The Space Between Buds
On leaving unresolved setups in your writing, the language of cults, and No One's Rose #1 - for FREE!
Good morning from the cold shores of Prince Edward Island. This month has honestly flown by in a way I wasn’t wholly anticipating. I’ve had family out here for the past ten days or so. It’s been incredible. My family is small and we don’t really get a lot of time together. We went out for a big dinner together this weekend and it was a little surreal. I can’t remember the last time something like that happened. Not to mention, I got to show my Dad around our new home. Which was something that I guess I never really anticipated happening. It was wonderful in the best way possible.
Other than that, I’m still hard at work on seven different things (!?!?!). My whole slate for 2022 is already full and realistically I’ll have books on the shelves for the whole year based on the work I’m doing now (paper shortages and supply chain issues notwithstanding). Last week I had a cool new thing land in my inbox which was totally unexpected and really exciting. There’s also some other stuff brewing that I can’t be too candid about right now but it’s all very exciting.
I have to take a minute and just say thanks for the wonderful reaction to SUPERIOR FOUR. Otto Octavius is such a cool and complex character. At his core I think he’s driven by something we can all relate to - hubris. His excessive confidence pushes him into making mistakes, reaching too far, but hell he’s often right. Always one step ahead of everyone… but himself. I think we have to hold onto preview pages for a little while yet as they spoil some things in Devil’s Reign that Marvel wants to keep a little close to thier chest for now. I will tell you that the February solicits will spoil it, though. In case you care about those things - consider this your first and only warning.
I can’t believe 2021 is almost over. I’m not ready for it to end. I’ve got a script due every week left of the year along with a whole host of other things eating away at my time. I imagine it’ll be a race to the end of December and by the time I realize it’s 2022 - it’ll be March.
This week’s table of contents:
Writing craft: Why leaving loose ends in your scripts can improve your writing.
Cultish. A book the sort-of-cults people join every day and the linguistic patterns those cults and cult-like brands use to reel us in.
Zank on Cinema. More horror movies I’ve watched this month. But mostly me ranting about TITANE.
NO ONE’S ROSE #1 for free. My solar punk series from last year came out during the height of the pandemic. I want people to read this book.
WRITING CRAFT
Leave Yourself an Unresolved Setup
Let’s just put a disclaimer here right away. This is mostly from my very limited perspective of writing comics for the monthly direct market. It is really only something that I recommend when writing superhero stories or things that are hardcore genre pieces. For the most part I’m not sure I’d recommend doing this in a creator-owned book where space can be precious.
When you’re in the grind of writing a monthly superhero comic book - the demands of that pipeline are fierce. Even with a generous head start most titles are behind schedule at some point in their lifetime. As a writer there’s this desire to have everything figured out before you even start telling your story. But comics are a collaborative team sport. They grow and evolve as everyone puts their fingerprints on the story.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about “setups”. The moments in your script where something is introduced to be “paid off” later. It’s a pretty simple element of writing. Introduce something interesting only to reveal its true purpose later. Most to the time and for your story to work you need to have most/all of these elements figured out before you sit down to write “page 1, panel 1”. But, there is some strength to be found in giving yourself room to figure it out later.
It’s honestly really simple. Somewhere in the opening issue(s) of your story - leave something in your script that is a deliberate setup. Grant yourself the trust to figure it out later. You can finish the story you’re telling in that particular issue with that loose thread still dangling.
Later, you can revisit that dangling thread and redefine or deepen that setup in interesting ways. You can allow you story to evolve as it develops and use the setup you left in an early issue to tie up loose ends as you enter the final act of your story. You can do this at a macro outline level (my personal recommendation) or a script level when you’re in the thick of it (very stressful/sometimes bad). The idea is to give yourself multiple avenues to develop a story and essentially build yourself a way out if you happen to back your story into a corner.
It can be as simple as a single panel/action. Where it seems innocent or innocuous - only to be redefined later. Or it could be a whole dialogue scene where a character tells a story that you have no idea how it’ll tie back into the story later. The point is to give yourself threads to return to, independent of your outline because you will not be able to think of everything ahead of time. It’s just not possible. No matter how prepared you may be, things change. That’s the nature of telling a story.
If you’re writing superhero books - it’s almost your job to leave something unresolved. Corporate comics are in a perpetual state of change, wherein characters are always moving forward and backward at the same time. It’s a weird workflow to get into but the medium thrives off the unresolved thread. It’s also a way to be generous with the world building of a shared universe, almost like you’re leaving a little treat for whoever writes the character next. They may not use it but it’s there if they’d like it.
CULTISH
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Amanda Montell’s Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism and loving every minute. Montell is a linguist and the author of Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Her prose is breezy, relatable and inviting as it asks you to consider how modern brands create cults or use cult-like language to sever you from the outside world and create a sense of community.
You really only have to spend a few days in Vancouver to see this kinda thing in practise. As the home for LuLuLemon - there’s dozens of Vancouverite’s who embodies the tenants of the brand and almost exclusively wear their clothing year round. Anyway, Montell argues that this type of cult isn’t much different from ones like Heaven’s Gate (except they only require monetary devotion rather than, y’know, suicide).
If you’ve found yourself interested in cults, their use (and abuse) of language and why they thrive during different parts of history, I can’t recommend Cultish enough.
Zank on Cinema
My Halloween (literally) viewing continues. I still haven’t seen Dune but I’m going tonight, OKAY!?
HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS: This is just bad. It opens with Micheal floating down a river on his back and ends with him driving a car around a field for twenty minutes. Fuck this noise.
HALLOWEEN KILLS: Normally, I’d hold my tongue about something like this because tons of people love these flicks but I fucking hated this movie. I’m not entirely sure how you follow up 2018 by having Laurie Strode sit in a hospital bed for the entire runtime but here we are. A real missed opportunity with Laurie coming to realize that Micheal wasn’t actually after her in the last film. I wish they let her character sit with the realization that she doesn’t really mean anything to Micheal. That could’ve actually been interesting. And don’t even get me started on the angry mob stuff in the hospital. Both a waste of time and insulting to the audience’s intelligence. If it was supposed to be an allegory for Trump - it failed spectacularly. I really wanted to like this…
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE: A nightmarish rumination on vulnerability thats wonderfully shot and hides its micro budget well. Burrows into you with a creeping dread that makes the final 10 minutes almost unbearable. A tight character piece that preys on your expectations. Loved it. It’s now streaming on Shudder.
TIME CRIMES: I know it's not technically horror but it's got a load of really great horror elements/imagery so I'm including it. One of the best movies about time travel ever made. The tone is dark and foreboding and always one step ahead of you. I really love this flick.
HALLOWEEN: H20: The soundtrack, the script, the kills, right down to the dude who plays Michael - this has SCREAM DNA all over it. Used to love this one as a teen - in the wake of 2018 it feels like a giant misstep. The mask is BAD.
TITANE: Transgressive and oddly sweet. You’ve never seen anything like Titane. Director, Julia Ducournau (Raw - watch that too!) has crafted a body horror masterpiece that's both deeply disturbing and deeply human. Tense, perverse and powerful. It’s the type of weird storytelling that we strived for in Lonely Receiver. I really can’t believe this movie exists. Agathe Rousselle is a powerhouse actress that uses powerful silence and vulnerability to create a character you both love and revile. Please see this movie and go in knowing as little as possible.
NO ONE’S ROSE #1
During the height of the pandemic, I released a solar-punk comic with Vault Comics. A lot of people didn’t get a chance to read it due to the unfortunate timing of #1’s release. I figured given the hype surrounding DUNE, folks would love a chance to dive into issue #1, right here, for free.
No One’s Rose is co-written with Emily Horn, illustrated by Alberto Alburquerque, coloured by Raul Angulo and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. Here’s the official writeup:
Centuries after the fall of the Anthropocene, the last vestiges of human civilization are housed in a massive domed city powered by renewable energy, known as The Green Zone. Inside lives teenager Tenn Gavrilo, a brilliant bio-engineer who could rebuild the planet. But there’s one problem: her resentful brother Seren is eager to dismantle the precarious Utopia.
PEACE
Another week down. You made it. Here’s a playlist as a treat:
- Z 10/27/21
Reading your thoughts on LuLuLemon and the cultism around it all it oddly surreal as I started a script for a story that digs into exactly that topic; what is cultism and religion, really?
That's pretty much all of my thoughts on this issue of the newletter this week but I'm excited to check out NO ONE'S ROSE. Once you mentioned it the name did ring a bell but in those early pandemic days it was truly easy to lose things to anxiety and such. Can't wait to dip my toe into this universe!