kelmcdonald

[kelmcdonald]

New Year! New Plans!

Crossposted from my newsletter.

Happy New Year everyone! 

I’m still figuring out the streaming schedule for the year. But getting back to werewolf movie night, next up is Monster Squad!

Join my discord Sunday January 12th at 2pm PST to watch a very ridiculous movie. Click here to join!  For sure I’ll be streaming at these times:

Tuesday at 8pm – 10pm PST – Art times

Thursday at 4pm – 6pm PST – Art times

Sunday at 8pm – 10pm PST – Baldur’s Gate 3

Also me and my pal Bones Leopard are gonna twitch show/podcast were we read through Berserk. We are gonna read and talk about volume 1 on February 4th. But we are still nailing down the time. 

All these streams will be on my twitch, so stop by!

The big thing last month was my Christmas charity stream where I played Slay the Princess. If you missed it, I now have it up on my youtube. I went for 7 hours. 

I’m gotta start the new year off with updating my store. I need to get Murky Water up now that the Kickstarter is fulfilled. Also, because of someone asking about it, I realized I never put the second chapter of SuperNatural Attraction in the store. So gonna get those up soon. 

Also, last month I was thinking about what to do about You Are the Chosen One since I can’t keep it up going weekly. I’m gonna start putting pages of that up on my website on Fridays, but once a month I’ll make a progress report $1 patreon backers. So I gotta tweak my patreon backer level for that. 

And for those of you who don’t like patreon, I started a Kofi. I’ve not completely done fiddling with it. But I’m gonna try to remember to post everything that is on patreon, on there as well. 

I watch a lot of youtube while working as usual. And this month, a video that stood out to me was Laura Crone made a video about Magicians the book vs the show. She likes both, but a thing that talks about in it is how a book is marketed or explained to people sets different expectations. In the context of Magicians, Laura brings up if someone was given it in the context of “if you like x fantasy book” they might be frustrated with the structure of the book being closer to literary fiction. I’ve been kinda mentally chewing on that idea. 

I’ve talked with some other comic creators in the past about how stories start making a promise to the reader. Like I love Beastars, but I know several people who were frustrated with it because it starts with a murder and no one tries to solve the murder in the first arc. But thinking about how someone is presented a book via marketing or a friend rec, also can set the a book up to fail in readers eyes. I made me think about how I didn’t really like Wicked the book, because it’s sold as the Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch’s pov. But the book isn’t really from her point of view, yes you get more background on her, but you don’t get into her head. The musical (and the new movie) do a better job of following through on the promise of presenting things from Alphaba’s point of view. 

I don’t really have a conclusion to that point and will probably keep mentally chewing on this idea for a bit. But I wanted to share what’s been on my mind writing wise lately. 

This year, I’m gonna try to keep better track of what I’m watching and reading. I fell off it the past few years because of my workload at Seven Seas. So I need to make time for reading some comics that AREN’T mangas I’m editing. 

Thanks everyone for your support. 

[kelmcdonald]

Reading Jasper Fforde like:

[kelmcdonald]

[kelmcdonald]

“IT’S A SWORD, IT’S NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.” My favourite scene from The Hogfather. ___ See how this comic was made here.

[kelmcdonald]

Boris Karloff

Art by Nicolai Fechin

[kelmcdonald]

DAMMMBB i found this astarion piece from last year that i could doo 100 million times better if i just had the time i would love to finish / redo it

[kelmcdonald]

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[kelmcdonald]

since spotify wrapped is coming today i just want to bring awareness to the fact that around 86% of the songs on spotify are currently demonetized since spotify decided that tracks with under 1,000 cannot be monetized. not only that the ceo of spotify cashed out $35.8 million dollars in spotify shares in the third quarter of the year and it has been reported that he earns more than the top artists on the platform.

for a platform that claims to support artists, this is outrageous and i hope people realize that an artist who is starting out, cannot make a living out of spotify streams simply because daniel ek and his friends made it worse for the artists trying to start a career. if you wanna support musicians and the possibility for them to get a living wage please follow United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) which are trying to make The Living Wage for Musicians Act a reality so musicians can be paid fairly through streaming platforms and get the cut they deserve.

[kelmcdonald]

since spotify wrapped is coming today i just want to bring awareness to the fact that around 86% of the songs on spotify are currently demonetized since spotify decided that tracks with under 1,000 cannot be monetized. not only that the ceo of spotify cashed out $35.8 million dollars in spotify shares in the third quarter of the year and it has been reported that he earns more than the top artists on the platform.

for a platform that claims to support artists, this is outrageous and i hope people realize that an artist who is starting out, cannot make a living out of spotify streams simply because daniel ek and his friends made it worse for the artists trying to start a career. if you wanna support musicians and the possibility for them to get a living wage please follow United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) which are trying to make The Living Wage for Musicians Act a reality so musicians can be paid fairly through streaming platforms and get the cut they deserve.

[kelmcdonald]

I was about to type up a big reply to this post justifying the sex in Jason X but fortunately I checked the notes first and saw someone beat me to it.

"sex scenes have no narrative purpose" is such a funny take on so many levels. people will really believe that the whole human experience is valuable to portray artistically except sex, which of course has never held emotional weight or significance for anybody

[kelmcdonald]

Now that you’ve finished #GameOfThrones, which historically-inspired prestige miniseries should you try next? Well, I made you a little chart.

Wolf Hall is 6 eps and Terror 10, so either way you’re not going to lose years in watching.

[kelmcdonald]

This movie is excellent. I also wish it did better! I'd love more goofy fantasy adventures like this

Finally watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and now I’m a little sad it didn’t do well (and clearly I was part of the problem) because it was actually pretty sweet and very funny.

One of the best depictions of a platonic couple raising a child together I’ve seen. By the end you’re like of course Holga is mom.

Also it’s fucking amazing that Edgin isn’t Holga’s type because he’s too immature but also not short enough. Yeah she can lift any man she wants but she wants one who fits snugly in her arms too, ya know?

[kelmcdonald]

make me choose @jodieliker asked: Xenk when he’s hot/badass or Xenk when he’s funny/literal/overly serious

[kelmcdonald]

"allegedly."

comic about wyll and the justice trial in the wyrmway! he's trying so hard. it's a trial about appropriately punishing a thief and i accidentally stacked the party with the three worst stealers (with esper being the absolute fucking worst of them, they literally ransacked the flaming fist armoury on the way here). frankly, stealing is the least of the crimes of the dubiously-redeemed torture enthusiast brigade over here, and it's definitely not the only reason they're evading justice, but it is the funniest one to receive a terrible death sentence for from the team's resident magistrate.

also i wanted an excuse to draw wyll's beautiful face. i think i finally got his horns down!!!

[kelmcdonald]

[kelmcdonald]

𝕯𝖎𝖘𝖓𝖊𝖞 𝖛𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖓𝖘 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖕𝖙 𝖆𝖗𝖙 ➔ 𝕱𝖎𝖓𝖆𝖑 𝖋𝖎𝖑𝖒 ⬧︎ [𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱 3]

[kelmcdonald]

Things cats were right about all along:

Fuck staying hydrated by drinking enough water - eat! more! wet! food! (watermelon, cucumbers, SOUP!)

Feels great to be really high up in your house where you can see the whole place (loft bed loft bed loft bed loft bed!)

Express yourself as clearly as possible when people are touching you and you don't want them to.

Optional, but you can also express yourself clearly when your people are not touching you and you want them to.

Sometimes it's important to just go "hmm. actually, I don't care" and wander off.

You don't have to be the strongest or toughest to defend yourself, it's enough to just be difficult enough to not be worth the trouble.

Ghosts will eventually leave if you stare at them for long enough.