#‘it’s like my job’ I say as a literal comic book artist with 2 graphic novels coming out and more lol

[raysdrawlings]

I was scrolling through youtube and just saw your zelink comic as a videos thumbnail

(a dub video, tho the dub was made with text-to-speech)

it's pretty cool seeing art by someone i follow randomly at random places

(oh, and they did put your blog's link in their description)

Thanks for letting me know! 😔

My current dubbing policy that I’m fine if the comic is a one-off comic, i love dubs! But if it’s a series of mine composed of several parts (Over 3) I do not want it dubbed.

I ask that anyone wanting to do a dub of my comic, please ask first!

I really wanna avoid situations where I have to ask someone to take something down they spent time and work on, cuz I know that totally sucks, and I’m so appreciative that someone likes the comic I made- and I think we can avoid all this with just a simple “hey can I dub this?”.

So please ask!! It’ll also let me know when I can watch the dubs I’m comfortable with! ✨ And I’d love to see them!

[anquer]

AI generated art stealing from artists is bad but I would also like to say that the handful of broke people using AI to create art of their OCs because they can’t affort commissioned art are not the people we should be yelling at.

It’s important to encourage people to buy from artists, and I do agree that those who can afford commissions should absolutely do that before turning to AI art, but I just don’t think those who can’t afford commissions can be blamed for using AI. Other options are available, such as picrew, but they just aren’t as good as AI at getting specific details and mood into the art as well. While AI often doesn’t do exactly what we had in mind, it does generally produce nice results that have much more character to it than picrew art can.

I mainly stand behind those people because

1. they are not the core issue. I don’t know any numbers, but I’m willing to bet that the number of people getting their OCs drawn by AI rather than getting then commissioned from an artist (because they literally cannot afford commissions!!) is very small.

2. I am still broke myself, and while I now have the skills to draw my own OCs, I remember what it was like a few years ago to be absolutely penniless, with no real drawing skills yet, and yearning for quality art of my OCs.

In my (perhaps unpopular) opinion, we should rather focus this energy towards encouraging people with money to buy commissions and being loud enough that perhaps in the future, AI art can start moving into a more ethical direction somehow. Because another fact is that now that we are starting to have quality AIs available, they’re not going to go away. What that means for artists is nothing good, but hating on the broke who don’t know how to draw themselves is stupid.

And honestly? In my opinion, going forward, a bigger problem than those broke people using AI for a few portraits of their OCs will be all the big companies using AI for things like the art in their marketing campaigns, the whole visual style of everything, all of their graphic design in general, even stuff like storyboarding and comics once AI gets advanced enough. Articles and blogs might replace photographers with AI-generated photos if the photos don’t have to be from a real event. If we start getting AIs that are capable of producing coherent video too, a lot of jobs in all video-making industries will be lost. AIs are already writing some articles, and who knows if in the future it’s the majority of news and articles that are researched and written by AI rather than humans? Perhaps AI can even learn how to write best-selling books and that leads to publishing companies taking in less and less human works because the perfect AI doesn’t need editors, royalties, OR months (or even years) of time to finish the story.

Now, I’m obviously hoping that AI will be used to support creative work rather than destroy it, but in this capitalist world, I don’t have high hopes. That’s why I think yelling at the broke who make a few OC portraits for themselves using AI is dumb. They aren’t the cause of this and they really won’t have an impact on the art industry or the future of AI.

(However, someone with enough money to pay for art opting to use AI instead? Yikes.)

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the latest Farin&Bela pencil drawing.

Aka the one that’s also my icon, even when that was a big risk to take because normally I start hating the photos I have once drawn, especially if I have failed miserably. This is how the drawing itself turned out:

ATTENTION: The original post about that drawing, with better image, behind this link.

This post is solely about the process itself with lots of pictures and also plenty of gifs, because I promised to do one if people would like to see that and I got some comments saying that they’re looking forward for that. So, here’s now that post!

For starters I have to apologize for the terrible quality that is the photos. I used my phone camera only and never thought about posting them, I just took them as a reference for myself and to show the progress to a friend and only after finishing the drawing I noticed that the angle of the camera causes a huge impact on the perspective of the drawing, so I sometimes might have done useless work when I thought some perspective was wrong when it was actually the photo that was wrong and not my work! I mean, take a look at these photos of the finished piece:

You see that? I realized this when I took maybe the second photo of the Farin sheet and looked at it and couldn’t believe my eyes because I didn’t remember drawing his torsto THAT small! And then I looked at the drawing and was like “wtf???” because it looked nothing like in the photo and then it hit me...

Also, another thing that I learn was that I might need to pay more attention to the perspective of the whole thing also because when I draw, I sit at the table so I am constantly seeing the drawing from my perspective instead of looking at it from above so that’s probably also going to affect the way I draw. I try to keep that in mind in the future so I can avoid redrawing things again and again just because my perspective is different than the reference photo’s.

Also the giant forehead of Farin’s in the photo on the right might have caused me to laugh a bit too much but anyway, let’s continue~ Or more like: let’s start for real this time.

Here’s the reference photo to y’all:

What I did in photoshop was to draw a line between them to see how I can divide the photo on two A4 papers. I had been thinking about this photo for some time already because it’s one of my favorites (but now I just feel cringy looking at it after I have drawn it... goddamnit!), and I got this idea that I could try drawing it on two papers in case I fuck up so I can start over or try again without having to do twice the work! Which was actually a good decision because this was the first version of Farin:

And it was awful. I also realized I had never drawn Farin’s face from he front. I have drawn him before from the side a few times but maybe once it came out actually good so that was why I decided to do the 2 paper method - because I knew it was not going to be an easy job! Bela is relatively easy to draw so I knew already that I would not have too many problems with that one.

I struggled with Farin’s eyes the most, at first.

It took me a while to figure out how to do that white line in his lower lid. Keep in mind that this was my first face portrait in over 10 years so I was very, very rusty and I just didn’t remember how to draw like anything anymore. (The photo is tilted because Bela’s face is a bit tilted and my hand can’t draw anything that is not straight [lol] so I have to rotate the photo in order to even draw the sketch of Bela’s eyes.)

So I took my sketchbook and tried to do some eyes...

I was still struggling so much here until I remembered about blending. And I didn’t have my hopes high but grabbed the eyeshadow applicators (my fave tool for blending) anyway, and switched to my other sketchbook in case the paper was the issue and:

Blending. It was all about blending! So with that in mind, I realized I can continue and I don’t need to do these in my old way, everything doesn’t have to have a lineart done but some of the job is done not with the pencils but with the eraser.

Anyhow, the previous Farin looked really bad and was too big as well so I just discarded that and started a new sheet because the old lines were not coming off properly anymore. I don’t remember if this is the old face or new but I think this might still be the old one:

Yes it definitely is the old because look at those lines! This is the new sheet:

And in the photo you can see one of my pencils - I use Derwent Graphic pencils, it’s a 12 pencil set with very soft pencils, starting with H, F and HB and ending to 9B. With this one I used F, HB, B, 2B, 5B, 7B and 9B. The white pencil is actually my new love aka the eraser pencil Koh-I-Noor Hardmuth. It’s amazing, I recommend! I just didn’t order 10 new ones this other day. I actually used about 1,5 full eraser pencils on this drawing alone so that’s why 10.

Here’s a “little” gif of the process on Farin:

I felt crazy when I went for the shirt, and I felt like I was going crazy MEANWHILE drawing it but in the end I did it and I’m super proud of it!

Below is the reference photo, it was pain in the ass to follow all those lines with my eyes and try to find what was I drawing and where was I but I think I did good. That was a fun challenge.

Okay so, when I was done with the new lineart, I decided to go for the shading and blending because that’s what really makes the drawings to pop. I started with the left (his right, my left) side of Farin’s face because I’m right-handed, and in the first photo I had done just the left (right) eye and mouth and nose, but in the second there’s also the other eye done already:

Keep in mind this was not the last time I drew the eyes. Not even close.

Something was off with the right (left) eye so I had to do that one again and I noticed that when you blend but haven’t erased and cleaned it yet, it looks like a black eye :DDD So here’s the before and after images of that cleaning. (Cleaning = I draw, blend, erase, draw and blend more when needed and then erase again, and repeat this as many times as I need until it starts to look ready to my eye.)

So here Farin was “finished” but if you still remember the final piece or compare it to it, you might notice it looks quite different. And you’re right. But more about that later, because at this point I started to work on Bela.

It actually started really well - I also had to do the whole lineart again because it did not match the size of “finished” Farin. I don’t remember if this is the first or second eye but when I had drawn his eye for the first time, I noticed it was not in line with Farin so I had to redraw it. A gif of the progress:

What’s that brown paper I’m using, you may ask? Well I noticed that people have some sort of paper on top of their art to keep it from smudging and I have no clue what that is so here’s my poor artist recommendation: baking paper! I tested it and it works (if you just remember to keep it under your hand, that is...) so that is, in fact, baking paper! :DD

I have drawn Bela’s face a few times before and he’s just so much easier to draw. In fact I used 4-5 days on Farin but I managed to start and finish (this version of) Bela just in one day. And that means that out of 12 hours (because I literally used the whole day for drawing) I used maybe like... 5h or something on Bela. That’s how much easier he really is to draw.

I don’t know wtf is wrong with Farin’s face but he’s extremely difficult to draw and I’m not the only one who has been saying this. I guess he just looks so regular but still unique enough to be difficult to draw. Bela then again has features that are very unique and very... caricature-like? I mean that just by drawing his nose or chin you can make a comic book Bela look exactly like himself, and with more realistic style his eyes already do a lot, but Farin’s really the opposite. My comic book version of Farin is literally the most basic version I can draw, it’s how I draw those characters and the only thing that makes him look himself is the hair, and his nose in a side profile. So I think that’s why it’s so difficult to draw him because he doesn’t look too regular but still regular enough to make is a very challenging task to do properly.

So yeah, the same day as I started working on Bela, I was also “finished” with the drawing:

Also look at how different it looks like from this perspective:

With the reference photo open in photoshop and I don’t understand how Bela looks more like himself in my drawing than in the photo. Also when I showed the WIP to my brother, he said that I somehow had succeeded at making Farin look more like Farin than what he does in the photo even. It’s weird.

But we were still far from finished. I was going to use the fixative on this soon but it just kept snowing the whole week so I couldn’t so every time I walked past the drawings, I stopped to fix this and that. For days I kept telling myself “I’m done, I can’t do more than this, I can’t do better than this.” and considered the drawing finished but still kept fixing things. Every time I was “done” with the other drawing, I saw something to fix in the other one and once that was done, I felt like the first one wasn’t as good and had to fix something from it too. And that led to a cycle where the other drawing was always better than the other and the worse one needed to be fixed. In the end I was hating the whole process and myself and my skills and I was already ready to abandon this whole thing and call it a day and never ever show it to anyone “because I cannot draw”. The photo above, here’s a list of things I redrew after that:

Bela’s eyes, the right (left) one at least twice.

Bela’s nose.

Bela’s mouth a couple of times.

Farin’s eyes x588045028520

And a list of things I kept fixing and fixing:

Bela’s chin.

Bela’s neck shadows.

Bela’s hairline.

Farin’s whole face was tilted so I tried to fix that.

Farin’s face was too wide, which meant also partially redrawing the ear.

Farin’s hair was too long and wide too.

Farin’s nose.

Farin’s mouth might be the only thing I drew only once and I’m actually still extremely proud of how it came to be. I did the lips solely with blending so that was super exciting to notice how I can use it for drawing and don’t need the pencils for everything!

During Bela’s eyes and nose and mouth especially I was hating myself so much and I felt like I was taking the risk of ruining the whole thing and a few times I was certain that was what I had just done too, until I somehow was able to save it again. But because of that, I wasn’t able to make Bela’s mouth any lighter anymore, the color wasn’t just coming off the paper so had to use what was there and make it look like it’s how it’s supposed to be, too.

Here’s a gif about those changes on Bela - the first one has the old eyes and nose, the others have minor changed on the nose and mouth:

(The blacks probably don’t get any blacker in reality, I did add more color to it all the time but mainly it’s just the lighting and my phone camera changing the brightness.)

I did the final details on his nose without even using the reference photo anymore. The photo didn’t seem to make any sense anymore at all so I was just using my mechanical pencil and the blending tool and eraser to make is look better. To my eye it looked more like a very flat nose with a big tip of the nose and he doesn’t have a flat nose and I tried to get rid of that illusion. I still feel like it makes him look bit weird but I’m not entirely sure how. Maybe it was because of my improvisation, idk...

So, Bela was then finally finished for the last time. In the Farin piece his left (right) eye had been bugging me the whole time and I didn’t want to touch it but still I felt like I have to do something about it because it was bugging me way too much. I then figured I could draw the eye line by line and take a photo of it each time to see if it looks right already or not, maybe I could then avoid doing all the phases before I was sure what to think about it. I mean, now the only way to see if it was correct was to draw e.g. an eye from start to finish, I couldn’t see from just the lineart or unblended eye if it was in the right spot etc. And here’s that progress on a gif:

The gif about only the eye would look so nice if Tumblr didn’t make the gifs so HUGE - this one is actually only 300px or 400px or something:

Apparently I also wasn’t happy with the other eye because:

But good thing is: I really enjoy drawing eyes. I love seeing them to “come alive”, my favorite part was to eraser a bit of the color on the iris to make them look like they are actually shiny! It feels like something so small to do and yet it makes a huge impact on the drawing!

And here’s yet another gif of the whole Farin sheet with all of the changes, including the last changes that made his head narrower, and less tilted and more in line. Look at the left side of his head especially to see that:

I can also see his nose changing between the first few photos. I keep forgetting about that but yeah, I also fixed that a little at some point.

And last but not least, the whole drawing in some sort of a timelapse gif:

Last two are the same but just a photo and the scan of the finished drawing. I still keep seeing things I would do differently but no can do, I already used fixative on it, also to keep myself from obsessing with it any more :D And to use it as a study of some sort. I have never been able to draw a perfect pencil drawing and this isn’t one either. I probably never can draw perfect drawings from references.

I do enjoy the whole shading and blending process, so much so that when I was editing these photos, I just wanted to start drawing something so bad but I also figured that I start to lose motivation when I get to the point where everything should be finished but I just can’t make it perfect. Like the current WIP I have, all I should do is to get the proportions and perspective and the lines of their faces correctly and I would be ready but it feels more like a superpower some people possess and I’m not one of those. I don’t know what is it but I just feel that I cannot see. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can’t see what I try to do and somehow keep drawing everything the wrong way. Just like in this post’s drawing too. There’s still things that are wrong and I know what it is but I don’t know how to solve it. My hands just don’t listen to me and they can’t do what I think they should. I also think the reason I cannot draw perfect copies of photos is because you can always see my “handprint” in them. If I copy a photo, it will look like a photo and not like a drawing made by me. So I believe that in my drawing there’s always a part of me visible and I’m not entirely sure if it’s a good thing or not. On bad days it’s not a good thing, obviously. On good days? Well I guess it’s good then because it just means I have my own style which I really should appreciate. But I wish I had my style only when I want it to be visible, but I can’t control it. Just like I cannot write text by hand that would look like it was written with a computer, so I guess I should just try to get used to it, no matter how much it’d bug me sometimes.

[jupitermelichios]

DC: The High-School AU: The Series: The Staff (the musical)

So I finally cast the school staff and teachers for my DC High School AU, which I thought some of you would have some fun with! I took the subject list from a fairly fancy looking private school, because only schools you have to pay for have their subject lists online, so I’m probably offering way more classes than your average state school, but hey, it’s my AU and I wanted to cram in as many supervillains, obscure heroes, and bad jokes as possible.

Admin & Staff

Principle - Amanda Waller

Deputy Principle & Treasurer - Noah Kuttler (the Calculator)

Nurse - Myra Mason (she was Dr Midnite’s nurse and love interest in the 40s & 50s, then got fridged, but I’m unfridging her and giving her a job with much better survival prospects)

Councillor - Ethel Peabody (she’s a psychiatrist from the Gotham TV show, and also in my headcanon, Amanda Waller’s sister)

Librarian - Stanislaus Johns (The Librarian. I considered bookworm for this job but he’s literally called the Librarian, what was I supposed to do, not use him?)

Admin Staff - Laura Conway (Superman supporting cast and occaisional vampire), Mabel Martin (Riddler’s secretary), Theresa Collins (Goldstar, also Booster Gold’s secretary)

Business

Loren Jupiter (aka Mr Jupiter the richest and therefore most thrustworthy man in the world) - Business 101, Business Law, Entrepreneurship

Wesley Dodds (Sandman) - Business Communications

Annabeth Chamberlain (Brimstone) - Marketing, Hospitality & Tourism (she doesn’t work in tourism, but I figure anyone who can waitress while also having the power to set people on fire and damn them to hell and keeps her job probably knows a whole lot about customer service)

Family & Consumer Science

Miss Tribb (Lobo’s childhood teacher who inexplicably survived the extinction of their species) - Childhood Developement, Early Childhood Education

Neil Richards (The Mad Mod) - Texiles/Sewing, Fashion

Tenzil Kem (Matter-Eater Lad) - Food & Nutrition

Finance

Noah Kuttler (The Calculator) - Personal Finance

Foreign Languages

Matron Bertinelli (Nu52 Huntress, who I’m declaring a sepperate character and the aunt of pre-52 Huntress because they’re radically different characters and I like both of them) - ASL, Italian

Chang Jie-Ru (Nu52 Yo-Yo) - Chinese, AP Chinese

Yolanda Montez (Wildcat II) - Spanish, AP Spanish

Barbara Minerva (Cheetah) - Latin

Health Sciences

Myra Mason - Emergency Medical Responder training

Charles McNider (Dr Midnite) - Anatomy & Physiology, Health Class

IT

Brian Durlin (Savant) - Computer Programming, Web Dev

Jennifer Lyn-Hayden (Jade) - Digital Art 101

Arnold Wesker (Ventriloquist) - 3D Animation, 3D Graphics (I don’t know why but the idea of Wesker as an animator just tickled me. Obviously his real passion is stop-motion, but he learnt 3D because there were more jobs)

English (the fancy private school called this ‘language arts’ which is so prentious it makes me feel slightly nauseous)

Wesley Dodds (Sandman) - English Language, AP English Language

Rac Shade (Shade the Changing Man) - English Literature, AP English Literature

Chloe Sullivan (the worst character in the Smallville TV show, a hotly contested position) - English Language, Communications 101, supervises the School Paper and the Yearbook

Shelly Gaynore (The Whip III) - Englist Literature, Creative Writing

Basil Karlo (Clayface) - Intro to Shakespeare

Nick Scratch (officially his supervillain name is just Scratch, but I refuse to consider that a code-name, looking at you Drake) - Communications 102: Public Speaking

Mathematics (which has a 100% villain make-up, which seems accurate from what I remember of high-school maths)

Noah Kuttler (The Calculator, because I think I’m funny) - Pre-Calc, Calculus, AP Calculus

Harlan Graves (The Underbroker) - Stats, Algebra 1, Algebra 2

Angelo Bend (Angle Man, becuase I know I’m funny) - Geometry, Trigonometry

PE (I realise this is probably too many PE teachers but there are a lot more caonical althetes than just about any other job in the DCU except maybe scientist)

Lawrence Crock (Sportsmaster, you knew this was coming) - Gym, Weight Training, coaches Baseball, Basketball, Tennis & Hockey

Lisa Snart (Golden Glider) - joint-coaches Cheerleading, coaches the Drill Team, Wrestling

Randy Hanrahan (Stallion) - PE, joint-coaches Cheerleading & Cross-Country, coaches Football

William Everett (Amazing Man) - PE, joint-coaches Cross-Country, coaches Track & Field

Matron Bertinelli (Huntress, sort of) - coaches Soccer & gymnastics

Performing Arts

Lisa Snart (Golden Glider) - Dance

Hartley Rathaway (Pied Piper) - Music 101, Music Theory, Composition, teaches Guitar & Percussion

Isaac Bowin (The Fiddler) - Music 101, AP Music Theory, leads Jazz Band, Orchestra, Marching Band

Siobhan Smyth (Silver Banshee) - part-time, leads the Choir and teaches singing

Basil Karlo (Clayface) - Theatre, Theatre 101

Simon Trent (Grey Ghost) - Theatre, Theatre 101, Film Studies

Ted Kord (Blue Beetle) - Theatre Tech

Mary Louise Dahl (Baby-Doll, from B:TAS) - Film Studies, Video Production

Betty Bates (Lady-at-Law, who is technically owned by DC now due to corporate buy-outs) - Debate

Science (do you have any idea how hard it is to pin down areas of specialisation for comic book scientists? TNT is on this list entirely because he’s the only actual honest-to-god professional chemist I could find)

Kirk Langstrom (ManBat) - Biology, AP Biology

Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy) - Biology, Environmental Science

Thomas “Tex” Thomas (TNT) - Chemistry

Achilles Milo (Professor Milo, again not really much of a code name) - Chemistry, AP Chemistry

Will Magnus (I refuse to even dignify it as a code-name) - Physics, Earth Sciences

Ray Palmer (The Atom) - Physics, AP Physics

Adam Strange (DC is just doing this to fuck with me, personally) - Astronomy

Social Studies & Humanities

Barbara Minerva (Cheetah) - World History

Maxie Zeus (ffs) - World History, AP World History (fun fact, Maxie was canonically just a normal history teacher before he got lightning powers, became convinced he was Zeus incarnate, and set out to become a criminal, making him my favourite DC mobster by a country mile)

Terry Long (aka one of the only characters to really deserve to get fridged) - US History, AP European History

Eobard Thawne (every code-name he has is stupid, but lets just go with Reverse-Flash as the least awful option) - US History, AP US History

Nick Scratch - US Government, AP US Government, AP Comparative Politics

Rex Tyler (Hourman) - AP Art History

Magdalene Kyle-Burton (Sister Zero, she’s a sometimes-nun and a sometimes-sister to Catwoman) - Comparative Religion

Michael Carter (Booster Gold) - Economics, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics

Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) - Psychology (there is exactly one heroic psychiatrist in all of comics, and I’d already used Dr Fate elsewhere. Scarecrow seemed like the least bad option of the remaining pool for being around children, and he does at least have teaching experience)

Adam Strange - Sociology

Betty Bates (Lady-at-Law) - Law

Richard Occult/Rose Psychic (it’s complicated, lets just say Dr Occult and leave it at that) - part-time, Criminal Justice

Technology & Engineering

Ted Kord (Blue Beetle) - Electronics, CAD, Woodworking

John Henry Irons (Steel) - Engineering, Metalworking

Will Magnus - Robotics

Visual Arts

Linda Lee/Danvers (she’s Supergirl, but I’m making her a different character from Kara Danvers/Kent because the DCU is really short on artists and I needed someone to teach the damn class, although the only thing that really makes her distinct from other supergirls is that she fucked a horse that one time and IDK how that will translate into a personality...) - Ceramics, AP Studio Art: 3D Design, Art 101

Rex Tyler (Hourman) - Graphic Design, Drawing, AP Studio Art: Drawing

Jack Knight (Starman) - Painting, AP Studio Art: 2D Design, Art 101

Jennifer Lyn-Hayden (Jade) - Photography

So there you go - I’ll be honest I still don’t really understand how high-schools in the USA work, and I have no idea what Design studio art even is so I kind of assigned those ones at random, but now it’s done and cannot be changed.

As always this universe is open to prompts so if you want a chapter focussing on any of these characters just drop me an ask or a comment and I’ll see what I can do. Making Dr Occult & Rose Psychic a single gender-fluid person is already on my list to do, since that’s who I thought they were for a longest time when I started reading comics and I’m still kind of annoyed that isn’t canonically what’s going on.

[teamkimsoekjinforever]

11 Questions

I was tagged by the dope af @karenpaage - thanks so much!

Rule 1: Post the rules. Rule 2: Answer the questions the person who tagged you asked, and write 11 new ones. Rule 3: Tag 11 people.

Your Questions

1.  What’s your favorite random fact that you know? Can be any subject you want, just teach me something new! 

Damn, I carry around so many it’s difficult to decide! Ummm, the name Wendy was created for the book Peter Pan. 

Fun fact you probs know but I like people who aren’t readers/lit nerds to know - The Three Brothers Story from HP7 was fucking ripped straight out of The Canterbury tales. It pisses me off to no end.

2.  If you could sit down and have lunch with one fictional character, who would it be and what would you want to talk about? 

Literally the most difficult questions! Probably someone like Elizabeth Bennett because we would have SO MUCH fun just being dicks to stupid guys. Jo from Little Women would definitely have to be with us though... so I’m gonna need like a fancy luncheon party. 

OR Vanessa from Atlanta. She is amazing - so gorgeous and strong and ok with not knowing how everything is gonna turn out and I want to be her best friend.

3.  Above question continued: same scenario, but with one real-life figure, living or dead. Who’d it be? 

Taika Waititi or John Boyega. No explanations needed.

4.  What’s your comfort piece of media? Can be a song, a movie, a show - something that brings you peace and/or that you go back to often. 

Doctor Who is the most comforting show to me, it seriously saved me from my depression countless times and I wouldn’t be alive today without it.

Sing Street is another, the music is just so amazing and it makes me cry in happy ways. Plus it’s my boyfriend’s favorite movie so I always think of the fun we have watching together.

5.  Favorite trope (either in fanfic or in actual writing/film)? 

I don’t read fanfic, otherwise this would be a way more fun answer, so I’d have to say the ‘meddling relative’/’misunderstood situation’. This seems lame but after reading Jane Austin it’s just so much fun! When I really fell in love with these tropes was reading/watching Atonement. What Briony does has such a horrible impact that I am so fascinated by the psychology behind it.

6.  Do you collect anything? If so, tell me about it! 

I collect books, vinyl albums, bluray steelbooks, and comics/graphic novels. I’ve also accumulated a lot of giant pandas over my lifetime because I love them.

7.  What’s one thing you love that people wouldn’t expect you to love? 

Newer pop music. I’ve always been such a music snob (media snob in general) so when I started college in 2011, One Direction just popped onto the US scene and people were astounded that I loved them. Sometimes I just want some fun junk in my earholes.

8.  What’s something you’d love to do but seems kind of ridiculous/out of your realm of possibility at the moment? 

TRAVEL! I am dying to go out of the country! I’d have to get a passport but I would love to see my friend in Sheffield and also go to Wales. I actually have a great job now and no longer living paycheck to paycheck but the fucking rona hit just when I got the job so I’m stuck in Kansas for now.

9.  If you could go on a dream vacation - all expenses paid, wherever you want  - where would you go? 

Tokyo. It is where my boyfriend and I talk about going the most. They have all our anime and cats and mountains, what else do I need!?

10. What’s your favorite/preferred streaming service? 

Hulu cos they got pretty much everything I need. However, HBO Max and Disney + are rising up as they add more content.

11.  Villains or heroes?

This is kind of a cop out, I’m so sorry, but it really depends. I LOVE an anti-hero but I would die for Spider-man (in any universe). Mostly, if it’s superheroes or sci-fi I love the heroes but in other films and books I usually love the villians - whether they are true villains or just assholes - people seem to give more thought to their characters so I always want more. Plus, I always feel I see my own thoughts/feelings paralleled in them.

My questions:

1. Have you ever broken any bones? If so how many and how?

2. What is your favorite cartoon? It can be current or from childhood.

3. If you could live in any fictional world what would it be and why?

4. What is your favorite snack?

5. If you could spend a day with ONE band member/solo artist, living or dead, who would it be?

6. Share your heritage! Do you have any favorite traditions or customs? I’d love to learn!

7. What ‘extreme’ activity would you do if you were given the opportunity?

8. Who are your favorite social activists? Current or dead, it doesn’t matter!

9. What is your favorite article of clothing? Why do you love it?

10. Do you have any unique hobbies? (anything but reading and movies/tv lol)

11. What is your dream job?

I don’t think I know 11 peeps but I’ll tag @kaybakat @blossoming--flower @cryyptic-darling @bradschemicalromance

[polishtamales]

It Started with the Hawkeye Initiative & Ended with Safespace & Snowflake: GAME OVER

This is how the comic book industry dies. Or is it a dawn of self-publishing?

If it wasn’t for years of horrific ad sales, it was definitely insulting the vast majority of it’s consumer base. Or more specifically for Marvel’s case, CATERING AN ENTIRE MARKET THAT DOESN’T BUY COMICS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Regardless of intentions, YOU CANNOT MAINTAIN A BUSINESS OF CONSTANTLY FLIPPING OFF YOUR FANS AND EXPECT THEM TO PAY YOU FOR YOUR VIRTUE SIGNALING.

There’s a difference between being progressive with fiction and being a radical activist for the sake of retweets and likes, followed by a selfie for more self-esteem boosts. In a society where there’s no turning back from capitalism, money is your God, whether it’s right or wrong. You could suddenly be hit with a car and you better damn respect that the more money you have, the more likely everything will be fine afterwards. It pays the bills, it puts food on the table, and you better understand, it’s not going to change, outside of an act of God or Aliens simply invading our planet and enslaving humanity. Your pick.

It’s no secret that working in comics sucks, regardless of country. The pay is bad, the deadlines are killer and it has always been the least practical way of storytelling for a mass market, especially in America. Case in point, you don’t really need a colorist, a letterer or anything else, outside of a distributor (RIP DIAMOND). Anyone with a graphic design degree knows, you can easily be a one-man publisher without the need of an entire crew of mouths to feed. Not saying it wouldn’t be helpful, but given the future economy, it will be the norm.

See, the old buzz word of digital publishing really is a big deal, especially when it comes to the incoming job market change. No longer can you simply “specialize” in just one area of expertise, but you will be expected to fill in multiple roles to be successful. Even if time is against you in certain projects, it is entirely possible to save more money by just doing everything yourself. Here are the major hurdles and solutions to creating a new comic in the new landscape of comics next year:

1. STORY - This is where EVERYONE gets it wrong. Do not follow the trend of  IDW publishing by planning out an ENTIRE world building graphic novel that will span DECADES.

Stick to what exactly you’re good at telling. Tell a short story. Polish every line of dialog. Make it shorter. Polish every line of dialog, make it shorter.

Third and most important advice is leave politics out of your story, unless it is about politics. Most older women buy trashy romance novels to escape their shitty sex life. Most middle-aged men by comics for the tits and ass and possibly the articles? Again, all ways of escape reality, yet you have Marvel comics for years that kept interjecting real world politics and views in their titles. Trust me when I say this, less than 10% of the United States is on Twitter. That means most people could give two fucks and a shit about Trump, Biden or Bearnie, BELIEVE OR NOT. So when most of America retreats after a long day of work and not TWITTER, they are spending money on things to make their lives tolerable. Being told Orange Man Bad is not one of those things, nor is bringing up Obama, again and again. Don’t make market assessments based on social media, leave politics out of your comic. Additionally, learn about basic story telling and especially learn from other mediums outside of comics. Films and actual books will teach you a lot about pacing. You can learn basic writing skills by taking a community college course or higher. The goal and mindset should be to be humbled and not a place to be bitter when you get criticism.

2. ART - KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. If you’re catering towards a WOKE AS FUCK CROWD OF TRUMP HATING LIBERALS, make sure you book will actually sell and not retweeted... Simply collecting a check and going unemployed for months on end is not an actual goal in life, much less beg your followers for coffee money. Example, see the animation industry.

Art is your mode of presentation, the book cover (not literally), the point of sale. If you want to cater towards a crowd of people of color, who happen to be gay, trans, and dealing with PTSD, etc, then make fucking sure your art matches with the story. You cannot have “tumblr” artists doing action intensive comics, where they spend more time creating people of color of diverse identity politics, than learning to draw a simple choreographed action sequence. You can’t have an action comic with ONLY 2 small panels of action to sell your comic. Again, no shame or secret to point out that the VAST majority of comic sales are made off of issue #1s and tits and ass. Disposable income of middle-aged men cannot be underestimated, regardless of what cherry pick data you want to argue with. The older you get, the less progressive and liberal most Americans become as well. That’s called “reality” of real politics. So my advice, if you’re into action comics, learn to draw action, learn about the demography that buys those titles and don’t interject your politics in it, especially if you want to put food on the table. I’m not telling anyone to suddenly put Trump as the “good guy” president, but I am telling you that you shouldn’t include real world politics in your comic. You’re not offending either side of the political spectrum, IE, you’re not insulting your customers.

If you want to make a rom-com comic like Archie, sure those years of learning tutorials off of tumblr might pay off, but again, know your audience. Archie continues to sell steadily with a profit from the boomer generation, white women (vast majority), Christians, etc. Don’t expect your rom-com comic of a gender-less trans-protagonist that may or may not want to be dependent relationship with another person of color. You see where I’m getting with that? You’re welcomed to write and draw a book like that, but don’t expect anyone to buy it. Getting your book retweeted by your favorite SJW, doesn’t mean sales, it just spells virtue signaling for them.

My advice in the art category is DIVERSIFY your portfolio. Don’t just learn off tumblr. That boat has sailed and failed, as seen with every sale of tumblr picked artists at Marvel. Go out there (when the virus gets under controlled) and learn to draw from life. Don’t worry about gender, people of color, none of that stuff. Draw stuff that you actually care about and not for political points with your peers. If you wanna draw short men struggling to open a can of coke, then draw. If you wanna draw hot women, draw hot women. You wanna draw a cute tennis player with short shorts and looks like Swedish male model, then pack some sun screen. You’re not looking to be judged, you’re not looking for internet points of how woke you are. You are simply expanding on things that interest you and how it will indirectly help you grow.

Think Mr. Miyagi, but do it 80,000 times. You’ll master drawing short men struggling to open cans of soda!

When creating the art, DO NOT THINK ABOUT COLORING. It is way more profitable to create BW comics than color. Not only do you save money printing, but the amount of time you free up helps you to micromanage yourself better.

3. DIGITAL PUBLISHING - You don’t need anyone else if you have a computer and some basic digital programs. Once you understand how to write a short story, present marketable characters, then you’re set. The only enemy is time.

Learn Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for art. Learn Adobe Indesign for lettering, page layouts, etc. A few talks with a local printer and you can independently self-publish any book.

So to sum things up, learn to self-publish, respect your readers and the politics/baggage that industry houses and understand that things revolve around money. If you want to be a stereotypical far-left wing tumblr artist that wants to create a superhero of a trans-black girl/binary that may or may not want to be involved in a relationship with another binary/trans person, which could be their sister/brother/internet gas, then by all means make that comic. It won’t be profitable nor will it sell compared to other titles, but I guess you can’t claim victim-hood without a self-afflicting handicap and an arrow to the kneecap.

After all, Marvel’s done it for years without profitability and look where the industry is headed towards... This was all pre-Covid-19 mind you. The virus, if anything, is just the nail on the coffin after Diamond distributors quit. The comic industry might be dead, but books as a medium will never die.

[patheticphallacy]

This is the first in my Graphic Reading Wrap Up series.

I read enough manga, comics and graphic novels that I figured I’d be better off doing separate wrap ups so I don’t find myself having to cram a shit ton into my reading wrap ups every month. I want to spend more time actually talking about what I read, especially graphic fiction/non-fiction, which I get through so much of that I feel like I don’t spend enough time explaining my thoughts.

If you would like longer reviews of anything I talk about in this post, let me know. I have some P L A N S for Christmas blogging to make up for what will be a smaller November upload month.

#1 is my first wrap up after my September wrap up, if you want to see what else I’ve read.

Assassination Classroom Volume 5 by Yusei Matsui

I’m very fond of this series, and the growth of its characters. The prioritisation of developing the students and their self esteem is so incredible: rather than beating his students down, Korosensei works them towards improvement, and it’s interesting seeing so many layers of characters who aren’t strictly good or evil. This volume has the end of the baseball arc, a fight against the new PE teacher, and the next arc is another assassination attempt on Korosensei, which is exciting.

Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu

I’ve been reading this webcomic since 2016, so finally being able to pick up this volume now I have money has been a long time coming. I hold every character deep in my heart and I know pretty much every chapter/episode like the back of my hand, so reading this was more like revisiting an old friend than something new. I HIIIIGHLY recommend this webcomic, and I will only discuss it with you if you also rate it 5 stars and love it unconditionally!

The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited by the McElroy’s (especially Clint) and Carey Pietsch

This is my favourite arc in the podcast, so I was expecting to love it more than I did. It feels like some of the humour isn’t translated as well over to these graphic novels, but I think changes made are important to fit the format. I think this works well for people who are fans of the podcast, but I’d definitely recommend the podcast first for other people, just to understand the characterisation and the D&D self-inserts Griffin has. But I will say…. Angus McDonald is still my baby boy and I love him.

Momo to Manji Volume 1 and 2 by Sawa Sakura

A very heavy series, while still being cute. Momo to Manji is set during the Edo Period and follows a male prostitute who is taken in by another man after growing too old to still serve. It has confusing moments, and has very dark material– some violence, obviously prostitution, as well as incest and very young characters having sex with adults– but the relationship between the two main characters is very endearing, and I really grew to care about Momo especially.

Welcome to Wanderland #4 by Jackie Ball (not pictured)

Finally got to read issue 4! A very quick and fantastical series, and I think the new artist did a great job helping finish up a series that was very dear to the hearts of the writer and the original artist. I was satisfied with this conclusion and I think I’ll end up re-reading it, maybe next year, just to experience the full story in all its glory.

Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito

This is a solid 3 star collection. None of the stories really lingered with me other than Gentle Goodbye, which is now one of my favourite short stories. It’s a beautiful and incredibly moving story for me, even if that wasn’t Ito’s original intention when writing it as a horror story. There’s something to be said about generational horror and ghosts, and what family means to different individuals.

Dissolving Classroom by Junji Ito

My new favourite Junji Ito manga! There’s a focus on body horror, as there always is, but this felt more… fun. Chizumi is a nightmare child, I think she’s so great and definitely up there with my favourite children in horror now. I know the ending will be hit or miss with other people, but it’s not like Uzumaki, where I waited 600 pages to be disappointed at the end.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Volume 1, 2 & 3 by Kore Yamazaki

A series I’m very much in the middle about. I’m enjoying the fantastical elements, but the setting and time period are so confusing to wrap my head around in terms of modernity. It very much reminds me of Lore Olympus in that regard, but that webcomic is more straightforward in explaining, so I just don’t know with this manga. There’s also something stopping me for completely loving the characters. I’m not a fan of age-gap romances that don’t spell out what’s going on: is this romantic, or is it purely platonic? If I don’t know where I’m supposed to stand, I can’t feel at ease reading it.

The Avant-Guards #7 & #8 by Carly Usdin

This series is so good! Great cast of characters who are believable in their love for one another and their basketball playing. There’s a genuine wholesomeness to this series that really reminds me of Check, Please! and Haikyuu!!. What is it with sports stories and exclamation marks? Anyway, I highly recommend this series, I’m glad it’s been longer running than Usdin’s other stories. Also, did you see the Heavy Vinyl graphic novel announcement? SICK.

Lovely Complex Volume 2 by Aya Nakahara

This series is getting better by volume. It definitely draws on cliches and tropes of the genre, but I really enjoy that, and I’m still attached to the characters and the slow burn complexity of the feelings between the two leads. It’s easy reading where the conflicts never linger and isn’t at all difficult to get through, which is definitely something I need more of in my reading.

Parasyte Volume 1 by Hitoshi Iwaaki

Meh. For some reason, I was really expecting to love this– a dude learning to live with a parasite who controls his arm is a great premise– but there was something about the writing that stopped me from feeling compelled. I can’t really feel any risk, and that’s something I like in my horror. The body horror is also not too great, which was one of the selling points for me. Sad! Not sure if I’ll carry on with this series, honestly.

Out of Skin  by Emily Carroll

Another freaky short story from Emily Carroll, who honestly does no wrong in my eyes. Amazing art– character design, colour palette, all of it, amazing– and the eerie story at its heart. I love Emily Carroll’s focus on more feminine voices and stories, it never feels exploitative of women and draws on violence towards women without feeling nasty or targeted.

Teen Dog by Jake Lawrence

The ULTIMATE graphic novel. Literally, one of my all time favourites. It’s the perfect balance of silly and existential, and I genuinely love every moment of reading this. It was my second read through and I just smiled the whole time.

Are you a fan of this new recapping format? I found it a lot more easy to only talk about manga/comics/graphic novels, and doing this means I don’t put myself under pressure to get wrap ups out at the same time every month and have about 40 things to get through in one go!

I’d love some recommendations in the comments.

If you liked this post, consider buying me a coffee? Ko-Fi. 

Goodreads|Twitter|Instagram|Letterboxd

Graphic Reading Wrap Up #1 This is the first in my Graphic Reading Wrap Up series. I read enough manga, comics and graphic novels that I figured I'd be better off doing separate wrap ups so I don't find myself having to cram a shit ton into my reading wrap ups every month.

[cassafra5]

Where Have I Been?

I’ve been a bit nervous to post this.

Two month or so ago, I teased at a possible announcement and something I was very excited to share with you all. I had been given the opportunity to work on a temp-to-perm basis for a comic start-up headed by Marvel alumni. I applied on a whim to be a freelance Storyboard Artist, but I was instead offered the chance of working in a full-time Editorial and Admin position with a few hours dedicated to storyboarding and participating in creative meetings each week. As someone who's always wanted to get into creative work, this was a really huge deal for me and I was excited to learn and be able to have projects to add to my portfolio.

Now, part of the reason I held off was because I wanted to make sure it was solid before I made the announcement. It was a dream come true and it seemed too good to be true ... and it was. 

Read below if you'd like to hear about how I unwittingly signed up to take care of a herd of entitled neckbeards and had to work on preventing them from literally walking into glass instead of actually storyboarding as advertised.

TL;DR of my experience:

2018 unfortunately was a pretty rough year. The good news is that I managed to push for a mutual termination of contract and should be a lot more active very soon now that I’m not as emotionally drained by an incredibly toxic environment.

Credit to @kirain for looking through this and helping to edit it when I just rage-typed all of this together lol;

I walked away from my interviews in tears after being told that my work really had potential. I told them I had been a comic fan since I was a kid and this was something I was excited about. I grew up with family trying to dissuade me from doing art and I had friends/partners who really weren't interested in my work. I am by no means a professional, so I threw up whatever I could be proud of and applied to the role on a whim. So as you can imagine, having real professionals say I had potential was something amazing to me. 

My first day, they sat me at a desk with a tablet and computer and I was super excited to start learning and was immediately approached with a Sexual Harassment plaque and told to mount it. Weird but alright. It was a start-up and I already assumed we’d all be helping out with small jobs around the office. I helped them fix their scanner and they suggested I move it to my desk. I was a bit confused but did so. I asked if they wanted me to set their computers up for it but they waved their hands at me and said we could do it later. 

This would eventually result in me scanning every single document for every person in the office, and also measuring the office for furniture that they would randomly decide not to get. When I had a day off, I came back to piles of documents they refused to scan themselves since "that was my job". I got chastised since they wanted them in a hurry and it should have been done sooner ... i.e., the day I was off.

Alright. 

I also ended up doing the following duties:

Calling the IRS every single day because the Controller was too uppity about something that was in the mail and somehow thought they could track it...DURING THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN. I was required to do this and told it was part of my job.

Calling Instacart at the behest of their Legal Counsel, a man who bitched on the phone for 2 hours because he didnt want to go downstairs to drop off a faulty computer part, and having to tell them that their avocados were too soft and their almond milk had too many ingredients. I was required to do this and told it was part of my job.

I had to ask for multiple vendors to provide quotes and COI and do site visits to our office for things that they, on a whim, would decide they wouldn’t want....resulting in multiple vendors getting angry at me.

I had to get what “everyone wanted for Christmas” for their luncheon...they expected me to get cakes same day from a fancy bakery, as well as LOBSTER (one of them said this was apparently a Christmas tradition of theirs?) Mind you, they repeatedly spoke about budgeting since they were working on investment money and the owner repeatedly would mention how “every day we weren’t producing was a day we died a little more.” I guess that death would have been from gout.

I had to take on dealing with all building requests. Fine ...until they started to tell me I should be reaching out to building management about the "radiation coming out of the cable box". They said it was shooting at a person given their angle and, because I'm *that person*, I mentioned it'd probably be more of a radius vs a direct shot. They started talking about it causing a mushroom cloud over the office. I laughed. Apparently it wasn’t a joke :/ They also complained about the fan making noises and being able to hear people partying and singing songs ... during the holidays ... when people normally do that sort of thing.

I also had to deal with things such as their electrical work and assistance with general interior work in the office...for some reason

They put me in charge of the Party Committee for a Housewarming Party where I was the only one actually making arrangements. This would be fine but the office was sublet and, due to their clumsiness in handling their electrical work before I got there, part of the office has no electricity and there was also a fallen over power beam in the middle of the office...but I guess that can be an accent piece.

I literally had to rename their files. Rather than renaming documents themselves, they would email me to rename them and reupload them because they couldn’t be bothered to change them themselves.

I made the mistake of telling them I had worked with DocuSign in a previous job. What resulted was them forcing me to teach it to them...but then they would argue with me about why it couldn’t mail merge or allow them to revise their documents. A Docusign rep mentioned they could just do their work outside of Docusign and import it since the whole point is to maintain the integrity of the document but they just kind of blamed me for not knowing enough about something I had only briefly used in another completely different setting.

I was literally approached by the person who should have been leading me in storyboarding and told that I needed to look into “distraction graphics” for the office because he was concerned that the two head people (WHO WORKED AT MARVEL) kept bashing their heads on the glass and he was afraid they’d go through the glass eventually. My literal reaction:

Yeah...he didn’t laugh. It was apparently serious and I had to have some very awkward talks with some window vendors. Do you know it apparently costs more than $3.5k to cover glass that you could probably avoid if you just looked up from your phones when you walked?

Frustrating, but whatever ... it wasn't a big deal and so long as I got to do some creative work, I was willing to tolerate it. 

I asked the person in charge of art and asked when we'd be able to work on creative and was told that my role was mainly in admin and to "leave the storyboarding to the storyboarders".

I guess I just imagined every single mention of that during the interview process.

I was taken aback but he assured me it was fine since I could work in production and work on other items, like cutting comics up for Webtoons. This wasn't what I wanted, but fine ... maybe I could get something out of this regardless and learn, even if I was just cutting up and processing other peoples' work. By the way, they ended up not even letting me do that.

And here’s where I get to the owner of this establishment...

I got called in to meet with him and told I would be given a special project. He wanted me to suggest a few themes that would be used for a promo project the company was working on. Okay ... this could be good. I started thinking of all my favorite genres and comics and wrote out a decent list. I asked him if it there was a limit and he said there was no limit, so I made a comprehensive list.

He brought me back in a week later and ripped my report apart.

First, he didn't want Marvel and DC included, but then he got upset when they weren't. 

Star Wars and Serenity weren't Scifi, according to him; they were "Space Opera". So that had to be done. They were set in space but apparently that wasn't scientific. Alright. 

Spongebob and Ducktales were irrelevant, but apparently The Simpsons was super relevant. 

He smiled at me and told me I needed to redo it because I obviously didn't know what I was doing. Okay ... sure. Then he kept changing his mind. We started this before the holidays and I worked on making a very sortable report in case there were anymore last minute changes.

Me and another co-worker who were avid comic book readers spent a lot of time looking at sales numbers and articles to compile what we should focus on; however, for one reason or another, the owner would dismiss everything we brought up since he "hadn't heard of it". Deathstroke apparently never existed. Teen Titans also ... totally not relevant. Although he said he was open to ideas, he'd bash every single suggestion, answer every question by asking us why we'd ask such "stupid questions", and he literally asked us to bring in articles and statistics just so he could completely dismiss them. He was completely un-open to hearing anyone else's opinions and already had a dead-set idea of what his audience wanted ... despite having told us he hated comics and that "normal people [like him] don't read comic books". He knew what these idiots wanted, and it was just a matter of making us redoing the report over and over until we happened on the right combo HE wanted. I.e., pretty much the top comics he last saw at the dawn of the early 2000's.

I literally had taken pics of a few bestseller displays I’d seen in stores (Newsbury Comics, Barnes and Nobles etc) but he literally said that that didn’t mean they would sell. What does Best Selling even mean then?

But it's cool to just completely dismiss your customer base and act like you know better, right?

I ended up having to work until 10:00pm one night in order to make all necessary changes and print covers for him to review. What started as a simple list of themes became a report that had over 600 rows in Excel. Even then, 80-90% of it ended up not being used. I was so exhausted at this point and burnt out. I loved comics ... but having to rip them apart by category, put them back together, eliminate whole categories because he didn't want them, and then having to remake them after he changed his mind was agonizing. 

I had another meeting with him and he smiled at me and simply said, "Aww I thought this would be a fun project for you, since you're a fangirl after all"

He was taunting me. This was a game to him. Of course, I should have expected this from someone who literally made a cheat sheet so "idiot comic book fans" would get his jokes. I'm not joking. It actually exists and I'm sure it's something Marvel would rather not even remember.

A couple more weeks passed and, at this point, a majority of the office depended on me to get people's food choices for their snacks, following up with building maintenance, and I barely had any creative projects whatsoever. I did get to create the party invitation the main art guy refused to make but he pushed me to make in Canva, because he thought Canva was the end all and be all to graphic design and that it should be used for all presentations for our LinkedIn. Pretty much everything Canva (something used mostly by Instagram and Twitter users) probably wasn't meant to be used on.

Keep in mind that this person was in charge of creative and was also in charge of gate-keeping me from doing the one thing I was tolerating everything for. I had literally repeatedly asked about the storyboarding during the interview process and even though they had changed the duties, they always confirmed that storyboarding would be a part of it. 

Last week, I asked the main art guy again about my job description and about how he had mentioned storyboarding being off the table entirely. He immediately got defensive and reminded me that I was an admin. I mentioned I still had the job descriptions and emails mentioning me having a hand in creative, and he accused me of talking back and said that he could tell from how I looked that I thought he was an idiot.

He also accused me of not being enthusiastic about his projects. I was confused since I was actively asking for projects and had literally been trying to find some way to take on creative assignments. He got even angrier and said I wasn't telling him how much fun I was having and how excited his work was making me.

What?

It suddenly dawned on me that every talk I'd had with this guy about how excited I was to learn from him/to work on the team gave him some sort of weird satisfaction. I mentioned that I didn't think I should have been sending him emails about that, and he asked, "Why not? You shouldn't assume I don't want them. I want you to tell me my stuff is fun and how excited you are about them!" I was ... very uncomfortable. This grown man. This grown ass man wanted me to fawn over his work and send him emails about how excited I was about his work. About HIM. What a narcissist.

He made enough commotion that the owner brought us in. He sat us down and said something about him being a bit familiar with this sort of thing, having gone to marriage counselling himself. I was already uncomfortable and that really didn’t help. 

What ended up happening was they berated me in his office and told me I was "too honest", and I was told that I didn't know my place.  I was told that at the very top were the two Marvel alumni, then underneath there was everyone else and I was right at the very bottom of everything and I should know my place.

These were the two people who had told me I had potential and who had made me so happy just a couple months prior. I was frozen in place as they grinned at me and told me that obviously there was some misunderstanding on my part. They then told to run along while they thought about what they could throw at me to make me happy. The guy who yelled at me was not chastised or told his behavior was wrong in any way, shape or form. I got dragged into a staff meeting afterwards, where the owner proudly told all of us, "This is the best company you can work for, where you can work with people you like." And in the same breath, he told everyone not to fuck up or otherwise it would be "resume time".

I felt broken the rest of the day, where I heard them blatantly laughing and insulting the creators they were going to work with. One creator was commented on as being able to "...work as a writer but you shouldn't look at her stuff unless you want your eyes to bleed.” They said worse stuff too and laughed like a bunch of entitled douchebags on DeviantArt trying to get kicks off of stuff they thought were cringey. It was insane. These were supposed to be professionals in the field. It made me uncomfortable to think what they said about my own work when they told me I had "potential". Some of these were small time Tumblr creators like me who probably thought this would be their big break too...

I thought about putting in my two days, the amount that was specified in my contract, and worried about what they'd try to do in the time I had left. I was miserable and scared and nervous.

On Friday, the owner approached me and asked me for my portfolio while smiling to himself. I was skeptical and asked why, and he firmly said, "Because I want to see it." I sent it and prepared for the worst.

He brought me in for a two minute "friendly" chat in the conference room, and once we sat down, he mused over his computer and said it was "coming back to him” I did art.

He remembered now. It had been so forgettable, after all. Aww, maybe there was something there.

With a smile, he told me I "shouldn't take it personally", and that only one artist so far had been able to get along with him and work with what they wanted. They'd thrown out 8 artists after they just simply "didn't work". They admitted that they had promised me storyboarding, but no one was working to their intended vision. That they hadn't really figured out a place for me in the company, but maybe going out on a business trip would help him clear his head and he could find something I could do. "I guess we've been letting you down a bit, haven’t we?" 

I felt like at this point he wanted me to act desperate and happy for the possibility of a chance and buy into it and take his offering with gratitude...

...but I was done with his shit. 

I told him that I had started at his company a few months ago and that if they hadn't figured out where I was supposed to be in all that time, then maybe it wasn't a good fit. He was quiet and didn't seem prepared for it. "Well ... what do you think we should do about it then?"

"If it's alright with you, I would like to terminate this contract immediately." I said it through gritted teeth. I'm not a confrontational person, but after everything that had happened, I was worried I'd lose it. I could feel myself shaking, but I just couldn't deal with it anymore. "I didn't appreciate being told I was at the bottom of the food chain and I really didn't appreciate you allowing me to be treated this way. Frankly, after that, it's taken every bit of motivation out of me and I'd like to end this. Now." I was trying to be professional and control myself, but I was quietly seething with every word. I told him I had saved all my job descriptions and had the contract if he wanted to review it, and I knew that what they had been telling me was bullshit.

He was really quiet and his eyes were wide open. I really think he expected me to be grateful and happy and willing to do more and more for the company just for that little chance. He mumbled something about not prolonging my suffering and told me to just assist in transitioning over my duties and typing things up. 

Once I did, I asked if I was free to go and he said I was and I left. It was so much of a relief not to have to come back to that office.

So this is what happened with something I thought would have been a great in to an industry I was excited about. I got used up (and not even for the skills I actually have under my belt) and kept around as an emotional punching bag, and for the dumbest things imaginable and essentially just assisted them with setting up their office after they'd sublet it.

On the plus side, I feel like it was a big deal that I could actually stand up for myself, even if it happened to be to someone like that. Even though I'm not a professional and even though some people would consider me insignificant, I feel like there's never a reason to make any person feel insignificant and like they're the lowest of the low. I hated how they spoke about other creators and I hated how they spoke to me, and there isn't any reason anyone should have to deal with people who are just bent on being condescending.

Ironically, around this time, Steven Universe released an amazing episode and the ending theme kind of hit home with me. I loved its message and I think that ep. kind of helped me in a way.

2019's off to an interesting start, I guess ... but I guess I can be proud that I'm stronger despite it. I am passionate about my art and do want to be able to work professionally but there’s no reason to ever tolerate disrespect and dishonesty in a company.

In the words of Raul Julia/Gomez Addams:

Hopefully, one day, I’ll get my break but this definitely wasn’t it. 

If any of you guys are in NYC and happen to come across a mildly shady startup toted to be headed by Marvel alumni, maybe just be a bit careful. I normally don’t post about stuff like this and honestly tend to get quiet when things happen because I have trouble opening up about personal issues but maybe it can help someone or at the very least be an interesting read.

[xseedgames]

2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza Blog! #1

It’s time for our first 2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza! We’ve got a bunch of these we’ll be posting over the holiday break, so please look forward to them. Now, let’s roll right in!

We have answers from: 

Ken Berry, Executive Vice President / Team Leader John Wheeler, Assistant Localization Manager Nick Colucci, Localization Editor Liz Rita, QA Tester Brittany Avery, Localization Producer Thomas Lipschultz, Localization Producer

Question: Has selling your games on PC worked out for you so far? I know supporting the PC platform is a relatively recent choice for XSEED. - @Nate_Nyo

Ken: Being on PC has been great for us as it allows us to reach anyone anywhere in the world regardless of region or console. We were probably one of the earlier adopters in terms of bringing content from Japan to PC as we first published Ys: The Oath in Felghana on Steam almost 6 years ago in early 2012.

Brittany: I love working on PC. The work involved is greater than working on console, but I feel like it's a bigger learning experience, too. For console, the developers normally handle the graphics after we translate them, and they do all the programming and such. For PC, everything falls on us. I wasn't that experienced with Photoshop in the beginning, but I think I've gotten a lot better with it over the years. We can also receive updates instantly, and since I talk with our PC programmer through Skype, it's easier to suss out our exact needs and think of ideas to improve the game or bring it to modern standards.

Question: What non-XSEED games do you praise the localization for? - @KlausRealta

Brittany: Final Fantasy XII. I love everything about Final Fantasy XII's writing. I'm also a big fan of the personality in the Ace Attorney localizations. I'm still playing Yakuza 0, but you can feel the passion of the localization team in the writing. There are some projects where you can tell the editing was phoned in, and then there are games where it's obvious it was a labor of love. All of these games have a color I aspire to.

Tom: Probably going to be a popular answer, and not an especially surprising one, but I've got to give props to Lost Odyssey. It's hard to deny the timeless quality and absolutely masterful English writing that went into basically every line of that game's massive script, with the many short stories being of particular note. That game really does represent an inspirational high bar that I think most everyone else in the industry will forever strive to reach in their own works.

For a more unexpected answer, I've also got to give mad props to Sega for their work on Monster World IV. As a Sega Genesis game released digitally in English for the very first time less than a decade ago, I guess I was kind of expecting a fairly basic "throwaway" translation -- but instead, the game boasts a full-on professional grade localization that's easily up to all modern standards, brimming with charm and personality. It's really nice to see a legitimate retro game being given that kind of care and attention in the modern era, and it makes it very easy for me to recommend (as does the fact that the game is actually quite fun, and is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who's played through all the Shantae titles and really wants to try something else along similar lines).

John: I played Okami on PS3 earlier this year (before the remake was announced), and I was awed by how skillfully the team handled text that is chock full of localization challenges like quirky nicknames, references to Japanese fairy tales, and regional dialects. I was especially amused to see a reference to "kibi dango," the dumplings Momotaro uses to bribe his companions in that famous story. We dealt with the same cultural reference with STORY OF SEASONS: Trio of Towns.

Nick: My go-to response is always Vagrant Story, because it’s the game I credit with getting me really interested in a career in localization. Before that point, I had enjoyed games for their story and characters, but hadn’t realized just how much the specific word choices and tone contributed to a reader’s perception of a story as a whole. The gents behind VS’s localization would go on to be industry luminaries, with Rich Amtower now calling shots in Nintendo’s Treehouse department and Alex Smith being synonymous with the highly regarded prose of Yasumi Matsuno’s games – including the cool and underappreciated Crimson Shroud for 3DS, and Final Fantasy XII, which as anyone who’s played it can tell you is a stellar localization. Having spent a lot of time with FFXII’s “The Zodiac Age” remaster this year, the care and attention to detail put into the localization still blows me away. The unique speech style of the Bhujerbans (with...Sri Lankan inflections, if memory serves correctly) sticks with me, because I knew that I myself would never have been able to pull off something like that so deftly. I guess you could say Vagrant Story started a lineage of games that’s always given me something to aspire to as an editor.

Final Fantasy XIV, which I’ve been playing this year, also has a very good localization, especially considering the reams of text that go into an MMO of its size and scope. Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and his team have done a bang-up job giving life and personality to the land of Eorzea, and I’ve enjoyed seeing how the localization has changed in subtle ways as time has gone on. The initial “A Realm Reborn” localization sort of cranks the “regional flavor” up to 11 with heavy dialects and vernacular, but in subsequent expansions, they kind of eased up on that and have found a good mix between grounded localization and the kind of flourishes that work well in high-fantasy settings.

 And, while I haven’t played it in a number of years, I remember Dragon Quest VIII having a really great localization, too, with ol’ Yangus still living large in my memories. Tales of the Abyss was fantastic as well, and both DQVIII and Abyss delivered some really brilliant dub work that showed me how much richer one could make characterization when the writing and the acting really harmonized. I still consider Tales of the Abyss my general favorite game dub to date. The casting is perfect, with not a bad role among them. I also want to give mad props to Ni no Kuni’s Mr. Drippy, just as a perfect storm of great localization decisions. Tidy, mun!

Question: How hard is it to turn in game signs and words to English for Japanese? Is it as simple as going in and editing text? Or as hard as creating a whole new texture for the model? - @KesanovaSSB4

Tom: We refer to this as "graphic text" -- meaning, literally, text contained within graphic images. How it's handled differs from project to project, but the short answer is, yeah, it involves creating a whole new texture for the model. Sometimes, this is handled by the developer: they'll just send us a list of all the graphic text images that exist in-game and what each image says, we'll send that list back to them with translations, and they'll use those translations to create new graphic images on our behalf. For other games, however (particularly PC titles we're more or less spearheading), we'll have to do the graphic edits ourselves. When the original PSDs or what-not exist for the sign images, this is generally pretty easy -- but as you might expect, those aren't always available to us, meaning we'll sometimes have to go to a bit more trouble to get this done.

John: The best practice is to review graphic text very early in the localization process because it takes effort to fix and can throw a wrench in schedules if issues are discovered too late. On occasion, it is too difficult to change ubiquitous textures, especially those that might also appear in animation. This was the case with "NewTube" in SENRAN KAGURA Peach Beach Splash, which the localization team wanted to change to "NyuuTube" to make the wordplay clearer to series fans.

Question: With the Steam marketplace becoming increasingly saturated and being seen as a greater risk to publish on in recent times, what does XSEED plan on doing in order to remain prominent and relevant in the PC gaming space? - @myumute

Ken: It is indeed getting harder and harder to stand out as hundreds of new titles are releasing on Steam each month. We are working our way towards simultaneous release across all platforms to help leverage some of the coverage from the console version to get more attention to the PC release, so hopefully that's something we can accomplish soon. For PC-exclusive releases it continues to be a challenge, but at least they have a long tail and even if it's not an immediate success at launch we know it can continue to produce sales for years to come.

Question: What was your favorite film that you saw in 2017, and why? - @Crippeh

John: I'm way behind on movies this year (haven't seen Disaster Artist, Phantom Thread, or Get Out, for example), but recently I've enjoyed both Star Wars and Lady Bird. I expect I'll watch my favorite film from 2017 sometime in 2018.

Ken: Wind River. Mainly because of Jeremy Renner's performance and how many quotable lines he had.

Liz: Get Out for horror mindblowing amazingness, Spider-Man Homecoming for genuinely fun comic book movie, and The Shape of Water for Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo del Toro should always be a category.

That’s it! Stay turned for blog #2 later this week. Here’s a preview of the kinds of questions we’ll be answering:

Question: Have you ever considered selling the music CDs for your licenses stateside? - @LimitTimeGamer Question: If possible, would you please consider researching and localizing classic Korean-made PC xRPGs? - @DragEnRegalia Question: Do you have any interest in pursuing the localization of any of the large, beautiful Chinese RPGs that have been hitting Steam? Or are you focused exclusively on Japanese titles? - @TheDanaAddams Question: What inspired you all to do this kind of work in the first place? Also, what’s the story behind the company name XSEED? How did you all come up with it? - @TBlock_02 Question: What was everyone's favorite game(s) to work on this year? - @ArtistofLegacy Question: What's everyone's favorite song from the Falcom games you've released so far? - @Crippeh

[peachthms]

@monthms​ tagged me in this cute lil question meme thingy so here we go! this got so long lmao

Rules: create another 11 questions + tag people. (I’m terrible at these because I never tag people because I think I’m annoying them sorry!!)

Questions from Gabi!

1. Where are you from (if you’re comfortable with sharing)?

Australia born and raised, half australian half filipino.

2. How and when did you start coding?

I started when I was about 14/15 years old maybe? I used to use blogspot religiously lmao (my friend got me into it) and I had some things about the layouts I used that I wanted to change so I googled those questions. And when I switched to tumblr I was still pretty new but tumblr is definitely where I got hooked on coding.

3. Is coding websites also your job or only a hobby?

Future job! (graphic designer/front end web developer hopefully) I’m a student at the moment. 

4. Did you change your url in the past? What were your previous urls?

This is my first url for this blog! I originally went peach to match it with my resource blog at the time.

5. Which of your codes is your favourite and why?

I think out of all my themes (tbh there’s not many, I’ve released a lot more pages which I definitely want to change) my favourite would have to be either Rosewater because of the split design layout and responsiveness or my newly released theme Fate because I think it just looks so clean! And for my pages it’d definitely be Inkheart.

6. Is there anything you want to improve about your codes?

Absolutely, I want to do way more complex designs as well as try to find my style and niche. I also wanna make sure my code is organised and neat, I already try to do that but I can always improve. 

7. What do you do when you feel stuck with coding?

I take a break, especially when I’m feeling burnt out. I just focus on other things I enjoy like watching a tv series or reading a book. Basically just not thinking about it til I feel refreshed and come back to it.

8.  What/Who gives you inspiration?

Hmmm. This is really hard! I get a lot of inspiration from the members of CH, they’re so amazing. And of course the people I follow on instagram/dribbble/behance, there’s so much talent out there it’s insane. If I’m just using a site or an app and I come across an interesting layout or feature I’ll take note of it.

9. What do you do in a free time (other than coding)?

I like to play video games (playing divinity original sin 2 atm!), watch tv/movies/anime/yt, read books/comics/manga, god this is hard?? what do I even do with my time?? I’m quite an introvert so a lot of the things I like to do are single person activities lmao. Oh! I like to clean out my pc! I’ll regularly go through and mass delete stuff I don’t need/use and reorganise my files. I find it quite relaxing.

10. Favourite music artist(s) and song(s) you like recently.

Picking my favourite music is always so hard because I typically just listen to a particular song for months on end. I’m going to just go ahead and pick five songs from my main playlists!

early 2000s punk rock vibes

Mr. Brightside - The Killers

Nicotine - Panic! At The Disco

This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race - Fall Out Boy

Girls & Boys - Good Charlotte

When I’m Gone - 3 Doors Down

out of body vibes

Often - The Weeknd

Beggin For Thread - Banks

Stranger Than Earth - Purity Ring

1988 - Chet Faker, Banks

Say My Name - ODESZA, Zyra

melancholic vibes

Big Jet Plane - Angus & Julia Stone

Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez

Poison & Wine - The Civil Wars

Little Do You Know - Alex & Sierra

Wicked Game - James Vincent McMorrow

streetlight vibes (my favourite playlist, I can’t explain how these songs make me feel)

III. Telegraph Ave. - Childish Gambino

The Night - HONNE

Say It - Flume, Tove Lo

Pink + White - Frank Ocean

Atlantis - Seafret

throwback vibes (iconic songs from my childhood that I still listen to on the daily)

Pony - Ginuwine

Toxic - Britney Spears

Survivor - Destiny’s Child

Kiss Me Thru The Phone - Soulja Boy

Tik Tok - Kesha

11.  Any books/TV shows/movies to recommend?

This is just a random selection of things I’ve enjoyed!

TV - Star Trek: Discovery, Broadchurch, Luther, Terrace House, The Bletchley Circle, Outlander

Films - any Ghibli movie, Inception, Mad Max Fury Road (literally my favourite movie ever I’ve watched it so many times), Pride and Prejudice (2005 version is ICONIC), Pacific Rim (love me some drift compatibility)

Anime/Manga - Boku No Hero Academia (I love my frog girl Asui and my birb boy Fumikage), Made In Abyss, Fullmetal Alchemist (lit my childhood), Death Note (also my childhood - don’t talk to me about any of the live action versions thank u), I’m hesitant to rec Shingeki No Kyojin because of how trash the second season was so if you just watch season 1 and read the manga you should be all good

Books - I read a lot of YA lmao. The Lunar Chronicles, The Raven Cycle, The Secret History, Red Queen, Vampire Academy (my early teenage years), The Study series by Maria V Snyder is one I reread constantly in high school. I started reading The Other Boleyn Girl the other day when I was staying at my bf’s house so I’m curious about how it is. I’ve also been reading The Witcher series lately! (I want to finish them before I play TW3) and I’ve really been enjoying them.

If you made it this far then I love you and appreciate you.

[wildstormoralhistory]

Director’s Cut Material #10- Ryan Odagawa

One of the young interns that Jim Lee brought in to hone his craft was artist, Ryan Odagawa. While in the Consumer Products division under Ted Adams, Ryan ended up working on countless trading cards and the Resident Evil comic magazine before launching the brand new series, Savant Garde which followed Zealot's sister, Savant and Mr. Majestic as they lead a team against the WIldC.A.T.S. villain, Tapestry. Although the series was short lived, Ryan was able to realize his dream and work alongside his idols at WildStorm. And he's still doing awesome work today! Some really fun pieces from more recent years are also included.

Ryan Odagawa (Artist): They had their first talent search around 1992. It was WildC.A.T.S. #2 and I was still in high school. I remember seeing the ad and I was heavily studying to draw since I was 13. That was like 1988. I was big into Jim Lee and all those guys, and X-Men. Once I saw that ad, I told my mom that I want to move down to San Diego. She was like; “You're still in high school. You've got to finish high school first.” [laughs] So, I was like alright. I graduated high school and then went to some community college and took some art classes. I was just totally focused on art and wanting to work for WildStorm. I just totally knew that I wanted to. I had shown some of my work a little bit, but then there was an ImageCon. I think it was the first time, and then after that, I don't think they had it. It was around when they had ComiCon. I just had some samples and I met Sarah Becker, who was the editor on Gen 13. I knew who everyone was, because I collected everything and was into the artists and everything. I talked to her and sort of showed her my stuff. A lot of the influences of J. Scott Campbell were kind of similar [to mine] so my style kind of leans towards him. I was into Art Adams also, and Jim Lee. So, my stuff would look just like his stuff and I think Sarah saw that. It's like, okay, here. So, I took a test and then that was the end of '94. The following year I got a letter from her and she’s like, you want to come in as an intern? "Sure, of course!"          It all came together and then I moved down there when I was about 19. Yeah, I mean, I guess it was a dream come true. It all just kind of came together. It was almost surreal, but it's kind of like -- I've been thinking about it all through high school. Then all of a sudden, it's there. All of these artists are right there, and you're working side-by-side with them. It was pretty interesting I guess you could say. I came along with Richard Friend, J.J. Kirby, Jason Johnson and Mark Irwin. Suddenly being around different artists, there’s an energy around it. I don't know. It's weird because I had to turn down an office job beforehand. I literally never worked anywhere else, and I was only 19. Now you're around all of these people that are doing what you love to do also. I was just -- It was almost surreal.          And it was fun, so you'd hang out late nights and play video games or something, and talk about the computer programs. Actually, that was kind of when Photoshop was starting to get going. I would pick the brains of all of the colorists and learn Photoshop here and there. I was really interested in learning all the aspects. I learned all of the aspects of comic book creation like inking, a little bit of lettering, or coloring. I wanted to figure out out how to do all of this because typically when I was younger, I wanted to make my own comic book. My dad was actually a graphic artist so he had a lot of some of the older, pre-computer-type of art tools. So, I learned all of that stuff. I just wanted to observe everything and learn how to do everything. Create the final product.          I started the internship and started it on cards. I hadn't really done a lot of sequential artwork. A little bit here and there. I just kind of started doing cards, then slowly different pages for short stories here and there. So I did the internship for maybe I think a year or so. After that, I came on staff. Then I – I was big into Gen 13, but then I was kind of interested in Savant – the character Savant. I'd talk to the different people there about doing a Savant book. Nothing kind of came of it real fast, but then they'd ask me if I wanted to work on one of their books of a different title. I think they were coming out with a, I think, a dollar seventy-five line or something like that. One of them was a book that I couldn't really connect to. I asked what else do you have? The other one, they said, was a Savant book. I'm like, well, yeah. I've been saying that I want to do a Savant book so I end up doing the Savant book called Savant Guard.            I was learning on the job, I guess you could say. Jim kind of helped me with layout on the first issue. After that, I was on my own, so I was trying to figure everything out. It was a learning experience. After that, I eventually learned how to be a little bit faster, do layouts myself and everything.          Obviously [it was] a kid’s dream come true, but this is a once in a lifetime chance that there's something that actually kind of came in and isn't here anymore. That's even bigger, but you know, I'm still friends with a lot of them. It's lifetime friendships. I didn't really finish college, so it definitely was my college. It's kind of funny, because one of my good friends was going to college at UC San Diego at the time, so I got to hang out with his friends and live the dorm life of college while doing comics, and not having to take any classes [laughs]. Not having to pay for school.          Basically it is just a once in a lifetime thing. I'm proud to have made it there.

[laurendzim]

Hex Publishers, Denver’s horror and sci-fi house, brings an end to its grand, national experiment

Joshua Viola has good reason to be excited for Denver Pop Culture Con this weekend.

“I sold more books there than I ever thought I would,” the 36-year-old said of the convention formerly known as Denver Comic Con. “We sold out of everything we brought last year and left the show early.”

Viola, the founder of Denver-based Hex Publishers, and author Warren Hammond have a new sci-fi book to push — “Denver Moon: The Saint of Mars,” a noir-ish, co-authored sequel to 2017’s “Denver Moon: The Minds of Mars” — and plenty of anthologies, graphic novels, young-adult books, soundtracks, T-shirts and other Hex product to sell.

Kevin Mohatt, Special to The Denver Post

Warren Hammond, left, and Joshua Viola stand before a wall of movie props and memorabilia Viola has collected over the years at his house in Westminster on Monday, May 20, 2019.

But despite his success over the last five years, Viola is using the May 31-June 2 convention to bring an end to Hex. Mostly, anyway.

“It’s been very hard trying to balance my time and my personal life over the last couple years, so that’s why I’m slowing down,” said Viola, whose day job revolves around Frontière Natural Meats, a growing north Denver business he runs with father, James, and brother Cody. “Hex developed a following of people who know our stuff, and it’s rewarding when we have them come back for more. But I’ve never been doing it for money. It certainly didn’t pay for what we’re sitting in here.”

Viola is referring to his $2.1 million, custom-built house in a luxury development just west of Interstate 25 in Westminster. The upper levels are contemporary chic, with wood and metal sculptures, minimalist furnishings and work/sleep spaces. The basement is where Viola plays, with a home movie theater, vintage video-game arcade, artist studio, wine room and bar — all decorated with an enviable array of movie, video game and comic-book memorabilia.

“I love it, but I’ll sell it in five years or so,” he said as he poured beers for himself and author Hammond from one of the basement taps. “This is a ridiculous amount of space.”

With a converted vintage-Camaro pool table in the garage and a literal, two-story bridge connecting the main house to the guest quarters, Viola has his playboy affectations. But Hammond, the author of the “KOP” sci-fi series (which won a Colorado Book Award in 2013) and the novel “Tides of Maritinia,” wouldn’t be working with a playboy.

Kevin Mohatt, Special to The Denver Post

Josh Viola’s arcade room is pictured at his house in Westminster on Wednesday, May 22, 2019. Viola had the space custom built to fit a wide range of retro arcade machines, including driving games and pinball.

“I tend to blow off most of the people who approach me in the local scene because I don’t really know them,” Hammond, 50, said. “But there are a few things that set Josh apart, and the first one is that he pays.”

Viola has invested more than $100,000 of his own money into Hex over the years, from clever marketing such as PlayStation 4 dynamic themes (yielding 30,000 paid downloads) to just-plain-fun events, such as a screening of “Total Recall” and a bespoke, themed beer release at the Alamo Drafthouse (to promote the first Denver Moon novel). He’s sold about 30,000 total copies of Hex’s 20 releases — not including two locally sourced, nationally marketed kids books under his Jam Publishers imprint, or Hex’s online zine, WORDS, which has published short stories, interviews and movie reviews.

Hex has never held an open submission process for any of its works. That means sourcing short stories, novels, art, music and design from a smaller pool of established — and definitely more expensive — creative types. But that’s OK, Hex’s contributors have learned over the last five years, because Viola pays everyone on time. Lately, he’s been paying about twice the genre-fiction industry’s standard rate of 6 cents per word. Viola shells out 10 cents per word.

“I had no idea our first big anthology (‘Nightmares Unhinged’) would be mostly local writers,” Viola said. “Most of what you read is garbage, and I was planning on national contributors for that. But it ended up being only two nonlocal writers, and I have to give Dean Wyant credit for that.”

Wyant, the acquisitions editor and co-founder of Hex, connected Viola to a deep network of local authors and booksellers. That led Viola to working with Hammond, Jason Heller, Mario Acevedo, Angie Hodapp, Stephen Graham Jones and other national-quality talents hidden among the stacks of Denver’s bookshops and literary groups.

Through Hex’s anthologies such as “Nightmares Unhinged” and “Cyber World,” graphic novels and even the odd cyberpunk soundtrack, Viola has made a strong argument that Hex is more just than a vanity project — despite the fact that everything on the imprint reflects his personal tastes.

“People talk about genre tropes like they’re bad things,” he said, shaking his head. “And we just embrace the hell out of them.”

Photos by Kevin Mohatt, Special to The Denver Post

From left: A dragon replica, A model of The Joker from Batman, a replica of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Michelangelo and a replica of Abe Sapien from the movie Hell Boy are all on display at Josh Viola’s Westminster home on May 22, 2019.

People have taken notice. “Nightmares Unhinged” was licensed by AMC for promotional use in “Fear The Walking Dead” Season 2. “Cyber World,” “Blood Business” and “Denver Moon: The Minds of Mars” were all nominated for Colorado Book Awards while topping local best-seller charts. “Metamorphosis,” a gorgeous comic drawn by Hex’s shy-yet-vital visual force, Aaron Lovett, made the 2018 Bram Stoker Award preliminaries for superior achievement in a graphic novel. And there’s the aforementioned custom beer — Red Fever, by Black Shirt Brewing — which was produced for the first Denver Moon novel.

“Having done four books with major publishers, I can say Josh has done more to promote ‘Denver Moon’ than all four of those together, by a larger margin,” Hammon said. “I’m not going to quit my day job (as a network engineering instructor), and I don’t want to dog my other publishers, but Josh brings a certain passion to everything he does. It’s allowed me to do some things publishers aren’t really doing anymore these days.”

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That includes the latest Denver Moon book’s July 20 signing at the Tattered Cover, and appearances at Denver Pop Culture Con or Denver Indie Comics & Art Expo (DiNK), among other fan and industry events. Viola suspects he’ll keep the Hex flame burning for years to come, even if his new, co-authored novel with Hammond is Hex’s last major promotional push.

“We’ve still got Jeanne Stein’s 10th novel in the Anna Strong series coming out later this year. We were also hired by the Colorado Festival of Horror to do an anthology for their con coming out in the fall of 2020,” he said of the new event, which was hatched by the minds behind StarFest, HorrorFest and DiNK. “That’ll be exclusive to that con, and the theme is ’80s horror drive-ins, which is right up my alley.”

As colorful, surprising and winding as that alley has been for Viola, it’s always been his space. The perfectionist artifacts he’s left along the way were always for him, even if other people enjoyed them, too.

“When you don’t have something you want out in the world, you start to create it to fill that void,” he said. “That’s what Hex is for me. When your nutrition’s not good, you start eating it because your body demands it. I want people to enjoy and respect what I’m doing with it, but ultimately, I’m creating something that I crave.”

from News And Updates https://www.denverpost.com/2019/05/29/hex-publishers-josh-viola-denver-moon/

[sundcwns-blog]

heey, hello, it’s a meme. i’m maze ( she/her ) & hailing from one of the oh so lovely coughs gmt tzs aka gmt+2. besides being trash on the daily i’m literally always listening to music aka if u ever need something new in that department .. hello, or browsing through netflix without any intent on watching smth. living that wild life ik .. DKAMS. but you’re here for my two kids aka basil & saint so here we go ! if you’d like to plot like this and i’ll slide into ur ims or look under the read more for my disc*rd ! also as a warning i unintentionally was v vain and made both muses scorpios .....

☾ — ·˚ » BASIL CRATES is in saint tropez !! they often get mistaken as KIAN LAWLEY. apparently, HE/THEY is/are the JOCULAR of the group. they’re a TWENTY-ONE year old PANSEXUAL DEMIMALE. i hear they’re known as ALTRUISTIC and DOGMATIC. they also make their living as ART STUDENT / BARTENDER / COMIC BOOK ARTIST but you’d have to ask them a bit more.

BACKGROUND + PERSONALITY.

born and raised in berlin, germany until his mother decided to move to the us when basil was twelve.

despite growing up bilingual, he had difficulties adjusting to the new surroundings and rather spent his free time drawing, eventually building up universes without needing any context and instead having the designs speak for themselves.

after finishing high school at age sixteen basil took a gap year to travel through europe with money they earned from several jobs during school times. bas was v very introverted back then, so it served as a challenge which once again they had difficulties with at first. but ofc you can’t get around without trying, so bas did. he’s still more of an ambivalent than an extrovert, but this journey made him see the beauty of uncertainty and they loved it.

also ik i used he & they in that last paragraph instead of just one bc basil honestly truly doesn’t care which one others use as long as they acknowledge bas isn’t cis bc he’s v open about his gender along with being pan .. but that’s another thing.

basil has a very high iq, but always prevented others from knowing about it. he basically failed tests on purpose back in germany and in the us he always made sure others don’t feel bad about their results and said his were worse even though he probably always got an a+, thus resulting in bas being able to skip two grades.

his mother had to carry two jobs to make a living for the two of them, which was one of the reasons why bas sold his art from a young age. thankfully it was actually decent ( coughs and looks @ ryan reynolds’ twitter ) and ppl actually wanted to pay good money for it. this was also one of the key moments in which bas realized they wanted to have their profession somewhere in the art department.

married his high school sweetheart in las vegas as soon as they both turned eighteen, but divorced just three weeks later. this is just one of their impulsive decisions as bas isn’t much of a planner, they rather have a few good laughs when telling the story ( even for the 10th time ) instead of asking what if. the only thing bas ever truly planned was becoming a comic book artist. they’re still at the very beginning as basil’s v young, but they’re just as determined to make it in the industry.

basil’s mother was always into greek mythology and even gave her child the middle name cerberus, which literally is the most dangerous thing about him and while he’s into mythology himself, he doesn’t really tell anyone his middle name as he’d rather not be compared to a three-headed dog .. but if he ever ends up drunk u can bet he’d insist on being called cerberus and nothing else.

being a comic book artist basil’s an avid comic reader as well, but mostly prefers indie comics as they’re more his kind of humor. speaking of, basil’s more of a morbid humor kind of pal ? but he’ll also immediately apologize if he takes it too far bc he values comfort even more than getting a laugh out of others and himself.

huge fan of dogs, literally the person that points at a dog and says “aw.” and definitely wants to pet them.

the least scorpio-like scorpio you will ever meet, and trust me this is coming from a Real Scorpio™.

ends up in a lot of weird scenarios while just trying their best, but always tries to take it with humor especially if someone’s with them.

most of his friends wouldn’t expect it, but basil’s very romantic, like going all out even for a first date and is probably doing waay too much for his opposite.

not really into the whole sex, drugs n rock ‘n’ roll as he prefers to maybe drink a few beers with his closest friends due to seeing what alcohol can do to people on an almost daily basis as a bartender. however, all of kian’s tattoos are canon for bas except for the native american and butterfly ones.

WANTED PLOTS.

literally everything but to be basic .. a best friend ( who might even know about his high iq bc he truly doesn’t tell anyone ), bad influence ( basil’s not exactly innocent or good himself but there’s always worse am i right ), childhood friend ( someone he considered a friend after moving to a completely new country ), enemy ( maybe they’re of the opposite group or even in the same and they had some fight that led to it or just disliking each other for apparently no reason at all just .. pls give me smth negative ), ex on good/bad terms ( as basil’s pretty romantic it could’ve been too much for the other or literally any other reason k thanks ), someone who hates his jokes ( plain n simple .. kewl ), my brain is scattered bc it’s almost 2am rn so i Def missed 820397 plots i’d love but u know what .. i’m a plot pro so shrugs. also i nearly wrote pro plot so u get me now .. pls killme KMDSX.

☾ — ·˚ » SAINT DEVERAUX is in saint tropez !! they often get mistaken as ALISSA VIOLET. apparently, SHE arrived from THE USA. they’re a TWENTY-ONE year old UNLABELED CIS FEMALE. i hear they’re known as VIGOROUS and DETACHED. they also make their living as an ACTRESS but you’d have to ask them a bit more.

BACKGROUND + PERSONALITY.

just as a small disclaimer: if anyone read girls on fire by robin wasserman, saint’s personality is heavily inspired by one of the characters in it aka lacey. and if u haven’t read it .. pls do it if you’re even just remotely into ya literature.

born and raised in los angeles, us, saint was practially thrown into the lives of the rich and famous. her parents were big in hollywood back in the 80s & 90s and gave those legacies to her.

being practially raised by nannies, saint didn’t really have a connection to her parents till they retired when she was fourteen. from there it was basically always good which is .. v weird but they somehow made it work.

as soon as saint turned eighteen she decided to change her last name to her mother’s maiden name, as she’s never been a fan of women having to give up their names just for being married even if it’s voluntary. this also resulted in her imdb page ( she truly made it huh. ) being “divived” into saint bartowski ( also shoutout @ anyone who gets this ref ) and saint deveraux.

at age eighteen saint also let out her true self, at least towards her parents. she admitted to worshipping lucifer just to piss them off and see how they’d react, it was just a game for her. but to be as convincing as possible, she did the most, even though she would’ve already had them just with her words, but saint always wanted to know just how far she could take it.

to the public she’s seen as this socialite turned actress who never did anything wrong, but just due to her parents and herself keeping everything under a neat little rug.

saint’s a very passionate person and loves to be surrounded or admired by people, but at the same time she doesn’t really care about anyone, no matter how many i love yous she’s going to whisper into someone’s ear or no broken promises ever.

as a result of the press putting labels onto her 24/7 she resents them. the only one she’ll ever claim is being in the lgbtq+ com as it’s basically the only thing in her life she truly cares about besides acting and her cats. however saint also makes a lot of fun of men and highly prefers females and nb pals for .. u know what.

she can also be extra af as she literally bought an old vw t1 bus in st. tropez for the short amount of time she’s there and have it look exactly like the one she has back in la with the pride flag sprayed on its roof and every little sticker/detail on its doors, etc.

getting to her job .. she currently stars in a made up netflix show that’s somewhere between veronica mars, twin peaks and 21 jump street ( the movie version ). i actually made a whole filmography for her but i’m too lazy for graphics and i’m not even sure whether i can use real movies/shows so oo. but if u want a list i can tots send it via disc*rd ( btw mine is artcmis#4377 ). and just know that she admires amber heard and mostly chooses roles like her aka not the damsel in distress. tho she would def love to save that kind of character one day .. js.

this is getting soo messy already omg. but to put her in a nutshell, saint’s a callous, manipulative, control loving, determined scorpio who also happens to be an actress, cat lover and feminist putting up a facade daily. also she can’t handle relationships for shhhit.

and what would these bullet points be if i didn’t start and finish them with a disclaimer ? still a mess yeah ik .. MXKAJD. but even tho most probs don’t even know who alissa is i just wanted to say that saint will have green eyes bc .. #aesthetic.

WANTED PLOTS.

once again any plot goes except for romantic stylez kind of plots bc yk not her kind of thing. catfish ( either someone used to catfish someone else using her pics or even better someone got catfished with her photos n now they’re meeting and she’s .. acting v different. plS. ), fwb ( so yeah saint hates relationships but u know what she doesn’t hate wink wink ;) KMSLASK also probs won’t work with males bc she’s all like [ cher horowitz vc ] as if ! ), fan ( someone who likes her movies or show idk ?? let her be all chill with them pls ), smoke bud ( she loves to party & smoke soo .. maybe even in an all-in-one with the fan plot ), enemy ( probs one of the other sec charas bc maybe they’ve met before or even wanted the same role ?? ), once again my brain is a mess sooo .. good bi !

this got longer than my biography ever could so if u read it all .. u truly are the mvp and deserve an award.

[jacklyngradphotography]

Hannah Hoch-History Paper

Hannah Hoch and the Dada Movement The Lawless Europeans were giving everyone a run for their money in the early 1900’s.  The Russians had constructivism, The French Surrealism, Italians and their futurism and all the other isms you could think of at the time. WWI was ending and the public was reacting to culture in many ways, but specifically though art. While looking at this time period in class, German Dadist art was extremely interesting to me, they looked like nothing else I had ever looked at before It was harsh and loud and politically charged, and had a huge impact on me in that moment. They were literally tearing up photographs and magazine and newspapers and putting them back together. This was unheard of! And when we came to Hannah Höch, I knew I wanted to find out more about her. I felt an immediate connection to the way she was standing up against gender roles at the time and to her work, which was fascinating, and almost hard to look at at times. In that moment it made me mad that today, 100 years later, those same gender roles are still being fought against. She was a pioneer in the movement! I decided I would find out more about Höch, where she came from and how she became to be apart of the revolutionary Dadist movement. I wanted to know more about her work, and how it came to be.

Höch was actually born Anna the 2”H’s” come later. She was born into a middle class family, oldest of 5 in Southeast German. She would be pulled out of school to take care of her newborn sister, but would re enter studying glass work under famed artists Harold Bergen. This also ended because of the start of World War 1, where she would return home to work for the Red Cross.  After that she settled in Berlin in 1915, studying at The school of the Royal Museum of Applied Arts. She was finally able to fully immerse herself in her art and expression. She chose to study graphic arts, staying away from fine arts. This was partly to appease her father who did not believe a women could become a successful artist but should stay home to provide wifely duties. Also, at this time women were not recognized in the fine art world, and were not encouraged to practice.  This was the same year she met Raoul Hausmann, a prominent Dada artist who brought her into his circle and by 1917 she was an integral member, but not really recognized at one. This was an absolute crucial moment for Hannah, and would define her name in art history.

The Dada movement started when political chaos ensued after the war ended and the establishment of The Weinmar Republic. The Dadist art was a result of the criticism of the government’s entire social values, which the Dadaists believed started and  prolonged WWI.. They were against war,  against the bourgeois and had associated themselves with the radical left movement of the time. The practitioners of the  movement were interested in natural emotions, political anarchy, intuition and irrational. The art that was coming out of this group was pushing the limits, reexamining  the rules and regulations people had put on art. It was presenting itself in the form of performance, music and physical art pieces, which varied depending on where in Europe it was being practiced. The Dada movement would be short lived but highly impactful and lead to the start of Surrealism.

Without it being obvious for the time, the group consisted mostly of men. Hannah had to fight, even within, for her place because she was a women. For many years  Dadists and art historians did not include her as a pivotal part of their history . The only member to acknowledge her, years later was a Dadists Hans Richter who said his only memory of her involved getting sandwiches. There is some concrete proof of her importance, including one of the most well known pictures from the First International Dada Fair in 1920. She is seen here, next to her explosive piece Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic, and she is with Raoul Hausmann.It is known that the group tried to keep her out of this art fair, but she persisted.

Höch was constantly at odds because of her gender, and it was not just in the Dada movement or in art. There were huge movements in Germany at the time, including the Neue Frauen  or the The New Women. Women were cutting their hair, wearing trousers and button downs and speaking about pay inequality, and job opportunities.  Höch considered herself to be a New Women, and after studying her work, there is a clear message of fighting gender norms being expressed. In some pictures she is combining masculine and feminine in the same figure, and in some she is mocking the stereotypes of “The New Women”. Her expression here I believe is direct representation of Höch’s journey is that she was never recognized for her huge influence for many years because of her gender.

Even Hausman, who had a romantic relationship with her, on record did not have much to say. He rarely spoke of her in a way that celebrated her work, but spoke down on her and acted like her work was not made for women, but for herself. On the outside Hausmann was supportive of the women’s movement at the time, but it would later be known that inside his female relationships these were not true. Höch wrote a short story called The Painter, which is known to be written about Hausmann. It implies that he encouraged the traditional male/female roles behind closed doors and could not walk his talk. Men like Hausman were celebrated as pioneers, but Höch was pushed aside and not seen.

Höch took pop culture, political figures, posters and books, cut them up and was a pioneer for photomontage, alongside some other Dadaists. The timing of this is not random, at this time there was a huge growth in print media at this time. Also good to note that of course, this type of technique had been used before but never to create such shock value. Her work was politically charged and was screaming to be seen.

Her story continues through World War 2 and beyond, where she makes work until her death in 1978. 10 years before her death, she was acknowledged and had work shown at the MoMa, proving her spot in history.

Today, there are still women fighting for their space in history. Women who are changing the world, but are overlooked because a man is seen in the same light. Hannah Höch, 100 years ago, stood in those same shoes but in a much less accepting time. She presented herself androgynous, dated men and women and was a part of a pivotal part of history. It must have been an incredible feat, to fight for that space to be sometimes forgotten, till many years later. But these are some of the reasons I am so interested and inspired by her. People today are persecuted for who they date, how they look and what job they have, and Höch defied all odds in landing where she did.

                            My Own Photomontages

My experience working on some photomontages of my own was  very interesting. From the start I took some old news papers, magazine and such and started cutting out things that interested me. It was almost therapeutic and emotional going through and seeing what I noticed and what I wanted to include. I was shocked by how much whiteness there was, and also lack of men pictured in magazines and newspapers. This would later influence my choices in the photomontages I put together.

I parked up on the floor, watching The Umbrella Academy and started to lay out the small things I had found along with the larger photos. I printed out different political figures, body parts, items of luxury and whatever caught my eye. I channelled Höch and started to place fragments of bodies together, making them grotesque or unrecognizable for what they usually are. I thought about how she mocked some of the stereotypes for “the new women” and included some model like bodies and clothing and paired them with typical masculine forms or faces.

It felt powerful to choose what juxtapositions I would lay down, and how I would arrange each piece. It was comical and powerful and an incredible way to express myself.

 References Fricke, Honnef, Ruhrberg, Schneckenburger (1998). Art of the 20th Century (Vol. 1). Koln: Taschen.

Hudson, M. (2014, January 14). Hannah Hoch: The woman that art history forgot. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10545071/Hannah-Höch-The-woman-that-art-history-forgot.html

Arnason, H., & Prather, M. (1998). A History of Modern Art: Painting, sculpture, architecture, photography (4th ed.). London: Thames and Hudson

Cohen, A. (2019, March 11). The Radical Legacy of Hannah Höch, One of the Only Female Dadaists. Retrieved from

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-radical-legacy-hannah-hoch-one-femae-dadaists?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=editorial&fbclid=IwAR3cMbNdCPVt6C-xVWpcWSbmMuQMsnYGzexTKJ0ArGPCUMJwDbXt8MWLYn4

[theconservativebrief]

Tucked into a blog post published on Google’s website last week, amid news about the launch of the company’s third-generation Pixel smartphone, was the information that the tech giant is “joining forces” with Gwyneth Paltrow’s $250 million lifestyle empire, Goop.

So far, the partnership is limited: Goop will be selling Google Home smart speakers and accessories in its holiday pop-ups and permanent “goop Lab” stores. A Google spokesperson told me the devices will “be available to experience and shop” starting next week at the flagship Goop store in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood, running through the end of January 2019, and at Goop pop-up shops in various other cities during the holiday season.

Starting the first week of November, they’ll also be available at a new, yet-to-be-announced permanent Goop store in New York City. (A Goop representative confirmed a November 1 opening for the store, which will be in Noho.)

On its surface, this is a weird collab: What does a wildly expensive luxury brand, founded on the premise that not everyone can be beautiful and rich and healthy, want with a brand best known for an unsexy search engine running on the brain power of a bunch of nerds? What could one of the world’s most powerful technology and science companies gain from a startup that was recently fined $145,000 for telling women that putting a piece of rose quartz up their vagina would regulate their menstrual cycle and prevent uterine prolapse?

We really don’t have to look that closely. It’s an example of mutual corporate back-scratching that incorporates two of consumerism’s favorite buzzwords: “wellness” and “luxury.”

Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

Google has only been making physical devices for three years, and in trying to increase its market share, it’s been trying to court a more “aspirational” demographic to differentiate itself from Apple, which has a firm hold on the mass market. The Verge’s review of the Pixel 3 phone says it’s the first Google device that feels “premium” — it nixed the “faux-humility” of the Pixel 2’s plasticky coating and is now fully aluminum and glass.

To promote the phones, which cost upward of $1,000 with full storage (comparable to Apple’s last several iPhones, but a markup from the Pixel and the Pixel 2), Google has already hired Annie Leibovitz. The photographer best known for more than 40 years of defining celebrity photography on the covers of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair will tour the country and take photos with the Pixel 3’s camera. Google also paid Condé Nast to use a Pixel 3 to shoot seven November magazine covers, including those for luxury lifestyle titles like Architecture Digest, W, Condé Nast Traveler, and GQ.

But Google’s new hardware marketing strategy isn’t just about luxury. It’s also about that word you’ve heard so many times it no longer feels like a word, more like a round, lozenge-shaped thing that falls out of your mouth every time it opens. Wellness.

Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

The company has been promoting the idea of “digital wellbeing” in its latest hardware and software push, emphasizing Android features that help you limit your time spent in various apps, with appealing graphics to show just how much time you’re wasting.

At Google’s annual I/O event in May, CEO Sundar Pichai promised that Google would bring its customers a new feeling this year, in addition to new products: “JOMO,” or the “joy of missing out.” You can “shush” a Google phone (put into do-not-disturb mode by setting it face down) or “wind down” a Google phone (set a bedtime that switches the screen to grayscale).

In a Wired feature from May, Arielle Pardes pointed out that the idea of “digital wellness” started at Google in 2012, when product designer Tristan Harris sent a company-wide memo about how unethical he thought Google’s Inbox app notifications were. It was a 144-page presentation titled “Call to Minimize Distraction and Respect Users’ Attention,” and earned Harris the role of “design ethicist” — a job created specifically for him, and which he held until 2016, when he left to start a nonprofit called Time Well Spent.

Pardes compared Google’s interest in digital wellbeing to other wellness trends, saying it makes living a more balanced life look easier than it really is. Which, incidentally, is Goop’s whole MO — albeit more often at price points that are totally inaccessible to the average consumer.

When Goop’s first permanent store opened in Los Angeles last fall, LA Weekly’s Jillian Scheinfeld described it as “equal parts ridic and chic as fuck.” It was advertised as a “bungalow” but actually set up as a series of “well-appointed” rooms in a fancy apartment — including a functioning kitchen, an apothecary, a greenhouse, and a living room with “midnight blue” wallpaper and a sheepskin throw on a walnut daybed.

Google’s holiday pop-up hardware store, which opens Thursday in New York, is the tech version of that. It’s in Soho, on Greene Street, approximately 200 feet from the Soho Apple Store, and sandwiched between a Dior boutique and the millennial-first couch company Burrow’s new “experiential” retail store.

Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

It’s a “literal interpretation of a hardware store,” except incredibly sleek — attended to by salespeople in bright white button-downs and $200 Timberlands, and full of bright white toolboxes and bright aluminum paint cans with labels that reflect Google hardware’s pastel color palette — sharply different from the bold primary colors of its web services.

There are Edison bulbs and chunks of rose quartz. There’s a bright miniature kitchen with copper mugs and a shiny French press, with an adorable aqua mini-stove and ’60s-vintage-inspired floor tiling that reads “Hey Google,” and a secret candy drawer that pops open upon asking the new Google Home Hub for a snack. (The Google Home Hub is the store’s star attraction, but you can also buy the Pixel 3, Google Home speakers, and other accessories.)

The idea of digital wellness started at Google, just as Goop was building out its empire

Each purchase can be gift-wrapped at a DIY station equipped with six different pastel-printed papers, balls of twine, and gold-handled scissors. You carry it home in a tote bag with one of Google’s new signature colors — “not pink,” “midnight blue,” “aqua,” or, unfortunately, “just white” — printed on the side. It comes with a manual, created by Canadian artist Hiller Goodspeed, which is full of dozens of pastel-hued illustrated guides like “How to take care of your (digital) self” and “How to start your next vacation faster.”

As deliberately Instagrammable, supposedly “interactive” retail experiences go, this one is really nice. The treehouse (there is a treehouse!) is stocked with Nancy Drew books. The smells are all fresh paint and money. There are multiple coloring lounges and dozens of opportunities to request that Google’s voice assistant perform strange tasks for you. (You can ask it to tell you a ghost story!)

It is also, as these retail experiences go, pretty typical, in that it is beautiful and aspirational. Everything that’s available to buy costs a lot of money, and I was dressed so improperly for the experience (in sneakers and a button-down black dress) that one of the store’s attendants came over and asked me to stop taking photos, implying that he wasn’t exactly sure how I’d found my way into a press preview.

All this to say: When Google products move over into Goop stores, the transition will be seamless. It’s the perfect aspirational lifestyle play for Google — and Goop will get some important rebranding from the arrangement too.

Goop has struggled with credibility and with accusations of spreading misinformation. Earlier this year, it was forced to relabel health and wellness advice content on its website with disclaimers like “For Your Enjoyment: There probably aren’t going to be peer-reviewed studies about this concept, but it’s fun, and there’s real merit in that,” and “Ancient Modality: This practice is nearly as old as time — many find value in it, even if modern-day research hasn’t caught up yet.”

In a bombastic and delightfully gossipy (the cigarette!) New York Times magazine profile of Gwyneth Paltrow published in July, she revealed that her company’s plan to launch its own magazine in partnership with Condé Nast (a Google partner) fell through because the publisher insisted Goop use a fact-checker. By partnering with Google, Goop has an opportunity to affiliate its brand with big data and proven fact, without actually validating any of its own claims.

In the Times profile, Paltrow also revealed that the company was worth $250 million, and thanked her haters for her success. Writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner explained:

The weirder Goop went, the more its readers rejoiced. And then, of course, the more Goop was criticized: by mainstream doctors with accusations of pseudoscience, by websites like Slate and Jezebel saying it was no longer ludicrous — no, now it was dangerous. And elsewhere people would wonder how Gwyneth Paltrow could try to solve our problems when her life seemed almost comically problem-free. But every time there was a negative story about her or her company, all that did was bring more people to the site — among them those who had similar kinds of questions and couldn’t find help in mainstream medicine.

Nobody understands the mechanics of this — a great search-engine optimization/clickbait feedback loop scam — better than Google. Google Search placement and Google Trend might be two of the least sexy but most important things any fledgling brand has to worry about. If anyone knows how great Goop is doing on that front, it’s the company that holds practically every internet user’s browsing data.

If Google wants to get seriously into luxury and wellness, nobody’s more tightly associated with those buzzwords than Goop. We don’t know the extent of Goop and Google’s partnership yet, but it makes perfect sense. “The minute the phrase ‘having it all’ lost favor among women, wellness came in to pick up the pieces,” Brodesser-Akner wrote. “Wellness was maybe a result of too much having it all, too much pursuit, too many boxes that we’d seen our exhausted mothers fall into bed without checking off.”

That explains the rise of Goop’s brand of aspirational wellness, but wellness as a concept also arrived because of too many email notifications, too many “active” or “away” status bubbles, and too many tech companies like Google that made every moment of our lives schedulable and therefore monetizable. A partnership between the two makes total sense business-wise — and for consumers, it’s a match made in a rosy, well-lit hell.

Original Source -> Why Google wants to sell its gadgets in Goop stores

via The Conservative Brief

[sequentialartconfidential]

Okay, so new year, new opportunities. I’m going to attempt to review the comics I buy each week again. I tried it for a while but I kept getting sidetracked so here we go again. I want to preface this by saying that I am not a professional reviewer/critic, all I can offer you is my opinion of the work. I typically buy anywhere from $30-50 worth of new comics weekly so I can’t review everything but if you have a suggestion for a book I should try I’m more than happy to check it out. I also have a tendency to stalk used book stores and comic conventions for old graphic novels and I am especially fond of the clearance bins at Half Price Books so I will share reviews of those as well. The main thing that I love about cheap graphic novels is that I can pick up things that I may never have taken a chance on otherwise due to price considerations. I have found a lot of great comics that way. I also want to preface these reviews by saying that I do write and draw comics of my own so some of my opinions may be skewered by that experience.

Week One: 1/3/2018

Books purchased:

Star Wars Issue 41 Kieron Gillen/Writer Salvador Larroca/Artist Marvel

Batman White Knight Issue 4 (of 8) Sean Murphy/Writer/Artist DC

Scales and Scoundrels Issue 5 Sebastian Girner/Writer Galaad/Artist Image

X-Men Grand Design Issue 2 Ed Piskor/Writer and Artist Marvel

Star Wars Forces of Destiny (Leia) One-Shot Elsa Charretier/Co-Writer and Artist Pierrick Colinet/Co-Writer IDW/Disney

Rat Queens Issue 7 Kurtis J. Wiebe/Writer Owen Gieni/Artist Image

Paper Girls Issue 19 Brian K. Vaughan/Writer Cliff Chiang/Artist Image

Rock Candy Mountain Issue 7 (of 8) Mountain Kyle Starks/Writer and Artist Image

Walking Dead Issue 175 (1 of 6 in the New World Order storyline) Robert Kirkman/Writer Charlie Adlard/Artist Image

 My Favorite Thing is Monsters Emil Ferris/Writer and Artist Fantagraphics

Let me begin by saying that I have not fully finished My Favorite Things is Monsters yet so I won’t be reviewing it just yet. I will say that it is phenomenally drawn and written. You want to keep reading but sometimes the drawings insist that you stop and admire them. I’ve stayed up late a few nights reading it and I’m still only a little over half way through. From all accounts this is just the first book as well so I hope they get the second volume out quick!

Star Wars issue 41 is a continuing storyline that, if I was hard pressed, I would have a hard time remembering and I just read the book yesterday.... I buy most of the Star Wars books and I really can’t say why other than I’m a huge Star Wars fan. The artwork is nice and it’s always fun seeing the original trilogy characters in action but the stories aren’t that exciting. I get the feeling that the powers that be (ether Disney or Marvel) don’t want to change or expand the characters much so they make the writers stick to bland adventures that will in no way change or expand the existing universe. Luke is always an unsteady Jedi wanna-be, whining and worrying, Han is the cavalier scoundrel who is quick with the schoolboy taunts of Leia to where one wonders why he doesn’t just pull her pigtails and get it over with, and Leia is the know-it-all badass who has to keep these two “assets” to the rebellion alive and on track. Chewbacca stands by idly and wonders what about his place in the universe...the Star Wars Universe....

 Buy if you love Star Wars and want to grumble about it, Pass if you do not.

 Batman White Knight Issue 4 (of 8) I’m enjoying this so far despite not being a big Batman fan. I am of the opinion that Batman is a jack booted thug with anger management issues wasting a fortune on playing cops and robbers while Gotham is filled with poor and desperate people. This book is playing up on that view of Batman. Even though I find Batman to be a poorly conceived character I do admit that he inspires some great stories. I know because I buy a lot of them despite not being overly fond of the character. If you haven’t checked this one out it is a doozy. Written by Sean Murphy (Wake, Tokyo Ghost, Punk Rock Jesus) is a great writer (and artist) and I’ve enjoyed his work in the past and that’s primarily why I gave this a shot (and he doesn’t disappoint). The main thrust of the series is that the Joker (or Jack Napier) has turned a new leaf and has become a “good guy”….or has he? He seems to be doing a lot of things right and is championing the poor and oppressed in Gotham. Batman of course doesn’t trust him, Commissioner Gordon doesn’t trust him either but is willing to listen, and Nightwing and Batgirl are somewhere in the middle. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I always like comics that hold my interest and keep me in suspense from issue to issue. I am always asking myself, “What happened in the last issue of this comic?” If I can’t answer that question then I know it’s probably not a good storyline or, perhaps, it’s one of those independent comics that take four months or more between issues. Tangent rant: have you noticed that creators are bringing out their own titles with haphazard release schedules so that they can work on mainstream books (Marvel/DC)? It’s a little infuriating. I know it’s the nature of the beast but it’s hard to wait so long between books.

 Buy! This is a good book despite the fact that it’s a Batman book :)

 Scales and Scoundrels Issue 5 I’m digging this comic, it’s like a Dungeons and Dragons adventure….literally. The main characters travel to a dungeon in search of treasure and there are dragons involved. The action even seems as though it is being created through a D&D campaign. DM, “You are in a boat on a mysterious sea and you are attacked by five boats of amphibious creatures with stone weapons, one appears to be a wizard. What do you do?” If this is how it’s being created I’m not mad at anyone for it. I like the storyline and the art is okay. The art is loose, cartoony, and very familiar as I’m seeing a lot of artists using this style as of late. If you have seen any art by Hamish Steele this is very similar. I’m not sure what the influence for this art is but it has become prevalent as of late. It would not be out of place on Cartoon Network or Cartoon Hangover. I know the critique to that kind of comment is always, “Well, can you do better?” Well, no, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have an opinion. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s perfectly passable and suits the book  well, all I’m saying is that it’s cartoony and sparse. The characters and their development are top notch so far though and it’s only issue 5 so who knows where it will go from here.

Buy! You may want to wait for the TPB at this point but it’s definitely a good read.

 X-Men Grand Design Issue 2 Ed Piskor is my homeboy. He may not know it but he is. I’ve been hyping this guy since I read Wizzywig back in the day. Lately, Ed has been chronicling the life and times of hip hop culture in his book Hip Hop Family Tree which is phenomenal. It’s about people and history and culture just as much as it’s about music so it’s enjoyable on many levels even if you don’t like hip hop. And that’s kind of what’s missing in X-Men Grand Design. Ed is a lifelong X-Men fanatic and has spoken about his passion for the franchise many times and his passion shows in these comics but , through no fault of his own, their story is not as interesting as the story of hip hop. I do admire the book for Ed’s unique and eye catching style. You can always spot an Ed Piskor book! I love that it’s loose and fun and that Ed still does everything on paper including his inking and lettering. His books have the feel of an underground/DIY comic but made by a professional. They’re old school and modern at the same time. Part of the problem may be that I’m not as big of a fan of the X-Men as Ed but partially to blame is the fact that the X-Men have a convoluted, and oftentimes eye rolling, history filled with coincidences, bad plotting, dues ex machina moments, and overwrought soap opera emotions (as a lot of comics with such a long history do to be fair). This is only the second book of course and he is nowhere near the groundbreaking Chris Claremont/David Byrne run yet so we have that to look forward to. The other problem is that Ed is having to untangle the history to tell it chronologically. Things that lazy writers threw in to correct an issue that happened many issues or even years before have to be put into the correct place in the timeline and that can make these stories even more confusing. I will keep buying these if only to look at Ed’s art but I’m anxious to get to a better era of the franchise soon. These early stories are somewhat hokey.

 Buy if you’re a fan of Ed Piskor or the X-Men Pass if your meh about either.

Star Wars Forces of Destiny (Leia) One-Shot This book was released by Disney so you can be sure that it is aimed at a younger demographic. They call it an “All-Ages Adventure” and the advert at the back of the book has a schedule for four more books, one for each week in January 2018. Next week will be Rey, then Hera (Who? Sorry, I haven’t watched Rebels yet), Ashoka & Padme, and then Rose & Page. All of these books are either written by or drawn by (or both) female artists and writers which is really cool.  I’m looking forward to the Rose & Paige book because, and I get the feeling that I’m alone for the most part here, I liked their story in the Last Jedi. This issue deals with Leia and is co-written and drawn by Elsa Charretier (co-writer Pierrick Colinet) who I am unfamiliar with but does an excellent job here. Her drawing style reminds me of Bruce Timm or Darwyn Cooke which is a high compliment coming from me because I am a big fan of both of those artists. As with those guys, Elsa has a style influenced by animation and it shows in the flow of her panels and her fluid action scenes. The story is set on Hoth and she makes Hoth look way more beautiful that it has any right to be. The character designs are loose but perfect and I could totally see this style being used in a Batman Adventures style Star Wars cartoon. The story takes place right before the Battle of Hoth (opening scene of Empire Strikes Back) and Leia leads Han and Hera (No idea) on a mission to find a part for the energy shield. It’s a simple premise but Leia has more character development here than in some of the comics Marvel has released. She knows she’s supposed to be in command and that people are looking to her for answers which puts considerable stress on her knowing that she has to make the right decisions and quick or she is going to lose people and maybe even the war. I liked this comic a lot. I especially liked the art and will seek out other books by Elsa Charretier. Yes, the story is simple and it doesn’t have any big surprises or cover a lot of new territory but it is meant for a younger audience and it is still a good story.

 Buy! Yeah, I’m saying buy this even if you skip the new Star Wars comic get this one. This one is at least fun to read.

 Rat Queens Issue 7 Have you ever had a book, or TV show, or movie that you absolutely loved and then, as it progressed, it lost it’s luster? Rat Queens has become that for me. I loved the early books filled with fantasy adventure, girl power and laughs but, after original artist Rob Upchurch left under a cloud of domestic abuse charges the book lost steam and has not recovered. This is not to say that the art has not been good because it has been spectacular since he left. Tess Fowler was a great replacement who they inexplicably replaced with Owen Gieni when the book was rebooted. I do like Gieni’s art but it made no sense to replace Fowler. Not only did she turn in great art month after month but she brought a female perspective to the art and the book. I imagine she would not have drawn the horrible creature that appears in this issue as Gieni did. It looks like a monster cut from the Spread comic. It has one foot and the big toe on that foot is a penis. Cleaver… mature…. aesthetically pleasing…..I wonder what female fans  thought of that? I don’t know, I just don’t think the comic is fun anymore. They seem to be going from one characters storyline to another  with no real development or insight added to them.  I hate to say this but, for me, the book has jumped the shark and will probably be leaving my pull list.

 Pass! I hope it gets better but I somehow doubt that it will. I have not enjoyed this book since before the reboot.

 Paper Girls Issue 19 I’ll preface this by saying that I really like Brian K. Vaughan’s writing. I loved Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Saga, Runaways, etc. For me, this has been the hardest book of his for me to like. I do like it but it took a while for me to get into it and I have no idea why. It may be that the writing is trying to be a little too clever but I don’t know if that’s it. The constant references to the eighties meant to remind us the girls are from the eighties can cause some eye rolling and the obligatory issue where every girl meets their future counterpart give this a Back to the Future vibe. But I like Back to the Future so why am I not as enchanted by this? It may be that I get frustrated when I don’t know what’s going on. This is probably why the book has grown on me as more is revealed. This is the kind of book that I like to read in TPB form as I can read a bunch of them at once and not get left hanging. The writing and the art are great on the book, Cliff Chiang draws beautifully, but it may take you a while to warm up to the book and characters. I say buy the early TPB’s and read them straight through and you’ll be ready to go once you reach this issue.

 Buy if you have all of the other issues, if not then buy the TPB’s first.

 Rock Candy Mountain Issue 7 (of 8) Oh I do love me some Kyle Starks! If you are not yet on the Kyle Starks bandwagon you better hop on now! This guy makes comics that are a non-stop action movie thrill ride that will knock you flat on your butt! I own just about everything he’s made. The Legend of Ricky Thunder, Sexcastle, Kill Them All, and now I’m eating up Rock Candy Mountain. This book is his longest yet and has a lot of things going for it that his previous books did not like spectacular color by Chris Scheizer (Who is himself a tremendous talent writing and drawing the excellent Crogan Adventures series). The other thing that this book has going for it is hoboes and lord knows I love hoboes. I have a keen interest in alternative cultures like hoboes, or beatniks, or Justin Bieber fans; what makes them tick, how did this group form, and why would anyone listen to that god awful music? I also grew up next to a railroad track and love trains and have jumped a few myself (only to drop off a few blocks later so I wouldn’t miss supper). I can understand the feeling of wanting to jump on a train and ride away from your troubles for a while. Ah wanderlust…. So add Kyle Stark to hobo culture and I’m buying that book, no questions asked. Thankfully, my faith in Kyle and hoboes was not ungrounded because this book is awesome. I don’t want to give too much away but this is an epic adventure with plenty of action scenes and great characters. I highly recommend this book. Kyle is another of those artists like Ed Piskor where you immediately recognize his style and there is no one else out there who does it quite the same way. I love his style but opinions may vary. The TPB of the first four issues is out and would be a good start if you’re interested.

 Buy! Buy! Buy! Get the TPB if you’re just starting out.

 Walking Dead Issue 175 Wow, 175 issues and I’ve read them all. Remember when I was talking earlier about loving something and then it gradually fades into apathy? The Walking Dead has become that for me, especially the television show. I would love to take this space talking about how much I hate the show now and how dumb the characters are but this isn’t about the show so I’m going to stick to the book (BTW I hated the All Out War storyline [and Neagan] in the book because it was meandering and poorly plotted and the show is the same way). Anyway, the book has had it’s good moments and it’s great moments, it’s bad moments and it’s excruciatingly bad moments and I think this storyline may fall into the former if it’s done right. Other than the annoying weirdo the group picked up I like where this is going. I have always wondered about other societies out in the world and the one the group has run into is especially intriguing. I’m not going to go into the plot, it’s the Walking Dead, so you know, zombies and stuff. If you have been reading The Walking Dead all along I think you may agree that this storyline is interesting. It may spell the end for the book eventually who knows? I do hope this turns out to be a good one as there hasn’t been a great arc in a while.

 Buy if you’re caught up to this issue or buy the large omnibus books to catch up if you’re not. If you watch the show you may still enjoy this but you’re going to be wondering why Eugene is with the group.

Thanks for reading, sorry if I bored you!