Author: Graeme McMillan

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FYI, FYI

By this point, I’ve been doing the Comics, FYI newsletter for close to six months; it’s not something that’s necessarily turned out exactly as I expected, but in ways that have been more rewarding, and in entirely different ways than I’d anticipated.

The origins of the newsletter were somewhat diffuse: I missed writing regularly about comics, and in a relatively self-directed fashion. (At THR, I’d basically had my druthers to pursue what interested me, as long as I could sell my editors on it; Aaron and Erik were particularly good at helping me pare down what was, and wasn’t, interesting in the end.) I’d spent much of 2021 promising myself that I’d start a comics website of my own, only to hold off for the simple reason that, deep down, that wasn’t really something I felt ready for; a newsletter, though, felt like it could be fun, if done right.

Throughout the whole process of thinking about it pre-launch, I kept remembering a conversation I had with my friend Lucy (Hi, Lucy!), wherein she joked that she didn’t really pay attention to comics news and just needed someone to summarize the important things for her every now and then. That was always the North Star, when I was working out what I wanted to do. If I could basically write about what seemed important to me, and explain why in such a fashion that anyone could get it, then I was doing something right.

And, of course, I wanted it to earn money for me. After all, paid newsletters are a thing, now. Surely, if I got enough readers, then I could make money from it, right…?

Spoilers: I’m still not charging for it. By this point, I probably never will. The newsletter has become rewarding in its own right, and my career has picked up elsewhere, so I don’t feel the need to charge for it anymore, per se. Doing so feels almost the opposite of the “information for everyone” mission that the newsletter has evolved, and almost self-indulgent and greedy at this point. Maybe my thinking on that will change again at some point, but for now, the newsletter is my version of comics journalism public service, being curious in public and inviting others to join in.

It’s become a highlight of my week, every week, even when it’s stressful and not coming together in time. It’s something I can’t imagine not doing, anymore.

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Watch This Space

It took me until May to realize that I missed the rhythm of this site from the days when I was doing the THR newsletter, still; the way that, every second week, I’d spend the Friday with a post containing the graphics I’d done during that period for the newsletter.

It’s not that I was always so proud of the graphics that I’d done that I just had to share them — sometimes, I wasn’t proud of them at all; things get created on tight deadlines and they’re not even that good, but there’s something to be said for that “perfect is the enemy of finished” dictum, and something more to be said for the value of accepting imperfection and deadlines as valuable factors in and of themselves — but there was an appeal for me in the rhythm of posts it created here: five posts of writing, then images, five posts of writing, then images, over and over.

Of the many things I’ve missed about not working regularly and primarily for THR, the newsletter is a big one, and the graphics a big part of that. The lack of having the “five posts of writing, then images” rhythm here, in turn, was a big part of that.

All of which is to say, every second Friday, I’m just going to spend that day’s post on images, starting next week. I spent all of May on image posts, created out of necessity — my brain was too full of the writing I was doing for paid work — but, I like the creative process behind those random images. If I like that, and I miss the regularly scheduled image posts that the newsletter graphics used to provide, then surely there’s an answer to the problem staring me right in the face all along.

Plus, who knows? Maybe the process of giving myself a deadline to come up with images could prove as creatively and psychologically healthy as the newsletter graphics did, once upon a time.

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Simply Nowhere To Be Found

The cat had entirely, utterly disappeared. There were three of us looking for him, running through the three-level house and checking all the rooms as quickly as we could, and he was nowhere to be found.

We were preparing for an inspection of the house by the landlords, and already relatively excited, by which I mean stressed and exhausted; although we were pretty confident that everything would be fine — we take really good care of this house! We make small repairs ourselves, without complaint! —there was just a feeling of, listen, you never know when things can go south unexpectedly, that made us nervous. Both Chloe and I have become suspicious of relying on good feelings and good fortune over the past year or so.

With the landlords due in thirty minutes or so, the plan was for her mom, visiting from out of town, to take the cats during the inspection to ensure an orderliness and calm that wouldn’t otherwise happen; but one of the cats had utterly vanished. He’d been around for a first attempt to go in a crate to be carried out, but he’d resisted and run upstairs; we watched him go… but he was nowhere to be found upstairs. Nor, it turned out, was he downstairs, either.

We searched the house maybe four, five times with no luck. He was simply gone, but that was impossible, too — he couldn’t get outside because doors and windows were shut. Things had reached the point where we were starting to find it simultaneously funny and genuinely insane-making; how can a cat disappear so completely? Did he even exist in the first place, or have we been hallucinating him all these years? Was this the end of a cat version of Fight Club? All the while, the clock is ticking down and the landlords’ arrival is getting closer.

Reality was restored when he was discovered inside a box spring, having burrowed himself in there at some point without anyone noticing. The inspection went well, and all was good in the world, but for the rest of the day, I kept remembering what it felt like when he was simply nowhere, as impossible as it was.

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Mah Stories

As has become de rigueur in recent years, there’s been no shortage of shitty reality television being used as decompression material for our overworked brains in the last few weeks. After the thinking-too-hard workday, I’ve developed an almost-need for a certain level of schlock to marinate in before sleep, before returning to the grind the next day. All of which is to say, I’ve very much been appreciating the current Golden Age of Camp Reality I think television has entered in the last couple of years.

The joy of streaming means that, currently, Chloe and I can enjoy episodes of Love Island Australia, RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars, Legendary, or Below Deck shows — that’s shows plural, not episodes, I point out, because as I write, both Below Deck: Down Under and Below Deck: Sailing Yacht are running new episodes simultaneously, which is crazy to me — in addition to any new discovery that we might make. It’s a joy, and a necessary mental balm, to have these pieces of trash to marinate in while trying to slow our brains down from that day’s work. It’s the most restorative viewing I could imagine at this point.

This sounds like sarcasm, but it’s not, I promise; there really is something impossibly relaxing about enjoying the histrionics and cliches that you can almost guarantee from any one of these shows, not to mention the schadenfreude of being able to look at almost any single one of the people onscreen and go, well, at least I’m not as bad as all that.

(If there is one thing in reality shows that I genuinely love more than anything else, it’s reality shows where everyone is over the top and overly emotional with the exception of one person, who gets to basically watch everything unfold and then make snarky commentary to the camera after the fact; it’s the ultimate audience stand-in, and when done well, it’s irresistible.)

Occasionally, I stop and think to myself that I should, perhaps, be reading more books, watching more highbrow cinema, and spending my decompressing time in more productive ways. And then I hear the low energy techno throb of the Love Island theme and such thoughts get pushed to the back of my head as I wonder whether Mitch and Tina will get it together tonight after all.

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The Right Length

One of the things about having been an online writer for as long as I have is the number of white hairs in my beard. No, wait, that’s not what I meant to say at the start of that sentence. (I do have a lot of white hairs in my beard, though; I guess the last year has been particularly stressful?) What I meant was: After doing this for close to 20 years now, it’s strange to be able to recognize trends and attitudes towards particular things change, evolve, or simply upend themselves for whatever reason.

What’s brought this to mind is, simply, word count. As part of my new work reality, I’m writing a lot more long form pieces than I used to; at THR, the majority of my work was in theory short news bursts with the occasional long form op-ed or explainer. In terms of word count, that would translate at something roughly 300-400 words for news, and 800-1000 words for long form.

Nowadays, I’m seeing long form expectations start at 1000, and go up to 1500-2000, depending on outlet and story. Initially, it was a significant shift in thinking — I was used to compressing everything down to its tightest, most abbreviated form, after all — and something I really struggled with; I felt as if I was filling time aimlessly and trying to find something, anything, to fill the space.

What’s surprising, though, is how quickly you do adapt, though. Your rhythms change and you find the way to work through the space you have, fast enough that when presented with the old limits again — Wired still asks for pieces around the old definition of long form — that that becomes the struggle instead. I’d just gotten used to going on at length, and now I have to be brief all over again? Heavens to Betsy, who has the brain space to juggle all of this on an ongoing basis?

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Sometimes, Some Crimes Go Slipping Through The Cracks

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

I knew in advance that May was going to be a crunch time, in terms of workload; it was the month when my new weekly contract with Wired kicked in — I’m back at Wired on a regular basis! Who saw that coming? — as well as the launch month for ReedPop’s new Popverse site, which I’m contributing pretty heavily to, and I also had deadlines elsewhere on top of that. As the month approached, I was well aware that it would be one where I’d be juggling more than usual at least in the early days, and so would have to keep my head down until I felt confident that I could handle and schedule everything appropriately.

It basically took me the month to feel confident and comfortable about that. Even now, I’m not sure that I’m necessarily doing it right.

This site, sadly, was the one that suffered; what was originally meant to be just a few days of posting images instead of writing became a full month out of necessity, as my head was full of other things that needed done instead. There were even times when I wondered if I should drop my twice-weekly comics newsletter, just because I wasn’t sure if I had time to do it properly. (I’m not going to, upon reflection; I feel like it’s something I need for myself, especially in the midst of all this other freelance work.)

So: it’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you without, uh, some blog posts to step to, I guess…?

I’m actually writing this in advance, at the end of May, to try and build a buffer of posts so that I don’t run aground here again anytime soon. It might seem otherwise at times, but this space is important to me, and I don’t want to lose it. Especially as I ramp up the writing I get paid for again, this free form meandering room feels even more important than ever. Sorry for my silence; I’ll try to be better moving forward, I promise.