🎄Holiday Heave-Ho

It Would Be So Much Nicer If You Weren't Here

The life lessons of the holiday layoff; a joyful lesson in song; and a call back to the “futuristic” adventure of Strange Days.

A week or so late on the Thanksgiving front, but if it's your thing I hope your holiday was a good one. My thanks to all of you for subscribing to and reading this newsletter. It means a lot to have the chance to share ideas, words and stories with all of you. 

---

Looking for something different to do around the holidays? Let me recommend losing your job. Seriously, as surprises go, it's totally unexpected — and maybe one of those rare gifts that keep on giving.

"WTF, Dan?" Am I right?

As I hit publish it's actually two days shy of my get-outta-here-versary. On the personal front, the Saturday to Sunday had taken a hard left and turn south with the cold, cruel word we were about to lose a family member. "Health issues." The kind that force sudden, devastating, life-ending decisions. 

Real life is there to put things in perspective. So when the Monday morning work front popped up its cheery lil' out-of-the-blue calendar invite from my boss and the HR director — a combo that can only mean one thing in house-cleaning corporate America — I found myself unexpectedly unaffected. 

By rights I should have been in a protected class: a "Chief" and an "Officer." But as a writer at heart I know better than most: titles are just words. Let them define you at your risk. 

When the zero-hour meeting popped open its Zoom window, the Chief of Executives and Chief of Talent began with the boilerplate chit-chat that is Layoff 101. "Hey, Dan, good weekend?" I had to be honest. "Not so much. My brother in law had a brain aneurism and the machines keeping him going will probably be turned off in the next few days. So, what did you guys want to talk about?" 

In fairness to the people on screen, they delivered the news as straight and square, as civil and professional as one could hope. (While we're being square about such things: I hope you never have to go through this.) "It's not you, it's us." Company's not doing great, you make a fair bit of cash, we'd rather have it back in our pockets instead. Here's your hat — what's your hurry?

Oddly, I found it hard to get all caught up in a woe-is-me-me-me. Not against the balance of the other big events in motion — and the fact that a lot of other people were being let go the same day. Perspective again.  

A 2 hour 36 minute round-trip to the COVID-empty office gave me another chance to meditate on my situation. (Fortunately, I had invested in Transcendental Meditation training at the start of 2020 — some cosmic forces clearly knew what was a'coming.) The dimly lit and quiet surroundings were the perfect setting to clear my desk, leave my i.d., and exit my position. A clean slate.

The truth is I had been ready for change. But I wasn't brave enough to enact it. 

The Daily Stoic entry for my "end date" boils down to this: the things you think are yours, the possessions or status or relationships you've fought and worked to own — they can be taken away in a second. All you've got is your life. Whatcha gonna do with that? 

At this point in the Storymaze I could still see where I'd come in. Backing out, I could apply (and apply and apply) for gigs with descriptions like "visionary multitasker." That type of earned experience had served me well in leading me here: a place of almost total unknowns. Which, for all that — seemed so much nicer.

Be brave.

Step forward.

Ahead, a maze of possibilities. The very definition of a story in progress. 

Full disclosure: Today's subtitle is lifted with a nod and reco to Charles Grodin's memoir of almost the same name — hunt it out for heart, humor, and observations on human character.

---

Know someone who’d enjoy the Storymaze? Invite them in…

I'm not a huge musical theater guy, but I applaud this look at Stephen Sondheim coaching a student in a masterclass. The criticism is precise, the intent clear, the joy in creation evident. We should all be so lucky to have at least one mentor moment like this. 

Who’s coaching you inside your Storymaze?

When it’s time to adapt a big budget movie production to the pages of a comic book, you might expect no holds barred, A-list attention, and white glove handling. Certainly that would be the expectation of any reader eager for more adventure in a favored world, as well as a creator getting to play with admired toys. 

But back in the strange days — specifically, the adaptation of the movie “Strange Days” — things were…different. “Whadda ya say? You up for cramming 2 hours of screenplay into a 48 page comic over the weekend?” 

I think my experience writing this one was more typical of most movie adaptations at that time. Licensed properties had tie-in appeal, but with a few exceptions were more one-offs than long term publishing considerations. If a script had made it to the offices, it was under a stack of pages and papers dedicated to most editors’ first priority: the A-list heroes that upheld the Marvel Universe. Up against those mighty figures, the characters of Strange Days — a dealer in mind-tech memories on the hunt for his girlfriend’s killer in a gritty near future (now long past) — would be crying out for attention. 

In general, there was little ongoing communication with the studio, photo ref of the actors and sci-fi tech was limited, and you were probably working with an earlier version of the shooting script — which explains the disconnects you would sometimes see between on screen and on page. (Sometimes those disconnects worked to an adaptation’s advantage. In the original Nightbreed comic, Alan Grant and John Wagner’s version was based on a script closer to  Clive Barker’s original vision than the movie edit.) 

And even though materials often came into the office late, the publishing schedule didn’t care. The point of these adaptations was to take advantage of energy surrounding the movie release itself: grab some $ while then audience crossover might still be talking about it. There was no waiting for the muse to hit. Hence the 48 hour delivery — and the many inkers to pull off the visuals on the art end. 

I remember an initial rush of excitement at having advance, insider exposure to a James Cameron screenplay — but I’m sure that was more than offset by the rush of anxiety to deliver on time. I think assignments like this bring a certain technical satisfaction: puzzling out how to work all those screenplay pieces into an arbitrarily limited page count that still relates a reasonable semblance of the story.

My expectation would be that these types of properties are done with more consistent care nowadays. This would be in line with the fact that the nerds won, and there is simply more awareness of the kind of genre properties that get comic book adaptions. 

“Running through the maze of life, you come across profound ambiguities and complexities. Yet the essence of living a meaningful life remains simple: following your heart and pursuing your life purpose.” — Roopleen

---

Amazing Times

Thanks for taking a break from the dark web to check out this share-out of projects I’m working on, plus things that have me jazzed. I’m D.G. Chichester. If that looks pretentious, feel free to just call me “Dan”, and have a go at the last name as Chai (like the tea) Chester (like it looks).

I earned my word-cred writing comic book titles like Daredevil, Terror Inc., Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, along with digital widgets in the world wide web of advertising. I keep my storytelling cred by trying new things —  this is one, with more on the way. I like weird tales, so if things here bend that way — now you know why!

Folks seem to like the comic book adventures I’ve written, so if you haven’t checked one out — please do. Many are now available in fab collected editions.

For the eager moments between newsletters…

@dgchichester — 280 characters from the Twitterverse

@dgchichester — images via Instagramland