Meet Ryan K Lindsay - English teacher by day, comic book writer by night.
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The Canberran has worked with some of the biggest comic publishers such as Dark Horse, Vertigo and Black Mask, to carve out his own space in the comic industry. So much so he is set to appear at Oz Comic-Con in Sydney on December 4 and 5, and Melbourne on December 11 and 12.
There, fans will get the chance to pick his brain about some of his releases such as Black Beacon - an intergalactic series created with illustrator Sebastian Piriz - and Skyscraper - his procedural crime story created with Mitchell Collins and Simon Robins.
"I like a good sci-fi crime mash-up but I'm always aiming to have a story that has something central beating in its heart," Lindsay says.
"My stories might be about mega-corporations and aliens, they might be about a hitwoman or it might be about a futuristic snow planet, but often they're also dealing with themes of suicide or concepts of becoming a parent or a grey morality of responsibility.
"It's nice to find that balance with your writing. You want to be able to sit back and go I said something worth listening to or worth somebody's afternoon as they sit down to read it."
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The writer is in a fortunate position of being able to collaborate with different illustrators across the world, depending on the project. At the moment, Lindsay is working on a project with an artist from the Wollongong region. Other projects have seen him work with people in the United States, the United Kingdom and Finland.
The creation of comics is, after all, highly collaborative. Both the words and the illustrations play a role in telling the story. Lindsay says the more collaborative the process, the better the result.
"I always think of the script and the writing that I do as very much the foundation and a blueprint, and then what everybody sees is what gets put upon that," he says.
"The artists not only make it look good, and do all the design work, they all take a hand in the storytelling aspect of it because comics is a very unique medium.
"How we read every single page - we read from panel to panel - it's an experience unlike any other storytelling medium."
It's this structure that has captured Lindsay's attention all of these years - not just as a writer, which he has been doing professionally for about a decade, but as a reader.
It almost goes without saying Lindsay has been reading comics since he was a kid - that's the demographic the medium is usually associated with. Although with themes such a suicide and adult responsibilities regularly appearing in his own - and others' comics - the medium can have a more diverse audience.
"I really enjoy it is a structural form of comics," Lindsay says.
"I think it's something that we take for granted as many people assume that comics for kids, and yet it's astounding how well kids can engage with comics and get the nuances of really subtle storytelling techniques within comics that a lot of adults sometimes need to pick up on because they've they've lost the art of reading comics."
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