It’s time to take a trip to MIBDUL…

Posted on April 7, 2022 by Teodor Reljic under Comics, MIBDUL, Writing

A young girl whose mother has committed suicide discovers she’s able to commune with ancient monsters, who have emerged from their slumber to wreak havoc on the over-developed, tiny planet of Mibdul.

‘Mibdul’ is a six-issue comic book mini-series written by myself, illustrated by Inez Kristina and published by Merlin Publishers. The first issue will be launched at Kixott on 14 April, and the party starts at 19:30. Said party will feature a signature cocktail, and early-comers will be rewarded by an open bar tab courtesy of our long-suffering but beloved publisher.

Now that the logistical stuff’s out of the way…

I’d like to point out that, much like the last few posts to appear on this sporadically updated page, Mibdul is a tribute to Marsascala. The place served as a hometown for both Inez and myself while we worked on the book, and the very idea for the comic came about after it was announced that the unspoilt patch of seaside land at Zonqor Point was given away to a Jordanian construction company.

The ‘American University’ project thankfully never panned out as per its worst threats, but at that point I needed a vent for the helpless rage that came over me and many others.

It is, sadly, a rage that continues to crop up every now and again, whenever the construction lobby which de facto rules the country proposes a fresh monstrosity.

We all protest in the ways we know best. At least, we should be allowed to. From each according to their ability. And my own tend towards a love of genre fiction. As such, Mibdul taps into the ‘space fantasy‘ popularised by Star Wars, with a dollop of cosmic horror and the freewheeling surrealism of Euro-comics.

Mibdul will be published as a monthly six-issue series, starting from April and running through to September. We hope to see you at the launch for Issue 1. But in the meantime, do avail yourselves of the pre-publication offer, to have each issue delivered to your door upon release, at a discounted price.

What I’ve Squeezed Out of 2017

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Teodor Reljic under Life

Though in some ways it’s become little more than a social media habit at this point, I think good habits which have some value become rituals, and I like rituals very much.

So despite the fact of it all being something of a knee-jerk thing that “everybody’s doing”, I’d like to do my own take on some of the most significant things that happened to me and around me in 2017.

Got married

This may be the logical “big one”, if only because others may expect you to elevate it into a ‘Life Event’, perhaps one of the very few Ultimate Life Events that you get to savour and be honoured by.

Needless to say — for the sake of those who know us quite well, at least — neither V. nor I hold all that much earnest faith in the Institution of marriage per se, and would, to mention just one example, count our respective writing-based milestones (novel in my case, PhD in hers) as being the more important moments worth truly celebrating.

Nonetheless, it does feel great to be “tied” to someone like V., whose values and way of life not only match but also enrich my own with each passing day. Plus, both of our wedding parties — the official ceremony held at a distinctly unofficial venue, and the more full-blown party at the idyllic family vineyard in Monterotondo — made for truly memorable funtimes for all involved, so that has to be worth something, surely.

Got to WorldCon

The gods of both speculative fiction and state financing smiled upon me this year too, and my new wife and I jetted off to Helsinki soon after that latter celebration in Monterotondo to experience both the city itself and WorldCon 75.

I got there in large part thanks to a grant from Arts Council Malta which aims to help out local “creative practitioners” to travel to relevant places to attend relevant events that could, ostensibly, help them sharpen the tools of their trade and/or aid them in their careers.

While the organisers were also kind enough to put me on a couple of panels, the real upshot of all this was being able to meet some people I truly admire face-to-face. Talking shop is one thing though, and that’s all good stuff, but the best thing about it all was to discover just how generous and pleasant to be around they all were.

Then there was Helsinki itself. It’s the furthest north I’ve ever been, and the perfect August weather, coupled with the more socio-aesthetic balm of the city’s clever architecture, wide open spaces and efficient transport system felt like a break in more ways than one.

Got to deal with disappointment

Having aspirations of pursuing a creative writing career also means fielding disappointment and dealing with rejection on a regular basis.

This year has also been something of a whammy in this regard; as a short film we hoped to get made didn’t get through to the desired funding stream, an enthusiastic-at-first literary agent didn’t bite once they processed a full manuscript, and the comic book series I’m currently working on with a pair of kick-ass visual artists — MIBDUL — didn’t make it to our desired deadline (for very legitimate reasons, I hasten to add).

Pictured: Kick-ass collaborators

While I won’t deny that some of this has hit hard initially, with mild aftershocks coming back to haunt me every now and then, I’ve also accepted that this is par for the course for the path that I’ve chosen.

And in addition to all of that, it must also be said that each rejection came with its own caveats. We are re-applying for that short film because it’s a project we truly believe in. The literary agent’s rejection letter was actually a beautiful — even poetic — personalised missive that extolled the intrinsic value of the work, and I’m far from discouraged in continuing to pursue not only other agents, but the project in question (expanding an earlier work into something larger). And MIBDUL remains on track, with the added edge that it’s do or die at this point. And we have absolutely every intention to “do”.

Got to freelance for another year

We’re constantly being bombarded with the notion that ours is a time of endemic instability and chaos; so much so that choosing a freelance lifestyle may seem counter-intuitive, if not outright self-destructive.

But another way to look at it would be to celebrate the fact that, despite everything, one can survive without being tied of a larger organisation for an inordinate amount of time, and that you can in fact face the turbulent economic waters armed with just your skills and come out of it all, if not all-out-triumphant, at least only mildly scraped.

Pictured: The real freelance perks

Over the past year — my first official one as a freelancer — I’ve learned to calibrate both my rates and my time, learning from my mistakes and hoping not to get burned again, as has tended to happen. All of this while acknowledging that the opportunities given to me during this period would not have been possible had I not “apprenticed” myself in a more stable working environment for long years beforehand.

And perhaps the two biggest freelance coups of the past year were taking on the role of editor for Encore Magazine, as well as being given the privilege to teach a bit of Creative Writing at my alma mater. These feel like ‘vertical’ achievements (as opposed to the more ‘horizontal’ accumulation of same-ish jobs that one sometimes has to take on) and I hope they lead to good stuff in the future.

Got to ditch nihilism

Because devaluing the best things in life is stupid

A sort of pre-resolution resolution, this one. Owing to a number of things, 2017 could also be marked as the year during which I’ve entirely separated myself from anything remotely to do with the fetishisation of nihlism. This counts double for the New Atheists and all that they “inspired”.

While it’s unlikely that I’ll ever fall in line with any established world religion (monotheism feels entirely separate from the way I view things, for one thing), I value my wellbeing too much to submit entirely to total existential relativism.

Some kind of internal coherence is important — to remind yourself of what you need at a deeper level, to remind yourself of your ‘values’ and to build up necessary defences against the very same chaotic world that appears to be pushing you to believe in nothing but your basest needs.

Featured image by Paolo Scippo

Have an excellent new year, all.

Writing and Rebuilding | Motivational Roundup

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Teodor Reljic under History, Interview, Life, Malta, Politics, Work, Writing

I’m just emerging from a nasty tussle with the flu, so I write this with a paradoxical mix of mental battle-weariness and an eagerness to Get Things Done, given the powerlessness that I’ve been forced to operate under for the past week.

It often shocks me just how much we underestimate the mental defenses we have or don’t have; how quick we are to forget that the intellectual constitution we build up is important to our day-to-day. Getting sick, even with something mundane as the flu, will remind you of all that real quick. At a certain point during the worst of the fever-dream deluge, I was actually facing a demon tempting me into oblivion — the oblivion of giving up whatever I was doing and going into a 9-to-5 kind of setup, that is — while a terrifying pool of black ink just unspooled around its horizontal, muscular form that continued to dwarf and dwarf me further. Yeah.

So now that all that’s more or less (thankfully) over, it feels apt — even, that derided and often ill-used word, “natural” — to take stock of some of the stuff I’ve been up to over the past few months.

One of the main steps forward I’ve undergone professionally since October is accepting to return to a feature-writing gig at the olde homestead of MaltaToday. Well, I say “step forward”, when it actually constitutes something of a return to the stuff I used to do for them while full-time. But doing it at a freelance basis changes the dynamic somewhat, and actually reminds me why this particular facet of the job was always so satisfying.

That’s because it’s great to be given wider berth to explore topics that lie just outside my immediate comfort zone of the local arts and culture scene, given how a bulk of the features I’ve been writing concern issues like immigration, education, public transport and gentrification. Here are a few of my favourites from that batch.

‘My father was embraced with open arms by the Maltese – if that hadn’t been the case, I wouldn’t exist’

Omar Rababah. Photo by James Bianchi/Mediatoday

Syrian-Maltese social worker Omar Rababah sat down for a chat about the double-standards that enable Maltese racism to thrive. As someone with foreign blood but who was also raised — if not, like Omar, born — in Malta, I found a lot with which to identify in his story, something that certainly comes out in the article itself.

Click here to read the article

How neoliberal capitalism shaped Tigné Point to sell the Valletta view

Another piece that ended up being quite close to home, in more ways than one. A precis of an academic paper about the geo-economic dynamics of my old neighbourhood of Tigné in Sliema, the article details how the area gradually shifted from being primarily a place of, you know, basic human habitation, into a place that exists primarily to cater to the needs of economically steroid-pumped neoliberal capitalism.

Click here to read the article

Homophobic hate speech in Malta has decreased. Why are foreigners still a problem?

A recent report has shown that while homophobic tendencies have thankfully been on the decline in recent years — in large part, no doubt, to the LGBTIQ-friendly measures implemented into government policy — xenophobia remains rife as ever. The reasons for this are both predictable and revealing.

Click here to read the article

Can social media launch the revolution against our national dependence on cars?

Out of the box, into the box: Parking Space Events

As a non-driver myself, I’ve experienced the ins-and-outs of the local public transport system through its many permutations over the years. It’s been challenging, but still not challenging enough to convince me to take up driving, particularly in as densely populated and heavily-motorised island like Malta. However, I’m in the vast minority on this one… a problem that this article addresses by speaking to a few individuals who are thinking outside the box in an attempt to circumvent the traffic problem.

Click here to read the article

The view from the other side: Arnold Cassola on the Magnificent Süleyman

Arnold Cassola. Photo by James Bianchi/Mediatoday

It always gives me great pleasure to puncture through any instances of jingoism, and in Malta’s case The Great Siege stands as just about the loudest of that genre of political rhetoric. I’ve done it in the past, and the latest publication by historian and politician Arnold Cassola gave me a chance to do it once again — albeit in a reduced, more subtle capacity. It’s a history from the perspective of the person that the kitsch-populist narrative will have you believe was the “villain” of the piece, and it makes for a great and necessary insight.

Click here to read the article

‘It’s bizarre how some people in funding bodies perceive critique as an affront’

Karsten Xuereb

I’ve flagged up this chat with Karsten Xuereb — former Executive Director of the Valletta 2018 Foundation — not too long ago on this very venue, and it remains one of my favourite of this bunch so far. Namely because it’s so refreshing to hear someone speak openly about the systemic failures and own-goals of a project that was meant to deliver long-term success to the local cultural scene, only to be degraded into what looks to be — for the most part — a shallow display of crowdpleasing.

Click here to read the article

Turning ourselves into human capital

Wayne Flask. Photo by James Bianchi/Mediatoday

And now for something a lot closer to my usual wheelhouse. I spoke to my good friend Wayne Flask right before the launch of his debut novel, Kapitali, published by Merlin and launched during last month’s Malta Book Festival. Though I have some reservations about the novel’s narrative structure — reservations that I’ve openly voiced to its author when prompted, I hasten to add — there’s no mistaking the urgency of its satirical ‘mission’, and I’m truly glad that it seems to have found an audience.

Click here to read the article

There’s been some other stuff along the way too, and there will — of course — be more of it coming each week. Sickness or holidays, ours is a profession that never sleeps. But beyond all this, I’m also — as ever — eager to get back to a horror movie screenplay, whose on-the-page writing has finally kicked into earnest gear after years of treatments and synopses.

And in the wake of the very successful Malta Comic Con 2017, I’m only more eager to finish off MIBDUL — which, despite the many delays that dogged it, remains a beacon for me and, I’m sure, my collaborators. But another idea also hatched while chatting to some Greek creators over coffee and minced pie on that first comic con morning, so that needs seeing to as well…

Hey, we need to keep that black demonic pool at bay somehow, right?

More later!

March Update | Space, Cinema Pulp 2017 & Comics Galore!

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Teodor Reljic under Comics, Films, MIBDUL, Podcasts, Reading, Writing

The tail-end of March has been somewhat hellish for me; with freelance work suddenly clustering together to make sure that I’m sweating my way through my dreams just as a trip to Rome approaches.

Now that I am in Rome and things have calmed down somewhat, I thought I’d put together a digest of the stuff that I’ve been up to, and some stuff I’m looking forward to.

Kinemastik Film Club: Gonzo Space Pulp Takeover in Valletta

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

As of March 15 I’ve had the pleasure of curating the Kinemastik Film Club — Malta’s main source of arthouse cinema, run by the great Slavko Vukanovic and a team of trusty international collaborators — and given both MIBDUL and the upcoming release of Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, I thought I’d choose films that fit that particular bill.

Barbarella (1968)

Kicking off with Barbarella — which the audience laughed heartily with — and continuing on with Mario Bava’s corny but atmospheric Planet of the Vampires — which the audience laughed heartily at — this Wednesday (March 29) we continue our gonzo journey with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. It’s a film that’s both weird and strangely life-affirming, and I’m sure the reaction of all those present will be a lot more varied than it was for the previous two movies. But I do expect some baffled smiles throughout.

John Wick: Chapter 2, Logan, Kong: Skull Island and The Welcome Return of Pulp Cinema

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

But things have also been good on the mainstream cinema front; and I’ve been happy to review some tentpole releases — for a change — which left me feeling like my time and money wasn’t entirely wasted while watching them, while also somewhat restoring my faith in the idea that Hollywood can actually exist to simply entertain us, and not just be a financial placeholder for studios to make money off stale franchises.

The body-count heavy action sequel and pin-sharp pastiche John Wick: Chapter 2 remains king of that particular crop so far, with an oddly intricate internal mythology lending a full-bodied, Campbellian twist to its ludicrous but fun, and bordering on sheer supernatural fantasy, universe of assassins operating under a strictly — and bureaucratically — imposed moral code.

Ramping up the violence and overall pizzazz that has made the original something of a dark horse among contemporary trash cinema, the sequel is a balletic tour-de-force of hyper-violence that refines its pastiche so perfectly it’s hard to believe a human being, and not a machine, has put it together. And for once, that can stand as high praise.

Logan (2017)

Logan, on the other hand, was made all the better for being more human than its other superhero counterparts. Gone is the upbeat flash of Marvel cinema and the dark gloss and machismo of DC’s attempts at the same — this is a swansong for grizzled hero that leaks blood, sweat and tears in every frame.

It’s still a sort-of ‘Greatest Hits’ collection of some of the finest of dystopian work out there — it’s essentially a superhero flick with filtered through Children of Men and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and No Country for Old Men — but all of this is woven into the proceedings with a strange kind of grace, which is helped along by a couple of great, earnest performances from Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart in particular.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Less human than either but certainly less nihilistic than both, Kong: Skull Island is a low-key triumph of actually-good CGI and devil-may-care pulp storytelling. Set pieces like a gas-mask-clad Tom Hiddleston katana-ing his way through subterranean evil lizards and the titular Grand Ape smashing military helicopters into each other to the tune of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid are not to be sniffed at, and while notably lacking in any character development that convinces, here’s a film that finally lets us have some fun, and saves the potential franchise-building for the post-credits sequence.

COMICS! Enforcers and Vampire Hunters and Once Again, MIBDUL

Doctor Strange: new ongoing series written by Jason Aaron with art by Chris Bachalo

I’ve also had some pulpy fun with comics lately, devouring the Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo (and others) run on Doctor Strange to the point where I’m fully caught up with the series, and looking forward for the next issue to drop. Which makes my current monthly comics stack look something like: Doctor Aphra, Green Valley, The Wildstorm, Injection (gotta have that Warren Ellis fix) and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.

I have a feeling that comics are doing okay as far as a steady drip of quality titles is concerned.

Enforcer: Tough Luck #1 — written by Brian Funk with art by Artyom Trakhanov

There have also been a couple of fun first issues I’ve had the pleasure of delving into. The first one is a little bit special, given that I got it as a proud Kickstarter patron. Enforcer: Tough Luck #1 plunges us into a world that’s part film noir, part Lovecraft and part Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, only it’s all far more grizzled and far less forgiving. The art runs the gamut from great to slightly patchy, with a rough cross-hatching style that sometimes feels dynamic and cool but at other times is the wrong side of messy. But writer Brian Funk (yes, really) has created a fun world that I look forward to spending some time in.

On the other hand, I’ve already experienced the world of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula novels, and enjoyed it so much that picking up Anno Dracula #1 — the new comic book adaptation of the same book series penned by Newman himself, illustrated by Paul McCaffrey and published by Titan Comics — was something on a no-brainer. Newman’s witty and reference-happy trudge through vampire lore is very much in evidence, while McCaffrey’s thick outlines really accentuate the Gothic pastiche feel of the entire endeavour (as if to say: ‘we know we’re propping up the old as the new, and we want to go all out’).

I was alerted to the fact that the Anno Dracula novels were getting their own comic book adaptation courtesy of Chris Thompson, who was also kind enough to interview Inez and myself during last year’s edition of Malta Comic Con, and who also participated in a discussion on superhero cinema and whether or no it’s ‘ruining’ comics — chaired by Gorg Mallia and which also included my print media counterpart Ramona Depares, and myself — during that same edition of the Con.

If you can get over the annoying phone static that dogs his interview with Inez and myself — and which starts roughly around the 1:04:00 mark — you’ll get to hear us talk about the genesis of MIBDUL and what keeps us going. You’ll also get to hear a Maltese bus actually showing up at its stop. Which is a true rarity, I can assure you.

Meanwhile, April should be off to a fun start as I get to give a talk about my struggles and euphorias with storytelling at the Campus Book Festival — that’s happening on April 4 at 11:00. Hope to see you Malta-based peeps there!

Featured photo: Finding freelance bliss at Rome’s Caffe’ Letterario

By all means, paint yourself into that corner

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Comics, MIBDUL, Writing, Writing habits

‘Don’t paint yourself into a corner’ doesn’t make for great writing advice.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, painting oneself into a corner and then struggling to get out of it is often what keeps the piece from sliding into complacency.

If you paint yourself into a corner, it means you’ve taken a decision and committed to it. It also means that to get out of that corner will require you to execute a seemingly impossible feat of mental dexterity.

And don’t lucky escapes feature in countless of our favourite stories from antiquity to now?

Of course, one never aims to paint oneself into a corner. Corners are not fun places to be, generally. After all, they are a staple of stereotypical classroom punishment for a reason.

If you paint yourself into a corner, it means you’ve taken a decision and committed to it

But the work of writing is fluid and conducive to change. And sometimes, that change is a matter of necessity, not choice. But maybe, that change — maddening and plan-shattering as it may be at the start — could turn out to be the spark that you needed to get your story going in the first place.

It could be that the corner was inevitable. That you thought you were heading out into a green valley of plenty but that in reality, you were stuck in a one-bedroom apartment and bumping your head in the corner of the room made you realise the reality of your predicament and now, how will you solve it?

In the end, neither structure nor inspiration will save your piece. You can believe that inspiration will see you through, but ultimately all flashes of inspiration are just that: flashes. And you can map out your story based on the most rigorously researched schema this side of Joseph Campbell or Robert McKee, but rely too much on the mold and the creases will begin to show.

Some of the scariest and most satisfying moments in my own writing process for MIBDUL came when I realised I’ve locked down some narrative choices early on that will severely limit me later.

But once the initial panic wore off, possibilities cropped up. And the best thing about these new possibilities — which I won’t reveal for spoilery reasons, obviously — is that they did not crop up out of thin air, as new images and ideas rearing for a stillbirth and countless rehashing before being beaten into story-appropriate shape. They were reactions to already-existing plot points and character arcs, and so they came into a world with a shape and texture ready to receive them.

In the end, neither structure nor inspiration will save your piece

Instead of a domestic corner that you’re ‘painting’ yourself into, perhaps another variant of the metaphor would be more useful.

I prefer to think of it as the corner of a boxing ring. A place to regroup after being beaten down, and from where you can plan a fresh attack based on knowledge you’ve just gleaned about an opponent whose strength you may have underestimated…

Please support MIBDUL on Patreon

February Updates #2 | iBOy, RIMA, You Are What You Buy & the latest in Mibdul (again)

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Teodor Reljic under Art, Films, Interview, Malta, Theatre, Writing

Some updates from my ‘day job’ desk-adventures. Happy to report that February is turning out to be quite the productive and creatively satisfying month. Click here to read the previous update.

Questioning consumption | You Are What You Buy

It was interesting to hear what Kristina Borg had to say about her project You Are What You Buy, which takes an interdisciplinary approach to assessing the implications of shopping at the supermarket.

“One of the principal themes of this project is consumption – what and how we consume. This does not solely refer to food consumption; one can also consume movies, literature and more. However, in order to reach and engage with a wider audience I felt it was necessary to work in, with and around a place of consumption that is more universal and common for all. Let’s face it, whether it’s done weekly or monthly, whether we like it or not, the supermarket remains one of the places we visit the most because […] it caters for our concerns about sustenance and comfort.”

Kristina Borg

“An interdisciplinary approach definitely brings together different perspectives and different experiences and […] it could be a way forward for the local art scene to show and prove its relevance to one’s wellbeing. I think it is useless to complain that the arts and culture are not given their due importance if as artists we are not ready to open up to dialogue, exchange and distance ourselves from the luxury that one might associate with the arts. Talking about experience instead of a product might be what the local art scene needs.“

Click here to read the full interview

Fixing the moment | Mohamed Keita and Mario Badagliacca

The migrants living at the Belgrade Waterfront are using the beams of abandoned tracks (or tires or rubbish) against the temperatures below zero degrees and to produce hot water. Photo by Mario Badagliacca

Ahead of their participation at the RIMA Photography Workshops, I got a chance to delve into the dynamics of migration — particularly the problematic way in which migratory flows are portrayed through mainstream political discourse and the media — with Sicilian photographer Mario Badagliacca, who tapped into his experience of documenting the realities of migration — most recently in my own native Belgrade — as well as Ivorian photographer Mohamed Keita, who took a self-taught route to photography after traversing Africa to reach Italy.

The power of photography is to fix the moment. Psychologically speaking, there’s a difference between perceiving a ‘fixed’ image and a ‘moving’ image (as in a video, for example). The ‘fixed’ image constrains us to reflect on it in a different way. In my case, I want the images to serve as a spur for further questions – to be curious about the stories I’m telling. I don’t want to give answers, but raise more questions. – Mario Badagliacca

Photography by Mohamed Keita

Click here to read the full interview

Film Review | iBoy — Netflix takes the info wars to the gritty streets

Screams of the city: Tom (Bill Milner) finds himself plugged into London’s mobile network after being attacked by thugs in this formulaic but serviceable offering from Netflix

I had fun watching the ‘Netflix Original’ iBoy — not a groundbreaking movie by any means, but certainly a fun way to spend an evening in the company of Young Adult urban sci-fi that slots into formula with a satisfying click.

Love interest: Maisie Williams

“iBoy is yet another example of British cinema being able to strip down genre stories to their essentials and deliver up a product that, while hardly brimming with originality, still manages to create a satisfying piece of escapist entertainment. From Get Carter (1971) down to Kingsman (2014), the Brits sometimes manage to upend their Stateside counterparts by just cutting to the chase of what works without the need to inflate their budgets with unnecessary star power and special effects, while also toning down on any sentimentality and drama at script stage.”

Click here to read the full review

Patreon essay | MIBDUL & ‘that uncomfortable swerve’

Not exactly a ‘day job’ entry — though I wish it were — this month’s Patreon essay for our MIBDUL crowdfunding platform was all about me panicking over not having enough space to write out the story as I was planning it, and needing to make some drastic changes to accommodate this new reality.

“The thing about the detailed outlining of issues – and the rough thumbnailing of the pages in particular – is that, unlike the planning stage [in my journal], I approach them largely by instinct. This is the time when you have to feel your story in your gut, because you need to put yourself in the position of the reader, who will be feeling out the story in direct beats instead of painstakingly – and digressively – planned out notebook excursions. (To say nothing, of course, of the fact that the story needs to look good on the page – that the artwork needs the necessary room to breathe).”

Please consider donating to our Patreon page to access this essay and more

February Updates: Shakespeare, historical fiction & the latest in MIBDUL

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Comics, Malta, MIBDUL, Storytelling, Writing

It’s not February yet but it will be soon enough, and in these times of uncertainty and stress I figured it wouldn’t be so bad to start listing (and celebrating) some of things I’m excited about for the near future.

First up, though — something from the very recent past.

MIBDUL: latest process video from Inez Kristina

Done for our $10+ Patrons, I’m really loving this fully narrated process video from Inez, detailing how she goes about structuring a page in general, and page 10 of MIBDUL’s first issue in particular.

Of course it would be thrilling for me to see my words come to life as pictures at any stage, but seeing the page at such an early, raw stage has its own particular pleasures. For one thing, it’s good to see that, raw as the sketches are at this stage, Inez has a firm grip of both the geography of the spaces and the overall mood of the characters.

This certainly goes a long way to put me at ease as the writer of MIBDUL — knowing that the script will be rendered in a way that is both faithful and impressive in its own right — but it’s also heartening to discover that Inez understands the vibe of MIBDUL in a very intimate way. Successful communication is the key to all collaboration, and I think we’re riding a good wave here.

It’s also interesting to hear Inez speak about how her approach to the pages has changed of late; namely that instead of painstakingly rendering each page one by one, she’s decided to start sketching out several pages all at once, so as to get a better sense of how the storytelling should flow without getting bogged down by details and drained by the process too early.

Funnily enough, it mirrors my own turn with the writing of late: for similar reasons — to speed up the process in a way that matches the flow of the story — I’ve decided to go ‘Marvel method’ on the latter half of scriptwriting process; partly because dialogue is the most challenging part of it all for me, and partly because I think seeing the page laid out by Inez will inspire me to write dialogue that is both succinct and relevant to the flow of the story.

Please consider following our Patreon journey — it would mean a lot to us. Really.

Awguri, Giovanni Bonello: Gothic pastiche for an illustrious judge

Like MIBDUL, my contribution to the bi-lingual historical fiction volume Awguri, Giovanni Bonello — to be launched at some point in February in honour of the same judge’s 80th birthday — is yet another collaboration with Merlin Publishers, who have been a pleasure to work with ever since they oversaw the publication of my debut novel, TWO.

To say that this was a fun commission would be a massive understatement. Basically, the judge being honoured by this volume — the poshest birthday present imaginable, am I right? — was also something of an historian, and the personages he wrote about were ‘assigned’ to each of us writers to spin a fictional yarn out of. And I will forever be grateful to Merlin’s head honcho Chris Gruppetta for giving me what is possibly the most sensational and salacious character of the lot: Caterina Vitale, a Renaissance-era “industrial prostitute”, torturer of slaves and — paradoxically — beloved patron of the Carmelite Order.

Of course, I went to town with this one. High on the then still-ongoing Penny Dreadful — and hammering out the short story to the haunting and dulcet tones of that show’s soundtrack by the inimitable Abel Korzeniowski — I liberally crafted something that is both a pastiche of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, all set against the backdrop of a Malta fresh from the Great Siege.

I’m looking forward to getting my mitts on this gorgeous-looking book — designed by Pierre Portelli with illustrations by Marisa Gatt — if only because I look forward to checking out how my fellow TOC-mates tackled the raw material of Bonello’s historical output.

The Bard at the Bar: Debating Shakespeare

On February 8 at 19:00, I will be moderating a panel discussion on whether the works of William Shakespeare are relevant to the Maltese theatre scene — and Malta at large — and if so, how to make them feel more accessible and vital to the widest possible audiences.

The brainchild of actor, director and journalist Philip Leone-Ganado of WhatsTheirNames Theatre, the debate will, significantly, take place at The Pub in Archbishop Street, Valletta, aka the place where Oliver Reed keeled over and died after consuming an obscene amount of alcohol while on a break from filming Gladiator back in 1999.

More recently, the venue has accommodated the very first edition of ‘Shakespeare at the Pub’ — a production of the Two Gentlemen of Verona directed by Ganado himself last year — and another one is in the offing for 2017.

Two Gentlemen of Verona at The Pub, Valletta (WhatsTheirNames Theatre, March 2016). Photo by Jacob Sammut

The lively, unpretentious and game production certainly felt to me like a step in the right direction as far as making Shakespeare more vibrant and relevant was concerned, so I think the Pub is as good a place as any to keep that inspired momentum going with a good discussion.

And it should certainly make for a satisfying debate, given that apart from Ganado himself, the panel will be composed by James Corby (Head of Department of English at the University of Malta and hence offering some academic weight to the proceedings), Polly March (director of the upcoming MADC Shakespeare summer production — the ritualised and established intake of Shakespeare for the island) and Sean Buhagiar, head of the newly-established Teatru Malta and someone deeply concerned with nudging the local theatrical scene out of its usual comfort zones.

So do come along to hear us talk. And feel free to shout your questions and comments over a pint, or ten. Just don’t crank it up to Oliver Reed levels, please.

MIBDUL | Free prints for Patreon backers

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Teodor Reljic under Comics, MIBDUL

First off: I have returned!

Evidence of serious Scottish humour in Edinburgh

Yep, on the off chance anyone’s listening… I’ve just come back from a very inspiring trip to the UK which encompassed a stop to the ever-gorgeous Edinburgh, as well as the not-exactly-gorgeous Scarborough.

Scarborough, however, played host to Fantasy Con by the Sea — aka this year’s edition of the British Fantasy Society’s annual celebration of fantasy and horror literature, rounded off by the Society’s prestigious awards, the most notable of which were this year snatched up the likes of Naomi Novik, Catriona Ward and Ellen Datlow.

I’ll be blogging more about the trip in general (and the Con in particular) very soon, but first, I’d like to big up a more immediate creative concern.

So, we’re doing a six-issue comic book series called MIBDUL.

(‘We’ being myself and the awesome artist Inez Kristina)

We’ve got a Patreon page running.

And we’re offering free prints on it RIGHT NOW.

You can follow this here link to find out all about the giveaway, and root around the very same Patreon page for more information on the comic itself, which will be Malta’s very first serialized comic, and should also be a hoot for fans of Star Wars, HP Lovecraft, Guillermo del Toro and all those concerned with the alarming facts of the Anthropocene Era (no, really).

You’ve got until Tuesday to avail yourself of the free prints offer, but I do so hope you will also support us in the long run.

Watch this space for more… of Mibdul, and other stuff too.