#comic artists are at a whole other level

[abbeyofcyn]

False Memory (7)

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Thanks for reading <3

[reimenaashelyee]

Campaign to make The God of Arepo an award winning work and win a literal brick as a trophy for the authors and for Tumblr community as a whole (SUCCEEDED!!!! Update below)

As the artist for one of The God of Arepo comics, my version is up for consideration for the Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Online Comic.

For those of you who don't know the Ignatz is one of the highest industry awards that "recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers".

The thing is, winning the award means winning an actual literal brick. Because the mascot is a brick-throwing mouse. So they have to make a bit where the trophy is a brick. Like. Look.

For a long time I thought it was just plain bricks they were handing out, but my friend who won a couple of bricks two years ago had theirs stamped (I saw the bricks in person at their house). So now I am obsessed with the idea of The God of Arepo winning an Ignatz trophy. It will have the honours stamped. On a freaking brick. That's the most Tumblr level meme trophy this comic/story could win (which is also a legit high honour industry award on its own btw don't get me wrong). But wilder than that, the brick allows me to do something. It allows me to smash that break into 5 pieces and ship one of each to the authors plus myself. Writing Prompts, sadoeuphemist, ciiriianan, stu-pot and me will get a piece of clay in recognition for our work with the farmer who built a temple out of stone. The full circle moment.

Imagine the value of this win to the lore of this Tumblr sacred text/folklore. This brick will be smashed and given to the creators, but as a collective folklore, it's also dedicated to all of us on this hellsite too. AWARD WINNING. If The God of Arepo wins I will document the entire process of smashing that brick here.

But we have to make this happen. We need to gather our collective energy and make this campaign work. Please help make The God of Arepo an award-winning story and vote for it in the Outstanding Online Comic category (link). You will need to request a ballot, then submit your vote. I recommend checking out the other nominated comics too. The Ignatz really shortlists good stuff. The voting closes September 8 2023 . LET'S GET THE GOD OF AREPO A BRICK FOR HIS TEMPLE!! LET'S GO!!!! REBLOGS HELP TOO!!

[aliensfuckmeup]

winks cutely

DROPS THIS ON THE TABLE AND COLLAPSES DEAD ON THE GROUND.

Illustration for chapter 10 of In Blood And Stars by @actingwithportals.

[hybbart]

Hey guys, I would really appreciate it if you stopped sending me messages about Lizzie's appearance. I get that most of you are just happy and/or think it's a compliment, but I've literally never had so many weird comments on a woman's body before, and it's getting really uncomfortable.

While I know I'm not always as good about it for men, as a character artist and as I hope is made clear in the design sheet I did for all the hermit and empire girls, I have always and will always draw all sorts of body types. That includes not just fat people, but fat people with different distributions and shape language- different everything. Lizzie and Cleo and Stress may all be fat and round but I like to think I did a very good job of making them all distinct in shape from each other in a way that converys their character.

I redesigned my Lizzie recently because I was wanting to draw her more, and I wanted her to allign better with my mental idea of her. She hadn't before because 1) I started off drawing her as the ocean queen and mayor who are very unlike her base self and monstrous, because she's cool like that. And 2) I never sat down and made a design sheet for her, so I constantly drew her differently and mixed her up with my Gem design. (which, go firgure, as a fan of sister characters, when I finally worked it out that mental idea ended up having a body type similar to my own little sister. Which makes it extra uncomfortable on a personal level.)

The fact is, when I draw women people casually comment on their body a LOT more, which is already a bit uncomfortable- and baffling, given that most of my sexualized pictures are of men. I get similar comments about how tall Pearl is, I've probably gotten more comments about how tall Pearl is than I have about how tall Jimmy is, and I draw him multiple times a week. But those comments are often at least done with a bit of amusement and not just straight up ogling her.

Every single time I've drawn Lizzie recently, though, I got an absolute flood of comments specifically talking about her body and nothing else. How fat she is, how attractive she is because she's fat, cat calls, and other more unsavoury language. Even backhanded compliments. I certainly didn't try to make her ugly, but I've not drawn her in pinups. She's doing the exact same things as every other character I draw, including herself before my redesign. And given that timing and VERY pointed nature of the comments, it's not exact rocket science.

Most of the comments haven't been too gross, thankfully. I'll chalk that up to a lot of the messages being people projecting onto her, which- that's a whole different can of discomfort worms. But it is constant and it is in place of literally anything else. I draw a whole comic about a funny moment with multiple people, and art I'm pretty happy with, and the only thing a dozen asks have to say is "Lizzie's fat!!🤤" which stands in quite the contrast to all the comparatively few comments about Jimmy being about how I drew his banana costume.

Anyways, what I'm asking is to please just be a bit more normal about women's bodies. I get that it's rarer, and it makes some people happy when they see characters like them, but focusing on how beautiful an unconventional woman is is still objectifying and making that woman's beauty her worth.

[starchytart]

pinch me or wake me up, from this cursed daydream

Drawing this mainly because i saw a comic on twitter (i completely forgot what its from im so sorry) where the artist is drawing sketchy head instead of gore to depict someone getting shot point blank. Immediately remind me of Rosamund's prince face not-yet-decided when they try to look for him in timothy's books. (as in, at the core a picture is not made by flesh and bone, i think that works really well considering how neverafter works)

But other than that he has been in my to-draw list since forever. BIG fan with how things resolved in ep 17. I think its so cool that the fairies thought they have chance to taking back control of her narrative with that offer, when really, by having choices in the first place rosamund already won, even though neither of them really ideal, but at least whatever it is it would be her decision. (Of course one also could argue that with those choices being unfair, it was not really choices at all *insert that cow with two path meme* and i am just being delusional and you might be right, anyway im going to ignore this)

Also, I love how even until the epilogue when everyone is getting back what they gave up, Rosamund's part didn't really mention that she met his prince again. This makes we never really have official design for him (which is crazy like whoa his face was never decided even on meta level), and I think its perfect to capture how "and they live happily" works for rosamund. you get what i mean??, when romance just become one thing among other parts of her life rather than the whole point of her story. Its still there, if you want to, but the matter isnt as suffocating. It would be really easy for brennan and siobahn if they made the end one extreme of either "oh she got his prince back" or "oh she doesnt need love at all actually" and for them not do that feels really refreshing for me.

(I can go on talking how rosamund lost 100 years of her life and finally living the mundanity of learning and making friends are also so important, not to mention with snowwhite and their shared fate etc etc but then i might never stop asdjsldmsk i love neverafter so much)

[brain-r0tten]

okay so I was sick and dying for the past few days but now that I'm feeling better drawing doesn't feel like a chore anymore woohoo

I have 2 more arts almost ready (art trade and meet the artist) as well so stay tuned for that!

as for the comic- (ramble about my SPTO sona below)

I tried to think more about Nate and at first I wanted em to be Scott's classmate cuz I love their gang as well buuuut I think it'd be weird to fall for someone who punched your friend to death lmao (maybe gonna do like an alternate timeline where they're in a relationship with Scollace and not PatelGraves and go along with my original idea)

So in this AU Nate is Roxie's classmate! I love her as well. They have a queerplatonic relationship and are really close, so Roxie told him about the league in passing conversation, Nate was curious and had nothing to do so he convinced her to visit Rockit when Matthew Patel was gonna fight Scott. Roxie briefly told him about Mattie and Nate got interested bc- theater kid? pirate?? emo???

He doesn't have many friends aside Roxie and he wanted to come out of his shell so this was a perfect occasion to do so. Surface level he's pretty confident and (maybe??) charming but his anxiety still lingers, especially when he's around people he puts on the pedestal (don't do that chat it's a major character flaw) and a pirate emo theater kid sounds like the perfect candidate for that.

The pages start right after he defeated Scott (the scene where he's yelling "WHAT'S GOING ON??") but I also planned to do one page before that where you'd see Nate and Roxie's conversation. Buuuut those 2 already took enough time so imagine it's an awesome cool page by just looking at the dialogue aight??

They'd sit somewhere in the corner to see the whole thing, after it was over and everyone went their way, Roxie would push Nate towards Mattie where the finished page starts

(Nate is red, Roxie is violet)

Also Nate/Matthew ain't really infatuated with the other one yet, they're just very excited for someone to talk to (they're both losers at this point)

[xx-akubara-xx]

Wow

Just

Wow

Last update

The Billsteve comic

I'm gonna be thinking about that the WHOLE day, maybe more

You DO write quality angst, amazing.

I, it hurst for real. Like... I know Steve is supposed to be just a joke when Alex created him, but you take it to a super level. Angst is SO STRONG.

The guy... The guy wanted to be close to Bill for a really long time, and Bill... And bill got to the point he does want and needs the contact... But Steve ISN'T in the right place (mentally speaking) strikes to me that your take in Steve is that he is one of those beings that says really TRUE things but in a really harsh way if upset.

It hurtssssssssssss, Wow! Like... Bill asked for the touch and, oh boy! Everything went to hell! I do understand the hand part, i do! Boundaries are boundaries.... But wow... He calling to see if they have seen Bill... is he using ..?? HIS HANDSSSS.??? IS HEEE?? To CALL??!!!?!?!?!?!

IS HE?!

that is EXTRA SOUL CRUSHING.

Truly a masterpiece.

I

*wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze*

Well, um, first I doooo need to clarify... that yes... you might be confusing me with a different fan artist,,, Sorry, I know that's the thing you seem the most excited over,,,

That's just your run-of-the-mill, old-fashioned telekinesis. No invisible hands...

It's funny, but I did consider making him use his hands for this scene. Since there's only an eye to work with - hands can play a big part in helping express emotion for the triangle boys.

But I also didn't want to make light of the lore I just established for Steve. I do plan on having his hands used again in a future update... I want to save it for that moment.

Touch in general, is a big deal for both of them (Scooting onto the other part of the asks, lol)

Bill very much sees touch as part of his own love language. Hugging his parents, slapping folks on the back, handshaking, nudging, pushing - ECT. (Despite still being an outcast/weirdo)

And then he tried to show Euclidia the stars.

And the only company he had left- was the guy that never backed him up in the first place and clearly was holding back a scary level of resentment against him for what happened. (And Bill couldn't blame him for that)

So when Steve grabbed him, it did much more than just give Bill an 'awakening.' They didn't even have to 'keep going'. Bill would've been satisfied with anything at that moment.

The mere fact that Steve was touching him made him think for a split moment that everything was actually going to be okay.

And then it wasn't.

Because, of course, it wasn't going to be okay.

[marciaillust]

hey, i hope you're doing great! i feel this may be unorthodox, but i really wanted to reach out to extend my engagement?— awe?— solidarity?— (some variant of those, anyways) with your most recent "workposting" art. i don't normally do this. I've maybe sent 3 asks in my whole life. there's no pressure to respond to this, as i mostly just wanted to cheer you on. also, I'm really sorry this is so long.

i only just recently landed my very first freelance art job, at a start-up company dedicated to making comics + DND inspired art content. I've always felt that "Its nothing to call home about", and so i really resonated with your feelings regarding your work for Brawl Stars. I felt kind of ashamed of my job, that its just a small start up— that I'm not enough and that i should be trying harder, or something like that. Specifically i resonated with your comment of "presenting brawl stars art feels like showing my anime girl oc to an art teacher" and i don't think i could have solidified any better.

Anyways. all's to say. I really found your work quite jaw-dropping. I was shocked when i read it was for Brawl Stars. I didn't know anything about it, but when i did some research i was even more amazed. they're really, really compositionally beautiful... i mean, i know its just "work" to you ultimately, but it really does feel lively, and everything about it makes it feel like you care. I think sometimes you're just able to tell when an artist genuinely cares about their work; about its end outcome. there's so many intricacies. and a lot of attention to detail. you kept the style that was necessary of you but i also can feel the warmth and the care of the artist behind it— its not corporate, or stale, it doesn't come across as "just work".

since you mentioned League, i genuinely do think it serves an equal purpose and weight to what League of Legends would produce. from a biased standpoint, i would actually value your work more. Its not even that its "more obtainable"/"more realistic" but that there's genuinely more feeling to it. Compositionally/artistically, yeah, League makes great stuff, but occasionally, the feeling or the sense of warmth and care from the creator of the art is lost along the way. I value seeing the artist within their own art a lot, which is why I've admitted to a degree of bias. either way. what you put out there is really gorgeous, and crazy impressive.

I know a stranger with a dumb, fandom-oriented art blog cant solve the self-indited art elitism (you and me both, man💀) and that you've already received plenty of love/reblogs saying similar things, but i wanted to extend my feelings anyways. Its really heart-warming, i guess. It brings me hopefulness, and deep adoration for the craft. I'm not very good with words. Anyways. don't undersell yourself. seeing your work meant more to me than you can imagine. I'm obviously nowhere near your skill level, but it meant more to me as an aspiration. i think that regardless of who you work for, your work is really valuable and downright incredible. because you bring that sense of warmth, care, time, and patience regardless of the media it portrays. and you're able to do that while being objectively talented— utilizing great compositions, colour pallets, shading, characterization, mood, etc. That is more valuable. That is much much cooler than working for Riot. imo.

Initially, i also wanted to ask you some questions about how you assembled your portfolio, if you went to school, (if so) what it did/didn't provide for you going into the art field, and just how you landed the job in general. But i respect you and your time, and wouldnt want to be a burden or anything. If you ever have time for it, i would love to ask them, among others, and we can chat in DM if you'd prefer. Absolutely no pressure. Im happy just watching from the sidelines. I dont anticipate anything from you to begin with! I just hope youll know how influential your post was to read & see, to someone like me!

Oh man. I. How. Where do I even start except

This is one of the most uplifting, touching and encouraging messages I received in my life. I read it thrice. And I still can't believe how full of love it is. This is such high praise, I want you to know I will cherish it and carry it with me for a long long time. It's not often that an artist gets to learn how their art is perceived, not to mention in such a positive light. It really means a lot to me.

It makes me so happy to hear that my work illustrations retain a piece of me that is visible to others. I myself can't see it, but I imagine my closeness to the matter at hand heavily impacts my ability to see objectively at all. There was a time where I was worried that work was overriding the me that makes my art mine, that I was becoming a corporate rendering machine and that what I did at work (the shape language and style) was bleeding into my personal art. There is a part of me that is now breathing easier after reading your message. I would love to answer any questions you have, it's the least I can do to repay you! Feel free to send an ask or even an email, I'll try to be as thorough as I can be with my answers. I wish you happy holidays! Take care! And again thank you so much for taking the time to write this message!

[simon-roy]

A little press release from Image comics - we're putting out a mass market edition of Griz Grobus! Press release follows:

PORTLAND, Ore. 12/07/2023 — The high fantasy, graphic novel Kickstarter sensation, Griz Grobus, by co-writer/artist Simon Roy (Prophet, Jan's Atomic Heart and Other Stories) and co-writer Jess Pollard, with colors by Sergey Nazarov, will be available in trade paperback format for the first time this June 2024 from Image Comics.

Griz Grobus was originally a popular Webtoon sequential webcomic that leveled up its exposure with the 2021 launch of a Kickstarter campaign for a stunning hardcover edition. The campaign ignited fandom fervor, was fully funded in under a day, and raised nearly $70K—far exceeding the stretch goal. This Summer’s forthcoming paperback edition will bring this roaring success story to an even wider audience of readers.

"Part of what we wanted to make, in Griz Grobus, was a story that felt like a foreign film from a country you haven't heard of," said Roy. "Natural, familiar elements, sitting harmoniously alongside the new and unfamiliar. The proposition of getting to introduce a whole new audience to our little pocket universe, and the worlds within it, is very exciting!"

Set in the same sci-fi universe as Roy's Habitat,Griz Grobus is another tale of life after the collapse of the interstellar empire. But unlike Habitat—where a once utopian orbital community found itself descending into cannibal tyranny—the characters of Griz Grobus inhabit the rural world of Altamira, where post-utopian frontier life has blossomed into something a bit more wholesome.

Pollard added: "I can definitely say it is one of the funniest, most delightful things I've ever been a part of, and I laugh every time I read the story, as if I'm reading it for the first time. I hope readers will feel the same warmth when they read this edition, whether it be for the first time, the second, or third.”

Griz Grobus tells two parallel, intertwined tales from the far-off colony world. High in a sleepy mountain village, the overzealous academic ambitions of a young scribe lead to the resurrection of the town’s ancient colonial-era priest-bot. This long-defunct pastor finds himself in a world that has passed him by, but refuses to simply accept his obsolescence, much to the chagrin of the scribe and the local townsfolk. The second story, a mise-en-abyme, is Altamira’s most famous novel (being avidly read by the characters of the first story). It is a fantasy tale about a war-god who gets trapped in the body of a goose, and the efforts of one pacifist cook to delay the war-god’s bloody return to the battlefield.

This lush, intricately detailed, standalone fable is perfect for fans of Hiyao Miyazaki, Asterix, and Arthur C. Clarke.

The Griz Grobus trade paperback (ISBN: 9781534397866) will be available at local comic book shops on Wednesday, June 5 and independent bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Indigo on Tuesday, June 4.

Griz Grobus will also be available across many digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.

[genericpuff]

Hey quick question.

How do you know if you should make a webcomic? I have this story idea that’s been floating around in the back of my head that I think could work well for a comic series. But the problem is I’m mainly used to writing screenplays and more traditional writing.

What I’m saying is, how can I tell if making a webcomic is worth it or if I should stick in my comfort zone?

I mean, there's no definitive right answer when it comes to "knowing" if you should make a webcomic. It really just comes down to you. Do you really like the medium? Do you feel your story has to be told within that medium to achieve its goals?

Same thing goes for whether or not it's "worth it", it really comes down to how you define that. For some people, simply posting their comics online to a few readers each week is worth it. For others, if it doesn't get into print or publishing or whatever have you, it might not be quite so justifiable to keep up with. Neither is better or worse than the other, both reasons are valid because it ultimately comes down to what we as individuals are trying to accomplish and what we define as "worth it" on a personal level.

I actually live on both sides of the spectrum right now because with Rekindled, posting it on Tumblr and getting all the great feedback and company through the audience it's gained makes it worth it. But that worth was defined by my expectations going in - I wasn't making Rekindled for money (legally I can't), I wasn't making it to get an Originals deal or anything of the sort, I was just making it because I found myself deadset on going through with it after months of it living in my head rent free, and so what I've gotten out of it as a result is very much worth it, all I was really looking for was maybe some other readers who would enjoy reading a transformative 'foe fiction' from a former LO fan and I've found those readers in spades simply due to the demand.

Time Gate, on the other hand, was something that I wanted for years to be a 'successful' project, defined more by actual tangible growth and gain. Because I came up with it as a kid, for a long time it was my "magnum opus" project, the thing that I wanted to see get turned into books and an anime and a video game and all those sorts of things as 'proof' of how good it was. Of course, I know now years later that those expectations were WAY too high and it resulted in me feeling incredibly depressed over it for ages. It made it hard to work on and even though I did have some readers, I didn't see it as "worth it" because my expectations were a lot higher than that of Rekindled's going in. But that was simply a matter of experience at that point, because I had been making original comics for so long, when I went into Rekindled I knew a lot more what I was capable of, what I wasn't capable of, and what boundaries I was willing to put down for myself. Even still, I do still want to return to Time Gate some day and when I do, I want to still treat it like a series I want to get off the ground as an actual published piece of work - it's just that this time around, I actually know how to make those steps and be proactive in my approach (and I know where to keep my expectations) which is certainly a perspective and skillset I didn't have when I was 15 LMAO

I will say, realistically speaking, it is a lot harder to pursue webcomics as a writer, because the reality of this medium is that most people who go into it are artists who learn how to write to make a webcomic, not the other way around. Unless you're willing to learn how to draw - which is a whole other skillset that requires years of work and patience - you're likely going to have to seek someone to collaborate with and - I cannot stress this enough - it's not going to be someone you simply find on reddit who's willing to work for free. Again, many of us as artists went into webcomics with a project already in mind, so most artists are already working on their own passion projects, trying to convince someone else to work on yours is just not realistic or fair. I'm fortunate enough to have @banshriek along for the production of Rekindled and even then I still pay for their contributions out of pocket, they're as invested in an LO rewrite project as I am (and thus they're given a lot of room to make suggestions in both the set designs and the writing), and I still had to carry the first 20ish episodes on my own before they joined along, i.e. I would still be making Rekindled if they weren't onboard, but having them is a massive help that's taken the comic to a whole other level in its artistic production.

But that doesn't mean it's hopeless! There's a lot of interest right now in webnovels and writing comic scripts is still a completely viable way to get into the comics industry if you're really interested in doing so (fun fact: before I was making comics, I wrote fanfiction! This is probably not shocking to hear all things considered LMAO) There's a reason Webtoons owns Wattpad now, webnovels are a no-brainer when it comes to adaptations to visual mediums, and webcomics have become part of that environment by extension. So at the very least, if you want to get your story out there, there are loads of ways to do it that don't require you to make a comic - but if you really want to make one, there are ways to get into that industry through writing in other ways such as pitching scripts to comic publishers and/or going indie with webnovels. Ultimately, if many of us webcomic creators stopped drawing our works, we'd still be coming up with stories to write, because that's what's really at the heart of these sorts of projects. So even if you can't get into comics right away due to lack of visual artistry, that doesn't mean it's off the table forever ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

Sorry, that was a lot of rambling but I hope it helps ! Remember to keep your goals and expectations manageable, and most of all, write lots! You'll be doing it anyways regardless of whether or not you get into comics, so whatever value you see in getting into comics is up to you to determine! You don't have to know right away, it might be something you'll find along the way or have to adjust as you get more experience, but don't stop yourself from getting creative and messing around until you find out what works! You won't know if it was worth leaving your comfort zone until you try it <3

Good luck! (•̀ᴗ•́)و

[bluecatwriter]

There's a long history of Dracula adaptations clearly made by people who have never read the book.

I think in this fine tradition you specifically should adapt the Beetle without reading it

You are SO right, anon. I am going to direct the movie version of The Beetle upon which all other adaptations will be based! It will full of iconic quotes that are not in the book and I will butcher all the themes and characters!

Initial thoughts:

-Robert Holt will be played by some no-name actor who is putting his entire heart, soul and mind into the performance. The Brick Guy is also played by this guy. The first part of the movie is filmed in a very straightforward period-drama style, with the exception of a Carpet Scene, which is filmed in soft focus like a "flashback to dead wife" scene.

-Robert will also of course be referred to as "Bobert" and wear jorts. Alas, he does not get a GAP sweatshirt or a slushie in this version because there are no Ordinary Solicitors to save him.

-The Beetle will be portrayed as just a beetle of varying sizes, and they will be CGI. Specifically the really low-budget bad CGI of the early 2000s. This is very important for my artistic vision.

-Paul Lessingham will also be CGI.

-The cat will be a real cat, and will be voiced by the guy who voiced Garfield from the 1990s Garfield and Friends cartoon.

-I am open to casting suggestions for Sydney Atherton, although again, I suspect that it would be best to forgo celebrities and cast a guy who has played the comic-relief guy in Oklahoma at community theater one too many times. I will change nothing about Sydney Atherton's atrocities, and will in fact probably add a few more, but all the other characters will say how manly and wonderful he is while he's like beating someone to death with a cricket bat in the background. The movie critics will read a lot into this directing choice.

-I will make Marjorie and Dora both girlbosses™ by giving each of them a sword and a multi-level marketing business. They will contribute nothing to the plot and I will be offended if people think they are bland characters.

-I don't really know the other characters, so they will be played by a gender-inclusive rotating cast, and everyone will keep mixing up their names. The goal is for it to be impossible to keep track of who's doing what at all times.

-The cat still dies but goes to Cat Heaven and there's a whole musical dream sequence (inspired by 1930s cartoons and musical numbers from Gene Kelly movies) about the cat having a really great time in Cat Heaven.

-During some mundane scene with this rotating cast of characters and CGI Paul Lessingham, Bobert will dramatically die of starvation in the background. Nobody notices.

-The train crash will be on-screen instead of off, and there will be a very long monologue from the train themself as they dramatically fall off a broken bridge (this will be a practical effect with a full-sized train). This monologue will be delivered by the same guy who plays the cat, and if the actor isn't crying real tears by the end, we will redo the take until we get it. There will be a lot of montaging and soft focus. We will give the train a tragic backstory, but the train is also kind of accepting of their fate, you know? The book of Ecclesiastes will probably be mentioned somewhere in here.

-I will be diverging from canon by having Sydney Atherton die in the train crash. Not from the train, though, he chokes on a shrimp cocktail moments before the train hits the ground.

-Credits roll

-Epilogue scene: Sydney Atherton ends up in Cat Heaven and all the cats jump on him like the hyenas at the end of Lion King and there's just a giant wriggling ball of cats. Bobert is there too, drinking a slushie in the background. Hard cut to black.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #71 – The City and the City by China Mieville

Mieville is one of those authors whose influence and artistic shadow I’m far more familiar with than the guy himself or his actual work. I read Perdido Street Station years and years ago (quite good, not as clever as it thinks it is and has let’s say Issues with gender, I would have been better served reading it without knowing all the hype) and I got about halfway into Railsea at some point in university (a great central aesthetic and cute conceit sadly does not sustain an entire book of otherwise uninspired pastiche), and otherwise? I’ve just read and enjoyed far more stuff that cites him as an inspiration or is writing in the whole New Weird tradition (name now at least a decade out of date) that he was one of the big names establishing. So this is me doing a bit to rectify that imbalance, and also trying to fail a bit less comically at my literary fiction reading goal before the year ends. It served both ends neatly, and as a bonus was even a pretty decent read.

Tyador Borlu is a detective of the Extreme Crime Squad in the vaguely Balkan city-state of Beszel who, as detectives in novels inevitably due, gets himself hopelessly entangled in the case of a young woman murdered under murky and improbable circumstances. The investigation leads inevitably to the conclusion no one wants to deal with – that this is a cross-border case, and that Tyador will need to chase the trail of corruption and conspiracy into the neighbouring and overlapping city of Ul Quoma. Only by working with officers from both the mirrored cities police forces is there any hope at all to get to the truth beyond all the hints of a secret conspiracy pulling the strings of both and murdering to cover its tracks.

Which is to say, this is a fairly standard detective story plot that often seems there mostly to explore, poke at, and examine the implications of the lovingly detailed high concept setting. Beszel and Ul Qoma are the true stars of the show here – two cities with their own languages, cultures, histories and governments, even their own borders and economic trajectories, that by odd coincidence happen to cover the same geographical area. A Beszel street might run along an Ul Qoman park, and but every driver on it would simply unsee the families enjoying themselves walking or playing in it. They do not notice the rattling of a train in a another city merely because it happens to run directly above their apartment – or if they do, they’re trained and educated since birth to show absolutely no sign of it. The two cities are separate and foreign to each other, no matter the fact that their residents walk by each other on busy streets every day. This is enforced by popular agreement, by centuries of tradition and, n a pinch, by Breach – the shadowy and opaque secret police empowered and respected by the authorities of both cities as an independent and almost occult boogeyman, there to keep the two nations firmly separated from each other.

Which is an absurd and fantastical a premise as any of Mieville’s other books on the face of it, but he really has put in the work here. The cultures of the two cities both seem real and distinct, and painstacking care has been taken figuring out exactly how all this would work day-to-day with mid-2000s technology. It’s still asking for some heavy suspension of disbelief, to be sure – but once you accept the premise the book never does anything to really throw you out of it with egregious implausibility. If everyone wanted things to work like they’re presented as, if feels like they probably could – and the ways they couldn’t are each acknowledged and given some level of justification or another (or, if not, made into whole plot points).

So yes, this is a very Theme-First novel. It’s never really didactic, and one absolutely never gets the sense of Mieville getting up on a soapbox to lecture at you, but then he really doesn’t have to. The setting makes the point about nationalism – about how lethally hard and sharp borders that exist only in the human mind can be – quite clearly without too much elaboration. Which is really my preference for getting these things across.

In the interview at the end of the book that I very lightly skimmed through, Mieville calls this fundamentally a crime novel more than anything else, which feels difficult to disagree with. It’s honestly kind of fascinating to see his politics – which generally come through quite loud and clear. Read Perdido Street Station and then take one guess what stance his history of the Russian Revolution takes – get absolutely buried under the expectations and requirements of a hardboiled police mystery. There’s still the same cynicism towards political establishments and assumption of corruption as always, but it’s frankly weird to read the avowed Trotskyite write a story where the happy ending is the protagonist is recruited into the secret police. Or just all the blase matter-of-fact narration about the use and usefulness of beating prisoners, informants providing private records on demand, a general surveillance state, and so on. It’s all of a piece with the rest of the genre’s trappings, of course – the general cynical view of the world, the fact that the most personally admirable character is the girl whose already dead on page 1, and the fact that the books central relationships are three different iterations of the natural and sacred bond between a cop and his partner. The genre emulation is really pretty note-perfect, and I’m not quite sure if this is good in terms of getting out of the way and letting the themes and setting taking centre stage or if it ends up muddling and confusing them.

It does save the book from the very common failure state of setting-heavy novels that end up feeling like tourism brochures, at least.

Truthfully the most interesting part of reading this for me was how the ~15 years since publication have left it feeling like a bit of a period piece. The whole vibe of the book and the Europe it presents is just incredibly mid-aughts in ways both obvious and hard to explain. The Twin Cities themselves, of course – the whole conceit obviously owes a lot to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed (the talk about the difference between the cities’ languages feels like it was taken 1:1 from people talking about Serbian and Croatian), with more than a dash of divided Berlin in inspiratio n (it seems less than accidental than the more Western and pro-American Beczel has a much more Germanic vocabulary for things whereas Ul Qoma is a melange of Slavic and Turkish). There is, throughout the book, a sense that these carefully and lovingly maintained divisions between cities and peoples are an anachronism, a rough spot that cannot long withstand being smoothed out by the homogenizing tides of globalization and the convenience of international commerce. More directly – the backdrop to the plot is the economic boom a former Eastern Bloc state is going through since opening itself up enthusiastically to foreign (western) investment, and the plot itself involves a corrupt conspiracy between a pro-business Social Democrat, an American tech company, and the easily duped ultranationalist thugs as muscle. It all speaks so deeply to the assumptions and trends of the world that hadn’t quite shaken off the hangover of the Cold War and for which the Great Financial Crisis was still over the horizon.

Even the book’s portrayal of politics has this feel. The vaguely-alt-left Unificationists and the assorted far-right ultranationalists are all portrayed as hopeless lost-causers; potentially dangerous (more the latter than the former) and useful tools in the hands of those who know what they’re doing, but on their own nothing but bitter old men and deluded kids who refuse to accept how the world works – radicals who the real powers leave be because they have infiltrators in every group, and anyway if they ever had a chance of success they’d be rolled up before they even realized it. Real power is the chamber of commerce and the established parties, the police apparatus and foreign corporations – the avatars and defenders of capital and the status quo. Even the plot itself – the revelation that the secret conspiracy which might overthrow everyone’s understanding of their history and their nations is just a smuggling operation that’s gotten out of control preying on the naivete and idealism of a young genius – feels so very End of History. It’s kind of charming, really.

Anyway yes – enjoyable read. Never really set me on fire and nothing about it has really gotten stuck in my head? But glad I read it, and have no real complaints about doing so.

[ballinandcantgetup452]

Am I the only one who's noticed that Supergirl designs have been booty cheeks up until recently?

Here, just lemme show you.

Her Debut Suit:

This cover was recreated by somebody for those who can't tell. But it's the same cover and this is what I could pull up quickly. So this first suit is fine. Gets the job done. Doesn't feel gratitutious. It's a little safe, little unrefined. But that's what a first suit is for. The idea's out in the world. The cool part about comics is the fact that there's a revolving door of people with ideas to bounce off of yours. Let's have this be our baseline. 5/10

There's an interlude of suits here, but I can't find them all.

Crisis on Infinite Earths Costume

Apparently, Screenrant isn't fond of this suit, but I also trust Screenrant as much as I trust my local politician these days. So screw 'em. I think this design kind of rocks. I like how they clearly tried to evolve her look in a way that's different from Clark's while still having the baseline stay the same. I like how the cape goes into the crest. I'm even kind of a sucker for the stupid headband. My only complaint is the skirt feels a little too high which can cause a lesser artist to sexualize her, but, modern day comics have proven that you can prevent this problem by either making the skirt a litle longer, changing the skirt into those half skirt-half shorts thingies, or having Kara wear spandex beneath it. Overall, an admirable attempt at evolution. 7/10

Post Crisis Supergirl (and all adjacent designs)

I have these designs in order of "hate the most" to "hate the least". I absolutely DESPISE Kara's comic post-crisis look on literally every level. I hate how it feels like a cheerleader outfit. I hate how BLUE it all is. I hate how the outfit feels DESIGNED to be sexualized. It's just a bad look. Not just for her, but for feminist representation in comics as a whole. I have the same complaint for the other two. But Kara's first DCAU suit feels more homemade, which I'm fine with. Her second one has a fine enough color scheme. The skirt isn't frickin BLUE. But overall, it doesn't feel like a superhero design. It feels like the worst person you know in high school wanted to dress slutty to the Halloween party (which there's nothing wrong with that if you dressed up slutty in high school, nobody should've been perving on you anyways) and threw together a slapdash Supergirl outfit. 3/10. Uncreative for people literally PAID to be creative.

New 52 Supergirl:

A step in the right direction, but, not my personal favorite. I get that this suit is supposed to line up with the New 52 super costumes. HOWEVER, I just don't like the New 52 super designs. I just think it's too complicated. I admit this is a personal preference thing, but, I like my superhero designs simple. I believe that you've designed a superhero right when a child can draw one in class with relative ease. This costume is fine, I don't disparage its fans. It's just not for me. 5/10. Objectively not bad, just not for me.

Rebirth Suit:

A much BETTER step in the right direction. It takes all the notes I've given and streamlines it the best it can. It still feels like a CW suit, which is fine, but it's just a note. Can't really change or disparage it for that. I give it the "real solid" award. 7/10.

Woman of Tomorrow MK I:

Perfect. Perfection. No notes. I love the golden trimmings. I don't know if it's Bilquis Everly's design philosophy, but I love how her top is kinda baggy, I love the cape, I love everything about this suit. I love how her belt is kind of like a corset. It's helps to round out the colors well. Just absolutely perfect. 10/10. No notes. Do this.

Woman of Tomorrow MK II:

If you need to "modernize" the costume, then this gets the job done just fine. I'm not ecstatic about it, but I think y'all can tell that's just my preference when it comes to DC designs. I like them simple. I like my Superman to have trunks and look dorky. I like my Supergirl to follow suit. I am really fond of the cape collar. They did something like that in Superman Up in the Sky and I liked it there, too. Overall, solid, but not for me. 8.5/10.

Current Suit:

The epitome of fine. I'm still a believer that jackets are to the 2010's as pouches were to the 90's, but still fine. It's just missing something. Dan Mora typically has the sauce here (and he cooks with her design in World's Finest), but something here isn't clicking for me. 6/10.

Overall, Supergirl's designs didn't really begin to get good until recently. And that makes me sad.

[love-takes-work]

Steven Universe–Centric perspective on Multiversus #4

Disclaimer: Reading these for just a fun little drip of SU content, and I know the people writing this are not in charge of the Steven Universe IP. This issue, more than any other so far, made me go WHY DIDN'T THEY CONSULT ANYONE ABOUT HOW STEVEN UNIVERSE WORKS?

(I only comment on the SU content, sorry.)

Multiversus #1 commentary

Multiversus #2 commentary

Multiversus #3 commentary

On #4:

This honestly isn't terrible, to have Garnet covering Steven's ears when another character is swearing as sort of a gag, but Garnet literally doesn't give a crap about if Steven hears bad language (and has intentionally said what passes for swear words around him). Very much would see Pearl doing this, but not Garnet. That's picky though.

I actually do like Steven having a lot of faith in the heroes getting the job done, but I don't think he would be massively against trying to help them save the world just because "Mr. Superman" told them to stay behind. There are MULTIPLE almost identical situations to this in the show where the Crystal Gems (including Garnet!) told Steven to stay behind or run from danger, and he found a way to help them anyway because he couldn't just stay behind and let them fight the battle. (Also, again picky and I don't want to be annoying about choices artists make, but what's with the Wreck-It Ralph fists on Steven and how they draw Garnet with these teeny legs? Steven's whole body could be measured as like .75 of one Garnet Leg. Is that a unit of measure? It should be. He can only hug one of her legs at a time. It's so cute.)

Moving on . . . .

There's a disaster and Superman is attempting to be faster than a speeding bullet to catch and rescue a bunch of characters who are falling. He catches Garnet and fails to catch Steven.

I promise Garnet doesn't need to be caught, but he wouldn't necessarily know that. What's baffling to me is that Steven falling and being hurt when he falls in the water is the big dun-dun-dun of the comic issue.

But Steven has floating powers. Sometimes he has trouble controlling them for sure, but choosing a character who can essentially fly to be the tragic lost hero who succumbed to gravity is certainly a weird choice. I read online that in Multiversus Steven is supposed to be at about Season 2 levels of development, which might patch this issue since Steven didn't learn to float until Season 3, but one of his Multiversus attacks lets him "float forward" while delivering kicks, so I don't know.

Beyond that, having a situation where Steven is potentially falling to his death when Garnet is there seems questionable at best. She not only has future vision which in the show leads to super fast reflexes--and has literally caught Steven from falling before using this ability--but even if she somehow didn't foresee it, she has a shapeshifting ability where she could reach out and grab him (which she has also done twice in the show when Steven was in trouble and she just shapeshifted her hand and arm to grab him). To be fair, shapeshifting is not listed as an ability either character has in the Multiversus game.

I know it's just a silly tie-in and not canon, but again, some very small changes could have avoided some of these glitches.

[sidsinning]

OMG SIDSINNING?!?! POOKIE THAT REALLY YOU?? OMG. YOU JUST APPEARED ON MY DASHBOARD WHA- YOU CARRIED OUT MY WHOLE MIRACULOUS HYPERFIXATION OMG!!! Dude this is soooo cool!! I'm obsessing over hazbin hotel and your art just appeared and I was like "OMG IT'S MY FAVORITE MIRACULOUS ARTIST" Dude I just wanna thank you!! You have just played a major role in my past obsession with miraculous ladybug and I wanted to thank you for all the memories you gave me. You art really made an inpact on me about three years back and are one of the reasons I started to draw fanart. And since I began drawing fanart due to consuming so many miraculous comics I actually ended up learning how to draw!! So thanks for being one of the reasons I got into drawing in the first place!! Oh my gosh I have liked your art for ages and just never knew you had a tumblr! This is like the best day ever. Your art has inspired me so much. It has inspired me over and over to get better in the past just to reach a certian level. So I just wanna thank you for having been my inspiration for a long time. I stopped watching Miraculous about almost a year or a couple of months now. (when season five started airing) But I will never ever forget the impact you left on my artist journey and how much your art meant to me when I was still a teensy bit cringe and was obsessing over the kids show. Thank you so so so so much. Your awesome. Like never stop drawing. -Michael/Mod mike (or as on my blogs ADHD!!)

HELLO!!!! THIS MIGHT BE THE SWEETEST MESSAGE I'VE EVER GOTTEN HERE LIKE EVER!!!

Thank you so much for enjoying my posts and art all this time, truly I have never thought I'd have a deeply personal effect on anyone with my silly doodles and comics here! So it makes me really happy to hear I had such a positive affect on you!!! In such a profound way!!!

I really don't know what to say other than I am super flattered and overwhelmed by how candy sweet this message is (IN A GOOD WAY OFC)!!! And it got me emotional reading this!!!

So thank you again!!!!

[sparklingsora]

For the Vee-Swap AU, how does the Vee polycule develop? The polyvee shippers (me) need to know!!

HEHE OK OK SO putting it under cut bc it ended up longer than i anticipated LOL

as you already know, velvox is the established relationship in this au. and as i believe i mentioned before, velvette and val are sinstagram mutuals, it's how val finds out about the hotel. on val's part, falling for velvette isn't really a surprise to him - back when they just knew each other through social media, he already found her attractive, admired her work and they got along well, so all that turning into a full-on crush when he gets to know her better isn't very shocking. his relationship with vox is where it gets interesting, because it starts out rocky. i mentioned before that vox can tell that val's putting on an act. but because vox obv can't relate to val's situation, val just sees it as vox pitying him and refuses his help. a turning point comes in ep 4 - in the swap au, it actually starts raining during loser baby, which results in val getting sick. vox helps him out and they have a tender moment, maybe a little heart-to-heart (its hard to just describe, i will make a comic/ficlet of it at one point so you'll see :3). their relationship starts getting better from that point on, and soon enough val finds himself falling for vox. (it's funny, really - ep 4 in the swap au leads to the bettering of a grand total of 3 relationships: al & val's, vox & val's and indirectly al & vox's. load bearing episode LOL) on vox and velvette's part, well. val is a douche at the start of the story, much like canon!angel, but vox and velvette can both tell that there's a heart of gold in there somewhere. vox because of the aformentioned seeing through val's facade, and velvette because she, in fact, wasn't mutuals with val's official account, but with his art account, where he keeps his identity hidden. he shows his softer side a lot more on there, and so that's mainly the side of him that velvette knew (so now imagine the whiplash when she actually meets him in person and he's an obnoxious jerk LOL) (i dont know if valentino being an artist is actually canon - i read it on the fandom wiki and fandom wikis cant rly be trusted LOL but in any case if its not canon then its a neat hc that i incorporated into swap!val's character) but anyway yeah, vox and velvette both start falling for val as he slowly becomes more true to himself and starts showing that soft side more. eventually the two of them talk about it um. somewhere around ep 6 i think? maybe? somewhere between eps 6 and 7? something like that. anyway. there we get some juicy conflict - they agree that theyre both in love with val and wanna give the whole polyamory thing a try if he's up for it, but while velvette wants to confess as soon as possible (she's scared that one of them might die in the battle), vox wants to wait until after the battle, because the stress levels are high in the hotel right now, and he doesn't want val to feel pressured. during the last night before the battle, in a scene vaguely equivalent to more than anything (reprise), they make up, velvette admits that vox is right, and they decide to confess to val after the extermination. and then yeah they do that (it's one of the 2 things that i'm sure i want to happen at the beginning of season 2), val is like "HELL YEAH I WANNA BE IN A POLYCULE WITH YOU GUYS" and they're a polycule and its awesome :3