#[also its my first (official) time panelling a comic so!]

[ask-jewels-against-the-sea]

In which Five Pebbles offers Survivor some much needed encouragement.

[thecomicsnexus]

TMNT: 40TH ANNIVERSARY COMICS CELEBRATION

July 2024

By Kevin Eastman, Edgar Alan Poe, Jim Lawson, Tristan Jones, Gary Carlson, Chris Allan, Erik Burnham, Lloyd Goldfine, Ciro Nieli, Andy Suriano, Tom Waltz, Ronda Pattison , Tom Napolitano, Steve Lavigne, Paul Harmon, Frank Fosco, Adam Guzowski, Sarah Myer, Luis Antonio Delgado, Shawn Lee, Khary Randolph, Emilio Lopez, Michael Dialynas, Pablo Tunica, Freddie E. Williams II, David Petersen, Ken Mitchroney, Aaron Hazouri, Dan Duncan, Sophie Campbell, Jodi Nishijima, Stan Sakai, and Emi Fujii.

Come and enjoy stories that will remind you of the 40 years of turtle history.

SCORE: 10 *

* Assuming you are familiar with these iterations.

This is a strange read, and curiously, there are three or four highlights for me, and they are not exactly the ones you would imagine.

Spoilers after the break...

The first story by Kevin Eastman is in the Mirage section of the book but... well... I'll leave at that... I wouldn't call it the Mirage we knew.

There is a story by Lawson and Lavigne with the Rat King that... it's fun. But, you know... I wouldn't even try to fit it in canon... the amount of continuity physics you need to bend to place this story is not worth the time. Just enjoy as a new story by these two iconic Mirage artists.

This other story by Tristan H. Jones and Paul Harmon requires more analysis. I'll revisit it on my gang wars video and try to give it more context... but unfortunately... it's just too vague. All I can say for sure is that it happens in the future of that incomplete saga, but the narrator just takes too many artistic choices to be taken at face value.

Also... I believe this is the first official (frontal) appearance of Agent Bishop (unless I got the character wrong, but Jones already tried to introduce him in this saga). I think he is still holding on to it, and I really hope he gets to tell his story. I wouldn't mind a mini-series... just saying!

The Volume 3 story was... not for me. The dialogue alone felt tired.

The Archie adventure was short, eventful, and funny... and it looks amazing too!

In just four pages a new character was introduced and... a new love story was implied! And it's not just a gratuitous cameo... this is a funny sequence.

The Saturday Morning Adventures (the de facto 87 story) looks amazing as usual, but I didn't find the story that interesting. However, it started a theme that would run across most of the stories in this special after this one: Master Splinter.

The 2003 story is a... loose canon?

Hun is Slash, and Shredder is back... so make of that what you want. All I'm going to say is that this felt a lot like watching the beginning of a 2003 episode, with the narration setting the tone.

The 2012 story was one of the least interesting in the previews, but I have to say... it was probably one of the best. It brought back a villain and it technically serves as an excuse to continue the series?

But to me the best thing about the story is the art. I am surprised Ciro Nieli didn't do more comic book work for the Turtles all these years. In fact, if they somehow decided to continue the 2012 universe in 2D in this style... I'm all in. Well, who am I kidding... I would be in anyway... but this looks amazing.

Andy Suriano did probably the most interesting story in the book. Now, I am not sure if his style doesn't translate well to static panels or what the problem is with the comic format... but it doesn't matter... this small story brought in a lot of things that ended on the editing floor after the show's second season was reduced to a few more episodes. There was a rumor about a female turtle, and not only it is here in all its glory, but there is also a brother?

And come on... it's so Lou Jitsu to die with a cliffhanger.

There are two IDW stories. One is another Splinter story, but the other one is perhaps one of the best in this book.

The Ronda Pattison story takes place just before the Armageddon game, and it shows the five turtles in full sibling dynamic (even Jennika). It was refreshing to see these turtles having fun for a change.

There are no stories by the new team, but... well... that's just starting.

[mintywolf]

A Long Road Home - Page 84

Page 84

I remember where I was and what I was doing on the night of the 2016 election; it was exactly the same thing that I was doing during this one — trying to work on the next week’s comic page through the overwhelming sense of dread tightening around my throat. I even know what page it was, because like this one it is now forever trauma-etched into my brain.

It was this one, from the beginning of a darkly appropriate plot arc in which the protagonists have been arrested and are awaiting an unfair trial by their corrupt government. I was inking that night and before I went to bed I posted the lineart that second panel on its own to my tumblr blog because that message, “I can��t promise it will be all right, because I honestly don’t know if it will. All we can do is wait, and be brave,” was all I had to offer.

So I’ll do what I did then and keep making this thing I’m creating out of love, week by week, in the hope that it’s bringing joy and hope and comfort to whoever needs it. I love you all. <3

Chronologically I think I meant for this to be some weeks after they moved into their cabin. Laudna has added some character to the place by sewing patches onto the blankets and painting the plain white dishware they bought at that general store. Imogen’s cup is blue with stars on it and Laudna’s is red with rat feet prints.

Also here it is, the first appearance of the nightgown described in Remember Us:

The sight of it makes Imogen smile slightly, remembering how much Laudna had loved that threadbare thing. After a lifetime of the itchy wool and scratchy linen of northern Exandria, she had been absolutely delighted by the easy availability of cotton fabrics in Marquet. In a general store they had found a bolt of soft cotton cambric used for making handkerchiefs and baby clothes, and she had been unable to stop running her hands over it, to the consternation of the proprietor. They had bought a few yards and she’d made a blouse for Imogen and a nightgown for herself. It’s frayed around the cuffs now from constant wear, the seams mended under the arms and one elbow patched, but it’s only gotten softer with time. She remembers keenly the feeling of it between their bodies in bed at night.

(You can even see the bolt of fabric back on page 80.)

I think her OG outfit is probably linen, judging by the slightly crinkly texture of it in her official level 3 artwork, and the fact that she came by it in Tal’Dorei in What Doesn’t Break. Cotton grows natively in the warm climates that inspired Marquet (the Middle East and, as of C3, the American South) so it’s probably what most of Imogen’s clothes are made of, but it has to be imported to northern Europe (so, Tal’Dorei) so a finely-woven cotton material like cambric especially would seem like a luxury to Laudna.

Her nightclothes and underthings are white in disregard of her ~aesthetic~ for the same reason that Lulu’s are in Guardian; dark or brightly-dyed undergarments weren’t really a thing historically (for practicality, since undyed fabrics were the easiest to wash and also it didn’t make sense to spend money on dye for something not meant to be seen, and the not-unfounded belief that the dye would be absorbed into the skin; before the invention of synthetic dyes a lot of them were toxic) with the exception of a time during the mid 19th century when red flannel undergarments were considered healthy. (Which I will probably talk about on a later page since matching red flannel pajamas are a point of interest in Come In From the Cold.) And she dresses like a 19th century lady so she would absolutely wear a nightgown that makes her look like a Victorian ghost.

[thebrookesnook]

Hmm, I'm surprisingly calmer this chapter (it's the stress i'm telling ya) and so much yapping to be done for EndoChika istg. I'm sorry for sidelining our savior Ume for the nth time, I'll make it up to you king i swear 😭🙏.

My thoughts on Chapter 152 of Wind Breaker so spoilers ahead!

First, the title ("Symbols") is so very fitting let me tell ya.

Secondly, idk why but Sakura being worried for Umemiya is so heart warming 🥹. My son, oh my, have you have grown so much 🥹😭🤧. I hope he gets to do the "babe this isnt you" that other people have said about in previous chapters, but like in the funniest way possible.

Thirdly, this panel of Ume is insane!! LIKE THE EYEE, THIS IS BOFURIN'S LEADER Y'ALL. BEAT HIM UP UME!!

Fourthly, Endo and Takiishi tattoo lore drop??? Not me thinking that tattoo on Endo's left deltoid m. was exclusively for himself then Takiishi takes of his jacket only to reveal the same tattoo as well!?

AND THEN PROCEEDS TO LORE DROP THAT HE DREW THE TATTOO HIMSELF??? Moreover, TAKIISHI AGREED?? these two make me sick (/affectionate)

(TAKIISHI LOOKS SO TINY HELP WHAT-)

AND OF COURSE HE TOOK GREAT CARE IN FINDING SMTHING THAT FITS TAKIISHI SO WELL.

I made a visual for comparison:

(Btw, the "kuzushi" is actually a JP martial arts term for unbalancing an opponent + there's a story behind the Kunikuzushi: to briefly sum it up, a military commander from the Sengoku Period by the name of Ōtomo Sōrin had obtained an ichibiya likely imported from Portuguese Goa, India and used it for battle in other countries hence its name Kunikuzushi.)

-

Man's so gay he literally made a soulmark tattoo for his boo. Even Sakura could see it.

Endo lowkey be fantasizing an period dramas in his head with Takiishi and I can respect that.

Him also being jealous of Umemiya that he's the center of Takiishi's thoughts is so hwkwkfksl. Ume would very much like to not be Takiishi's center of attention and can you please get your boyfriend back, please and thank you. This guy I swear, I'm embarrased for you and all your boy failure. Keep doing you hun.

Lastly, this chapter has made Endo more & more relatable and I don't know how I feel about that so I made memes about it:

He's part of the art community my guys. (Not surprising considering he is a prodigy).

Thank you again Nii-sensei for the chapter and to Jacqueline Fung for the official translation 🙏 Please go and support them via the official international release in Kodansha.

(P.S. I've decided to move my wbk content on a new blog specifically for wbk. That also means new chapter rants will be there to for the forseeable future. So if you wanna check that out, come visit me @transient-winds )

[puffyducks]

DCRC Week #2

What if I started putting silly thumbnail images on these posts what if that was a thing that I started to do

Anyways this week is PKNA #0.2 here we gooo- THIS POST IS REALLY LONG SO OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK

OK so I'm running a bit of an experiment this week - which is to say that in between this week and last week's reading I bought all the English copies of PKNA that exist (there's only 6) and I know the official translations took more creative liberties than the fan translations (which from what I understand are more direct) SO I'll be reading both a physical official English copy of this chapter AND pulling up the fan translation at the same time to compare and contrast noticeable differences in dialogue. Also that's why some of the photos will be screenshots and some will just be me taking actual photos of a comic book lol.

Right off the bat the official English has Scrooge calling Donald a muttonhead which I think is the superior insult here. Also he gets fancy red text in this panel

All of Uno's text is green as well, which is a fun touch! (It's subtle on camera just trust me on this one)

snoozer male confirmed 🛌

DARN TOOTIN!!!!! See, they had to capture the American audiences by making Donald sound as much like a cowboy as possible (it's working on me so far yeehaw 🤠)

First of all, rude. Second of all, is it his aunt or his mom you need to make up your mind buddy. THIRD of all, PK calling him "king ugly" is giving "Darkwing calls Taurus Bulba 'fatboy' in Darkly Dawns the Duck because he can't think of a better comeback." YEAH WELL YOUR MOM-

I THOUGHT HE JUST CALLED HIM A CUCK

Raider has this weird laugh going on that I think is supposed to make him sound like a rooster? Either way he needs to be stopped

OK AND I GUESS ANGUS FANGUS ALSO GETS HIS OWN LAUGH ON ACCOUNT OF BEING A KIWI??? WHAT IS HAPPENING 😭THIS ISN'T FUCKING ONE PIECE (also sorry for there being a glare on like all my photos the lighting in my room is really strong ok)

Dork Avenger.... he's never going to recover from this

she knows

NO FUCKIG WAY IS THAT A REFERENCE TO DARKWING DU- also that fuckass laugh again

The fan translation references Mouseton so I guess buy the official English copy if you prefer references to Darkwing Duck over Mickey Mouse

Ok so they're definitely NOT shooting him with tranquilizers but I appreciate the effort. Y'know despite the fact that the officer is still just holding a regular gun

This is also the ONLY coloring difference I've noticed so far, which is that the bullets are now yellow instead of blue. Is that supposed to mean they're tranquilizer bullets??? Is it somehow less violent if the bullets are yellow now??? What are they, banana flavored??? Idk

What?? Nooo... Lyla is a totally normal human woman. I mean duck.

Who the fuck is Lyla Lee

Ok I guess he's Red Raider now instead of just THE Raider

I'm living for the more ~flowery~ dialogue in the official copy. HOLY HONK!

CAPTAIN CLOWNSHOE!! YOU POMPOUS WHOMP!!!

The folds of spacetime say happy pride month 💖🏳️‍🌈

SWEET FUDGYJIGGERS!!!

YOU MEAN LIKE A TIMEPHOON?!?!?!?

oh my god what if the robots kissed

I don't know if I'm gonna do the comparison thing for the upcoming 4 issues cause this took me like 2 hours to make this post lol (also I hit the image limit and had to combine a bunch of them into one). The major difference between the dialogues I noticed is that the official dialogue is a lot more flamboyant with its language (and Donald says a lot more insults). They also snuck in a few more pop culture references.

This has been an epic Live Puffy Reaction hope you enjoyed. That's all I got.

[jccatstudios]

I have been following your soc comic adaptation and it just so good!!! I love how you draw them!

I have just one question: Why did you not include Inej's opening musings about Kaz on the first page? (Kaz Brekker didn't need a reason etc) I actually really like how there is not text on the first two pages, it's really atmospheric and moody so this really is not a criticism, I don't want to insult you. I guess I was just wondering what the thought process behind that was?

Oh, I've been wanting to talk about this for a while! Buckle up, this is gonna be one of my long comic rants. (Also, no offense taken at all! Anyone's welcome to question my artistic choices and I'm always happy to take critique, even though that isn't your intention.)

So, the thing is I actually planned on including that first paragraph into the comic! Here's when I first shared the thumbnails on here. Just for the sake of this post, I'll insert them here too.

The boxes are meant to be where excerpts of that introduction would go. When I was creating the thumbnails, I was thinking about how iconic these lines were and how well they introduce the world and characters. I even finished the pages with the intention to include those lines. This is from my original csp file.

When I lettered it all out, I felt like something wasn't right...? Hard to explain. I wanted silence for the opening and the narration took that away. I then thought about the reader who'd go into this without reading the novel first, wondering if they'd be thinking, Who's this Kaz Brekker guy? Is it this character on the page? It's clearer in the book, but I didn't think it paired well with what I drew. I didn't want any confusion. It's also Inej's chapter, and while Kaz's parts take up most of it, I still wanted it to feel like her POV and her story. We can hold off officially meeting Kaz until page four.

But the main reason I took it out comes down to my philosophy when it comes to comic adaptations. I believe that an adaptation should use the original story in the best way for the secondary medium. A comic adaptation should play to the strength of comics, not the original source material.

Time and time again, I see a lot of comic adaptations of books try to use a book's strength instead of a comic's. When that happens, you get pages upon pages of narration boxes and exposition that could've easily been told in a single panel's image. If you want to read excerpts from the original novel, go do that! They're beautiful and well-crafted and you should be reading the original anyway! If you're making a comic adaptation, make a comic, not an illustrated version of the novel (that's a whole field of its own).

This whole thing really ties well into what I'm doing for Chapter 3. Kaz is such an internal character, his chapters have a lot more exposition that isn't setting description or character actions. I've had to do a lot more of my own writing for this chapter than the last just to turn that exposition into his own voice as an internal monologue. Sometimes, it's just a change from "he" to "I," but there are other times I've had to write new dialogue and find ways to naturally flow between thoughts. If I didn't do the work to adapt the expository text and instead just put in narration boxes of text from the book, there would be a greater disconnect between the reader and Kaz. Third-person limited works great in books and doesn't separate the readers from the story, but in comics, first-person internal dialogue keeps the readers inside the scene better.

If I were to redo Chapter 2, I think I would try to find a way to incorporate the information from the chapter intro better. I think by losing the intro I initially planned to include, I didn't establish certain ideas very well. Ketterdam and Kerch are established later on pages 4 and 5, but I don't think I ever go back and mention The Barrel. Also, the idea that Kaz is deliberate, even if his reputation says otherwise, is important too. I've made sure to fix this kind of issue in Chapter 3 and keep record of what kind of information I'm losing as I adapt it.

[fraeuleintaka]

Investigations 2 Official Anthology Manga

This is the 75th post in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Countdown: 6 days left until release!

Today's topic: the Investigations 2 Official Anthology Manga!

After three entire volumes of anthology comics for Investigations 1 it's time to get to the anthology manga for Investigations 2! "Sadly", there's only one but that's about how many I would've expected for a single game so I'm not going to complain. This one was by far the hardest to get, as it's barely available anywhere even in used condition. But I got it! In regards to its content, it's very similar to the first two I1 volumes I talked about: several short stories of varying length, for this one most are several pages long, from different artists that aren't canon to the games. It's again a nice mixture of funny and serious scenes (most of them being funny, of course) and most interactions are in-character (apart from some exaggerations for humour) so could be taken as canon as far as they don't contradict anything (like the actual timeline of the case). It also has some nice coloured (and not coloured) artworks!

I only have one small criticism in comparison to the other anthologies and that is that while most of the stories are about our main trio getting up to shenanigans related to what happens in I2, like at its locations and with its case-specific characters, the new main characters (except Ray (Eddie)) feel a little neglected. Both Sebastian (Eustace) and Justine (Verity) only appear in about 1-2 stories each with a significant role. That's a little disappointing considering they're both such fantastic characters. The stories are still a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, I just would've liked a bit more involvement from these two. Anyway, on to a few of the highlights, my favourite (out of context) panels and pages:

A Tragedy in Three Acts

Kay has some fun with what Little Thief can "re-create"

Lotta and Nicole (Tabby) really want to get that interview with Miles

Gumshoe and Ray try to avoid Franziska's whip in... creative ways (they fail, Miles told them so)

Sebastian tries very hard to get involved in Miles' "case" (Awww~)

Justine's hammer strike is so powerful that it leaves an imprint in the floor! (And makes Miles' cravat fly in his face)

A team of Great Thieves! (Love the detail of Miles' "flying" in a much more elegant pose than the typical "superhero" one! And that he still has his cravat over his Yatagarasu scarf! Perfect team right there!)

[c0smiccom3t]

Dimension Dyfenders Mini-newsletter blog - OCTOBER EDITION!

Hello, everyone!! Welcome back to a new D.D newsletter blog post! This time, like ive said ever since a month ago, it's not a big one, but it's very exciting indeed! So, i guess you can call this a "mini"-newsletter post. Now without further ado... Let's hop 2 it!

BIG NEWS REGARDING POCKET ADVENTURES!!

You guys still remember pocket adventures, do you? If so, remember the part where i said its first minisode's script was half-way done? Well... THIS JUST IN! I'm happy to announce that the script is OFFICIALLY FINISHED! Now, all that I have left for minisode 1 at this rate is finishing up all of its pages! And speaking of pages, Here are some panels from the upcoming pages from the comic, possibly to be finished in April, and planned to be released in May 2025 (the series' anniversary month)!

And that's not all! A script for a minisode of pocket adventures also finished production a while ago. (It's not minisode 2.) But hey, i'm saving that for another time, anyway. It's way too soon, and summer has already passed, so... Maybe next time, waves will be easier to catch. Who knows?🌊🏄‍♂️🏖️

What's that you're saying?

"Comet, that's great and all that Pocket Adventures minisode 1 is coming along great! But what about Toonies?"

Ohhh Am I GLAD you asked!

Lucky for you all, I have more toonies comics planned right inside my noggin. So, once i can think up of any good ideas, they will be released for you all to enjoy! As for the new fans however... Since there are some people (esp on Bluesky) who are NUTS abt Indie animation and comics and all that and want to know about D.D's world, premise, cast, etc... I'm happy to announce that RE-INTRODUCTION COMICS ARE IN THE PLANS! they may not be in development, yet. But I can assure you, new fans who discover this series will get their cake! OH YEAH! I forgot to mention another thing... Sometimes in toonies and in the reintro comics, there will be chibi versions of the characters getting into shenanigans! Here's what one of our characters will look like as a chibi, courtesy of the y2k artstyle and Knockout himself.

Look at this, isn't he adorable?? Just think of what the other characters will look like! the possibilities are endless!

I dont know when those comics will be made and uploaded. But trust me, wether it's the re-intro comics, toonies or Pocket Adventures, you're sure in for a treat! Okay... I'm sure there isn't anything else i wanna say, is there...? Oh yeah! Almost forgot!

So... About the specials.

Yes, I mean the Halloween special AND the supposed to be 3rd anniversary special. As much as it pains me to say it, the latter is NO LONGER an anniversary special due to time constraints and IRL stuff getting in the way. Instead, it will be a regular special! (It's still a special though!) It will be rewritten to fit less into the anniversary type and instead it will be made about something thats the same (the gala) but just 30% different which i cannot say because i put an NDA on myself and i can't get it out because if i try to his highness will kill me.

As for the good news, I can say that there's another special in the back of my mind. Actually, its script has been in development for a while now! Just give it a few februarys and it'll happen. However, i'm not telling what it is, but I'm positive that it'll leave you... Love-struck.👑💕

Speaking of plans and whatnot, I'll have to reveal that there isn't gonna be much content in 2025 after m01, mostly because i'll be working on the minisodes and won't release them until theyre finished and because me and my mom have been thinking of moving back to italy next year once im done with art school. So, that means D.D might go on yet ANOTHER hiatus, unfortunately. HOWEVER, I have BIG plans for 2026! Plans that i can't go much into detail (once again NDA by myself). But i can definitely tell you all, that's its gonna be amazing! No, it's not animated (yet.) but it's def worth waiting for!

And for any "fansies" reading this. Trust me, he's NOT leaving anytime soon, and you know it!

As for other stuff before i close this off. There will be a thread on my bluesky about introducing you all to Dimension Dyfenders as a whole! (once i finish up with concept art + ref sheets and new renders im currently working on.) So, be sure to look out 4 it!

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING! I am so excited to show off what this series will get into next as yours truly tries to carry it on their back while its 2 team members are away as much as they can! And trust me, I'll be sure to NOT disappoint you all. And thats a promise.

once again, thank you for reading and thank you all for your support! I still will be on the lookout for any fanart i see about the series! Remember, stuff like that and criticism are very appreciated here!! Have a riftastic day/night!!

[running-with-toast]

Lettering sound effects in Shiori Experience

Hi! I’m Toast, the letterer on #dropout’s English translation of Shiori Experience. This series was my first time doing typesetting, and I’ve learned a lot over the two years I’ve been involved in the project. Each new chapter brings new challenges, and as our team has matured we’ve gotten more ambitious. We recently began translating the comic’s sound effects along with the dialogue, a decision which instantly doubled the size of our workload. 

Our most recent release, Chapter 64, was probably the most technically complex chapter we’ve done so far. The sound effects in this chapter were varied and complicated, presenting a number of interesting challenges. Today I thought it would be fun to give y’all a peek behind the curtain, and show the thought process and effort that goes into the adaptation of sound effects in Shiori Experience.

Shiori Experience is a music manga [citation needed], so it isn’t surprising that the sound effects can get pretty complicated. Music manga need to convey not just the sound, but more importantly the impact of a performance, conveying an auditory experience in a totally silent medium. Shiori Experience’s approach to this problem is to make the sound effects semi-diegetic objects. They hang in the air, burst out of crowds, get obscured by foreground objects, and cast shadows on their environment. This is a really cool effect, but also makes converting them from Japanese to English a fucking nightmare.

(Look at the shadows)

Shiori Experience is kind of a nightmare

In some ways, lettering for Shiori Experience isn’t actually that difficult. Sound effects in this series are goddamn everywhere and they’re fucking gigantic, but they’re always straightforward. Much like the art of the series, the sound effects are clean and angular, strong dynamic shapes which are easy to parse even if you can’t read the katakana. For a great example of this, look at this sequence from Chapter 64.

This sequence demonstrates what you can achieve with good lettering. The sound of the band is conveyed perfectly with these visuals. The clear and regular beat of the drums, the dark and energetic bass line, the screaming uncontrollable energy of the electric guitar. We didn’t even bother translating it. We didn’t need to.

But look at the sequence again. In spite of its apparent complexity, there’s only two fonts here, a dynamic block text and an angular brush. Those two fonts represent the vast majority of SFX in Shiori Experience. The rest is just text effects and perspective tricks.

So to convert these sound effects into English, we just have to find equivalent fonts. It took me a while to pin down a set of fonts I was happy with. For the pointy brush font I eventually settled on Jolly Lodger, a brush font with a sort of piratey vibe. I’m still not 100% satisfied with this conversion, it isn’t as pointy as the original, but it’s good enough for now.

And for the big block font I chose Boogaloo. It looks a little thin when it’s on its own like this, but it really bulks up with the right text effects.

Great! We’ve got our fonts! Doing the sound effects should be as simple as erasing the old text and replacing it with the new text, right? Wrong. The nightmare begins.

Different approaches

There are several schools of thought when it comes to lettering manga SFX. One is the "keikkaku means plan" approach. In a translator's note outside the panel, or in plain text near the SFX, describe what the sound is. This is incredibly easy. This is also lame.

(This is from the official release of Dungeon Meshi. I wouldn’t want to redraw this one either, but like, come on guys.)

Another school of thought is style matching. Similar to the translator’s note approach, but rather than plain text, the translation uses similar text effects to the original SFX. This works fine, but it can create a lot of visual clutter if implemented poorly.

(This is from Drifting Dragons. Please read Drifting Dragons.)

The last approach is full replacement. In this approach, the original SFX is (are you ready for this?) fully replaced by the new SFX.

SFX Redrawing

Replacing a sound effect isn’t as simple as just erasing it. We work with tankoban pages, scans of the Japanese volume release. These files are flattened, with the art and text all on one layer as a single image. We can’t just disable the text. In order to remove the original SFX, we have to redraw them.

(for context this is from when I had covid)

Redrawing means recreating the art hidden by the original SFX. This is a complex process, requiring a steady hand, sharp eyes, and  a lot of guesswork. Since we don’t know what precisely is underneath the original SFX, we have to use context to reconstruct it. The goal of any localization is to make the translation invisible to the reader. The same principle holds true in redrawing. The art we add needs to be invisible, meshing seamlessly with the original artwork.

(I made this dude up out of whole cloth. I’m honestly really proud of how he came out.)

#Dropout uses a mix of style matching and full replacement, with the choice between the two being determined by a number of factors. To illustrate that decision-making process, let’s break down the process of redrawing a page of Shiori Experience, specifically the spread across pages 172 and 173 from Chapter 64.

Deciding between Style Match and Full Replacement

This is the original untranslated page, and there’s a lot going on.

In the background of the first panel is the sound of the band, バアアアン, phonetically translated as "BA-A-A-A-N", localized as “BWAAAM”. In the foreground is the cheering of the crowd, ボオワアアア, "BO-O-WA-A-A-A" phonetically, “ROOAAR” localized. Lastly, along the side of panels 3 through 6 is applause, パチ, "PA-CHI", “CLAP”.

At a glance, this page is overwhelming. The cheering sound effect is huge, with custom text effects conveying the energy of the crowd. Worse is the clapping, which overlays multiple panels with dozens of unique partially obscured faces. This looks like a pain in the ass to redraw, but in the end I decided to do a full replacement instead of a simpler style match. With the number and size of the SFX combined with the visual density of the panels, doing a style match would result in a cluttered unreadable mess. Too much of the original artwork would be covered, and there just isn’t enough space. So, full replacement.

The redrawing process

As I’ve gained more experience, it’s been surprising to learn what constitutes a difficult redraw. You’d expect crowd shots to be the hardest, with lots of unique faces and little details, but they actually aren’t that bad IMO. More detail means more context means less guessing. Definitely a lot of work, but not difficult. Meanwhile, something like a gradient or screentone pattern which looks simple is actually a goddamn nightmare to recreate, as we'll see later.

That’s why I started my redraw for this page with the clapping. Again, this looks like it would be really hard, but looks can be deceiving. There’s a lot of clapping, yes, but the text is thin and spaced out. Whiting out the text reveals just how little artwork is actually hidden by the sound effects.

After whiting out the original text, the next step is connecting as many existing lines as I can. I do the panel and bubble borders on a separate layer since they’re simple structural elements. The artwork itself requires a bit more thought. I need to examine the original artwork carefully to avoid connecting lines that shouldn’t be connected. Context can also provide guidance where there are no lines to connect, such as the cheering guy’s hat in the first panel, or the clapping hand in the second panel. Also, when there’s lots of little SFX like this it’s easy to miss a few lines, like the box thing near the bottom of the last panel (don’t worry I catch it later).

The last step is adding in all the inking and screentones, the pattern templates which fill in the “color” to the line work. I have to go through with the clone stamp tool, collect samples from the image, and extend the pattern to fill the blank areas. This is the most annoying step in the process for me, because it requires a level of precision even beyond what’s required for the line work. Humans are pattern-recognition machines. Our brains are really good at catching tiny discrepancies, like when a section of a pattern doesn’t quite line up with the rest of it. My patch job on this panel wasn’t perfect, and you can see where I couldn’t quite line things up in areas like the guy’s checkered shirt in the first panel.

And with that, this redraw is complete! Now it’s time to insert the English translation of the sound effect.

SFX Lettering

The clapping SFX is in that same brush font I pointed out earlier, which we use JollyLodger for. There’s no real perspective things or text effects here, so mimicking the original isn’t difficult. Here’s the before and after.

This approach of fully redrawing the old SFX before inserting the new SFX only works in situations like this, where the text is small and there’s enough detail to reconstruct the image with a high level of confidence. As an SFX gets larger, like the roar of a crowd, the harder it gets to fully replace. This calls for a different approach.

Because of the size and complexity of this sound effect, I decided to do the lettering first. This is the block font I identified earlier, which is replaced by Boogaloo. I do some basic manipulation right away, applying a black outline and distorting the text to create the same perspective effect as the original. The SFX in this series are subtly three-dimensional, and the replacement text needs to be in the same orientation to sell the effect.

I’m also being careful with my placement here, doing my best to align the new text with the old. This will be important later.

Next we need to recreate the distortion effect. Photoshop has functionality to mimic this kind of effect, but I opted to do it manually. Osada (the mangaka) does all these layouts, SFX and all, on paper. The original effect was hand drawn, so the replacement effect is hand drawn.

The lettering for this effect is now complete, and we can begin the redraw process. Since we already have the letters in place, we have the advantage of knowing exactly where a redraw is needed, turning what would otherwise have been an enormous replacement into a minor patch job. From here, it’s the same process as the clapping SFX: Raw, Blank, Line, Fill.

Minor sidebar: translating Japanese sound effects presents an interesting and incredibly niche problem. The katakana symbol オ is translated phonetically as “o”. The problem with that is that when you’re replacing a オ with an O in a sound effect, the hole of the O is positions right on the center of the オ. This makes オ really annoying to redraw. Every O turns into a little window of totally new art, with barely any reference points to draw from. It violates the principle of invisibility, but there’s really no way around it. You can see I got a little lazy here, and clonestamped a different section of the crowd into the hole. As long as I don’t draw attention to it nobody will notice. I hope.

Sidebar over. Just for fun, here’s the before and after for the whole page.

Closing thoughts

So that’s what it takes to do the sound effects for one page of Shiori Experience. This page alone took me multiple days to complete, and it wasn’t even the most complicated page in this chapter. It isn’t why our releases take so long (that can be laid at the feet of staffing and scheduling issues), but hopefully I’ve given you a sense of how much work goes into each new chapter.

This chapter would have taken even longer without the help of Adi and Bangistus, who pitched in on a lot of the smaller SFX. Up until now the lettering of this series has been a solo show, Toast all the way down. Now that Adi and Bang are on the team I’m still keeping most of the big pages for myself, but being able to toss to the others when I get overwhelmed is going to be invaluable. Hopefully I can rely on them in the future as well, there’s some big things coming down the pipe

This series is a labor of love. Sometimes frustrating, often exhausting, but always worth it. I owe this series a lot, and I hope it shows in the work I put into it. I think it would be fun to do more behind the scenes process content like this, so maybe keep an eye out for that in the future.

Lastly, just as a status update, #dropout is not dropping Shiori Experience.  We have a temporary translator who’s helping us put together Chapter 65, which will be coming out Eventually™. Not as long as last time, but like always don’t hold your breath. We’re not sure what will happen after 65 drops. We’re still desperately hiring for a main translator, seriously if you know anybody please hit me up.

That’s all from me. Take care y’all.

[genericpuff]

lmao so RS just confirmed she STILL does not, in fact, have a buffer.

FAST PASS SPOILERS AHEAD

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To kick this off, let's be real, 2 weeks is NOT enough time to build up a reasonable buffer.

When she took that 2 week break after the wedding episode went up, I knew 1 of 2 things was going to happen:

She was going to piss away the entire break on social media not getting anything done

Even if she DID get anything done and a reasonable buffer of more than 3-5 episodes built up, the episodes likely wouldn't be very high quality as you can't turn out shitloads of decent quality panels like that in just 2 weeks.

I think Rachel really just needs to acknowledge and take ownership of the fact that she is not good at managing herself, her time, or her team. When she started LO in the Originals section, she even admitted to not having a very strong buffer.

Now yes, in her defense, she hadn't fully transitioned to drawing LO full time when she started, but even still, she seems to treat her FastPass episodes as her buffer rather than creating an actual buffer.

A buffer is not "well I still have 3 episodes locked to the general public" or "I have the next couple episodes sketched up".

A proper buffer is "I have the next several episodes finished and exported and ready for their respective release dates." This ensures that they aren't racing to meet deadlines during the release period after pre-production (which is a surefire way to screw yourself over or write yourself into a corner) and that if anything happens in real life that prevents them from working on future episodes, they can still put out new episodes because they have a cushion of episodes still waiting to be released. Webtoons typically recommends its creators have anywhere from 9-15 episodes of buffer ready by the end of the pre-production phase. That usually means 3 free episodes, 3 FastPass episodes, and at minimum, 9 more episodes sitting on the backend, adding up to a minimum of 15 episodes. It sounds like a lot, but when many WT series run for 40+ episodes per season, 15 is a small number. Especially for a comic like LO which had 90 episodes in its S2 run and 116 in its first season. S3 of LO is already 37 episodes in.

She's also basically admitted to just writing as she goes in the past because most people working on their webtoons in productions like these have at least a decent skeleton of a story going on that they don't have to write as they draw. Writer's block doesn't happen in webcomics unless you're writing as you're going, same as how it doesn't typically happen in animated movies because you should already have a basis to work off of before you start the brunt of the visual work that needs a narrative structure to exist.

Now, all that aside, the reason I'm bringing this up again (as I've talked about her buffer range before) is because I've once again been proven that Rachel doesn't have a shred of a real buffer.

And the smoking gun this time was the horse.

This stupid fucking horse.

Now, besides the fact that we're a little sus this is meant to be an in-comic jab at all the criticism of LO pointing out how Persephone always looks like an MLP character-

-but that pony toy drawing didn't make its first appearance in Episode 241, it made its first appearance on Instagram. Not as a preview for episode 241 or as an official LO drawing, in her own words, 'just a pony'.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rachel Smythe (@usedbandaid)

As always, this is still just an estimation based on what goes out in LO and what Rachel posts to her IG/Twitter, but this pretty much tells me her buffer is STILL only 1-2 weeks ahead of time, because that pony drawing time lapse was posted two weeks ago. When we checked the actual timestamp of the post the day the episode it showed up in went up (Episode 241) it was ten days old.

Not to mention, the timestamps on those reddit posts? A month old. Granted, we had been making MLP jokes in the ULO/antiLO community prior to that, but the fact that this "my pretty pony" gimmick came out so soon after someone did literal art of Persephone crossed over with MLP, it really just furthers the suspicion (in addition to shitloads of other instances) that Rachel is snooping in on these crit communities to try and "clap back" at them through her comic. Which is something she'd only be able to do with a limited buffer anyways as it allows her to change things on the fly in response to criticism or whatever hurt her feelings that week.

That said, I won't be certain of this 1-2 week buffer estimation until we see when cowboy hat Hades shows up.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rachel Smythe (@usedbandaid)

I'm calling it now - it will be showing up in this week's episode which goes up April 22nd.

Place your bets, folks.

[ccrisntok]

"hey guys I'm working on an 'Acevi' comic I might post it soon" they say, knowing damn good and well they were working on a Whace comic at same time and will finish it faster.

... so guys guess what (cut bc I talk a ton )

This isn't super serious! Or in character! About half way through I kinda went "Oh wait this is Whace. This is inherently goofy" and made it goofy. This takes place somewhere before the killing game, but Ace has his cooler hair bc I said so.

Anyway without further delay: here you go

woa look at all those drawings (some done months ago). This looks like a M.A.P (multi animator project not the illegal kind) with how much my artstyle shifts around

Bouns sketch panels I thought were funny

Sadly didn't keep the bite :// also it was all way more high energy in the sketch phase. "why do you live me" and "you're weird but in a funny" are iconic

Also the 1st (and only good) background on it's own bc I found it nice looking

Idk why they have lockers in college.

Was thinking about waiting to release this bc I felt kinda shitty for teasing the. Kinda Acevi thing first. But whatever, I worked (kinda) hard, and I want people to see it.

The background audio is this piano cover of Creep by Radio Head

I elect to make Creep the official Whace song bc its so them fr. /... hj

[luzlopesarts]

This is not an update to the Comic, but it still has something to do with it !!!

(call it a little gift for the Wish Rewrite and KoW fandom)

Hello my little stars! How are you?

I mentioned in the last post in the series that I would be traveling for a week or two and that's why I wouldn't be working. Well I'm still traveling Lmao.

It's been a lot of fun, I'm visiting my Prince Charming and family, both of whom I haven't been to in a long time. Still, I couldn't stop thinking about KoW and Wish's Concept Arts. Disney sealed the fate of its fan artists by discarding so much good material, now they are embedded in our minds and we will not be able to rest until we see them realized. This is crazy but it's beautiful to see how much these discarded concepts generated creative potential in the fandom.

Because of all this I couldn't help but make some small sketches! And well, I came to show them here. They are not sketches of Comic panels, but they have something to do with it and I will show the photos and explain how.

This first one, very faded, are Magnificent and Amable's clothes (designed by @uva124, for the characters in @annymation's rewrite of Wish "The Kingdom of Wishes"). The drawings that Aled did are very complex, I don't judge her for that, in fact I thank her, she gave beautiful clothes to the centuries-old Disney villains and they are perfect. I really wish I could draw them with all the details, but I will do everything by hand, alone and seeking a minimally professional quality (I want to be a comic artist/book illustrator one day. This comic is my first step Lmao, and I want to do something that conveys the best I can give at the moment), so I need to make some things easier for myself. The costumes are one of those things.

" Better something simple and well done than complex and poorly done." — This is my motto for this Comic and for my life.

The next sketches are related to aesthetics. I've been watching a lot of "Analyzing the Art" videos of some Disney films and I was inspired to adopt some "Disney Style" features in my arts for this comic (not everything obviously, because I don't want to be sued by Disney lmao).

What you'll see next is me trying to mix this influence with my own style in some KoW character sketches.

(this last art specifically references a meme in which @rascalentertainments tagged me, Thanks for that, by the way! <3 )

(credits to the artist, I don't know who it is because I was just tagged in this meme and I was busy So I didn't look for more information, but I'll leave the post link and you can check the official credits)

Speaking of aesthetics. Anny received Chiara's aesthetic from someone — the north star, "daughter of Aster", created by his magic at the very end of Anny's fanfic. This Aesthetic inspired me to create an aesthetic for Asha and Aster too and these were the results:

What's your favorite?

Lmao, It took a lot of work to make Aster's. There are almost no things for "starboys" on Pinterest.

I'm leaving this up to you to share as you wish, consider it a gift to the fandom!

Lastly, I want to say that the artistic analysis videos They also inspired me to put together a moodboard for KoW and I'll be leaving it here. Not even Anny and Aled know about this and I can't wait to see their reactions! I wish I could print this painting and leave it on the wall, but unfortunately I don't have a printer T-T.

This moodboard is helping me with the artistic direction of colors, style and is a visual motivation to stay active at work.

I hope you like it too!

That's it for today, it's already midnight in Brazil and I should be sleeping instead of posting crazy things on the internet. I'm going to tag my friends and go to sleep, Lmao.

Kisses full of light and stars!

~ Emy

@wings-of-sapphire @flicklikesstuff @frogcoven88 @chillwildwave @gracebethartacc @gracebethartacc @kstarsarts @oh-shtars Come and get your therapies after the anguish caused by certain publications by Anny!

[elfen-alcibiade]

Hi Alcibiade! 💖 Thank you so much for your kind reply about the Touhou and Danganronpa crossover! I wasn't sure if I should reblog it again, but it got too long, so I'd like to post the answer to it as a new ask.

First of all, I really like the details of the Reimu you finished! You mentioned my draft looks clean, but I’d like to make some overall adjustments when I have more time, as I’d love to match the art style a bit more with yours.

Also, I'm glad you liked Ran's comments! (��´ ˘ `)♡ Unlike Mamizou and Aya, Ran wasn't a character I originally intended to feature in the story. After seeing your Reimu, I got the idea to make it a Chinchirorin game scene, and then added the idea that it would be fun to have Ran talk about probability. The reason I chose Ran is because she does calculations for various things and is great at math. While the probabilities indicate that getting Pinzoro is extremely rare, I intentionally had her insist that it wasn’t that rare, because I thought that kind of bold attitude felt very fitting for Touhou girls.

By the way, I love how the characters in Touhou come up with strange calculations for some reason.😄 For example, Alice says, “Your power is only twenty-eight-point-five-seven-one-four percent as powerful as mine.” when she meets Reimu in TH7, and even Eirin, who is supposed to be incredibly smart, says, “All the scarlet history that you've built up---Divided by my history, the result is zero.” when she meets Remilia in TH8. I find it hilarious how Touhou girls use mysterious methods of calculation and then confidently declare, “I’m stronger than you.” lol So I am glad I was able to come up with the idea of having Ran explain probability. (It is really thanks to you!)

---

it could be funny to find a way to bring bad luck to Nagito after this victory!

OMG, this is a great idea! 🤩 I see no reason not to draw this scene. In my mind, I imagine more characters will be at this banquet than what I’ve drawn so far, especially the Three Fairies (Sunny Milk, Luna Child, and Star Sapphire), who I assume will definitely be there. So, I came up with two ideas:

In the official manga, the Three Fairies have pranked Reimu several times by planting bombs at the Hakurei Shrine (most of those cruel pranks are done by Star Sapphire 😅). So this time, they plant a bomb at the banquet, and Nagito accidentally detonates it or gets caught in the explosion.

Marisa plans to set off a big firework at the end of the banquet, and the firepower is so strong that it goes off, and both Nagito and Hajime get caught in it. Actually, an item called “Four-Foot Magic Bomb” appears in TH14.3. It’s depicted with a big white ribbon and a star, also the name “Magic Bomb” suggests that Marisa probably made it. It looks like a firework in both its icon and appearance in the game, so I suspect it’s a firework with too much firepower made by Marisa.

I think getting caught in a firework might be cuter than a normal bomb, so it might be better. Anyway, if bad luck happens, I hope something explodes. Why? Because it’s Nagito. lol (Well, he’s more like the person who causes explosions anyway).

It’s probably too early to talk about another story before we’ve finished anything completely, but since you said the draft I sent you was already clean enough, I’d like to keep it roughly as it is and just make a few adjustments, add details, and color it. After that, we can work on something similar. (I imagine we could send what we come up with, even in parts, and create a few short comics.)

Of course, there’s no deadline, and as you know, I have many parallel projects in progress, so it’s totally fine if it takes you a while to reply—or if you don’t reply at all! (Even if you did not respond to this request at the time, I will post it with a mention of you when I finish the comic 😃).

Thank you for everything! Have a wonderful day!🫶💕

Hi Asaka!

If you want to, I can also redraw my Reimu to match your panels more ^-^ And I agree that Ran's bold attitude is very fitting! I love those comments 🥰I don't know those characters as well as you do, but when you explain it, I'm always impressed to see that what you do is always really on-point. But I think that my favorite strange calculation is Eirin's. What does that even mean? 😭 The attitude of touhou girls is something that I love about these games. I have a lot of fun when I play them, and I like to see the characters having fun too >v<

I'm glad to see that you liked my idea! I love both of the ideas you wrote, and I totally believe that something should explode because of Nagito 😅😂 but when I saw your ideas something came up to my mind: why can't we mix the two of them?

I know that it can appear as a weird idea, and we can only keep the firework one if you want, but I imagined that Nagito and Hajime would discover the evil plan of the three fairies who planted a bomb at the banquet. Together, they would try to stop it and get in a fight with the fairies. And in secret, Marisa planned to set off her big firework to surprise everybody, but during their fight, Nagito and the fairies activate it and they all get caught in an explosion while still trying to prevent another one 😭 I made a draft about it for you to see what I imagined, but I can still redraw it, change the ratio of the picture or anything if needed!

And of course, if you want me to do anything for the other comic, please don't hesitate to ask me about it! I really love what you came up with, though!! 🥰🌟Thank you for these super cool ideas for Nagito's bad luck, it's always really fun to share things like that with you, what you think of is always wonderful! I'm sorry that I took so much time to respond though, I was completely into my own manga, and I couldn't get to work on anything else 😭💕but I'm glad to be able to work on other stuff now, because I loved reading your ask when I received it! 💕🥰

Thank you very much for all this, and have a wonderful day 💕🫶

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 3

Propaganda Under Cut

Stephanie Brown

Literally my best friend ever!!! Every time she shows up in a comic I point at her and smile!!! She’s the vigilante known as spoiler & batgirl & was a robin before getting fridged because of editorial mandate and misogyny she deserves so much better @_@. The m/m that some people hate her for is timkon; like they ARE very gay but people are genuinely insane about hating her instead of also realizing that she too is gay (insane amount of subtext w her bff cass). Basically she was Tim’s girlfriend for a long time on and off. People will literally call her abusive for no reason they’ll be like oh but she didn’t apologize for starting a gang war accidentally and faced no consequences for it :/ as if she wasn’t literally KILLED OFF BRUTALLY. And although hate is rarer for her nowadays from what I’ve seen she’s also a victim of Background Lesbian Syndrome. And also a victim of Woman Not Allowed To Have Ocmplex Feelings in the source material itself (tim is canonically bi now yay but like steph wasn’t allowed to have any complicated feelings at all at her on again off again ex breaking up with her for good???). Anyways she’s the light of my life.

she’s the light of my life my baby girl my everything. she canonically dated tim drake, but people love to ship tim with his male friend kon or his male brothers (🤢🤮) and so they constantly sideline her, making her the quirky wingwoman or sometimes even villainizing her by trying to claim she was abusive to tim. i don’t know why so many people hate her my girl will literally just be standing there and people will hate on her.

Stephanie was first introduced in the 1994 Robin series as a side love interest for Robin, but when she turned out to be really popular she became the main love interest. Because of this, she was fully fleshed out as a vigilante calling herself Spoiler to try and take down her villainous father, the Cluemaster. She later grew a lot closer to other cast members, such as Batgirl and Oracle, to get herself a firmly established place among the bats. Then, she dies in a gang war after taking up the Robin mantle. Eventually, in 2009, she was brought back from the dead and took on the Batgirl mantle. Her and Robin get back together sometime around ~2010 and they are solidly together until 2021. Then, Robin breaks up with her off panel for zero reason in canon, only to date some really boring guy named Bernard. By fanon, she's often demonized and turned into an abuser to make either this ship, or a lot of other mlm ships happen. Either that or things are mysteriously set in the time she's dead despite characters who were not yet introduced until she returned appearing. strange.

Amy Rose

WAUGH okay so basically like everyone villainizes her when shipping Sonic with any other character (and 99% of the time its Amy being villainized against a m/m ship ://) but yeah Amy canonically has a "crush" on Sonic and stuff (which is weird in its self cuz age gaps and things but creators smh) and anyways any time people write Sonic in a relationship with other characters they always make her super upset and mad that Sonic isn't dating her etc etc and basically make her a pouting 12 year old because her super hero crush doesn't date her instead of writing her as a supportive best friend to sonic WHICH SHE SHOULD BE WRITTEN AS !!!! and uh yeah if you couldn't tell this makes me so upset because amy is such a good character people should stop ruining her

Even outside of yaoi, she is the most hated character in the FRANCHISE. THERE ARE ENTIRE WEBSITES DEDICATED TO HATING ON HER. HER MERE EXISTANCE CREATES SHIP WARS. IT IS HELL. EVEN THE OFFICIAL TWITTER ACCOUNT AND THE ARCHIE COMICS HATED ON HER IN THE PAST.

Not only is she a incredibly serious victim of yaoi, she is bashed in every fic where Sonic is paired with someone other than her. And when she is paired with someone other that Sonic, Sonic is bashed. And when she is paired with Sonic, other characters commonly paired with Sonic are bashed. It is a chain reaction of madness. Even outside of shipping, she is one of the most hated characters in the fandom. She was flanderized to ridiculous amounts. Even the official Sonic twitter used to mock her. Even official gaming news sites mock her, with a particularly horrible case being when TheGamer outright said Sonic being paired with TAILS is better than Sonic being paired with Amy. The amount of hate this character has attracted is incredibly large. There are entire websites dedicated to hating her.

[fanonical]

I feel this is a good time to disclose that I don’t know what homestuck is so that you can induct me and also talk about it at length so that others may be similarly inducted.

Thank you in advance/you’re welcome xox

hahaha i actually do this a lot, i should probably find one of my “how to read/understand Homestuck” posts and bring it back to reblog every time somebody asks about it

Homestuck is an interactive webcomic & experimental hypertext, told mostly through epistolary chatlogs. In short, this means that Homestuck is told mostly through images and text (like most comics) but that sometimes — even often — the panels are have sound effects, music, playable sequences etc. facilitated through Shockwave Flash (the same now-retired software that used to let you play browser games during class if you’re the same generation as me :P). Also, as mentioned, most of the dialogue is delivered through chat logs between internet friends, and they’re incredibly faithfully written — Homestuck is the comic for internet friends to read together.

I just spent a long time talking about what Homestuck IS but not what it’s about — this is because as a whopping 8,000-page epic told using over a million words Homestuck is actually about a lot of things and its genre, setting, and even main characters shift quite drastically throughout the comic. Also, because Homestuck is a meta-narrative, its story is often about itself, which gets a little tricky to understand & explain; one of the big conflicts of Homestuck is the concept of retaining fictional relevancy (some characters even know when they are and aren’t the main character, and it vexes them, for example).

Overall, the first “main plot” you’re going to contend with is the adventure of four teenaged internet friends playing a special videogame together and discovering their destinies to embark on a quest to save all of reality.

TIPS:

1. Don’t let the 8,000 pages, 1 million words thing get to you. It breezes by a lot faster than you’d think when you get into it. Plus, single-panel-pages & long playwright style dialogs inflate how big it looks a lot; a lot those one million words are probably the narrative stating a character’s name to show they’re talking.

2. Read the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. There is an official Homestuck website; as of February 2024 it’s still considered pretty broken & the Unofficial Collection is considered unbeatable. It’s even author approved.

3. A lot of people give up because they don’t “get it” and they think they’re missing something. They aren’t, it’s just a little obtuse and doesn’t explain everything in a clear way intentionally sometimes. The comic will trick you, lie to you, tell you things intentionally out of order, make up meta bullshit a joke, intentionally draw stuff badly, etc etc. It’s a trial through fire. You can overcome it, and if you do, Homestuck is for you & it has a bounty of creative spoils for you.

4. People also give up assuming it isn’t queer because characters don’t immediately say “oh wow im gay” in the first thirty seconds. Well, these characters are realistically portrayed teenagers. You’re gonna have to wait, and that’s what makes it so good.

Good luck. You’re gonna need it.

[maggie0li]

Antithesis Six - Prologue.

This is actually a pretty old comic I started doing, but I decided to revamp it. Here is Chapter 0 of the new one! Now, Tumblr tends to ruin comics' quality so I've split it up into panels, but if you want to read it in page format you can view it on deviantart. This is also the big reason why I haven't been posting art recently :'D

This comic was based off of initial concepts of Season 9's premiere, hence the idea of the "Elements of Disharmony", which were originally going to be a major part in Season 9... this was scrapped.(Along with many other ideas, such as the "Alicorn Homeland" of fanon becoming official canon, and Celestia & Luna retiring there, and other stuff too. It's actually an interesting read, and you can read about it yourself by looking through the Season 9 leaks)

Antithesis Six was about taking elements from these initial ideas and working it into an entirely new story. It was also because I hated how they ruined King Sombra (that was my main motivation. let me tell you, nothing ruined the King Sombra fandom like Season 9). Personally, I have never liked the idea of the 'Elements of Disharmony', but Antithesis Six is more than what I personally wanted, it was about giving the series a proper ending befitting its message in a way that would be more satisfactory for fans. And salvaging King Sombra. Mostly that.

Thank you for reading! Chapter 1 is about ~60% finished, and I'll be releasing it in two parts. Let me know how you guys feel about this so far, i'd love to get your feedback + questions.

The prologue scene actually wasn't in my first edition of antithesis six but i felt that zecora and luna are both pretty overlooked in canon so decided they would a) be the best characters in terms of context in this scene and b) get a good opportunity to shine here. I dont think we ever got to see these two interact at all in canon but i felt like they would probably have some connection. so boom! Zecora Luna best friends!! if i have time later maybe i can explore this relationship more. or in a future comic???

(btw please compliment me on that tree illustration in the panel where luna sighs. i Literally Copied it from a screenshot in the show but it took me ages please Enjoy It)