#so many falls zine

[trafficzine]

apologies if this has already been asked but is there an approximate amount of artists and/or writers you plan to accept?

This fluctuates a lot, especially as we're reviewing applications, but we were think about having somewhere around 60 contributors!

[kathaynesart]

It is done! *falls down*

BEGINNING || PREVIOUS || NEXT (SOON) MASTER POST

I have... so much to say on so many different things but it is 2:30 in the morning so I will keep this as brief as possible. First off, thank you to all my mom friends and mutuals who helped me with accurately portraying and normalizing the experience of giving birth. It is wonderful, and painful, and gross, and beautiful. I apologize if it made any readers squeamish (and I know there were a few gross jokes in there) but considering how gross the tv show got, I think it remained true to the overall vibe!

Second, I wanted to talk about the concept of "hope" in this story. When I first watched the movie, I felt like the idea of hope being their greatest weapon seemed sort of heavy handed and cheesy. However, after watching the ending of the show again I realized that hope is actually a huge reoccurring element in the story and a big part of what it means to be of the Hamato clan. Doubly so, I wanted Casey Junior in a way to symbolize that hope for Leo specifically, so when Leo talks about hope in the beginning of the movie, he's not just talking about some vague concept, but Casey Junior himself. He is their greatest weapon and he doesn't even realize it.

Thirdly, so uh... Casey Junior. I apologize if it had seemed out of left field, but do know that the decision of his origins was not made lightly. The shear similarity in his facial structure to Lou Jitsu as well as several other factors that I will refrain from stating due to future spoilers was too numerous to ignore! It is an integral part of his story for reasons that will go unsaid for now, and no, he does not know he's distantly related to them. Also, Big Mama! Been holding onto her concept for some time now! I loved the idea of her mystic broach becoming damaged so she can only be cloaked to a certain degree, making for an interesting blend of both her forms. She was really fun to figure out!

Finally thank you everyone for your patience. This special turned into quite the endeavor with most of the updates exceeding 20 pages each, but I'm so happy I was able to finish it... even if it did take so much longer than my projected hope. I can't wait to get back to the main storyline, though I shall miss these silly, overpowered boys. We got a lot of ground to cover and I'll likely be posting a summarized reminder before continuing. ...and after I finish work on some Zines and the holiday special winning commission!

[u3pxx]

KISS KISS FALL IN LOVE! 💍💐‼️

my piece for the @aaweddingzine which is now open for leftovers!

extra stuff/commentary under the cut | like what i do? support me on ko-fi ❤️💜

i also ramble a lot more on the behind-the-scenes pdf for this zine that you can also get with your purchase >;^] i also drew some nifty matching icons for the zine! (hint: it's time for divorce)

you know me, i'm incredibly klapollopilled, of course i'm drawing these two suckers for the wedding zine! <3 something about klapollo marriage makes me incredibly emo so i'm very glad for the opportunity to go all out so i can be EXTRA emo about it 😈

if i remember right, i think this idea came to be when i thought about the image of klavier bursting into tears as he lifts up apollo's veil and it all went from there LOL (also so psyched i get to draw him in a barong tagalog <333)

everything got so much more ambitious, though, from that initial idea! i drew like what (i am counting the number of characters in the spread right now as i type) 40-ISH CHARACTERS ALL IN ALL?! (WHAT THE FUCKDFGDHJ) and i even had to cut out some of the characters i originally had in the sketch 😭 (sorry gumshoe, kay, and seb/eustace ....)

i drew this like a year ago and i'm still so proud of this piece! i don't think i can achieve this level of rendering again, it's been so long i forgot how to do it LMAO

(also i can never reopen the file for this thing again bc it makes clip studio want to dieeeee DFSGHDJ so many layers ...)

another thing, i was working on this in tandem with my piece for the mea culpa zine; do you know how funny it is to draw apollo having such a happy moment and then draw him dying 😭 the contrast, the whiplash

that's all i have to ramble about i think, i'm so so so amazed at this zine bc my zinemates truly made some spectacular pieces of art! :"^D if you have the chance, please do check it out! 💗

[eregyrn-falls-art]

It's June 15th and you know what that means!

Happy 12th anniversary to Gravity Falls

and

Happy birthday to Stan and Ford!

Last year for the occasion, I completed a simple comic about the two of them venturing in to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey in search of the Jersey Devil; whom they found (see the comic here). I'd originally meant that sequence to have two additional pics -- wanting to start it off with them paddling across Glass Shard bay and through the salt marshes to where the pine barrens would begin, and then having a pic of them pulling the canoe up on the river bank to start off on their mission. But, I didn't get those done, obviously.

I still wanted to do that first pic, though; so this year I pulled out the idea and completed it. (I also wanted to do a sort of update of a 2018 piece I did of the two of them canoeing.)

I've talked before about my headcanon that Glass Shard Beach (their hometown) is likely a barrier island, with a wide bay between it and the mainland... even though I also headcanon the town as being in the northern end of the Jersey shore, where there aren't so many wide bays. (Well, that's what makes it a headcanon.) This notion is based on the scenes in the show with them on the swings, with the Stan o' War docked nearby; and with the sun depicted as setting over the water. In New Jersey, if the sun is going to set over water, a bay has to be involved. I've depicted Glass Shard Beach as having a bay before, both in this piece for the 10 Years Later zine, and this piece for their birthday in 2022.

For this one, I looked at a ton of photos of people canoeing; and for the setting, I gathered a lot of photos of the Mullica River estruary and the Great Bay, which has the salt-marsh channels I was envisioning. (Admittedly, my headcanons for Glass Shard Beach are heavily influenced by the Long Beach Island area, where I grew up.)

[nope-body]

.

[clarabellumsart]

so excited to finally share my piece for @hmosexymanzine !!! I had so much fun fitting in as many sexymen as I could...The zine is completely free, go check out their page to view yours! There's so many interactions in this piece that I just love... This zine really made me fall in love with these huge character compilations, so look forward to more prints in this style! Check out the detail shots below:

[genderqueerdykes]

being intersex and transfem is a fucking Experience let me just say. shoutout to all the transfems out there who feel like they cant fit in with other transfems for whatever reason. shoutout transfems who always feel like if others find out about what makes them different, theyll be othered and ostracized. shoutout transfems who dont fit neatly into the popular discourse on transmisogyny. shoutout transfems who were afab

i get you 100%- this is the exact issue I have as an intersex transfem. the assumption that transfem is synonymous with AMAB is actively damaging our community. i'm actually in the process of writing a zine about intersex transfemininity and how we are failing our own community by assuming that all transfems are AMAB. the obsession our community has developed with transfem being synonymous with "penis haver" has rapidly become dangerous. it ostracizes intersex transfems and post-op transfems alike.

this also leaves out all of the nuance that comes with transgenderism and transsexuality, because nobody can fit into a perfect, mentally curated box. people are individuals with unique attributes and many transfems fall outside of the extremely strict box we've put around it. i saw someone in a sever i'm in complain recently about how folks are trying to disseminate transfem from meaning "someone with a penis," as if that's a bad thing. they claimed that being raised male as a child is integral to the experience and that you can't separate the two, but i argue that there are many people who go through similar experiences that are not AMAB and were not raised as boys.

this also leaves out people with unconventional transition paths, multitransitional people, and so on. there's so much nuance to terms like transmasc and transfem and people refuse to accept that. transfem does not mean amab. transmasc does not mean afab. we have to stop focusing on the genitals of our siblings, it's uncomfortable and just as disgusting as when cis folk do it

i get called and referred to as a trans woman by most strangers i meet. i've had to fight and claw tooth and nail to be seen as a girl and woman due to my masculine body and face, even before puberty and HRT. i was forced to take estrogen HRT as a teen and young adult to "fix" my masculine features. i was born AMAB but then it switched to AFAB. i have to transition into womanhood because i've always been denied it. but that doesn't mean that i have a penis- in fact, i have dysphoria about not having one.

thank you for this ask, i really get where you're coming from. stay safe out there

[dduane]

The Young Wizards series turns 40!

...And yes, we're having a sale to celebrate. But that can wait. :)

I'm sitting here looking at the date and considering how amazing it is that, despite the changes in the publishing world, anything can stay in print nonstop for forty years.

But this book has. Here's how it started:

...Well, not how it started. It started with three things:

A newbie YA writer being deeply annoyed with a non-newbie one for (as she thought) stripping their teenage characters of their agency without good reason.

A suddenly-appearing joke involving two terms or concepts that wouldn't normally appear together: the 1950s young-readers' series of careers books with titles that always began So You Want To Be A..., and the word "wizard."

And the idea immediately springing from that juxtaposition. What if there was such a book? Not a careers book, but a book that told you how to be a wizard—maybe some kind of manual? One that would tell you the truth about the magic underlying the universe, and how to get your hands on it... assuming you felt you could promise the things that power would demand of you, and survive the Ordeal that would follow?

Six or seven months after that confluence of events, there was a novel with that joke-line as its title. A month or so after that, the novel was bought. So You Want To Be A Wizard came out as a Fall 1983 book, as you can see from the Locus Magazine ad above (from back when Locus was only a paper zine). The first reviews were encouraging.

And by the middle of 1984, the publishers were asking, "So, what's next?" A question I'm still busy answering.

There's been a lot of water under the wizardly bridge since. In SYWTBAW's case, this involved a couple/few publishers, a surprising number of covers, a fair number of awards here and there; and lots more books. (I always knew there'd be more, but how many more continues to surprise me. Which is a bit funny, considering how much stuff that universe has going on in it.)

So here we are at forty, and looking ahead to The Big Five-Oh with some interest. More books? Absolutely. Young Wizards #11 is in progress at the moment, and YW #12 is in the late concept stages. More covers for So You Want To Be A Wizard? Seems inevitable. A TV series, perhaps? (shrug) Stranger things have happened: we'll keep our fingers (or other manipulatory instrumentalities) crossed. The New Millennium Editions in translation? and in international paperback? Working on that right now. The sky's the limit.*

And meanwhile, to celebrate, just for today we'll have a sale. (Except in the UK. To our British friends, the usual sad apology: the expensive bureaucracy of Brexit has made it impossible for us to sell directly to you any more. Details here, with our apologies.)

As has been mentioned before, changes are afoot at Ebooks Direct, so this kind of sale won't be happening again for the foreseeable future. (In fact I thought we were all done with them already. But the number 40 suggested one last opportunity that wouldn't be recurring, so I thought, "Aah, what the heck? Let's.")

New things first! Today, to mark this occasion, we're introducing the "All The Wizardry" Bundle. This is Ebook Direct's entire inventory of Young Wizards works; the contents of the bundle are listed on its product page. The $29.99 price listed there is for today only, to celebrate SYWTBAW's birthday, and will go up as of 23:59 Hawai'ian time tonight. As always, should you ever lose your ebooks or need to change reading platforms, we'll change your formats as necessary, or replace the books, for free.

Just click here, or on the image below, for the "All The Wizardry" Bundle. (Please ignore the category listings under the "Pay Using..." icons on the product page: they plainly think they're in a different universe. Kind of an occupational hazard around here...)

The other, older kind of sale folks will have seen here is on the "I Want Everything You've Got" Bundle, which is the whole Ebooks Direct store—obviously including all the Young Wizards books as well: more than 2.5 million words in 36 DRM-free ebooks. Just for today, in honor of the birthday book, we're dropping the whole-store price to USD $40.00. This, too, will go away just before midnight Hawai'ian time tonight... and it will never be lower. So if you want everything we've got at that price, don't wait around.

Make sure you use this link or the one associated with the image to get the baked-in discount at checkout. (If it fails to display correctly, use the discount code "40FOR40" in the checkout's "discount code or gift code" field.)

Meanwhile? Onward into the next decade. The new A Day at the Crossings novel unfortunately won't make it out before the end of 2023; other work in-house currently has taken priority. But as for early 2024... stay tuned.

And for those of you who're Young Wizards readers, and have kept this book, and its sequels, alive for pushing half a century?

Thank you, again and always!

*Though actually, it's not, is it? As the proverb has it, "Wizardry doesn't stop at atmosphere's edge..."

[the-ria]

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

I saw Fall Out Boy earlier this week and I'm still not over it 😳 so I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to share a drawing I did last year for the Seasons FOB zine hosted by @andpierres

The idea was that all the albums were separated by seasons and each season had its own visual and lyrical themes to pull from. For my drawing, I went with one of my favorite lyrics from Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying and added a bunch of visual references to other songs off of From Under the Cork Tree and Infinity on High! See how many of them you can spot 👀

[cottoncandysprite]

Thank you, Owl House 🦉🏠💕

The Owl House came into my life at the perfect time. I had been following the show since its announcement in 2017. As a former Gravity Falls fan and lover of all things spooky, I was instantly captivated.

By the time it aired in 2020, I loved it from the premiere. Steven Universe was ending and I was about to turn 17, so it seemed like the perfect new start. I immediately threw myself into making fanart and was on the ground floor of the fandom, making a name for myself and meeting so many cool people. By the time of Grom, I was dressing up in my room for the premiere and telling everyone I could about lumity.

As season 2a aired in 2021, I branched out. Animatics, fanfics, my first zine. My art grew with the show, and some of the people I met around this time are still some of my closest friends. All built around this amazing show that was just getting better with every episode.

With season 2b in 2022, my obsession waned a bit as I found other shows, but I never stopped loving it. I found a style I was comfortable with and ran with it, making the show my own.

Now, as the show comes to a close and I move on to other obsessions, I promise I won't lose sight of this beautiful, emotional, groundbreaking show that brought me to where I am today. That made me love being a weirdo, made me love being an artist, and that I love so so much.

[alicenpai]

forgotten playthings, forgotten child 🧸

Jack from my series Lost & Found Children 🤍🖤

i hope to showcase more of my ocs in 2024 hehe! im FINALLY getting around to finishing art i left to rot in my folders (the pandora hearts drawing last month being one of em). if you saw the WIP of THIS particular drawing 2 yrs ago... no you didn’t 💔

my charas are very personal to me, but tbh ive always been a bit hesitant to share their stories. over time i realized ... it’s kind of a shame to not make art from one’s heart. which is something i regret a lot year after year whenever i make my yearly art summary reflection. i'm like damn i need to make more emotionally evoking pieces!!! so i'm gonna keep going in 2024 with that in mind ❤ i have to admit, although this drawing started 2 years ago, and there's a lot i would do differently if i were to supposedly draw it now - this concept goes pretty hard.

the final drawing stayed pretty close to the original concept which im so relieved for! i think part of the reason why i left it on the backburner for so long, was the fact that i included so many details, and i was unsure of how to colour the "background". (not to mention stuff like cons & real life getting in the way).

i'm glad for discovering a really handy watercolour brush, it's helped me a lot in my last few drawings, bc i dont have to colour in each detail. especially since the witch hat atelier: eternal ephemera zine piece i did. otherwise if i coloured this back in 2022 with my usual method, i'm pretty sure i really would have included a shading and highlight layer for each individual toy... HAHAHA. much to think about

oh yeah and in the last few days of drawing this i was listening to some visual kei bands. i love how some of the band members literally have been performing since like the 90s or something and DO NOT AGE and are literal vampires. every so often i fall back into visual kei (you can tangentially thank aggretsuko although yes i know it's not the same). and i kind of realized. i like Jack's edgy design so much because he looks like. a visual kei esque vampire.

[gf-seasons-zine]

*~*~SIGNAL BOOST*~*~

Did you know that Gravity Falls is real and will never die? (It's true, Jason Ritter said so!) There are so many great ways to keep it alive, including fanzines- and since there are a couple of others going on right now, we'd like to spotlight them here too!

Check out @tenyearsofbillcipher, A nonprofit zine dedicated to Bill Cipher where proceeds will go to children in Ukraine affected by the war with Russia. Preorders will end on September 31st, so get it HERE while it lasts!

Look, the Book of Bill came out over a month ago; you KNOW you need more Bill Cipher in your life!

Stay tuned for more!

[starrystevie]

eddie who's read enough skin mags to know what he thinks he's going to like whenever he can finally find someone to hook up with. who's watched enough badly filmed bdsm flicks from that shady video store behind standard gas on moore street to put a black hanky in his back left pocket. who's looked through enough zines from that queer store he found when he visited chicago and bought as much material as he could fit in his backpack.

steve who's very recently found out that there's extra space in his heart and mind for pretty guys next to pretty girls and has no clue how to find a guy who would be interested back. who's trying to figure out what he would even want to do with a guy in the bedroom so he goes to some shady store on moore that's supposed to have pornos behind a black curtain, solely for research purposes, of course. who's reading queer magazines for the advice columns to learn how to pick up clues when flirting with men only to delve into a world of hankies and safe words.

eddie proudly wearing his black hanky everyday and almost choking on his coca cola when steve says he knows what it is one night at dinner. eddie actually choking on a french fry when steve tells him he goes both ways like bowie or freddie with a shy but somewhat proud grin on his face. eddie grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the diner booth to head back to the trailer when steve suggests they put their burgeoning interests together for a night to see if they like it.

steve liking getting slapped on the thigh in eddie's bed, watching the blood rush to the surface in handprint, something primal liking that it's eddie's. steve really liking eddie pushing him to his knees and hearing his bones hit the hard floor, feeling the carpet burning his skin. steve loathing the way eddie whispers in a broken voice, "sorry, shit" as his big brown eyes fill up with tears when he sees how wrecked steve's pretty skin ends up being and ends up turning away from the sight.

both of them learning together what boundaries they have, moving from friends exploring things that they didn't know they'd ever get to explore, to something more. spending hours, days, weeks holed up in steve's empty house as they find out how many rooms they can push their limits in, laughs and whimpers and skin on skin echoing off the walls. falling in love with bruises and teary eyes and they way they make each other feel but most importantly, falling in love with the other person along the way.

[jeypawlik]

Jigen/Mash 1969

I’d rewatched Hemingway Papers earlier this year and really wanted to draw a young Jigen and Mash. I have oh so many headcanons for them. I’ve got a bunch of these old photo style illustrations in my backlog and I’m thinking I’ll post them on my Patreon/VIP Blog once The Curtain Falls is over, then collect them all into a zine! [ID: Square drawing made to look like a black and white film photograph. A young Jigen is arm in arm with a young Mash, from the Lupin the third tv special Hemingway Papers, the two of them are wearing army uniforms and smiling for the camera, they have their hands up in peace signs. Jigen is wearing a helmet that covers his eyes but does not have a beard. Mash is wearing a higher ranking uniform than Jigen and has his hair in a mullet style, with just a few moustache hairs on his upper lip.]

[media-please]

Let’s hear it for America’s Suitehearts!

Here is my full piece from @ourlawyerzine - this project has been absolutely amazing, I feel so lucky to have taken part and been surrounded by so many amazing artists.

Thank you to everyone who purchased a copy ♥️

(WIP process + thoughts beneath)

I unfortunately was occupied quote heavily with preparing for a big poetry slam around the time I was painting which means I didn’t add as much as I would’ve lived to, however I do love how this came out!

Being a perfectionist sucks, but in a very Tourdust-esque sentiment, it is so good to create, no matter the outcome. I love art, and I love Fall Out Boy! Once again, I feel so very grateful to have been included in this Zine ♥️

[petewentzisblack1312]

hii! here's my other piece from the zine Sing It Like The Kids That Are Mean To You (created by @thrashbeatles and laid out by @birdloaf, get your physical copy here (when its in stock) and your digital copy here)

Pete Wentz is, in many ways, the driving force behind Fall Out Boy, and he is a biracial black man. It is no surprise, then, that blackness is ever-present within the band’s art, through genre, through lyrics, through politics. Let’s talk about how race colours their work.

            To start, black genre influences are scattered throughout the band’s discography. The album art of Take This to Your Grave is an homage to John Coltrane’s iconic album Blue Train. Infinity on High is filled to the brim with funk, soul and R&B influences on songs like I’m Like a Lawyer with the Way I’m Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You) and This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race. American Beauty/American Psycho was an experiment in emulating mixtape culture, filled with samples and electronic beats, and getting its own remix album, Make America Psycho Again. M A  N   I    A drew its influence from dancehall and reggae, especially on Sunshine Riptide and HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T. They haven’t been shy about incorporating black genres into their work, and in fact, it seems to be a staple for them.

            Additionally, Pete Wentz’s lyricism in and of itself is in fact heavily influenced by black art, and one could argue it is quintessentially the work of a black poet. In his lyrics are strategic plays on words, inversions and remixes of classic phrases, and an endless stream of cultural references, all akin to the wit and flow of a rapper. Think lines like “I’m a painter and I’m drawing a blank,” or “You take the full, full truth and you pour some out.” Indeed, in his words you’ll even find braggadocio, a staple in hip hop, though his comes with a helping of self-deprecation, like in the line “Signing off, I’m alright in bed but I’m better with a pen/The kid was alright then it went to his head.” This is arguably a feature which endears so many people to his work, and it is the one which shows his blackness most evidently.

            Finally, while Fall Out Boy itself is not an overtly political act, the band has at times used their music to espouse black politics. In You’re Crashing, But You’re No Wave, the lyrics tell the story of Fred Hampton Jr’s conviction for aggravated arson following the 1992 LA riots protesting the acquittal of the police officers who murdered Rodney King. The song Novocaine also deals with black politics, being inspired by the murder of Trayvon Martin and primarily about the corruption of and threat posed by the police to black youth.

            The core idea behind Fall Out Boy is to make music “for the kids who feel like they don’t fit in anywhere”. When that sentiment is espoused by a man who grew up as part of the only black family in his neighbourhood, it gains a whole new meaning. Fall Out Boy is, in a very real way, for niggas.