Ryan K Lindsay - Australian Noir
I would feel remiss if I didn’t bring it up one more time. I mean, how many times will I get to direct people to Marvel comics and have them read my words? I am not sure if I will ever get a script published through them, if some master like David Aja, Alex Maleev, or Marko Djurdjevic will ever draw my scenes for me, if I’ll ever get my hands on Daredevil, Black Tarantula, HYDRA, S.W.O.R.D., Iron Fist or Angel, or even earn a creator owned Icon epic. I may never grace the Merry Marvel pages again, so I have to live it up, right? It’s like Stan Lee always said, each comic would be someone’s first, so you had to grab them by the collar, so I guess each blog should also be someone’s first, so I want to grab that person and send them off in the right direction.
This week, Wednesday in the States, Friday at my local in Australia, Criminal The Sinners Part Two will grace shelves. Criminal is an Eisner Award winning, and completely awesome, creator owned epic from Icon, that fits nicely into the Marvel umbrella of things. It’s a straight up crime comic, if someone gets thrown off a building the only thing they’re going to do is die, not bounce back. The back of every issue contains a page of thoughts from the writer Ed Brubaker and then there’s usually an essay by some prominent crime/pulp/noir author. They talk about their favourite crime movie/book/author/character and it’s always revealing and erudite. This month they are featuring something that hopefully holds up the strong run the series has experiences. In my eyes, they haven’t had a bad essay yet. So I don’t want to add the first one.
Australian Noir is my essay about crime in Australian flicks. It looks at how we started as a country, how our film birth came about in a blood soaked affair, and how we still love a great anti-hero up on our screens. It’s the Australian way and we’ve made some absolutely cracking flicks along the way. I hope it is a good essay, a well received one. I sit back and think on it and worry it is crap, but then I re-read it and it’s not as bad as I imagine. I might just be okay, but it’s too late to turn back anyway. The comics will be in transit and we both, you and I, sit here and speak. People will be holding my words, reading them, speaking to others about them. I’ll be on show, let’s hope I’m not found wanting. It’s a nervous situation, but also one of the greatest I could ever find myself. I have only myself to blame and Ed Brubaker to thank.
And Sean Phillips. Because he’s the guy that does the pretty pictures, and he did a killer one right here to kick off my words. I wonder if people will even be able to get past it to read my stuff, I wouldn’t hate them if they couldn’t, I barely can.
Posted on November 17th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: Writing, comics
Once again, congratulations man! Don’t worry, even if the essay is crap, at least it will have a really pretty picture.
How did this come about anyway? Did they get in touch with you about it or did you contact them?
If it was me I would start every e-mail/blog/ sentence with this news!!!
Congrats bro good work!!!
Matt -with a lead in of Sean Phillips I’m sure my essay will probably be a mild let down at best. The way this came about was I wrote an essay, not for any particular reason, I was just thinking I would email it to Criminal, but otherwise I was just chewing up words because that’s what I do with my time. So, i finish the essay, I proof it, check it, kiss it good night, then I email it to Criminal. Brubaker emails back a day or two later and tells me he’ll read it, when he gets time. I thank him for his reply, I understand he doesn’t have much time, I assume it will go unread (he must get all sorts of shit like this, I am pleased he is just so courteous about it all). We email back and forth a few times discussing Aussie short films, and then it peters out after a few days.
Two weeks pass, suddenly I get a weekend email from Brubaker. He says he likes the essay and he wants to use it, just not certain when. He says he’ll change one or two word,s but otherwise it’s all my words. He has a mate writing the next essay, but if they break deadline then I’m in. Old mate breaks deadline and so I’m in. I go to the printer very soon afterwards. Now I’ll hit stores right about now in the States, I assume, and Friday in Australia. Crazy and quick story.
Changes of plan, I checked the publishing schedule and the issue got bumped to next week. Lame. Don’t when this happened, but when i checked a few weeks ago it was this week. So, if you want, feel free to come back to this post next week and read this all again. Then it will be relevant.
Thanks.
Man ripped off!!!!!! I went to the newsagent and bought up all their Criminal issues!!!!!!
I should have known something was amiss when Mark “chop chop” Read was smiling up at me!!!!
Excellent news - so many congrats.