#Some characters are so laborious to draw but this DUDE

[zoevint]

is this canon?

(genuinely, one of the funnest characters I’ve drawn, ever)

[tisfan]

Moving Violations

Square: G5 - Carjacking Title: Moving Violations Warning: None Rating: Teen Characters: Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes Tags: kidnapping, carjacking, car chases, car crash Summary: This evening was not going according to plan. Now he was going to have to call the god damned police and file a fucking report and then call his insurance and file another report, and then he was going to have to call Pepper and-- Link: A03 Word Count:  2,545 Posted for @winterironbingo *also include relationship if not just winteriron

The conference was over, finally. Tony dragged his suitcase out to the car garage. He would have had the concierge do it, but it was late, the bellhops were all busy, and Tony didn’t want to wait. He wanted to get in his car, stop somewhere for an extra triple large coffee, a donut the size of his head, and get the hell out of Dodge. Or New Jersey, honestly, which was worse, and there he was anyway.

He popped the trunk, pushed his suitcase into the back, and was just straightening up when someone pushed a hard, metal thing against his back. “Gimme the keys, motherfucker, and don’t try anything funny.”

God damn it. This was not what he’d had in mind, checking out of the hotel immediately after the conference instead of waiting until morning, like everyone else. Suppressing a sigh, Tony slowly lifted his hands, letting the keys dangle.

Now he was going to have to call the god damned police and file a fucking report and then call his insurance and file another report, and then he was going to have to call Pepper and--

The car thief snagged the key fob, then shoved, pushing Tony forward into the trunk. The locking mechanism scraped against his midsection, tearing his shirt and bruising his skin. “Get it--”

There was a second man, a black ski mask pulled down to hide his face. He reached into the trunk and cut the safety cable that unlocked the trunk from the inside.

“Get in,” the first guy said, prodding Tony with the -- gun, probably -- metal thing in his back, giving him a matched bruise.

There was not a lot of room in the trunk, with the spare tire, his suitcase, and it being a sports model and not some soccer mom’s SUV.

This... was even worse. And just when Tony thought it couldn’t get any worse, Ski Mask reached in and groped at Tony’s clothes, what the fuck. “Hey, fuck you, what the--” Ski Mask shoved at Tony’s face, making him crack his head on the back of the tiny space, and came up with Tony’s phone. “Damn it, give me that!” The guy tossed it onto the floor of the parking garage with a snort, and then slammed the trunk shut, narrowly missing another crack on Tony’s head.

“Come on,” the first guy said, rushing around to the driver’s side. “Three more minutes until the window closes.”

“Not getting paid enough for this job,” Ski Mask said, but he was also getting in the car. The doors slammed, the car jerked into reverse and skidded out of the parking lot. Whoever was driving was good, Tony noted, shifting gears precisely, and handling the car well. At least, he wasn’t getting slammed around inside the tiny space.

(more under the cut)

Just to make sure, he tried pulling on the release lever, but it did nothing. Tony felt around, trying to get an idea for what was available. He found a screwdriver in his jacket pocket, and a pair of wire cutters. He couldn’t reach his pants pocket, cramped as it was, but since they’d tossed his phone, he didn’t think there was anything useful in there, anyway. A bunch of business cards, some conference swag -- pens, fidget toys, a couple of novelty condoms.

He felt around in front of him. Trunk, liner carpet-- oh! The tail light. He could... he could work with that, probably. He felt around for the screws holding it in place.

It was all kinds of awkward, trying to maneuver his arm into position to work the screwdriver, but he managed to get the cover off. He felt for the wires. There should be... yes, there. They were mounted into place, but a couple of snips with the cutters took care of that.

Now, he could make the tail light do what he wanted. He listened for a moment -- wherever they were taking him, it was on some kind of highway. Good. He tapped the wires together, carefully, making the light blink. Short-short-short-long-long-long-short-short-short. Pause. Short-short-short-long-long-long-short-short-short. Not many people knew Morse code anymore, but SOS was still pretty universal. Hopefully someone would notice and call them in.

Night driving wasn’t one of Bucky’s favorite things. Drivers tended to ignore motorcyclists with almost aggressive tenacity even during the day, and night was worse. He’d just missed being hit with a car that had rolled up behind him, swerved around, and then pulled back in the lane without adequate clearance.

Crazy, early drunk, Bucky decided. He dropped his speed again, letting some room get between him and the car.

Idiot left his blinker on, too, continually flashing.

Bucky rolled his eyes, and--

Wait, what? The tail light was blinking, rhythmically, and not in the simple click-click that most turn signals did. Bucky’d seen a few kits in his day, that made the tail-lights do an almost marquee scroll, which was really distracting late at night, but this wasn’t doing that, either.

Might be a short; it wasn’t any of Bucky’s business anyway. If the guy got pulled over for a burned out taillight, so much the better.

The light went dead for a moment, then started up again. The other rear light stayed steady, the whole time.

Flick, flick, flick. Flash, flash, flash.

What? Something nagged at him for a moment, and he lost the car as it wove around a tractor trailer. Bucky opened the throttle, speeding up.

SOS? Couldn’t possibly be. He only knew Morse Code because he watched entirely too many old war movies with his buddy Steve.

He pulled in behind the car again, watching, counting.

Yeah, that was… that had to be deliberate.

Bucky considered pulling over and calling 9-11 on his phone, when the car changed lanes twice. Bucky had to speed up to keep it in sight, and then it was headed off one of the exits, one of the complicated things that had two side paths, plus a jughandle. If he didn’t keep his eye on the car, he wouldn’t know where it went. Who even knew if the cops would take the story seriously?

Bucky followed them off the interstate.

“If this is someone’s idea of a prank,” Bucky muttered, “I am never gonna try bein’ a good samaritan again.”

Not that he had a plan. He was on a motorcycle, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like he could clip them and make them stop without practically killing himself in the process.

The tail lights flickered a few more times, then stopped, as if the person -- if it was a person -- was getting tired.  

At least there were traffic lights now. The car would have to slow down. Bucky grumbled, then decided to risk it. He took the next right hand turn, then an immediate left, slipping around traffic, taking advantage of his smaller vehicle and probably making all sorts of moving violations, but he managed to get ahead of them.

“Oh, this is so stupid,” he told himself, but as he came up on the car from the side, he slowed down, aimed the bike, and jumped off, letting the motorcycle smash into the passenger side door.

Inside the car, the passenger-side airbag exploded. The car swerved sharply and went into a spin, smashing into the guardrail. When it finally came to a stop, one tire was flat, and the bumper and whole side of the car had been liberally crumpled.

The driver’s side door opened, and a man floundered out of the car. “What the fuck!” he demanded. “What the--” He spotted Bucky, and his lip curled into a snarl. “What the absolute fuck, you asshole!”

Bucky’s sharp gaze raked the man, taking in dark clothes, aggression, and-- a gun holstered under one arm. Fuck, this was such a bad idea.

He staggered, letting his body pull him at a rolling gate. Playing drunk. “Dude, where’d you--” he acted like he couldn’t find his helmet’s strap, struggling with it. “Saw th’ car in front of you, and the car behind you, but not you…” He got the helmet off, still closing the distance. “What the hell’d you do to my bike?”

Two more steps, and Bucky threw the helmet at the guy, smashing him in the face with the fiberglass, hand automatically reaching, and-- grabbed the gun. “Don’t fucking move, asshole,” he yelled, putting the barrel right over the guy’s bloody nose.

The guy’s eyes went big and round in shock. “What-- Okay, man, okay, Jesus fuck, what the fuck am I going to do now?”

“Dude, tell your friend that he cannot possibly shoot me before I shoot you,” Bucky advised, stepping to one side and keeping the first guy between himself and the passenger. “He looks a little banged up to me, he’s likely to shoot you in the back before he gets one off on me.”

“What are you, some kind of cop?” the guy demanded, but he waved at his buddy, who was still trying to get untangled from the airbag enough to turn around and draw a bead on Bucky.

“Cops wish they were as cool as I am,” Bucky said. “Have him pop the trunk.” He hoped it wasn’t too damaged to work, and that whoever was inside it was okay. He really had not thought this through at all. Provided he lived through it, though, it was going to make a great story to tell Steve and Sam.

Slowly, with much cursing and complaining, the other guy managed to find the lever to pop the trunk.

“Hey pal, you okay in there?” Bucky tried to look over the driver’s shoulder to see what was actually in the damn trunk.

“I’ve been better,” said a voice. There was some more cursing and several pained grunts, and then a man unfolded from behind the driver, climbing laboriously out of the car’s trunk.

“If you can walk, there’s a whole ton of zip ties in my cycle’s saddlebag. And then I’ll call the cops?” He shifted the gun again, aiming at the guy’s knee. “Don’t even think about it. I don’t want to kill you, but my moral code’s a little wobbly on the subject of kneecaps.”

The victim looked around and then stumbled his way over to Bucky’s bike, rummaging in the bags and then coming back with the zipties. “Should I even ask why you have-- oh shit, you’re hot.” He froze, staring at Bucky.

Bucky spluttered. That was not at all what he’d expected. “I’m an electrician,” Bucky explained. “And I had a bunch of cable-wraps to do today. Come on, Dude in Distress, let’s zip these fuckers up before someone decides to try me. This is my favorite jacket, I do not want blood on it.”

The guy shook himself back into motion. “Right, right. Sorry.” He walked around behind the driver and started zip-tying the guys’ wrists. “It’s been a long week, and I’m dealing with an adrenaline dump; my filters are pretty much gone.”

Bucky stepped away, once they were both ziptied and on the ground, swearing and cursing, but probably not going anywhere. “Jesus,” he said, then lowered the gun and flicked the safety on. “Not how I intended to spend Friday night-- oh, crap, look at my bike!” Bucky’s voice spiraled up, the victim wasn’t the only guy who was dealing with a sudden flush of hormones. He wobbled back another few steps, shaking from head to toe.

“Whoa, hey, relax, it’s going to be okay,” the victim said. He reached out a tentative hand and gingerly patted Bucky’s shoulder, then again with more confidence when Bucky didn’t immediately throw him off. “I will absolutely make sure it gets fixed. Or replaced. Whatever’s easiest.” He looked around. “What did you do, drive right into the side of the car?”

“Basically, yeah,” Bucky said. He reached for his phone, tapping the Emergency Call button. “You need an ambulance-- what’s your name? I’m Bucky.”

“Tony,” the guy said. He prodded carefully at his face and arm and one leg. “I think it’s all superficial,” he said. “Just... cops.”

“Right, okay,” Bucky said, and when the phone chirped, with the “911, what is the nature of your emergency,” Bucky gave almost no details. “There’s been a… attempted kidnapping and car accident--” he peered at the street signs and gave an address.

“Sir, can you stay on the--” Bucky hung up. They’d both get grilled at the station, or the hospital, if medics decided they needed treatment anyway.

“Tell me you’re not some sort of swag drug dealer or something in a meet up gone bad,” Bucky said. “I’d really like to be the good guy, here.”

“Uh, yeah, I think we can safely say you’re the good guy,” Tony agreed. “I haven’t done drugs since college and I’ve never dealt. I don’t know what these two were after, but it wasn’t, you know, revenge for my nefarious and criminal ways. Hey, can I borrow your phone for a sec?”

Bucky handed it over, looking at the guy. He was dressed in a suit that had probably been nice before he’d been shoved in the trunk of a car, with tousled brown hair and a perfectly shaped beard. If Bucky had to say he had a type, Tony would have checked off a lot of boxes.

Tony dialed the phone. “Pep? What, no, I’m not-- It was fine, but I-- Pep! Code ninety-nine! ...Thank you. Yes. No, I’m fine. Mostly. Well, they jumped me in the garage and stuffed me in the trunk but the hottest guy in New Jersey managed to make them crash the car and-- No, I’m serious. The police are on the way; I need you to scramble the team. Yeah. Yes, really, I’m fine. Yeah. I’ll call after the police. I know, I know, you don’t have to-- Yeah, okay, I know.” He hung up without saying goodbye and handed the phone back to Bucky. “Thanks. My assistant,” he explained. “She likes to be kept up to date on my schedule.”

Bucky snorted. “So, this is, what, like someone’s extra meeting?” He saw light flashing in the distance, the wail of sirens getting closer. Very carefully, he took the gun out of his jacket pocket and put it on the pavement. “This is gonna be a very long evening,” he told Tony. Although given that he had a code for being kidnapped that his secretary knew, he was probably used to it. “Don’t suppose I can buy you a shitty cup of coffee after it’s done, or something?”

Tony looked at Bucky again, startled. “Wait, really? No, don’t answer that, you made the offer; no takebacks. Yes. You can buy me coffee. I’ll buy the doughnuts.”

“Square deal,” Bucky said, giving Tony a wide grin. “If I get out of this with less than a dozen moving violations, shitty coffee is gonna be all I can afford. By the way-- the Morse Code? That was clever. I was following them for like ten miles.”

Tony grinned back, offering Bucky a hand. “Thanks. And... Thanks.”

“I’d say anytime, but I’d rather you not make a habit of getting carjacked.”

“I dunno,” Tony said, giving Bucky an obvious once-over. “It might have been worth it.”

[ink-logging]

Detective Comics #1000, Chris Conroy & Dave Wielgosz, eds.: I bought this on impulse because it was on the new releases shelf and people were talking about Batman online. It’s a 100-page anthology tribute for the Batman character’s 80th year and the one thousandth issue of “Detective Comics”. I don’t think anyone is ever at their best in a tribute anthology, but that makes them kind of interesting to look at, you know? There are eleven stories, which I will now spoil in their entirety.

1. “Batman’s Longest Case”, Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia, Tom Napolitano: The first of two stories in which Batman is doing something that looks grim, but is actually happy and anniversary-ish - both with similar titles, and both from major Batman writers. This is the better one, because I think Capullo is an interesting artist. He’s comparable to Jae Lee, in that he’s someone who had some work in comics under his belt prior to being ushered into the second ‘generation’ of popular Image artists, and has continued to evolve quite vividly over the years. The Capullo of today dials up the use of shadows and silhouette that used to sort of decorate the folds of Spawn’s flowing cape and such - here, they’re used more to focus attention on storytelling fundamentals: geography; gesture; etc. I also generally like the colorist, FCO Plascencia, who’s done some Varleyesque color-as-mood work on earlier comics with this team, though the story here is subdued... very classy, dressed for the gala.   

Hints of ‘90s grotesquerie only pop up once Batman has solved a large number of flamboyantly abstruse riddles and discovered that the titular Longest Case is really an initiation test fronted by wrinkly old Slam Bradley, the original Siegel & Shuster-created star of “Detective Comics” back in 1937, who welcomes Batman to a Guild of Detection. This is clever of the writer, Scott Snyder, because Batman as a basic concept is hugely derivative of earlier pulp, detective and strip hero characters - and, if you’re being honest about paying homage to the character’s origins, you might as well play up lineage as your metaphor.

2. “Manufacture for Use”, Kevin Smith, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair, Todd Klein: In contrast, this story shoots for the quintessential. Smith, of course, is the filmmaker and longtime geek culture celebrity who’s written comics off and on, so maybe it’s his distance from the continuum of superhero writing that has inspired a short story that could have run as a backup in any Batman comic since the 1970s, give or take few cultural references. Matches Malone (Batman, when he is being an undercover cop) descends into the secretive world of true crime memorabilia to buy the gun that killed Bruce Wayne’s parents, which he then melts down to form the metal bat-symbol plate Batman wears on his chest, verily steeling his heart with the memory of this tragedy to fortify him in his neverending battle against crime! NANANANANANANANA BATMAAAAAN! Jim Lee and his usual crew makes everything look like it’s ‘supposed’ to, provided you see this type of statuesque posing as the best sort of superhero art, which many DC comics readers presumably do, given how a lot of these things look.

3. “The Legend of Knute Brody”, Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen, Derek Fridolfs, John Kalisz, Steve Wands: Dini has written tons of comics, with not a few of those drawn by Nguyen, but this feels mostly like DC1k (acronym’s resemblance to “DICK” a purely innocuous reference to Nightwing, I assure you) acknowledging the extensive legacy of “Batman: The Animated Series”, on which Dini was a writer and producer. The story takes the form of a biography of an infamously clumsy hired thug for supervillains, whom even the most novice reader will have figured out is a Batman Family asset about halfway down page 4 of 8, leaving a whole lot of laborious and narration-heavy slapstick to wade through. Admittedly, this might work better as an animated cartoon, with voice acting leavening the pace of the gags, but I’m also not sure ‘this would be better in a different art form’ is the impression superhero comics should be giving right now.

4. “The Batman’s Design”, Warren Ellis, Becky Cloonan, Jordie Bellaire, Simon Bowland: 

Most of the drawing in DC1k is the kind of stuff you can easily trace to a few popular and fairly narrow traditions of ‘realistic’ superhero art. Becky Cloonan is the only woman to draw an entire comic in here -- Joëlle Jones co-pencils a story with Tony Daniel later on, and Amanda Conner does a pinup, mind -- and her work is the only place in this book where you catch glimpses of a global popular comics beyond the superhero provinces in the Hewlettian wild eyes of the hapless human opponents of her Batman, lunging through velvet layers of cape and smoke, lipless mouth parted on a shōnen ai jaw. It is really very impressive. 

The writer, Warren Ellis, does a pathos-of-the-hard-man story, in which Batman explains his combat strategies via narration while carrying them out, occasionally making reference to the medical bills his prey will incur and their timely motivations as terroristic white men who feel ignored by the world, and at the end Batman asks the last guy U WANT TO LIVE IN MY NIGHTMARE, LITTLE BOY and the guy is like n- no dr. batman sir, and gives up because Batman’s is too dangerous and scary a life model. It is made clear from the text that Batman has programmed himself into a system of reactionary violence that he inevitably reinforces, but this message is so heavily sugared with cool action and tough talk that the reader can easily disregard such commentary, if so inclined, which has been a trait of Ellis’ genre comics writing since at least as far back as “The Authority” in the late 1990s. It fits Batman as naturally as the goddamned cowl.  

 5. “Return to Crime Alley”, Dennis O’Neil, Steve Epting, Elizabeth Breitweiser, ‘Andworld Design’: I was surprised that there weren’t other writers from across the Atlantic in DC1k, given the extensive contributions of Alan Grant and Grant Morrison to the character. I was maybe not as surprised to see Dennis O’Neil as the lone credited writer to pre-date the blood and thunder revolution of Frank Miller et al. in the mid-1980s, as that commercial shadow is far too long to escape. Of course, O’Neil was one of the architects of superhero comics as a socially relevant proposition and Batman as a once-again ‘serious’ character in the 1970s, and it may be a reflection of his standing as a patriarch that this story contains no sugar whatsoever: on the anniversary of his parents’ death, Batman is confronted by a childhood caregiver who has figured out his dumb secret identity, and castigates him for doing stupid shit like dressing up as an animal and punching the underclass when he could actually do something as a wealthy man to improve the world. Then Batman starts beating the shit out of young masked teens who have stolen a gun, after which Batman, who is also a masked thug, is told that he is, at best, a figure of pity. The end! 

What emerges from this story, to my eye, is that Batman is a terrible fucking idea if examined with any sort of serious realism - and Steve Epting draws the story as close to photorealism as anything in this book gets. I also think it is not insignificant that O’Neil, the writer here most unplugged from superhero comics as a commercial vocation, is the one to make these observations; to believe in superhero comics is to understand that there is play at the heart of these paper dolls, and to make your living from these things is to contemplate new avenues for play. Maybe Batman is dark, obsessive! Should he... kill? Sure, Bill Finger made him kill. The Shadow killed lots of dudes. So did Dick Tracy. Ramp up the verisimilitude too much, though, and you’ve got a guy wearing a hood going out by the cover of night to scare the shit out of superstitious cowards who’ve been taking from the good people of society, which, in terms of motivational narratives, is the same origin as the Ku Klux Klan. To play nonetheless, is the craftsman’s burden.

6. “Heretic”, Christopher Priest, Neal Adams, Dave Stewart, Willie Schubert: Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, is veteran Batman artist and frequent Dennis O’Neil collaborator Neal Adams. And while Adams is not credited as the writer on this story, it bears all the hallmarks of his 21st century work at DC: whiplash pacing; uneasy expository dialogue; and eager callbacks to Adams’ earlier work. This is the Batman comic as a continuity-driven adventure, and I found it largely incomprehensible as a story, not unlike Adams’ recent “Deadman” miniseries. I still like his husky Batman, though. 

7. “I Know”, Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, Josh Reed: Hey, did you know Brian Michael Bendis, writer of approximately ten and one half zillion Marvel comics, is writing comics at DC these days? Here he teams with longtime collaborator Maleev for a story that brings to mind the old line from Grant Morrison’s & Dave McKean’s “Arkham Asylum” about Batman being the real person and the guy under the mask being the mask. The Penguin, of all villains, figures out Batman’s secret identity, but elects not to pursue Bruce Wayne in his private life, because destroying Bruce Wayne would create a pure Batman far too dark and twiztid for anyone to handle. Or, maybe that is all just an image the perfectly sane Batman has deliberately encouraged as part of his umpteenth contingency plan. I would argue that this is a gentle spoof of people taking Batman too seriously, which clicks with what I’ve read of Bendis’ idea of the character in those 100-page comics they sell at Walmart: a globetrotting detective-adventurer, appropriate for all ages. Bear in mind, I’ve read maybe 0.2% of all Brian Bendis comics.  

8. “The Last Crime in Gotham”, Geoff Johns, Kelley Jones, Michelle Madsen, Rob Leigh: Whoa, now we’re talking! Kelley Jones! Just look at this: 

Such totally weird stuff, coming from the artist who drew all those classic ‘90s covers with the huge bat-ears and wildly distorted musculature, the cape this absurd, unreal shroud. It looks like he’s working from photo reference with some of this comic, but also just tearing out these drawings of huge jawlines and shit, this total what-the-fuck-is-going-on haze, which perfectly matches Geoff Johns’ furiously ridiculous story about an elderly Batman and his wife, Catwoman, and their daughter, and Damian, and a dog, who all investigate a mass murder that turns out to be the Joker’s son committing suicide, and then Batman unplugs the Bat-Signal because crime is over in Gotham forever, and then we find out it’s all the birthday wish of Batman, who is blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, in costume, in the Batcave. Is “Doomsday Clock” like this? Should I pirate it??

9. “The Precedent”, James Tynion IV, Alvaro Martinez-Bueno, Raul Fernandez, Brad Anderson, Sal Cipriano: Inevitably, we come to the story that argues that Batman is actually a great guy, and his pressing of children into action as vigilantes under the cover of night is an amazingly positive thing. This is what I mean by “play” - it doesn’t literally make sense, we all know that, but if you buy into the superhero idea, you can buy into this universe of metaphor where the Batman Family is a vivification of finding your company of people, and belonging, and being loved. Lots of talk in here about snatching young people out of the darkness and forging them in light, and helping them find a better path - it sounds like Batman is signing these kids up for the Marine Corps, which is one of several organizations that recognizes the power of these arch-romantic impulses.

10. “Batman’s Greatest Case.”, Tom King, Tony S. Daniel, Joëlle Jones, Tomeu Morey, Clayton Cowles: This is just unbearable. Oh god, what absolute treacle. It’s the second story in this book about Batman being serious and mysterious, but it turns out something nice is going on - he really just wants a photo of the whole Batman Family, because he lost his family when his parents got shot, but then he cracked his greatest case by finding a new family, which is the Batman Family!

All of this is communicated via clipped dialogue in which various Batman Family superheroes trade faux-awkward quips and cutesy ‘moments’ that are supposed to embody the endearing traits of the characters, but read as the blunt machinations of art that is absolutely desperate to be liked. This is art that is weeping on my shoulder and insisting I am its friend, and I want to get away from it, immediately. Tom King is the most acclaimed superhero writer of this generation, and I can only presume his better work is elsewhere.

11. “Medieval”, Peter J. Tomasi, Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, David Baron, Rob Leigh:

Finally, we have the obligatory story-that-leads-into-next-issue’s-serial, thereby demonstrating that Batman endures. It’s done as a series of 12 splash pages, depicting Batman in battle with his greatest foes, and it benefits immeasurably from the presence of artist Doug Mahnke (some inks by Jaime Mendoza), whose been a favorite of mine since those early, blood-splattered issues of “The Mask” at Dark Horse decades ago. Broadly speaking, Mahnke is working in a similarly muscular vein as many contributors to DC1k, but his sense of composition, of spectacle -- that boot-in-the-face energy the British call thrill-power -- adds an important extra crackle, and an element of humor; his Batman looks like a hulking maniac dressed in garbage bags, beating the shit out of monster after leering monster. What we are seeing is the fevered imagining of a new villain, the Arkham Knight (a variant of a character introduced in a video game), whom writer Peter J. Tomasi characterizes via the old trick of having the villain narrate to us a bunch of familiar criticisms of the hero, which the hero will presumably react to and overcome, or acknowledge in an interesting way, or something, in future installments. This probably would have worked better if other stories in this book hadn’t already made a lot of the same points in a manner that is not an advertisement for the rebuttal of those points... or if I were even capable of reading a story like this without imagining a final dialogue bubble coming in from off-panel going “SIR, THIS IS A BURGER KING DRIVE-THRU.” But something’s gotta go in issue #1001.

-Jog

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Mike Bernier kind of looked like Charlie Brown.

I’d been waiting outside Trafalgar Middle School for this education minister to show up, squinting into the harsh sunlight, while a sign-toting mob of Kootenay parents began to congregate at the entrance. They were pissed, and had been for the while, about the possibility that multiple schools in the district were in danger of being shuttered. For months I’d been covering the laborious planning process they’d been going through with the school board, knowing the whole time that the whole endeavour could be completely ignored or scrapped by the provincial government. 

When I first got assigned to school board, I thought of it as a chore. The stories were numbers-heavy, esoteric and lacking in human drama. But as tensions ramped up around the school closures I’d been picking up on all the rage and vitriol getting funnelled at the Ministry of Education, and I was intent on holding this dude to task. The accusation was that rural schools were underfunded because of their unique challenges, including an impoverished and small base population, and that meant students were falling through the cracks. If anyone had the power to face this reality and do something about it, it was Mike Bernier.

As I waited for him to arrive, I chatted with the protesters and did some preliminary interviews with the parents, including local actor Lucas Myers. It was all very colourful. In the background loomed the orange-bricked institution, which looked closer related to a prison than a school. Repeatedly I’d heard how desperately in need of refurbishment it was, how it was on the verge of being condemned, but there simply weren’t funds to change that.

When his car first pulled up, Bernier’s press guy forced his card into my hand and apologized for being late. The minister himself was dopey and congenial, with an aww-shucks energy and a wide politician smile. I watched him shake hands with the principal, then with all the board trustees and the superintendent. Along with a couple of other journalists, I followed him around the school as he played the drums, sat in a student-constructed wooden chair and leaned over a kid’s shoulder to ask about something on the computer screen. This guy was used to being photographed, and obviously knew what would play well. What nobody had briefed him on beforehand, though, was that this particular school was on the kill list.

“Is that my knees creaking or is that the floors?” he quipped, and right away I knew I would be making good use of that quote. It made him sound glib and uncaring, like he saw the school’s problems as nothing but a joke. No wonder people hate the Liberals, I thought. 

“It’s important for me to get out around the entire province to see not only the schools, but also to meet with students and see what happens in the classrooms,” he said, during the post-tour scrum.

“Every district in the province, and there’s 60 of them, is different with unique challenges and stories to tell. I’m not making decisions in Victoria without understanding what’s going on in the province.”

As he spoke, I heard the voices of the protesters in my head. Sometimes it was so easy to get swept up in the rhetoric that it was hard to determine where my beliefs ended and theirs began, whether I truly believed something or if I just wanted to express solidarity with people I had sympathy for. As a journalist I worried that I was coming off as too anti-establishment, too keen to criticize and complain while not championing the positive things going on in SD8. As I churned out stories for Greg, I tried to make sure there was a good balance of critical and positive coverage. I was nobody’s cheerleader.

“You wouldn’t believe it. He’s the first education minister to visit here in like 10 years, and he only went to one school for about an hour,” I told Greg, halfway through typing up the Bernier story. “And he even screwed that up. Nobody told him ahead of time that Trafalgar’s potentially getting axed, so when the question came up during the interview he looked like a complete dumbass.”

“I imagine that’s why the district chose for him to visit that school in the first place? To make him aware of the situation?”

“Exactly. They spent all this time showcasing the good work they’re doing, like bragging and doing photo ops, but essentially they were trying to draw his attention to their plight, and he had no fucking idea.”

“It is a big province, Will. He’s responsible for every school in B.C.”

“So what? He doesn’t have a staff? Nobody could have given him a call and said ‘hey, just so you know, the school you’re touring through is cash-starved and on its last legs if you don’t give it a cash infusion’? These parents are out there begging him not to close this school, and he had no idea what they were even talking about.”

“That is shocking, maybe, but not surprising. This government doesn’t exactly have a good track record on education.”

The great thing about having Greg as an editor was that he was good with the details I didn’t want to engage with. He was good at looking up numbers, fact-checking, and being fastidious about the elements of the story that I neglected because they bored me. Every time I handed in a school board story he would ask me to inject additional facts, because while the quotes and broad strokes were nice, it was those dollar figures that parents were really concerned with. As I wrote up the Bernier story, and then a corresponding column about the larger school closures issue, I loved feeling like I was beginning to comprehend the larger picture. How all the different pieces fit together. Essentially, the story was this: the board had come up with their pitch, and now the ball was in Bernier’s court. By choosing to close some schools and amalgamate others, their proposition would save the government $23 million. But to make that happen, they needed an investment of $11.5 million.

“What are the chances he’s going to go for it, you think?” I asked Greg. “Seems like a pretty ripe apple to me.”

Greg sighed. “It’s hard to say. These schools have been neglected for so long, it’s hard to imagine that anything dramatic will happen anytime soon. That’s unless the government changes in the next election.”

In my column, I outlined my education on the school closures issue and detailed exactly the plan that SD8 was proposing to Bernier. It involved closing four schools in district — including Trafalgar. I used a colourful photo of people holding protest signs to illustrate it, and called it “This is why we’re closing four Kootenay Lake schools”. I felt like if I could just accurately portray the situation as it was, that would jolt the government into understanding. I wondered if it was naïve to think so. 

Once it was finished, I handed it to Kai for copy editing.

“Okay, I’ve got a few things here,” Kai said, rolling over to my desk with his pen in hand. “This is really strong, I think you’ve covered a lot of ground here, but there’s just a few spots where I think you can tighten.”

We went through note by note, as he suggested slashing an unnecessary word here and adding an explanatory sentence there. He came to my description of sitting in my RAV out in Slocan, before one of the big school board meetings.

“I understand you’ve got a really personal approach and you like to show up as a character, but dude. The reader does not need to know you were eating corn chips,” he said. “Nobody gives a shit.”

I laughed. “Okay, you’ve got me there.”

For the ending of the piece I quoted a local resident, Dr. Marcia Braundy, who had been outspoken about the school closures. She had made repeated references to the Prosperity Fund the Liberal government was sitting on. She asked my that couldn’t be used to properly fund the schools. 

“Prosperity is when you educate the young people of this province,” she said.

I ended the column with a nod to Charles Dickens, writing “I picture it like this: SD8 cowering with hat in hand, reaching out to ask the government “please sir, can we have some more?”

The Kootenay Goon

[pass-the-bechdel]

LOST season five full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

64.7% (eleven of seventeen).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

29.67%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Two (episode two ‘The Lie’ (40%), and episode three ‘Jughead’ (40%)).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Two (episode seven ‘The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham’ (18.18%), and episode thirteen ‘Some Like it Hoth’ (18.17%)).

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-nine. Twelve who appear in more than one episode, three who appear in at least half the episodes, and zero who appear in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-eight. Thirty-four who appear in more than one episode, ten who appear in at least half the episodes, and zero who appear in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

As per usual, the ladies rock, but the show is waaayy too reliant on questionable-to-shitty dudes instead (average rating of 3.05). 

General Season Quality:

Easily my least favourite for the series; still quality entertainment with various flashes of brilliance, but for pretty much the first time in the show’s run it is clear that the writers didn’t always know what the fuck they were trying to do. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Well. Those statistics kinda suck, huh?

I’m feeling really washed out on this season - I think I give it more credit than it’s due, or I GAVE it more, anyway. It has always been my least favourite, but I feel like I tried to like it as hard as I could so that I wouldn’t have to admit that, actually, it’s a really disappointing mess, and they can’t just blame the Writer’s Strike. The season they scrambled to get under way was still a shoddy idea, either way, and I’m not sure how much of an impact it had on the series as a whole, and that’s...bad. Obviously it had an affect in terms of certain character deaths, and the major factor of the return to the island, but none of that stuff is reliant in any way upon a long drawn-out adventure through time to hang in Dharmaville in the 70s and get wrapped up in some plot contrivances with Daniel Faraday’s parents. They did a few fun things with the timeline (I still super-love the Locke/Richard paradox) but mostly, they futzed about wasting time and introducing a concerning plethora of plot holes for no real reason. It kinda makes me think of BBC Sherlock’s latter seasons, so convinced that they were being intelligent they lost sight of the fact that clever storytelling still absolutely requires that there be a point. I haven’t forgotten that I praised LOST for understanding the difference between masquerading as clever and actually being clever, early on in this season’s run, but at that time it was still true. The first half of the season may be more rushed and erratic, but it’s the second half that really lets the team down, turning in laborious and nonsensical narratives at a point when the plot fervour is actually settling down and allowing them plenty of time and space to maneuver. 

I get that maybe the showrunners were really eager to dig in and explore the Dharma days some more, but one of the first things you’ve gotta recognise as a storyteller is that sometimes you have to ‘kill your darlings’, as the saying goes, and if they couldn’t figure a better way to tell the Dharma story, they should have dropped it. The whole hydrogen bomb thing? 100% stupid, never should have made it past the drawing board. Daniel’s needlessly complicated heritage and equally needless death? Totally irrelevant; the circular narrative is classic LOST, but they should have figured out a more sensible chain of events to achieve it, it was far too clunky and shoehorned in as-is. The moral and existential conversations surrounding the shooting of little Ben are also classic LOST, and I can support the inclusion of that narrative despite what it means for Sayid as a character because at least it is consistent with the themes of the show as a whole, and it gave us a fantastic Kate episode. The crap they pulled with Juliet in the final episodes of the season, however, I’m not even gonna touch, because there’s just absolutely no excuses for that kind of cliche illogical rubbish.

This does bring me, however, to one of the biggest issues with the season outside of the questionable adventures in time and space: individual character narratives. A lot of them are, frankly, a mess, when they are anything at all - the plot is suffering under the weight of too many characters, having apparently forgotten how to juggle its substantial cast size and doing an atrocious job of faking it until they make it. What did they even give Sayid in the way of story, anyway? Apparently we’re supposed to take it that Nadia’s death and the subsequent career in assassinations that Ben fueled has pared down Sayid’s entire personality to leave nothing but a moody murder-y shell behind, and I for one am not convinced. Him being depressed and feeling like there’s no point to any of this, I can accept, but not the way he handles it; with everything he’s already been through in life, we have plenty of evidence for how Sayid copes with trauma and loss, and the one thing we know above all else is that he’s an extremely pro-active and resourceful person. His arc in this season, however, seems to be ‘Sayid is sad so he is doing nothing, except for when he is doing killing instead’, and that is so not who he has ever been as a person.

Pro-activity within the narrative is actually a HUGE problem with this season: in addition to Sayid, major proactive personalities like Desmond and Sun have also been handed essentially nothing to do but hang about and exist until someone can find them a purpose. Juliet is active, but the plot machinations of those later episodes twist that into irrationality, while Jin and Miles are just along for the ride. Daniel upholds the illusion of participating in the narrative when actually he’s just a walking Explainer there to pretend the science makes sense, and Jack, GOD DAMN JACK, the fact that he’s decided to become totally passive and possibly even more irritating now that he’s NOT constantly ‘reacting’, as Sawyer put it, that’s ACTUALLY supposed to be his character arc! BEING USELESS IS HIS CHARACTER ARC!!! As if him trying to get in touch with his ‘destiny’ and all that good stuff John Locke was always telling him about means just sitting back and letting fate do everything for him, until he finally decides that the best way to participate is to blow up a fucking bomb. I can’t believe it. Locke, at least, has always been extremely active in his pursuit of his sense of purpose, and he continues to make serious narrative waves even when he’s, um, slightly dead and not-so-much himself anymore. He, Ben, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley are still flying the flag of valuable and consistent character content that propels story, but it’s pretty depressing that the number of proactive characters on the show has dropped that low. And for what? So that the writers could focus on story that doesn’t even make sense? I’m callin’ it, y’all: this season sucks. It’s not the worst thing ever, but it’s an embarrassment to the cohesion, intelligence, and emotional resonance of the rest of the show. We’ve got one season to go, and at least I am pretty damn secure in my opinion of that season being better than this one.

[catlady1986]

Guilty Pleasure

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Noctis Lucis Caelum Characters: Gladiolus Amicitia,  Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, background characters Tags: Romance, Secret Relationship, Older/Younger Lovers, Prejudice, Student/Teacher Relationship, Anal Sex, more later

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Noctis carries two drink into the living room, setting one down on the coffee table by Gladio and making sure the straw is easily accessible for him before sitting back onto the couch behind the teen. The young man leans back and looks up at him, giving him a fake pout before chuckling when Noct leans down and presses a kiss to his lips.

“How's studying going?”

“Not bad, though I think parts of the notes I got are missing important details, some don’t even make sense.”

Noctis frowns and reaches for the papers, looking over them with his frown growing even more. “What instructor sent this? These are horrible.”

“Umm, Madigan.”

“Oof, that’s why. He’s an asshole from what the other instructors warned. Do you have your syllabus to see what chapters are being covered?"

“Yeah, but it doesn't have the chapters, just what we’re learning, like fractions and probability. There are like seven sections alone involving fractions and none of them fit with what's on the sheets. There is a chapter on probability but nothing with fractions. It's like he threw them together for a class and expects me to figure it out on my own.”

Noctis frowns and takes out his phone. “Let me see if Ms. Hadley is still in. She keeps notes for her learning support students and Madigan is one she keeps very detailed ones for.” he says and sends the text. Noct looks down at the teen who has rested his head against his lap, smiles and caresses his cheek. “What else do you have?”

“Just your class, figured I'd wait until I was home to do that.” Gladio says and sits up to press a kiss to the other’s lips. “So I have no work to do until that teacher gets back to you.” The teen half lids his eyes. “Maybe we can play for a bit?”

“What about your arm?” Noctis asks and lets out a chuckle as the much larger teen crawls onto his lap, straddling him.

“Still have one that's good.” he says and deeply kisses his lover.

Noctis moans into the kiss and wraps his arms around Gladio’s thick midsection before sliding his hands up the back of the teen’s shirt where he caresses his skin. But the ding from the teacher’s phone halts their fun, letting out a snort and giving the younger man a look of apology after he checks the device.

“She sends her condolences,” he responds and pecks Gladio on the lips. “and some notes. I’ll send them to you now, so-”

“Yeah, yeah. Back to work I go.” Gladio sighs and slides back down to the floor.

Noctis ruffles the teen’s hair playfully and places smooches onto his head and down his cheek, getting a laugh from him as he’s nudged away. While Gladio gets back to his work, Noct turns the television on and flips through the channels aimlessly before settling on a nature program that he occasionally mimics the narrator from.

“You do that quite well.”

“My buddy Ignis talks like that. Prompto and I would try and narrate mundane shit he'd due to be funny.” Noct says and smiles fondly. “He would act all offended and tell us we sounded horrible but we'd catch him smiling or laughing.”

“Heh, sounds like what Nyx does to Liberatus.”

“Those a couple of the friends who ditched you?”

“Yeah, but they’re good guys and funny as hell. Though I haven’t gotten to hang out with them since then, being grounded and with school starting.”

“That’s too bad, hanging with friends can help relieve stress and refresh you.”

“Hmm, yeah.” Gladio says and rests his head back against the older man’s legs. “But I do have you though.”

“True.” Noctis says and begins to chuckle as Gladio crawls up onto his lap again, pressing kisses to his face before pulling him into a deep lip lock. “I take it you’re finished studying?”

“Yup and we have a couple hours until Francis returns, plenty of time to fool around.”

The older man snorts and begins to laugh as Gladio mouths about his neck, stopping only to begin moaning when the teen rolls his hips over his groin.

“What do you have in mind? I don’t have any condoms.”

“Hmm, neither do I. But-” Gladio begins and brings Noctis’ fingers to his lips, pressing a quick kiss to them before wrapping his lips around two and sucking. “these don’t need one.”

“Spit isn’t the best choice of lube, kiddo.” he tells him and watches as the teen pulls a small container from his pocket, holding it out for the older man. “Surprised you have that but not a condom.”

“I use it as a lip balm.”

Noctis takes the container and opens it as Gladio resumes kissing him, slicking up a couple fingers on one hand while his whole hand for the other that he reaches into his own pants with. He frees his hard on and strokes it slowly as he slips his other hand down the back of Gladio’s sweats and past his underwear, teasing his fingers against the teen’s entrance momentarily before pushing one in.

“Ah.” Gladio gasps out as he’s entered. He wraps his none cast arm around the older man's neck and rests his chin atop his head, body quivering and mouth hung open as he softly pants. “Ah yes, feels good.”

The second finger is pushed in along with the first and Noctis slowly works them both in tandem, sliding in and out of his lover’s body, caressing against his walls and pushing against the spot his prostate is nestled behind that draws hearty moans from the other. Gladio unwraps his arm from around Noctis’ neck and reaches down between them, clasping his hand with Noct’s and joining in stroking him while rocking his hips as he’s finger fucked. Lips feather together in sensual kisses and speak tender words of endearment, hazy blue eyes get lost in seductive brown ones as the two men slip away into bliss.

The teen seizes up and tips his head back, letting out soft cries as his seed spills out between the two of them. He quivers as Noct continues rubbing his insides as he comes down from his orgasm, the older man finally stopping and focusing on his own release while pumping his cock until he climaxes with a sharp gasp. Sweaty foreheads press together as the two breathe laboriously as they slowly regain themselves, soft smiles form on their lips that brush together in kisses.

“That was exhilarating.” Gladio pants out between kisses.

“Yeah, never done anything like that before.”

The teen raises an eyebrow suggestively. “Really? Hmm, maybe we should try something more interesting next time.”

“Sounds intriguing.” he says and presses his lips to his lover's.

A knock to the door sends both men into a tizzy, scrambling off the couch and trying to clean up as another knock comes to the door.

“Shit, it can't be Francis yet, she always makes sure she's the last to leave.” Gladio says as he tries wiping up his mess.

Noct carefully peaks through the eyehole and blanches. “It's Prompto.” he huff's under his breath.

“Hide?”

“Yeah, I'll try to get rid of him.”

Gladio snatches up his stuff and zips into the bedroom as Noctis quickly washes his hands, then steels himself before opening the door and being greeted by the grinning face of his friend.

“Hey Prompto, what’s up?” Noctis asks attempting not to look embarrassed.

The blonde grins and pulls out a game from his jacket, his eyebrows wiggling as he waves the plastic case. “Guess what I just got? Two days early because I took photos at the premiere and schmoozed with the elites?”

Noct’s face lights up as he eyes the game but he quickly remembers his problem and pushes down his nerd excitement. “Hey uh, I can’t play right now Prompto. Maybe tomorrow?” he says and tries nudging his friend from the doorway, the other looking deeply hurt.

“Dude, I leave for three days tomorrow and won’t get another chance and by then the game will already be released. Just for a couple of hours. Come on Noct, please?”

“Prompto.” Noctis sighs and shakes his head, that moment of laxness allowing the other man to slip past. “Hey!?”

Prompto gives him a cheeky smile and starts kicking his shoes off, stopping and staring at the large beat up sneakers that clearly don’t belong to the teacher. The look on his face morphs from confusion to knowing and he turns to grin playfully at his friend.

“Oh? I see now. You have your boy-toy here.” Prompto titters and scans around the apartment before honing in on the bedroom door. “In here?”

“Prompto, stop.”

“Oh come on, introduce us. Maybe he wants to play the game too.” he says and barges into the bedroom, smiling at the mortified teen who is sitting on the older man’s bed. Prompto’s face falls into concern as he eyes the young man, looking at the bruises and bandaged arm. “Whoa, what happened? You all right?”

“Got jumped at work.” Gladio informs him and stands from the bed, extending his hand out to the awestruck smaller blonde. “Names Gladio, you must be Prompto.”

“Uh, yeah.” he says and shakes the teen’s hand, staring up at him stunned. “Man, you’re huge. What are they feeding these kids nowadays? Wish they had some of it when we were growing up.”

Gladio lets out a snort as Noctis groans and rubs his face.

[utchattanooga]

How ARRO arose: the tale of a graphic novel's creation

The year is 2032, and much of the southeastern United States can best be described as a post-apocalyptic wilderness.

According to the story’s overview, most of North America had been wiped away in 2029 by a gene-altering disease in the drinking water. A team of researchers working for a large global initiative called the American Research and Recovery Organization – better known as ARRO – travels across the southeastern U.S. to explore what's left of the former world. The mission for these doctors and scientists: Work to get the power grids back on, survive the wasteland, and recolonize.

And the futuristic story got its start … when two UTC students met at a screen printing shop in Chattanooga.

The year was 2009, and a chance meeting changed the lives of Tara Hamilton and Ali Burke – a pair of graduating UTC seniors. Hamilton (before marriage, her last name was Harris) was closing in on her bachelor’s degree in painting and drawing. Burke, an English major, would soon earn her degree in rhetoric and writing.

Going all the way back to middle school, Hamilton had been infatuated with drawing characters – so much so that she fantasized about creating comic books. She had specific concepts and characters in mind, mostly of a zombie genre.

Burke, meanwhile, was a science fiction fanatic. She had an interest in comics, but hadn’t seriously thought about making them.

Then, as fate would have it, Hamilton and Burke crossed paths in a local screen printing shop run by Nick DuPey – Burke’s boyfriend at the time and now her husband. Hamilton purposely had come to his shop due to an “art crush” she had on DuPey – who had received his degree from the UTC Fine Arts department two years before and had opened the shop with support from a grant he received in 2008.

“I had been trying to get somebody to work with me on a comic since high school,” said Hamilton, who grew up in Chattanooga and still calls the city home. “I was trying really hard to find somebody to work with, and those false starts were devastating; I figured it just wasn’t going to work out.

“I had three failed attempts before I finally met this amazing person I work with now, and we met in the most off-chance way possible. I was printing T-shirts at Nick’s screen printing shop. I was poor. I was like, ‘If I do the work, can I get them cheaper?’ I was an emerging artist and I was poor, and I needed shirts to sell.

“This one day, Ali came over to hang out at the shop – I think she came by with some beers – and Nick was like, ‘You’re a writer. You’re an artist. You guys should talk.’ “

Hamilton and Burke started talking, and their mutual interest in comics emerged. They started hanging out regularly at The Yellow Deli on McCallie Avenue. They began world-building – constructing an imaginary world with storylines and fully developed characters.

“Tara already had this rough concept and she’d been drawing this one character a long time; she really wanted to do a zombie comic,” Burke said. “I wasn’t too keen about the idea of zombies, so we developed these ideas together. We spent a lot of time before we even put pen to paper – just conceptualizing and researching.

“We started out just tossing things back and forth. I would write something, and she would draw a picture to go with it. Then she would draw a picture, and I would write some caption content that would fit with it. We did exercises like that, just to get warmed up.”

Through the world-building process, they created eight central characters. They developed a disease that traveled through the water system. They established storylines. They generated a post-apocalyptic adventure story.

“We hung out there a lot, and she kept making the story so much better,” Hamilton said. “Finally, Ali said, ‘Dude, we need to write this. We have to do it.’”

And ARRO was born.

“We came up with it together,” Burke said. “We really built out these characters’ back stories and the overarching narrative. It was just a tennis match of idea sharing, and that’s the best way to make things … to sort of volley it off someone else.

“It became a really natural collaborative relationship. I think we work close together. We push each other in good ways and have a lot of it balanced in our working styles. It’s really exciting to create something with a person … to write something and see it come to life visually through someone else’s eyes. We have a very collaborative relationship throughout the process, but a lot of times the writer/illustrator relationship in comics tends to be, ‘I write … I hand it to you … you draw it … it’s over.’ But we have a lot of back-and-forth throughout. We’re always working together on it, which is a relatively unique way of working. It’s something I really appreciate.”

“Ali is amazing. Please put that in there – that I said she’s amazing,” Hamilton said. “She manages to write everything how it needs to be for my style. I’ve never met a duo that I feel is as mentally together as we are. The only thing that stops us is ourselves as far as other stuff going on, but when it happens – it’s amazing.”

The digital illustrations of a comic book or a graphic novel don’t just happen overnight. It can be a laborious process.

Hamilton, the designer/illustrator, brings the characters of ARRO to life on her computer, utilizing a clunky stylus.

She explained that comics used to be done on a non-photo blue template, so when you inked it, the initial sketch drawings didn’t show up on the photocopier. There is no reason for her to use blue, but it’s still comfortable for her to do it that way. She then sketches in black, making sure everything fits into panel templates. Because ARRO is dialogue heavy, she has to leave ample room for words balloons.

Is it a labor of love for her? Yes. But it’s laborious, just the same.

“I work a 9-to-5 job, so on weeknights, my goal is normally half a page,” she said. “On weekends, my goal is normally one full page per day – when I’m really hitting a stride, trying to get stuff done. And that’s for lines only. I wait to color it until everything is done. All I want to do after Ali has edits is change the line art. If I have to keep changing it with the coloring, it hurts. I like drawing a lot and I like doing the line art a lot. Figuring out panels … I love it. But if I have to redo color, it’s rough. Sitting there and figuring out where colors go the first time is great. But if I have to delete a panel, redraw it and then recolor it, I’m going to hate every minute. So it’s best to leave the coloring until the end.”

As for the storylines, ARRO is really character driven. So it’s more focused on developing those eight characters than the world around them.

“I world-build a lot in my head,” Hamilton said. “I don’t draw it out as often as I probably should. But when Ali sends the chapters, I get a really clear vision of what it should look like.

“We collaborate for major ideas. We talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. Then she’ll send me this word document … and it’s magic. She understands these characters amazingly.”

Readers following the ARRO researchers know they’ll see 2032 Chattanooga both in the early chapters and in later volumes of the story.

“Part of it is just practical,” Burke explained. “In terms of drawing, you want to draw on things you know and places you know – and want to reference the places you visualize. You’re not writing about a place you’ve never been to.”

“I think we wanted it be as realistic as possible, so placing it in a location we knew felt more honest,” Hamilton said. “I love Chattanooga, and Chattanooga will come back quite a few times in later chapters.”

The year is 2016, and Hamilton and Burke had often talked about publishing an anthology once the third chapter had been completed.

It had taken quite some time to get to this point in the process. Life, literally, had gotten in the way.

Since the collaboration process started seven years ago, Burke got married, moved to Boston, had a baby and took on a fulltime job as a copywriter. Hamilton, too, worked a fulltime job, got married, and went back to UTC to obtain a second degree – this time in graphic design.

“Inevitably, there have been times – when she was finishing school … when I was preparing for my wedding … when I first had a child – when there were gaps and we just couldn’t work on ARRO,” Burke said. “Like any relationship, the best ones are the ones where you don’t talk to each other for a little while, then pick it right back up again where you left off. And we’ve been able to do that consistently and allow each other space to do the other things we needed to do in our lives.”

Although Chattanooga and Boston are more than 1,000 miles apart, Burke said their conversations tend to be more ongoing these days. Despite their heavy schedules, they’re in constant contact about future ARRO chapters.

“When we started, we had a lot more time to devote to it – and a lot more face time. We were able to go sit in a coffee shop for hours and kind of play around,” Burke said. “The distance thing is difficult, but we live in a time where we have a lot of Skype calls and texts going back and forth. We have a lot of shared Google docs. We still communicate a lot. And any time I’m in town, we get together and have that face-to-face experience. Honestly, there’s no substitute for that.”

Although they have taken breaks from time to time, “I knew that I wanted to keep working on it – and I knew she did, too,” Hamilton said. “It didn’t seem like it was a big deal taking that break. Our hearts were still in it, for sure. Once I graduated last year, I knew this is what I wanted to do and this is what I was going to do, no matter what.

“Even when I was in school, even when I didn’t have time to work on pages … every day, I was thinking about it and working out plot points. I was always thinking about character development. And anything I could possibly do in here” – pointing to her head – “while I was working on what I had to for class. It was never on the backburner for me. Every day, I was coming up with something to occupy my mind with the story and try to really flush it out. Once I was finished with the degree, I jumped into it as quickly as possible.”

Slowly but surely, page after page of ARRO was drawn and illustrated. Chapter One of the anthology, good to go. Then Chapter Two. Then Chapter Three.

The first volume – the aforementioned three chapters plus a pair of mini chapters, which are black-and-white in nature and separate from the main story – was now ready for production and distribution.

Earlier this year, Burke and Hamilton started a campaign through Kickstarter – a crowdfunding site that helps creative types find the financial backing and assistance they need to turn their ideas into a reality.

Hamilton and Burke’s goal was to raise $2,000 in 30 days (from June 13-July 13) for ARRO Comic, Volume 1. All of the funding was to go toward pulling everything together into one perfect-bound, full-color graphic novel. And they had specifics in mind: Speckle-toned Madero Beach 140# paper for the cover, 100% post-consumer Neenah PC100 80# for issues 1-3, and a crisp accent of Starch Mint 70-lb for the minis.

They reached that pledge level quickly, giving them the opportunity to create incentives for a stretch drive. In total, they raised $3,444 over the one-month period.

“It just so happened that it took us long enough that the technology exists for us to reach out to people,” Burke said. “The cool thing about Kickstarter … I think sometimes it feels like you’re begging for money, but I don’t see it that way. It’s an opportunity to pre-order. It’s an opportunity to gauge interest on something.

“Think of it this way. I’m asking, ‘Hey, if I printed this many books, how many would buy it?’ And these people are saying, ‘I would buy it.’ That way, you have the money to do the printing before you go to do it. And that’s an amazing opportunity. They’re not donating to us; they’re buying what they would have bought anyway.”

Approximately one-third of those pledging were from the Chattanooga area. But they also received pledges from backers in Great Britain, Australia, Singapore, Sweden and Gibraltar.

It’s an exciting time for the ARRO co-creators.

“We plan on having 10 or 12 volumes of ARRO; this is just the first one,” Hamilton said. “I really believe in this story. I think if people read it, they’ll see the amount of work we’ve put into it and hopefully really enjoy these characters.

“I’m seriously obsessed with them. Hopefully, other people can see that and like them, too.”