#as one naturally does when drawing many many comic panels

[jupiupy]

taakos gn design is growing on me a little bit...

[eluviannaa]

In this week's written Umbral scene, our Ethereal, Zarath'anar, doesn’t have many lines, but I made sure the ones he does have are dialed up to 11. He’s from the Consortium, an Ethereal faction focused on trade and shady deals.

Most of my research is pretty focused but I absolutely loved digging into Ethereal lore. Usually, I dig further than I need to, obviously for context but also, you never know what threads will be useful later on.

For this, while the Consortium wasn’t front-and-center during Legion (the story's timeline), it still felt lore-consistent that he might be in Dalaran as a vendor at my imagined market—especially more so than other Ethereal factions in this context.

Writing Ethereal dialogue is a time—it adds another layer of formality, which feels a little different from the bits of high fantasy and poetry I usually do.

By nature, Ethereals are cryptic, mysterious, detached from mortal concerns, and more focused on broader cosmic forces. Some of my favorite lines from Void Ethereals like Locus-Walker, Saprish, and Ashaal really get at that :

"Our bargain does not require me to wait until you are ready." — Locus-Walker

While these scenes serve more as a script/draft for the comic, visuals being sparse, I'm excited to draw all of it! The scene was a bit long overall but we have a little time before I get to the panels in Act 2. I'd love to do a revision of this but as is, it was nice to finish it.

Excerpt from Act 2, Scene 5: Echoes

At the Ethereal’s stall, Eluvianna found a collection of odd trinkets and crystal fragments. The Ethereal, barely more than a shimmering silhouette, stood quietly behind the array. As a simple stone caught her eye, its surface swirled with colors that seemed to shift.

As she leaned closer to it, the ethereal inclined his head. “In all things, the Sin’dorei have an impeccable sense of timing,” he murmured, his voice carrying on the wind. Eluvianna glanced up from the wares, momentarily meeting his gaze—or where his eyes should have been.

“Am I… late?” Eluvianna asked, compelled to respond despite the uncertainty.

“Quite the contrary—you are early. And as such, perfectly on time.” He nodded with sincerity. “It seems the past is not doomed to repeat itself entirely.”

From the folds of his fabric, he produced a small, tightly wrapped package, offering it to her with a spectral hand. “As agreed.”

“I don’t recall meeting before. Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else?” Eluvianna protested.

“Promises hold weight across all realities,” he replied, his voice like the air between worlds.

Despite her confusion, something in his words compelled her to accept the package. As she reached for it, he held it a moment longer, his grip firm but not unkind. “Alas, even I cannot glimpse the final patterns of the currents we navigate.”

Eluvianna furrowed her brow. “Currents?”

“Perhaps our paths will cross again when the echoes of this moment return,” his form shimmering faintly.

Somehow the words were familiar. Perhaps the echoes he spoke of were tied to her dreams. They had become more vivid, and last night they felt like a future destined. Though she had shrugged it off as merely a wish, she knew her studies had opened her mind to more. Just not quite any such path of an oracle.

[lemonlovemeanslove]

Favorite Tintin panel?

this was such a hard ask (which is why ive taken so long to think about it). At first, I had one that immediately came to mind but then I was all like nooo, that can't be it, I should have a more valid answer. So I decided to take my time, making different categories, and making sure to really thing about it. After doing all this, I realized my initial answer was still my favorite, but I might as well show all the work I put in (the favorite is at the end)

Artistically: There are the my favorite tintin panels in terms of what I find to be artistically appealing :)

I have always been very drawn the the way Herge drawings landscapes and mechanics, so these are very appealing to me. The second one also carries a lot of nostalgia for me, as I would constantly trace it as a kid when learning how to draw. The composition, the colours, and the atmosphere, it's just so compelling.

Pacing/storytelling: The panels that I find to be the most effective in utilising pacing and layout

I am OBSESSED with how easy the motions flow when following the panels (the way we follow the plane as its landing makes me want to scream its so good)

Characterization: the panels that i think best capture the essence of the characters. this one was really easy for me, since i have always had a favourite for this category

I dont know if this counts since its a front cover, but everytjing about this is just so craxy good. It communciates so much within such little space (the slightly paniced on shit lets get out of here look on Haddock, the way he is holding on to Professor Kalkyl, the expression on Kalkyls face and the way he is gesturing with his hand, the way Tintin is the ONLY one looking back, bc its just so in his nature to still want to see whats going on, its perfect. Milous expression is also very him)

Funniest: self-explanatory

This last panel is the funniest in all the comics for me. Tintins expression killllls me everytime

Cutest: All panels belogning to the immidate smile/aw category

those quick to catch on might have noticed that Haddock is my favorite character, but idk, Im pretty subtle about it :)

And now....

My favourite panel: The panel I initially thought of, then went no I have to find a better answer, only to realize that it was still, in fact, my favorite.

I find this panel appealing on so many levels. 'First, it's Haddock in a cute pose, wearing a different outfit, being moody, everything I love. Second I really like the colours in this, the emerald green chair against the purple accent on the robe just does something to me, and the way the cross hatching on the robe looks next to the cross hating for the bricks in the background makes me scream. The texture on the road itself and the details on the pocket is just so gorge to me. And that pop of baby blue under the robe……i might die. I also really like the compostion, the postion of the chair and the fireplace and the door in the background. It all just works to well for me.

[jezmmart]

#AMaY Commentary

Wanted to give a little commentary on the #AMaY project but needed a couple days breather haha. This mostly focuses on how I created each day with the full hidden final image in mind, but I also talk a bit about like "Why Amy???" on a personal level at the bottom.

So firstly, worth revisiting this old popular music video if you have the time, it was pretty viral back when it came out. This will become relevant shortly - not a huge deal if you don't want to watch it, but the reason I'm bringing it up will spoil said music video a bit so yeah, mentioning it and encouraging a watch now without context.

So yeah, #AMaY! It really came down to the wire on finishing it due to work, and I had to eat into my 2-week comic buffer that I'm now due to rebuild to keep up in the end.

It was basically the result of just REALLY enjoying drawing Amy and joking with friends and such to the point of being like "do I really enjoy drawing her that much that I could do a whole month of it? I think I could". Wasn't wrong!

I didn't have any set prompt list in mind, my idea was just to draw what idea grabbed me on the day. Then, inspired by various things I've seen do this but particularly that aforementioned music video which does the same reveal at the end, I had the idea of "what if I make it so they all make a picture of Amy when connected up". I had already sketched out this idea for the first day:

But started over after having this moment of inspiration.

What I didn't factor in is how this sort of effect is MUCH easier with simpler, larger pictures. I really should have just done her head or something, then most of my backgrounds could just be vague geometric shapes but didn't realise the practicality of it until it was too late, which is why we ended up with so many backgrounds of strange patterns and twisty pipes and such that I would try to mask by putting in additional patterns and pipes and whatnot as red herrings that were lower contrast than the ones making up the Amy picture.

I drew out what the final secret picture was going to be across a grid representing the days in the month, then each day I would start with a canvas of one square and figure out "now what sort of background can I turn this into, and what kind of Amy would belong in that background".

Naturally I had some ideas I was already leaning towards - goth Amy was one of them. When I looked at this portion of the image, the only sort of background thing I could see was some kind of cartooney medieval tower with a rim at the top. From there I realised the skirt could be bushes or walls around some dramatic graveyard hills, the creases in the skirt could be a path as long as Amy is positioned to hide the fact that they aren't actually connecting in the context of the hidden image. In some cases where it wouldn't make sense for a background element to suddenly stop, I instead used foreground scenery, such as the gravestone directly behind Amy here, to turn the element into the shape I wanted. These pipes that are going behind metal panels in the Chemical Plant background in order to turn them into eyelash shapes are another example:

Then when I got the idea to turn the lineart of of hidden Amy's skirt rim and chest into long wispy spirits escaping from the earth or something, it was just a case of adding a bunch more random ones of those to the rest of the background with lower contrast so they don't stand out as much as the important ones do. The one in the foreground also does the job of cutting off the path that makes up the tiny bit of Amy's leg lineart. Within the context of the graveyard background, the path continues, but at the zoomed out view, it can't be distinguished at a glance.

This was the kind of thought process that went into the more elaborate backgrounds. Naturally there were some where the Amy idea COULD come first, because what was required of the background was so simple I was kind of free to turn it into anything - or just take a day off and do simple geometric backgrounds.

(Again though, you can see here that I did all the circles as red herrings to imply that the little blob in the corner is another one - but the corner one is a deeper colour than the others).

And of course there were some days where I just COULD NOT think of anything that wouldn't be completely conspicious, so I just made Amy take up as much space as possible so I only had a few background lines to deal with, trusting that the grand context of the final hidden image would solve it in the end.

The final note is that I didn't JUST draw from these segments - I was steadily building up the full collage as I went, so I'd always have a "bleed" area I'd draw into with the existing surrounding days to make sure that the final result DID all connect up.

So yeah, that's the broad strokes of it!

To end on something more philosophical, I did sort of end thinking to myself as I spent all these hours drawing her - "Hey though, what is it about Amy? WHY do I love drawing her so much? Why is this one my blorbo?"

Humour me as I get all deep about cartoon pink hedgehog but I think it comes down to a few factors.

Let's address the elephant in the room first - unless I'm specifically looking to evoke her canon-self, I draw her with a more anthropomorphic sexy figure compared to the blobby, noodle-limbed body she has in the actual series, don't I. You see, in Sonic Adventure 2 there was this one promotional 3D render of her where they gave her one heck of a rack and also once I was on the internet as a teenager and partaking in the fandom, I saw other fanartists do the same with thighs to match. This was all during a vulnerable time in my development and it all made me a little unwell about Amy permanently, I think. Like, that cute haircut, the knee-high boots, the shiny short-skirted dress, this is all stuff that looks really attractive when you slap it on a human body!

Sonic himself is like... peak character design. There's a reason he's lasted so long and holds such mass appeal as a cartoon character. The only way to improve on that perfection is to make a girl version, and that's pretty much what Amy is. So no wonder she's so fun to draw!

And tailing off that - as an aspiring femme NB person who has not always been so, I do think I've always had a particular interest in the hyper-feminine aesthetic, which Amy has in spades. I think that's also a big part of her allure to me as a character. Much like how I live a lot of my feminine interest vicariously through my pin-up art, dressing up my OCs in cute clothes and such, I think that extends to Amy as well; a kind of obsession with the youthful hyper-feminine aesthetic that I just never got to openly enjoy in any real way earlier in life because I hadn't figured all this NB stuff out yet. I just love cute girly pink stuff!!!

That'll do it I think. I could probably waffle on about each individual day's art if I really wanted to but this is long enough as is. Check out the alt text if you like as I often mention easter eggs and costume details in those to try and make sure those with eyesight issues are getting the same experience as those without.

Thank you again one and all for enjoying or at least putting up with the month!

[More: #AMaY | Art Insight]

[genericpuff]

What makes a comic good in your eyes? And what makes it bad?

Oof, that's a BIG question that I can't exactly give one single answer to. There are a ton of factors. For me the biggest thing is writing, while the art might be a turnoff if it isn't polished in the beginning, it's still not a dealbreaker for me, I've read tons of comics that started off still figuring out their art (and that's the beauty of webcomics, really). It's when the writing isn't interesting or good that I tend to drop off. Maybe the plot doesn't make sense or takes too long to establish what it's trying to do, maybe the jokes feel forced or poorly written.

I think writing tends to sort of take an unintentional backseat in webcomics, and it just comes with the territory. Tons of online artists naturally come up with their own characters that they want to write stories for, so they gravitate towards webcomics. Whereas writers - even online ones - don't tend to see webcomics as the default, they'll usually end up in the fanfiction circles or on Wattpad or even just ditching the online format entirely and going straight into trad publishing. It's why there are so many writers looking for artists in the webcomic community, you won't find artists looking for writers quite so much because they usually wind up using webcomics as an entry point into writing. Writers can't use webcomics as an entry point into drawing quite as well, there's a LOT more upfront work into learning how to draw vs. learning how to write (but writing is ultimately harder to master, knowing how to write scenes on the page doesn't necessarily mean you're writing those scenes well).

So I find more often than not the writing ends up being a dealbreaker for me. Art gets me interested enough to take a peek, but the writing is what keeps me invested, so if the writing isn't sound, I'm probably not gonna stick with it. If a comic does feel like it isn't written (or even drawn) up to what I would define as "good", I try to identify what exactly what's wrong with it, not just so I can better understand why it isn't working, but so I can implement that understanding into my own work. It's not just learning what works in a comic, it's also learning what doesn't work.

Still, I try to distinguish between whether a comic is "good or bad" vs. whether or not it's even meant for me. I've definitely read comics in the past that didn't click with me but I could totally see why people liked it, it just didn't appeal to what I was looking for or my humor or whatever. Some comics are objectively great and they just don't connect with me, like Scoob & Shag, Homestuck, etc. where I can respect why people like them, I just like, couldn't get into them no matter how many times I tried LMAO And then some comics are objectively not great and I enjoy them anyways, like Deep Fried Pudge, which is literally just a daily single panel dad-humor-full-of-puns comic, it had no right being in my subscription list when I was still on Tapas but something about it was so charming to me. I feel bad even calling it "bad" because it's not trying to be anything, it's just this humble little passtime project that someone started and never stopped. And I mean it has not stopped updating since 2012, every time I check in on it I'm astounded to see it's STILL going at 4,036 episodes. I have no idea what power the person who makes this possesses but they will surely outlive us all, I can only rationalize its existence as the closest I've ever been to perceiving God.

[winns-stuff]

LO RANT:

Okay, I’ve been seeing a lot of redesigns of Persephone and it’s really made me realize some very disturbing things. Most of the redesigns I’ve seen is basically making Persephone look older and not a damn child, and I will say this… The way that the original panels look like a toddler compared to the redesign is disgusting.

Let me explain, I’ve seen so many panels of Persephone having such childlike features and having literally no shape. Like there’s a bunch of panels where she has no chest, no hips, no nothing, and she’s literally shorter than all the other fucking gods. She looks like a damn toddler because of how underdeveloped her body looks! It’s disturbing how she’s so “curvy” and “thick” but in the earlier shots she was a literal surfboard. I’m not trying to say adults need to have boobs and hips to be adults by the way, I’m just saying that with her childish nature and how immature half of her expressions are it only adds to the point of her being drawn as a literal child. With all of this stuff going on with the damn art style I have to wonder if all of this is on purpose or not, I genuinely think that it is. There’s no way that in one scene she looks like she has a body and she actually looks like an adult and in the next she looks 5, obviously Rachel can draw her as an adult so she chose to draw her like that. It just makes me sick because even with all the rest of the women they all are drawn in the same style yet they have traits and characteristics that still makes the reader know they’re grown ass women, Persephone is the opposite and purposely drawn like that.

Another thing I don’t like about this is that even when she’s drawn like that she’s still sexualized. The shit is really disgusting, it’s like her only purpose in the story is to look innocent and be a sex symbol. I hate how when she needs to be they change her body just to sexualize it, and actually has anyone even noticed that? Why are boobs and our natural curves as women so sexualized in this comic? Why is her body constantly on display for the eyes of men? Why is everything she does catered to the men in her life? She can be tricked into kissing someone, dunked into a trunk, lied to, kissed without consent, and everything else that the main cast of men have done to her yet she’ll always be cordial. She’s not angry about any of that stuff and her boundaries are not respected, how in the world did this comic ever get titled anything with feminism in it? It’s a mockery of feminism as a whole. Sexualizing women for men is not feminism, writing off mothers as villains is not feminism, making all the female characters have weak bland stories is not feminism, having a young woman be taken advantage of multiple times and not making a big deal out of it is not feminism. I can literally go on too, Lore Olympus as a whole is such a terrible example of many groups that it’s included in its story. With such poor writing I’m surprised that it’s came so far and has so many viewers, I’m so tired of seeing such hypocritical and disrespectful media being used on the women of this comic. It’s such a damn pick me ass comic I’m actually really upset about it, how could you take a myth about a grieving mother losing her daughter and turn it into this?? That’s honestly just so incredibly upsetting and angering.

The last thing I will say is that I hate how some of this fandom will both infantilize and sexualize Persephone but they’ll get upset if someone points it out. You guys will say that Persephone is an adult yet praise Hades for doing literally everything for her, you’ll say she’s mature yet praise her for doing the most immature childish bullshit ever, you’ll say that Demeter is possessive yet fawn over the fact that Hades doesn’t even want Persephone talking to certain people and even controlling where she will go and who she will go with. It’s annoying as fuck to witness all of the damn time and I can’t just ignore it anymore, I wish a lot of you were more aware and I wish you didn’t shit on anyone who has differing opinions than your own. I wish you all didn’t just sexualize Persephone as well, this is supposed to be a story about her becoming who she wants to be and finding her identity why is the end goal for so many of you for her to lose her virginity? Is that all womanhood is? Is that the goal for every single woman now? This is bullshit.

Okay that’s the end of the rant, I’m sorry I was so upset when I was doing it that I just went to sleep honestly. But anyways this wasn’t a dig at the fandom by the way just the problematic side really, the rest of the Lo fandom is amazing and wonderful and I hope they’re having a good day genuinely. But as I always say this was super duper biased and should not be used as fuel to harass or insult anyone in the fandom, I’m quite literally just ranting it’s not too important. Speaking of important a lot of my rants are pretty meaningless, I do these just because I have a lot of thoughts and sometimes it does the brain well to just get them out there. But yeah, if you agree or disagree is both fine I don’t expect everyone to do so or else that would be very hypocritical on my part.

[niuniente]

Seeing your comics is amazing! I love seeing them. How does inspiration hit you just like that? The only time mine hit for a story was through a song but that was it. It never happened again.

Your example is a good one. Inspiration can be found anywhere if you are just open for it. Many do get inspired by songs or song lyrics but also by movies, games and comics. You might be inspired by books (any books!), exhibitions, fanart, crafts, fashion, space, nature, animals, religions etc. You just need to expose yourself to the things you like a lot and never hesitate if it inspires you. Fear is inspiration's enemy.

I typically wait for the inspiration come to me (usually it comes after I have rested enough) but I might see a picture, a concept etc. which makes me think that it would be a fitting story red line or theme. Or I might approach the comic from a logical point as "Ok, what theme is still a miss, what I haven't done?"

I start to work when I have just one small inkling of a thought. I don't wait for the whole story to present itself to me. I need only one thought or one mental image and then I head to see what is it about.

Where I get inspiration is looking other peoples' art and comics, reading (esp. history), movies, cyberpunk and 80's aesthetics, my own experiences, other people's experiences, my own wishes and dreams and worries. But, I also think - as a spiritual person - that on the spiritual level all time exists at the same time. So what we perceive as a future, it already exists there. This means that DHD is already completed in the spirit realm. I don't have to invent it, I only need to receive it. For it and the characters to tell me what is it all about and guide me.

Of course, my way of working and thinking is not for everyone and that's OK, too. Some people thrive when they get to design and plan before hand and they have tight lines to follow. I know that majority of comic artists write a script first and then draw the panels, whereas I have no script. I vaguely know what the characters are speaking about but I know what's going on only once I start typing. Everything is free-styled as it works the best for me.

[number1villainstan]

Can we have some Nemoto headcannons? I’m very curious. ~🎑

Okay, so you got the general backstory in this post--Nemoto lived with his single mother until he was 10, got kidnapped, and then got shuffled from gang to gang and made a living and his freedom off of cons and blackmail. I've also mentioned that, you know, special interest in psychology. So let's have some different headcanons this time around! (I have a lot

I stole the headcanon that he was the first of the Eight from someone (who draws/drew funny little three-panel comics in black white and sepia who is it I can't remember the username) and the idea that he likes plants and takes care of some within the base from rumiknight here on Tumblr. I think plants might be another special interest of his? (I have no idea if you can have multiple special interests.)

He's got naturally light purple hair, a similar shade to Shinsou Hitoshi's but not the exact same, a couple shades off, but has dyed and bleached it so many times to so many different colors as he switched names and identities. He keeps it a bleached blonde mostly out of habit. He also helped Sakaki grow out and take care of his hair when he first came to the Hassaikai. After canon, if/when he finally gets found by the Shinsous, he might grow out and cut off the damaged hair and let it be its natural color again.

He's paired up with Sakaki because Sakaki's the only one he can stand for any long period of time...at least when Sakaki's sober. They're both asexual, and both like men romantically, so it ended up working out pretty well ehehehehehe

Nemoto actually did a lot of the work in pulling Sakaki out his addiction when he first came, including the aforementioned helping him take care of his hair, as well as holding him accountable and figuring out why relapses happened (and then fixing it). Sakaki relies more on him than he does on Chisaki or Kurono, as a result.

Nemoto's a major introvert and really loves his quiet time. He's in charge of the Eight because of seniority, but they tend to tire him out/overstimulate him really quickly, so he's often cross and snappy with them. (In canon he tends to have a little (actually a lottle) bit of a superiority complex over the others in the Eight but I want to ignore/change that, hence this.) Still, although they're exhausting to be around, if any of them got hurt--especially while under Nemoto's supervision/direct command--Nemoto would be on the warpath right next to Chisaki, and probably end up blaming himself for not protecting them well enough/getting them hurt, even when it's not his fault.

His duties don't stop at wrangling the Eight, though that qualifies as a full-time job. He's often stepped up to help with managing the general operations of Chisaki's side of the Hassaikai alongside Chisaki himself, Kurono, and/or Irinaka in cases where one of the three were indisposed or when there was just too much work for only three people. Usually in these cases, though, someone else steps up to keep the rest in line, although the Eight are usually a lot less rowdy when someone's incapacitated, especially enough to stop working. Chisaki especially has been known to step out of conducting meetings to vomit and then come back and continue like nothing happened, all the while denying that he's sick, and Kurono and Irinaka both have pretty similar work-till-you-drop show-no-weakness complexes because yakuza toxic masculinity. So Nemoto getting called in to help is generally a pretty big deal, and the rest of the Eight know this. (He's also usually the one handling interrogations, for obvious reasons.)

Overusing his Quirk can induce symptoms similar to narcolepsy, such as excessive daytime sleepiness and falling asleep at random intervals. For these reasons he tends to use it sparingly and on 'smaller'/less complicated questions, rather than on deep probing ones. Chisaki is aware of this and doesn't ask much of him Quirkwise; instead Nemoto trains with guns. He's actually a better sharpshooter than Kurono (who is in the position of sharpshooter because if he were allowed to fight melee he'd go full berserker mode). Although not as good as Lady Nagant, obviously. No one's as good as Nagant.

He's asexual, as mentioned above, and while I had him as alloace for a while, I think he might actually fall into grayromantic. Can't decide if I want him to be homo- or biromantic. He's also intersex. It's a hormonal condition, and he didn't find out or even suspect until Chisaki ran a hormone blood test and found that his normal levels were atypical. The hormone thing might tie into the narcolepsy-like symptoms, cause fatigue and stuff like that. Back to the ace headcanon--he's sex-repulsed as well (as opposed to Sakaki's who's indifferent and Hojo's who's aegosexual and likes sex as a Concept), and has definitely struggled with feeling like an Adult because of it.

I feel like he'd really like Tom Lehrer's music. Maybe not so much Masochism Tango (sex-repulsed), but definitely Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, The Hunting Song, and So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III), definitely his satirical songs. (This is also the guy who wrote and performed New Math, if you recognize that.) Nemoto might not recognize the specific cultural elements he uses, because Tom Lehrer's in the US in the 1950s and 60s and Nemoto's living in Japan several centuries after that, but he gets the general gist of it and loves the sort of sarcastic satire those songs employ.

I'm running dry right now, but I hope these work well!

[oasis-nadrama]

‘The Cerulean Motley Crew’, by Cerulean Snake - All aboard, mateys!

Review by Oasis Nadrama, 04/12/2023 (up to page 255)

[Drawing by CeruleanSnake] When they were a young troll, Chever always wanted to become a pirate... but ended up at the opposite end of life, as a prison guard, when the hard rules of the Alternian Empire took their toll on their dreams of liberty. One day, in the orbital penitentiary, they are tasked with welcoming a particularly dangerous prisoner, and this encounter will uncover the secrets to their past, future and present life. Can the call of the sea be heard amongst the stars?

[Drawing by CeruleanSnake] The large fictional universe engendered by Homestuck opens on many worlds, eras and sapient species, and opens even more doors for inventive storytellers. But rare are the fanworks to make full use of this potential, and in this area as in many others, the stunning fan aventure The Cerulean Motley Crew excels. It proposes a rarely explored political context, the period of the Summoner who challenged imperial tyranny, and an even rarer genre in this general setting: PIRATES! Chever, our nonbinary protagonist, improvized buccaneer and self-proclaimed pirate captain, organically assemble a colorful crew along their quest, and the cast is, again, one of this adventure's strengths. Flintlock, an uncontrollable anarchist, fights against slavery and general political power with reckless abandon (not to mention a certain thirst for gratuitous bloodbath). Rat escaped a futureless life in a nightmarish complex and is now along for the ride, despite her general consternation towards the chaotic, childish and sex-obsessed nature of her two comrades The efficient yet comical trio will cross the path of many more memorable figures, some of them friends, some of them neutral, some of them enemies, all of them enjoyable, up to and including the apparent main antagonist, as despicable as they go, all united in a dynamic, fluid, rhythmic dance, events intertwined for maximum impact, drama and suspense but never forgetting to remain entertaining. The structure and pacing are flawless, the tone perfectly mastered, the lore absorbing, the dialogues lively... What's not to love here?

[Drawing by CeruleanSnake] The drawings are on par with the writing: intense, refreshing color palettes are a feast for sore eyes. Character designs are extremely distinct with various morphologies and clothing styles; the different body types really shine in both action scenes and dynamic dialogues. There may be some errors in proportions or simplistic environments, but these little flaws pale in comparison to the overall visual quality. Perspectives are good and dynamic, action poses effective... But the really exceptional thing is the faces: they are all different, flexible, and incredibly expressive! The author makes good use of the media with gorgeous animated backgrounds which adapt to the various scenes: at dusk, the waves of the decor will meet darkened sand bathed in the red light of the alien sunset; by midnight, the foliage on the shore will be lightened only by the shining firmament. This work on the interface does wonder for the general immersion. Other uses of the form include short panel animations and ondulating, shaking, distorted lines in the conversation. CeruleanSnake's maestria culminates in the insult-off minigame. This stunning moment of interactivity, frontal homage to Monkey Island, is funny, balanced, brimming with details! It represents full days of work by the artist and it shows.

[Drawing by CeruleanSnake] The Cerulean Motley Crew is a work of love and a beautiful story, full of life and surprises. Looking forward to the next episodes of this big adventure!

[nofuturecomic]

Chapter 15 behind the scenes!!

As usual there will be spoilers for chapter 15 of No Future.

I kind of can't believe I managed to do 48 chapters of this (so far) that's almost 2300 pages x.x with an average of 4 - 5 panels a page, do you know how many times I have had to draw Andrew and company?? And I'm not even close to finished ._.

Anyway for this cover we got Lorelei, Lorelei is unfortunately a character that took a long time for me to be able to draw consistently x.x I'm really not sure why she gave me so much trouble but it was a problem for a while. Though I think I've got the hang of drawing them by now 40 chapters later (at least I hope)

Era explaining how gods can just casually erase themselves from photos while harassing Osiris.

I really need to go back and make Osiris's hair poofier in this scene, it was much more everywhere in the sketch but for whatever reason I toned it down in the finished version? I'm not sure why actually?? But I remember not really liking the end result of that panel and feeling like I could have done better after posting it. I was really feeling that 'erasing the image from existence' energy Osiris was feeling I guess.

Abaddon jump scaring Andrew again.

Andrew is truly a wordsmith.

This scene was a lot of fun to do, despite how tedious that balcony was to draw in every panel. At this point I was defiantly used to Era and Aeon's characters so they became far easier for me to work with both in concerns to writing and drawing. Working with them was very natural at this point so I think a lot of their scenes where they are together turn out better now than they did in earlier chapters.

I messed up on Lorelei's height trying to get the door frame in the panel so the visuals for the gag would work better. I tend to focus on one detail at a time instead of the whole picture x.x so I run into a lot of mistakes like this when going through pages. The consequences of being the only person working on a project I suppose.

"Andrew is smart" was a plot twist for readers just as much as it was for Era and Aeon.

Also this scene made a few readers think that Lorelei was into Osiris, she isn't, at least, not like that. She just got focused enough on what he wrote on the board to inquire about it, she's just like that. Unfortunately this does not apply very often for things that pop up in school so she some subjects she's in the below average version of the classes. She has learning disabilities, she mentions so later in the comic, but that doesn't make her incapable of learning, just things have to specifically interest her for her to want to learn about it.

This was kinda of a thing for me too, a lot of people I know think I'm smart, or must have done well in school because I just... remember the most random facts and can bring them up in a conversation, but then they are always really shocked to learn that actually, I did not do well in school and was often in the below average classes. There's a very specific stereotype of kids that are in those classes that is really unfair, and I generally wanted to give a more accurate example of some of the kids that do end up in classes like that.

I enjoy how completely unbothered Lorelei is with Era's comments and just works with them.

Era please.

Aeon please.

This chapter was fairly straight forward compared to other recent chapters, from beginning to end we remained in the same location despite the topics of conversation jumping from one things to another.

Sometimes comic chapters will jump around to all kinds of different scenes, and sometimes it'll just stick to one, both a great as long as your readers are still engaged I think. Just do whatever your story needs for you to tell it.

[sl33pyperson]

hello. its my favourite thing to do. talk about moon knight and post screenshots while i have an amount of alcohol in me

straight up. i fucking hate the 1985 run. its only 6 volumes and i fucking hate it. disgust. very upset about marlene being the one to suggest the galleries but like, not in a disgust way, in a “oh sweet summer child” way

and THANK GODS IT DIDNT LAST LONG. OHHHFHGHHHH

these were just very cute <3 not pictured: me being emotion about dd stalking foggy bc they arent talking anymore. my poor boy.

how did i never fucking know caps secret identity was a fucking comic artist. who is drawing about himself. what the fuck. im instantly a thousand more times in love with this version of cap. what a fucking nerd.

ok back to what we actually care about. moon knight. THIS COMIC WAS SO FUCKING GOOD!! ANNA NOCENTI WHY DIDNT U WRITE FOR MOON KNIGHT MORE idk like. the ONE WRITER currently to ACKNOWLEDGE BRAIN SHIT. ohh my god marlene is SO BAD IN THIS ONE BUT ITS SO GOOD BC LIKE. YEAH. SHE DOESNT FUCKING GET IT. “or from the devil” u literally say this to the man u think u love? maam??? i am fucking screaming. reconsidering her “i was just [marcs] teddy bear” like, oh god, mk really does rely on her to keep himself grounded to what (at least steven?) believes is the real world. as much as mk pushes u around, u really depended on stevens money and enjoyed urself and was just. ouughhhhhhh.

SCREAMING!,! I SAT THERE ACTUALLY IN FUCKING SHOCK AT THIS PAGE!!! LIKE!! THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WHAT THE SYSTEM IS GOING THRU, valid fears (especially to steven, who fucking HATES marc, he WANTS to be his own man and his own person away from marc so badly). also like, merging being the “nyrotypical” thought of “getting better”, when like. all systems are different, some work better in tandem with each other and still being seperate (not that these boys r anywhere near that holy fucking shit)

i genuinely love how fucking terrible marlene is in this comic. like. yeah. as much as this “hypnosis” “therapist in training (i think??)” lady thinks shes qualified, shes just so. gods. ur partner is freaking out and dissociating (i dont care if its bc the moons doing weird shit, hes still mentally zonked out) so you JUST FUCKING RUN AND LEAVE AND GET DRUNK?? marlene is so terrible. its so good. this is such a bad relationship for both of them but steven truely fucking relies on her too much at this point. screaming.

THIS WAS SO SWEET AND CUTE LIKE. nature is filled with contradictions, the system is filled with contradictions, but they balance everything out. every bit is necessary and needed. theres no “evil”, no “good”, just. being. and it balances itself out. every part is needed. ough. ouuugghhhh. i want to eat this comic. mwah mwah

ITS WACKO TIME BAEBYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YOU WANTED DEEP INTROSPECTIVE LOOKS INTO MK PYSCHE? ITS ONLY SHENANIGANS FROM HERE ON OUT BAEBYYYYY LIKE HOW THEY ALL FUCKING DIED AND KHONSHU WAS LIKE “lol nah ill just tell my boy 5000 years in the future to get ya 🤫”

khonshu is still such a dick. cool panelling

THE PRIESTSS i didnt actually mind them tbh. lil weird but i mean, its comics for ya

RANDOM BULLSHIT GO!!!, he truely just has like. so many stupid gadgets and additions that they feel the need to show off All of them everytime. its kinda cute. i miss his truncheon. i wonder if marc misses it too. OH SHOUT OUT TO ANNASA COMIC FOR LIKE, SAYING MOON KNIGHT WAS A FOURTH PERSONALITY, I DIG THAT

frenchie <3 where the fuck did that bottom bar come from. uh. shout out to mk just spacing out in front of villains. hes also really cute. U DONT KNOW HOW HAPPY I AM THEY GOT RID OF THE 1985 MASK AAHHHHHHH MY LIL SHADOW BLOB IS BACK!!!! YEAH!!,!,!!

how many fucking photos can i add oh my god this isnt stopping. this is cute

[ikroah]

I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames and when it was all over I said to myself, “is that all there is to a fire?” —“Is That All There Is?,” Leslie Uggams (1968)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ #17 - Freeside I

Collaborative Issue! Guest Artist: @yesjejunus​​

Companion Piece: ABV (Alcohol By Volume) (Explicit 18+ | 7k words)

Rose of Sharon Cassidy had gotten her revenge. With the help of the courier, Agnes Sands, McLafferty was dead and the Silver Rush was a blazing wreck. So why can't she fucking relax? Why can't her pulse stop pounding? Why can't her hands stop shaking? How many drinks does it take to feel okay again? After absconding to the Atomic Wrangler, she'll drink her companion under the table to know for sure. Read on Archive of Our Own.

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Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

Finally! IKROAH returns! And man does it return with a bang, right.

This has been a very busy summer for both me and @yesjejunus​​ which is why the comic sort of fell into hiatus for a little bit, but now I think everything’s back in order. You can expect new issues of IKROAH every two or four weeks on a regular basis like usual again, because believe me, nobody hates it more when this thing falls behind schedule than me. I have exactly one hundred issues of story to tell here, and I’d really like to get it done in my lifetime!

But anyway, YJJ fucking blew this issue out of the water. You may remember him from his grayscale art on IKROAH #11 (the Searchlight issue, one that remains very personal to me) but the sheer volume of talent in the colors of these pages is astonishing. He’s one of my favorite artists to collaborate with because of how much we get each other, and it’s with immense pleasure I finally get to show you all these pages we’ve been putting together for so long.

Also don’t miss ABV! I worked hard on those seven thousand words and I hope that you enjoy it (if you’re over the age of eighteen). The bittersweet thing about the vignette structure and visual medium of IKROAH issues is I don’t get so much room to really get into characters’ heads, so expanding upon certain moments in the comic with companion pieces is a really great exercise. ABV also contains a lot that, like the Searchlight issue, is really meaningful to me, and I think you’ll find ABV to be a story that really carves deep into the nature of how Agnes and Cass relate to each other.

Original Pencils (click for full size):

I love it when artists volunteer to do full art for me because it means I get to go wild on little pencils like these without any of the pressure to polish them. Check YJJ’s blog sometime soon after this and I think he’ll be posting side-by-sides...it’s really amazing what that man can do to my layouts.

May the unnamed guard of the Silver Rush, affectionately dubbed Door Guard-kun by YJJ and I, rest in peace. We felt so bad about it because YJJ drew him so goddamn attractive. YJJ wound up basing his depiction of him on a specific model at my suggestion, a no-prize to whoever can guess who that model was. Your hint is that it’s a very embarrassing internet microcelebrity crush of mine.

The absolute hardest part of drawing this issue, the part that we came back to dozens of times, was the panel where Agnes plants the bomb on the Silver Rush Guard. We went through so many different takes of Agnes’ pose because it was very hard to make it look like she was planting a bomb on the guy while feigning a flinch, and not just stiff-arming Door Guard-kun for no reason. I’m pleased with the final result.

Anyway, we’ll have another amazing guest artist doing full guest art for me next issue, so you’ll get to see more pencils like these when that comes out. See you then!

Transcript

EXT. FREESIDE, the run-down outskirts of NEW VEGAS. This is where the refugees from the NCR and Mojave meet the people too poor to get into the shining city itself.

A scruffy-looking DOOR GUARD stands vigilantly outside of the SILVER RUSH, formerly a pre-war gambling hall but now the largest commercial supplier of energy weapons in the region, thanks to its proprietors the VAN GRAFF siblings.

From around the corner, AGNES SANDS approaches the GUARD.

AGNES: Excuse me, do you know how to get to the Mormon Fort from here?

GUARD: What? Yeah, a few blocks north.

Suddenly, with a shattering CRASH, a glass bottle breaks against the street, having been tossed from somewhere in the shadows. AGNES and the GUARD both recoil in surprise; AGNES leans her arm against the GUARD to catch herself from falling, but seems to slip something into one of his bandolier pouches as she does.

GUARD: Hey!

The GUARD flips his laser rifle up to a ready position and scans the dark street around him.

GUARD: Damn punks, always throwing shit.

The GUARD turns his attention back to AGNES.

GUARD: Are you new here, man? Watch your back.

AGNES gives a light wave to the GUARD as she departs back down the street from whence she came.

AGNES: Thanks. You too.

MEANWHILE on the top floor of the building across the street, ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY has been observing the entire interaction. AGNES appears behind her from the stairs leading up to her perch, and sits down against the crumbled wall overlooking the street. She starts to light a cigarette.

CASS: Alright, so now what?

AGNES: Wait for the change in guard.

CASS: Looks like it's changing now. He's going inside.

AGNES: Oh!? Shit, good timing then.

CASS pulls a small black device out from her back pocket.

CASS: And you're sure the thing is—

AGNES: Yeah, when you threw the bottle.

CASS: Shit, you are good. Think Crimson Caravan knows we stole it?

AGNES: I'd hope they have bigger things to worry about right now. Now hurry, we don't have much time to—

CASS presses the button on the device.

SFX: CLIK!

THE SILVER RUSH EXPLODES. An enormous fireball erupts from within the building, blowing out the windows and sending shards of glass and steel in every direction down the street. The sheer force of the blast throws whole firearms into the street and rends all the SILVER RUSH PERSONNEL inside, the VAN GRAFFS included. CASS holds onto her hat to keep it from flying off her head, while AGNES’ cigarette flies out of her hands.

AGNES carefully stands up. The SILVER RUSH is a hollow smoldering box of brick and mortar.

AGNES: Fuck, Cass, you could have warned me first.

CASS stares into the flames across the street. They reflect in her eyes like something haunted.

AGNES: Cass?

CASS glances sidelong at AGNES. She doesn’t turn away from the fire.

CASS: You know, I wanted to make her know it was me. To make her die scared. Like McLafferty. But now that it's done...Fuck it, there's almost something poetic about it, right? Gloria Van Graff burned my caravan to ash. Now her and all her fucking laser guns and hired thugs are nothing but ashes in that...inferno.

The SILVER RUSH continues to burn. There are no survivors of which to speak of that could run out from the flames.

CASS: Dust to fucking dust, you bitch.

AGNES looks across the street and watches the armory burn beside CASS. She looks over to her companion softly.

AGNES: Are you alright?

CASS glances over at AGNES and they hold each other’s gaze for a moment. She turns back to the fire before replying.

CASS: Yeah. I’m alright.

CASS turns away from the window and walks towards the stairs that descend out of the building.

CASS: Let’s get out of here.

AGNES remains by the window a moment, watching CASS leave. Then she turns back towards the SILVER RUSH again as the flames and smoke continue to pour out of the building.

Finally, she turns around herself, and follows CASS down the stairs.

The SILVER RUSH still burns.

[clearsummers]

Snotgirl Issue #1 —Conceal, Don’t Feel #SelfCare

Should you read this? Yes! Snotgirl is a brightly colored look into the glamorized world of social media influencers with a murder mystery at its center and an unraveling protagonist.

Spoiler-free section

Years ago, I picked up Snotigrl Issue #1, read it, liked it, and promptly forgot all about it. My recent craving for more comics brought me back to it though, and I’m very glad it did.

Snotgirl is written by Bryan Lee O’Malley, who also wrote Scott Pilgrim, and illustrated by Leslie Hung. It follows 25-year-old fashion blogger, Lottie Person, as she recovers from a bad breakup and is beginning to face the fact that she’s lonely and has no friends. A chance encounter with a woman one day changes her life as her night out with her new friend, nicknamed Coolgirl, takes a strange turn.

Many people have sung praises about Snotgirl‘s art and I’ll briefly add to them! Hung’s drawings are so bright without being overpowering and switches from bright, Insta-ready filters to dark and lonely scenes. It’s interesting to me that, so far, there’s still a feeling that Lottie is holding back something from us, the audience, as she’s still very “aesthetic” even when crying and alone (with the exception of some scenes). I wonder if this is a pointed commentary on the romanticization of one’s own sadness as Lottie often sees herself as the victim.

Before we head into spoilers, I will say I do recommend this comic! I love how terrible the people are in it, how the style lends substance to the narrative and themes, and the mystery at the heart of it. Snotgirl is absolutely worth your time if you’re looking for a story like that and it’s amazing how O’Malley nails Lottie’s voice and makes her so distinct.

Spoilers ahead

At first, it seems that Lottie has everything going for her. She lives in “the big city,” AKA L.A. or New York I assume, and is adored by strangers for her fashion sense and persona. I love the first couple of pages because it immediately rips the bandaid off by showing us how important Lottie’s image and what other people think of her is. She’s vain, quick to judge and deride others, yet deeply lonely.

Lottie’s boyfriend has just started seeing someone else, she doesn’t like any of her friends, and her allergies are coming back full swing. She’s glamorous one moment and then crying on her bed with snot running out of her nose, stalking people through social media. It’s easy to dislike her, but I found this side of her very human; everyone wants to project a certain image onto the world and influencers/bloggers need to do so more than anybody else.

It’s no wonder then that she gravitates towards Caroline AKA Coolgirl when they first meet. Everything about Coolgirl seems naturally effortless and Lottie is struck with envy and wants to be her and be with her. I was instantly reminded of that Gone Girl quote by her depiction and this panel below:

The point isn’t that these types of girls are fake, but that Lottie’s need to put everyone, including those she deems her “friends,” into personas is symptomatic of her own fractured persona. As she pointed out at the beginning, no one realizes her blogger persona is an illusion. But does she, either?

It’s a painful and honest depiction of the thin veneer of confidence. Society trains girls to pit themselves against other girls from a young age so it’s no surprise that women continue to do so as adults. I like how Snotgirl doesn’t shy away from critiquing this, but also points out that men are not exempt from creating personas either (as evidenced by Lottie’s (ex)boyfriend, Sunny). I also like how much the story focuses on women. The male characters are certainly there, but it’s about how the women feel about them.

The girls’ night out takes a dark turn once Lottie excuses herself to use the bathroom. Curiously, her snot seems to get worked up when she experiences uncomfortable emotions, things that crack her demeanor, and there isn’t a clear solution. Her new doctor, whom she names Dr. Dick, prescribes her a new medication that doesn’t seem…quite right.

When Coolgirl follows her to the bathroom, she initially comforts Lottie. However, she then taunts her and calls her Snottie and within the next page, she’s dead. It’s not clear what happened and the next issue opens with Lottie still shaken and afraid of being arrested. What’s particularly striking to me is that after Coolgirl dies, Lottie reverts to calling her Caroline. The persona is stripped away and Lottie must confront the actual person behind it.

Overall, Snotgirl has one of the most interesting first issues I’ve ever read. It’s packed with style and little hints into Lottie’s psyche that make it a great reread. I look forward to continuing these adventures with Lottie!

[kimbureh]

geeking out about 3D anime

okay I *need* to talk to you about the anime movie BLAME! (2017). I didn’t expect it, but I immensly enjoyed the movie.

But let’s start at the beginning. I’ve read the manga back in the aughts, and even next to other popular cyberpunk/dystopian/dark manga, BLAME was so *different*.

Barely any words written on the pages, filled with immensly detailed drawings of megastructures that trap the sparse people inside; no horizon is visible, just structures over structures all around, piling up so high, neither ground nor sky are visible. Killy is a lone wanderer, ascending the structure-- A human being as detached from nature as can be.

later I learned how this unique look came to be; manga artist Tsutomu Nihei, and creator of BLAME, had been a student of architecture before he became a manga artist.

Accordingly, many of the panels were architectural in nature; they were “ma”, as panels without words are called, or “aida” which means “inbetween”. It’s a style of panel that isn’t common in western comic traditions, but is widely used in the Japanese way of storytelling: scenes that set the ‘vibe’, so to speak, let an emotion linger.

Not all panels shine like the ones above; you could tell the young mangaka was struggling with action scenes, which are plentiful, and especially faces. Both showed the effort with which they were brought into existence.

The action scenes sometimes are stiff, the faces skewed. They didn’t come easy to Tsutomu Nihei, although he immensly improved on that within the span of the 10 volumes BLAME ran. With time, however, I became fond of this peculiarity.

The world of BLAME is cruel and lonely; rarely does the lone wanderer Killy meet other humans, and even then, the connection is usually only very brief, be it because they die, Killy leaves, or the human turns out to be a machine in disguise who is out to kill every human it encounters. Maybe I’m sugarcoating things that needn’t be, but it made total sense for me that depicting those sparse humans would demand visible effort from the artist.

You can maybe now imagine my.... surprise when I saw the character design of the movie in 2017

anime eyes! so round and smooth! To me, it betrayed the rough and rugged style of the manga, I felt like I could re-watch K-On instead if that’s the style they were trying to sell me. Also, the Berserk movies had already ruined 3D animes for me, and I didn’t want to watch anything that didn’t have hand drawn anime characters anymore. Oh how foolish of me. We get back to that.

So, what changed my mind about watching BLAME? Glad that you asked cuz I cannot and will not stop talking about BATMAN NINJA. Seriously tho, do yourself the favor and watch Batman Ninja if you want to see a movie that is exactly as unhinged as it claims to be, and poses the perfect marriage between traditional Japanese art styles and modern 3D animation. Batman, several Robins, and a whole lot villains get teleported to feudal Japan, what more can I say. Prepare for some stunning views and increasing madnESS THAT WILL NEVER STOP AAAHH. Honestly, it’s a blast. I rewatch it yearly.

pease notice the traditional wave pattern (seigaiha) in the sky, which you usually find on Japanese fabrics, as well as the dry ink stroke look in the shadows of the characters. Here is another look:

first, a seigaiha pattern in the sky; then, Batman in closeup to showcase the rough ink brush strokes for shadows; lastly, Batman in his full armor cuz it’s dope.

ANYWAY. Watch Batman Ninja, let’s get back to BLAME. So, my faith in 3D anime was restored. It still took me a while to watch the BLAME movie, but I can only recommend it. I will probably make a couple more posts to properly geek out about it, but it’s on Netflix, it has some gorgeous shots that made me want to pause the film and gawk at them, and despite the low frame rate at times, when it goes all in, it goes all in and has hands down some stunning animation.

I absolutely LOVE that they decided to make the backgrounds entirely hand painted. Most of the time the background has no 3D whatsoever, or if there’s some, it is so subtly hidden that I didn’t notice it.

The 3D characters mostly blend well into the painted backgrounds, and I love the scratches on helmet and gear that are reminiscent of the rough ink drawings of the manga. Looking back, I cannot understand why I looked at the character designs and was disappointed. Scroll up and look at the face of the girl, she is a 3D model, no 2D. There are some gorgeous shots where you can’t tell that they’re 3D models at all, but I will keep those for a post where I’ll post spoilers. Can’t wait to get to that!

[itstimetotheorize]

The bizarre mystery of the Little Nightmares 2  episode 2 comic

For those of you who are unaware, a few weeks before the little nightmares 2 game was released, the developers had announced that they would be releasing a new 6 part digital comic series. From what we were told, this comic series would update two “episodes”  every two weeks until the games eventual release.

of the many episodes that were seen, the most popular of the six  were the first and last, episode 1 and 6. Naturally, these two episodes gained an enormous amount of popularity due to our main protagonists mono and six being the main focus. However, aside from these two episodes, the other four presented an entirely different character. The four kids seen in these episodes were, the spoon girl, lollipop kid, ghost child and The toddler. 

At first, many fans had assumed the digital comics were created in order to help explain events that had occurred before mono met six in the little nightmares 2 game, in other words, many of us had believed that these comics were classified as prequel material for the events of the game....or at least....that's what we thought....

A few months after the games release, theorist such as myself began to work day and night trying to figure out every little detail  within the game in order to make sense of what the heck was actually going on in the little nightmares world, especially after “that” ending. In the midst of writing my own theories as well as reading and analyzing everyone elses, I began to notice that not many people had gone back to the little nightmares 2 digital comics in order to try and analyze details we might have missed.

Now, out of all of the things we saw and analyzed within the digital comics, there was always two little details that made many of us question the events of the comics, but for the longest time we never really bothered to think about it to much, because at that time...it seemed as though the answer was obvious, what am I talking about exactly? well, I’m talking about something that happened in the little nightmares 2 episode 2 comic. 

In episode 2, we once again watch another new child called “the toddler”  trying to survive within the little nightmares world. Near the end of the episode, the toddler wakes up from a horrific dream where he is killed in the very hole he is resting in. Frightened, he takes no chances and immediately leaves. As the boy marches on, he suddenly hears the terrifying screams of another child nearby. 

Curious, the boy follows the direction of the scream and comes across an old outhouse with a tv next to it, the tv suddenly turns on and the boy immediately becomes entranced by the televisions light.  Sadly, as he continues to stare at the tv, the thin man reaches out from the other side and all that is heard of the child are his frightened screams. 

As the panel draws away from the tv its revealed to us that the thin man had kidnaped the toddler and dragged him into the television.

When first seeing this episode, many believed it was the developers way of telling us that the thin man had spent much of his time kidnapping various kids around the world. Because of this belief, many of us had theorized that despite being locked up in the tower, within the pale city, the thin man was still fully capable of leaving, after all, we theorized that its was his main goal to search for mono and six. HOWEVER, upon reading episode 2, I couldn't help but feel that something was off and I’m sure there were a few others who felt the same. What exactly felt so off about this episode? well, for starters, this may sound strange but...something about that scream the toddler heard in the forest... didn't make sense.

And I know what you are thinking, “ well that was obviously just a kid screaming in horror as he/she was being taken by the thin man”, yes, I understand that.... but......as  I heard that scream over and over again, I couldn't help but feel it sounded like it was almost....”non human”

when the toddler was kidnapped by the thin man and he lets out his own screams of terror, I, as well as other, did not question it, because it genuinely did sound like a child screaming out in horror....so then... why didn't the other scream sound just the same to us?....unless....what if there was something else going on with that other child?...but what? the comics were short and did not present much information to the audience. In hopes of coming up with a breakthrough I decided to once again go back to the little nightmares 2 game and wait to see if some of the events within the game would help.

 As I watched the tower chapter of the game, for what feels like an infinite amount of times, I began to realize something....something so horrific that it could possibly once again topple every theory I had about the little nightmare's world and lead me and many other back to the theory board in order to make sense of EVERYTHING all over again!.... what exactly was so shocking? well.....the screams heard by the toddler in chapter 2....the very screams we believed at the time were just the cries of another terrified child within the little nightmares world....were NEVER the screams of someone we didn’t know!....whos were they exactly?...well.... they were the screams of MONSTER SIX!!!

But what on earth could this possibly mean???!!! Monster six was the final fight within the game, when mono faced her, he had already killed the thin man after being relentlessly chased by him....but if this is true then why was the thin man shown to be alive within episode two of the comics?!....unless.... What if episode two didn't take place before the events of the game...what if...it took place after mono freed the thin man in the game!! 

Perhaps this could explain why the toddler never encountered the hunter in the forest or near the outhouse, the hunter could very well have been already shot by the time the toddler was traveling through!.....but even if this is true, it still doesn't explain why we heard monster sixes scream in the episode or why thin man made an appearance in the forest rather than stay in the pale city were mono was located ...unless... what if something else was going on?

In the game, after the thin man captures six, six is later seen crying out for mono to help her escape the television.

unfortunately, once mono does free her from the tv, the thin man reaches his hand out and kidnaps six once again!

 As many of you may already know... this is the last time we see normal six.  As the thin man once again begins to pursue mono, mono manages to outrun the thin man on the trains by separating the railcars, 

after this moment however, we don't see the thin man again until after mono exits the manhole cover. The thing that doesn't make sense about this whole situation is... why didn't the thin man just reappear in the same area mono crashed the train?

 The thin man clearly has the ability to teleport to different parts of the pale city without the need of the tvs, after all, we even saw him appear in front of mono after he exited the manhole cover near the end of the game.

 So then, why didn't he do the same thing back when mono crashed the train? what was he really doing in that time? and most importantly...where did he go?!...perhaps we were already given an answer to his whereabouts, long before the game was ever released...

What if after realizing he couldn't catch up to mono on the train, the thin man made the decision to search elsewhere. In the midst of his search, did the thin man decide to go back into the television? expecting mono to walk past another screen so he could better find him? just like how he did every other time in the game?

What if the thin man did sense the presence of a child coming near another television...if he did, then what if the child he found on the other end of that television screen.... was never mono...it was the toddler! 

But if this is what happened to thin man during his brief absence, then what exactly happened to six during all of this?....perhaps we were also given an answer to that  as well.

Many of us had theorized that after thin man captured six, six had begun to feel the effects of the towers hypnotic  transmission as she was dragged through the television screen. After she was taken by thin man a second time and thrown back into the towers hypnotic light, the tower could have very well begun the process of turning her into monster six! and judging by how twisted her limbs are near the end of the game, its possible that the process of being distorted caused six to scream out in horrible pain! in the midst of her transformation, her screams could have echoed throughout the tower (just like her music box did ) and was heard by all those that were near a television, including the toddler!

Mono may not have heard her painful screams because he was already to far away from any tv at the time. The only thing he did find of six, after she became lost in the towers transmission during her time in the tower, was the one piece of her that was still desperately trying to cling onto the cruel reality it was fading from, shadow six!

Regardless of what is actually going on, this does beg the question, if episode 2 of the little nightmares 2 digital comics were to really take place in the middle of monos confrontation with the thin man and not before the events of the game, then what about the rest of the episodes of the comics? do they really all take place before the events of the game or is the timeline of the comics just as scattered as our speculations towards how the loop of the game and the little nightmares world is occurring?...honestly....whos to say....until we get some more information towards the lore of this world, everything’s still just a theory, a little nightmares 2 theory!

[jezmmart]

Chamomile Comic Trivia #21

#105 Occasion

That rainbow dress was one of the worst ideas I had to put Vienna in for a story arc. It was so time-consuming to colour!  And then I went and used it for another even longer story arc later on too!  One of those things I probably could have done really easily and quickly in a program with more tools like Photoshop/PaintShop Pro/ClipStudio Paint etc, but I just did it manually in SAI like a fool.

A lot of people misinterpreted Vienna’s initial line to Bri as being that THEY were going on a date (the foreshadowing haha!).  I saw this coming when I was making the comic but just couldn’t think of any way to avoid it. Naturally Brianna asserts the situation as quickly as possible for the reader as a result, that was the best I could manage.

#106 Pathetic

The main purpose of this arc was to give Cammie and Vienna a bit of alone time and build up their friendship more. This also the first comic to ever show hints of Vienna’s eyes, via her eyelashes behind her glasses in the last few panels.  More of that to come in this arc!  Maybe that was the main purpose then, actually.

#107 Start

Lianne, like many of the (particularly named) incidental characters in Cammie, was designed with the intent of having her look stand-out as a character who could potentially return in the future if need be.  Hasn’t happened yet, but you never know!  I did a quick sketch of her to feel out her design before committing to it, which was posted at the time.

I was also already thinking about Vienna developing a crush on Brianna later on at this stage, so as you can see, Lianne does adhere to Vienna’s taste in terms of physical appearance.

Cammie acting like a nonsense sillyhead here makes me chuckle still.  Again, while the situation hasn’t called for it much (if at all) since, I need to remember to be consistent about her being a terrible actor because it’s always a classic gag.

#108 Watch

Not much to say here.  Location wasn’t modelled off anywhere in particular from my life.  Depicting repetitive back and forth motions like nodding and shaking heads is a nightmare in comics lol.

#109 Birthday

You might remember from a few trivias back, my weird little goal to not draw any male characters in the comic for at least the first 100 comics lol. That finally ends here with the appearance of generic random barman in panel 4. And of course a few random extras in panel 5. Here’s that at full size, just for fun:

Vienna looks extra funny here because I had to make sure her expression would be readable at final web size, hehe.

#110 Match

Can’t think of anything to say about this one. Bye Lianne!  We already had too many characters with “ia” in the name anyway. That was a total accident lol.  Our first sneak peak at Vienna’s eyes!  You can just see the top of them behind her glasses when she’s holding her forehead in anguish.

#111 Grind

And if that was too subtle, she lifts them up with a (closed!) eye in full view here.  As we know about Bri’s sexuality from later on, this was a totally platonic kiss. Since I hadn’t dedicated myself to the Vienna-crushes-on-Bri plot yet, Vienna’s response here could be taken either way.

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