#comic industry is pretty fucked up

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

“Robbie is gone! I’m still here! And I refuse to live in his shadow!”

Rastapopoulos himself may be out of the picture, but his ghost continues to haunt those who were caught in his web.

A collaboration with @aboardthescheherazade using her OC Marlene Katz - an actress Tintin tries to save in Cigars of the Pharaoh!

Five years later and Tintin is baffled to see Hollywood starlet Marlene Katz turn up at his doorstep asking for help. Formerly under the thumb of Cosmos Pictures, Marlene became an unsuspecting witness to Rastapopoulos’ criminal activity and now the mob is after her, seeking to tie up some loose ends. To top things off, she is due to make a public appearance at The Golden Palm, a prestigious film festival. After years of hiding, Marlene is determined to get her acting career back on track, and this film may be her big break.

Tintin is highly suspicious. Chang, on the other hand, is utterly star struck, and after noticing an uncanny resemblance between the two hatches a ridiculous scheme that may finally put an end to this particular problem. It might just work, but Marlene makes the last minute decision to also go undercover, feeling immense guilt over having Tintin and Chang risk their lives for her.

While Tintin is running around in heels and beating up mobsters Haddock is away on a weekend break with Ramo Nash. Before leaving he asked Chang to keep Tintin away from any incidents and to promise not to throw any house parties.

This was my first collab on this blog and I had a lot of fun bouncing ideas off with Vaye. Her blog was one of the first Tintin blogs I followed - definitely check it out, it’s an absolute treasure trove of resources and research! Below are a few notes of stuff we discussed while making this:

- After the Blue Lotus, Marlene breaks away from Rastapopoulos and pulls back from the film industry to lay low, teaching dance classes instead. He keeps trying to come back to her, leaving her exhausted and paranoid. Since Rastapopoulos always considered Marlene to be pretty stupid he never made much of an effort to properly hide his criminal activities from her, but Marlene was able to slowly piece things together...

- This adventure takes place after St. Benezet’s Basement (the boarding school story) and before Call of the Songbird (Tintin Fucks Up and Steals A Whistle). Tintin is still in the grips of trauma from the canon stories. Chang is starting to settle in. Haddock and Nash’s relationship is in full swing, but they are keeping things quiet from everyone else. 

- In some sketchbook comics I did to flesh out ideas there’s hints of Tintin being gay and asexual, his complete lack of interest in Hollywood actresses and his mild irritation of people’s judgements being clouded by crushes! Chang’s attraction to Marlene however, foreshadows his feelings for Tintin later on down the line.

- There’s a role reversal theme going on here. Both Tintin and Marlene are victims of Rastapopoulos but in very different ways. By playing each others’ roles they both can get a clearer picture of how Rastapopoulos hurt people, and therefore a better understanding of their own traumas. Tintin is usually spontaneous and rarely makes himself known, but here he is playing a set character. Marlene as an actress, on the other hand, is used to receiving direction from others, but circumstance pushes her to improvise. I can imagine her using her skills as an actor to get into character as an ace reporter to fake some much needed bravery!

- Marlene’s disguise is literally just stuff she pulls from Tintin’s and Chang’s closets. She’s wearing Tintin’s trenchcoat, dress shirt and suspenders and Chang’s spectator shoes, trousers and scarf!

- Marlene is a very skittish person but will be compelled to do what she believes is the right thing. As Vaye put it, “Marlene’s bravery under fire is that she’s like the one person in a room who’s willing to get a spider outside...” Marlene is also older than Tintin and pretty much views him as a child, even though he’s in his early 20s at this point. She feels incredibly guilty about what Rastapopoulos did to him and the fact he’s risking his life for her. She feels some level of responsibility for him.

This all started because I thought it would be cool for Tintin to beat some guys up in drag

[n30nwrites]

Now Sit (Shifter! TF141 x Male Reader)

Part 2 of Good Doggy

Masterlist here

Warnings: None really??? I'm not sure. Some awkwardness but that's cause Reader couldn't give less of a fuck. Some creepy behavior

Updated; 3/5/2024

Beta Reader: the lovely @letmelickyoureyeballs who's saving your guys asses right now

Part 1 here.

The entire house was shrouded in darkness. The windows were covered up in thick fabrics of purples and blacks. You didn't have any lights on, instead some candles that were hastily lit when you had entered the building and a few lamps. Your eyes were thankful for the darkness after the long drive during the day.

Your first trash bag was filled with clothing fabrics, they all needed to be washed so you quickly filled the tub with warm water and laundry soap, sorting the fabrics by color before tossing in the divided groups. Starting with your whites.

You decided to bring more boxes in, figuring the more you unboxed the easier it would be when the rest of your stuff arrived. Your box labeled ‘Gear’ was the first box to be put up, putting it in the closet near the entrance so you could pretend it wasn’t there. Just looking at your uniform brought back memories that you wish you could ignore. The second box was just one filled with knives, your swords were in another container wrapped up tightly in the back of Maya’s car. The Knives were put into your bedroom, you would come back to organize them when you weren’t so hungry.

You had cash ready for your pizza. Along with a tip because people needed to be tipped well. Especially in the service industry.

So when a knock echoed in the open-spaced living room, you had the cash tightly gripped, exact change in one hand and in the other the tip.

Until a man who was very obviously not the pizza delivery driver stood there, your pizza in his hand.

Well you figured it was yours. And there was no way this man was a delivery driver. He was far too fine to be one, if you were honest with yourself.

He was 6'2 which immediately put you on your toes, athletic build with graying-brown hair and blue eyes. He seems to look like he's reaching his 40s, something that shouldn't be so attractive yet is.

God, you needed therapy.

But, smash.

Nope. Nope. It was just inappropriate thoughts of an impossible achievement. You didn't need a relationship, not after your last one. You needed solitude, you needed to live a normal life without constant stares.

"Why do you have my pizza?" You ask him, money being squished.

"I paid for it, figured I could do that for the new guy." He speaks and seems almost cheerful, which is strange.

"I'm not paying you back."

"You don't have to." He handed the pizza to you and you snatched it quickly, almost comically. "Okay, bye." You go to shut the door but he quickly protests.

"Wait, who are you?" He seemed desperate and you didn't understand it. You sat the pizza on the table you had set up right next to the door, which was supposed to hold trinkets and your keys but you hadn't put the bowl there yet. You rolled your hand, rubbing your wrist that had ached from just a minute of holding the pizza. It was something you were working on fixing, just not right now.

"Who are you?"

"John, I live over at that house." He points to the house that Stalker 1 and Stalker 2 stood outside of. It was big enough for you to assume they were roommates, or perhaps a family.

"Can you tell the guys to not stare next time? It was uncomfortable." You blankly told him, before introducing yourself, only saying your first name, same as John did.

"This is a pretty big house for you to live all alone in." He was fishing for information, John knew that it could come off creepy, but he needed to know something about this person in front of him.

His mate.

"I don't live alone." You tell him, and he believes you are lying to him. He doesn't hear another heartbeat, and Ghost and Soap said that you arrived alone. "My Partner is coming with the rest of our stuff."

Partner? Why the hell do you have a Partner? How could you not know that you have three (maybe four with the way this pattern is) men waiting for you, willing to do anything for you. He's angry, and he knows that it makes no sense to be. You had lived your entire life before meeting them, it's not like you could drop everything and move in with him.

Despite everything in his body screaming at him to take you into his home and keep you there, keep you safe. And it's unreasonable, and something he would never do unless he wanted to traumatize you.

His eyes slightly widen at his own thoughts, and he needs to take a step away from you. You muddle his brain, you confuse him. He's had partners in the past, but this was different.

You weren't even supposed to be here.

"I'm sorry for bothering you sir, hope you enjoy your pizza." He takes a step away and turns and you don't bother to say goodbye or even thank him. You shut the door and he can hear you shuffle around and grab the pizza.

Price hates himself for what he's going to do next.

Gaz is almost surprised at the meeting. He says almost simply because he knew Price was going over to the neighbors, he watched the leader leave the house and pay off the pizza man. So something had to happen.

They just had to wait for Ghost to get home. Price was insistent on it, that everyone needed to be there and they couldn't wait nor do it over the phone.

He just wasn't expecting the words.

A theory that you were somehow mates with all of them. Price had revealed your status to him which caused Soap to blow up. It seemed ridiculous, all four of them connected to you.

But Gaz wanted it to be true. If he could just walk over and meet you, to find out.

If Gaz could no longer feel so alone because of you. He would do anything for that. So he didn't care that Ghost didn't seem to trust you, claimed you could be some creature putting a spell on the team, he didn't care that Soap wanted you for himself. He didn't care that Price was still talking.

He went outside and ignored the protests.

And he was lucky too, because a car had pulled up to your house and you walked out, sunglasses on and a large jacket which didn't fit for the weather.

But he could finally see if it was true.

-----

NEXT

Okay so I skipped my homework to finish this (i'm not gonna be this irresponsible I swear) and I made a poll here where you can decide on if reader is a human or not. I have plot points for both (probably a longer story if not human??? but that depends on what the people want) also please reblog and leave comments I usually lose interests with these and I'm trying not too. Gonna post a Masterlist for this soon, and if you want to follow the story you can follow the tag Good Doggy FF so you don't have to have notifs on lol.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ian McDonald's "The Wilding"

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

Ian McDonald is one of those absurdly brilliant novelists that just leave me wondering the actual fuck he manages it. How does he cover so much ground, think up so many compelling characters, find so many gracenotes, conjure up so many complicated emotions?

McDonald burst on the scene in the late 1980s, with the 1988 novel Desolation Road and then his 1989 Out On Blue Six, a slick, stylized cyberpunk-meets-Orwell tale that overflowed with beautiful prose, technomysticism, and sly jokes that hid sneaky truths that hid even more sly jokes:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/20/out-on-blue-six-ian-mcdonalds-brilliant-novel-is-back/

By my count, McDonald has now published twenty books – mostly novels, but a couple short story collections (and the most amazingly demented, Tom-Waits-inflected teddybear murder comic imaginable, 1994's Kling Klang Klatch):

https://irishcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Kling_Klang_Klatch

McDonald's work is truly globespanning. While he's made his mark on the Martian soil, and overtaken the moon with the Luna trilogy (his definitive rebuttal to Heinlein's Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) he is widely adored and much-awarded for the glittering, futuristic versions of Brazil (Brasyl), Tanzania (the Chaga series), and India (River of Gods).

Indeed, McDonald's imagination has roamed so far over the Earth and the solar system that it's possible to overlook his fantastic reimaginings of Ireland, the land where he was raised. There's his Philip K Dick Award-winning 1991 novel King of Morning, Queen of Day, a swirling, mythopoeic novel of Celtic mysticism:

https://www.baen.com/king-of-morning-queen-of-day.html

And then there's 1992's Hearts, Hands and Voices, which is lowkey one of the best novels I have ever, ever read – a scorching science fictional allegory for The Troubles, but with the gnarliest biotech weirdness you can possibly imagine:

https://archive.org/details/heartshandsvoice0000ianm/mode/2up

McDonald's books cover so much goddamned ground, but one feature they all share is a prose styling wherein every sentence is at least 20% poetry, a fraction that somehow, impossibly, rises to as much as 150% in certain especially shiny passages.

Like this passage, which opens The Wilding, McDonald's new horror novel that marks his first return to Ireland since 1992:

Autumn lay on the great bog in silvers and tans, late purples and duns.

The sun rose above the tall ash saplings and feral sycamore. It called the birds into full voice. Stabbing shrills, tumbles of notes, the flutes of dove-call, frantic ticking hisses, song upon song. In hedgerows and copses, among the pale foliage of the birches, in the weave of deep willow and the bramble fastnesses, each bird called and was heard. In this season the peatland held the day's warmth through the night and on the bright, clear mornings rivers of mist formed, filling the subtle hollow places in the exposed cuttings, the bogs and fields. High sun would dispel it but at this hour half of Lough Carrow lay mist-bound. Each blade of grass hung heavy with dew, the clumps of sedges were already browning, the bracken curling and crisping.

A pair of horns lifted above the willow scrub and out-grown ash hedges of the Wilding. Polished tips caught the low sun and kindled as bright and keen as spears.

https://www.gollancz.co.uk/titles/ian-mcdonald/the-wilding/9781399611503/

Oof.

I would drop everything to read Ian McDonald's grocery lists but after that opening, I wasn't going to put this one down, and I didn't, reading the whole thing on yesterday's flight home from my gigs in Atlanta this week.

The Wilding is (I'm pretty sure?) McDonald's first horror novel, and it's fucking terrifying. It's set in a rural Irish peat bog that has been acquired by a conservation authority that is rewilding it after a century of industrial peat mining that stripped it back nearly to the bedrock. This rewilding process has been greatly accelerated by the covid lockdowns, which reduced the human footprint in the conservation area to nearly zero.

The story's protagonist is Lisa, a hard-case Dubliner who came to the bog to do community service after a career as a crime syndicate driver for hire, a woman who never met a car she couldn't boost and pilot in or out of any tight situation. After years in the bog, she's ready to start a new life, studying Yeats at university, indulging a late-discovered love of poetry that has as much to do with her redemption as her years in the wild.

Lisa's last duty before she leaves the bog and goes home to Dublin is leading a school group on a wild campout in one of the bog's deep clearings. It's a routine assignment, and while it's not her favorite duty, it's also not a serious hardship.

But as the group hikes out to the campsite, one of her fellow guides is killed, without warning, by a mysterious beast that moves so quickly they can barely make out its monstrous form. Thus begins a tense, mysterious, spooky as hell story of survival in a haunted woods, written in the kind of poesy that has defined McDonald's career, and which – when deployed in service of terror – has the power to raise literal goosebumps.

There's a lot of fantasy that deals with Celtic mythology, including McDonald's own King of Morning, Queen of Day, but the vibe of that stuff tends to the heroic and romantic – sure, there's the odd banshee, but in the main, it's mischievous wee people, pookas, and leprechauns. More fey than fear.

But Irish mythology in its raw form is terrifying. The monsters of Irish storytelling are grotesque, mean, remorseless, and come in every shape and size. Some authors have done well by going back to the bestiary for the deep cuts. When I was a kid, I must have read John Coyne's Hobgoblin fifty times (mostly because it was about D&D, which I was obsessed with). I haven't read this one since I was about 12, and I have no idea if it'd hold up today, but it left me with a deep appreciation of the spooky multifariousness of monsters who dwell in Ireland's bogs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobgoblin_(novel)

The Wilding is a suspense novel, which means there's no way to really sum up the plot without spoiling a lot of the affect, but suffice to say that McDonald brings large swathes of deep Irish lore to the surface, and it had me reading as fast as I could and wanting to put the book down and hide.

What a writer McDonald is! The fact that this is the same guy who wrote last year's stunning secret-history/solarpunk/uncategorizable wonder that was Hopeland beggars belief:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/30/electromancy/#the-grace

Read you some Ian McDonald novels, is what I'm trying to say. This one is only available in the UK, if that's not where you are, consider mail-ordering it. Looks like they've got stock at Forbidden Planet for £19 plus £18 shipping to the US. Worth every penny:

https://forbiddenplanet.com/424306-the-wilding-hardcover/

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/25/bogman/#erin-go-aaaaaaargh

[stealingyourbones]

What suggestions would you have for cool, lesser known DC characters I could write a crossover fic with.

Preferably not Gotham-based characters because as much as I love them I need a break and I want to try something new. I know you mentioned Animal Man in another post. Does he have a solo run I can look up or is he usually in group comics/a side character in somebody else’s comics?

(I am deliberately baiting you to info-dump to me about any DC characters you want and I will write a fic with them so go nuts.)

Sadly at this current moment I can’t infodump nearly as much as I’d want to because my carpal tunnel is being a lil bitch but I can give synopses:

Animal Man- Buddy Baker, a typical suburban dad who also happens to be a hero that can use abilities based on any nearby animal (including bacteria?). He is powered by The Red which is the animal version of The Green (Plant Life). The Red is less the concept of all animals but more the concept that all animals are meat. his comics are either a beautifully terrifying body horror gore fest or a 4th wall breaking mind bending creation. No in between. Having Animal Man fight the Lunch Lady and realize she’s fundamentally a different being and not of The Red would be crazy awesome.

Booster Gold or Ted Kord: Booster Gold is a Time Cop who got his job from stealing shit from the Hall of Justice Museum and heading to the Age of Heroes to fund enough money and fame to pay for his mothers cancer treatment. He could be used in Clockwork related fics a lot and he’s also equally as much as a dumbass as Danny.

Blue Beetle also known as Ted Kord, is basically in the same package deal as Booster. Ted Kord, Late owner of Kord Industries, ja a brilliant master of technology and has stuff from a massive beetle ship to a gun. He’s best friends with Booster and their bromance could be fun if you want Danny to have two partially functional adult mentors.

Wally West. The second and fastest flash. A he’s the most go with the flow dude I’ve seen in recent comics, including dealing with an inter dimensional WWE esque fight where he fights alongside Space Hulk Hogan, and has a wonderful Wife, Linda West, and (sometimes) twin kiddos. The Flash’s entire sthick is family. They’re more family centered than the Fast and Furious movies for god sake. Having Danny find a new home in any speedsters home would be incredible.

The Spectre: the embodiment of Gods Wrath. I would go on far too long of a rant remind me to do one later but for now all I’m saying is that it would be sick as fuck for The Spectre to kill Vlad for the horrible things he’s done.

Green Arrow or in general Star City: Oliver Queen, inheritor of Queen Industries is a dude who got trauma after a boat sank and some island thing (tbh I don’t know his backstory off the top of my head), but he’s a very quippy and hilarious guy who’s jokes would mesh pretty nicely with Danny’s humor and in general he’s underutilized in both dpxdc and DC so it’d be nice to see that change :)

Ok hands are getting angry but I hope that’s a fun starting example list for ya!! :D

[anemptypuddingcup]

"Can you stop messing up my medical folders?"

Nurse who knows what to do but she is new on the job, and whenever she's close to Law she's always clumsy~

Dominant Trafalgar Law to teach her a lesson and to practice anatomy~

Have fun ^^

Yessss omg- I might write a smut short abt this bc this got me quaking tbh- that doctor x nurse relationship got me goin-

"Can you stop messing up my medical folders?"

You stumbled a bit as you carried a heavy stack of papers and folders for your dear doctor. You were new on the job and let’s just say that you wasn’t as precise and careful like a usual nurse. You had a bit of common sense in the medical industry yeah- but…let’s just say you weren’t as careful. Tripping over things, spilling medicines- It was something that you genuinely couldn’t help, but you knew that if it continued Law would have no choice but to put you out.

Law’s eyes flickered up at you and he quirks a brow as he watched you struggle to carry the files in your hands. “I-I have your files D-DoctORRR!-“ You let out a loud yelp as you slipped and tripped over nothing, comically falling face first and spilling out all of the files and it’s contents onto the cold tile floor. Law sighs out and sits back in his rolling chair, you were a pain to keep track of if he had to be honest.

“Could you please stop being so fucking clumsy, you’re fucking up my medical files and shit my dearest nurse.” He groans, pinching the bridge of his nose a bit tight before he stood up from his chair. You shoot up from the cold floor and slap your hands to your burning rosy red cheeks. “O-Oh! I’m so sorry Doctor! I-I’ll clean it all back up right now!” You yell before scrambling frantically, grabbing all of the files and left over paper.

“Don’t bother. Stand up now, my dear.” He demanded in a dark tone.

You slowly stand up and lower your head in shame, your body trembling just a bit as you felt that you were about to get terminated on the spot. Although…he gives you words entirely different from what you were thinking.

“Here, take a seat on my desk. Now please.”

You shuddered but obeyed walking over to his desk and setting your hips upon it while your dress inches up just a few centimeters. He watched as you scoot back a bit, setting your pretty ass onto the wooden desk.

His heels clacked against the tile as he walked closer to you before staring down into your eyes. He moves in and whispers into your ear, his voice making you tremble a bit and making your body grow hot.

“I think it’s about time you’ve had a pep talk and a lesson in anatomy.”

☆ ☆ ☆

“And this part here is your g-spot, a pleasurable spot deep within your pussy~ It’s a bundle of nerves and works just like your clitoris in a way~ It’s made to pleasure you~”

You moan out as his buries his fingers far and deep inside of your cunt. Your red pump nearly slipped off of your stocking-covered foot as you lift your leg for a better angle. “Mmgh~ Mmh!~ D-Doctor!~ I-I’ve never felt anything like this before! It feels so good!~” You mewl out heavily, a bit of drool spilling from your lips as he fingers you diligently.

His eyes widens in shock and he smiles sweetly before moving in closer to you, his chest pushing up and squishing against your breasts. “Oh really? So this is your very first time getting fingered? You’ve never experienced pleasure before?” He asked, quirking a brow to you. You shook your head before gasping out, your hands gripping his shoulders while you arch your back.

“Well then, I guess I’ll have to give you a full examination immediately. Doctor’s orders.” He whispers to you, grinding his digits continuously against your sweet spot. You bite your bottom lip while your brows furls at the pleasure. “Y-Yes please doctor, I would love to know more about this!~ Ah!~” You whimper, throwing your head back a bit.

“Don’t worry then, your doctor will take very good care of you while teaching you.”

[saphushia]

do you have any fic recs for dp/dc? ive been interested in reading good ones but its kinda hard to shuffle thru them all.

oh fuck yeah you know i do. i'm just gonna make a list of good ones until i get bored or tired lets see how long this gets lmao

also personal preference wise i'm not big on the danny-gets-adopted fics so u gotta ask someone else if u want recs of those ones lmao

⭐= my absolute favorites all fics are gen unless a ship is listed make sure u check fic tags for CWs b4 reading 👍

=ONESHOTS=

⭐It all Started at a Convention tim meets danny at a tech convention and they have a surprisingly nice afternoon together. and then tim comes to a realization about some things danny said...

A Monsterous Kind of Love [tim/danny] tim's a vampire. danny's a full ghost. tim gets to kill a few hunters in a frenzied rage to keep danny safe. as a treat <3

You've Got My Heart (I've Got Your Soul) [tim/tucker] congrats tim! you met your soulmate! why's he trying to kill you. hm. maybe you fucked up, buddy

Of loss, longing and long duration. [danny/bruce] of danny falling in love with bruce, breaking up with bruce, and proceeding to still be adored by all bruce's kids, past and present.

You Are a Monster (But So Am I) [danny/duke] duke's not a monster fucker- he's not! he swears! it's just this one, specific, really pretty eldritch snow monster-

If I had a nickel for every billionaire that tried to kidnap me, I’d have two nickels- which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice bruce is very tired. it's not his fault he accidentally kidnapped some teenager. aka danny's very bad wierd and stressful afternoon.

=ONGOING=

If You Give a Bat a Burger danny's just trying to lay low while keeping gotham's spirit infestation under control- of course nothing ever is simple for him. meanwhile, the bats all have their hands full with what seem to be unconnected cases, but nothing's ever simple for them either.

Rooftop Express [danny/jason] danny is bored and starts his own version of doordash in gotham. red hood keeps putting in orders so he can see the cute delivery boy <3 what do you mean he's a halfa

⭐Bus to Nowhere danny's adventures being a homeless teen in gotham on the run from his parents and the GIW. he's called dumpster tommy now, and he can't seem to stop befriending criminal and attracting vigilantes desperate to help him

An Interesting Family Tree [danny/tim] danny left the league of assassins years ago, but he can't seem to keep his nose out of it when he finds out red robin's being targeted by them. (canon divergence of tim's search for bruce in the red robin comics, where danny joins him. don't need to read the comic to read the fic)

⭐Grave Promises after an identity reveal gone wrong, danny has no one to turn to. no one, except, maybe, the hero who got stuck in the ghost zone years ago, who became danny's friend, danny's mentor, before they finally got him returned to his timeline. nightwing.

Our Empty Graves [jason/danny] danny, mute, injured, and on the run, is saved from a tight spot by red hood. he quickly becomes jason's problem, and jason makes the mistake of becoming endeared to this snarky shit.

Night Circus [dick/danny] dick hits it off with danny, a circus performer who just came to gotham. dick's thrilled- aside from the fact that circus gothica seems to be connected to the string of robberies that's suddenly hit gotham, and the bizarre thief dressed like the grim reaper...

Secretary Danny danny accidentally gets himself hired as the personal secretary of tim drake, wayne industries CEO. he's surprisingly ok with this, actually. and he's scarily good at it.

ok it's late i need to go eepies now have funnnn <3

[soleminisanction]

Issue 6 of "The Saga of the Super Sons" answers an important question: where the fuck has Dick been in this scenario?

Answer, apparently: At college.

Which is... where Bruce Junior is supposed to be. Bruce Junior, whose mother Bruce almost certainly met years after he took Dick in as a ward. Bruce Junior, who appears to be younger than Dick, but not by that much.

If you came at a Silver or Bronze Age writer with today's modern "but why is this character still 17" bullshit, I think they'd laugh directly in your face.

By the by, Dick is here because Bruce has been murdered.

I guess some things never change.

This does present an amusing comparison with the more modern takes on the subject like Prodigal/Knightfall, Gotham Knights (the game) and Battle for the Cowl, because here the boys treat Batman like something they expect to be left to one of them in Bruce's legal, actual will, like the one read out loud by his lawyer, implying the lawyer would be in on the whole secret identity thing.

When that obviously doesn't happen they come to an agreement to both... team up? But also compete? To find out who murdered Bruce, and whoever does the actual uncovering wins the cowl. This, for... reasons involves seal hunting in the Arctic and, ah... northern Native people. Which means a lot of use of a certain slur that all Natives in that biome used to (and still do) get lumped under, which I shall endeavor to write around but just know, there's a lot of it. Like, a lot. A loooooot.

Less awkwardly, check out what Dick Dillin apparently thought a killer whale looked like:

Hell, look at those mildly demonic black seals. I know this was pre-Internet dude but you could've gone to your local library. Or picked up a Seaworld ad.

Another thing that apparently never changes: Super-Sons comics insisting that only blood relatives count as "real" children.

To be fair, I wasn't actually expecting to see Dick referred to as Bruce's son at all in this. And Bruce Jr. is the only one who says this, and he's pretty consistently portrayed as the more immature and bratty one in this equation, so it doesn't really feel like the story is "agreeing" with him, it's just an interesting parallel.

Of course, because this is the 70s, they don't have any consideration for things like tactical costume changes or the realities of being mostly normal guys in the Arctic. So, though the boys arrive wearing sensible parkas, once they change into their superhero costumes Dick is just, snow shoeing through the tundra and water skiing behind a seal in his short sleeves and bare legs.

You'll probably be grateful to hear that the white industrial seal hunter is in fact the bad guy of this story -- this is actually one of the more cohesive stories in the saga so far in that regard. Simon Link was exploiting the land by killing too many seals, and then massacred part of the native village when they fought back trying to stop him, so this man Malook wanted to kill him. But, unable to find him and unable to get the white authorities to listen to him, he instead traveled to America to target his business partner, Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Junior is appalled by the accusations but, interestingly, Dick is willing to hear the guy out. When Link's crime is exposed (with the help of the Supers Senior and Junior, natch), he tries to escape across the ice.... disguised as a seal... aaaaand...

Huh. Okay then. Justice is served, I guess.

Oh also Bruce Senior's still alive.

I mean... good on you for realizing the need to make amends for funding exploitative colonialism, Brucie-boy, but did you have to do it in a way that put your son through the exact same trauma you went through? Complete with the murder mystery dinner theater death scene?

Not to mention your poor wife, do you know how much shit you two have put her through in the last however long it's been?? Junior faked his death complete with a full funeral in the first issue of the saga and now you're doing the same thing! If you actually did marry Talia she'll gut you both the next time she sees you and probably Dick too just because she's never liked him.

Anyway, for a parting shot, check out the image they used to advertise this story on the cover, it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Beware the Ominous Pixie Boot!

[pluckyredhead]

☕️ sliiightly late but would love to hear your thoughts on Tom King (I get the impression you’re not a fan? - ive only read one book of his (heroes in crisis) and a couple issues of mr miracle but I always see people talking about how great some of his books are)

Lol I am indeed not a fan. BUCKLE UP, FRIEND.

So two things about Tom King that give him such a good reputation outside of fandom circles: one, he is regularly paired with some of the best artists in the industry, which means his books look incredible. I mean, just astonishingly beautiful all around.

And two, he is very good at including certain signifiers that indicate "this is a prestige comic." It's hard for me to describe it - it's an "I know it when I see it" kind of thing - but there are certain ways of writing and laying out a comic that signal seriousness, intelligence, boundary-pushing. Art with a capital A.

The easiest example I can give is the nine-panel grid, which is exactly what it sounds like: a page of three panels by three panels, all the same size. This is associated with older comics (like, Golden and Silver Age) because it's so simple, but also it's very very associated with Watchmen. So now when people trot it out there's an element of "Look at me! I'm just like Alan Moore!"

Tom King looooves the nine panel grid. He uses it a ton in Mister Miracle (Kirby used it a lot so this kind of makes sense) and Heroes in Crisis, especially for the therapy sessions. And there's this thing in the industry where people see a nine panel grid and they're like "Oh! This comic must be Smart." But if you scratch a lot of Tom King's work, it has very little substance beyond a sort of complacent nihilism.

(Geoff Johns also used the nine panel grid to signify that he is An Intellectual Writer now with Three Jokers, which was fucking hilarious. Geoff Johns is the Michael Bay of comics and he was trying to be Wes Anderson. It was embarrassing for him.)

And actually, speaking of Tom King and Watchmen, Heroes in Crisis has a great example of how he's using shorthand instead of, like, building a real story. There's a moment where Clark tells Bruce and Diana that someone anonymously sent all the superheroes' therapy footage to Lois, and they're like "She can't publish it," and Clark's like "She's a journalist. She did it 35 seconds ago."

This is a reference to a very very famous line in Watchmen, when Ozymandias is talking about his plan and then reveals that "I did it 35 minutes ago." But Heroes in Crisis has nothing to do with Watchmen, and Lois's actions (publishing private medical information for no reason) have nothing to do with Ozymandias's (dropping a fake alien squid on New York to end the Cold War; also, sorry for the Watchmen spoilers). It also has zero consequences, either within Heroes in Crisis or in later comics.

That moment serves literally no purpose except for Tom King to tell the reader "I've read Watchmen." Which...is not really much to brag about? I'm pretty sure it's the bestselling graphic novel of all time. Lots of people have read it, dude. The line has no story or character purpose, it's just the equivalent of like...teenage boys quoting Rick and Morty or whatever at each other to signal that they're an in-group. Except pretentious. It's like if teenage boys quoted Proust at each other. (That would actually be amazing.)

And in fact - and this is my big beef with King - the line actually harms the story, because it's wildly out of character for Lois (and Clark, who fully supports her decision here). Why on earth would Lois publish the private medical information of dozens of people, many of whom are her husband's friends, or even her friends and in some cases family? It's not newsworthy, it's deeply unethical, and she doesn't know who her source is. It makes zero sense that she would publish it, and equally zero sense that Perry would allow her to - they're the Daily Planet, not fucking TMZ. But she does it...so that Clark can paraphrase Watchmen. Okay???

And that's the big problem with King. He has no knowledge or understanding of the vast majority of characters that he writes, nor does he care to learn. He is a fundamentally ignorant and lazy writer. Heroes in Crisis really exposes this, because it uses so many characters, and he gets so many of them wrong, and it's so clear that he like...Googled shit with no context.

Like, take Kyle Rayner. King has him praying in Spanish, and like...okay, sure, Kyle's dad is Mexican. Except Kyle didn't know that until he was well into his twenties! He literally had no idea that his father was Mexican or that he himself was Latino until he was an adult, and while he does canonically speak a second language in the comics, it's Irish. In both HiC and Omega Men, King writes Kyle as devoutly Catholic, when Kyle has never been shown to be religious in any other comic. King just went "Oh his dad's Mexican, he must be Catholic and fluent in Spanish." Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't have comics where Kyle engages with his Mexican heritage, but this is just a stereotype.

King also has this trick where he goes back to a character's debut issue and does a close reading of it to inform his writing, and everyone congratulates him on his deep cut...but he reads nothing else about the character. In Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the only Supergirl comic he references out of 63 years of canon is her first appearance, which is all of 8 pages long. Way to dig deep in that research, champ.

His book Danger Street was touted as celebrating the obscure characters of the DCU, but it was really just utilizing this trick to the max, because it was all about characters from a comic from the 70s called 1st Issue Special, which was dedicated to trying out new characters and concepts, so it was a whole bunch of debuts. I only skimmed part of Danger Street while researching something else, so I can't claim an in-depth reading, but one of those 1st Issue Special characters was the blue Starman, Mikaal Thomas. King uses that 1st Issue Special debut issue and literally none of Mikaal's other appearances to inform his writing. And you might say, well, okay, that's an obscure character so who cares? But Mikaal is a historically significant character who was half of DC's first on-page gay kiss in a mainstream comic, and you can't even tell from King's take on him that he's queer, because surprise surprise, his queerness wasn't in his 1976 debut but was a later development. And everything Mikaal does doesn't have to center his sexuality first and foremost, but it would have been nice if it seemed like King was even aware of it.

King also doesn't understand, like...really simple themes. I thought Mister Miracle was really good when I read the first issue...and then the story kept going, and I was like "Ohhhh he doesn't understand the point of the Fourth World at all." And the Fourth World is, like...the least subtle Kirby ever was, and Kirby was never subtle. Anyway Scott Free is a hero and Orion is also a hero, and if you don't understand that basic fact and how it is the central theme of the Fourth World - that given the chance, good will always be stronger than evil - you need to go back to remedial comics school.

AND FINALLY (lol sorry), all of his comics are just...miserable. They're about terrible people being terrible to each other. Which...is fine, I guess? But it's not why I personally come to superhero comics.

So yeah: I don't like King's work because he doesn't actually know what he's talking about, he doesn't do any substantive research, and he's so cavalier with the characters that he's been given temporary charge of that even DC has made almost all of his writing out-of-continuity after the fact. And the fact that the comics establishment treats him like he's some kind of genius makes me want to scream.

[royboyfanpage]

https://www.tumblr.com/big-gay-apocalypse/732547558666289152?source=share

how do these pannels make you feel. they make me feel sad

Hi anon!

For context these are the panels Anon sent me-

For starters, it's totally understandable that these panels make you feel sad! That's clearly what they were written to do.

However.

I can't take it seriously because it's RUDY WEST. Rudy West is not comparable to Oliver Queen! Rudy West is absolutely not a better father than Ollie!

I mean, aside from the fact that it's pretty hard to be a worse father than Rudy West and Roy would absolutely not be "a better person" if he was raised by the Wests, like. Ollie and Roy didn't have that much of a bad relationship when Roy was a teenager. Obviously Snowbirds happened and that changed their dynamic and created a whole lot of tension they had to work through, but this is clearly pre-Snowbirds, and since Ollie still has money+Queen Industries it's also presumably pre-Hard Traveling Heroes, which is where the idea of Ollie not being around stems from. Was there conflict? Sure! But not to the extent that the Teen Titans would be blaming Ollie for how Roy is (actually, the "its not his fault the way he was raised" angle is more accurate for Dick than Roy, but I'm not gonna get into that). And I am doing a lot of explaining and defending for a man who's competition is Rudy West.

Fundamental misunderstanding of Ollie and reducing him to "Batman with arrows" my beloathed.

Also another big issue is the fact that Roy's meant to be some spoilt rich brat, which doesn't really make sense?? I mean, Roy grew up on a reservation, and at this point he's living with Ollie who, based on this panel, is implied to still be at least kinda socialist in this timeline. He's not gonna be some disconnected nepo-baby who shames Wally for his parents' financial status, even at his most insecure, which I guess is the angle they're taking here.

And also why is Garth the one defending Roy? Garth doesn't care about Roy at best at this point, and actively dislikes him at worst. Especially considering Roy's treatment of Garth is arguably worse in this than in the original Teen Titans run. Idk, it feels like it's trying to make Garth into the quiet emotionally mature kid in this scenario, which i don't feel is very accurate to who Garth actually is (I'll admit I'm only recently getting into Aqua comics so I don't have a complete grasp of Garth's character, but I get the impression that he's definitely not as much of a pushover as this comic presented him as- in the original Teen Titans run he was bantering as much as the others were, and he did have moments where he'd get aggressive, such as when the Titans refuse to help him because of their 'vow')

I'm not gonna say I hate this comic. There are some parts of it I really love, like

These panels are cute as fuck and I adore them. I think that the comic really works as its own story outside of the main Teen Titans continuity, with its own interpretations of the characters and their stories. But if you try and apply it to the original Teen Titans series, it does get kinda messy.

So yeah, in conclusion, the panels are sad if you look at them within the story, but I just can't take it seriously in a broader scope because y'know. Rudy West. I'm not even that big of a Flash fan and I still know Rudy West is the worst guy.

[kibutsulove]

I can nottttt keep up with the fn royals sooo.. how many of them are there? that are actually canon, whether shown or mentioned?

I GET TO INFO POST ABOUT THE FIRE NATION ROYAL FAMILY YAY!!!!

the amount of fire nation royals are actually pretty vague unless you search through the walls of text on the online wiki page. (i love you atla wiki contributors) so i feel like i should just list off the fire lords and their immediate family for convenience

- the first fire lord

Shown in the second Smoke and Shadow comic, no known family, shared power with a council of fire sages, is not named :(

- fire lord yosor

mentioned in The Shadow of Kyoshi, no known family, allies with avatar szeto

- fire lord gonryu

mentioned in The Dawn of Yangchen, no known family, had beef with the Earth King of his time

- fire lord chaeryu

mentioned in The Shadow of Kyoshi, a man whore with multiple lovers, two of them being Sulan and Huazo, also had two sons named Zoryu and Chaejin, his reign was apparently a good time for agriculture

- fire lord zoryu

actually has dialogue in the Kyoshi novels (holy shit), the fire lord directly after chaeryu, had diabolical beef with his brother, and centralized the power in the fire nation

- fire lord taiso

has dialogue in The Reckoning of Roku, the father of zeisan and sozin, husband to hazei, oversaw a growth of industrialization and prosperity in the fire nation, and the outer islands pissed him off to the point he sent the fire navy to sit them the fuck down

-

The fire lords succeeding these ones are otherwise well known, with them being fire lord sozin, fire lord azulon, fire lord ozai, fire lord zuko, and then fire lord izumi. Its also safe to guess that Iroh II would be the fire lord after izumi

[starrysharks]

hi!!! i absolutely adore reassassination and im not sure if this has been asked yet or not but how did you come up with the plot/general idea of reassassination?

ah the inspiration for RAA came from a lot of things! some media and some personal experiences.

the style of RAA is heavily inspired by late 90s to mid 2000s cartoons and subcultures like goth, industrial/rivethead culture, scene, and spooky kids/nu metal/mall-goths. originally each character was to reflect a certain subculture and this still exists loosely within the series (eg. valentine/angel is based off of gyaruo, and onion is intended to be slightly reminiscent of emo). and of course, horror films, especially campy ones. stuff like rocky horror, saw, ginger snaps, and the machine girl!

i came up with the plot by chance. before finalising the premise of "zombie girl comes back from the dead to get revenge on her killer", i rewatched all of panty and stocking, and really loved the idea of a badass killer girl and her strange mysterious mentor. it's my fav trope, esp in stylish movies like sucker punch. before that, i had a very loose premise of octavia and kranken running a fucked up clinic together in episodic fashion - think like "clinic of horrors" by merryweathery.

anyway we eventually got to the premise of "zombie girl attends school killing people in secret to advance her mentor's plans". i needed to flesh things out a bit, so added some villains (then a school council rather than a full org), and gave octavia a simple, edgy little motive - kill her killer. i thought it was funny and fitted the "edgy on purpose" vibe i've always wanted RAA to have. the plan for the format changed from mostly vulgar, episodic comedy to slightly more serious serialised horror dramady, but the edgy, silly premise remained.

if you wouldn't mind me talking about it in particular, parts of the clear crucifix org are inspired by televangelism and the churches my mother would take me to when i was younger for the most part. televangelists are self-righteous, holier-than-thou scumbags who pressure the vulnerable into giving them money and relying on them out of the promise of salvation. the fact that they take christianity and warp/ignore/change the rules around to fit their plans inspired the philosophy of the CCO - it's exaggerated in that they blatantly go against their own religion by basing their org off of killing those they see as unrighteous or wrong. i went to lots of different churches when i was younger - some more protestant and some more pentecostal, though CCO ended up being based on catholicism because i know a lot about it (got a 8, the UK equivalent to an A, in religious studies lol). to me the protestant churches seemed a lot lighthearted but still had that underlying sense of judgement and shame, and the pentecostal churches were pretty explicitly "if you don't believe/if you are gay, trans, or anything against the norm you will go to hell". those pentecostal churches were also more violent and scary to me as a kid (exorcisms and religious ecstasy creep me out to this day) which inspired the more intense, horrific torture-esque parts of the CCO that will be in the comic!

well i hope you don't mind that wall of text lol, i could write more about specifics but i don't want to go into too much detail about everything! thank you so much for this question! :D

[genericpuff]

no but listen, rachel has truly embodied herself as persephone because she's constantly trying to "distance herself" from her past as a medical fetish artist but then keeps the name that's affiliated with her medical fetish art-

Like, I can't believe I never noticed it before tbh, but that was the thought that hit me while I was explaining to someone on reddit what the name "used bandaid" meant and why it was weird that Rachel is STILL using it on her print cover books, even now when she just recently set up a new Facebook account with her REAL NAME and not the used_bandaid penname (I feel like this is an attempt to "legitimize" herself in the industry but idk).

But that leads me into talking about how she keeps lying about LO being her first webcomic project and that really pisses me off. And yes, this is related to the used_bandaid thing, just bear with me here.

A lot of my contempt for this is for reasons that go beyond her, I just hate the notion that people should succeed on their "first try" and that's an idea that's often sold by people like Rachel who spin these grandiose stories of how they were just "trying it out" and suddenly wham! Fame and fortune! You can achieve all this and more if you just xyz!

Literally, in every interview I've found over the past couple years, she always heavily implies that LO was her "first attempt", that she had never used Webtoons prior to LO, and that she was just "dipping her toes" into the medium. None of this is true, she's literally been drawing webcomics since the early 2000's (possibly earlier but the earliest documentation we can find is of The Doctor Pepper Show), LO wasn't even her first webcomic on the Webtoons platform (that goes to The Doctor Foxglove Show which she ended up dumping a chapter in to work on LO almost immediately after starting it on Tumblr) and as much as she'll claim she "couldn't pay anyone to look at her work", she had landed a number of gigs that got her work out there, had been printed in anthology collections, and IIRC she had even won some small local NZ awards for her comics prior to LO. Shit, there was a local beer brand that had her art on its labelling.

But it really feels like she's trying her damn hardest to hide all that, never mentioning or implying that she did anything prior to LO, that she was just a "struggling graphic artist working in retail" until LO happened.

So why keep the penname that's directly affiliated with that past identity ??

It boggles my mind, honestly, especially considering she had gone by MULTIPLE usernames back then, some of which were actually pretty sane that she could have used instead (such as Rach Alex, which she uses in her FB groups, and Rachel Royale).

I wouldn't blame her if she was trying to hide her old medical fetish stuff, whether she didn't want it affiliated with her new LO branding or if she's just embarrassed by it, I can totally empathize with that because god knows I wouldn't be all that proud to show off the cringy shit I got up to during my early days on the Internet. But if she IS embarrassed by it, you'd think the last thing she'd want to keep is the name that's directly affiliated with the thing she's embarrassed by. Almost like a certain pink protagonist who goes by the name she earned after doing the thing she doesn't want to talk about.

But if she ISN'T embarrassed by it, then why lie?

Why paint this picture that LO was a one hit wonder, that she lived on "struggle street" until she found fame and fortune on Webtoons?

Oh right. Because it's a better story.

Because it's way more romantic to be some struggling indie darling who "came from nothing" and achieved fame through one big idea. Because it looks good for the platform who's trying to attract people to their app and website on the promise that you, too, can be a success story simply because you followed the exact same perceived steps that you saw another person follow and advertise.

If you can't tell from my tone, I really fucking hate this kind of disingenuous wish fulfillment advertising. It's manipulative, it's cruel, and it sets people up with expectations far beyond their scope of reaching, both due to the luck and "being in the right place at the right time" involved at best (which is a HUGE factor in stories like these that people never talk about), or through joy-killing comparison at worst when you don't achieve worldwide fame on your first try and wonder why everyone else did (spoiler: they didn't, they just want you to think that because it makes for better headlines and it gets you using whatever product they're affiliated with.)

If Rachel doesn't want to be tied down to her past, that's fine. But it's incredibly irresponsible and flat out cruel to lie about that past existing at all because it sets a horrible precedent to those who look up to her and want what she has.

And I say all that because I've seen what happens to the people starting out who admire these creators who painted the picture that they were just successful right off the bat. It's not a fun headspace to be in, it's robbed many creators like myself and others of their joy in creating, and it's really all just a ploy to get you to spend time and money and energy on a stupid corporate phone app that profits off your emotional investment and labor. Don't fall for it. Pretending like the Act of Wrath didn't happen doesn't remove it from history.

Anyways, I was gonna leave it at that, but then I ended up doing another rabbithole deep dive through her Wayback Machine and found album art she had illustrated for NZ band PorcelainToy. Enjoy this piece of her "dark era" art that still exists without needing to use the Wayback Machine.

[hbosscreations]

John Constantine Hellblazer: Dead in America Solicits

I've had weird feelings about this run for a bit, so I decided to look at the solicits all together and...am I the only one who gets a weird vibe from these?

One and two feel pretty normal and true to what happened in book. Issue 2 is a little overdramatic, but that's how you get people to buy. No problems here, good hype, though I do think it's hilarious that issue one is billed at 28 pages, which means that of the rest of the issues it's the only one not filled with ads.

Issue 3, the numbers have gone up, the description has gotten small, and this was also where I started to question just what was happening. This was where this series started telling 'stories about the American dream' in overlong framing devices that really don't have anything to do with anything.

For me, Issue 4 is Issue 3 done correctly, and the solicit feels fine. It's sparse on the details because we're doing a mystery, but I thought it felt a bit rushed. I think in the previous run, this owuld have been a two parter much like Scrubbing Up or Britannia Rules the Waves, and I think it would have been better served that way, but whatever, this isn't about my feelings.

Issue 5, my second favorite main cover and least favorite issue so far, feels deeply misleading considering what we actually get out of the issue. Issue 6 also doesn't really tell us anything that's the actual main focus of the book.

But then BOOM!

Issue 7 comes along and I was genuinely surprised that we were getting more issues, since I hadn't heard that the books were selling especially well, but I don't have the sales figures to back it up. Once again, the solicit is technically accurate, but I'm noticing a trend of the 'he's a corpse! he's got to deal with that!' in the solicit and the comic...not actually doing that in any meaningful way.

Issue 8 has the smallest solicits of the entire run and nothing meaningful happens. We could have scrapped this entire comic and gone straight to LA, but for John Constantine: Hellblazer, he hasn't really done any blazing of Hell in this book, so I suppose it was necessary?

Issue 9's solicit is a lie and a nothing burger. It tells us nothing, and for good reason, because once again, NOTHING PLOT RELEVANT HAPPENS.

I'm living for the Hanged Man tarot cover of Issue 10, but I don't know about number 11's solicit. It's the final issue, why isn't it beefier? Why doesn't it SELL the finale?

I have suspicions, thoughts and theories, but all of it basically amounts to 'not enough oversight'. Most of my problems with these books amounts to the fact that the story feels like it wasn't finished when they started producing the comic (That's a thing in the industry, I know, but it's also not a good sign for longevity or future sales, so I don't know why it's a thing), and that unlike the previous run, Spurrier doesn't seem to really have anything to say beyond 'look at how bad America is!' and it just feels very out of touch.

It also feels like we've opened the story to get more traditional characters involved without thinking about the ramifications of adding them. This story didn't need Dream, it didn't need Etrigan, it didn't really even need Swamp Thing. I still like the inclusion of Swamp Thing, but at the end of the day, this run feels like it's not interested in John Constantine, which is a problem when it's called John Constantine: Hellblazer and not 'Wizards in America: We Fuck Shit Up'.

[maxwell-grant]

HEROFY: Mysterio

I think the later decades have only made "disgruntled VFX worker who abandons Hollywood to strike out on his own artistically" easier to root for but let's do something new:

Quentin Beck has basically the same backstory, kid who loves movies and grows up making stop-motion shorts even against his family's wishes and develops enough technical knowhow to become a VFX artist and stuntman. The problem being, he's a VFX artist and stuntman, both of his jobs are unstable or unsafe, overwork him to the bone, and net him absolutely zero recognition. He keeps screwing up jobs because he plans for things that go way over budget, and he keeps getting screwed out of jobs because, he's a VFX artist and stuntman in film, it comes with the territory. He's only really a stuntman because he needs an extra source of revenue and he desperately wanted something that was still in film. He is trying to conciliate his all-consuming love for the artform with his need for money and dignity and conditions necessary to live so he can keep on with his work (and also his ego, because you can't divest Mysterio from his ego). He lives for one thing, and it's killing him.

Some people have put forth the idea that the rise of superheroes would cause special effects workers and magicians to be rendered obsolete and that being the kick-off to Mysterio's career, but I'm gonna argue the opposite would happen: film chases reality, not the other way around. So instead, the advent of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers puts a HUGE pressure on the film industry to advance and quadruple down on replicating the things that people go crazy for in the papers. Billion dollar budgets, CGI advancements rushed out the door years too early, actors being replaced by digital puppets, etc. Quentin Beck has to live and find work in an MCU world overnight and it drives him to the breaking point. And then, he hears about Spider-Man, this carefree flipping freak who abandoned showbiz to be a full-time superhero, this sellout hack in tights who will pretty soon be a franchise and a nightmare for stuntmen everywhere to play, and it's the last straw, so he decides to go and pick a fight with him. Partially because he wants to stop Turn Off the Dark from happening, but mostly to see if he can be the hero instead of this insulting little snot that needs to be put in his place.

And then he succeeds. He gets away with everything in that original story and Spider-Man actually gives up, bows out of costumed life. Mysterio is now a hero revered in the papers with a parade thrown in his honor, and best of all, he has FINALLY found a calling that makes use of his expertise. He can finally give Hollywood the middlefinger and use his artistic talents for something AND make a living AND be appreciated for it. He figures that with this, he can probably start making his own movies, maybe cash out the Mysterio character as a franchise, and eventually retire. But there's two problems.

One, is that he got what he wanted. He disgraced and replaced Spider-Man, and so now he gets to be the main character of Spider-Man comics, and thus, deal with all the Spider-Man problems. Two, that his fight with Spider-Man? The "greatest action scene in history"? This time, the cameraman got it all on film. Mysterio achieved the greatest, most thrilling and impactful scene of his career, and he wasn't even trying. Worse, his co-star, the villain of the scene, is now gone. Beck could just let it go, but he can't. He can't peak this early, by accident. He can't be a fluke. He can't.

So now he has to actually go out there and fight crime, again and again and again and again, in the hopes that he can get it all on film, in the hopes that he will find a villain as thrilling to fight as Spider-Man, in the hopes that it will be another hit, another masterpiece, because while nobody gives a fuck about Quentin Beck still, Mysterio is now a film icon. Not only can he not allow himself to be a one-hit wonder, he can NEVER unmask and ride this out into a lucrative retirement, and he can't turn to crime and risk being exposed either, because he can't ruin the character everyone loves now. He can't ruin his life's work. He has made a masterpiece, and now he has to make it forever.

With great art, comes great expectation.

[pen-bee]

With cohost going down, I think we should all just start making websites to post our art. The market for social media just feels so corrupt and corporate that the shutdown of cohost has made me soooo bitter towards social media in general.

Euugh fuck capitalism. I'm glad you're here, though. Most people are on other platforms that I don't have.

Yeah it kinda sucks...

I have a portfolio site at www.penbee.net.

I know a lot of artists usually have a portfolio up if they want to work in the industry but these other social media platforms are pretty essential and accessible places to post if you do not have the money, time or access to make your own or you are just a hobbyist who may not really want to maintain one. It is also a nice way to connect with other people and artists in the same space.

While I would love to see people make more sites or dedicated personal blogs for their art and comics again I do want there to be options for those who don't want to or can't.

It is a bit sad to see Cohost go.

[ace-reviews]

SPRING 2024 ANIME RECOMMENDATIONS

The anime industry needs to chill the fuck out. Literally stop. This isn't your heart.

If you somehow have time left over after the 86,000 returning series this season, watch these new cartoons also.

---

ZACK’S RECOMMENDATION #1: Kaiju No. 8

For the sake of full disclosure, I ended up dropping this manga after about a year when due to a number of reasons I had to play catch-up on a bunch of Jump and Jump+ titles. I ultimately decided cuts needed to be made and this was one of them, but I made that cut with the full knowledge that it would eventually get a kick-ass anime and I was right because I’m always right.

The anime looks better than I’d hoped and sounds better than I imagined. The background music sounds like something from a blockbuster movie, and I mean that as a compliment, considering that's basically what it is. Even if you’re not really into kaiju, this is still worth checking out. Unless you’re allergic to beautiful animation and/or poop jokes.

ZACK’S RECOMMENDATION #2: A SALAD BOWL FULL OF ECCENTRICS

This series became a lock for my recommendation this season (even over the train anime, which is very good and you should also watch) the moment I discovered it’s based on a light novel by the same guy who wrote Haganai and A Sister’s All You Need. I’ve never read any of the novels in question because I’m illiterate but I enjoy both of those anime very much (though I will admit that the latter is not for everyone). Haganai transed my gender and for that reason alone I will support Yomi Hirasaka (by watching and recommending anime adaptations of his books. Alas! if I could only read) ‘til my dying day.

This was a solid premier on its own merits, as well. The characters are fun and likeable, the jokes land pretty much every time (at the very least, I can’t immediately think of any that didn’t), and reverse isekai stories are still uncommon enough to be fun. There is the unfortunately ever-present concern that Our Hero will turn out to be a sex pest, but based on Hirasaka’s track record I’m not too worried about that. Really, more than Haganai or A Sister’s All You Need, the anime this premier kept making me think of the most was Hanamatsuri (side note: you should watch Hanamatsuri.)

Also, look at her. She’s reading Detective Conan. I’m reading Detective Conan. That’s so cool of both of us.

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CHARLIE’S RECOMMENDATION #1: Chillin’ in Another World with Level 2 Cheat Powers

Fairly standard fare for the cozy isekai sub-genre, but it’s a decent way to spend half an hour, if you don’t mind the harem aspects.

CHARLIE’S RECOMMENDATION #2: Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again

It was fine, I guess. Watched it because the premise seemed cute, and I wasn’t wrong. Felt like a short comic but animated, and the art was good. Really wish they didn’t have family members lusting after the grandparents, though.

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FEN’S RECOMMENDATION #1: Route of Odd Taxi

FEN’S RECOMMENDATIONS #2: Train to the End of the World & The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio