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An Ode to the Best Mario Kart Track

If you were to ask me my favorite Mario Kart track, it would undeniably have to be Wario Stadium from Mario Kart 64. A humble course with little more than some bumps and curves; a surprisingly mundane approximation of a motocross stadium. There is nothing fantastical or remarkable about this level. The only landmarks are a spinning Wario sign and a live-feed screen that doesn't even work correctly in multiplayer.

Throughout the years I've passively observed public opinion of Wario Stadium. Its lack of features seems to be one sticking point, the length another. Things need to be bold and bombastic, quick spurts before we move on to the next shiny spectacle. Without judgment, I'll guess the people saying this have spent no meaningful time with the game in question. Being either too young to remember or sensible enough to get a Playstation instead of a Nintendo 64. At most they've turned it on to explore the series' roots, tried out some cups and went on with their day.

However, for the people in the know, Wario Stadium was THE staple Mario Kart level back when the series' only had two entries; a no-nonsense straight gauntlet of racing goodness. I had friends come over requesting to play it. The name still holds gravitas among my family members.

Wario Stadium.

Mind you, it is not the only track remembered synonymously with the game. Even my parents can still recall names like Moo Moo Farm, Rainbow Road and Koopa Troopa Beach, but Wario Stadium always comes first. Why do we all remember Wario Stadium the most?

I think the answer is simple: Wario Stadium has what we may refer to as "the pit".

The pit is a simple, but brilliant piece of geometry that single-handedly made Wario Stadium unforgettable. It is the sole reason I confidently declare this the best ever Mario Kart track, because it is unparalleled and unrepeatable. No other level has the pit and no other level will ever have the pit.

The logistics of the pit are straight-forward. Towards the end of a lap you briefly dip down a slope with a ledge overhead, the road continues on up the slope and around a wide turn to the previously mentioned ledge, where the player performs a daring jump over to the final stretch before the goal.

On paper, there is nothing outstanding about this moment. There are other big jumps in Mario Kart 64 alone. The catapulting over the riverboat in DK's Jungle Parkway, the flight towards Princess Peach's castle in Royal Raceway. These were spectacular, exhilarating, memorable. But safe. They had no danger, no stakes. They were the rollercoaster segments of their levels, the Mario Kart equivalent of the loop in Sonic the Hedgehog. They didn't have the pit, because only Wario Stadium has the pit.

As is tradition, if the player suffers an unfortunate accident in Mario Kart and falls off the course, they're quickly fished out by Lakitu and repositioned back on the road to continue the race. This is a Mario Kart institution, as iconic as the item boxes themselves. Lakitu is the answer to turtle shells and banana peels. Lakitu is your dear friend who helps you when in need. You will be stalled, but he will always get you back on your feet again. He will make sure this is a fair race that you have a chance of winning. Your guardian angel; he will always be there, watching out for you. Always, always, always! Except...

Wario Stadium doesn't have Lakitu. There is only the pit.

God forbid, if you were to fall down the pit, you would tumble all the way to the bottom of the slope. Crashing onto the road, disoriented, facing a cruel featureless wall. Back where you were previously, a good chunk of your progress undone. Lakitu doesn't come, because the game never registers you as having fallen out of bounds. It is not in his protocol to save you because you are still on the track. So get going!

From a complete stand-still in the pit it takes about 16-ish seconds to race back to the ledge again. This doesn't sound much, but trust me that Lakitu is way faster than that. You WISH Lakitu was here! In a race, adding a quarter of a minute to your clock is practically death. It's over. You LOST.

This is what makes the pit dangerous and exhilarating. It's a brief window where Mario Kart drops its whimsy rules and adheres to a stern sense of realism. It is uncharacteristic, but for this reason it stands out. Because it is merciless. It is SO cruel!

Of course, being the first race in the Star Cup, a freak accident of this calibre during a grand prix is easily remedied by a hard reset. It simply doesn't happen too often, and when it does this mostly presents a minor inconvenience. Most people encountering the pit today may decry "poor dated game design", but majority probably won't even notice it.

Because they never seriously played Mario Kart 64 in multiplayer. The game is no longer the staple contemporary iteration of itself, it is not even last year's model. It is old and forgotten. No one goes back to play Mario Kart 64 in multiplayer unless they were a person who played Mario Kart 64 in multiplayer back in the 90s. But for those of us who did, we all know about Wario Stadium, we all know about the pit.

In multiplayer, the pit colors Wario Stadium in a new light. Because as real humans behind the wheel, racing against one another, we are different from the robotic computer controlled players. We are aware of the pit and its implications. We know what it does, we know its danger.

We know we can exploit it.

As such, the pit becomes a terrifying abyss of defeat. An ever-approaching cloud of uncertainty. It is coming, it is inevitable. Every time we leap above its maws we challenge fate. Every successful landing a relief. The pit is psychological warfare. We use and abuse the pit against each other because of its irresistible power.

Because sooner or later you will end up in this scenario:

THIS is when shit gets real. This is when Wario Stadium goes from amusing to legendary. This is when Mario Kart peaks forever.

When we approach the pit with green shells we may hope to land a lucky shot, every go around with banana peels we haphazardly plant seeds of potential, with a red shell you mean business but also need to be close for your timing to be right.

But with the lightning bolt? We're talking nuclear option! Whoever gets the lightning bolt can strike the exact moment their opponent jumps over the pit. What do you do? Do you boldly face death knowing hope has already died, or do you feebly pull the brakes waiting for the gun to point elsewhere? But will the threat ever dissipate if you don't act? Will you not simply waste even more time escaping the inevitable?

The only path is forward.

The only future is the pit.

For as much as Nintendo attempts to present themselves with a wholesome identity, creating pleasant experiences with little in terms of raw friction, it is befitting that Mario Kart is undoubtedly their most popular franchise. In a way it rears their ugly side, and exposes the little demon in all of us. I contend that Mario Kart is great because it urges us to be a little bit mean. There is something primal activating in your brain as a poor unassuming friend perfectly aligns with your green shell. We've all felt it, we don't even mean anything by it, it just happens. I get the impression Nintendo has desperately tried to mitigate this angle of Mario Kart over the years. Blue shells got sparser, hits have less impact, Lakitu is swifter.

In hindsight, Wario Stadium seems like an accident. Containing a section where the game potentially gets a little too cruel and unfair, but it is precisely because of this that the pit sticks out. Because it will never happen again. There will never be another Mario Kart game that has the pit. It is incongruent with Nintendo's entire philosophy for what these games should be. Ironically, the pit is the most Mario Kart part of any Mario Kart, encapsulating everything the series is known for; as one falls in despair and defeat, another flies in elated victory.

However, despite how well Wario Stadium understands Mario Kart, it can never be replicated. I've long held it as the only level I want brought back in a future game, and usually people respond with "but it WAS brought back", gesturing to other levels sharing little more than the general stadium setting. As if I was a motocross nut who accidentally bought Mario Kart 64 instead of Excitebike 64. In the new Mario Kart World there is a level claiming to be Wario Stadium, sharing a similar music track and that stadium setting, but the layout is a poor shadow of its former self. It's unrecognizable, they have nothing in common. In the middle is a ramp that spits fire as you jump across. There is no danger, only safe spectacle. A rollercoaster Sonic loop. If you intently veer off to the side, Lakitu predictably saves you. It is Wario Stadium in name only. There is no fall, there is no pit.

Because there will never be another pit.

/Kiki

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What do you think about this?

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We played through Astro Bot in timely order and have some unscripted thoughts to share. Take part of our expert opinions and see how it all devolves into a discussion about the supposed death of the 3D platformer.

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In awe of the fountain

Today I want to talk about Kingsley's Adventure (1999), a fox-based action adventure game developed by Psygnosis. It's certainly not the most remarkable video game on the Playstation – not even among the best in Psygnosis' vast catalogue – but it's blessed with being interesting nonetheless. In particular I want to talk about this otherwise inconspicuous fountain.

The main character Kingsley is adopted by the royal family of the Fruit Kingdom. He lives a lavish life within the castle walls but yearns to become a galavant knight, a dream that just so happens to come true when evil doers come to the kingdom. Kingsley sets out on an adventure to collect all the weapons and armour a true knight could need in order to bring peace back to the world. But before he can do any of that he'll come across this fountain located in the middle of the throne room.

It's impossible to miss, you have to pass by it to even start your adventure. It's in fact the first thing you see when you enter the grand hall. The room is large and furnished with extravagant carrot themed decorations to fit the king and queen's bunnyness, and yet it seems like this unrelated fountain was what the developers really wanted you to see. Strangely enough it's not related to bunnies at all and instead adorned with octopi carved into the stone. It doesn't quite fit with the throne room's overarching aesthetic.

As you enter the throne room the framerate drops significantly. The lush scenery is so costly on the poor old Playstation hardware that it can't even keep up and the entire room is covered in a deep black fog. As you enter, the wall of darkness obfuscates the carrot ornaments, leaving only the fountain visible right in front of you. Making the room smaller and cutting out the water spewing well would've most likely helped the performance greatly, but Psygnosis didn't relent. They wanted you to see this god damn fountain.

This is not a critique mind you. I can appreciate their tenacity. For whatever reason this was more important to them than performance. Kingsley's Adventure is a gorgeous handiwork from characters to environments and this fountain is no different. I would go so far as to say that it completes the throne room as an eye catching center piece. It's an exorbitant monument to our vanity, shining in the darkness created by its very presence. I like it a lot.

Kingsley's Adventure teaches us that sometimes you just have to make a huge room and fill it with characters and props that make the hardware scream in agony. Put a fountain in the middle of it. Follow your dreams.

/Alicia

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I've recently found myself playing through the Syphon Filter games on the original Playstation. I knew about the series beforehand, but I wasn't particularly familiar with them. My experience with the Playstation as a kid was mostly occupied with more family friendly alternatives – often of the animal mascot variety. My mom (bless her) kept an eye on my playing habits and wouldn't even get me Final Fantasy VII because of the gruff guy with a gun for an arm. The most gratuitous violence I ever saw on the machine at the time was probably Bomberman exploding into nothingness. A gruesome way to go for sure, but harmless cartoon shenanigans nonetheless.

It's safe to say that Syphon Filter (1999) is decidedly more violent than anything I ever got my hands on as a tiny toddler child. As secret agent Gabe Logan you get to blow the heads off of terrorists with your handy arsenal of weapons, while pixelated blood splatters all over the place. A true American in other words. I would've been 8 years old at the time, so you can bet your behind that my dear mother would've made sure I never so much as saw a glimpse of Gabe's adventures in our household. But I am an adult now, and she can't stop me anymore even if she tried!

It's a good thing she can't, because Syphon Filter turned out to be exactly the kind of uncompromising I love to see while digging through the Playstation library. As a pioneer among the stealth action genre it carved its own uncertain path and inevitably ended up somewhat rough around the edges. A quality I can appreciate. It has a scrappy, albeit clunky personality that charms me like few modern games can. There's just something special about its relentless difficulty spikes and lack of conveyance that you rarely find in video games these days. It's the kind of game that will drive some players up the metaphorical walls – it certainly got me a few times. The gosh darn Catacombs, man. If you know you know.

I'd like to say that I had a thoroughly good time throughout, but it did take me a little while to really 'get it' so to speak. Syphon Filter demands your full attention and a single mistake is all it takes to be thrown back to a previous checkpoint. It has a nasty habit of spawning enemies behind your back, lots of them require headshots to effectively go down and once your armour is depleted you're pretty much done for. The precision and quick reflexes expected of you can be infuriating, once you've died from the same grenade-throwing enemy ten times in a row you're going to be on the verge of screaming. And I freaking love it.

Having persevered the numerous challenges is such a satisfying accomplishment. The game lingered in my mind, the more I thought about it the more I ended up liking it. By the time I started playing Syphon Filter 2 (2000) I was finally in tune with the developers' sense of brutal, yet rewarding, difficulty. I understood that the game kicking my ass wasn't merely an accident born from limitations and aged design sensibilities – it was the intention. There's a certain rawness to an old game that doesn't pull any punches without being so unfair as to make it impossible to beat. I commend them for believing in the player enough to figure the game out on their own, even if it might drive some to tears.

For those who end up vibing with Syphon Filter though there's a lot of fun to be had. The first three games are filled to the brim with varied locations to explore and interesting scenarios to participate in. The gothic cathedral, the burning subway station and the expo center are all memorable places that will be stuck in my brain for a long time. I often found myself pushing through the challenges to be able to see where the espionage adventure would take me next. There's always something exciting to see around every corner.

When I originally wrote about the first game over on Backloggd I lightly criticised it for its nasty difficulty spikes and conveyance issues. There is admittedly a lot of trial and error in these games, and you often find yourself roaming around unsure what to do. Syphon Filter 3 (2001) on the other hand surprised me with its easier difficulty and willingness to point the player in the right direction. That isn't necessarily a bad development, if anything it shows that the series was moving forward. However, after becoming fairly proficient at the first two's bullshit I couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Don't get me wrong it's still a great game with plenty of challenging sections, but perhaps the first two beat me so hard that I became some kind of weird, involuntary Syphon Filter purist.

Whether that is true or not I do think there is something to be said for the entertainment value of being destroyed by and eventually conquering a really good video game. I've started to play Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (2006) on the PSP, which obviously has a modern polish that these dinky PS1 games simply lack. It's certainly more playable, but that also means that it has lost some of the immaculate grit that defined the original. It's easy to dismiss an old relic like Syphon Filter based entirely on its harsh indifference to the player, the way it causes us grief in ways that most Sony published games rarely do anymore. But that's also part of its identity, what makes it special and in some sense also fun.

/Alicia

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Linger

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Apologies for the disturbance ghoats (ghost goats). I'm a writer, I write dumb album reviews. My friend studies music and she's great at articulating her thoughts and I want to work with her.

Since there are two people behind Transparency boo, how do you two write together? Do you give each other different segments to write or do you just write the whole thing together?

It really depends on the project. Most of the time we write videos on our own, with input from each other of course. Other times we write together, and sometimes we write different segments. So it's really a varied process that changes depending on what feels right for each project.

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One year ago I made Ashes to Ashley after struggling with comics for years and practically giving up. The fact other people like Ashley's story is amazing to me. I don't intend to stop making these comics, I'm already writing the third one. Thanks everyone, there's a lot of fun yet to come!

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Making of Today Forever

Well, it finally happened. After much toiling I managed to finish Today Forever, the follow-up to last year's Ashes to Ashley. Like last time, I also want to talk a little bit about where it came from. By all means, check out Making of Ashes to Ashley as well for full context if you haven't already, as a lot of the points brought up there still apply to this new comic.

Today Forever continues the day after Ashes to Ashley. It is a story about what happens after your great coming out, when everything is new but life still moves on in its familiar mundanity. Despite the elation of last night, Ashley has trouble fully letting go of the past. The loss of the Ride shirt becomes a symbol for the jarring and complicated emotions of reconstructing yourself. It is a story about the nature of happiness, it is an awkward romance, it is somehow also about the 90s band Ride.

While writing Today Forever I gave extra thought to the idea of sequels, in particular the second installment of a story. You do something once and it is the whole of itself, you do it twice and it's a mirror reflection of contrasts, you do it any more than this and it's simply "another one". I always intended Ashes to Ashley to be an episodic series with self-contained adventures. The original comic may be complete, starting and ending satisfyingly; it doesn't need to continue, but nevertheless I wanted it to. I don't want there to be just one story, or even two stories. I want "another one" to be in the majority. Yet despite how much you iterate on something, the second entry will always be the domain of contrasts; number two reveals what was unique about number one. In the differences and similarities we establish the boundaries and understand how the story will both change and remain familiar from here on out.

With this in mind, Today Forever is intended to be the polar opposite of Ashes to Ashley. I selectively reuse only the parts that are most crucial. We still follow Ashley, she's on tour with her band, she's rediscovering herself through a trans lens, the tone is cute and lighthearted, everything is drawn on paper with an old worn down Bic mechanical pencil and digitally colored with an ugly sponge brush built into Photoshop. However, this time we go somewhere new, with outdoor scenes in broad daylight, everyone is enjoying their leisure, they're all wearing different clothes, some characters are more prominent while others are less, shoegaze remains a crucial central theme but no one ever picks up an instrument. These points both expand what Ashes to Ashley can be while simultaneously reinforcing its core. The audience understands the story more clearly. Heck, the author probably also understands the story more clearly.

These were the first preliminary character sketches I made for Today Forever, including the cover art concept which remained more or less intact until the end. I went for a "first day of summer" motif to signify everyone being on their day off. I can't remember why, but it's explicitly written in the script that Gabriel and Miki change outfits somewhere after the breakfast scene. This was probably not that necessary, but it is admittedly funny that Miki puts on her Lush T-shirt (featuring the lemon from the Split album cover!) while Ashley is mourning the Ride shirt. Is Miki teasing Ashley?!

It should be noted that the script and story didn't arrive fully formed in my head! Today Forever went through some pretty drastic revisions, and I kept changing around elements until the very end. Above is the beginning of the first draft, you can see how parts were both cut and reshuffled, while a few remain unchanged. In the first version of the story Ashley actually spent the entire day moping in the van. The intent was to focus on her dynamic with Kate, as Kate was the least featured character in the previous story. To reinforce this, I wrote the rest of the cast out of the plot by sending them off to an amusement park. It was a scattered mess of ideas, quite miserable. I felt lost with the whole thing until my girlfriend Alicia took one look at the draft and asked a simple but crucial question; Why doesn't Ashley go to the amusement park? This practically saved the entire comic, giving me a fun central theme to work with. The ideas wrote themselves, the tone got lighter, the initial story became a bookend for the gang running off to the fireworks factory.

Here are the initial panel layouts for the "final" script. Somehow 32 pages became 37.

Today Forever commits the fatal writing cliché of starting with the protagonist waking up in their bed. This was to immediately connect it with the ending of Ashes to Ashley, to the degree where Ashley is wearing the exact same getup, complete with smudged makeup and loose tights. Rules are made to be broken!

The band's van is bigger on the inside for the sheer writing convenience of having a spacious motorhome. This was inspired by the comic Tank Girl where a throw-away panel blurb states that "the tank is bigger on the inside like the TARDIS". No more explanations necessary.

Debbie getting awkwardly up-close and casual with half-naked Ashley is one of my favorite gags. It's goofy while also suggesting a lot about the characters. I like that Ashley feels comfortable enough with her friends to wear nothing but underwear in front of them.

Floppy Park was initially named Playland as one of several Ride references, subtly alluding to the 1990 Play EP. I ended up changing this because it sounded like a playpen for toddlers.

The panel where Ashley is admiring herself in the mirror is another one of my favorites. She has so much self-love! Also, her face looks funny when pressed on a flat circle.

I was worried about having sufficient space for the breakfast scene, but luckily I fit it all on one page without too many compromises. My biggest dilemma was having choose how Ashley would respond to her day off; either with a puzzled "Hmm...? Free day?" or an understated "Wow". Both felt in line with her personality, but there was only room for one. Looking at it now I'm still conflicted on which to choose. The wow line is still funny to me.

Debbie truly is the ultimate romantic foil to Ashley. While Ashley is painfully clueless and uncharacteristically slow for a bunny, Debbie is kind to a fault, accepting the smallest suggestion with full sincerity. Debbie assumes Ashley understands everything about the situation, Ashley doesn't even parse that there is a situation. Ashley's cluelessness is based on myself, I suspect I unwittingly live every moment like Ashley.

Drawing angry Ashley was heaps of fun. I played around with doodling a full-on "aaugh!" Peanuts pastiche, which evolved into other monstrosities like the Ashley blob and the big eyed Ashley I used to represent myself in the Transparency Aquanaut's Holiday video.

Having the cast argue about the number one shoegaze band was among the most crucial pages to me, remaining intact from the very first draft. I'm just really into shoegaze and have no other outlets for this! I get excited whenever someone tells me they actually sat down and listened to one of the mentioned bands. They're all important to me.

I absolutely love the panel of overly melodramatic Ashley sitting in front of the stereo blasting Seagull (she didn't even pick a sad Ride song, she just literally put on the Nowhere album!). Her graceful theatrical display of sorrow contrasts the scene towards the end where she cries for real. Happiness is one of the core themes of Today Forever. Ashley encounters it as a conflict. She declares today the best day and the worst day with equal hyperbole as she flip-flops between emotions. Sadness is a comfort, sometimes sadness is easier, eventually happiness makes her sad, happiness seems forbidden, yet happiness doesn't declare its presence. In the end happiness always finds her again.

Every now and then I needed to do some warm-up sketches, usually after a longer absence from drawing. At some point I drew old pre-transition Ash again out of curiosity.

The scenes at Floppy Park take direct inspiration from my own amusement park memories. In particular, the setting is based on Gröna lund, the local amusement park in Stockholm where I live and grew up. Just like in the comic, their fun house Lustiga huset is accessed through a cumbersome staircase, has a zigzag hallway and ends in a carpet ride slide. Conversely, the hall of mirrors is in a separate building, and there's no Escher Relatively room.

Like with the fun house, the ghost train is inspired by Blå tåget at Gröna lund, a ride where you sit in blue carts while ghastly horrors jump out at you. I went through a bunch of different ideas for the monster that spooks Debbie so much she exists the comic panel, but ultimately a simple jaw creature with dark shading did the job. The burning scarecrows are of course a reference to the Sonic Youth album Bad Moon Rising.

In hindsight, I probably should've cut the claw game scene for brevity, since it's similar enough to the shooting gallery. If I could revise it I would have Ashley fail the game, for contrast and drama. But whatever, I'll let her have this one. Several of the plushies in the claw machine are old comic characters of mine, they live on as commodified kitsch in Ashley's world.

Returning to the rest of the gang in the Ferris wheel for a crucial shipping report and some cocky evil Ashley's on top. Ashley gets a power boost whenever her femininity is verbally reaffirmed, like when Um Jammer Lammy hears "dojo, casino, it's all in the mind".

The rollercoaster is the big climactic payoff to the amusement park setting. The moment Ashley says "ugh... rollercoasters..." we know she'll inevitably end up riding one! The name Grasshopper is taken from the Ride track of the same name, it's a lengthy instrumental piece which features screams that sound like people riding a rollercoaster, the choice was clear from the beginning. Drawing terrified Ashley was a blast, Ashley's soul slipping from her dead body in sheer terror is an obscenely exaggerated visual. I did not use it because it posed too many theological questions.

The shooting gallery scene was conceived by Alicia, she loved the idea of Debbie posing with a gun. It gave Debbie some depth and a slightly rustic lean. Somehow I find Debbie's marksman skills more believable than Ashley's claw game luck.

As Ashley states, the shark plush is a reference to the cover of Ride's Today Forever EP, which is where this comic got its name. However, it is obviously also modeled after IKEA's stuffed toy Blåhaj, whose blue-pink-white color scheme made it a trans icon.

Ashley and Debbie sit down at the end to emphasize the emotional core of the story. Ashley is peculiar, but in a special way. Ashley finally thanks Debbie for what we can presume are years of patient kindness. They have the perfect romantic moment, yet are both too shy to bring it any further. Theirs is not a "will they-won't they" relationship, it's a "please just do it now god damnit" relationship.

The two pages where Ashley cries and the rest of the gang shows up were late additions to the comic. I felt a lack of emotional punch and a too abrupt cut to the next scene where everyone is walking back home. As the sort of "day after" story this is, Ashley is expressing the feelings I felt shortly after I began my transitioning. Just sheer shock at the realization of how sad I had been for my entire life. Like someone flipped a switch to turn on the lights. That the darkness was so overwhelming I hadn't ever noticed it.

In case the young folks were wondering, Kate is working with screenprinting here. A technique in which one covers a mounted net with a special coating that can be manipulated by burning a monotone motif onto it. Essentially you convert a picture into a shadow that preserves the holes in the net. Stroke a batch of paint across the net and you've got a print!

I had immense troubles drawing the ending scene. For whatever reason I had crammed it onto one page in the script, giving it no breathing room and an abrupt ending. Eventually I just spread it out across two pages to spare me continued pain. I'm not quite sure what "makeshift karaoke" entails, but I imagine the reader will come up with their own funny conclusion.

The last two pages to be drawn were the ones where the gang arrive at the park and Kate's phone conversation with Floyd. These were primarily shoehorned in to make every double page spread satisfying and cohesive. They were seeds of ideas that had been cut because they weren't fully necessary, however they ultimately contribute some last minute additions to the story. The park getting a big establishing panel creates breathing room among pages that are otherwise quite cramped, I also get to elaborate Ashley and Rachel's buddy dynamic. In the same vein, Kate yelling at Floyd was important for her redemption, to truly show that she DOES care and will stand up for her convictions.

While I had a clear concept for the cover from day one, I ended up having a lot of troubles with the finer details. Like how the first comic's cover paraphrases Loveless, I wanted Today Forever to paraphrase the early Ride covers for the Ride EP, Play EP and Smile compilation, which feature framed monochrome beds of flowers. Ashley and Debbie were supposed to be superimposed on top of this, but I wasn't fully in the clear on what they would do, how they would pose, what expressions they would wear. I ended up drawing a bunch of different ideas until I ended on the double blushed side-eyes.

On top of a cover, I also wanted a quick recap of the previous comic, as it had almost been a full year since I made it. I ended up with pulpy mugshots of the cast, taking inspiration from the recap pages in the Dragon Ball manga volumes I read as a kid. The mugshot of Ashley accidentally lacks her ear fluff, oops!

I am glad people enjoy Today Forever as much as Ashes to Ashley. I am still partial to the first one. I do have my problems with the new comic. There are parts that didn't quite come together like I had wanted, it's probably a bit too long, I feel the tone may be too juvenile at points. Mostly I felt frustrated going from one month to make the first story to an entire year for the second one. The last comic is strategically set in vaguely defined void rooms while this one keeps having to establish new locations and props. There are more panels of all the characters hanging out together. There was simply more to draw and less time to do it. Somewhere along the way I got lost in being more careful and meticulous about the clean-up and coloring as well. However, it doesn't matter now that it's all out, from here on out it's in your hands either way.

I will have to think over what I learned from Today Forever and keep that in mind while working on the third comic. Hopefully I can balance it all out. Maybe next time I figure out how long Rachel's ears are supposed to be!

/Kiki

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TODAY FOREVER

Ashes to Ashley is back with Today Forever, another cute comic about shoegaze, gender and lesbians.

This is a continuation of the previous story; Ashes to Ashley. Here's a refresher.

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The new audio companion for the Spyro video is up. Listen to us talk about importing magazines, gaming potatoes and the localization of Gex.

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🐲NEW VIDEO!🐲 Much noise has been made about the Japanese localization of Spyro the Dragon. An abomination that lead to inevitable failure according to western fans, but did Japan actually hate Spyro? Find out, as the mystery unravels once and for all…

[With closed captions]

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Rare occasion of Ashley and Olivia Birch hanging out.

Drunk

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ASHES TO ASHLEY

I've been hard at work the last month making Ashes to Ashley, a cute comic about shoegaze and gender.

Thank you for reading Ashes to Ashley, hope you liked it! Special shout out to my girlfriend Alicia for her invaluable comedic input.

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We're live playing Locomoto, a game where you're a furry and you have a train. All aboard!

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Why Do You Love Me?

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Clair de lune