AMBER LOVE 01-MARCH-2014 Today’s guest RYAN K. LINDSAY returns to VODKA O’CLOCK to talk all about his new series HEADSPACE available through Monkeybrain Comics. A surreal trip inside the mind of a serial killer where readers get to meet interesting characters going through their own developments. ** Mild spoilers within.

Download on iTunes, Stitcher or listen here.

HEADSPACE has a town within the mind of the criminal. Carpenter Cove is not based on a real town but is in fact named after horror director John Carpenter. Within the town, the Sheriff protagonist utilizes futuristic technology in a seemingly backwater landscape where non-human creatures abound.

The art team is a split between Eric Zawadzki who does everything for certain parts and then Chris Peterson with Marissa Louise’s color make up the other parts. The breakup of art in this instance feels necessary and avoids the use of captions to bounce the reader from inside the mind and flashes of reality.

The first of the eight issue is a full 22 pages; subsequent will be 12 and all of them will be available for $.99 each.

“If anyone’s gonna complain that my lead character is black, then don’t read my book.” ~RKL

All of 2013 and we continue now, diversity as a concept is discussed a lot in comics. The criticism has fallen on the characters portrayed and the actual lineup of creative/editorial staff. Ryan and his team have an African-American father as the sheriff and main character of HEADSPACE. Shane is an tragic hero.  He’s a black man who doesn’t believe in killing. He was married to a white woman and they had a son.

“You ask yourself does the character need to be white? No? Then if not, why not write something else? Purely because… it needs to happen. And I’m not doing it as some sort of calculated ploy. I just did it more as – to be honest – I’m a white Australian guy. There’s none of us on the comic page so I’m not gonna write myself in the story. I will be writing somebody else no matter what.” ~RKL

This is similar in thought to exploring which characters can be a different gender. In a 2013 interview, Kelly Sue DeConnick once again outwitted the masses who think characters need to be definitive in their gender role when she said you need to test if your female character can be replaced with a sexy lamp and serve the same role, your character sucks.

“I have one called the Sexy Lamp Test, which is, if you can remove a female character from your plot and replace her with a sexy lamp and your story still works, you’re a hack.” ~KSD

Ryan and I share thoughts on body image and body diversity also. He prefers realism to each character. Would your character spend his or her spare time doing nothing else but working out or would they perhaps be with their family or in a library?

And we talk about prison and mental illness.

Because those are important to writers.

Links:
@ryanklindsay
@marissadraws
@ericxyz
@vsrobots
@dan_hill
Christopher Kosek, design back matter pages @ckosek

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.