Beware the Moon, Stay off the Twitter
Work-wise it’s been an interesting few weeks.
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I’ve done an initial batch of edits for NS Paul‘s second issue of Resurrection Men. Click through to his Twitter page for the latest info on the project.
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I’ve just sent off a bio for a project I helped edit for Chris Lewis. That should be making its appearance on Kickstarter in the very near future. Expect links galore in the next newsletter is this is the case. I had a lot of fun with this one. I’ve also been chatting back and forth on another project with Chris that I think has finally found itself concept-wise.
It reminded me of how difficult a concept can be to nail down sometimes. There’s a chapter in David Morell’s book on writing where he chats about his initial note-taking practice. The basic version is that he has an idea/image/hook and then opens up a document and begins ‘chatting’ with himself about it. It’s almost like a left brain/right brain dialogue. It’s a practice that has worked for me in the past, but one I don’t utilize as much as I should.
You come back to the document every day and eventually, with enough chatter you’ll get to the “why” of the idea as well as its spine and themes. You’re essentially drilling down and down until you get a distillation of what you want to achieve. But the document also serves as a north star. If you ever get lost in the weeds when you’re in the thick of the project you can go back to it and get a documented example of that initial rush, energy, and purpose behind the initial idea.
Sometimes it’s so easy to lose that and second guess yourself, so any technique or method that reaffirms your initial beliefs is a godsend.
- I’ve also begun the tentative first steps of a new project with my comics co-pilot, Ryan K Lindsay. More on that as and when it comes.
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Some stuff I’ve been consuming over the last two weeks:
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The Something True podcast is a short (most eps top out around 15 minutes) and hilarious take on various ‘footnotes’ of history. The first season is only 8 episodes long so you could probably get through them all in a week. The writing is witty, dry and very British. Highly recommended.
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I watched An American Werewolf in London at an outdoor screening under a full moon in the grounds of a castle/zoo. Also highly recommended. That film is still so great. Also very British.
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I’ve really sped through the second series of Top of The Lake. The first series dealt with the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl in a remote rural community in New Zealand and the subsequent efforts to find her by Detective Robin Griffin played by Elisabeth Moss. The second series is set four years later with Robin investigating the death of an unidentified girl who washed up on Bondi Beach.
The first series dealt with issues of motherhood, gender politics, trauma, and rape. It can be heavy going in places, but Moss’ performance and Jane Campion’s direction elevate it to something special. The second series deals with similar themes, doubling down on the motherhood aspect of things, as well as adding themes relating to the murky legalities of prostitution, surrogate mothers, etc. and the gray areas the law often finds itself lost in.
The second series definitely meanders a little bit more and perhaps doesn’t have the unified approach its first season does, but when it works it’s still a powerful, highly effective piece of television that wrestles with issues most shows won’t ever go near.
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I finally saw Starry Eyes a fascinating, grimy little horror movie about the lengths some will go to for fame in Hollywood as well as touching on aspects of the standards of beauty and Hollywood’s treatment of its actresses. The central performance by Alex Essoe is fantastic and the last few moments just crawl under your skin and stay there.
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I also just saw Wonder Woman but I want to let that one percolate a little more. Needless to say, it’s the best of the current crop of DC movies.
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On top of the above, I’ve also begun subscribing to a few magazines that mostly deal in prose shorts. They’re easy to pick up and read, you get a really good spectrum of voices being represented and you’re reading work by people who are trying new things with the form and are on their way up. I’m currently subbed to Clarkesworld (sci-fi/fantasy) and The Dark (horror lit) but plan to add more in the next few months.
If you want a sampling then I can’t recommend Sunny Moraine’s story, In the Blind from the latest issue of Clarkesworld enough. It’s about two people at the end of the world who clearly don’t get on. Enjoy!
Bonus: Evil Robot Monkey
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Some links for you:
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First up, this piece by Nick Hanover at Loser City deals with the most recent spate of online harassment of women in comics, as well as stating that criticism of such behavior should be extended to all of those marginalized by this unpleasantness.
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Speaking of, Film Crit Hulk (yes, him again) did an excellent piece on criticism in the intersectional age. Choice quote:
“Again, it’s the inability to be perceived as bad that kills you. Because you end up defending yourself, putting the other down and enacting and embodying the very thing you swear you cannot be.”
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The toxic drama of YA Twitter is a big, steaming mess.
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How Soderbergh is changing up film financing with Logan Lucky.
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A cool piece on Dunkirk and time.
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GQ interviews Aziz Ansari. Here he is being asked if the rumor that he’d deleted Twitter, Instagram and even the web browser itself from his phone is true:
“It is! Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on The New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling. You’re not going to be able to control yourself. So the only way to fight that is to take yourself out of the equation and remove all these things. What happens is, eventually you forget about it. You don’t care anymore. When I first took the browser off my phone, I’m like, [gasp] How am I gonna look stuff up? But most of the shit you look up, it’s not stuff you need to know. All those websites you read while you’re in a cab, you don’t need to look at any of that stuff. It’s better to just sit and be in your own head for a minute. I wanted to stop that thing where I get home and look at websites for an hour and a half, checking to see if there’s a new thing. And read a book instead. I’ve been doing it for a couple months, and it’s worked. I’m reading, like, three books right now. I’m putting something in my mind. It feels so much better than just reading the Internet and not remembering anything.”
- And finally, the Hollywood Reporter interviewed Donald Glover (interestingly he's also off social media entirely now):
“That he lacked the connections and privileged upbringing of many of his classmates never got in his way. “I just never saw the roadblocks,” he says with a shrug.”
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I feel like the ratio between just links and me talking at you differs from week to week.
I’m cool with that if you are. I’m sure it’ll be different again next time.
Until then…