#anyways off to try fixing the issue panel in the other comic to also post today <3

[intotheelliwoods]

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This can only go well :)

Context can be found on my blog under the tag #beetle saga

[bvannn]

Weekly Update June 7, 2024

I’m in a sour mood right now because I got differed from plasma over paperwork. I’ll try a different chain next week, since the one I’ve been going to is super crowded now anyway. We also got a cat this week, that was the correct answer to the post on Saturday. It’s my mom’s cat, but mom has been out most of this week so I’ve been left alone with her. I’ve been really tired. Like insanely tired. But I still got a good amount of stuff done.

Artfight stuff: I’m planning on revamping the thumbnails and redoing Romeo’s refsheet, plus adding Josh. Luckily at work this week I was put on a job that’s pretty relaxed as far as timing goes, and I have lots of little gaps of time to draw while I wait for the balance to stabilize. As a result I got Romeo and Josh’s refsheets sketched, as well as all the thumbnails planned + several sketched. Tomorrow I’ll try to get some of those rendered.

Comic stuff: Comic is going to be on the back burner this month and next most likely, but I did finish off page 7 and started sketching page 8, which I plan to continue slowly. Every once in a while I’ll get stunlocked with indecisiveness and what I’ve been doing to combat it is 15 sit-ups and then roll a wheel of small tasks and do whatever it says, then repeat until free time is over. So it’s still getting done in those little bursts where I don’t have enough time for something bigger.

Music: another quickie is generally done, but I’m going to hold off on it until I decide to do lyrics for it, because it would probably be perfect for an animation meme if I add some quick generic poppy lyrics. Like I can just channel my rage into a couple stanzas and call it good. I really want to release songs specifically for animation memes because I like newgrounds and respect newgrounds’ copyright policy so I want to make some nice music for animation memes that’s copyright safe for whoever to use with credit. Also still making progress on re-mixing my older tracks, OEB needed a complete redo, some VSTs needed to be swapped out entirely, plug I’m learning a bunch of fancy new tricks, so good chance I’ll post another sample of that once I get it figured out. Unsure if I need to actually redo the vocaloid track or just to redo the effects, but I can figure that out after the instrumentals are done.

Also got a good amount of lyric writing done, RR is 88% done, BATB is still a cool 71%. I’m getting into the groove of doing that at work too, so hopefully those should be done quick, plus the quickie I have on hold. Once I have energy I’ll also finish up that other quickie and the Zelda medley I’ve had in the pipe, hopefully that’ll be this weekend, but good chance it’ll be Monday night.

Other things: OEB is at 32% on storyboards, and like 17% on the Kyo rig. A whole bunch of assets are done but need to be imported/exported, plus I’m taking a couple shortcuts too to make things a bit easier, and I can flesh out the rig more as I use it more. Also, my strategy for the sketchy lines is a success! I may also be able to apply it to other areas and fix the issue of flash being shit for drawing, but that’s a bit ambitious. I’ll try chipping away at having the rest of the clip assets *drawn* by the end of the month so I can import/export them at work next month. But again that’s currently in the ‘if I have a little free time’ bracket of priority.

Miscellaneous: I’m getting a couple TTRPG things done too, little bit of writing, little bit of drawing, again not too high a priority but it’s getting done.

Tonight I’m tired and in a bad mood so I’m going to just chip away at re-mixing OEB tonight and maybe sketch a comic panel or two. Maybe. I have one more regular general drawing I want to get done before the end of the month but I don’t know when that’s coming, this weekend I’ll try to focus on Artfight stuff, with breaks in between to spin the wheel of small tasks I need to accomplish. Lots of housekeeping, hopefully next week is kind to me with plasma so I get more time.

[snailbutters]

Um I’m not exactly happy with this one but I still think it’s an okay comic to post. I messed up a couple of times but it’s whatever rn. I was fighting with my art program and it exported the colors weird and so on. I’m also not very happy with how Brick turned out after the first panel, but nonetheless I hope y’all enjoy. Also it was either panel 3 or 4 that has the colors exported weird from the others, and I apologize for that.

I took inspiration from Citiesville (I believe is what the city is called that the girls go to in the original show and they have a no powers or superhero rule). Anyways, I wanted to dabble in some comic ideas I had for these characters and test it out.

This one is basically the girls are off to college, and in their place the boys, mainly Brick, took over the girls’ roles in their short absences. So in this comic they were asked by Blossom and the Mayors of Townsville and Citiesville to come help out with one major issue Citiesville couldn’t get under control. However, since there’s a no powers rule there the boys had to do this job without their powers. So in result it took them longer to fix the issue. By the time they fixed the issue a new string of and AB virus broke out but this time it made it to Citiesville. So now the boys are here in Citiesville banned on going home for now.

Brick has been having to book motel rooms in the meantime until they can get back home. They’re stuck at a train station trying to switch to another motel. Already Brick’s annoyed that they aren’t allowed to fly, but on top of that he expresses his worry about his depleting supply of currency. Butch points out that their brother, whom for some reason has struggled to fall asleep in this new area, had actually dozed off. So they do a very rare thing, and snap a photo of the moment to alleviate some stress when looking back on this experience. The last panel is Boomer looking at it through IG.

Idk it was a little idea I had.

For mit danske publikum:

Denne her er grundlæggende pigerne på college, og i deres sted overtog drengene, hovedsagelig Brick pigernes roller i deres korte fravær. Så i denne tegneserie blev de bedt af Blossom og borgmestrene i Townsville og Citiesville om at komme med et stort problem, Citiesville ikke kunne få styr på. Men da der ikke er nogen magt, måtte drengene dog gøre dette job uden deres beføjelser. Det tog dem derfor længere tid at løse problemet. Da de lavede det, brød en ny tråd af og en virus ud, men denne gang kom det til Citiesville. Så nu er drengene her i Citiesville forbudt at tage hjem nu.

Brick har været nødt til at booke motelværelser i mellemtiden indtil de kan komme hjem. De sidder fast på en togstation, der prøver at skifte til et andet motel. Brick er allerede irriteret over, at de ikke må flyve, men oven i købet udtrykker han sin bekymring over, at han har mistet valutaen. Butch påpeger, at deres bror, som af en eller anden grund har kæmpet for at falde i søvn i dette nye område, faktisk var dømt af. Så de gør noget sjældent, og tager et billede af øjeblikket for at lindre lidt stress, når de ser tilbage på denne oplevelse. Det sidste panel er Boomer, der kigger på det gennem Instagram.

Trods det er simpelt håber jeg også, at I nyder det. Jeg undskylder også, at mit danske er ikke så godt, det er et minut siden, jeg har brugt det til at forklare en tegneserie idé.

[sl-walker]

All right, since I’m in the middle of a flare and have to work manual labor for the next four days despite it, I figured I would make myself -- and hopefully other people -- laugh by talking about one of my favorite OG Captain Marvel stories. Namely, from Whiz #50, with a cover date of January, 1944, meaning it was probably produced sometime in late 1943.

I want to share it because why not, this is some absurdly charming stuff.

I’ll get more into why it’s one of my favorites as we go, in the form of running commentary. So, full story (with said commentary) under the cut. If you wanna just read the story without my commentary, stick to the pictures. XD

First, let me say that the cover and splash page definitely live up to the story, though the cover’s a bit more sensationalized. But the premise is pretty damn simple: Our intrepid hero and his newsboy alter ego are on vacation. Cap decides to go swimming. It goes hilariously wrong and thus ensues a bit of a madcap adventure, no puns intended.

Second, the fact that Cap and Billy are depicted as essentially different entities makes what Billy does next the ultimate trolling:

Gee, airing out the stolen laundry on the radio? Really? I’ll leave it up to you, gentle reader, whether Billy actually was trolling his own alter-ego for ratings or whether he was just innocently sharing the story while his other-self winced quietly in whatever ether-space he exists in when not front-and-center.

Either way, I love it.

Continuing on...

I get a kick out of the fact that Billy’s monologue is that he’s no dare-devil. One, because that’s so obviously not true in any way -- (that kid is awesomely, sometimes recklessly brave on the regular even without Cap) -- but two, because the bridge is actually named Dare-Devil Bridge. We aren’t given any reason why this dangerous potential death-trap is there, hanging without so much as a gate or a warning sign or anything, because we don’t need one. It’s there specifically for what happens next.

Which, of course, is Billy calling in Captain Marvel, who does some light complaining about the situation Billy left him in. There’s no bite to it, which I find adorable -- Cap actually does get frustrated once or twice in other issues with Billy calling on him for mundane stuff, though he’s never mean about it -- but there is a bit of the sense of being put-upon there that’s just-- I dunno, cute. It’s something I miss a lot in the various post-crisis takes on the character: That duality, that difference in personality, and the way each of them responds to different situations. Often, they’re on the same page, but notably, sometimes, they aren’t.

Someday, I promise, I need to sit down and write how I think that works between those two without being a truly frightening mental illness manifested, what with them being the same person but not the same person. Because I have so many ideas, and I’ve only had since the early-2000s to percolate them. LOL! But until then, just enjoy this.

Here is another reason why I love the Golden Age Captain Marvel books and why I love this specific story: This is an absolutely normal, mundane thing to do. It’s the human thing to do. These aren’t the actions of some super-serious superdude. These are the actions of a pretty shockingly normal guy doing something mundane. And a whole story is built around that normalcy.

It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s the reader already knowing that he’s getting himself into a situation that he absolutely could have avoided, but also completely understanding how it happened anyway. It’s pretty brilliant writing: I say this as a pretty damned good writer myself.

So much of the reason why, I think, Cap was so endearing as a hero is that humanity. He’s got pretty much god-tier power in the Golden Age, once his powerset is established. He’s utterly invulnerable to all physical harm while powered up. But-- he’s human. He knows he’s human. He acts like it, and decides, “You know what? I’m going skinny-dipping.”

He and Billy are both characters it’s so easy to empathize with.

Also, a reminder that the art under Chief Artist C.C. Beck is really, really good. (He had a whole stable of artists to help produce this stuff!) Ignoring registration issues on the printing press, the actual line art is amazingly good; proportion and perspective and consistency.

But anyway--Cap does get to enjoy his swim. But, then, oh no.

I love the idea of a world where the prime hero -- and he definitely is in that world -- can take off his suit and go swimming, and where someone else is bold enough to steal the damn suit off of him. The first time I read this, I started laughing here. Not at him, but at the situation he’s found himself in. At the idea that some random passer-by saw Captain Marvel’s costume and went yoink!

Another thing I love about this particular story is how much Cap and Billy have to work together, just by necessity. Like-- it’s just really good. But anyway, thank everything Billy Batson is on the ball, coming to the rescue.

Sheer bad luck via the weather keeps this story rolling along in hilarious misdirections. Realistically, that uniform probably wouldn’t be all buttoned together (we see Cap take off pieces of it aside the pants in other issues, including socks!), but who cares? The point of the story is that giant bear rug on the floor’s gonna get put to use.

Man, when have you ever seen Superman creeping naked through some stranger’s house wearing nothing but a random polar bear because he went skinny dipping? No wonder these comics sold so well. This next panel is when I start wheezing, though, and pretty much keep wheezing.

“A lady, too! I’ve got to get away from here!”

I’m dying at this point. That’s such a characteristic response, and yet, I think that’s why it’s funny.

Anyway, because this is an excellent story (I mean this without an ounce of irony, too), our dynamic duo stumbles across a plot in play to rob the hotel they’re staying at.

Here’s a big part of why this is such a good tale: Everything fits. Even when it isn’t explained, like Dare-Devil Bridge, it still fits. Why is the tree down? Because there was just a thunder storm, the same one that blew Cap’s suit into the room with the gangsters.

I don’t know if this is Otto Binder’s story, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. It’s a complete story told in relatively few pages that accomplishes everything it’s meant to.

Anyway, using foliage as cover, Cap gets to be heroic----then Billy gets to get back to the business of trying to stop the robbery of the hotel and get his heroic alter-ego dressed again.  Which leads to a rather adorable and funny scene of Billy not only trying to describe what Captain Marvel wears, but what size it would need to be tailored in.

(Cap is supposedly a 44 for a suit coat, we find in some earlier appearance, which would refer to his chest size.  So, an XL for shirts and suit-coats.  He’s a big guy, but he’s actually not a hulking huge guy.  But more on that later.)

I love the fact Billy tries to like-- use himself as a model.  Maybe in another ten years, kiddo.  Billy’s actually pretty buff for like a 12-14 year old, he’s not a scrawny kid at this point, but yeah, no.  LOL!

Another thing I also really, really love about this style, though, is that they draw Captain Marvel as being strong, as having a powerful build-- but not as a dehydrated body-builder with deep cuts. He’s got human proportions, regardless of his strength; he’s got a human build, not a superhuman one.

C.C. Beck had a lot of things to say about superheroes who were just muscles on top of muscles, all clearly defined, and he didn’t like it.  As someone who first got into comics in the early 90s with Jim Lee’s X-Men--

I do get Beck’s point.  I not only get it, but I really highly approve of it.  He maintained to the end that he drew (and oversaw) the Marvel family to look like high school and college athletes, and I can see that.  I think the one person who’s gotten it right in the modern era is Evan “Doc” Shaner, who did Convergence: Shazam!  He not only nailed that strong-but-not-hulking build for Cap, but also how young he looked.  College-age, in fact.

But anyway, enough digression into art and why I like this better than most modern takes on the character.  Also, that’s just a cute set of panels.

I also like that there wasn’t an easy fix there.  Cap’s still in his not-birthday suit, and Billy’s still stuck running around trying to solve the issues at hand.  Next comes some other really good panels:

-snorts-  He’s locked in.  Yeah, that’ll hold him.

Anyway, what I really liked here was again that tandem working; Billy can’t punch through a wall, but Cap can.  Cap can’t crawl out while he’s au natural -- well, he could, but he’d probably rather die first -- but Billy’s got no such issue.  It’s just fun when you get to see them doing something like that.  You have to really think for a minute about the trust each of them must have in their alter-ego.

ANYWAY, we get the rare treat then--

--of Captain Marvel not only yoinking a dude into a dark room, but then stealing his clothes.  Except, not his underwear.  Because that’s nasty.  LOL!

I love that in this series, you do actually get to see him wear other stuff.  Go incognito.  Get his red suit messed up enough to take it to a dry cleaner’s, wherein he ends up dressed like a musketeer after.  Jerry Ordway’s series is, I think, the only other time we see Cap not wearing his famous suit, but it happened enough in the Golden Age that it wasn’t a shock.

Like, I hate to be the one to say this, but I do think DC drops the ball often on just how much you can do with Captain Marvel (or Shazam, depending on timeline, but that’s the wizard’s name to me so mostly I’ll stick with the original name) if you unbend enough to.  It’s not just the costume change, or the duality of him and Billy being the same but not, but also his inherent, essential humanity.

But I am digressing again, sorry. XD  I just feel strongly enough about these versions of these characters to spend hours writing this.

Anyway, only a single panel later:

And that’s that!  Billy Batson has just outed his own alter-ego’s most embarrassing moment to whomever’s listening to WHIZ radio -- thank everything podcasts and the internet weren’t available then, ha! -- and we get to see a recounting of a very fun story.

Like I said earlier, I love this one for its essential humanity.  The hero got himself into this mess, he and Billy got him out of this mess, and stopping the criminals was actually just kind of a lucky stroke thrown in there.  But even though Cap got himself into this, the story never treats him like he’s stupid.  It never treats him like he’s some kind of idiot.  You’re laughing, but-- not in a mean way.

I love how human it is.  How complete it is.  How genuinely funny it is.  It’s a thousand times more funny when you genuinely love and respect Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dissertation on a skinny-dipping hero.  LOL!  I enjoyed sharing it with you.

[marireadshellblazer]

Constantine TV Series Episode 4 “A Feast of Friends”

Aight, I feel the need to express some feelings about this episode. I’m not sure this is going to be terribly articulate, but I’ll do my best. Let’s do this.

First off, it’s obvious to anyone who has read Hellblazer that this episode is based off of the first two issues of the comic book series. As I wrote in my post about my experience reading it, these issues were the perfect way to start off the series. It’s like “BOOM! This is how it is! Get ready for some serious shit! This is your only warning; this is what you’re in for.” Even though they did change the story for the episode, I still absolutely loved it. The storyline from the comics is a favorite of mine, but even with the changes made in order to adapt it for TV, this was an awesome episode. In fact, it’s my favorite episode of the TV series. Here’s why!  

   Why is it episode 4?

  Unlike the comics this story was adapted to be episode 4, meaning it doesn’t start the TV series. So, why wouldn’t it start the TV series? I think that you have to look at it from a few different perspectives.

  Let’s start with the comic: Issues 1 and 2, titled Hunger and A Feast of Friends respectively, make up the first arc of the Hellblazer series. Most fans know, however, that Hellblazer is not John’s first appearance in comics; he got his own series after appearing throughout the American Gothic story arc of Swamp Thing. Consequently, many people came into Hellblazer at the time having some familiarity with the character. While this chapter does expand on John’s character some, this doesn’t serve as a major introduction to him. They just drop the reader into one of his nightmare-inducing everyday situations with little to no preparation. Those who are familiar with his role in Swamp Thing will, odds are, not find these issues to be terribly weird or particularly jarring considering it’s in a series about John; they have a good idea what they are in for.

   Here is a quick run-down: John returns to his apartment in Paddington after dealing with the horror show that is the Brujeria in the Swamp Thing comics. Exhausted, he comes back to an unwelcome guest; Gary Lester. Gary is one of the friends who was involved in the Newcastle incident (which is fully explained in issue #11), which left each of them scarred in their own way. Gary dealt with the aftermath via drugs, which have left him wide open for other issues. After foolishly releasing a demon from a sacrificial victim, Gary runs to John for help dealing with the destruction said demon is causing. In this case it’s a hunger demon that causes people to feast upon whatever they greatly desire; food, a crucifix, and even an athlete committing autocannibalism. With help from club owner and Voodoo practitioner Papa Midnight, John betrays his vulnerable and trusting friend in order to stop the demon by instead making him the new sacrifice. Trapping the demon inside of Gary, the literal and figurative ghosts of John’s past haunt and torment him mentally as his friend dies slowly and in agony, ending this arc with a melancholy feeling. John stopped a demon, but at the cost of a friend who truly trusted and cared for him.

Using this story to begin the TV series as is, however, would have been more than a little strange. In the minds of most people outside of the comic book world, John Constantine was first introduced to them via the horrifyingly inaccurate Keanu Reeves film. (I love Keanu, I really do, but that film give me agita). Or, if they were introduced to the show after it had already aired, they are introduced via Matt Ryan’s masterful work portraying him in Legends of Tomorrow. While he does an incredible job in both Constantine and Legends (to the point where I find that I may simply be unable to accept anyone else taking on the role in live action) it depresses me terribly that Legends toned down John’s character so much with all the goofiness. It did not suit John at all! If anything, I find myself feeling sorry for Matt Ryan, who tried so hard to do John’s character justice. Uhg.

   Anyway…Already, a lot of the audience is going to be more than a little taken aback by the Constantine series’ portrayal of the character, however comic book accurate he may be. This show is tailored to as wide of an audience as possible, meaning they expect that pretty much no one has read Hellblazer or Swamp Thing before. Consequently, having the series start by just dropping the audience into his crazy world, especially with this particular story arc, might not be the best idea. I’m not saying that his introduction is done super well with the first episode (it’s not a total wreak, but there are issues) but it would have been much harder to start with A Feast of Friends.

     Characterization

    Now, let’s look at it from another angle: characterization. As the 4th episode this was, odds are, done assuming that there would be a lot more episodes after this (oh, the painful reality), but really the viewers are still just getting to know John. So, these early episodes are supposed to establish his character. They see him as knowledgeable and ready to handle the weird and scary in the first episode, and in 2 and 3 you see that he is serious about his work, a loner, weirdly well prepared, and how he interacts with others. While in some situations he does come off like a douche, his douche-ness is on full display in this episode. Honestly, this is accurate to how he is in the comics; he’s a nasty piece of work, after all. A world class bastard. He gives Gary shit for his drug addiction pretty much the entire episode as well as his choice to mess with a demon and the chaos it made that he now has to fix. He, like in the comics, tricks Gary into helping him and it results in a slow, painful death for the man. Gary really did trust John, and not only did John betray him, but he was callous about it. Now, that’s not to say that the situation and Gary’s death doesn’t bother him, and this is also seen in both the episode and the comic, but John solders through a lot of it with his mask of stoic indifference; he blatantly a deliberately betrays his friend without much hesitation.

    John’s characterization in the show is really important. While fans of Hellblazer know what they are in for (John being a dick, betraying people, sacrificing friends, etc) the wide audience the show was meant to appeal to might not respond well to that. How is the audience supposed to relate to a character whose major personality trait in this arc is to basically be a douche (even if it is justified in a way)? Generally speaking, TV shows try to have a lot of characters with redeeming traits and very basic bitch personalities so that as much of the audience as possible can relate to them in some capacity. They can describe the main character as “cool, quirky, sweet, loving, etc” because that is what network television strives for. The point is for the audience to relate to and find a lot of reasons to like the character, especially the main character. The audience is supposed to be able to see the qualities of the character in themselves. An example of a douchy character being changed for network television is the titular character in TV series Lucifer. He can be an asshat at times, but his redeeming qualities shine through in pretty much every episode; he’s helpful, has a strong sense of justice, and cares about Chloe. He often goes out of his way to understand others, although he often misses the mark, and tries to fix problems and issues that he accidentally creates in order to keep relationships with others. These are things people can relate to, and although he can be rather uncouth, it’s played for laughs, and he has more redeeming qualities than not. If the Constantine series started off with John coldly betraying a friend after giving him shit for his addiction the entire episode with not a lot of his positive traits coming through, from the perspective of most people, this might not be a good way to try and connect with the audience. I’m not saying there are people who don’t/won’t, but again, this is network television and they tend to play on the safe side.

    Comic book -> TV

    Ok so let’s move onto the meat of this; the changes made to the story. People always complain when something isn’t totally accurate to the book down to every last detail (Harry Potter *cough cough*) and making story and character changes to adaptions of comic books is nothing new. However, to be fair, there are some legitimately good reasons for this. Time, money, limits technology wise, and pacing are good examples. The most important thing to consider, in my opinion, is that we are going from a comic book to television. Literally, that is the most important thing. Essentially, what the writers had to do when adapting this story for the show was carry over the plot from one medium to another, which is tricky.

    What’s a medium? A medium is a platform that allows a message to be shared or presented. So, using the medium of a comic book is how Jamie Delano was able to share his message; the story of John Constantine. The writers of the television series then had to adapt the story from comics, a visual and written medium, into a different kind of visual medium with different features to it; stage craft, voice, music, etc.

    Comic books have features for story telling; the size and placement of the panels, the writing, word bubbles, narration bubbles, colors, art style, etc. The pro’s to this are that you don’t get paragraph after paragraph describing a place or a person; they literally show them to you and the art presents those details. They also allow for the art to take in the reader emotionally through what the images convey; messy art, sudden loss of color, or even a sudden blank page after a tragic event are simple yet effective ways to convey emotion that are, at times, difficult or downright impossible to put into words. And sometimes the writer wants to leave things to interpretation or allude to something without saying it outright. While this can be done in writing, it can be done through the art as well, and depending on how skilled the artist or creative a set up can be just as effective if not more.

     In television storytelling can be done with another wide array of features. Close-ups on the actors, the actors and their performance in general, music, background narration, changes in location, lighting, ect. This allows for emotions to come across in different ways; the quality of the acting can make or break the effectiveness of the scene, and music and lighting can alter the message or feel of scene in order to change or heighten the point, pacing, the use of CGI or practical effects, etc. So, keeping this in mind, there are many features that are exclusive to film that are not in comic books, and vice versa. So, as you can imagine, adapting the stories or message from one medium to another is nowhere near as straightforward as people like to think it is. In other words, I tend to give the writers/actors/etc a break when it comes to adaption because, honestly, there is a lot that goes into it and it’s not like I could do better, honestly. I mean, there are piss poor adaptions, I’m not gunna lie, but there are a lot of them that I think don’t get enough credit simply because it’s “different” in some ways.

     Aight, let’s first refer back to what I said earlier concerning the comic; these issues aren’t so much an intro to John as they are literally following him from the end of the American Gothic arc in Swamp Thing and to his apartment where he gets involved with more shit (no rest for the wicked, amirite?). So, again, not a good way to start the TV series. In the TV show, they also have to tie in the changes they set up in the previous episodes. Continuity, my friends.

    So, what is different? Here are a few things: John having a safe house, being in the US, Chaz being American and also not involved, Zed being involved and being Latina, the new angel character Manny, and the absence of Papa Midnight really change a lot about the story. The heart of it is John’s relationship with Gary and the defeat of the demon, which thankfully remains unchanged at it’s core. This is the central idea that drives this story and I think that idea was actually done a bit better in the film medium than in the comic.

   Keeping all of these factors and all of these changes that needed in order to keep things consistent with the TV show’s changes, let’s get into why I think that this episode is good even with the changes, but why I love it.

I love It

      After taking some time to consider things, I realize that what really makes this episode great is the actors; specifically, Matt Ryan and Jonjo O'Neill. The chemistry between them is undeniable. The way they look at each other and how they talk to each other really makes you feel like, at one time at least, they were friends. The scene where Gary swipes the ID badge and says “I learned from the best” is a great example of this. The look on his face and John’s; I don’t have a real eloquent way to say it. I just sort of feel it.

The retcon of Gary’s character really helps with this. Being that Gary is introduced and then killed off in two issues, you don’t really get to know his character in the comics. He’s only in one episode of the TV series, yet he feels more fleshed out. Soul was added to the character. Showing his struggles with addiction, as well as what I suspect to be depression and PTSD, really humanized him. In the episode, he was more than just a desperate, annoying junky; he was a flawed and relatable human being. Who hasn’t made a mistake? How many people have made BIG mistakes with consequences difficult to handle? How many people are haunted by their actions from the past? Addiction and the effects is has on people is devastating. I’m glad that they kept the ending true to the comics, but the way he was portrayed in the episode really made me feel for Gary in this case. It almost made me hope that maybe he really would get better, and have the chance at redemption that he was trying so desperately to find. But it wouldn’t be a John Constantine series without an ending like this one; John loses a friend and slowly digs himself deeper into hell.

Of course, it’s the ending of the episode that people really remember best. It’s the scenes that solidified, at least for me, Matt Ryan as John Constantine. It’s what really helped me have faith in the series. Watching it now, and seeing what really could have been, makes the episode somewhat bitter sweet for me. I felt like this is when the series really found it’s footing; the acting, storytelling, and how well arcs from Hellblazer could be adapted. This is where I think Matt Ryan hit his stride and we could see what he was really capable of as an actor if they let him spread his wings. In the earlier episodes I was honestly unsure. He looked the part, but the soul of the character had not really had a chance to shine through.

How John treats Gary at the end really made a difference, too. Holding him while he was in pain, and sitting with him as he died in agony; these simple yet effective changes really drove home John’s humanity in the face of evil and the tough decisions he has to make. The look he gives many at the very end, the anger and sorrow he seems to be struggling to hold back, is haunting.

In this episode, Matt Ryan’s love and dedication to John’s character shine. Seeing the story in live action gave this story a stronger impact. Even without a lot of the social commentary that was present in the comic, the live action element is what really helps drive the story home. I think it’s because it’s real people showing these very real emotions that can be hard to translate into art. Not to say that John Ridgway did a bad job, but it’s different in live action.

I hope I was able to get these thoughts across. I wasn’t sure if I should share this or not, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I know this is sort of jumbled, but hopefully it’s not a total mess to read.

[stxleslyds]

MY TOUGHTS ON PART TWO OF RED HOOD BY CHIP ZDARSKY :)

A DC BOOK THAT TASTES LIKE MARVEL.

You know when you are reading a book and you feel like the story you are reading seems familiar but not really within the context you are reading it at the moment? If you can’t shake the wrong sense of familiarity you search for what it probably the biggest give away, the author.

Here it’s something like that; I have read other pieces of Chip Zdarsky’s work, namely Daredevil. While I could tell you the familiarity is there, in the subject of guilt after taking the life of another person, the reality is that this book doesn’t taste like Daredevil, it tastes like Marvel.

That can be either an excellent thing (because Marvel has amazing books) or something terrible (because DC isn’t Marvel and they don’t work the same way).

As of now I can’t really tell if this Red Hood story is going to be one or the other, but I can tell you that it feels out of place in the DC universe, or at least that’s how I see it. I will explore this particular thought later, I just thought this was a nice way to open this post.

If you would like to read the first post I made about this book I will leave the link here!

Now…let’s begin.

Part two picks up exactly where part one left off, we see Jason calling Oracle so she can bring the police to the place where Jason killed Andy a.ka. that gigantic piece of shit.

Jason is having some thoughts, ones that I think are important.

“I have taken lives before, a lot of them. I have killed guys knowing nothing about them except that they had guns and murder in their hearts. Those ones are easy; I don’t have to think of their mothers getting the news or of kids being...”

Jason is troubled. He is now in front of a reality that he never truly thought about but to be honest with you I strongly believe that nobody in the DC universe thinks beyond what happens in front of them, that’s just how fictional comic worlds are designed.

Anyway, there is a little something that bothers me in this inner monologue of his, like since when have “murderers” been Jason’s actual target? Like Joker was his target but he didn’t kill him, the base of Jason’s morals when it comes to killing has always been drugs, most importantly if you sell drugs to kids. So unless he is saying “murderers” because they were selling drugs that caused people (especially kids) to overdose then I don’t really get what is going on.

Another thing that I also talked about in the first post is that Jason hasn’t killed in a very long time, this man has been sticking to the Bats rule for so long that it’s actually unreal. Even when he shot the penguin and Batman proceeded to almost beat Jason to death the penguin hadn’t died. So once again I am thinking that Zdarsky has some info that he is not sharing right now or maybe he just didn’t read Lobdell's run (in which case, can you really blame him?)

Now let me talk about the other part of his monologue “…I don’t have to think of their mothers getting the news or of kids being...” This is something that I haven’t seen in DC, direct consequences after a hero/vigilante does something, and let me tell you it feels out of place. Is it a good or bad thing? I don’t really know but I have some thoughts on the subject.

I think it's unfair to put a comic character in that situation or dilemma. Jason has basically three reactions to the same situation and they are all valid, but can this situation be handled by a fictional person in a fictional world? Because to be fair I could also ask about the criminals that are put in hospitals after they are beat up by heroes, what if they die in the hospital? Is the hero a killer or does it fall on the hospital? If a criminal cannot pay for the attention given to them in hospitals and they immediately go back to criminal activity to pay for those things, are heroes a good thing? If the Joker bombs a hospital for the third time in four months and Batman does the same thing (take joker to Arkham) only for Joker to escape and do it again, is Batman as guilty as the Joker for the deaths of innocent people or not?

As I wrote it and as I read it again I see that it is a crazy thought because you can simply add more depth to the characters decisions and the consequences that would ensue because of them, but Gotham is a fictional city created to establish that crime is off the charts and that they need Batman because no amount of resources will be able to fix this city’s problems. So putting Jason in this position is new to me…but only in DC (more of this particular thought below).

Going back to the comic in question, I feel like Jason had the answers and the ideas all in his head. In this issue alone he basically says that if the mother does not pull through the boy will be alone, but alone means going into the system (a horrible system that Jason does not trust and needs improvement), but also, Jason recognizes that if the mother died and the father was left alive then that man would have done horrendous stuff. I just simply wouldn't believe that a man that gave drugs to both his wife and son so they wouldn't bother him is just going to change after realizing that his wife died because of him. Even less believable is him becoming an amazing father.

In the big scheme of things, Jason has killed people who fitted very certain characteristics, never innocents (bye, Morrison). What happens after the killing is done? We don’t know because past stories have never focused on that (criminals in comics are by default one dimensional, villains are not)

But here is the thing, Zdarsky is a Marvel writer and Marvel has gone in depth within those situations (like what happens after heroes commit mistakes or kill someone) mostly with Civil War by Mark Millar and more recently in Daredevil written by Chip Zdarsky, but DC hasn't and DC has been plain for a long time, DC doesn't really explain how batman hurts people severely and nothing happens beyond that.

What I am trying to say is that Zdarsky is going for a different and unique route for Jason here but I think the story is out of place in the DC universe.

I promise I am done with those thoughts, they were really difficult to put on paper and to make them make sense, so I apologize if I only confused you, sorry!

Anyway! After the monologue is done we have a flashback where little Jason is being told by his mother to go buy bread (the only thing they can afford) but she is also making him leave so he doesn’t have to be present when Robby (a friend if you ask Jason’s mom, a drug dealer if you ask Jason) comes to the apartment to help her.

Sadly as Jason is leaving Robby is walking up the stairs, now not to copy little Jason but fuck Robby. Jason’s issues with drugs, drug dealing and overdosing is once again shown here but what is also shown is the violence that comes with it. Jason being terrified for himself (and his mother) as Robby pulls a knife on him broke my heart and as he is left there in the corridor to his apartment all we can see is a defeated little boy and that shit hurts a lot.

After that we jump back to the future with none other than Batgod…I mean Batman. Batman is following a man called Sydney and apparently he disappointed Batman because B told him to stop being a criminal, like come on man if I ask nicely or if I break both of your arms you will surely stop, right? Yeah, no.

I feel like I mentioned something about this while my brain decided that DC never usually explains what happens with criminals after they get caught or killed and now here we are. Consequences. Batman scares a man off of working for Scarecrow but the man still needs to work (does he have a family to provide for? We don’t know. Does he do it because it’s the only job he can get? We don’t know.)

This Batman intermission ends up with Oracle telling him that Jason might be in trouble.

So we find ourselves back with Jason and Tyler in his safe house, Zdarsky does not hesitate and first thing he does is give us a couple of very angsty panels.

I love the way it hurts.

Jason honey, my sweet chonky boy…what are you doing?

Well at least I am not the only one asking that because Jason is having a moment to reflect about what has happened, what is happening and what could happen in the future. In this monologue he says the following:

“Dammit, Jason, what the hell are you doing? You can’t take care of this kid! But you can’t put him in the system either! Just waiting for some obsessed militaristic billionaire to adopt him? Dammit. His dad was scum, he hurt Tyler, he hurt his mom. But if Tyler’s mom doesn’t pull through…I just made this kid an orphan. He is my responsibility, he is too young to really see what he’s gone through, he can still be saved…unlike…”

Yeah that’s some really angsty thoughts, he is really going through it and I understand it. He lost his cool after what that horrible human being said he did and killed him and now he has to face the consequences of his actions, he recognizes that if the boy is left truly alone he will have to step up…but here is the thing, does Jason really want that? It seems to me like Jason is deeply against the idea of children working as heroes, and here he is as an adult that is a vigilante with an impressionable child that sees the Red Hood as his hero, I don’t know, it looks like the perfect recipe for a disaster.

But we don’t get to see what Jason does right away because its flashback time.

Jason only moved from his spot in the corridor of his apartment door to get the bread but as Robby comes out of said door Jason is there waiting. Robby teases that he and Jason’s mom ended up sharing the “medicine” and that she will be sleeping for a long time, and that seems to be it for Jason because next thing you know Robby is falling down the stairs.

Aw, shit.

Jason from the future continues his monologue while he remembers what happened on those stairs.

“I never had a chance, not for one second. But he does, Tyler has a chance. I can help him, help him be okay. This doesn’t…what I did…what his parents did, it doesn’t have to define him.”

So Jason wants to make things right for Tyler so he doesn’t become like Jason. Now I don’t truly know what Zdarsky is going for but I will go for the unconscious route, little Jason pushed Robby (that fucker) down the stairs and he was left unconscious there.

In Jason’s eyes Tyler is still a good kid that deserves only the best (like you Jason, please don’t think so low about yourself) and that can be saved from a life of vengeance, justice and trauma. But whatever Jason was going to actually say to Tyler we don’t know because Tyler informs Jason that through the Red Hood mask there is someone telling him that Batman is coming.

Batman appears out of nowhere as he does and starts talking shit.

Honestly Batman what is with that “not my town” bullshit? Baby this isn’t the medieval times, you are not a king and as far as I know not only is Lucius Fox richer than you but so is Dick so sit your ass down and shut the fuck up.

Luckily Jason is giving the outstanding amount of zero fucks and tells Batman exactly what he needs to be told, sadly Jason’s big brain time doesn’t last long because he absolutely loses his cool and starts a fight. So you know what that means, monologue time!

“This was a mistake, but I can’t help myself, he gets under my skin. His sanctimony, he acts like he’s God, all knowing, all seeing when really…he’s just another failed parent.”

Amen. Jason knows many languages but he chose to speak facts.

As the monologue ends Batman is standing over Jason like he is about to murder him but no such thing happens because Tyler, who was quietly watching them fight, jumps in to protect Jason. Yep, there goes my heart, goodbye.

And this is it. The issue ends with Tyler putting an end to the fight and telling batman that he has to leave the Red Hood alone because he is a good guy. Jason of course is thankful and promises that everything is fine.

 I don’t know about you guys but so far I can’t say if I like the book or not. Both parts left me with mixed feelings. I obviously want to see how it ends but I honestly think that there is only one way this story can end with a happy ending, which I think it would be Tyler going back to his mom and Jason somehow working to help her with her drug addiction, maybe even have Dick involved so he can help them economically.

Things that I surely do not want to see are Jason backing down again and limiting himself to the Bats rules. I also absolutely don’t want Zdarsky to go all Geoff Johns on us and make Jason think that he should give up the Red Hood mantle.

Jason really needs to gain his confidence back, he was smart, calculated and strategic and now they have taken those things away to accentuate his “daddy issues” and “inferiority complex”. Why the quotation marks you ask? Oh, because those things are bullshit and there is no room for those things in Jason’s characterization other than to add more angst to the plot.

Let me know how you felt about the issue and my review! Are you excited about what the four next issues are going to bring to the story?

Also if you read Marvel, did this issue taste like Marvel to you too or am I going crazy?

[cherrymoonvol6]

absolutely no one asked for this but i will rank every kent parson pairing that i can think about (warning: SUPER subjective, but i tried)

kent/bad bob

i don’t even know what to say except NO. come fucking on. -1000000/10

kent/fry guy

i mean... first of all, LOL. second of all, if we take in account that all the times we see fry guy he’s being annoyed by either jack’s or bitty’s accomplishments/happiness, then i can see them bonding over that and going straight to the hook up. but again, come onnnnn in the best cases this is either a blatant self-insert or pushing the concept of a crack-ship, at worst this is deliberatedly ignoring richer characters in the comic in order to pair kent with the LOL option. 2/10

kent/bitty

i feel like this is the one pairing that makes NO sense at all yet i know people are gonna go for it because two conventionally attractive guys together cute. imo a lot of people go into this thinking bitty is morally superior than kent and it’s like an extension of the kent discourse and a form of a “fix-it” for him (and fix WHAT?) (if you don’t, you are so valid and please keep going). like, do you really think kent parson would give a single fuck about eric bittle? i love bitty, but c’mon. this is like the kinda thing bitty would come up with in his own head to make himself feel better about his second-hand feelings of anger and sadness over kent and jack’s history. your only shot at this is to write one or both of them ooc, which, valid i guess. 3/10

kent/holster

same thing with fry guy: holster isn’t very fond of jack, he and kent can bond over that. i can totally see holster being kent’s type, too. maybe holster wants to act some of that steamy jackparse fanfiction with him. 4/10, has potential

kent/ransom

bro did you SEE ransom’s face while talking about parse coming to the epikegster on year 3????? and kent remembering ransom on that forbidden update????? after all, ransom was the one holding kent’s body issue on parse ii. nhl guys are ransom’s weakness, 200%: they’d hook up and then they’d spent the rest of the night gushing about how hot tater is. 6/10

kent/tyler seguin

bro this pairing is like, fucking hysterical. whoever came up with this, i love you because is there anything more on brand for kent than pairing him with the irl hockey player he’s based off??? this is a crack ship done right. 6.5/10

kent/whiskey

listen....... i’d be so up for this. whiskey and kent are essentially the same person. whiskey is literally what kent would’ve been if he had gone to college. they’re SUPER ambitious and competitive, have problems opening up, it’s all about the Fronts(tm), but like. what’s that age difference, again? like, six years? idk. idk, man. if they were to end on the same team, though, they’d vibe so hard with each other... opening up to each other might be pushing it, though. whiskey must have mad respect for him because he’s a great player and same with kent! so like, if i pretend i do not see it, 7/10

kent/scraps

am i imagining it or did ngozi describe scraps as someone who sees kent as the smartest one in the room? or something like that. anyways, it’s about time that kent gets someone on his life that he can confide in and then return some of that love. if they’re not higher on the list is because i like them more as the platonic bond kent desperately needs (also i’m not sure about what the age gap is?), but friends to lovers following deep conversations and personal growth in an incredibly toxic environment? good shit. 7/10

kent/lardo

i feel like this is either a hit or miss with whether you headcanon kent as gay or bi, but even though i always think of kent as gay i’m so up for this pairing. i feel like they have so many things in common and you could truly portray them in such different settings! and i love to think about them opening up to each other. oh, the softness and tenderness that could come out of these two!!! bonus if we get jackshit as the background couple, plus that damn jackparse reconciliation. 8/10

kent/omc

i love kent parson, which means i’m always up for the idea of him getting himself a boyfriend who can challenge him and drive him to want to become a better person so that he can come out of that self-destruction spiral that his life in the nhl has been. free space, you can quite literally do anything with this. 8/10

kent/swoops

i hate to say this but this pairing, though it’s the friends-to-lovers crusade that kent deserves on his nhl life, is kind of a wild card because swoops is just a shell of a character. this pairing is kinda like kent/omc but the omc has actually appeared in canon. but again, FRIENDS TO LOVERS and there’s SO many cute and angsty and wholesome things you could get out of it. 8/10

kent/tater

listen, enemies-to-lovers isn’t my shit, i’ll admit it. but i love tater and i love kent and seeing them clashing looks like so much fun. i feel like once kent shows some of the ugly things he’s hiding inside, these two could click so well. and also that one panel with tater lifting kent off the ground with one hand, out of pure anger at this little shit trying to make jack’s nhl life a living hell, boy oh boy do i love me some of that. with them, and if done right, there could be a great balance between humour and the deep angst we all know and love from kent fics and character studies. plus, it’s going to eventually push a jackparse reconciliation. gimme all that closure baby! 9/10

kent/jack

you 200% expected this if you have seen a single post from my blog. i mean.... this literally has it all. the two characters with the richest backstories and/or development. rivals to friends to “lovers” to enemies to ??? to enemiesANDrivals to eventual lovers??? YOU pick it. you get all the angst, all the conflict surrounding each others’ expectations, the pressure of the hockey world around them, the APOLOGIES and the growing up, the delicious trope of them individually solving their shit and then coming back to each other. all the personality clashes! legends on the ice! kenny and zimms! jack and cat content! absolutely everything you could wish for. hot and steamy? we got it. angry and challenging? hell yeah. soft and forgiving, eventually? just the best of the best. you get the closure that bitty’s pov couldn’t provide, character studies, SO many different types of pining and unrequited and forbidden love... if you’re not on the jackparse life, you are missing out. come join us in hell. 1000000/10

[wesavegotham]

I've been trying to write a longer post about Damian's last story in the Robin 80th anniversary special for a few days now because it's the lead up to Bruce and Damian's confrontation in the next Teen Titans Annual, but the whole storyline of them having a falling-out is such a mess, it's hard to make definitive statements about anything.

The set-up in No Justice was badly executed. Yes, Damian disagrees with Bruce on some pages but it's not really important to their later conflict. We never saw their big fight, it happened off-panel. So the beginning is already vague as hell. Nothing in No Justice was tied to Damian personally, so it always felt like a pretty weak excuse to get Damian away from his father. The whole thing felt tacked on.

Also, it's not like Damian didn't give Bruce hints towards why he's angry at him so I don't know why Bruce seems to clueless in the Robin special.

Glass's reasoning for Damian's actions in Teen Titans never convinced me and felt like a huge step back for the character. To this day the book makes it sound like Bruce and Damian aren't on speaking terms and Damian isn't coming home anymore.

The first time Bruce wanted to fix things was in Detective Comics, but everything in that arc turned out to be part of a simulation. So in reality they still had their issues, didn't talk about it, but Damian was at home in the batcave when Bruce woke up anyway:

Maybe Damian wanted to congratulate Bruce on his birthday even though they supposedly weren't talking to each other, I don't know, the story never told me. It also didn't tell me why Damian was still there in the next arc and working alongside Bruce to take down the Arkham Knight just fine. Damian even stayed for several days because Bruce was temporarily blind at the end of the story and Damian got to drive the batmobile for him.

Damian also came when Bruce used the red batsignal in the main Batman book to call for help, unlike Ric, Jason and Stephanie who were at odds with Bruce at the time too and refused. Later he went along with Bruce's plan to send him into Gotham alone during the City of Bane arc to fight Gotham Girl, get himself beaten up, taken hostage and held at gunpoint by Flashpoint Thomas Wayne. He also said this during the arc:

Which speaks of his loyalty to Bruce and to the bat-family, considering he's supposed to be at odds with Bruce, Alfred compared him to Ra's Al-Ghul in their last known conversation and Damian has either a complicated or a non-existent relationship with everyone present in the last panel. Yeah, honestly that little speech doesn't make a lot of sense.

After Alfred's death Damian still comes when Bruce asks for assistance with a case after Lucius pestered Bruce into taking care of the missing children cases in one of his orphanages while Bruce was busy with taking down a gang:

At the end Bruce talks about how it's their responsibility as Wayne's to take care of the kids at the orphanages they own, Bruce builds another wing for the orphanage and Bruce and Damian seem to be on good terms at its opening two months later:

When Bruce finally calls the family for a meeting/wake for Alfred after Bruce build a hospital in memory of their (grand)father figure Damian is probably the character who is the least angry at Bruce for what happened:

And Damian still seems to come home to the manor after Alfred's death...to eat I guess:

And now we have this story:

So Robin has been off the grid for months and the few times they did run into each other he has been cold to Bruce? I mean I guess that's true in some stories, but definitely not all and even in the stories where DC hints at their conflict Damian still ends up helping Bruce. And apparently he's not "off the grid" enough to not come home. I'm...confused by this storyline.

Judging from my analysis I'm not sure why Bruce is lamenting about Damian not living up to his values of loyalty and family, since Damian seems pretty happy to go along with whatever plan his father comes up with in most comics, even if it includes a high risk to his own life. Like Bruce's dumbass plan in City of Bane or spending several days in a snowstorm searching for another child. The fact that in Detective Comics #1017 and Pennyworth RIP Bruce is shown to be the person who changes the topic when Damian complains about their relationship and refuses to go after his son to comfort him even after Barbara pushes him to do so also makes me wonder how Damian is supposed to strive towards these values when Bruce does such a bad job trying to live by them himself.

I know DC hinted in Justice League #39 that reality is broken and maybe that works as an in-universe explanation for this mess, but as a consumer this is simply unpleasant to read. When I read an issue dealing with this storyline I don't know if they're on speaking terms or not, if Damian still follows Bruce's orders or not or even if Damian still lives at the manor sometimes or only with his team.

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Thoughts on the Loki in Thor (2020) #1

I’ve been thinking about the Loki sequence in Thor (2020) #1, and want to go through some of panels. One page, which circulated widely on tumblr a while ago as a preview, was somewhat confounding in its apparent portrayal of Thor and Loki’s relationship - at least, it looked as though things were worse between them than they ought to have been (compared with how they last were in Loki (2019), a few months ago). Upon reflection, though, I think in context it is not so bad, given some of what else is going on in the issue, and the role Loki is actually playing in the story at the moment. (Disclaimer: I only bought Thor #1, and have not read #2, though it is presumably out now, so perhaps this is all already jossed, I do not know. But ignoring that...)(Disclaimer 2: I actively try to be optimistic about the future prospects of of the comics, it is just more pleasant to hope for the best than to worry about the worst and I find if I am going to be disappointed I may as well wait until I have all the actual reason to be - which is just to say, there are no doubt equally valid readings that are far more damning in their conclusions. So anyway, YMMV.)

(I’m sorry this is such a long post, I realize people tend to prefer shorter ones (at least, those tend to get reblogged more), but part of why I’m doing this extended treatment is because I think the amount of time the comic spends making these points, and then reiterating them, is significant to the key argument here, which concerns Thor’s mindset at present.)

The TL;DR: Thor is having a bit of an existential/identity crisis and it has put him in a shitty mood, Loki happens to hit a nerve and Thor reacts with hostility, but not in a way that is really permanent or, I think, an indication that the book intends to permanently fix Loki as an antagonist/ take a shitty view of their relationship. 

So, to start out with, the issue takes place a considerable while after the War of the Realms has been over, and yet, Thor is proving to be a reluctant ruler, and would much rather be a Thor than an Allfather. This is not helped by fellow Avengers’ teasing: 

It’s taken a while longer, but it looks like Thor has finally come to the same realization Loki had early in his book, that far from the fulfillment of lifelong dreams, the prospect of actually ruling as king has lost its appeal. Sif, who has become the Gatekeeper of Asgard (now that Heimdall is dead and off...somewhere that is not Valhalla, thanks to Valkyrie), takes him to task: 

And more (as well as, incidentally, a rather gorgeous Bifrost panel): 

Thor, not being thrilled (incidentally, the rebuilt Asgard and throne is quite interesting and...foresty?- actually built into Yggdrasil): 

It is at this point that Loki enters:

These panels do reveal more hostility than, say, when Loki and Thor were interacting back in Loki #3, where we have this exchange, for example: 

But, in the latter, Thor is where he wants to be (with the Avengers), while in the former, he is definitely grumpy and facing a future he is having doubts about. I think, for Loki’s side of things, Loki can be seen as attempting sympathy - he does ask how Thor is feeling - but at the same time, doing so is poking at a subject Thor is feeling vulnerable about, and it is perhaps not entirely surprising that Thor responds hostilely. 

Back to Thor #1, these two pages were the ones that were particularly troubling in their portrayal of Thor and his treatment of Loki (particularly the second, which, iirc, circulated as a preview to the issue/book):

The threat Thor makes on the first of these pages certainly feels a bit odd in its distancing effect. But then again, it is in response to Loki essentially prodding Thor’s fear of being unworthy, which this (ie 616 comics) Thor has had personal experience with in the past, and is no doubt just as big a part of Thor’s problem, here, namely - that he’s having a bit of an existential / identity crisis. 

The second page, I still have questions about - what exactly is Thor doing that surprises Loki and is an indication of his powers as Allfather - he has always been able to throw and recall Mjolnir (well as long as he has had the hammer), so why this surprise? (If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear.) 

The key point here, though, is that he actually does recall it. In other words, there are sharp words exchanged, but no actual violence. And keeping in mind that exchanges of some degree of violence between the two, no matter their version, are not that big a deal, I do not even think it would necessarily have been a sign of implacable enmity if it had been worse/actual violence. (This is probably a ymmv point, I realize.)

...So yes, it is less pleasant than the times we find them really working together, or Thor being proud of Loki’s progress, but I do not think it necessarily means that the writers intend to use Loki exclusively as an antagonist in this series, if this is any indication. 

Rather, what he’s being used for here is a mirror to force Thor to reflect on his situation, and a means of exposing Thor’s internal state to the reader. It is worth noting here, also, that the larger plot of the comic not indicated in these panels, seems to be something involving Thor becoming a Herald of Galactus to fight some new cosmic menace with all the others who have been heralds - that is to say, in this particular plot, Loki is not a central player in the plot at all. While disappointing if one is reading particularly for Loki content, I think it makes the depiction of the relationship less troubling - Loki is present in this issue particularly to set the stage explaining Thor’s mindset and forcing him to reflect on the situation. This, in fact, is very much in character with qualities we can find in myth Loki and trickster figures in general - he forces reflection upon the status quo and challenges complacency.

That this issue is largely about Thor’s state of mind is emphasized in a page a bit later where Thor reflects on these several incidents that have occurred:

Finally, and perhaps most importantly to the positive reading that I’m attempting here, we end with a window onto Thor’s subsequent reflection:

The narrative is from Thor at some unknown point in the future, but more importantly, it is definitely much more reasonable where Loki is concerned, and it reinforces the fact that this has very much been a sibling exchange - moderate but nonetheless insightful ribbing that happens to hit a nerve on Loki’s part, and then defensiveness and a refusal to admit to vulnerability on Thor’s. (Note, above on the earlier page, that Thor also does call him “little brother” even alongside the hostility.) Now I would certainly prefer something more like the lovely heart to heart and collaboration we see, for example, back in the Hel war against Sindr and Muspelheim in Thor (2018) #1-4, but wishes, horses, etc. - Anyway, overall I do not think this is necessarily an indication that this book is going to do Loki dirty--notice, for one thing, that the questionable characterization is all on Thor’s part - the authors of the book have not particularly written Loki in a way that counts as character assassination. 

Okay, that is what I wanted to say. Now....do I post it or delete 90% of it and try to paraphrase it all in 1-2 pages, hmm...

[afanoftheglassscientists]

The Glass Scientists Art-Style Changes

Hey yeah sorry but I saw someone complain about how the webcomic’s art style is jarring in the later chapters and that the noses are bad because they’re big and I’m back in full salt mode WHO WANTS SOME TEA!?

@glass-scientists your art-style has only gotten more beautiful as the webcomic continues and you work extremely hard on the comic by yourself and I am amazed you kept working on this for more than four years now while in a career and I hope you’ll be able to do so for the foreseeable future.  When I comment on how your art changed please know that I’m not doing it to critique you.  Okay you don’t have to read more of this I just wanted to be the 156th person to let you know you’re doing great.

ONE - The noses have always been prominent on the characters’ art design and having a big noses does not automatically make it look ugly.  Admittedly there are artists out there who draw very ugly noses for very ugly reasons, but Sabrina Cotugno is not and never has been one of those types of artists.  Yes, Jekyll’s nose is bigger, but is not the end-all, be-all take from his design changes.

Here’s him from Ch.1 Pg. 15.

And here’s him from Ch.7 Pg. 22

(And no, I do not know why the latter two picture are bigger.)

As you can see, the nose in the earlier chapters looks smaller, but Jekyll’s face is also a lot more...soft?  Like think of ceramic pieces.  You start out with soft clay and you mold it into the shape you want (but don’t forget to wedge don’t want it to explode in the oven) but then after the clay firms up a little you’re ready to carve it and give it a more pronounced form.  That’s what happened in the later chapters: Jekyll’s nose, the shape of his jawline, his sideburns, hair and even his eyebrows has become sharper and more distinct.  His nose isn’t just an attachment like a Mister Potato Head, its a part of him.  To give him a smaller nose would mean changing his whole character profile.

TWO - Like Clay, Art Changes.  Admittedly I was taken aback by the change in the comic’s art-style as well, but that will happen to literally any long-form manga or comic.  Unless you’ve been doing comics for literal decades your art is going to change, because you’re going to change, and what you want from your art and the characters you create are going to change.  Look at Bluechair by Shen on WEBTOON: while his artstyle has solidified these past few years his earlier comics are unrecognizable, because he’s been working on his Bluechairs comic for five years, often updating two or three times a week, and is currently on Episode 536 of Bluechairs, but technically he currently has 706 of them under the Bluechairs page.  His comics are like the Sunday Newspaper kind of comics, so I’m not asking you to read his stuff starting from the beginning (in fact please don’t try to read it all at once: his early stuff is pretty good but let me remind you he has SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIX COMICS OF STUFF) but maybe read a couple of them from the beginning and then read some of his latest ones.

So yeah, its not unexpected from comics to change in style, either slowly due to how the artists gains a more experienced hand or by an intentional shift in art direction.  Sabrina was in the latter camp, due to the fact that she felt the earlier character designs was too much like a Disney Princess Line-Up, which she mentioned in a page description that I cannot find but I know was real.

Honestly I really do like the more recent pages.  I disagree that they’re less vibrant, because I think removing the high glossy sheen made the characters even more distinct from each other.  Before the shift in artstyle I felt like everyone was getting the same brand of hair gel.  Hot take coming, but the character who most benefits from this shift is Rachel, who’s been looking gorgeous these last few chapters.  

THREE - Sabrina Cotugno has been working this story, these characters and the art of this webcomic mainly by herself, while still working a job as a cartoon director for multiple shows and is currently working on a project for Disney.  She does not have a lot of time on her hands to fix mistakes and asking her to change things or give her “Advice” on her art is...I won’t say unwanted because that’s up to her as to whether or not she’d use that language, but I will say she probably doesn’t need your advice on how to draw art when she has already worked in professional spaces as a storyboard artist AND as a director.

Plus I’m going to be upfront here, and this is going to sound harsh: Do not fucking nitpick and tear apart content made independently unless warranted by offensive language or imagery, because not only is it unhelpful it is just plain mean.  Yes, Sabrina has worked on shows before, but The Glass Scientists is not made by a group of people working together, with producers and press and editors to back them up.  This is entirely her work.  She is spending her own free time making this.  This webcomic is hours, days, weeks, years in the making, in the wake of hot days, sickness, travelling, other deadlines and dying plants.

And to turn around and say “Oh the way you do the art now isn’t as good?”  Fuck off with that.  I’m not Sabrina, so I get to be mean here - You are allowed to admit you dislike these changes, but sending the artist messages directly telling them of your dislikes is an absolute garbage thing to do.  Especially when you yourself are not an artist.

Like Sergeant Brokenshire has a beard in one panel but loses it in the next few pages.  Cue the Cinema Sins ding noise I guess.  Okay, that happens sometimes, she doesn’t have an editor to correct.  Am I going to directly send her messages letting her know she did her webcomic wrong?  Fuck no.  She probably has been sent hundreds of “helpful” messages about it already, and guess what?  She doesn’t have the time to correct every mistake because she has a job. 

Of course if Sabrina or any independent artist does something horrifically offensive or even just something that makes you uncomfortable you are absolutely allowed to air your grievances.  But so far Sabrina has been good so I’ve got nothing to complain about, and the asks she gets that do have issues with the webcomic she answers with grace.  

So basically this wandered completely off from the nose discussion and into the ethics of fandoms for independently made webcomics, but anyway long story short.

The Glass Scientists is not yours and its not mine.  It belongs to Sabrina Cotugno, and its hers to change how she sees fit.  Get over that and enjoy the webcomic as it is and you’ll have a much better experience.

Sorry to sound preachy there.  I’m not trying to act like the Fandom Police and I’m not trying to fight Sabrina’s battles for her.  I just see a lot of bad fucking behavior toward other independent artists and I don’t want to see it here.  I have been that anon who “critiques” or gives “helpful” advice to artists who had far more experience than me, so its not like I’m pretending to be above it all here.  I’ve buried many a blogs because of my shameful past.

Most of this Fandom has been wonderful.  Let’s keep it that way while it lasts.

Anyway that espresso really did a number on me.  I’m about to crash and I’m getting the awful sense of deja-vu here.  Sorry for being so salty on Fandom lately, I won’t do it again unless I see some real trouble.  This has accidentally become a Midnight Post, so go to bed!

...Oh wait one more thing: PLEASE DON’T REPOST FULL PAGES OF THE WEBCOMIC!!!  Access to the official page is not hard and despite a few hiccups (which is not Sabrina’s fault but the webpage itself) we have been able to see all of the webcomic.  There is no need to repost the whole page and on Sabrina’s FAQ she specifically asked people not do this.  If you want to read each new page and don’t want to refresh the website twenty time on Monday morning you can always follow her twitter or her blog “arythusa” where she posts a link to each new page after it uploads.  In fact starting tomorrow I’ll be sure to reblog these posts to make sure you have a link available to click.

Okay now good night.

[drummergirl231-2]

Scrooge in “Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!”

I am BEYOND excited the writers are finally addressing this issue.

The reason so many fans still hold to the outdated theory that Della took the rocket on a whim comes from nothing other than Scrooge’s monologue from “The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!”

“She found the rocket, and decided to go for a little test run in orbit.”

Scrooge believes she took it on an impulse, because that was the reputation she had with him.

But even in the IDW comics, Scrooge was often wrong about Della rushing blindly into danger. Sometimes things that went wrong were because of her luck, not because she did something foolish. Other times she was seeing the angles and jumping into action because she’d figured something out and just hadn’t bothered to explain the plan to her uncle or brother. It’s not that she didn’t think things through. It’s that she didn’t talk them through.

This comes into play toward the end of the episode. 

Back to the first half, though.

Scrooge was quick to compare her taking the Sunchaser Cloudslayer to her taking the Spear of Selene.

But there is a big hint that the two situations weren’t alike: the note.

If Della took the Spear of Selene on a whim without a thought to the consequences, she wouldn’t have bothered to leave a note. She’d just leave, like she did in this episode with the plane. And if she didn’t think about the consequences, why would she say she was sorry for taking her own present for a spin before she even left?

It sounds like she also left Donald a note.

Telling Donald what she wanted to name her kids sounds normal enough, but writing it down in case no one could understand him? Sounds like she knew she might miss their hatching, even though we know she never meant to leave them.

Why would she leave notes if she didn’t mean to leave? I’ll get to that later.

Back to Scrooge.

Scrooge was so happy to be reunited with Della, but as they settle into their new normal, all the pain and anger from losing her and everything else he went through because of it was bound to come back, and it has.

With the memories of losing Della fresh in his mind, Scrooge’s frustration with her and Dewey grew with each issue in the vault. Also, Glomgold didn’t help.

Scrooge blamed Dewey and Della both for the damage, but ice froze the buttons on one side, Dewey broke the vent and the panel on the other side, ice froze the sprinklers, and Von Drake’s overall design for the vault was kinda insane, to be honest. 

Scrooge did his best to give them the benefit of the doubt, but his emotions were running too high.

“Ugh! Okay, calm down. Just need to open the door using the panel... which the children broke. So! We simply climb out that vent... that has also been compromised by Della and Dewey’s senseless actions. All for good reasons, don’t want to jump to any conclusions...”

(I’d like to point out that Scrooge and Glomgold couldn’t have fit through that vent anyway if Della couldn’t.)

His anger continued once he found Della and Dewey and knew they were alright.

With the golden tree trunk blocking the nearest exit, she had no choice but to listen to Scrooge give her  heck for everything that went wrong at the vault, until at last he asked:

But he was wrong about Della. She had thought about how she’d get out of it. She’d thought ahead. 

And it is no mistake that the Della Mystery Theme started playing in the background here.

He did decide to trust her, and it all worked out. He saw that she did indeed think things through.

All through this scene, particularly while Scrooge was yelling at Della, I expected him to outright say this was just like the time she took the rocket, echoing Donald in “Woo-oo!”

“This is the Spear of Selene all over again!”

But Scrooge didn’t bring it up... this time.

He’s still carrying that hurt, and it’s bound to come up again later. There’s no way this scene resolved those emotions for him.

But I think this scene foreshadowed a few things... that Scrooge is wrong about Della, that she does think things through, that there is an explanation for why she took the rocket, and that he’s going to have to believe her when she tells him.

From a storytelling perspective...

Do you honestly think when Scrooge finally lets all those emotions out and yells at Della for leaving, all that’s gonna happen is Della will say he’s right and she’s sorry? She’s already said she’s sorry. She apologized before she left and when she came back, and if that didn’t fix it, saying it a third time won’t fix it, either. 

The writers wouldn’t tell the whole truth of why she took the rocket in 90 seconds of one episode in the first season, and it’d be anticlimactic for Scrooge to have all these emotions build up and for Della to just say sorry again. That’s just writing in circles. This story needs one more twist... some big revelation to bring Scrooge closure and to repair their relationship.

After all, we already know Scrooge’s memory was a bit faulty in remembering Della in that cosmic storm.

We learned in “What Ever Happened to Della Duck?!” that she was not stubbornly insisting on flying through that storm with a grin on her face. She was terrified for her life and calling for help.

She’s not quite as reckless as he thinks she is.

So if she didn’t take the rocket on a whim, and didn’t mean to leave, but thought it out enough to leave notes, and was sorry before, during, and after the ordeal, how do we reconcile all of that?

The rocket may have been sabotaged... or so Della thought. 

She tripped the wire and thought she had to blast off to save half of Duckburg. @alliterative-albatross‘ brilliant theory involves the Buzzards trying to do away with Scrooge. They threatened Gyro to rig the rocket with explosives, but Gyro, who respects Scrooge, installed fake bombs to buy himself some time. Perhaps Della tripped the wire while investigating the conspiracy, a countdown began, and she had just enough time to leave notes, suit up, and blast off so the rocket wouldn’t blow up where there were people. Of course, she would have eventually realized the bombs weren’t bombs at all, leading to years of regret for ever stepping foot on the rocket.

Frank did say that the reason Della’s messages never made it to Earth and the reason the rescue ships’ sensors didn’t pick up signs of life were spoilers, so there was definitely something devious going on with Della’s disappearance. 

Also, would the biggest emotional arc in the show be isolated from any external forces or villains? I don’t think so. There’s got to be another connection.

As much as it bothers me when people leave insulting comments about Della on my posts - taking Scrooge’s monologue at face value and ignoring everything we’ve learned about Della since then - I absolutely loved seeing Scrooge deal with these emotions in this episode. It only proves the mystery of her disappearance isn’t resolved yet.

[marshmallowgoop]

Kill la Kill Books!

Got a small haul of Kill la Kill books the other day!

SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL has been a glaring omission from my collection, so when I saw a listing of the book for 3,600 yen—which usually goes for 10,000+ these days—I bought it right away.

And I figured I might as well pick up a few more things while I was at it, right? To make the shipping more cost effective?

That’s definitely the only reason.

But anyway, my growing mass of Kill la Kill books and magazines has now reached 36 items.

And I’ve talked about some of this merch before; you can find my post about the Febri volume 21 issue here, my post about Fractal 10 here, my post about the Talking About Composite books, The Complete Script Book, and The Art of KLK Vol. 3 here (and I have a whole tag for the script book, #klk-script-book), and I yammer on about the nine Blu-ray key art collection and artboard books here. I also have several essays discussing the official manga adaptation: 

Kill la Kill Manga Chapter 7

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3, Chapters 8-17: Thoughts and Impressions

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3: Translation Notes, Anime Differences

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3: Worth it?

Manga Differences

And now, I wanna briefly (lol) yap about the six new additions to my collection.

Because I have a lot of love in my heart for this ridiculous, ridiculous anime.

SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL

So, I got this book for cheap because it was allegedly in poor shape and “not suitable for collection.”

(My reaction to “not suitable for collection” is always, “It’s suitable for my garbage collection! I’ll give your ‘ugly’ copies a loving home!”)

But, like? There are a couple of dents and folded corners, but the condition is really not bad at all. The art is completely intact and beautiful.

Sushio—who is the character designer for Kill la Kill—has shared much of this book on his Twitter, and I would definitely recommend fans of the series to scroll through his photos and have a look. There’s such a cute, sweet charm to Sushio’s work, and along with the polished, colored pages from LOVE LOVE that he shares online, he also shares sketches of his own fanart for the series, too.

(Okay, maybe this isn’t exactly the best demonstration of Sushio’s absolutely precious artwork, but. It’s one of my favorites from the book. Ryuko resorting to such wild extremes to be with Senketsu again is just. My heart. Kill la Kill is actually adorable.)

In any case, I don’t think any of the content in LOVE LOVE was new to me, but there’s just really something about having the book in my hands. I know there’s such a strong desire for digital media these days, but call me old-fashioned—there’s nothing quite like holding this art and really seeing every stroke and line in person.

Being able to physically flip through the pages also makes me notice things I didn’t before. For instance, I found myself charmed by the little detail of Barazo, Mako’s father, loving and adoring Sukuyo, Mako’s mother.

I mean, aw? It’s stuff like this that really makes me wish Kill la Kill were a kids’ show (as Sushio himself seemed to want!) Barazo is so much more likeable when there aren’t any signs of his less-than-pleasant behavior and he’s a loving, supportive husband and father.

Seriously!

Another thing I notice from having the book now is the order in which the pages are organized. Like, I couldn’t help but be amused about how Ryuko gets her own page here...

(Smiling for her Starketsu in the sky, right? Just like he asks her to in “Till I Die”?)

...and then the next pages have Satsuki beside Nonon and Mako (and Mataro) beside Ira...

...which strikes me as a bit funny because this isn’t exactly how Sushio organized his Tweets of these images. There, Satsuki was next to Ryuko, Nonon was next to no one, Mako and Mataro were next to Ira, and Uzu was next to Houka:

So, in LOVE LOVE, is Sushio deliberately trying to say something with the changed placement? Especially when it comes to the direction of the ladies’ eyes? 

Yeah???

I kid, I kid.

(But really, it looks much better to give Ryuko her own page and not have Nonon standing next to nobody.)

Also, one of the first things that popped out to me about LOVE LOVE is how Senketsu’s pages are right next to Ryuko’s pages. As they should be.

They belong together, okay?!

And speaking of Senketsu and Ryuko, I remember a comment years back that said you could probably find pics of your OTP with matching expressions in this book.

But, uh. Just compare Senketsu posing to Ryuko posing...

They’re kind of different types of people, lol.

But hey, they do both make cute sneezy faces.

As a final note about my copy of LOVE LOVE, I will say that my only disappointment is that I received the version with print errors. As such, this page of Nui...

...was accidentally printed twice, and I miss out on this page of Nui as a result:

There are also some minor goofs, like Mako’s arm getting cut off by the background here:

But considering I got this beautiful thing for only 3,600 yen, I really can’t complain!

Now I just need Sushiotan 2 to complete my Sushio Kill la Kill doujin collection....

Takepro

This charming little volume is a collection of animator fanart for the show (and other shows). The book includes a short profile for each featured artist, and their big Kill la Kill pieces are—like all titles in Kill la Kill—named after classic Japanese pop songs. You can read and see more about Takepro here.

It’s hard to pick favorites from this doujin because there is so much adorable and wonderful artwork, but I especially love Naoki Takeda’s “ここに幸あり,” or “Here is My Happiness,” named after the song by Yoshitsu Ootsu.

The picture features Ryuko, Mako, and Satsuki sitting together, all having a good time, and there’s just something so sweet about seeing happy Satsuki.

I also found an English translation of the song’s lyrics, courtesy of beast-senior 810:

The storm breaks and the rain falls Thorny as the women's path might be I would still keep on living with you And my happiness is here in the blue sky 

I could not tell anybody of my scars A bird of love that resided in my chest If only I wander about crying and evading A sorrowful night wind will blow through the streets 

I call out your name from the bottom of my heart Who will be awaiting me at the end of the echoes? Snuggle up to you and cheerfully look up to your face And my happiness is here in the white clouds 

Aw. This song is so Satsuki.

And speaking of Satsuki, I can’t get over how cute she and Ryuko look on the cover of this book. Like??

Aw! 

I also am quite fond of a small piece by Syuichi Iseki, which is in a super-deformed style and features Satsuki comforting Nonon after her uniform is destroyed during the Naturals Election. Nonon cries, and Satsuki pats her head. In the background, Ira looks distressed at the display, Houka seems to be deciphering it, and Mako smiles. It’s really, really cute.

Yoshie Endo’s “僕笑っちゃいます,” or “I’m Laughing,” named for the song by Shingo Kazami, is also real cute. It depicts Mataro holding up Guts, who licks his face. It’s another one of those, “I-so-wish-Kill-la-Kill-were-a-kids’-show” kinda pieces....

Hiroyuki Imaishi’s Doujin

Admittedly, I don’t actually know the title of this one, but it’s a very small doujin by Kill la Kill director Hiroyuki Imaishi. There isn’t too much Kill la Kill content, but there are two pages of Ryuko and Satsuki in their respective Kamui, accompanied by some text.

I thought the text might be something about the show, but it seems like it’s actually about Imaishi’s experience working on the show. And... it’s rather sad? He talks about how he’s able to accomplish more now, but he also has to consider a lot more as well, and he doesn’t have the time and energy that he used to. It’s a lot about aging and growing old.

At least, I think that’s what’s being communicated. Here’s a transcription, though:

なんだろう。

初会社役員とか。

昔よりやれることは増えたが考えなきゃいけないことも増えて時間と体力は足りなくなっていく。

年相応とも言える。

だけどいつまでも大人気なく生きていきたいものだ。

One last interesting thing about this doujin is the material it’s made from; it’s different than any other book in my collection. I’m not an artist, so forgive me if I sound totally ignorant here, but the paper reminds me watercolor paper. It definitely took me by surprise!

SL Sketch 3

SL Sketch 3 is a small fan doujin by Buzin. You can find most of the art in this book on their Tumblr!

Sketch 3 is a really fun collection of sketches, and I especially love the cover. I’m so desperate for art where Senketsu is acknowledged as an actual person that I’m just all heart eyes over Ryuko smiling at him here.

March 2014 Newtype

Okay, so this one’s really a magazine, not a book, but wow. I was taken aback by what’s inside!

I’ll definitely have to look at this issue in more depth because there are a bunch of Kill la Kill goodies in here that I didn’t even expect. And I don’t think most of it has been translated at all!

I also realized that I’ve been mixing up my Newtypes and will have to fix my resources page. But on the bright side, there is so much to love about this issue.

Like, the Elite Four Light Novel got reprinted in the Kamui Bansho, but it’s way better here because it has pictures!

I also love how Nonon, out of all the Elite Four, is the only one who stands beside Satsuki in these illustrations.

And I don’t even know what this is (VR or something with Ami Koshimizu, Ryuko’s VA?), but it’s cute and got me smiling:

And Ryo Akizuki, the mangaka for the official Kill la Kill manga, made a small comic about his experience working on the project. I like the little title panel with Ryuko, Senketsu, and Mako a lot:

Plus, there’s a shiny ad for the manga’s second volume, too:

One of the things that most caught my interest, though, is an article about the second opening song for Kill la Kill, GARNiDELiA’s “ambiguous”:

I got so curious about this bit because I’ve heard varying, conflicting information regarding the meaning behind the song’s lyrics. On the one hand, I’ve heard that half of the song is from Ryuko to Senketsu, and the other half is from Satsuki to Ryuko. On the other hand, I’ve heard that the whole song is from Satsuki to Ryuko. But I’ve never found any concrete sources for either of these claims!

So, I was hoping the Newtype article would help, but it’ll take a lot more digging into. Still, briefly looking over the page, I did find this bit: 

そんな私の思いと歌詞が一致しました。 『キルラキル』でいう流子ちゃんと神衣・鮮血の関係に近いかもしれませんね。 

Roughly, it says, “As such, my thoughts about the song agreed with its lyrics. You might say it’s like the relationship between Ryuko and Kamui Senketsu in Kill la Kill.”

I’m not totally sure about the context here—and I admittedly don’t even know the author’s involvement in the making of "ambiguous”—but this article might explain where the Ryuko-and-Senketsu reading of the song came from. It’s definitely something I’d like to delve into more.

Because I really love the Ryuko-and-Senketsu reading of the song, okay, and I’d love some actually official backup for it!

Finally, another favorite part of the Newtype is simply all the art. Takafumi Hori’s spread is particularly great:

(You can find a cleaner image here.)

Just... dang. I wish I got a little poster of this instead of the ones actually included in the Newtype! The artwork is just stunning.

And one of the cutest things about the Newtype is all the fanart from its readers! I particularly love the little Valentine’s Day special; there’s an illustration of Ryuko giving Senketsu chocolate, and there’s also a Ryumako piece, too!

Kill la Kill Storyboard Ep. 01

Finally, one of my favorites from this haul is the Kill la Kill Storyboard Ep. 01. The book was included as a shop bonus for the original Japanese Blu-ray/DVD release, though I was able to win it by itself in an auction. I do think I overpaid a bit, but gosh, it’s a lovely addition to my collection. It’s just really neat to see the production process of an anime in action. I wish there were storyboard books for every episode in the show!

Hiroyuki Imaishi’s storyboards are also just super amusing. Here is a small sampling of some of my faves (because there is so much gold in here, my goodness):

And that’s all for now!

...I guess this really wasn’t so brief at all, huh?

Shocker.

[sethnakht]

This summer, two events in Star Wars comics became my primary source of recreation - Hope Dies, in the main, and The Catastrophe Con, in Aphra. Now that both have concluded, summer feels well and truly over, and I’m compelled to look back at why these comics played such a significant role in keeping me palliated and docile within the machine entertained.

There’s something about experiencing a comic live, when there’s a wait between issues, when the covers and solicits are both the doorway to the latest developments and to future speculations (covers don’t have the same impact in a trade paperback), when the imagination still has the time and space to imagine what sort of composition it is in which one finds oneself. While the experience is similar to reading an updating WIP or fan-comic, it also could not be more different. There are strict temporal and material boundaries, for one: fixed update schedules, page budgets, studio-set limits on what characters can be used in what way. Issues tend to be structured to do one thing you expect while introducing some new thing to keep the appetite whetted for the next issue - around cliffhangers, I guess, if the cliffhangers are also conceived of as major and minor twists (huge generalization, please take all of this with a grain of salt, I’m basically speculating aloud here and will probably regret it greatly after posting). All of this affects what one is given to read and how one reads it. 

[The comparison to fanfic is deeply flawed, since comics are ultimately mass-produced consumables whereas fanfic is ... the product of consumption plus some measure of active interpretation? Idk, I vacillate on whether fanfic is not itself just a more involved way of keeping its readers and writers permanent consumers or whether it does have the potential to open a sort of space for critical thought and action regarding ourselves and society - I used to think the latter, now am increasingly unconvinced.]

Anyway, keeping in mind that comics are products of the culture industry and designed to be just unsatisfying enough that you want to consume the next issue and the next and the next and ... something that does possibly fragment them a little is the collaborative process. Franchise novels are by their very nature interpretations of a text (here: Star Wars), interpretations stamped with the mark of authenticity after having been subjected to various controls, but they present the façade of coming from one author (one authority). Franchise comics are also canon-stamped interpretations of a text, but an additional interpretative process is reflected in every panel, since these comics tend to be written, pencilled, inked, and then colored by completely different people. (If you look at the Director’s Cut of the original Darth Vader #1, you can compare Gillen’s script to Larroca’s panels and see something of that communication process.) Each panel is the witness to a set of interpretative decisions, and I think that contributes to my vast preference for comics over novels in a franchise setting: they model active interpretation - or is it a kind of interpretative lack, a kind of gap between word and image? - even before the reader gets to them. The kinds of discussions we’ve been able to have here around Darth Vader especially would speak for the “gap” as a powerful incentive to thought - the gap between issues, the gap between word and image, the gap created by a medium that does not have the space or desire to hand-hold, to narrate every step from a to b, that uses image to imply those steps, thus creating new gaps for interpretative energy to fill, etc.

Enough pretentious rambling. Let’s be real, I was sucked in very obviously for purely consumerist reasons - Vader was going to be in both, of course yours truly was going to buy all the comics. That I also liked these two events because the creative teams (Gillen and Larroca, Spurrier and Walker, to name only the authors and pencillers, respectively) tend to produce interesting tensions on a page was more of a bonus, probably, than anything else.

Spoilers from here on out.

It was fun to imagine where these comics could go while they still had room to follow my Id. I’ve learned a lot about myself in the process - what assumptions I tend to make, my severe limits and biases as a reader, why I care so damned much about issues that promise meetings between a dark father archetype and some daughter archetype (I’ll say it aloud: I lack a positive relationship to not only my own father, but pretty much every male authority figure in my life, and am using Vader and his daughter/daughter-surrogates to work this through. Arrogance, much?). I’ve learned not to get my hopes up anymore, that this is a gap I have to bridge on my own. 

Which is not to say that the events were disappointments, on the contrary. Hope Dies developed rhymes from Vader in ways I really enjoyed thinking about, bringing together a daughter (Leia) and her surrogate-mirror (Trios) in philosophical and physical conflict, showing Vader at his weirdest and worst, at his most controlling and at his most blind (to his daughter(s)), at his most controlled (precisely when you think he’s off the leash he’s shown lashed to it). I loved it, and think it will hold up even better with a little distance, when read all together as one piece. Trying to describe the experience, I’m inclined to say it was like reading the next book of an epic poem - or the next stanza of one long poem - there were poetic qualities to the experience, in other words.

The Catastrophe Con felt more like an enjoyable puzzle where all the pieces are given in staggered spurts at the start and the race is to put them together correctly before the minor and major twists are revealed. I had fun with that, failed miserably of course, but learned a great deal about how comics can be written in the process. Like - the spores. What do the spores do? They keep Aphra in the jail and indirectly bring a host of different agents to the jail by messing with her escape plan, thus setting up the final conflict. They bring out her greed. They create something of a mystery to keep readers invested. They drop clues about Lopset. They remind her of her mother so she can reflect aloud on the theme of choice versus necessity, on categorial versus hypothetical ethics, a major theme in Aphra comics that will also explicitly structure the next arc. And they invoke the Force, and thus can keep Vader distracted so that Sana can rescue Tolvan. Which, I mean, is a way of putting the joke on Vader - he misses something essential because he runs off to deal with an empty spectre. Is that what I thought the spores would do at the time? In some ways yes, but mostly no. One could ask the same question of the Bor - what does it do? One could argue that it establishes lore (recasting Bodhi's torture, giving us new information about Aphra's electric tattoos) and gives Aphra a way to escape. But it also serves as the means of bringing out Aphra's capacity for great love and infinite selfishness at the same time, highlighting how decoupled her emotions are from her self-preserving actions, contrasting her with characters like Vader and Triple-Zero. The Bor is a powerful tool in that sense. 

All of which is to say: these comics did something in my life, and it was a definite experience to open myself up to the process in this way, an experience worth thinking about and learning from for the future. Time now to go out into the world and do something active with it. /end of navel-gazing

[sineala]

Sineala, hi! (Is there a shorten form to call you?) I always see people talk about Civil War - Avengers Prime - Hickmanvengers being big points in Tony&Steve's relationship, fanfiction-wise. But what about Avengers vol 4? How's their relationship there? Is there any material for shippers? I hope this ask makes sense

Hi! (People usually call me Sine, by the way.)

Avengers volume 4 is, in my opinion, awfully underrated in Steve/Tony fandom. I actually didn't read it when I was getting into the pairing, because I figured that reading it after New Avengers + Mighty Avengers + Secret Invasion + Dark Reign + Siege would be too much of Bendis' writing to take all at once. No one ever really talked much about it, so I figured I could wait because it probably wasn't that good if no one talked about it. But then several months ago I ended up needing to read it to write a remix and I was surprised by how much fun it was. It's not my absolute favorite run, but it's a good solid read and there are a few really nice Steve/Tony moments, in both angsty and fluffy varieties.

More under the Read More!

The thing you should know about Avengers v4 is that the beginning is coming in hot on the heels of Steve's return to life after Civil War, so this is really the first time Steve and Tony have interacted since then. Tony doesn't remember Civil War (Steve does, though) but that doesn't mean they don't still have a lot of... issues. If you're going to read v4 you need to start with Avengers Prime, which features Steve and Tony healing the worst of their Civil War wounds. Also naked Tony. Also hugging.

Steve and Tony's relationship at the beginning of Avengers v4 is characterized by them really just trying to figure out how to have a relationship again and what that relationship should look like. And, frankly, I think they have either forgotten how much intensity normal people have in their friendships or they just don't care what normal friendships are like because it's just 1000% feelings all over the place and most of the feelings are weird and awkward and they're going to have ALL OF THEM anyway. Loudly, messily, and in public.

Like, okay, take Avengers v4 #1. This should be your standard "yay, hooray, let's put a new team together" kind of issue. Except it isn't quite so easy, with Steve and Tony. Steve wants to put Tony on the team and Tony... pulls Steve aside and tries to refuse. "We don't agree on just about anything anymore," Tony says, and Steve tries to disagree with him. And then there's this glorious panel:

"When I look at you, all I see are all the mistakes."

I mean, wow. Tony. What the hell. What is anyone supposed to say to that?

You see what I mean about all the feelings, yes?

Tony ultimately ends up agreeing to be on the team -- but the thing is, at this point in time, Steve isn't on the team, and I honestly kind of think that's why Tony agrees. Steve shows up in a few Avengers issues but officially Steve at this point is off doing black-ops work as the leader of the Secret Avengers. (He's Commander Rogers, yes. Bucky is Captain America.)

But the real fun -- and by fun I mean "massive amount of angst" -- happens in the arc that takes place in Avengers v4 #7-12. This is the arc where the Hood steals the Infinity Gems from the Illuminati. At this point, Tony is one of the Illuminati and Steve has no idea the Illuminati even exist -- until he finds out. And then, boy is he pissed that Tony has been keeping this from him. Tony and the rest of the Illuminati are in the Himalayas looking for one of their Infinity Gems when Steve shows up, bringing with him what looks like basically every superhero they both know, and they proceed to have a screaming match in the snow while surrounded by all of their friends.

Their friends know they love each other, at least?

It is, if you actually read the panels -- and I recommend you click on the link above and actually read the whole thing -- a weirdly intimate argument to be having while surrounded by everyone they know, given that this is pretty clearly about their feelings. And you'd think maybe they wouldn't want to just stand right here and scream at each other, but I guess that's what they're doing. Okay, then. This is clearly how regular friendships work. Sure.

It is at this point that Peter Parker then analogizes their relationship to “mommy and daddy fighting:”

I mean, okay, fair enough. I guess. You know, I think at this point the emotional beats of Steve and Tony's relationship would make way more actual sense if they were canonically romantically involved, but no one at Marvel asked me.

Anyway! They get to be friends again because they save the world and Tony lets Steve onto the Illuminati and I guess Steve is cool with Tony having secrets as long as he's in on them. (It is one of the weirder aspects of Steve's character that he has a lot of massive issues basically boiling down to him wanting Tony's absolute and complete trust with no secrets from him ever -- about this, about the SHRA, about the incursions, about the Guardsmen, and so on -- but as far as I can tell he doesn't demand this of anyone else. Just Tony.)

Then what happens is Fear Itself, an event that doesn't get a lot of play in fandom. It's not the best event ever, but it's not, you know, absolutely rotten. Definitely not the worst thing Matt Fraction has written! Bucky dies and stays dead for almost no time at all but Steve takes the shield back from him. (And breaks the shield. And gets the shield fixed at the end. They hit the reset button really, really fast at the end of Fear Itself.) Tony also starts drinking again, and he drinks for the duration of the event -- the deal is that he needs Odin to help him out, so he needs a sacrifice, so what he sacrifices is his sobriety.

So you'd think that even though it's Tony drinking in what is basically a cheap ploy to up the narrative tension, that fandom would be all over that the way fandom is all over Tony's other drinking arcs. (Well, okay, fandom's not all over Disassembled, but (1) it's Disassembled, and (2) that one wasn't even his fault.) But this was Tony's choice! We can make something out of that, right? (There is a bit of fic. Not a lot. And not, I think, anything really long.) You might think, perhaps, that the Iron Man run would address the fallout of Tony drinking.

The thing is that the Iron Man run at the time is Fraction's Invincible Iron Man. So, uh. To his credit, he does attempt to address how this loss of sobriety would make Tony feel and how it would affect the people around him. Including Steve! Unfortunately, his ideas about characterization are such that it happens like this:

Because Steve would absolutely respond to Tony's obvious distress by threatening to break his bones, right? Right? Absolutely an in-character thing for Steve to do! Good! Glad we all agree on that!

(Seriously, when I read this I was completely certain it had to be some kind of dream sequence and I turned the page expecting to see Tony wake up. It is not a dream sequence.)

Right. So after Fear Itself, Steve is Captain America and an Avenger again. By this point, Steve and Tony have figured out how be friends (or whatever the hell they are, I give up), and they put a new(er) team together and we get some adorable moments in which Tony calls the press and doesn’t tell Steve:

Seriously, if there is an exchange that better illustrates these two in modern canon when they're getting along than "You should have asked me first" / "You'd have said no, so why would I do that?" I don't know what it is. They pass the Broccoli Test for sure. (I think they alternate between passing the Broccoli Test with zero difficulty and causing the entire supermarket to explode. It's hard to tell.)

Then we head on into AvX, which is an event I did not bother to read because my impression from the panels I have seen is that it is about Steve Rogers and Scott Summers competing to see who can be the biggest asshole and I figured I'd skip it. The Avengers tie-ins are pretty decent, though.

I just have to give a shout out to the last arc of Avengers v4 because, though it is not going to make the slashy moments list, it is A+ on that old-school Avengers feel. Because, you see, Jan -- whom they all thought was dead -- has really been trapped in the Microverse, and the founding Avengers band together to rescue her. And when they find her, this happens:

She kisses Hank! She kisses all of them! She kisses Tony right on the faceplate! I love Jan!

Then they go fight a centaur wearing plate armor (the centaur, not them) (okay I guess technically Tony is wearing plate armor) and it is the very best COMICS.

And then they get home and everyone has a party for Jan and we have some more Steve and Tony bonding:

The run actually ends on them agreeing that the team needs to get bigger, which if you remember is where Hickman's run opens.

If v4 has a downside, for me, it's that it has too much Wonder Man, although I tend to believe that the ideal amount of Wonder Man is zero Wonder Man, so obviously your mileage may vary.

So, yeah, v4 is fun and slashy and it's only 34 issues plus a few annuals and so on. It's a quick read! Give it a try! And then someone can write me some post-Fear Itself fic about Tony drinking because for God's sake we can do better than canon.

[tessatechaitea]

Darkstars #8

Worst homecoming theme ever.

This is the last issue of Darkstars I own. I'm a little bit sad that I own this one because this cover is poo on fire. I suspect that Past Me, much like current me, never looked at the covers of the comics as he bought them. He just saw the title and grabbed the magazine, adding it to the pile to take to the register. Usually when the cashier is ringing up my comics is the first time I'll really look at the covers and I'm not the type of person to grab the cashier's hand as they pick up a comic book to ring it up and yell, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Not so fast! This comic book looks like runny diarrhea! I'm putting it back." No, I'm more the kind of person who notices how awful the comic book looks and simply lets out a nearly inaudible, haunting moan from the deepest part of that part of me my old friend Soy Rakelson would probably call a soul. I just call it the part of my brain that's going to get the skewer first when I finally decide none of this Goddamned pain is worth it anymore. Look at this fucking terrible cover. This 90s art is the kind of art that was (and often still is) hailed as dynamic by critics and fans who never seem to know the difference between "dynamic" and "posed." This doesn't look like a shot of these idiots having just finished a battle with a mechanical bull. It just looks like they stood in line with their prom photo tickets until they were waved over and told to look at the camera and smile before being hustled off the stage for the next couple's chance at a shitty memory. It's been a few days since I wrote a comic book review because I've been busy with my other project. I set up an Artificial Intelligence program to come up with new names for Xanth novels. These are some of my favorites: Centaurs Can't Masturbate The Boner Tree Titillating Minors Makes Money The Word Bosom Fifty Thousand Times in a Row No Matter How Many Naked Women are Described, Never Mention Their Genitals Whoops! That Scene Was Too Sexy In This One, A Dragon Fucks a Duck The Human Nickelpede Seriously Though. They Can't Fucking Masturbate! Seventy Unfunny Puns and Sixteen More That Don't Make Any Sense This Book is the Merriam-Webster Definition of Chauvinism Convicting Somebody of Rape is Embarrassing for Both Parties So Maybe Just Forget About It? Whoops! I Gave a Ten Year Old Female Centaur Huge Boobs. Can We Fix This in Post? If You've Read Piers Anthony's Other Books and Enjoyed Them, Maybe You'll Like This Book That He Put Way Less Effort Into Magic Doesn't Recognize Same-Sex Relationships But a Human Can Fuck a Goat and Produce a Mutant Offspring

Oh no! Are they planning on destabilizing a region so they can send in the military and take control of its oil?

Eight issues in and I haven't discussed the Darkstars uniform. Ignore the one on the cover; the artist completely fucked that one up. Just check out the one on the panel scanned above. What's with the piano keys theme? Will we eventually learn that they're powers are tied to music in the same way the Green Lantern power is tied to emotion? Did Grant Morrison ever use the Darkstars in his Multiversity lore as the movers and shakers of the harmony of the spheres which allowed for the different universes vibrating on different musical frequencies? But most importantly: can you play Chopsticks on a Darkstars' chest? Another great (?) aspect of the Darkstars uniform is the huge arrow pointing at the crotch. Whenever I wear super tight material that hugs my junk and exposes my intimacy, I love to call attention to it. "Hey hey hey! Ladies and Gents! Have you ever wondered exactly what my cock and balls look like? Check it out! Also this isn't vulgar because you're looking at cloth and not my skin even if the cloth hugs every wrinkle and vein. So please stop trying to have me arrested." It turns out "The American Way" isn't destabilization of countries who have resources that Americans want but don't want to pay for; "The American Way" is advertising jobs for needed positions. Man, that's so boring. And yet, it's the most interesting part of this comic book series so far!

In 1993, what does "some familiarity with computers" mean? That you've used Koala Pad and wasted tons of meat by killing bears on The Oregon Trail?

I know, I know! By 1993, people no longer even remembered Koala Pad and The Oregon Trail. It's just I don't really remember what was big in 1993. AOL Chat and Myst, maybe? You might also be wondering why Carla is dressed like a lunatic. Turns out, she's taking the Darkstars to a Country Western Bar. Yee haw! I'm pretty sure the first bar I ever went to was a Country Western Bar, The Saddle Rack, in San Jose, California. It was my 21st birthday and we were there because my friend Bob and I had made a pact when we were ten that when we turned 21, we were going to ride a mechanical bull. Bob turned twenty-one 23 days before me and he also remembered that stupid pact for eleven years. I also opened some presents that night and the woman I was dating gave me a Lobo t-shirt.

Geez, we get it, Darkstar. Your entire race was murdered. Don't make us feel guilty about having fun just because your people "used to have fun too."

What a dumb question, Carla! Obviously he knows what music is. He's got a fucking piano painted on his chest. While Darkstar hits the bar, Homeless Mo hires an office manager and K'lassh destroy's Darkstar's ship in orbit. Also, I should probably stop calling Mo Douglas "Homeless Mo." He lives at the office now!

Ugh! What's with all this political correctness and virtue signalling?! Why can't this old comic book be more like, um, older comic books and just stick to bank robberies and punching bad guys? I mean super villain bad guys bent on taking over the world and not white supremacist bad guys intent on taking over America! I mean, well, you know what I mean! Just have the good guy punch the obviously bad guy who doesn't need to espouse terrible social beliefs that I might also espouse! We know he's bad! Just make him generally bad or you're going to alienate your readership! I know racism is bad! But shoving it down my throat like this just makes me think, "Maybe it's not so bad?"

That previous caption was satirical and not actually my personal feelings. See, the thing about writing is that you can write whatever you can imagine and it doesn't make the thing you've written some secret insight into the truth of the writer. It's just shit that was typed in half a second without any thought at all behind it. Except, I mean, there was a lot of thought behind it. And a lot of that thought was less about Comics Gaters types currently spouting a lot of that kind of garbage and more about comic book fans writing letters to old comics that were saying the same kinds of things twenty and thirty years before it got a stupid "Let's append -gate to another word!" name. Also, it did not take half a second. Mostly because my brain is broken and it took me forever to pull the word "alienate" out of it even though it was the word I wanted to use and I knew the definition and could almost hear the word in my head but my brain was all, "Fuck you. Why should I give you this word you're seeking? You know how many hits of LSD you rammed through me, you careless asshole? Get fucked!" Darkstar takes an interest in the mechanical bull and is all, "Aw, that doesn't look so tough! Not like this space mechanical bull from this place in space I know!" Some drunk and tough cowjerk hears Darkstar's comments and simply assumes, like I assume he always assumes, that Darkstar is emasculating him with his words.

Beau is the Lobo of the Country Western Bar.

Darkstar decides the best way to calm the situation is to ride the mechanical bull. Beau watches him and yells, "He's the best I've ever seen!" It begins to look like Darkstar's plan is going to work until some other rube tells Beau, "That guy ain't human!" Beau goes full redneck and is all, "Yeah! He ain't! That means I have a duty to try and get him killed!" He then throws the switch on the mechanical bull to "Do Not Attempt This! Dangerous! Why Did We Even Add This Setting?!" Carla cold cocks Beau to help save Darkstar even though he doesn't need help. Wasn't she listening when he told his story about the space mechanical bull in space and how it was way harder than the Earth version? Darkstar breaks the mechanical bull with his crotch and will now have to pay for the damages. It's a good thing he's saved all that gold by firing Flint last issue. I don't know if it ever happened because this was the last issue of Darkstars I ever read but I hope Beau came back as a villain and called himself Low Beau.

Dammit. Now I want cake.

Carla writes a check to pay for the damages to the bar just as K'lassh arrives. Carla decides to keep her checkbook out. Darkstars #8 Rating: B+. I don't know if this issue was better than the rest because I knew it was the last issue I was going to read or because it objectively was better. At least I didn't have to suffer through Travis Charest's 90s art. This issue was done by guest penciller Patrick Zircher! Basically that meant it looked like 80s comics which I never mean to defend when I say 90s comics art was terrible. There was a lot of 80s comic art that was fucking awful as well! But it was standard awful! 90s art was unbearable because it was objectively terrible in so many ways (anatomy, asymmetry, overuse of specific tropes) but people proclaimed it the greatest art they had ever seen. I wouldn't have minded so much if everybody was all, "Well, this isn't great but it's different. Let's see what happens with it for awhile!" Anyway, in my world, Darkstar was murdered by K'lassh and there was never another issue.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen’s End of the Year Rambling

Folks, I haven’t been in the best state this past year. 

I know that’s probably not the best way to open up for this summary of Allen’s 2018, but... I think it’s obvious from my lack of activity that I haven’t been pumping out essays and content like I usually have been. Things have been trying in the life of Allen X. I left my old job, started a new and frankly less fulfilling (and paying) job, had a handful of mental meltdowns, and generally not having a good year, at least not internally.

And on top of that this new season of the Senran Kagura anime is garbage, and that just makes me feel sad.

All in all, not having a great year. 

I wanted to do this Rambling in the same vein as last year, but... I can’t. I haven’t done my Anime and Video Game Updates that much this year, meaning I don’t have a good record of all the games I’ve played and anime I’ve watched this year, so I can’t do anything Top 5s this year. I mean, I watched a buttload of anime and played a lot of video games, but I just didn’t make a record of it, and I don’t like my lists being filled with just the most recent things I’ve watched and did. 

Ugh, this is just making me feel sad. I’m... just gonna’ get to the end of the year stuff now:  

Politics

And just like last year I’m gonna’ talk about the elephant in the room. 

God, as if I wasn’t feeling depressed enough.

Why is there a slowly growing Fascist movement in America? Why am I hearing about children being separated from their parents by our American government? Why are we still talking about that goddamn wall? Why is our government shutting down because of that goddamn wall? 

Like... Jesus folks, the most I do in terms of politics is a quick google check of who/what to vote for to make sure I’m not agreeing to legalizing arson, how the hell did we end up here?

...

...

...

Well, I know how we ended up here, but a deep dive into current American politics to back up my claims will take a bit more research than I care to delve into on this blog. It’s times like these that make me want to dig deeper into our politics and make people more aware of what’s going on, but I know I’m part of the problem as well. 

I’ll stand on my soapbox for a later date, but if you guys think that this is all a good thing, you’re wrong and I have nothing else to say to you.

Also, unfollow if you’re right leaning or a vocal Conservative. I want literally nothing to do with you.

Art

Okay, so for a bit of good news, I’ve been doing a lot more drawing, at least compared to last year. And save for my small bouts of self-loathing I think I’ve been improving. 

These two were done in the same year, and I think there’s been a lot of improvement. I want to get better with my proportions and general anatomy, but so far I think I’m doing alright. Might try and do comic stuff next year. Nothing too ambitious, maybe just some one or two-panel scenes with a setup and punchline.

Writing

Even more good new, I’m finally working on some original projects in terms of my writing. Well, working on them in earnest anyway. Yeah... Violaceous Storm wasn’t working out too well and I realized I can’t do any original work the same way I do my fanfics. Kung fu girls story is getting tweaked a little... well, a lot, and I’m also starting to work on a story about forest ninjas. I’m think of making them short stories or vignettes, more likely the former just given my current level as a writer. 

I’m also continuing to write Reversal Princess, along with dropping Rabid Avenger. Sadly, my heart just in it to keep working on a Tokyo Ghoul fanfic anymore given some of the issues I have with it as a story, among other things. 

I... haven’t talked about Reversal Princess yet, have I? I’ve been working on it one and off for about two years now... huh, I should fix that soon and do a Dictator’s Works on it.

Media

Again, haven’t been recording a lot of what I’ve watched, read, and played throughout this year, but here are the highlights:

Been getting back into the Fallout series despite everything happening with 76, and I plan on giving New Vegas a shot next year. Been enjoying this series a lot, at least 4, so I wanna’ see what the “good” Fallout game looks like.

As some of you might know, I’ve been getting into Girls Frontline since it first released and I’ve been enjoying it... yeah, that’s really it. Ingram and PKP are best girls.

I’ve gotten back into Elsword and it’s been... a trip. Being a Wind Sneaker main is suffering, but I’m having fun over all and can’t wait for Laby to come out here in the States.

Not that I’ve talked about it, but I’ve been keeping up with the Twin Star Exorcists manga, along with the Railgun series. I’m likely going to stop actively keeping up with these two series once the 14th volumes of both series come out. They’re great, but that’s all the money I’m willing to put into them for now.

Also got into Seraph of the End too. I’ve got... feelings about it I’ll talk about at a later date.

Been watching a lot of older anime lately now that Hi-Dive is on VRV. Might talk about those later.

Speaking of, I switched out my Crunchyroll account for VRV. Been liking it so far.

Plans and Hopes for the Future

I’m not going to bother with a Resolution this year since I think those go forgotten once February hits, but I’ll just talk about my hopes and overall plans for 2019 in terms of this blog and my online presence:

Finish Reversal Princess. I just want to finish this tournament arc and finally put it to bed so I can work on other things and fanfics.

Draw a comic. Not a web series or anything, but just draw some kind of three or four panel comic.

Actually do my monthly Update posts

Post lyrics again

And... that’s about it for this Rambling. I know I’m usually more formal and organized than this, but... it’s been quite a year for me, so I’m just gonna’ take this slow as I get back into the swing of things.

I hope you folks have a happy holidays, I’ve got some big plans with family these next few weeks and hope your plans go well too.