#(as i generally try to do with all these comics excerpts)

[cantsayidont]

December 1986. In the wake of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, John Byrne plainly expresses the ugly nativist foundations of Superman's new post-Crisis origin. Contemplating the history and culture of Krypton, which he's just received as a massive telepathic info-dump from a hologram of Jor-El, Superman unequivocally rejects as "ultimately meaningless" every single aspect of his Kryptonian heritage, from language to art to religion. Moreover, he expressly denies that he himself is an immigrant. This is not simply semantic; in Byrne's version, the starship that carries Kal-El to Earth is a "birthing matrix" — an in vitro womb in which Kryptonian embryos are grown — so he's not technically born until he lands on Earth and is decanted by his human parents on American soil:

This is actually Byrne's kindest take on the post-Crisis Krypton in this period: His horrifying 1988 WORLD OF KRYPTON miniseries, drawn by Mike Mignola, presents Jor-El's world as a fallen, postapocalyptic society, ruined, both environmentally and morally, by the degeneracy (a word I use advisedly) of Krypton's last Golden Age. Only Jor-El is presented as having any moral worth, and only because of his interest in the traditions and history of Krypton before the fall, which his father and peers (including Lara) consider distasteful. This questioning of modern Kryptonian culture ultimately gives Jor-El the wherewithal to save his (unborn) son from Krypton, both from its actual destruction and from its soulless corruption of natural human values. Yikes!

It's also worth recalling the status quo that MAN OF STEEL erased. Since 1958, Superman had been part of a diaspora of Kryptonian survivors: Besides himself and Krypto (with whom Byrne later dispensed very harshly), there were the millions of inhabitants of the Bottle City of Kandor, stolen by Brainiac before the destruction of Krypton and later enlarged on the distant planet Rokyn; Supergirl, born on Argo City after Krypton's destruction; the prisoners in the Phantom Zone; the Kryptonian bully Dev-Em and his parents (who later traveled to the 30th Century); and Supergirl's Kryptonian parents (who survived the destruction of Argo City and later settled in Kandor). In his Fortress of Solitude, Superman kept a private journal in Kryptonese. His intimates often referred to him as "Kal," not Clark. He observed, to at least some degree, certain Kryptonian customs, and in moments of stress, he would invoke the name of the Kryptonian god ("Great Rao!"). He was, like many members of real-world diasporas, a man of two worlds — neither wholly of Krypton nor entirely of Earth, but part of both, and an interstellar hero.

The Byrne/Wolfman reboot erased almost every facet of that, and very deliberately. Part of this, of course, was a desire to shake things up for commercial reasons, while part was DC's editorial conviction (mistaken, I think) that allowing any Kryptonian survivors other than Superman himself weakened and undermined Superman as a character. However, as the pages above make clear, it was also a desire to slam the door on the idea of Superman as an immigrant — and, by extension, on the Jewish coding that had been a central feature of the Superman comics mythos for nearly 30 years.

[zorthania]

A piece about survivors guilt.

This comic isn't perfect. I started it back in October 2023, and every time I picked up my pen, I wept.

I bring this to you today, on 9/11, in hopes that you reflect on this day a little differently than how most Americans would. Let it move you to continue to boycott, protest and challenge your family, friends and colleagues. You have a bigger impact than you would believe.

Thank you for reading this with an open heart.

From the river to the sea...

I'd like to bring to attention the fact that the figures depicted above are a gross undercount of the actual number of deaths. I scoured the internet high and low to source my findings and not a single one could break down the devastation that befell an individual ethnicity. Instead, they lumped a bunch of ethnicities together, provided a general timeline, and called it a day, reinforcing the sheer scale of dehumanization propagated in the west. The only consistency between all the articles I looked up was the 4.5 to 4.7 million figure I've included above, and even then, they were all published by western media news outlets... the very same that have been so unreliable and complicit in the genocide of Palestinians today. So I have to take everything they say with a grain of salt.

We are not just numbers.

All of us have ambitions and desires and lives worth living.

With that said, this is your friendly reminder to:

Donate an e-sim

Donate to PCRF to provide Palestinian children aid

Donate to Pious Projects to provide woman with feminine hygiene kits

Donate to CareForGaza to provide food to displaced families in Gaza either through their Gofundme or their paypal

Donate to any of the vetted gofundme campaigns on GazaFunds to help Palestinians trying to flee Gaza.

And if you or someone you know sees or experiences a hate crime and can afford it, SUE. This is a more effective use of your money than most realise. The reason zionists act with impunity is because of the normalization of white supremacy and oppression of ethnic minorities. Challenging that in any capacity tells them that there are consequences to their actions and makes them think twice before engaging in hate crimes and helps raise all of us up against the systems currently in place that let them get away with it.

If you can't donate or spend any money, you can:

Do your daily clicks.

Boycott targeted companies on the BDS list (if you're like me and you don't want a single dollar to go towards anything supporting Israel right now, you can use Bdnaash to double check what products are okay to buy, but the BDS list is sufficient as it is a strategic attack and proven very effective thus far)

Flood your representatives emails and voicemails with how you won't be voting for them unless their politics align with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Attend a protest, be LOUD.

Challenge your circle of friends, family and colleagues with conversations about Palestine. (THIS IS THE MOST UNDERRATED AND MOST EFFECTIVE THING YOU CAN DO)

and if you're really up to, be disruptive in any capacity that you can think of towards major corporations benefiting from this onslaught. (i.e. halting military manufacturers from production + shipments, sticking boycott stickers on products at your market etc)

And finally, if your country wasn't mentioned in the above excerpt, it was no deliberate omission on my part and I encourage you to come forward and tell your story about the suffering of your people so that this may be a learning opportunity for everyone.

You are seen.

You are not alone.

Thank you again if you've read this far.

From the river to the sea...

[genericpuff]

no stop this article is too funny

this is from 2020 and while it talks about webtoons in general as a platform and medium, there's an excerpt from Rachel that's ironically and hilariously telling on herself when it comes to her priorities as a creator and how her work has aged incredibly poorly in the past 4 years:

She may as well just be saying, "I like Webtoon because they don't have any quality control" and "the trad publishing market had standards that I couldn't live up to, so instead of actually trying to live up to them, I went with a platform that has zero standards and was willing to make me into the standard regardless of my own qualifications and lack thereof."

Like y'all, take this as advice from someone who's had their fair share of rejection letters... the print industry dumping your unsolicited portfolio in the bin isn't gatekeeping, it's the nature of the business. The way Rachel describes it here - albeit I'm sure it's simplified for the sake of being an interview answer, but still - makes it sound like she was just expecting to walk right into the trad publishing market without an agent, without a completed manuscript or pitch, without any professional representation, and just slam her portfolio of mid-2000's art on the desk expecting them to hire her on the spot.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of barriers that prevent people from getting into the trad market, hurdles that can often be outright unfair (lacking the funds, lacking the connections, etc.) but... there's also a reason many of those barriers are there in practice.

First of all, fun fact: the reason why many publishers don't take unsolicited manuscripts isn't just to help them filter out the spam and low-effort submissions and prevent an overload of submissions (because if they took submissions from anyone and everyone, the overviewing system would break entirely), but it's also for legal purposes so that they don't get sued. Because if Joe Chucklefuck sends in an unsolicited manuscript that just so happens to include a plot point about the multiverse, and then a new book series or movie comes out that is about the multiverse, Joe Chucklefuck might get the sense they're being stolen from and attempt to sue them for plagiarism. This is why it's stressed so much by publishers that any unsolicited manuscripts will not just go unread, but will be thrown straight into the bin.

But second, many publishers simply don't want to take the financial risks on random start-up creators whose only experience is running their own personal projects on Tumblr, much less personal projects like Rachel's, half of which are fetish-content and all of which are unfinished. Of course they weren't gonna take Rachel seriously back then, she hadn't done anything to build up her presence in the industry.

In that sense, yes, self-publishing or pursuing a platform gig like Webtoons probably was Rachel's next best option which would be perfectly acceptable on its own, but it's just so, so telling that she thinks it's a "perk" for Webtoons to lack so much in the way of quality control, and we would ironically see the glaring evidence of that "perk" 3-4 years later in LO's final season when every single element of it as a "professional" piece of work turned to shit. It's no wonder she liked Webtoons in 2020 for letting her do anything she wanted, because what she wanted absolutely would not fly with an actual editor and publishing agency that cared about putting out a polished piece of work. The only way she was able to get "in" with a professional publisher was through Del Rey after Webtoons brokered a deal for her to have LO put into print, and even that level of prestige can't hide the fact that LO sucks ass in print. It's almost like under normal circumstances and without Webtoons carrying her on their shoulders above every other creator on the platform - many of whom actually do have experience in both tradpub and self-publishing - Del Rey wouldn't have paid her any attention. Without Webtoons, no one would take her seriously because she doesn't take what she does seriously, and it shows in her priorities as a creator who simply wants to just do whatever she wants without any sort of reasonable oversight like research or editing which are, again, necessary expectations within the tradpub industry, because it's not just about being a free-thinking self-expressive artist anymore in that industry - it's a business.

Of course, Rachel is probably now laughing from her soapbox over the fact that she now technically helps run an imprint, so haha "poo on the meanie trad market", but considering that imprint has still not launched and has been put on the same "coming soon" track that the LO television show has been on for the past 4+ years on a loop, I'm not holding my breath that it's actually going to amount to anything substantial.

(gotta love how they asked if Rachel was gonna create any more stories and her answer was RSP, which will help other creators bring their stories to life. so at best she didn't answer the question which is nothing new for her, at worst she gave away the fact that she's gonna be acting as some kind of producer who will be given all the credit and praise for other creator's works and efforts lmao no thankssss)

And god knows what the quality control of this imprint is gonna be like if Rachel's attitude toward the trad market overall is, "Nooo they won't let me do what I wantttt :((((" when she admittedly never even broke into the trad market to begin with and had zero experience working within that industry prior to LO.

And even then, Webtoons still doesn't give her as much freedom of choice as she claims to have. I mean ffs, this is the same person whose moderators stated that the Swarovski crystal dress from the finale was done as a "fuck you" to Webtoons for not letting her draw Persephone nude all the time.

She's obviously still being prevented from doing what she wants to do, when a lot of what she wants to do is better off not passing the vibe check and making it into the comic.

Quality control exists for a reason, Rachel. And "letting you do what you want" isn't necessarily a "flex" that Webtoons can claim over trad publishing when that "flex" is forgoing the traditional barriers that would usually prevent someone like you from failing upwards into manufactured fame the way that you have.

And that's my big bag of cents on that.

[hexhomos]

Sorry, I'm asking here because asks aren't on your doomreed account, but do you have any fic recs for them ? You and vinnies art have intrigued me 😭 they both seem like such wet cats in different ways, and I love that

help i didnt know asks were off fixed that now thank you... I have two fics i keep in my back pocket as like, exemplary distillations of their whole thing (one in college vs one of their usual superhero stuff,) these are;

Supersymmetry and Night Blooms

Rly good examples of their usual shenanigans, the second one is directly based on a canon comic issue that *feels* like fanfic by a prolific yaoi author, the first is set in a modern-time re-imagining of the fantastic four where they meet in a supergenius internship thinktank for gifted youngsters. There's other fics that are good but i think they might be super confusing without canon context! which leads me to my second point. After you read these fics...

A lot, and i mean A LOT of official doomreed stuff feels straight up like fanfic. Either because its so beautifully woven or insane in concept (doctor doom points a gun at the real life Jack Kirby and Stan Lee to get himself written back into reed's life in his 3rd ever classic appearance, in the 60's, THAT'S the bodyswap issue)

or because the literal authors themselves come out to say 'they're soulmates' or 'they're in love' and Im talking abt this:

(^joseph culp, the first ever doom actor from 1994)

(^fantastic four (2019))

I've got even more stuff under the cut!! AND recs!!! CLICK! v v v

(^jonathan hickman, author of arguably the best FF saga & Secret Wars (2015)!!!)

(^Cantwell, author of the Doctor Doom comic!!)

These are excerpts from the canon fantastic four book, DOOMGATE:

There's even an RPG INSTRUCTION MODULE based on the idea of an earth where Reed & Victor partner up in college, Reed dies a tragic death (via their lab experiments) and Victor assumes such a traumatized widow role in his honor that he grows up to be a golden hero and protector of earth LOL (still a bit nuts):

This is not even to touch on the breadth of all their comic issues and little moments together. Victor canonically delivers Reed's second child and he chooses her name! Shes treated like his child too and calls him uncle doom!!

...Victor even asks Reed out on candlelit dinner dates for a yearly Latverian holiday!

In fact, that's the great starter doom/reed issue i keep recommending: read [ My Dinner With Doom right here. ]

If you enjoy that, check out my [ broader post guide for doomreed reading. ]

Still on the fence? try out these single comic issues:

Doctor Doom:

*Fantastic Four (1961) annual 2 (Classic origin of Doom issue) *Some call it MAGIC (the introduction of Doom's struggle w/ the devil for his mother's soul)

Doomreed:

*Marvel Two-in-One (2017) annual 1 *Marvel Two-in-One (2017) #11 (2nd fic i linked is based on this!!!!!!!!!) *'Duel Intentions' short story *Doom 2099 (2019) *Fantastic Four #700 special *Shame Itself (noncanon satire mini)

Anyway I've had a lot of fun reading these series generally and their big, year-spanning arcs are incredible. People hype up Secret Wars for a reason, Hickman's fantastic four builds up a really compelling doom/reed epic of cosmic divorce proportions. And its about love! And Forgiveness!

[cravingpepsimax]

hs reference like a flashbang aside, choosing a dave and rose excerpt activated something in my brain. (stan voice) it’s just like them. in a way

one is a certified journal writer mastering the arts of the horrors and homosexuality, while the other’s a comic drawing “”cool”” twin with a touch of big brother worship. ford a constant knowledge (light) seeker. stan and the motif of fire. the similarities obviously stop at the surface level traits but thats actually so funny

actually, i wouldn’t say the similarities are surface-level at all!

both ford and rose deal with the Horrors, yes, but there’s more to that. the reason they deal with them is for the same endgoal — obtaining knowledge. this even results in them both being taken advantage of a nigh-omniscient, devil figure (doc scratch vs bill). like you mentioned, she journals, but i’d also like to point out her walkthrough. kanaya reads her walkthrough, not knowing the identity of rose, creating an idea of her in her head, using it as a reference for her own journey… hey, doesn’t that sound familiar?

also, like, horrorterrors aside, you’re out of your mind if you don’t think ford would have a book called “grimoire for summoning the zoologically dubious”. like, title alone, that’s a ford thing.

like ford, rose thinks of herself as a character in a story, rather than just… a person (light player moment). she’s surprisingly calm about sacrificing herself to create the Green Sun, like how ford had resigned himself to being trapped in various hell dimensions, as long as that meant his dimension being safe from bill. also, they’re both nerds that are terrifyingly good at combat.

the rose-ford parallels aren’t shit compared to the dave-stan parallels, though.

they’ve both got a father that isn’t easily impressed, that pushes them to learn how to fight and how to fight well, who wears sunglasses 24/7. they both seem to have complicated feelings about their father, despite their father being shitty & abusive.

despite their detached appearances, both stan and save genuinely care for those close to them, and will do drastic things to protect them. becoming davesprite, dying for jade, actually just dying a lot in general (time player moment), and sacrificing himself for the Green Sun are just a few examples of this.

neither of them really want to do what they’re doing, either. dave doesn’t like time travel. it’s complicated. it’s scary. he’s afraid of his own mortality, and time travel involves a LOT of death. not just his own, either — if he fucks it up, he could end up killing literally everyone. but he does it anyways, because he has to.

stan hates science and math. growing up, he struggled in school, even with the smartest kid in school being his brother. but he still taught himself everything he needed to know to get the portal up and running — with only a third of the instructions. he did shit he hated, complicated shit he hated, for 30 years, because he had to. despite ford criticizing his recklessness, there’s not a single timeline where ford gets sucked into the portal and stan DOESN’T try to save him. and, just like how dave sacrifices himself for the Green Sun, stan’s willing to have his memory wiped for the sake of beating bill. sure, the Green Sun might’ve led to dave god tiering, but dave didn’t know that — just like how stan didn’t know his memory would come back.

they’ve also got the whole “i’m not a hero” thing, despite regularly doing heroic things.

(also, couldn’t find a gif of it, but ford calling stanley a hero both in the show after his sacrifice & in the journal)

also, just… read the aspect descriptions for light and time and tell me that isn’t ford and stan. especially time for stan.

…also, erm, fitting the themes of this blog, dave has… some stuff going on

also apparently davesprite and his rose may have gotten together according to the hs book commentary but i don’t own those and i can’t find an actual like. image or anything so don’t quote me on that lmao

[mksbigg3stfan]

꒰ྀྀི ୭·˚ ༘ mk hc ᝰ!! 🥢🥡 ྀི꒱

˚⋆°˖ ～ ࿔ ୧ ‧₊˚ 🍜 🍂 ⋅.ೃ࿐

His favorite movie is that one low-budget cop movie Wukong stars in lol (≧ヮ≦)

Him and Mei met at the arcade !! It just seems super in character idk what to say (^^;

Pigsy and MK make up after fighting by cooking together !! (Tang always conveniently hides when tensions are high, then reappears after they make up and claims he knew they could never stay mad at each other)

MK constantly needs new phones, despite clinging onto them for dear life. (He doesn't want to pay for a new one, even when his phone screen is cracked and it can barely function. Probably because he spends all his money on games and snacks.) In general, he's just not good with tech. (He doesn't even know what CPU means ... (¯ . ¯٥))

He's actually a very enthusiastic artist !! MK canonically has taken a creative writing class, so (although he's not very good at it), he tried to write a comic/biography of Sun Wukong. It's his longest lasting project, which he has added to and adjusted over the years.

Though he never spoke with Pigsy or Tang about it, MK planned on someday seeking out his bio parents. (Turns out his mom is a rock, I guess ʕ•͡-•ʔ (/hj)) I feel like this decision would be influenced by China's high value on family !! In short, they worship their ancestors, and if they don't have children, no one would worship them after they die. Not only that, but there would just be curiosity and weird feelings about it in general. Especially because of the way Pigsy found MK, and no one ever came looking for him.

MK definitely has impulsive spending habits, and usually ends up blowing his paycheck on snacks and games. (In S1, ep7, MK buys a bunch of tickets to use in the arcade.) It's most likely a coping mechanism he uses when stressed, heavily consuming media and materials so he can forget what was bothering him.

When he was a kid, he struggled to make friends because he was "too much." There wasn't much Pigsy and Tang could do about it, so they tried to help MK feel less lonely. Pigsy gifted MK his bandana so that he could "carry him with him." Tang, on the other hand, read MK excerpts from JTTW to try and inspire him to be himself.

I love hearing people's thoughts and hcs on characters, so if there's anything you want to add, feel free to !! ദ്ദി(｡•̀ ᗜ^)

[vellaphoria]

for the ask game!! 6 (obvi!) and 25 for tim? or dick

Hi anon! Thank you for the ask <3

(ask game prompts are here)

25. What's your least favourite thing [character] said or did?

For Tim, I really like his duel with Shiva in the last issue of the post-crisis Robin run. Aka she challenges him to a fight to the death and he sneaks a paralytic into the chocolate offered by her hotel that will knock her out if her heart rate rises. I think this fight is a pretty good summation of everything that Tim is by the end of Robin. He fights smarter rather than harder. Shiva is an opponent who he knows he can't beat in a fair fight, so he doesn't fight fair. But also, the fight shows off his more audacious side. Because the paralytic only activates if Shiva's heart rate rises, he's banking on her heart rate rising at least four beats while facing him. Given how easily Shiva could wipe the floor with him, that's a huge risk. And, as his internal monologue says, it's very presumptuous of him.

tl;dr: Tim's fight with Shiva in Robin #183 is short but excellent

Edit: I just re-read this and realized it says least, and apparently I can't read lol. Anyway, my least favorite thing Tim said would probably be the sexist comments from when Dixon was writing him. And some of the other viewpoints Dixon used Tim's comics to make. There's an especially stupid metaphor about having sex being like going through a door, because once you've gone through it you can't go back. That's not how doors work?

ANYWAY.

6. An excerpt from the DickTim slowburn I've been working on:

Some of the safe houses are little more than a mostly secure area in which they can patch up and eat something without as much of a risk of being attacked. This one is different; the one room on this level to remain mostly intact happened to be someone’s bedroom, once. 

When Dick first found it, he’d shoved the mattress into a corner of the room and piled it with all the blankets and other insulating fabric he could find in the general vicinity. It still isn’t much, and there’s part of Dick that sorely misses the heavy down comforter in his Blüdhaven apartment, but it should be enough to get them through the rest of the night.

He's out of the Nightwing suit and under the covers before the cold has a chance to sleep through the shirt and spandex that he wears under his uniform. 

Tim just stares at him for a moment. 

When Dick risks moving an arm out from under the blankets to pat the space next to him, Tim looks away.

He resists the urge to grumble about the fact that Tim wouldn't be Tim if he didn't hesitate a little before engaging in interpersonal contact. Even now.

But they’re in the middle of Gotham’s ruins, in a safehouse that is far less insulated than he’d like it to be, and the temperature is only going to keep dropping.

“Are you going to stand there all night?” Dick asks. “Because if you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty cold out. And I’d really rather not be the one to tell Bruce that you froze to death on your feet.”

Tim tenses and suppresses what was probably supposed to be a yawn. He looks like he really would rather huddle up in the corner of the room and slowly turn into a Timsicle overnight. 

But, in the end, rationality wins out. With Tim, it usually does.

Dick rolls onto his back and closes his eyes. 

The room echoes slightly with the sound of security mechanisms being disarmed, metal clasps detaching, and the rasp of kevlar on cotton. Then, there’s a moment of silence before the corner of the layered blankets is pulled back. The mattress depresses slightly as Tim crawls beneath the covers, throwing them up as high as they’ll go without impairing his ability to breathe. 

It leaves him about an inch away from Dick, close enough that the blankets start to do their job by trapping as much heat as two bodies can reasonably generate in these conditions. 

Tim shifts around a bit. To some, it might seem like he’s trying to get comfortable. 

To Dick, it seems more like he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s still shivering. 

Outside, the sun has fully set, taking the last of the warmth with it. And the last of the light.

“Hey,” he says. “Come here?” 

He didn’t quite mean it to be a question. But physical contact is always a bit of a gray area with Tim, so it’s probably better to err on the side of caution.

Tim stops moving. He doesn’t stop shivering.

It’s gotten dark enough that he can’t quite make out Tim’s expression, but he can see the way that he turns his head to look at him. 

“I can give you the list of logical reasons why sharing body heat is a good idea right now,” Dick says. “But I’d be lying if I said my motivations were purely selfless.”

Tim’s laugh is short and quiet, but it’s there.

“Please, Tim?” he asks. 

That earns him a quick, sharp inhale. It’s the sort of thing that Tim wouldn’t let slip unless under great duress. 

He’s pretty sure the current state of Gotham qualifies.

“Conservation of warmth,” Tim mutters. It’s half a non-sequitur and half sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. It probably doesn’t help that he says it in the same way that he’d say “collateral damage” or “Bruce is looking for you.”

The way that he shifts closer isn’t quite awkward, but it isn’t quite natural either.

Despite the darkness, he unerringly finds Dick’s shoulder and prods at it until he moves his arm enough to create a makeshift pillow. There’s a deliberateness to the way that he wraps an arm around Dick’s chest and presses his hand against his side, pulling the two of them close enough that there isn’t space between them. 

He wraps his free arm around Tim and tries not to think about how he can feel the definition of ribs through skin and too-thin cotton. 

Tim sighs against the skin of his neck. His exhale might be the warmest thing Dick has felt in days. 

They’re close enough that he can feel Tim’s heart in his chest. It’s beating much quicker than the general torpor of the rest of Tim’s body would have suggested. 

“You okay?” he asks, eventually.

“… Yeah.” 

When he moves his head, the tip of his nose brushes Dick’s collarbone.

“Are you?” Tim asks.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” Dick mutters. “But, for the moment… it’s better with you here.”

Tim moves his head until his forehead is in the hollow between Dick’s neck and shoulder. He tightens his hold and Dick pulls him closer in response.

Dick doesn't know what will try its best to kill them tomorrow. If it'll be the gangs or the hunger or the ever-present cold. 

They don't have enough medical supplies for their injuries, or enough food to keep them full, or even enough semi-insulated bases to keep them warm while they sleep.

But they have each other. And, somehow, that's enough.

[dragon-ball-meta]

Akio Iyoku And The Future Of Dragon Ball

Got a huge news drop last night, courtesy of @SupaChronicles on Twitter. I've linked the full tweet if you want to read his translation of the original article sans editorializing, but I wanted to attempt to explain a few things here. This is unprecedented for the franchise, and we're in untested, but very exciting times right now. The short version is this: Akio Iyoku and Capsule Corporation Tokyo have succeeded in gaining control of the rights to the Dragon Ball Franchise, in all but the manga side of things, for the next ten years. DAIMA is actually their first project. Now, some excerpts from the translated article: "Indomitable Dragon Ball, Inheriting the Mission: A Global Strategy to Reach the Next Generation" featuring Akio Iyoku, the President of Capsule Corporation Tokyo 'Dragon Ball' will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2024. Dragon Ball is a unique and amazing work. Rather than thinking of the work in relative or uniform terms, the keynote is to think about how it should be done as a work of art. As the Executive Producer of a work with unprecedented longevity, my mission is to expand and convey what the original creator, Akira Toriyama, has created. I will continue to produce works, such as anime series, movies, and games, over the next 10 years. (...) Adopting what is popular at the moment does not increase the probability of success. I will not be swayed by the current trends, but will create works that I feel will be 'good enough'."

Iyoku is saying that, in his new capacity as the executive producer of Dragon Ball, he's doing this as a means of protecting the Dragon Ball IP as a work of art, and wants to release content that he feels upholds that integrity, rather than trying to use the IP simply to chase current trends and try to cling to relevancy. He says he also wants to keep the spirit of the series Toriyama intended. Now what's especially interesting to ME is this bit. He stops short of making any sort of direct confirmation, but this really, REALLY seems to lend credence to the reports that Shueisha was deliberately leaving Dragon Ball out to dry in favor of One Piece. "There was a time when the Dragon Ball craze, which had spread around the world over the past 40 years, had died down. When I became the head of Shueisha's Dragon Ball Room in 2016, I could not visualize what was really happening. 7-8 years ago, I went to a huge event in Brazil called "CCXP." I was told that Japanese anime were popular in South America, but there was a discrepancy from what I was told. The feedback from fans was weak. It may have been at the peak of its popularity when it was on-air in South America. (...) I also thought it was the result of relying on old-fashioned zeal. Therefore, starting with the 'Dragon Ball Super Broly' movie in 2018, we took steps such as actively participating in events. I felt concerned that Dragon Ball has not been expanded worldwide. Originally, we didn't see the strength and diffusion power of the work. We need to take a closer look at this and see if we can do more. We are not looking for a "one-size-fits-all" approach, but rather, we are looking for events such as the Dragon Ball World Championships, the expansion of games, creating facilities, and anything else that we can do. We will work on them in parallel."

And this bit: "Never before was there such a simultaneous worldwide reception of anime. (...) It can be said that we are now able to do things that we had not even considered before. From the beginning, I began to think about the overseas expansion of Dragon Ball. With 'Dragon Ball DAIMA,' which will be released in Fall 2024, we are taking on the challenge of creating an anime series with a completely original story. I am glad that all our works have been well-received overseas. 'DAIMA' was announced at New York Comic Con. The 'Dragon Ball' series is recognized around the world. It makes no sense to announce it somewhere domestic. Comic-Con is a great place to announce your work. People who understand the value of the culture are gathered there, to begin with, and we chose Comic-Con because of its ability to spread our work throughout the world. Overseas expansion is currently being considered as a necessary means of spreading the word about our work. If we compare the flow of manga titles selling in book format and then finally becoming anime to a river, the overseas developments were the ones that followed the river, meaning that in the past it was a "fan" (in the sense that the overseas expansion followed later.) I am convinced that Dragon Ball has pioneered many things as a Japanese anime. I have a sense of mission that if there is something that no one else has done, I must continue to challenge it." That sounds to me as if this was done at least in part because he felt the series was being mishandled, both on a promotional and quality control front. He also feels that there needs to be content created at least semi-regularly to keep the franchise relevant, as opposed to announcing something and then leaving long gaps of nothing, as almost happened after the Super anime went on hiatus. There's also some more implication about the series not being promoted to its fullest. "- The industry is over-competitive. It is tough to see the competition among anime (due to the emergence of streaming sites, etc.). Competition has become excessive. We must not create a situation where a manga becomes anime, and when the anime is over, the content ends as is. The ideal situation is to create a situation where the average viewer sees the content. We are in a cycle of consumption, and in some aspects, the cycle is becoming short-lived. I don't think it's good at all to have a boom that builds up and then burns down, which can be a factor in the content not lasting long. It will be tough if we do not create a place to compete differently from anime as content. It is advisable for works that are popular now to be distributed simultaneously around the world to repeat generations and reach the next stage of popularity. (...) In order to bring in overseas strength, a leading role is needed. In order for a producer to take on this role, they must transcend the boundaries of the corporate organization. There must be someone who has a "birds-eye view" of the work and is in a position to say to each company, "I think you should do this." I push myself to be a catalyst for this through various discussions. For Japanese content to continue, it is necessary to have someone who can say, "The status quo is not good enough."" So essentially, we're going to see more content. We're going to see more quality control ON said content. Both are being done to respect Toriyama's work, and to actually try to be competitive as opposed to simply relying on the legacy and the baked-in fandom to carry it in the sea of anime and manga franchises out there. He also feels that they shouldn't try to solely rely on adapting things, and create original content as well, while keeping it in line with the spirit of the series as opposed to just chasing whatever's popular. That's the intent, at least. Now we just need to wait and see how this all shakes out.

[blackautmedia]

Sly Cooper: Bentley, Asylums, and Disability Representation in Video Games

Revisiting a Classic old series, we analyze the portrayal of Disability in the #SlyCooper series and how it portrays Bentley who uses a wheelchair as of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.

Some Excerpts:

There are two villains I want to discuss people might not think of in the context of disability--The Contessa and Arpeggio.

The Contessa's levels are my personal favorite in Sly 2, so anything I say here is with love but these ideas don't come in a vacuum. Aesthetically it's a mix of a prison level, a haunted ghost setting with mystical elements, and most importantly is an asylum drawing on a number of tropes surrounding the allure of a haunted asylum.

The next villain I want to talk about is Arpeggio. He runs into a common pitfall in that he's the disabled villain. He's an engineering parrot who cannot fly and seeks to reassemble Clockwerk's body to claim it as his own and achieve the immortality that comes with it. The important element is how Arpeggio's villainy is intrinsically linked with his body and his disability.

Oftentimes, able bodied writers will write a villainous disabled character where the concept of being disabled is so burdensome and awful to the eyes of an able-bodied audience that they will do anything and immediately jump to evil in order to not be disabled. You can see this in how a lot of the dialogue about or with Arpeggio reviles in how pathetic he is and how the story frames his inability to fly.

There was a promotional comic that came out as a midquel between the events of Sly 2 and 3.

Throughout all of Sly 2: Band of Thieves, things spiral badly out of control, the Cooper gang's plans fall apart, and they often have to improvise, barely succeeding in several of the levels and flat out failing in others. This game is a ride.

Many articles, discussions, and posts about Bentley as a disabled character often reinforce a harmful and ableist belief that he is a good disabled character because he is a genius able to engineer a solution that doesn't allow his disability to "slow him down." Whether explicitly mentioned or not, the discourse surrounding Bentley repeats this narrative in some way and falls into a line of trying to exceptionalize Bentley's actions.

Sly 3 does reserve its most overt ableism for its villainous characters in Don Octavio, Muggshot and Captain Lefwee. But scenes like this are still reliant on the helpless disabled person trope at Bentley's expense, where he's literally kicked to the ground and stripped of his autonomy to center the agency of an able bodied character.

The game doesn't try to act like Bentley can do better if he just pushes more and tries harder. There are things he can't do and it's frustrating, but they celebrate his strengths in what he does.

It doesn't tokenize his disability and the final villain has a confrontation with him entirely because of his relationship to the Cooper family, a fight that Bentley is initiating, not Dr. M.

If nothing else, I hope this video gave some food for thought regarding how a lot of disabled people are portrayed. I don't claim to be the arbiter of all things disability, but hopefully it'll give more insight into what games and media in general can do to improve in its storytelling.

It's a shame that the Sly movie or a TV series never came to fruition because it'd be a great opportunity to portray a disabled character, actually consult and include disabled people in the creative process and make something really memorable.

[thesweetnessofsalt]

Process Blog #4: How I Make TSOS!

Just in time for Webcomic Day, it's a real actual process blog! We're going to get into the nitty-gritty of how I make pages of The Sweetness of Salt.

Let's go! :D

This blog was originally written for 1$+ TSOS Supporters and can also be read here on Ko-fi - free to everyone!

Chapter 3 Pages 29 - 32 (ALT text for pages here)

Leah's conversation on the balcony with Arlo is a pretty self contained scene in four pages, and will make a good case study for this blog. There is a full video timelapse at the very end, but I will be laying out my process for The Sweetness of Salt in detail here first!

Working From A Script

Since I'm the only person who works on TSOS, I keep my script pretty loose. I have a good idea now of how much of my writing translates into how many pages, and will sometimes mark significant page turns in the script or describe panel layouts if they occur to me while scripting. However, I generally don't know how I'll lay out the panels until I actually sit down with some paper.

My script mostly serves as an outline; dialogue, blocking, or entire segments can change when I put the characters through it on the page. Still, it's important to follow the script in order keep track of pace and continuity.

Here is the original script for this scene:

Script Excerpt - Chapter 3 (ALT text for script image here)

Compare the script to the text on the actual pages, and there are some big differences! That's pretty typical of my workflow for TSOS. There's an ever growing gap between the day I worked on the script and the day I actually make the pages. By the time I sit down and draw, the characters and story have developed even more in my mind, and there's lots of time for me to experiment and be inspired. (This is definitely a luxury particular to a long running webcomic, though.)

In this particular case, I felt like the conversation in the script wasn't familiar enough for their relationship, and I also wanted to start establishing context for Sha's conundrum a bit sooner than originally planned. 

You could apply these to just about all the script changes I make: they're almost always done to re-emphasize character and story beats. And sometimes the changes are so I could add a joke. Or both!

Thumbnailing

You've heard me complaining about it; you've probably heard me express euphoric bliss about it, too. Thumbnailing is when words become comics, and it's hard!! But it's also the most rewarding part for me, and it's when TSOS actually becomes real. 

There are times when I can thumbnail right from my brain, and  times when every single comic I own is out on the floor for inspiration. I need to be in the right headspace to thumbnail - focused enough to take everything I need to into consideration, but loose enough to visualize the story.

Here's a method that's worked for me lately: by setting aside certain number of pages and just writing out what happens per page, I get a good sense of pacing without having to draw anything yet. It's a good way to get the juices flowing!

It's often, though not always, easier to thumbnail on paper, especially for the early stages. I'm much less precious about my drawings on paper, and feel more comfortable trying several iterations of a page than I am with digital drawing. The undo button and zoom button are enemies of thumbnails!

My thumbnails do ultimately get finalized in Clip Studio Paint, though - I have a template for this tailored to my workflow. The page layouts are in the middle, and are paired the same way they are on Webtoon (where pages post in pairs and need to be harmonious). There's also room on each side for the text/notes, though as you can see I don't always write something if I plan to follow the script.

Thumbnails for Pages 28 - 33 (I'm sorry but I'm not ALT texting this chicken scratch)

When I know I need to work on my thumbnails, I try to fill that week with lots of sketching and a healthy reading diet - including my own script and comic! You want a warm hand and a brain full of comics for thumbnailing, but also lots of energy for your own story.

Scott McCloud's books are, as always, indispensable (Understanding Comics for general theory, Making Comics for more specific techniques), but these guides from Hannah Vardit have also been really helpful in getting my brain around thumbnailing.

Page 31 will be our example page moving forward, so here is that thumbnail in full:

Page 31 Thumbnail

LOL - thumbnail Arlo is my favorite Arlo. 

Though not included here on Page 31, I do generally jot down balloons in my thumbnails, too, which you can see in the other thumbnails. It's good to account for your text early!

I keep these drawings super simple - they're just an indication of blocking and expression. I work more on character acting in the pencil stage.

Tools of the Trade

Alright, now we're getting into the nitty gritty!

One note before we proceed: TSOS is NOT print ready, and nothing about my process should be considered print ready or as advice for print readiness. This is just what's worked well for my webcomic, for the sake of consistency and mobile/web versatility. 

Program: Clip Studio Paint EX

Working Canvas Properties: 2407 x 3675px 350 dpi (Sized down to 940px wide for web, Margins approximately 100 px)

Dialogue Font: Soapy Hands by Sara Linsley (15 pt with few exceptions)

Favorite Pencil: Gritty's Pencil from Frenden's mega pack

Favorite Inker: Real G-Pen (CSP Default)

Character Modeler: MagicPoser for iPad

Cottage Model: floorplancreator.net (Browser app - even works on iPad! Free + simple to use)

I also use Windows Sticky Notes keep track of things like line weights, layer properties, or methods for things that get rendered frequently, such as Sha's sweater. 

"Chapter 3 Style Guide" (ALT text here)

Roughing + Penciling

Before I start drawing, I make the panel borders and place all of the text.

I tend to fuss with my text for a long time, getting the line breaks exactly where I want them, and reading it out loud to make sure the page flow works. Balloons usually come later, once the art is done or mostly done and I can place the tails correctly. For now, the text is enough of a placeholder!

Everyone has their own rules when it comes to lettering, but I look to The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering as much as possible for general lettering conventions. It's the best resource out there for a reason, and I'm glad I have a physical copy to reference while I work.

Page 31 Rough Blocking + Lettering

If I need to, I will take references from my model of the cottage or MagicPoser. For this scene, the balcony was simple enough to draw from imagination. Still, I studied its one and only appearance here in Chapter 2 Page 29 -

- as well as my model. I use floorplancreator.net - here is the floor plan for the second floor of the cottage:

And here is a 3D view. Neat, right? It took some time to set up, but it was time well spent. Even if I don't screenshot a reference, I'm using it to help visualize backgrounds and blocking.

I also use my own character assets - essentially just a file with various lineart of character faces saved from previous pages.  I like to pencil from scratch if I have the time, but sometimes I just need to get a page out quickly. I'll drop these in and use them as an undersketch to speed things along.

My collection of 3/4 Facial Assets for Leah and Sha

For Arlo, I almost always sketch on top of a reference, and will reuse his lineart, too. I love him, but I'm not an expert frog illustrator.

With my references assembled, I can start sketching and get everything locked in. This was a page I needed to complete quickly, so I structured shots that could use the same background angle and made sure Leah + Arlo's positioning was consistent and easy to follow. 

Big differences between my thumbnails and final layout are often due to continuity adjustments like that. Important stuff!

Page 31 Pencils

I'm afraid I don't have much else to say about this part - if the thumbnails are where the story becomes a comic, this is where the comic becomes art. I get to be my most expressive and make these characters and places come alive. It's the drawing part, you know? Well, except for that other drawing part.

Inking

I tend to be a rough penciller, letting my inks do the heavy lifting drawing-wise. I suppose 'linearting' might be a better descriptor, because I don't ink with a great deal of toning, black shadows, or even line weights. TSOS is fully colored and rendered, so I tend to keep the inks simple. That's kind of just the style I've built for this comic. 

Background inks always come first, though. It's far easier to resize a character to the background than vice versa. This also encourages me to draw the entire background behind the character, so that art can be reused later. (You should also be finishing the art behind your balloons, by the way!)

Page 31 Lineart

Color + Rendering

Backgrounds come first again! I really do try to keep these as simple as possible, so they're easily replicated and don't suck up all my time. UNLESS: the backgrounds are especially important to the page, like an establishing shot. The overhead balcony shot on Page 30 took a lot longer than these, but with the new location established, I could let these pages be more about Leah's conversation and gestures.

This balancing act dictates my entire comic page process. Whichever element is most important to this page - the character acting, the environment, the action, etc - is the element that gets the most of my time, and I'll actively reduce effort in less important areas. It's good for time management, yes, but it also keeps the story focused!

Page 31 Flat Character Color > Rendered Character > Full Color Page

Each character gets filled in with white so their colors can be clipped to the layers above. Again, colors are pretty simple - it's more about the mood lighting here. MagicPoser lets you manipulate lighting, so sometimes I like to go a little ham with the rendering. It's one of my favorite ways to give a scene some 'oomf'.

Typical Layer Hierarchy for Characters (These are normally never labeled. I did that because I love you)

The MVP in all of this is the Erase Along Edge tool. It makes coloring so fast, and when I first adopted it, it cut my process time in half. 

The link will take you to its listing on the CSP asset store, which has detailed instructions for how to use it. Once you figure it out, you can set other brushes to erase along the edge, or even to color within an edge! Neat stuff. I especially like it when I need to color many small background elements.

Finishing and Lettering

A long time ago, TSOS's balloons were very fussy, tedious, hand-drawn squovals. When I made revisions to Chapter 1+2, the bulk of it was just re-lettering it all to something simple and consistent.

I've only just recently started experimenting with the joined balloons you see on this page, so I've got a lot to learn and a lot to try out. There are a couple of things I keep in mind for legibility, like giving the letters lots of room inside the balloon's edge. Clarity is way more important than being fancy.

Curve Balloon tool > place four points only

Manipulate points for symmetry, fit

Add tail

Done!

Since I placed my text early and kept adjusting it along the way, I don't have to worry about my balloons having enough room or looking nice with the art. I can just click my lil points and be on my way!

Page 31 Finished Page

Still a few finishing touches left: the whooshes, the eye shines, and of course, the sparkles. What's left to say? This is objectively the best part.

Wrapping It Up

Whoo, another comic page down! Excluding the time spent thumbnailing, pages take me about 8-10 hours to make. Ideally, I do this across two days, with inking one and coloring the next. 

Here is the full video timelapse of the page! Click through the video to check out the description, where I've timestamped the whole process.

The timestamps on this one definitely made me laugh - I jump around a lot more than the ideal, linear process described in this blog. You can tell I struggled with the lineart on this one, because I keep having to come back to it. But there's always something else to work on - I try not to let myself get stuck in one spot for too long.

There you have it! Those are all my trade secrets. Just over 2k words, and I don't think I can add anything more. But if you want to know anything else or have any questions, you can leave them here and I'll add them to the next blog!

Thanks for reading!

This blog was originally written for 1$+ TSOS Supporters and can also be read here on Ko-fi - free to everyone. Become a 1$+ supporter and you get early access to all of my comic pages and process blogs!

[gerardpilled]

Related to your post abt Gerard on social media and stuff : I don’t think Gerard leaving social media has anything to do with him being a celebrity and how he wanted to distance himself from his fans but more to do with how media highlighting news and it being overwhelming (he talked abt this a bunch of times) and it’s a real reason to leave social media. A lot of ppl do. Other than that I don’t think as fans, it was good either. While yeah some ppl are weird it’s always good to see your fav artist being just as normal as any other person. It debunks some weird artist standards. Besides that there were times that he had genuine conversations with fans abt movies, music and comics which again was refreshing to see as an artist because alot of celebrities try to be funny or just an asshole on the net. Personally what made me like him and care abt him out side of music was how he talks abt art in general. He’s an artist with a creative mind and while he wasn’t always talking abt art all the time it was just nice to have that kind of person on the internet. Not alot of celebrities talk like he does.

I’m not arguing with you and I’m not really interested in trying to figure out Gerard’s exact intentions and mindset with his actions. I’m not saying that in a negative tone I’m just saying it neutrally lol!! I based the idea that Gerard hates fame off of an interview he did a few years back. Specially, the part I’m including below. I didn’t mean to word it to make it sound like he was doing it out of resentment of his fans! I just think if someone hates fame but fails to distance themself from it, then they are going to start to resent the people who give them that attention. Just my opinion!

The excerpt:

(Transcribed: But fame isn't for me, and i don't think it ever was, though i briefly found myself welcoming of the attention, being that I felt invisible in high school, though that was largely by design, or the invisibility was something l embraced and fought to retain. I believe that fame is in some ways like a disease, and it either gets you or it doesn't. You either beat it or you don't, and it can be terminal for some people, as we sometimes see people under the microscope of fame succumb to suicide, or meet other tragic ends due to their situation. But there is hope, and there is learning. This is not a "woe is me" observation, and obviously there are comforts and benefits to being allowed to make art for a living, to have an audience, and I am extremely lucky to have that. But I have seen fame run rampant on people's psyche and physicality, and I see people in this situation caught in a loop, a cycle, of needing to feel relevant to feel self value, or to continue having a career, putting yourself worth and livelihood in other people's hands. And sometimes people do things in order to stay relevant, grasping tightly to that relevance, that are unbecoming, and I feel I was at times just as guilty of that. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. and stepped away from the spotlight as much as possible, in order to take a hard look at myself - and ask myself the hard questions. I learned a lot by doing that. And I don't consider myself better or more evolved than people caught in that Ioop, have empathy for them, and I'm always rooting for them. I know I have gotten slightly off topic,…)

[cantsayidont]

Summer 1977. While the Alex Schomburg cover might suggest that this is some kind of Golden Age reprint compilation, this was in fact an all-new full-length story. Created by Roy Thomas (initially with artist Frank Robbins, who also wrote many a Batman story in the 1960s and 1970s), THE INVADERS was set during WW2 and was intended to recapture the spirit and energy of the comics of that time. It starred a pre-deep-freeze Captain America, a younger Namor, the original Human Torch and Toro, and as many other old Timely characters as Roy could cram in. For this Annual, Thomas also arranged to hire several Golden Age artists who'd worked at Timely in the 1940, including Schomburg, Don Rico, and Lee Elias; each does a chapter, with Robbins doing the framing sequence.

Thomas gave these guest artists a script of singular ludicrousness. In fact, what happens in the Namor chapter is SO weird that I fear you will not believe me unless you see some excerpts for yourself.

To set the scene: Just prior to the following sequence, Namor had attempted to save a British freighter from a weird shark-shaped torpedo, only to have the torpedo administer a massive electric shock that knocked him unconscious. When he wakes up:

Who could it be who changed Namor's shorts while he was knocked out? And well you might ask!

The Shark is a Golden Age villain, albeit an extremely obscure one who didn't actually appear until after the war. (If you're curious, Thomas explains why elsewhere in the issue.) But why would this dastardly villain steal Namor's trunks (the only clothes Namor was wearing) while he was unconscious? Surely not for any of the awful reasons you may be thinking — this was a mainstream comic published in 1977, after all, and it DOES carry the Comics Code Authority seal on the cover, so it couldn't be TOO nefarious, could it? Fear not, as one thing one may reliably expect in any Roy Thomas superhero comic of this vintage is exposition. The villain explains:

Well, okay then! ("Pressure-resisting materials" indeed.)

I must regretfully now explain that the ACTUAL, IRL explanation for this bit of sartorial legerdemain is even more ridiculous. You see, the genesis of THE INVADERS was a story Roy Thomas had done when he was writing THE AVENGERS several years earlier. In THE AVENGERS #71 (December 1969), Kang the Conqueror had thrown some of the Avengers back in time to WW2 Paris, where they had briefly encountered the Captain America, Namor, and Human Torch of that time. This Annual was intended to bookend that earlier story. However, somewhere along the way Roy happened to notice, or recall, that in that 1969 Avengers story, artists Sal Buscema and Sam Grainger had inadvertently drawn the Sub-Mariner with trunks that were not consistent with the ones he was normally drawn with in the comics of 1941–1942! Horror!

Now, a reasonable person might simply assume that Namor owned more than one pair of trunks and rotated them occasionally, a solution Thomas later applied to explain why the Golden Age Hawkman's mask was so inconsistently drawn. Instead, we not only get this whole absurd plot about creating INVINCIBLE NAZI FROGMEN from Namor's SUPER-TRUNKS — which, to be clear, is intended to rationalize a very minor art discrepancy in exactly nine panels (10 if you count the cover) of a comic book published eight years earlier — Roy has the Shark call out the earlier art glitch in dialogue:

Was this all a private joke? Did Thomas and Sal Buscema have a good laugh about this? (I certainly hope so.)

I generally try to remain fairly po-faced in presenting this stuff, but I just can't do it with this one. This is quite possibly the silliest goddamn thing I've ever seen, and I have read a LOT of completely ridiculous comic books.

[self-winding]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dymJ-ViBRhQ

I watched this review of The Batman (2022) a while ago and keep mentally coming back to it.  I generally think his comments about The Batman movie itself and how it differs from previous incarnations of Batman are good and interesting.  I personally love this movie and its take on a Batman who is kinda unhinged and fucked up but also framed as unhinged and fucked up, and who has to wrestle with the uncomfortable, looming feeling that he’s not all that different with the guy he’s trying to hunt down.

Most of the analysis is a solid, if somewhat basic deconstruction of vigilante, beat-em-up power fantasies in which the hero breaks free of society’s rules and stops the bad guys by taking things into their own hands.  And The Batman does better than most superhero movies at being self-aware about the realistic drawbacks and ethical perils of vigilantism.

However, the final part of the video veers into some weird territory where the creator starts talking about a comic called The Immortal Hulk, which I haven’t read but which, just based on the excerpts, looks pretty bad.  The way it’s described, it’s like...Marxist Hulk beating the shit out of various people, including these weird entities that are supposed to symbolize liberalism and capitalism, and that premise plays out every bit as cheesy and preachy as you’d imagine.  It’s a comic that presents a very black-and-white view of morality, with the solution to society’s problems being to ignore the restrictions society has placed on you and just kill the bad guys.

You’d think, based on the reviewer’s low opinion of vigilante power-fulfillment fantasies, he would also be critiquing this comic as another one-dimensional, adolescent, macho power fantasy, but no.  He thinks it’s great and he holds it up as a contrast to adolescent, macho power fantasies.  This, he says, is a comic that is Doing It Right.  There’s a point where he says in this giddy fanboy voice, “The Hulk literally smashes capitalism!”

And I’ve seen this kind of thing before.  People who critique toxic masculinity, vigilante fantasies etc. will quickly turn around and sing the praises of all those things when that violence is aimed at a target that they consider legitimately bad.

It’s not so much that they don’t like adolescent power fantasies.  They just want more adolescent power fantasies that cater to their ideological tastes.  Instead of one-dimensional cowboy narratives about punching criminals, they want more one-dimensional cowboy narratives about punching cops.

That’s all.

[cowprintsillies]

Fic Update

Update for Ranboo’s Terrible No Good Guide to Freedom: The Long Way Round - Chapter 1 - CowPrintLilies, TheStanleyParableEnjoyer - Generation Loss (Web Series) [Archive of Our Own]

Haha I’m ignoring that i haven’t updated in three months ITS OK BECAUSE IM WRITING NOW AND I WONT BE LONG!! It’s getting done!! Soon to be posted!! Here’s an excerpt from the chapter in progress!!

---

The walk there is uneventful in a physical sense. Security, thank his lucky stars, hadn’t reared its ugly head yet as it so often did. Charlie wasn’t dumb enough to think it never would- he’d become intimately acquainted with its claws way too many times to think like that- but it wasn’t here yet. 

Emotionally, the walk there may as well have crushed him with a comically large piano and laughed in his face about it. Because something happened and they aren’t talking about it. Ranboo is the most courageous kid Charlie has ever met and probably ever will. Desperation only gets you so far and if that was all that was keeping Ranboo going they would’ve given up loops ago. Ranboo is one brave fucking kid. They had, for all intents and purposes, had to (whether those people came back or not) kill a lot of people to survive. And they had still gotten back up, gotten back to escaping. 

The kid trailing behind Charlie now looked like a few choice words would break them in half. It made something in Charlie’s chest crawl. Something not just happened, something changed. And he is going to fucking kill whoever did it if it’s the last thing he does.

Ranboo trips slightly as the flooring transitions from tile to carpeting.

Charlie doesn’t mention it.

The walk continues like this for the better part of 10 minutes. The odd Employee roamed idly about the floors, and Charlie would lead the way and Ranboo would follow meekly behind- save for whenever they steered Charlie from making a wrong turn. Sue him, he’s new to the whole “keeping his memories thing” and yes he may be a little bit overwhelmed with the whole thing because first of all it makes no logical sense for time to loop around them but then again Showfall Media makes no sense and he’s trying his best to be there for the kid because he gets a horrible familial burning in his collarbone whenever he thinks of what they went through and are still going through-

Ranboo tugs on the back of his shirt before Charlie walks into the side of a cabinet.

-and his internal monologue has become nonsensical rambling. Awesome, real helpful Charlie.

Ranboo is looking at him with the air of a kicked puppy. Or- no, more like the air of someone who just watched someone else shoot a puppy then put it in a meat grinder. Either way Charlie doesn’t like the expression on Ranboo's face. Their eyes don’t belong on someone so young. The poor kid looks like he’s been through the wars. It’s plain trauma. Charlie internally curses Hetch’s name into the dirt, as has slowly become a tradition whenever he thinks particularly hard about the situation. 

Charlie takes a moment to mentally slap himself back into the present moment, however shitty the present moment has proven to be, and takes stock of the surroundings. No immediate or imminent danger, save for himself almost giving himself a new bruise with that cabinet. Charlie then mentally slaps himself again because how had he managed to get so lost in his thoughts to not pay attention to where he was going? He knows first hand that this place is dangerous and he just daydreamed instead of looking out for Ranboo? Some good he’s doing.

First note of order is that they successfully reached the Puzzler’s Wardrobe Set which means that he can finally try and lighten the mood. 

Ranboo had been standing by Charlie, idly looking over the various assortments of clothes, wigs and miscellaneous items in an attempt to completely ignore the whole situation that had lead them here to begin with and had, like he said in his previous inner monologue: settled a growing rock of worry right in Charlie's chest. Whenever they notice Charlie looking at them they physically straighten up to try and look more put together than they clearly were. 

It’s weird. A lot of this situation is weird. Honestly weird is an understatement. Charlie should say something to break the strange silence coating the two of them, and he’s not sure why he can’t. A million words and questions come to mind such as are you ok what happened what did you see how can I make it better, all swirling and twisting together in one mass of fear, worry, anger and care. Everything knots together in his heart and by the time it’s reached his mouth no longer makes any sort of sense. He wants to say a lot of things. 

What's wrong?

Who hurt you?

What happened?

How can I help?

Please let me help you.

It will be ok.

But what came out of his mouth instead is-

“Want to dress up?”

[dylanndr]

OUT FRONT Magazine - February 2024 issue - Bad At Flirting [Excerpt]

So yeah, I made a comic about trying to parse flirting when you're autistic! I've excerpted two panels here. You can find the whole comic in the February 2024 issue of OUT FRONT Magazine (I'm on page 6).

This is a complex topic that was difficult to distill into a half-page comic, for sure. An unintentional meta-joke is that this comic kinda sorta metastasized into an infographic with flow charts, but really, that's what my brain is doing when I'm trying to figure out: Flirt or Not Flirt?

It's not that I can't see that a specific behavior COULD be interpreted as flirting, it's that I can come up with five other equally plausible explanations for that behavior that are all Not Flirt. Autistic people are already punished regularly for unintentional social misfires. Flirting makes things even more complicated, because even allistic people mask their behavior when it comes to flirting, so the autist is given even less concrete information to work with. Assuming someone was flirting when they weren't is a great way to get yourself ostracized, so in general, most autistic folks I know err on the side of assuming Not Flirt in most situations.

I will add that, for queer and trans autistic folks there's an added layer of uncertainty to the proceedings. For better or worse, cishet people have a script that says Woman Coyly Flirts, Man Approaches. There are a lot of things awry with that model, but it DOES offer a framework that doesn't really exist for queer people, so that's even more guesswork to wade through.

None of this is to say that no autistic people anywhere grok flirting, or are incapable of flirting themselves. YMMV! I merely speak to my own experience, and that which I have heard expressed by autistic friends.

Finally, the corollary to my comic: Trying to Flirt While Autistic

[acaseforpencils]

Sarah Kempa.

Bio: My cartoons and comics have appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker and McSweeney’s. I also had a short little comic-activity book published with AMU titled, Where Did My Roommate Put My Charger?: A Kind-Of Activity Book for Kind-Of Adults.

Find this print here!

Book link

Excerpt from book

This is my favorite cartoon they've published, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my true favorite (no offense cartoon!) which is this comic, done in honor of Dolly Parton and the Moderna vaccine.

Tools of choice: I draw all cartoons I pitch to The New Yorker on an ipad using Procreate.... I will forever appreciate the grace it gives me in making mistakes, and the speed of switching tools and adding a wash. I draw anywhere from 7-10 cartoons a week to pitch to the New Yorker, which for me honestly feels like a lot of drawing!! (Bravo to all the other cartoonists who accomplish such a feat without breaking a sweat!)

For the cartoons I pitch, I don't need everything to be perfect, but I do want it to feel like it could be a cartoon in the magazine, so I do my best to add a wash and make them look the part. The most wonderful thing about Procreate is I can do all that while sitting on the sofa watching/not watching Real Housewives, with a small dachshund napping on my lap, and not spill one drop of ink. Just as the cartoon gods intended!

For idea generation, I use Strathmore recycled newsprint, essentially a giant 18x24 pad of scrap paper. I will cuddle up with this pad and go through my different idea generation exercises, until I find something I want to make into a cartoon. The paper is nothing fancy, and I can fill it up with as many things as I want without running out of space. It seems like it's not very practical or portable, but I actually find it to be the opposite. I carry it around the apartment with me, take it outside, use it as a tray to move my workstation from the sofa to table, and have even leveraged a sheet or too as wrapping paper! It's perfect. I use these Muji gel ink pens with it and they pair nicely.

Tool I wish I could use better: Right now I'm working on using watercolors. I like the idea of bringing a little portable watercolor set to the park, and then painting nature, but those are both things I have never put into practice, but sound really nice in theory. 

Tool I wish existed: I always make a mess whenever I use ink, wash, water colors, pastels... you name it. I'm thinking it would be nice to have those invisible ink markers that only work on a certain type of paper, but instead with markers, my paints, pastels, inks, etc that I can't use without making a mess.

Tricks: I'm trying to quite literally do less. I burn out creatively more easily these days, so I'm making the decision to do less, and affirm to myself that it is okay. :) Maybe that means submitting less cartoons in a batch, or not drawing everything I think of that could be a cartoon, just trying to be a bit more intentional to keep the burn out away.

Website, etc.

My book! I think it would make a good gift? 

Instagram

Etsy

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If you enjoy this blog, and would like to contribute to labor and maintenance costs, there is a Patreon, and if you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee, there is a Ko-Fi  account as well! I do this blog for free because accessible arts education is important to me, and your support helps a lot! You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!