I love an open ending. I love the ambiguity, especially when it dials up what the reader ‘hopes’ happened. If they project one way because of feelings, then that’s the complete victory for the tale and the team.

Again, this page took a long time to get to, through the redrafts, and the reworking of the previous page, but once we got it – we had it.

And that’s the complete tale. Whatever Summer gets up to next is her business, and we should respect her enough to leave her alone.

I’m thankful for everyone who stuck it out for 3 months on this title, or ordered the tpb landing this week [yep, this annotation is wicked late], thank you. Writing a comic is no joke, and making a comic is no joke, and having people read your comic is no joke. But having people dig the comic you make is better than any punchline in the world [not like when people hate your comic and you are the punchline].

Thank you, and good night.

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June 6, 2016

RKL Annotations – CHUM #2

CHUM #2 lands with a sickening thud as we scrape our characters through the middle of the story, taking all their promise, their possible glory, and ruining it by issue’s end so there’s nowhere left to go but down, further.

This little #surfnoir that could has gained some great attention, and I’m floored by the amazing readers and retailers and reviewers all getting some sand between their toes and enjoying the ride. I’ve also enjoyed watching the sunset love that is Mark Dale colours over Sami Kivela inks, with a soupcon of Nic J. Shaw letters, bringing this all to life. This issue is a haunting poem to the shit we do for desire.

For those new to the game, these annotations are a little look into what I was trying to do when I wrote this comic, and it’s also a place for me to praise my collaborators. In the end, I hope you get a little something out of it to make you smile, or give you thought for your own writing.

Also, if you haven’t sampled CHUM yet, here’s a free Digital Ashcan with covers, preview pages, and other art process stuff for you [LINK]

Okay, let’s talk #surfnoir!

COVER

Sami’s cover game is crazy. This white cover, putting Summer under the waves, the ever churning waves, is gorgeous, and heartbreaking, and everything I know I want to see on the stands. That blood trail, aw, yeah. Just a designed delight.

Sami has a long career ahead of him doing covers, and I hope they continue to be on my comics.

CHUM_Cover_02

VARIANT COVER

I mean, everyone already loves Joe Mulvey, surely, but this cover will make you L O V E him. Hardcore. His inks on this are so crisp, the idea and composition are so eye-catching, and then he brought in Jules Rivera on colours and she took this to a whole new level. That red/orange [I don’t know other colour names, sorry] sky is so inviting, and the water pops, and it all plays with the logo, and this is just one of my favourite pieces of art to look at. The colours make me think this’ll be a fun one, but then you see what’s going on – with that subtle splash of Summer’s hair down the bottom dragging it all together, and it’s beautiful. Truly beautiful.

CHUM_Cover_02B

PAGE ONE

Bobby Level got his name because of Brian Level – RKL: stealin’ names from Twitter since about 2014.

Though look at that first panel. Soak it up. Now imagine you are tasked with hiding that behind your stupid words. Getting the lettering draft ready for this script was arduous because I was staring down Kivela/Dale glory and just trying to hide.

And this story Summer tells is something an old girlfriend once told to me that a friend of hers did. She told me that in 2001 and here it is on the page. Because time is a flat circle, and all conversations are narrative fuel for writers.

I really went back and forth about whether to have Summer’s sister’s dialogue come out of the phone, but in the end I didn’t want to clutter, and I assume the reader can keep up, so this is how it plays out.

But the point of this page is, who is Summer? Issue #1 was a whirlwind, so I wanted to slow down and just unpack Summer for a second. It’s not much, but it’s also a whole hell of a lot. She explicitly states it: “I am what I am, never what they think I am.”

I’m glad to have started the story putting Summer front and centre, and we don’t know what she’s doing, right before …

PAGE TWO

I love the way Sami takes my script and interprets it structurally. Those tiled panels are not called for by my but he throws it in there, leading the eye across, down, and right, so we then bounce back down-left to pass through Summer and into the sharks. That’s the kind of thing I’d never script visually myself, but it works so well.

Though that sunset against Summer’s line of “Where am I going?” is so very specific for me. The sunset the horizon, is the endless possibility of the world. It’s this little panel that says the world is about to completely open up for Summer, but first she’s gotta take care of some shit – like taking the chopped up body of Swampy and disposing of it.

I also have to take a second to point out just how amazing Mark Dale’s colours are – that rusty water is just an insane choice and is so glorious. It emotes oppression, it represents the place Summer needs to leave. I love it.

PAGE THREE

Look at that bird right up front in that top panel, look at it. What a choice – and I feel like your eye runs across the bird’s wingspan in a straight line to the right, and then you duck down to the bottom left by following the diagonal line of its undercarriage. Sami, killing it as always.

I also really dig the way Sami tiled the panels to show the pieces of Swampy washing up on the beach.

Did anyone pick up on the fact John Marsh is called Swampy when he’s undercover? Marsh —> Swampy. Anyone? Bueller?

The bottom half of the page is a great moment between Standard and Hannah. She’s stuck straight into him, and he just walks off silently. I had something scripted for him to say, but when the art rolled in I just cut his line, the walk off is perfect to continue to show how these two operate.

PAGE FOUR

This page exists because I wanted Gus to come back and instantly know he’d fucked up, he’d hitched his wagon to the wrong horse. So Summer and Gus get down to it, and I rewrote the shit out of this page. I wanted it clear Summer has the power in this scene, she has complete agency and control, and I wanted it to give us a look into Summer a little bit. Every page needs to earn its keep, and every page needs to do something, so I rewrote this page until it was more than just set up for the next page. Summer lays herself a little more bare for us, and we also see Penny for the broken man he is. I didn’t want him to be a guy in control of himself, he has to know that’s he’s mentally problematic due to the drugs, and so we seed this here in a real moment that Summer just completely shrugs off.

PAGE FIVE

This is a slow page, three panels don’t happen a lot for me, but I wanted this whole lead up to Gus to really mean something. I wanted to give the emotion the space on the page I felt it deserved. If I respected Gus’ feelings then perhaps you’d feel and understand them, too.

I like the lines here, because you might think that it’s her and Penny ending so her and Gus can begin, and that’s certainly how he sees it, but this is really her not caring that Gus was obviously planning to come back and she didn’t respect that, or him, and so she needed that relationship to end now. Gus had served his purpose, he was barely a piece on her board anymore. There’s dual purpose to the page, and anytime you can do that with meaning, I say run to daylight, Barry.

I also ran this page past three females I know – some writers, some readers – and asked their thoughts because I didn’t want to write her sexuality as hollow, or salacious, or anything else that I possibly wouldn’t see but a female reader would.

PAGE SIX

Here, Summer flat out lies to Penny, tells him what he wants to hear and it’s the polar opposite of what she thinks/feels. And it shows a little in her face.

Then we get to the bottom and Gus echoes the line – because I can’t help myself. It’s a trick I attribute to BKV in my head, not because he invented it, but because he’s done it so much in front of me that he’s the first connection I make to it, and it’s a call back where the same thing is used again but with a different meaning. I know, I’m being obvious in explaining this, and derivative in using it, but…yeah :]

Also, I’d totally cut her “GAH!” line if I had my time over again.

PAGE SEVEN

First of all, I love how Nic’s caption tips just behind Gus’ back, that’s awesome. I love the way Nic layers the page sometimes.

Okay, so this page – it’s a woman being attacked, and it’s tense for a few panels, and that’s the point, because we don’t hold the tension, we release on that final panel as we take in Summer’s reaction. This isn’t an exact part of the plan, but she’s powerful enough to roll with it and work it. She’s certainly not worried. I could only write this scene knowing she was like that and could and would handle herself.

PAGE EIGHT

That moment where Summer hears the footsteps and instantly steers the scene into a different place where she can own it is a pure summation of Summer in my mind. She is born from Linda Fiorentino in John Dahl’s THE LAST SEDUCTION. She is malleable, but she is never what you think she is.

The black balloons as she just slices into Gus, and then the four panels for the one line and how Sami changes Gus’ face across them. That’s all comic synergy from the entire team.

PAGE NINE

I gave Standard this full page, a build up page, because he’s the hero of the story and we need to see inside his head, and marvel at his reaction time, and also ensure he sees the slap, so when we turn the page…

PAGE TEN

Summer has already taken care of things. In fact, she timed it perfectly so Standard would see the slap but she could take care of business before he got in the room.

And yet Standard has the temerity to say he’ll be the one taking care of it. Yeah, that look on Summer’s face is her way of saying “Bitch, please!” right behind his back.

PAGE ELEVEN

Here, we give Hannah a page because she’s not been unpacked a great deal yet. We’ve only gotten to know her through how she relates and reacts to others on the island, so I did want to delve into her – especially because of how she plays out in #3 :]

This isn’t the most EXCITING page, but it’s a brief moment and it builds to the page turn. It was a pain in the ass to write, and it’s not perfect, but I like that everyone on the island is getting something for their time.

PAGE TWELVE

That look on Summer’s face, even in such a small panel, is perfect/

The way the bottom panels thread together, each being part of a larger image of the woman on her side, was something I scripted and Sami just smashed out of the park. I wasn’t even sure I was making sense, but he thumbed it out perfectly, and it plays well here because it’s subtle but it’s definitely there. Especially with Summer’s head breaking through and over Hannah’s panel, giving that sense of layering.

I also put in a line where Hannah acknowledges all of the Gus stuff so we can then timestamp this scene because I didn’t use any non-diegetic captions to explain how much time skipped after the whole scene before this.

And everything in between was just housekeeping, the hospital for Gus, the paperwork for Summer and Standard, all that, who cares? I zoomed on, because the genre demands it.

PAGE THIRTEEN

This scene was about pushing Summer into that corner again, but this time she knows she’s leaving the island, so she’s reacting more openly. I mean, this is a stupid move. It’s a move that has to be part of an endgame.

The panel in the reflection of the sunglasses, yeah, you know I’m not smart enough to concoct that level of game myself. Nor, seriously, would I probably ask an artist to do that. It’s so specific and something I wouldn’t want to force on someone else.

PAGE FOURTEEN

I love the tilt on this panel, the way the horizon doesn’t match the car. Then you put Mark’s colours into that sky and it’s just the best, completely moody.

The whole “They would leave when they were expecting // But all they could expect was heartbreak,” was probably the closest I came to breaking the purple prose in half. It’s so close to being on the nose, but it’s also exactly what is true for the scene.

PAGE FIFTEEN

I love a good splash with a novel written on it. There’s something about that juxtaposition that relays feelings and thoughts well – the time on the page stands still, but the minds are whirring.

Then, and I bang on about this, you get that Kivela/Dale marriage on the page and it’s just jaw-dropping. And it plays perfectly into the duality between Summer and Standard. She got a small horizon, a quest of infinite possibilities laying out in front of her. He gets this wide horizon, an endless ocean, and it looks like everything, but it’s just all the things he won’t have. This is him looking, trapped, and knowing he’s being encased in amber.

Shout out to Ryan Ferrier’s caption placement on here, building to that small last one.

PAGE SIXTEEN

This back and forth between them is frosty. She’s trying to big out – drugs and money in tow – and not get caught with Hannah assaulted elsewhere. He’s drunk and just assuming she’s being her usual cranky self towards him.

This page is continued interaction and character interplay for them, but it’s also cranked up a bit so when she turns, trying another tactic, it stands out.

PAGE SEVENTEEN

Then Standard has this big conversation with himself, all the stuff rattling in his head since he got drunk in front of the horizon he’ll never touch, and he wants to vent it on someone. So he lets it out, and Summer lets him. She gets out of the way, she’s obviously used to dealing with this bullshit from him. I find her reaction here – to be silent and absent – says so much about them both and their relationship.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

We cut to a 3 panel page, something I don’t usually do, because it’s a three pronged turn.

Panel One – Standard gives up.

Panel Two – Standard sees the board, and the narrative shifts into the final reel.

Panel Three – Summer isn’t going to get off as easy as she hoped. So, what’s she going to do about it?

And look at Summer’s face, and that burnt orange background, this is the moment Standard fucks himself over. Poor bastard.

PAGE NINETEEN

In the first panel, Summer is so unemotional, she’s detached from the story she’s remembering. But in the second panel she sells it with sexuality. She can run diversion on a drunk guy long enough, you’d assume.

Then Standard gets his own burnt orange moment to stare, and it’s with final clarity. He’s no fool and he knows this isn’t about anything she’s saying it’s about.

PAGE TWENTY

I love the cross panel handcuff reveal. I actually did script that – a rarity for a visual moment.

Then Standard starts babbling, like a rat scurrying after the scent of cheese. He’s knows he’s supposed to want it, and he used to be able to get it quite simply. But now he’s old, and drunk, and confused half the time. He rarely even gets a whiff and yet here he is doused in the fumes. He needs a moment to consider what it all means.

PAGE TWENTY ONE

A moment of truth from Summer. That’s the moment you should be scared.

It’s a diversion tactic that works better than sex.

And as for the words on the page – I like the “My apology isn’t for what I’ve done…” set up, but it feels a little played. Whereas the “You let a girl like Summer too close…and she’ll break your heart.” page turn is something I feel I can have more ownership over. It’s a little bit sad, even though you know people in these stories are built up to sustain damage at every turn.

PAGE TWENTY TWO

This moment feels like a good issue break. You don’t know who lives or die, and you have Summer handcuffed to her victim, and you know it’s all got one issue to resolve itself. I hope this leaves you really stewing on what happens Page 1, Issue #3, because this is exactly the point. I know every issue should propel you to the next issue, that’s Obvious 101, but this time I think I did it well.

BACK MATTER

I wrote about my Peach Pit noir fic, “90210h, God, He’s Dead!” and I’ll never write anything as good again.

Then I point you towards THE LAST SEDUCTION. Man, that movie did weird things to Teen Ryan’s dna.

Then turn up the surf noir jams as peeps sub in for 6 words at a time. Glorious. And this is a good bunch. But I think I’ll single out Shaun Manning for my hatred because his is so good: “Tendrils of seaweed and of leviathans.”

I love that. So emotive, uses two great words, and chunks it up using ‘of’ twice, but totally to effect. Totally how it should be done.

Two issues in and two thirds of the story down. We hope it’s been a rocket ride and you are ready for the crash landing.

If you got this issue, thanks, if you dug it, aw shucks, and if you wanna stick around for the end then we’d be mighty happy to have you..

Sami produced a cover for #3 that’s been my phone lock screen for a while now:

CHUM_Cover_03

And the Justin Greenwood variant is gruesome and so fantastic.

CHUM_Cover_03B

We shall catch you all for our final spiral down in 30, until then, feel free to spread the word. Indie titles rely on word of mouth, and one red hot tweet don’t cost nothing but a smile.

Thanks for taking a dip, see you again some time.

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April 14, 2016

RKL Annotations – NEGATIVE SPACE #4

With #4 hitting the stands, NEGATIVE SPACE comes to a close and this is an amazing and emotional place to stand. This story means the world to us all here at Kindred HQ, it marks the second full creator-owned miniseries I have completed, and it is a work I am crazy proud of in all ways.

It’s been a rocky ride, it’s taken us a while, but in the end we stand by every single page, every single word, and we’ve created a story we think means something. And we hope it means something to all of you.

I hope you read this issue twice, I hope you’ve picked it apart, because now it’s my turn and we’ll leave no stone unturned. This post is all about how we made a book about unrelenting emotion and kept ourselves from falling into the void. We hope it helps you in some respect.

negative space 4COVER

On more than one occasion I’ve seen someone online recoil from this image. It is pretty visceral, I’ll admit, and that reflects the inside of the comic quite perfectly, really. This was yet another cover image that was easy to select out of the thumbnail options. The roundtable of emails very quickly sounded off that this was the one to go for.

For me, it’s the little fact of all those little Evorah in his braingoop that gets me, plus the circular arc of the blow out zone. And the END on his chest. I had considered, very originally, having a different slogan on his white T every time you saw him but that got tossed out at some stage, sadly.

PAGE 1

I didn’t script that Owen should use the original Cover #1 Evorah for this splash but he totally did and it’s totally rad. As are the little Evorahlings clinging to its back.

That line, “Everything goes back in the box,” was something I stole from a podcast, or a TED talk, and it just stuck with me right before it was time to write this issue and it held so true for this issue, and so many stories, and life.

PAGE 2

Having a stolen line from a podcast suddenly morph into this opening monologue was fun to have happen. This idea, this mantra, that everything’s okay because in the end, win or lose, it’s going to just go back the same, and to flip it into this depressive and scary mantra was fun to explore. Because sometimes it’s the words you use to help that hurt the most. Parenting taught me that shit real quick.

Having this page show us the real outcome from Guy’s emotional outburst last issue was a cold hard open I wanted to do. It also meant we didn’t have to show it all go down, because the output is nasty enough on its own. I’d actually wager some people shouldn’t linger too long, I know panel 2 kicks me but it’s actually the consideration of panel 3 that really gets to me.

Writing another vertical panel for Owen because he nails that shit hard every time, and sneaking in a ‘stop’ bridge from caption to dialogue like it’s smooth though I’m actually no doubt transition sandpaper.

PAGE 3

Guy starts this page so gung ho, so full of certainty, he’s really engaged and active, so of course I’m going to flip it by page bottom and seed doubt which we will capitalise on in this sequence. And Rick slips into snake oil salesman mode far too easily.

PAGE 4

This is Rick’s page. Because he’s a massive douche bag, a complete asshole, but he’s also 100% right. This is his moment and we finally peer through the bravado curtain and see the man pulling the strings when he says, “If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry.”

It’s the coping mechanism of the damned because it’s the person who’s either given up or been shown there’s no hope.

PAGE 5

This is kind of me taking a shot at armchair extremists, if you think about it. Even though I am one half the time. But it’s that idea that you can’t go off half-cocked about an idea you only know a quarter of the information about. You see people do it all the time, they take some nuggets of info out of context, they blow up about it, and then they wonder why nothing has changed because in reality they were trying to move an ocean liner by throwing a pebble in the water and hoping the ripple would carry them onto a new course. In short, they’re fools.

And here we see Rick isn’t really the answer, but neither was Guy. Not like we wanted him to be.

PAGE 6

Basically, this is just Owen cutting loose. He’s having fun destroying the world and I got out of his way.

My favourite little moment here is in the bottom right we have an Evorah throwing a person up into the mouth of the crazy-ass thing in the water. It’s like they have a system for doing this.

PAGE 7

In which Guy tries to cling to these new beliefs and has them shot down by more information coming to light – in flashback mode. How good are Owen’s flashback colours?

Also, I wanted to cut into the flashback here, in this page, so the transition wasn’t split between pages, and also so we get that establishing shot here, now, and can launch into the business in the next page.

PAGE 8

This sequence took me ages to write. I knew the idea I had to get across but I also didn’t want to spend a big amount of pages in this final issue looking back. But it was important info to obfuscate so far because we didn’t want Guy, or you intrepid reader, to know about this side of Kindred yet.

And, yes, this sequence is totally just JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING with an Evorah on a boat.

PAGE 9

There were initially a lot more captions here, spelling things out, but I got the page in and realised I was overselling and overexplaining things. You got the idea and the feeling and that is all you need.

And I think that final panel was a splash page at some stage in the edits. And it would have been glorious, but it got shuffled as we did right by some of the last pages of the book, from memory.

PAGE 10

And so we enter the emotional echo chamber and it’s all winding into the final act from this page on.

That final panel of Guy’s eyes all black, oof, man, that’s Owen just putting on yet another clinic.

PAGE 11

This page is simple, Guy doesn’t move, it’s a slow down if you read it right. It’s realisation sinking in, it’s the end of the line, and it would have been easy to overwrite but instead I found the one word I needed to bring Guy’s thoughts all together.

Giving that much space, and negative space [hai-yooooo], for the final image here of two guys and one word and all those emotions was a nice beat to reach. I could have done this page in a 25 grid, paused every movement, every breath, but I’m happy with how this comes out. We never let panels have this much space in this book so I think readers will take it for the open and empty air it is due to the rarity of such a layout.

PAGES 12

Keep rereading this page, start on Guy’s face repeatedly, come back to it, feel its emotion, then read the page, then go back to his face, read the emotion now knowing that he knows what he’s about to do, now read the page, now go back, and feel that emotion again, because you know he’d be living it a million times over before it happened.

That Rick’s face is right below Guy’s is amazing. The juxtaposition of emotions, the mirror between the two, this was not in my script at all. Damn, look at all that white in Rick’s eyes. And just consider, we know Rick now, we know he doesn’t deserve it, but by this stage if you were Guy would you feel any need for clemency?

That’s what I thought.

PAGE 13

Guy asking for help and Briggs jumping straight to his aid, yeah, I’m messing with you. She’s been quiet the whole time, waiting, and she just seems so lovely, right? So I give her this final moment with Guy, this beautifully easy exchange, because she knows she’s won, Guy will go in the echo chamber, and she’s not like Rick, she handles this totally differently. She plays it smart.

Then the moment between Guy and Beta. Man, that took a while to write. I had to sit back, and consider what someone like Guy could and would say in this moment. I kept it short, because of course he does, and I gave him complete honesty. He’s wishing for Beta something he doesn’t understand and really doesn’t even believe in. What words would not ring hollow? Well, the truth; he honestly does wish the best for Beta.

PAGE 14

Guy disappears to wallow in his doubts and fears and right outside his room they come true – the world is a piece of spherical shit.

When you control a story, and you get to decide what happens, well, I could have given Beta a getaway, I could have allowed her a nice ending.

But, honestly, where’s the truth in that?

PAGE 15

“I begin to weep.” was a line that came in the final draft, maybe even after letters. It works because it’s not belaboured, it’s short, and it speaks to the heart of the matter. No amount of purple prose about Guy’s feelings and depression were going to be more effective here to showcase the fact he’s a weapon now, and a damn fine one.

But we want to leave you, dear reader, hanging for one final moment, because you can’t be certain it’ll all work. Kindred are assholes, they could be gaming something, so we hook you along with a family man in a car because if you’ve seen the movie of THE MIST then you know this is shorthand for ghastly feels, and…

PAGE 16

…the day is saved. Or, one slice of it, because it’s the new world, same as it ever was, and the queen is dead, long live the queen.

You might have a good day, but I guarantee twenty others don’t, and the scales probably tip away from you daily, except on the days where you tip with the scales.

We see victory, Guy knows it’s the beginning of a long defeat.

PAGE 17

And when all you feel is defeat, but you can’t give up because you already did, which is why you are defeated. Guy is trapped in a purgatory of depression and can you imagine anything worse?

PAGE 18

One year later and it’s all sparkly roses and you know you can’t believe that shit. Hell, the interview is even on Fox, man, do not believe this shit.

We start our ending on a TV interview because that’s always great exposition fuel.

PAGE 19

As you consider this page, I do want you to think about that ‘one year later’ caption and truly consider living in your own emotional filth for a full year, no distractions. Now look at Briggs and how beautiful and happy she is.

This page wants you to know you are alone in your problem.

PAGE 20

And this page wants you to know what it feels like to be alone with that problem.

Guy treats his body like shit, he orders Pay Days which he loves and yet then doesn’t eat them, because that’s even harder on his mind. He endures, because it’s not living, and it’s not giving up, and it’s not easy. It’s such a loaded word. Loaded with the pain of cutting himself, of reading only the most depressing fiction, of listening to the music that guts him [really, music that guts ME because it’s so tied to my history], and then finally writing a thousand suicide notes. And knowing they will go nowhere.

Though, and I didn’t realise this until this week, but one of those notes just says “Run away with me” 3 times. Guy is in there reliving his last moment of attempting to be happy. The moment with Woody he never took – and, yes, you’ll notice Woody doesn’t turn up here. In the end, I wanted to leave him off the table for us as well as Guy because now Guy has no idea what happened to Woody, and he never will, and that’s going to eat him up inside.

PAGE 21

And now Guy is part of the machine, a big depressed cog, and he’s treated as such. It’s the worst.

Briggs puts on her glasses, like some kind of ‘deal with it’ meme, and she gets to live in a world where this sunrise touches her face, and it means something to her, and she’s the new Rick, always was. She serves a purpose and doubles down to believe in it because that’s what you do.

That what we all do, every day.

PAGE 22

Firstly, lemme say “And the man who wants to end his life suddenly feels immortal” is the pull quote for this book that you can’t use because of the spoilers it brings, but it summates this conclusion perfectly for me. THIS is suicide noir, this is the worst thing I could imagine doing to a suicidally depressed person, putting them in emotional stasis to dwell on it.

Guy is defeated, he’s done, there’s nothing he or anyone can do. Except for the tone with which you read his final lines. Are they sad, are they acquiescing to the darkness in him, or are they challenging? Is he staging one last power surge to break the cycle?

And if he is, then why’d you close the book trapping him inside that darkness forever more? Why are you complicit in boxing him away, why does that black page, the endless sea, face him eternally now?

I pushed hard for this extra page – the black page is Page 23 – but I wanted it for just this reason – it adds a layer to the narrative. Poor Guy, I hope you all think of him often, and consider him forevermore.

—

And that’s a wrap. Man, I don’t wanna go. But all good stories have an ending, and I am telling you this tale is done. There’s no resurgence for a sequel, there’s nothing more to be said. The world goes on, but Guy doesn’t, and he forever won’t.

I can’t thank Owen Gieni enough for bringing this gonzo emotional claptrap to life, and so beautifully and haunting. This book is Owen’s calling car for what he can do, and boy can he do it well.

I really want to thank Ryan Ferrier for making every page look gorgeous, every SFX feel considered, and really bringing this book together. And then there’s Daniel Chabon who took this story, this idea, and whipped it into the insanity you just finished here. I can’t stress the importance he had on shaping this story with me, on guiding me, and on making this as good as it is. This team was an amazing heist crew and I think we got away with it all.

But in the end, thanks to you, fearless readers, for stepping out, telling your friends, linking reviews, and making this book a huge emotional success for me. It’s been a wild ride and I hate to step off but I’m sure we’ll all meet again sometime soon. I hope.

If you haven’t convinced a friend yet, give them one hard push for the NEGATIVE SPACE tpb in stores the 6th of July, or just start stocking up for Xmas if you want to really bring the tone down on that sad ass meat coma Boxing Day. Ask your Local Comic Shop for details on making sure they get you one.

And remember: if you are suffering from depression, please hit THIS LINK to see the access you have to support. No one has to suffer alone. We are here to help you.

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February 1, 2016

RKL Annotations – NEGATIVE SPACE #3

NEGATIVE SPACE #3 is late. There’s no two ways about it. It’s a new year and a whole month in and you are only just getting your mitts on this beast. We are all crazy proud of this issue so we thank you for holding on and dipping back into the waters with us.

negative space 3Owen Gieni continues to drop serious A-levels of game and heat in this book so it’s an eyeball feast, and Ryan Ferrier is the letter we need AND the one we deserve.

This is a process post where I try to open up how we broke the eggs for this omelette but it usually devolves into my just gushing about Owen’s work. I hope my weepy collaborator love helps you somehow, let’s dive in.

COVER

Love the fact this is so crucial to the issue/story and yet doesn’t really exactly spoil what’s going on.

Also love the crazy violence peppered throughout the whole thing. We went from one very central image for #1, to a smattering of subtle word things for #2, and now this is just a visual buffet the more you dive into it.

PAGE 1

There’s a joke on this page, you see it, right?

It’s not even that good a joke but I really just wanted to keep it because it’s beyond absurd and so it’s a hint to the whole tone of this thing. Even when it’s serious, and bad, there is time for this moment to occur.

It’s also totally a SAGA style opening splash, no bones about it. Complete swipe.

PAGE 2

Beta makes with some serious James Remar info-dumping to open the issue. Womp.

Poor Guy, so sad, so committed to talking out loud to himself to keep us all on track.

PAGE 3

The way Owen handles Guy’s expression completely sells this whole ‘using a tentacle on a mask to mimic putting a hand up to someone’s mouth to shut them up’ moment.

Pretty much just every way Owen handles this weird landscape and the Evorah in it proves he’s worth more to this book than I ever was or could be. He’s playing with a lot of pieces and he’s making it all work like crazy.

PAGE 4

I’m worried this sequence is plodding but I’m realising it’s just metered tone when taken as part of the whole story. This is my ebb before we get to some serious flow right into the finale of this issue.

All of this is set up for what happens ahead and so I’m glad I took my time here.

Also, look at Beta turn nasty and almost burnt in her blackness in that middle panel. That’s some colour as storytelling stuff going on right there.

PAGE 5

You should get a sense of just how pig-headed and stupid and doomed Guy is from this page and how he handles himself here.

The way this random Evorah shuffles into the room but then doesn’t quite see Guy yet is so superbly well placed and handled by Owen. This sequence was hard to write, and I thought I might’ve blown it, but he really brings it all home. That transition between the final two panels really sells the split second moment Guy has before he’s completely screwed.

Also, that child’s skeleton on the table is totally all Owen. Blame. Him.

PAGE 6

Pretty certain that first panel of Guy wrapped up by some tentacles is completely all Owen and it’s so damn effective. Makes it look like he’s been stitched up, but then you see it’s a showdown…and he’s being saved by Beta. The way she holds him down and leans right over the table is just pure perfect Gieni body language. This is masterful in every sense of the term.

Also, take in them Ryan Ferrier scribble balloons. So ace.

PAGE 7

Beta is so confident, so forward, and she’s literally dragging Guy into it all. And there’s no small metaphor that he’s being taken into and down an unknown black whole.

And that bottom panel of Guy swimming forward to this unknown is one of my favourite panels of this book. If ever there was a Depressionaut, this is he.

PAGE 8

Guy is lost, Beta is too quick, and we all quickly see just where this is all taking place and that the unknown is a scary and ridiculous place.

It’s also so cool to know that when you ask Owen for bioluminescent bubbles then it is exactly what you are going to get. This is an example of writing right into the strength of the artist.

PAGE 9

This is the false beat before the real BOOM.

Wish I could’ve tweaked the dialogue some more on this page, it just doesn’t pop as much as the others.

PAGE 10

This, man, THIS is just far too much fun. Owen obviously throws himself headlong into every square inch of this book and this is wild proof right here. Look at this thing? I had an idea, linked to a YouTube clip, I gave some suggestions, but this right here is beyond my brain. Look into those eyes and despair. Owen Gieni just drained your soul.

PAGE 11

This turning point for Guy was one of those sad gags I had to throw at him. The fact he’s about to die and instead one of these giants is going to just suck on him like an emotional everlasting gobstopper and could you imagine anything worse in your life? This is why my characters would gang up and mutilate me if they ever gained independent sentience, I’m no good for them at all.

Owen took that Evorah hugging panel and just gave it everything, didn’t he? This one panel is just pure high art right in the middle of the page. And if you look closer, you’ll see Beta struggling to open it up and her body language is again on point.

PAGES 12 + 13

Double page spread klaxoooon.

An emotional vista, and I wasn’t sure it’d work, but then Owen just comes along and slays it like it ain’t no thing. It’s almost like a picture book for just a moment, a dark, haunting, terrible book for kids about why life sucks. From top left to the promise of life to the bottom right and the ‘real’ promise of life, the only promise it can offer, that it ends, and this page actually gets to me a little.

Though I didn’t realise how well this spread would go down. The reviews loved the shit out of this and I thank them for it.

There’s even this weird little colour scheme thing going on that makes me think/feel INSIDE OUT a little and that’s just too damn fine.

I’m also quietly proud of the device at the bottom where we see the happiness bomb charge and it’s exposition but silent. You still have to piece all of this together, keep thinking, keep up.

PAGE 14

The layout on this page is nuts, the colours, the way we move through the motions. Guy smiling is weird enough but this cropped image of him makes it even more ghastly, a rictus of depression.

I love Guy’s body language as he tears into this beast, he’s so victorious. And the colour draining from the Evorah as they change emotion is something Owen just completely nails.

As for the echo of lines in this page from the last, where I flip the meaning, yeah, you know I’m quietly proud of that – though not silent, I’m still gonna tell you.

PAGE 15

This is a page of complex human emotions. I want you to still hold them, feel them, and yet still not fully understand. Because who actually understands human emotions, we are insane, erratic, flippant. That’s what makes us so beautiful sometimes, and it’s really something I want to try and write.

PAGE 16

“This is how angels must feel.” is one of those lines I wasn’t sure would get through but I knew I’d fight for it, though this was completely unnecessary. It stayed through every draft, never questioned, and I’m still really glad with how simply it sums up Guy’s feelings as he essentially annihilates a bunch of creatures.

And how good does that annihilation look against that green? Bloody ripper.

PAGE 17

War is hell and we all lose. Guy’s boot hitting that dead Evorah shell kinda says it all for me. And that Ferrier SFX in there is perfect to make you feel the split second moment.

Beta’s dialogue is so much fun to write, but even more fun against the droll sensibility of Guy. He never reacts or gives anything away and tone doesn’t play on the page against a back and forth so you need to bring a lot to it but if you do, and you get it right, then these two are so fun against each other. Beta never seems to pic up on Guy’s feelings, which is hilarious for an emotionally charged species. I guess happiness drowns and blinds you – which is completely true, btw.

PAGE 18

Owen’s layout on this coda page for the battle just makes me smile. It’s all a pause, a breath, and it leads into that final beat of the issue. These pages are important because you get interplay, you get set up, and you get to slingshot into what comes next.

PAGE 19

Because of course Rick is a mansplainer. And these two are just as much fun to write as the Beta/Guy pairing and that’s been really fun in this book, figuring out how to pair characters up to bring out the best in them all.

This page is filler, kinda, but it’s insight, and it’s also a pause, but it works because we gave Guy/Beta the pause so now Rick/Briggs get one too right before the end. I like getting these pages when I can, to let the characters play and shine. You can’t always show them within the action so you find the beats.

It was Owen who brought the sight gag of Briggs trying to pry Rick off the tablet, which I think plays well to show how absurd this all is. It’s weighted, it’s dark, it all means something, but it’s also batguano absurd, which you have to be fine with.

PAGE 20

It was important for me to have Guy stand up to Rick, and Kindred, verbally first. This isn’t a sneak attack, this is him really stepping up and doing what he is doing. Cutting Rick off came as a happy accident because I couldn’t think of a good Bond villain entrance for him but then realised Guy wouldn’t stand for it anyway, he’s got to do what’s coming.

PAGE 21

And here comes the realisation for us all, the reason Guy survived down there was because the thought of dying just filled him with such goddamn happiness. There was glee in the thought he was so close to the end. It kinda backfired when it killed the creature that would kill him and so then he’s actually not going to die, but it’s what awakens in him the knowledge of how all this emotional malarkey works, and he’s going to go out with a bang, and that kind of agency is important in a suicidal person. It certainly is in Guy.

It was always really important to me that even at this stage of the tale we have Guy still be suicidal. He’s not cured, this isn’t him fixed. And then we have him use this weird happiness over his own death emotional whirlpool to attack Kindred. This is where his arc is going.

PAGE 22

This is just a page to behold. I was initially going to hold it over until the next issue but Chabon convinced me to have it here and he’s so right, it’s a killer ending. Because – and I cough out some clickbait – you won’t believe what happens next. We still have one full issue to make all of this count, and count it all certainly does.

But, again, look at this page. Just…thank you Messers Gieni+Ferrier.

And this is where the final chickens come home to roost for everyone. One. Issue. To. Go.

—

Thank you for getting down on this issue. I hope you dug it. Though if you’re reading this I doubt you’re the kind to go this far into hate-reading a comic. I guess.

Indie comics live and die on readers caring, so thank you for taking the time. It means the world to all of us at NEGATIVE SPACE HQ. Stick around, see what drops next month to wrap all of these shenanigans up, which I guarantee you is a worthy and gut-kicking finale to the whole mess.

And remember: if you are suffering from depression, please hit THIS LINK to see the access you have to support. No one has to suffer alone. We are here to help you.

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January 26, 2016

RKL Annotations – LITTLE MAN IN THE BIG HOUSE: BIG

Read/download LITTLE MAN IN THE BIG HOUSE: BIG free at Challenger Comics – LINK

I came up with the initial conceit for this book way back in 2012. I wanted to do a story set in a prison for supercriminals, cape villains, and that was where I started. From there, I spent a while breaking story. I thought this would be a mini. I had my lead character, Macbeth, and I knew he’d have the power to shrink, but from there I kept following dead end alleys. I had good set pieces, one ripping action sequence, but the story never clicked for me.

So I eventually shelved it.

If it isn’t working, dump it. After a while – and this was a while – you are throwing good money after bad. So the story got shelved but the idea continued to percolate – as ideas tend to do.

A little while later, it came to me – run this character, this setting through some short stories. It all seemed so right and in quick succession two scripts poured out of me. The first one, Macbeth’s first day on the job, is the one you’ve probably just read. And I must say that all of this in a short does make much more sense to me. It gets to be more flippant, more action packed, more grindhouse, more fun. I don’t generally write ‘action’ stories [my wheelhouse is generally the weepy fatherhood emotional world] and so to just let loose and write a shower brawl and NOT worry about the symbolism of it was pretty bloody ace. And wait’ll you see the fight in the second story, being illustrated right now.

So despite this not being a ‘deep’ comic [and, well, maybe because it is just some sweet sweet action], I thought it could be interesting to delve into how this comic was made and what we were trying to do. We hope you dig.

Screenshot 2016-01-22 14.09.39COVER

Eric Zawadzki is a cover god. I went to him as my very first choice to cover this story and he did not disappoint in the slightest. He actually came through with a different thumbnail, and it was pretty good, but being the guy he is he wasn’t happy enough with it so he retooled and then this came out. And isn’t it gorgeous?

We get a sense of Macbeth’s look, as well as his size, and the location, all in this moody image that represents it all so damn well. I also think those tentacles might have been a post-thumb addition and Eric was totally right about it.

This is how to launch a new character/story/world – thank you, Eric.

CREDITS PAGE

Look at Ferrier’s design on this page! Look at this little Macbeth upside down in the top right. This is so keeping in tone with everything I want this project to be, Ferrier is a genius.

PAGE 1

Opening silent splash was a bold choice, but once this page came in I shuffled the captions and words and knew this was how it had to be. It’s such a great image from Paul, and if you consider it launching out at you, no context, no sound, no idea, then I hope it’s an attention grabber. And then we fly into the meat of things.

I wrote and rewrote this page dozens of times. No hyperbole, dozens of times. Getting the balance right – I like the left and the right of my page to often hold balance. It feel it tempers out the ideas and pacing better. I probably couldn’t explain it without sounding crazy.

Then I kept rewiring the ending because initially Macbeth’s family die and this propels him to the new job and as Paul’s art came in I realised how goddamn dumb this was. How terrible, really. Why did he need this motivation to make this change? It was lazy, shitty, lazy writing. So I changed it to be the – somewhat better – idea that he was worried his superheroics might put a target on his family’s head and so he’s avoiding that possible outcome by getting out of the game.

This is probably just as bad but I couldn’t introduce his wife and daughter on Page One and have them dead by the last panel of that page. It wasn’t needed so I made the change. i hope it works. I know I want to use his family in future stories so that should work.

PAGE 2

That establishing shot is so gorgeous.

Flinders is a figure from Australian history. I love using Australian names in my work.

I also rewrote the first two panel’s worth of captions a tonne of times before getting them just right, and I’m finally happy with what I have – which often isn’t the outcome of too much rewriting, sometimes then you are never happy.

The visual of Macbeth is pretty well based of my brother, a prison guard in far north Australia. Short, stocky, heavy, imposing, so it was cool to have a character come from him in this respect.

The Warden is our James Remar with the expos dump, but at least he gets to say “The situation’s shape, indeed, is a pear.” which in my mind makes him sound exactly like Nixon.

PAGE 3

This Warden is so useless, he’s all reaction, not a leader. He cracks me up.

The gag of Macbeth enlarging the paper was something I wasn’t sure would work but when it pushes right into old mate’s face, and he doesn’t budge, and it pushes his nose aside, it’s such a silent moment, and it’s so funny to me.

I also wanted this page to both set up the story’s mission as well as play back story for Macbeth. This took a lot to write to pace well so it wasn’t too lumpy.

PAGE 4

More set up on the situation, and then we get eyes into the scene. As far as things go, this page is perfunctory, and I’m not smart enough to know how to do it better.

And it’s beyond the set up and character, now we introduce the foil of the piece – Hard.

PAGE 5

Went through a tonne of ways to show Hard as a character as well as exactly what he’s been doing in Cell Block D. Hooper’s tone of voice pleases me for exposition, he’s an annoyed suit, that’s fun in this situation.

PAGE 6

This is one of my favourite pages I’ve ever written. I always saw it in my head and tried to script it well, and then Paul just knocked it out of the stadium and into the ionosphere.

This is the selling shot, this is the tone I’m after. Glorious. Put this into the Top 10 Pages I’ve Ever Written List, and it’s silent which makes me happy. I got out of the way, yay.

PAGE 7

Paul goes crazy on the colours and this fight scene goes psychedelic. I love the way he shows Macbeth using size manipulation, it’s so clear and cool.

Took me ages to choreograph this in my mind before scripting it. Fight scenes are hard to do, you gotta read a million other comic fight scenes before you script to get that flow going just right.

PAGE 8

More fight choreography. Mostly just trying to use his size skills in a cool way. Chopping off hands and then enlarging to make a big sorta bolo-boomerang was fun. I toyed with the idea of having him cut the dude’s head off but that’s just a repeat of the hands cut off, and he really shouldn’t be killing people in there. Non-lethal force and all that.

BOUSHK is one of my new favourite SFX.

PAGE 9

The initial script of this had Macbeth beating on Hard and he just repeats the word “YIELD!”

Then I saw Jonathan Hickman use that in an issue of Avengers just a few months later. Took me ages to come up with something new, bastard.

Though I dig Hard saying “Nope.” so straight up. In my mind, he’s Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read in a big degree.

PAGE 10

I snuck one YIELD in, figured it wouldn’t hurt here. And the idea is Macbeth’s gigantic body can produce one hell of a giant voice. Don’t ask me how the science on that one works, it’s a story.

PAGE 11

Octo-Kid is such a lame ass.

PAGE 12

I wanted the Warden to be so useless that despite all the victory and things occurring on his own CCTV, he wasn’t watching, he was having a sandwich.

Tried to tie in this whole ‘big’ aspect to the issue, from them asking for big solutions, and him asking if it’s ‘Big enough for ya?’ It’s not a big thing but I tied back to it when I could.

The final panel was initially silent but I dropped that caption in so everyone knew the story was over, because I worry about stuff like that.

—

So I hope you dug this. Someone just this very second described this book as ‘The Atom meets an 80s low budget prison film’ and that’s perfectly what I was going for. This is comics as fun. And I love that we can leave the story online but also offer a PDF. That sort of thing excites me when I see it in the wild so I like to give in return.

Macbeth will return in ‘THE MASSIVE’ hopefully later this year, the issue is being knocked out now by another artist and it’s another fight bonanza of fun. And it needs less expos set up, so it’s a real rumble.

And also make sure you noodle around the Challenger Comics site because it’s full of all sorts of really ace things. Some of my favourite short comics are on there, enjoy [LINK]

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December 29, 2014

RKL Annotations – HEADSPACE #5

HEADSPACE #5 is a 99c goldmine of feels.

Poor bloody Shane. Things just tunnel deeper every issue like he’s strapped to a Technodrome 😦

headspace05_cvr

Here are some spot thoughts on a journey through the issue – won’t you join me?

COVER

I love this cover. The concept, the white, the orientation, everything. And I think it’s the little people in that brain/maze that make me smile the most. Lil’ Gil, I hope he makes it out, ha.

Actually, how interesting that this cover gives me kind of a smile, when nothing then in this issue is really geared to making you feel better or comfortable. Way to go for the sucker punch, Zawadzki.

PAGE 1

Hrmm, clearly how I think some cheating Valley girl type might sound on the phone with her cuckolded bf in the room. That central panel of her laughing is gorgeous and yet so cruel at the same time. And Eric slays on the 9 panel grid +1

PAGE 2

I don’t write many splash pages, but this moment just tickled me, and it relieves all the tension built up on that crowded Page 1. You gotta build, then release, that’s part of a good narrative. Plus, on Page 1, it all looks relatively normal, so this moment is to really throw you off guard, I want you to not quite know what’s going on. You need to be as on edge as the person watching this scene (as seen in the next page).

Also, I scripted this visual a few ways, mere ideas for Eric on possibilities, and then he just went and did this. Those birds are fantastic, but Max’s smile, and posture, in the background is the kicker.

PAGE 3

Then we take a page to breathe, set the scene, explain the first two pages, and build towards the next page. I worry about these type of pages. I worry enough isn’t happening, that they only exist as exposition (SOUND THE JAMES REMAR KLAXON) but in the end, and as I read this, I see them and how they serve as part of the whole structure, how this page pauses, allows the mind to settle, so we can do what’s next…

PAGE 4

Man, this page is one of my favourite things Eric has done, and is also a shining example of why I love comics. We get to do this, how rad is that? Very little else in this world – perhaps nothing – can replicate exactly what is on this page. I love that Eric could pull this off. I asked him to lay it out like a boardgame (I sent him a pic of the old Hero Quest board game top – olde school Hero Quest fans represent!) and then I asked for as many rooms as I could. Then Eric fit them all in.

This page totally raises more questions than it does answers, absolutely, but in all it tells us the one thing – Max’s mind is messed up, and is a scary place in which to be trapped. From fighting hobo dogs to crazy gf’s to whatever the hell is happening in that room full of water…this page is all tone, with a hint of scene setting/world building and I’m so thankful for having Eric around to pull this off.

PAGE 5

And now we finally have the main mission laid out for Shane.

Day Keene – fantastic man, superior smell.

PAGE 6

I’m really enjoying how the art here from Sebastian Piriz, with colours by Marissa Louise, juxtapose so well from Eric’s stuff that I don’t have to caption the change of location/reality at all. That’s the dream, less didactic/non-diagetic stuff if we can avoid it.

That panel of Lois blowing on her coffee is all Sebastian, and it’s beautiful.

PAGE 7

If I had to give information to some killer/hitman/spy/whomever, I’d totally put it on some burner smartphone – recon pics, files in Notes. Surely this is already happening in the world, right?

PAGE 8

That line Lios gives here “No, Max, this is surgery. You’re a blade not a bullet.” I was so damn proud of that line. Then, tonight, I was ready the Parlov/Ennis FURY MAX and there’s this line: “We were a stiletto in the heart, not a baseball bat the army kept swinging blindly at the head.”

Ennis 1 | Lindsay 0

😦

Love the panel border and muted colours when Max uses the duffel bag full of cash as a silencer of sorts. Just love it.

PAGE 9

Hrmm, another page of structure and important words. Shane has his plan, and he has his opposition, but then he gets distracted and while he wanders off, we wander into the next page…

PAGE 10

…and here we confirm a bomb – that Max isn’t a killer, he’s something more. I wasn’t initially going to obscure this fact, we were going to be upfront about his status as a USAgent, but then the ability to paint him as some killer came up and it felt too right. because here, even with what we know of Max and have seen, here we confirm he isn’t actually a ‘bad guy’ per se, and so that should muddy up all our thoughts moving forward.

Also, showing this memory set as a movie was an idea I enjoyed, and once again Eric nails it. I took the screening room aesthetic, with the projector light carving through the room, from the cover/preview for a 90s Robert De Niro flick – which after googling ‘De Niro commies’ I can confirm is GUILTY BY SUSPICION.

PAGE 11

This scene was a little hard to write. Ever since *SPOILERS* the kid in RESCUE ME was killed, the thought that it can happen anywhere/anytime/anyhow freaks me to my core. Then having to watch how that might happen, well, that’d break my heart.

The Librarian’s line here just shows that we really haven’t known who is good/bad/in-between at all this whole time. Except Shane, he’s staunch.

PAGE 12

This page was hard to write, and took me a few goes, but then Eric just slayed it with the art as usual. I got in the inks for this and choked up looking at them on my iPad. That’s the power of Zawadzki.

BACK MATTER

Listen to the CRIMINAL podcast.

Read THE BROTHERS JAMES.

Listen to Sarah Blasko.

All hail Design Fu Supreme Chris Kosek.

Don’t let your children die.

Fear Dan Hill’s understanding of the Nuremberg Code.

 

And that’s it for another issue. I hope you dug it, a lot of feedback that came my way said people thought this was our strongest issue yet. I like that kind of feedback. Though I can’t wait for you to see #6, because Eric and Sebastian both step up in two huge moments. You’ll see, and you’ll know instantly.

We at HEADSPACE HQ thank you for spreading the good word – RTs, water cooler chatter, WoW flaming – it’s all good and helpful and so insanely appreciated.

I also hope 2014 has been good to you, and you’ll meet us in 2015 ready to finish this tale. We know we are!

🙂

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September 8, 2014

RKL Annotations – HEADSPACE #4

headspace04_cvr_140717

Shane tries to do the right thing. He’s racing to protect someone. But he finds so often the world and many of us in it do not want to be saved. Then there’s Max, who doesn’t really understand what’s happening and here meets the woman who set him on this path, and what she wants him to do.

This issue is the midway point of the story, it’s a character study, and it’s also a place where the narratives of Shane and Max change gears, one going up, the other down a gear.

HEADSPACE #4 – get some

COVER

We finally get to the white themed cover. I like the way Eric laid out this Max composition. It’s nasty and oppressive, and feels like when Dave Johnson uses design to get across concepts present behind the story. Those piled bodies, man, damn.

PAGE 1

If you end the last issue with a cyclopean ogre creating some trouble you can be damn sure we’ll open the next issue with more cyclopean ogre shenanigans. Poor Shane here isn’t loving life. He should just be glad that club swing isn’t liquefying his bones and splattering his skull across the pavement. I love the way Eric has him breaking the panel wall – totally not scripted.

I keep looking at this ogre’s necklace and wondering if those little pendants mean anything? This is proof artists work harder than me, I bet Eric has a whole backstory worked out for that necklace.

PAGE 2

This is all just Gulliver’s Travels. The real one, not the Jack Black one…the Ted Danson one.

I’m also fond of that final line.

Oh, and this whole scene is to show that Max’s mind is busy, constantly, dealing with his demons. The Maxs here ignore Shane because they’re busy with something bigger. I wanted to have a moment where Shane sees he’s just a passenger in this huge opera.

PAGE 3

I think Eric transitions this page beautifully into the flashback but I’m still worrying I didn’t land this page just right in that structural way. I hope the emotion rings true, though. A man’s inability to cope with insane levels of feelings is certainly a real thing.

PAGE 4

That panel of Shane sitting and looking at his punching bag says so much and Eric slays with that body language. This is a man completely lost, completely helpless, completely stuck inside his own form which is unable to express enough to cope with what he’s got. All I can say is, I hope I never lose a kid, because I fear I’d be as useless as Shane is right here.

PAGE 5

Now we cut to Max’s story. I hope people don’t mind that rhythm. Some Shane story, another peek at Max, then back to the Shane narrative engine. I’ve crazily liked plotting out the story in such a manner, trying to find the right cut points. It’s been fun.

Do you know why I’ve named the bakery that? A No Prize for anyone who gets it – I don’t think it’s that hard.

And now look closer at that paper. The first headline relates verrrry tangentially to the overall plot, but that second headline, well, that second headline is continuity, son.

Oh, and she totally speaks like Death’s Head, yes?

PAGE 6

Yeah, so this sequence is talky. I feel bad for Sebastian, you should see the script pages.

PANEL TWO

Lois talks.

PANEL THREE

Lois talks at max.

Etc,

It surely wasn’t fun to draw but I wanted this scene to be static. So many other scenes aren’t so I thought this one could really slow down because I want you to pay attention to what Lois says, and how she words it. This is all very important and it all comes to a head next issue where a huge bombshell is revealed. This leads up to it.

I love the way Sebastian created Lois. She’s a very good looking character.

PAGE 7

My Blue Heaven, ha, I couldn’t resist. That’s the sort of line I could never cut.

I’m a sucker for a silhouette on a clear background.

PAGE 8

I loved writing that Lois would be open enough to Max to admit she doesn’t care about him, this has never been about saving him, and that she wants to use him for his specific skill set. Lois is not very nice but at least she tells you upfront how she’ll be.

Who is Zara Blackwell?

PAGE 9

Quick, go open HEADSPACE #2 and look at pages 7 + 8. Notice some of the slick parallels Eric drew between this sequence and that one? Yep, that’s all him. He’s just that goddamn good.

I really hope people think I could and would kill a major character here at this point. I hope people turned the page genuinely not knowing what they would find.

PAGE 10

To be honest, I’m sure people got that the kid was Max pretty early. Thinking I’d obscured that was probably a little false hope, but I like this reveal, the fact it was a Max memory all along, and there’s nothing Shane can do about this scene, it happened before, will always happen, and that’s just the way it goes down. because, as much as we all knew it was Max, Shane has been on the run through this insanity for about an hour, I guess, so he wouldn’t have known. Shane genuinely was trying to save someone and now he’s thinking maybe he’s inside an unsavable man.

That face comparison between two panels was scripted, but Eric is the mastermind who made the father’s face so much wider and more imposing.

PAGE 11

This page for me is how good collaboration lifts the work. Eric nails that look of horror from Shane, as well as the red background. It’s very reminiscent of the first issue’s last page.

Those SFX really came out well and get punctuated by Young Max really enjoying himself in that final panel.

PAGE 12

I don’t script splash pages often, nor do I do silent pages often. This page clearly means I want you to stop, pause, put yourself in Shane’s shoes, get comfy, realise you can’t because Shane’s life is permanently uncomfortable for the foreseeable future, and then wonder what you would do next in this situation.

I also scripted that specific statue into the page. Who is he and what does he signify?

BACK MATTER

As always, all hail Christopher Kosek, Designer Supreme of Carpenter Cove.

HANNIBAL has become something I can barely stop thinking about. It’s enthused and inspired me to no end. And with so many TV properties gone four colour funny book lately I can’t help but think a HANNIBAL book cannot be far off.

Go watch OFFSPRING. Seriously, do this.

Barely any #headspacecomic tweets so I guess I can retire that thought experiment that only served to make me think I have no readership. Funnily enough, every time I put out the call for tweets, I’d get a 5:1 ratio of RTs to actual use of the bastard thing.

ESSAY

Dan Hill drops more narrative fuel on your fire, while also subtly hinting at themes of the book. The government can suck hard sometimes.

PIN UPS

Man, Sami Kivela has me wanting a Carpenter Cove sheriff’s badge so bad. I love his use of yellow here, the man is a master.

Then we get Justin Greenwood and Marissa Louise bringing some cover level insanity to the game. Justin really went full out on this one and he works so much into it. The man is great, so no surprise he’s doing so much rad work right now at Image and Oni.

—

Another issue down, and the halfway mark reached. I hope you are as excited as I am. #4 was our crowning achievement and I am so incredibly proud of it, but be prepared for #5 which will punch you straight in the gut, then on the bridge of your nose, and then repeat the experience until your eyes fill up with tears. It’s going to be a dark ride.

We’d also appreciate it if you spread the good word. Indie books live and die on the vine due to exposure and word of mouth. Hit up twitter with #headspacecomic to share your thoughts (ha), and possibly end up in the back of an issue, too. Chat with myself @ryanklindsay or Eric @ericxyz and let us know your thoughts. We love to chat about the stuff we create. Or just about other stuff. Tell your friends about the book on Facebook, or in person, actually phone a friend to talk about Headspace, or gift the comic to someone. It’s all appreciated.

We’ll see you for #5 real soon. Til then, thank you. If you’ve made it halfway, you deserve a pause, a beer, maybe a counter meal down the pub with us, and it’ll all happen, in good time. Thank you.

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April 11, 2014

RKL Annotations – HEADSPACE #2

I am really proud of this issue and happy with how it came out. We drop more knowledge and we further warp the world of Carpenter Cove. For as much as we want you to know more, we want to confuse and discombobulate you. Let’s do a little of both right now.

And if you haven’t read HEADSPACE #2, then head over to ComiXology right now and hook in.

headspace02_CVR_140218

Cover

Man, when Eric dropped this one on me I was floored. Talk about capturing the tone of the issue and laying it out in one simple image. This cover is working on many layers and I’m in love with it. I like a good minimalist design sense and this uses it to drown Shane and really ratchet up the tension. The blood in his mouth is ghastly and really brings this to life. In a word: perfect.

Page 1

I wrote this page a few times. I knew what I wanted to get into, I knew the back story, but I was being passive. I wasn’t allowing Shane to really address the situation with fresh eyes. Once I got onto this final draft, I could see I was really baring Shane’s soul.

And it’s important to note, I’m theorising on this subject. I’m wondering how I’d feel if I were in his position. The closest I’ve come is what happens early on in RESCUE ME (spoilers).

Page 2

What greets you on Page 2 is indicative of how I want to throw this comic at you. I never want you to get comfortable, I always want to try and slip in the weird business as much as I can. And I am in love with Eric’s delivery on this piazza, and the dead men of Carpenter Cove are creepy as hell.

Page 3

That wave is crushingly good. Initially, I scripted what caused the wave but we didn’t really have room on the page so I wondered for a while what we could do and then I realised we’d just not tell you. It’s the Cove, man, anything can happen. Dead men having brunch, now a giant wave. It happens.

Page 4

Ah, Max’s brain cutting loose in the only way it knows how. It’s trying to cleanse his brain, it’s reacting but blindly and violently. This montage of sorts needed to feel brutal but also warped and with just a hint of the absurd. I think it ticks all those boxes.

Then there’s the captions. I like the flow of them, the slow pace of giving them out. I wondered if maybe the page might look and feel different with all the captions in the first panel, or in the last. These are the questions I ask myself forever and ever. In the end, I like words with images so I opt to put one in each panel. I’m not much for writing silent panels, pages, or sequences. It’s just not how I deliver narrative.

Page 5

Remember the alligator we show in the background and mention off hand last issue, yeah, CRUNCH. Which is not actually the SFX I scripted but Eric did his own thing and improved us as always.

Page 6

I found this page hard to script and it went through various incarnations. I finally settled on something I liked but sometimes, when you’ve drafted something a dozen times, you either end up absolutely nailing it or you just finally get to a place where you are happy enough. For some reason, this page was hard to write. I’m glad I went silent in that big panel. It’s not really a reveal but it is a lead up. And I dig how Eric makes the movement all work, over quite some ground, so quickly across a handful of panels.

Page 7

This is another turn point, another place where we fall further down the rabbit hole. These marionette Maxs were creepy to write but then Eric drew them and they came out even more disturbing. I love them. The puppets are talking about things, snippets into Max, and it’s important to his character what we see and more importantly hear here.

Page 8

The first panel is one of my favourite things in this book. The way everything flows together, the caption, the flag, the abyssal black behind them. It’s this brilliant quiet moment and then the gator destroys it again. I can only imagine this will slay in Guided View on ComiXology.

Page 9

Eric decimates this alligator with style and flair. And then we meet The Librarian. Does he look familiar to you? He was initially designed to look more like Mandy Patinkin in Homeland but then I had a vision and asked for him to be changed. Eric obliged. Also, that gun, I scripted it to look like that ridiculous beast Nick Fury comes with toward the end of SECRET INVASION. I dig how it looks on this dude.

Page 10

That little kid walking the marionette Max away in the background of Panel One was not scripted, and it’s so damn creepy. I love that Eric does things like this with the book. I also dig that he drew all those books. Note to self, and others: don’t script in a library because your artist will go nuts drawing shelves and filling them. And then you will feel bad, though the page will look rad.

Page 11

We get a talky page and Eric does well to make it work and mix up the angles. That reaction panel down the bottom certainly worked well.

Page 12

I love Eric’s reactions on the faces of his characters. Watching Shane break down a little is sad. That final panel could be its own splash, if I had more real estate and artists who would work for me on an unlimited basis, but I don’t think I’d ever write a face to say a line filling its own splash. That’s just not my bag.

Back Matter

I admit what a sick mind I have. I beg for forgiveness. You can see how behind on things I am as I read NORTHLANDERS and THE MIGHTY THOR while watching JUSTIFIED well behind the rest of the world.

Essay

Damn, Chris Kosek designed these pages too and he smashed them. I feel like we’re making some kind of online novel back here, I hope you all dig. Dan Hill is bleeding research and erudition on the page. These essays support the themes of the book as well as just fill a space with something I would want to read as a reader of this book.

—

So, thanks for picking up the book. I appreciate every damn sale and you are keeping my dream alive 99c at a time. By this stage, all the scene setting and first act malarkey is over. Next issue, we really get into the chase and broaden the scope of the comic. Next issue, it’s brutal, and Eric sends us out on one of my favourite panels of all time from a book written by me. It’s sublime and gorgeous and perfect and better than scripted. Stick around and you’ll see, and no doubt agree.

We’d also appreciate it if you spread the good word. Indie books live and die on the vine due to exposure and word of mouth. Hit up twitter with #headspacecomic to share your thoughts, and possibly end up in the back of an issue, too. Chat with myself @ryanklindsay or Eric @ericxyz and let us know your thoughts. We love to chat about the stuff we create. Or just about other stuff. Tell your friends about the book on Facebook, or in person, or actually phone a friend to talk about Headspace, or gift the comic to someone. It’s all appreciated.

We’ll see you for #3 soon to take a TOUR OF CARPENTER COVE. Til then, be safe.

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