#i cannot stress enough how good this web comic is

[toosicktoocare]

I’ve been dying to dive into fanfiction for The Doctors are Out on Webtoon! For those who haven’t seen my previous posts screaming about it, it’s a web comic about a Doctor, Matias “Mat,” and a Veterinarian, Fernando “Nando,” who have clinics right beside each other, compete, bicker, and will most likely develop feelings for each other! 

It’s so fucking good, and the author, Blau, is endlessly talented! You can read the web comic here! There are 40 chapters out so far! 

Now, I high key headcanon that when Nando gets severly stressed, he winds up sick. 

Here’s a little drabble set between chapters 39 and 40!

By all accounts, Nando should be exhausted, having tumbled down a cliff and walked on an injured foot in the rain for hours, but, despite the bone deep fatigue pushing down on him, he can’t sleep. It could be the foreign bed, he thinks; though, he finds Mat’s bed to be rather comfortable. It could also be the absurd, embarrassing pajamas, or rather, pajamas that he’s stupidly well aware Mat has worn at some point. It could be Mat...

He shakes his head, pushing a warm cheek into the pillow below him. As much as he wants to believe his restlessness is the sheer result of his current sleeping situation, down to the clothing, he knows, familiarly deep down, that the stress from today’s weighing down hot over him. He was careless, yet despite all odds against them, he and Ren were served the best possible outcome: Ren wasn’t injured, and they were found. 

Nando rolls onto his back with a sigh. He stares at the ceiling, but behind his eyes, all he can see are rain, dark, towering trees, and Ren’s tear-stricken face etched painfully into his head. He pushes himself up and swings his legs over the bed. Carefully, he slips down until he’s testing pressure on his injured foot. While the wrapping helps, it aches, and he winces as he stands, immediately favoring his other leg as he hobbles out of the room and to the bathroom. 

He’s quiet, catiously bracing himself against the wall, and he when he slips inside, he cracks the door, not wishing for the sound of it closing fully to wake anyone, and cuts on the light. He limps to the mirror, frowning at his reflection. His cheeks are hot and flushed, and he bends down to splash cold water over his face, to alleviate some of the heat clinging to his skin. It’s both too cold yet refreshing, and Nando knows he should find that alarming; however, his head’s beginning to swim, and he just manages to drop down against the edge of bathtub. 

He hunches forward, resting his elbows on his knees and dropping his face into his cupped palms. It’s too hot, yet he’s shivering. As much as he tries through muted breathing and counting exercies, he can’t shake the budding panic that’s swelling deep within his stomach, panic and stress tangling around one another. He should have been more careful; he knows this. He and Ren got lucky, and luck’s a tricky thing, he thinks. In the present, it’s a blessing, but in the future, when you have time to ponder all that could have gone wrong had it not been for sheer luck, it’s almost maddening. 

“Nando?”

Nando jerks his head up, frowning, eyes stinging. He swallows thickly. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He studies Mat’s frown, the deep downward curve that pairs with the furrow of his brow. 

“Are you okay? You look flushed.” 

Sighing, Nando opts for a nervous laugh that doesn’t quite hit its mark. He opens his mouth to assure Mat he’s fine, but Mat’s moved to a crouch before him, and he’s dropped one, warm hand to his knee. 

“You’re shaking.” 

Right, Nando thinks. You’d be shaking, too, if you almost got Ren killed. Again, he makes to speak, to brush of Mat’s concern because Mat has enough to worry about, but then Mat presses the back of his hand to Nando’s forehead, and Nando’s brain briefly short-circuits. 

“You have a fever,” Mat starts. He stands and moves toward the mirror, opening it to rifle through medicine, and Nando can only watch blankly, his fuzzy mind still wrapping around Mat’s words. 

He wordlessly obliges when Mat waves a thermometer in front of his face, opening his mouth on auto-pilot and trusting Mat to handle the rest, and it’s not until the small device beeps that his mind swirls to the conclusion that he’s been here before: with his mom, Ava, Mary. Since he can remember, he’s been gripped with brief fevers after experiencing something that peaked his stress levels, and this, he thinks, is no different. 

“Not too high, but still concerning,” Mat mutters, abandoning the thermometer on the sink to reclaim his spot crouched in front of Nando. He prods at Nando’s wrapped foot. “Is this bothering you a lot?” 

“What?” Nando blinks slowly, shaking his head. “No. No, it’s... I’m fine, Mat. This just happens sometimes.” 

“Not to pull out the doctor card, Nando, but I am one. And unexplained, sporadic fevers aren’t normal-”

“-they usually come when I’m really stressed,” Nando mutters, and he drops his gaze to the floor, not wishing to linger on the way Mat’s face shifts to unfiltered, genuine sympathy through soft, warm eyes. 

“Nando...”

“It’s fine,” Nando starts again, far too focused on Mat’s steady hand once more gently placed atop his knee. “I just came in here for some water. Once I go to sleep, I’ll be fine.” To his surprise, Mat doesn’t respond, only offering a few pills and a glass of water after an endless moment of his eyes burning against Nando’s bowed face. 

It’s not until Mat helps Nando back into bed and drapes a damp cloth over his forehead that he speaks, and though not much in words, it hits Nando like a ton of bricks. 

“Today wasn’t your fault.” 

Nando doesn’t say anything; he just watches, wide eyed, as Mat busies his hands by tucking the blankets tighter around Nando’s frame. 

“I know you think it was and that you will continue to think it was, but, the way I see it, Ren is fine, and though you’re hurt, it could have been way worse.” Mat pauses, leaving his hand resting atop Nando’s covered thigh. “I could have lost two really important people today, but I didn’t. I take that as a win.” 

It’s as if the gears in Nando’s brain rust over until they chip and crumble into a pile of non-functional scraps in his mind. The only one still churning is stuttering on one word: imporant. 

-ndo? Nando!”

Nando blinks slowly. Mat’s face is crowding his vision, and his fingers are brushing against his cheek. He can feel his face growing hotter; though, he knows this isn’t the fever. 

“Sorry, what were you saying?” 

Mat leans back with a loud sigh, raking his fingers through his hair. “I was saying how it looked like you completely checked out on me, and as it turns out, you did.” He offers a tired smile. “Geez, Forehead, don’t scare me like that.” 

Huffing, Nando pokes at the cloth draped over his forehead. “You can’t even see my forehead right now.” 

“Right, but it still haunts my dreams, so I know it’s there.” 

“I want to page a new doctor,” Nando mutters flatly, and Mat laughs again, real this time, quiet but warm, and Nando can’t help but smile along with it. 

“You gonna be okay?” Mat asks after a comfortable minute Nando doesn’t want to end. 

“Of course,” Nando assures, and he narrows his eyes until Mat gives in with a sigh as he slips off the bed. 

“How about, if you need something, text me? I’ve gotten used to waking up at the first vibration. It won’t wake Ren; he’s sleeping like a rock now.” 

Nando nods, eyes following Mat’s movements to the door, lingering on Mat’s gaze when Mat looks over his shoulder. 

“Feel better. And, try not to stress anymore about today, okay? You’re both safe, and that’s all that matters.” 

Nando manages a meek nod, and it’s not until he’s sure Mat’s back in bed with Ren that he drags the blankets up and over his face to hide the angry flush, that’s sorely not equated to his fever, coloring his cheeks and creeping up to the tips of his ears. 

[intermundia]

Ethics Lessons from Master Qui-Gon

The Auorient Express is a comic set in 38BBY, when Obi-Wan is in his late teens. The debate is between a sort of consequentialist/utilitarian ethics of Qui-Gon (learned from Master Dooku, yikes) vs. a more Kantian deontological framework that Master Yoda presumably holds.

This is the first page of issue #1:

Let’s break it down:

Obi-Wan: But Master… a noble act committed for despicable purposes would be sullied by the mere existence of malevolent thought.

Qui-Gon: True, but a despicable act committed for noble purposes brings that very malevolence to the surface and gives it life.

Interesting stress on the word life from Qui-Gon here, and I’m not clear exactly what it means. I suspect it has something to do with the living Force. Life itself explodes our human moral categories—animals eat other animals young, you know? It’s the circle of life, symbiosis on a large scale, all working in an interdependent web.

That higher level of order and nobility does not change the horror and cruelty of some parts of that web. Perhaps he’s saying something like, by capitalizing on what we would consider to be negative or predatory actions, it turns that malevolent energy into the fuel of a the circle of life. Sometimes bad things have to happen for good and healthy outcomes.

Obi-Wan: Then which is more acceptable—a noble act committed for despicable purposes, or a despicable act committed for noble purposes? How can one be morally justifiable and the other not?

Grumpy teenage Obi-Wan, like me, wants clarification. Like, for an example I came up with, is founding a school for propaganda purposes to gain power different from blowing up a school in order to kill the extremely dangerous terrorists hiding inside? Why is it different?

Qui-Gon would say, probably, depends on what use you want to direct the power you’re gaining with your propaganda, and depends on how dangerous the terrorists are.

Qui-Gon: You must learn, as I did from my own Master, that the true moral value of an act can be calculated by weighing the spirit of motivation against the benefit of the result.

If you are going to use the power gained from building the school to commit greater atrocities than the good done to the population of students, that’s not morally justifiable. If the destruction of the school results in the greater safety of a much larger population, it might be morally justifiable to destroy it.

Obi-Wan: He actually believed that certain despicable behaviors can be conscionable?

Qui-Gon: If it is overshadowed by a greater outcome, yes.

Obi-Wan is skeptical. Like, Dooku was really okay with doing despicable things? He could live with himself as a Jedi, consider it conscionable to violate their ethical principles, as long as he could justify it to himself?

Qui-Gon is like, yep! If the result was good enough, and the motivation was good enough, Dooku would make a judgement call, and either do or permit despicable things to be done.

With our benefit of dramatic irony, we know that Dooku ends up killing trillions because he thought it was right—or had begun the path thinking his motivation was pure and the result was important enough.

Obi-Wan: I have a feeling Master Yoda would find issue with that theory…

Qui-Gon: I know for a fact that he does.

Obi-Wan senses that Qui-Gon and Dooku have strayed a bit from the Jedi orthodoxy on this one, or at least the philosophy taught by Master Yoda and seems to be a prevailing attitude at the Coruscant Temple.

Yoda would probably not favor use of personal judgement of motivation and result. I think he prefer that the morality of an action be judged based on whether that action itself was right or wrong under a series of rules like the Jedi code of values—not based on the consequences of the action.

My suspicion is that it is a question of leaving up to the Force what is outside the control of the Jedi, and not risking falling to the dark side by attempting to control what cannot be controlled. A Jedi has to stay in balance with themself, and restrained, or else they could dangerously overreach and become consumed with their lust for power—which usually begins for noble reasons, but does not end there.

Yoda’s philosophy is conservative, yes, but it is also born out of long experience with the Force. If Dooku had checked himself, and remembered that “using the Force to dominate is wrong even if it seems like a situation calls for it,” he would not have ended up a Sith responsible for genocide after genocide.

Qui-Gon’s ethics seem to me to perhaps be fitted for a time of peace, when the stakes of each decision are relatively low. It seems like an extraordinarily risky one to hold in times of war and instability, especially for space wizard monks who can get hopped up on their own supply of power, you know?

Anyway, their conversation ends, and they proceed to yeet themselves out of their ship down onto the Auorient Express below, all while looking baddass/silly as the Jedi do.

In the end, I would say that Obi-Wan was not convinced, and I think held closer to Yoda’s perspective. He just won’t do despicable things, and risk falling to the dark side, even if it means that there are bad consequences. Those consequences are ultimately up to the Force, not him. His powers are limited, and his moral decisions keep him walking the path of the light side, even in extremely fraught situations in the future.

[felinisfeloney]

u know u just hate CQL because it's different from the book. You're just angry it's not an exact adaptation and are mad it's good and is a great adaptation. U don't even understand censorship

ok.. so everything about this is wrong. It’s very wrong because wanna know something I watched the drama first. I was excited for the drama! I watched the first few episodes was a little confused (by that I mean my brain needed to get all the names and shit straight because I can only read so fast so I got a little lost on whos and whys) and then I went and watched the Donghua after reading 10 or so chapters of the web comic and then got to the novel. I got to the book last. I read fanfic before I got to the book. I wanted to savor my experience of the book. I wasn’t even registering the book when I first started watching CQL and noted how wrong it was as a show.

And it was all in the editing and the absurd amount of scenes repeating the same point over and over.

I love when adaptations are different. I love when a team can bring something into a new medium and in the process put in new and fresh energy into something I already enjoy. I hate adaptations that are so exact they render the existence of it being an adaptation meaningless. I hate when an adaptation doesn’t have fun with the joy their medium brings. Or just are so exact it renders reading the original format meaningless. I am a huge lover of both versions of Howl’s Moving Castle book and film for their differences. I would honestly hate to watch a version of Howl like the book not cause I dislike it but because I know the book as it is written in it’s entirety wouldn’t work in a 90 minute runtime. Maybe a miniseries at best. I enjoy and love the original FMA and am a supporter of anime’s writing their own endings instead just dragging shit out or waiting for the manga to finish. I think the Soul Eater anime is perfect for what it is and I have fun every time it ends.

I if anyone should have defended CQL for it’s changes. For having the Yin Iron plot. Because here is the thing I don’t even mind the Yin Iron in principle given it has an incredibly distinct role is writing around the portrayal of the undead something that chinese media is rather sensitive about for cultural reasons that I respect and believe are valid on their part. Having it be puppets instead of corpses doesn’t bother me. It’s pining a morality on an object and low key implying it’s this objects fault for being evil and tempting evil people. 

It’s the thematic emptiness. It’s the absurd writing choices and things set up but not followed through on. Moments that only exist to reach a beat in the book even though it doesn’t line up with the new plot they have made. It’s the repetitive ass scenes where the same information is given only one new person is in the room. It’s the annoyingly one note stage acting from everyone on scene.

It’s the boring camera angles and absurd editing choices that only further convince given the cast and how they are done this show was edited around profiting off having a C-Pop band for the main cast. The only part I give props on is set and costume design and even then it really shows that they had no interest in making these people look anything but like pretty with a bit of mud and stressed hair. 

How else will we get stan gif sets?

Even if I were to just touch briefly on the LGBTQ censorship I cannot stress enough that element is not my maim gripe. My gripe is that this show is trying to profit off of a writing and editing style that only wants to insult you. You wanna know something? If they just used less middle distance shots and more closer intimate angles you could have used the subtle art of film editing to convey gay. Pay close attention to that bad clip show from the Xuanwu of Slaughter arc and note how much is distance shots. How much is camera work that displays no form of intimacy between the characters. How it is all so awkward and stilted in silence. If you could make a bromance wangxian work for me I would acknowledge the inherent yikes but I would enjoy. I can’t even enjoy CQL because it’s not done in a way that makes me ignore that corporate checklist.

Imma say this hot take even with all the obvious and glaring animation problems so far scum villain’s self saving system is a better show than CQL

If I had no idea that MDZS existed CQL would still be boring

[greatguilt]

STATISTICS —

NAME: Miguel “Miggy” O’Hara. AGE: Twenty-six. FACECLAIM:  David Castañeda. ALIAS: Spider-Man. POWERS/SKILLS: Fangs — possesses elongated canine teeth but he cannot retract them. it’s hard for him to speak and hide them at the same time. his fangs produce a non-lethal venom that will paralyze his victim when they’re bitten. Talons — also possesses short retractable talons on the tips of all his fingers and toes. they are razor sharp. Organic Webbing Generation  — which he refers to sometimes as having spinnerets in both of his forearms. which means he doesn’t need web shooters since his body produces organic webs that are chemically identical to real spider silk. he uses them to swing from building to building. Everything else — genius-level intellect, accelerated healing factor, aging at a slow rate due to longevity, accelerated vision, superhuman durability, superhuman stamina, superhuman reflexes, superhuman agility, superhuman speed, accelerated decoy, superhuman strength, computer hacking, skilled hand-to-hand combatant, marksmanship and fluent in speaking spanish as well as english. ALLIANCE: Web Warriors and solo. THREAT LEVEL (OUT OF TEN): Ten. HISTORY FILE (LINK WIKI): Dossier. NOTABLE CHANGES FROM 2012 TO THE TIMELINE THEY WERE PULLED FROM: Miguel will be based off comics! He’s from Earth-928. He will have his holographic personal assistant Lyla with him in the past. She’s an artificial intelligence and her  hologram will always appear yellow in color. She’s unlike anything anyone has seen before and has developed a personality of her own over the years. Lyla aids Miguel in all of his adventures with as Spider-Man or in his personal life. He has a special device that connects them together. He’ll be wearing his blue and red suit!  He was wearing it underneath his clothes before getting brought to the past. He doesn’t know it’s a completely different universe from his own yet though. Miguel’s eyes are vibrant red and sensitive to light so he often wears sunglasses. I’m also going to toss out the canon that his timeline was destroyed in recent storylines. It still exists, thank you. One more thing. He says ‘shock’ instead of ‘fuck’. It’s a future thing. LAST MEMORY BEFORE ENDING UP IN NYC, 2012: Celebrating New Years Eve and waiting to see what the year 2100 will bring.

@rewrittenintro

QUESTIONAIRE —

How are you feeling? Physically and mentally.

“I’m shocking great. Lyla already did my daily bio reading. Apparently I’ve been exerting myself but what else is new? I’m stuck eighty-seven years in the past and anyone would be stressed.”

Where are you living? The same place you lived in 2012, or displaced to a random apartment? Explain to the best of your ability.

“I’m currently sharing an apartment with Scott Lang. It’s better than living along and definitely better than the shitty motel room I was staying in when I arrived. There was bullet holes in the door and I wasn’t sleeping well on that stiff mattress. It’s nice having company and Scott is a good guy. It’s nice having a space of my own . . . and I told him about my secret too.”

What do YOU think we should do about the situation at hand? Try to go back home? The original mission of stopping Thanos? Rewrite the entire story?

“I think getting everyone back to their respective timelines should be one of the goals at when this is all said and done. Who is Thanos? Shock. Why is there always another supervillain?”

What will you DO about the situation at hand?

“Since I’m stuck here I’ll help do the right thing or whatever.”

Is there anything that you think needs to be done?

“My main priority since getting trapped here is trying to figure out how to build something useful out of this ancient technology. Lyla has been a great help on this journey the last few weeks. She’s my assistant . . . a holographic artificial intelligence.”

If need be, would you be willing to team up with the government and SHEILD to recoup and help the situation at hand?

“Shock no. I don’t trust SHIELD. Where I’m from the government issued an order for all SHIELD agents to track down heroes and execute them. I don’t know what happened after they had a change in staff but I’ve seen enough back in 2099 to leave me wary.”

What are your worries?

“What will yesterday do to tomorrow?”

What do you think are the pros about this situation?

“There’s positives about this situation? If I really have to pick one then it’s nice to see Nueva York when it isn’t falling apart. The lack of flying cars makes swinging around the buildings easier. Less civilians to worry about.”

Anything else?

“No. Are we done?”

[traincat]

I wanna ask. If you could re-write Spider-Man: Life Story, what would you do?

I was waiting on talking about Life Story until after it was finished, because there was some slim hope maybe everything was going to turn around, but we’ve got, what, one issue to go, and so I’m just going to come out and say it: I don’t think Spider-Man: Life Story is a good comic. I think it has a very interesting premise – following Spider-Man decade by decade and reimagining the events if time progressed in comics like it does in real life – but its execution totally fails that.

I have three main problems with Spider-Man: Life Story, so I guess my answer to the question is, I would do all of these things completely differently. The first is related to the premise and the execution of the idea. It’s a very intriguing premise, but looking at it practically, it’s also a really hard one to pull off. There are over 800 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, 300 of Spectacular Spider-Man, there’s Web of Spider-Man, Spider-Man Unlimited, Peter Parker: Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man, etc. The Marvel wiki lists his appearances total at over 4,000 issues, and while those aren’t all Spider-Man comics or stories that are relevant to his life in the greater picture, that’s a lot of comics to compress. Coming into it, I was hoping for something a little more akin to Marvels, which focused strongly on one or two major events in the Marvel universe per issue, albeit with more of a Spider-Man focus. 

That’s not what Spider-Man: Life Story is.

Let me be very clear that Zdarsky clearly knows his Spider-Man canon and history very, very well. I’d actually like to posit that’s part of the problem: Life Story’s so all over the place, throwing around so many different references to different stories, that I cannot imagine it’s an engaging or coherent read for novice Spider-Man readers, and as a more experienced Spider-Man reader, I just find the way it uses canon both frustrating and boring. It takes stories like Kraven’s Last Hunt, the Clone Saga, and the first Morlun story and remixes them in ways that provide nothing new or interesting and that, because of the compressed nature of the story telling, lack any of the emotional depth of the original. Let’s take, for example, the death of Harry Osborn. Now the original event in Spectacular Spider-Man #200 is one of my favorite comics ever. I think it’s a totally perfect issue – but it’s also the denouement of a lot of similarly great comics, like The Child Within. When Harry saves Peter (and it’s very notable that Harry in the original doesn’t intend to outlive killing Peter), it’s this perfect redemption moment in part because we’ve seen Harry struggle with his love for Peter and the life he’s carved out for himself against his father’s toxic influence, his childhood abuse, and his own mental health issues. It’s good because it’s earned.

In Life Story, Harry also dies in the act of saving Peter, ending up impaled on one of Doc Ock’s arms in a battle between Doc Ock, Peter, and Ben Reilly in issue #4. The problem with this being that we hadn’t seen Harry since issue #2, which doesn’t seem like a huge gap – until you realize that each issue is a decade, so that’s at least 10 years of a Harry and Peter relationship we have no context for. We haven’t seen them interact. We have no idea about this legendary friendship. The only proof it even exists is that Harry leaps in front of Peter to take the blow. As Harry dies, his last words are to Peter, saying “you’re my best…” and trailing off. It’s an obvious callback, if you know Spectacular Spider-Man #200, where Harry dies calling Peter his best friend. Except we have no proof of that here; we don’t see Harry and Peter being best friends. For all we know, Harry was trying to call Peter his best investor. Life Story depends so heavily on the already existing canon to fill in the emotional impact its readers are supposed to feel that it doesn’t bother to take the time to establish it itself, which, I think, is ultimately more important than throwing as many references to various Spider-Man plots at the wall at once and seeing what sticks. If I have to depend on the original comics to feel anything for Life Story, why are we even bothering publishing Life Story? 

Similarly, in issue #5, which attempts to remix the first Morlun story along with Life Story’s remix of Civil War Take 2: Not In Vietnam This Time, and the death of Ben Reilly, but, you know, boring, when Ben’s death is reported on the news, Peter exclaims that it’s just like Ezekiel warned him! 

Ezekiel being a character who never actually appears in this book. (I’m gonna hit on some other things in this exchange in my second and third points, because this whole section really illustrates every single problem I have with Life Story in one go.) So like, I get the whole story here, because I’ve read (and adore) the first Morlun story – which is, IMHO, a million times a better read – but what does this even look like if you haven’t? A clumsy exposition dump at best, I assume, or something that would leave you flipping back previously trying to see if you missed something. The book doesn’t even offer you an old style little citation box in the corner of the panel, telling you what issues you could find the original story in, something that I think would’ve been more than helpful and actually a fun and interesting little addition in a book that insists on being this relentlessly canon heavy without expounding or providing context on a good 50% of it. It also alters bits of canon that I feel ruin the nuance of the original, like when it depicts its version of Flash Thompson as enlisting – while 616 Flash does serve in Vietnam, in the original comics he is drafted, he does not enlist, and after the fact is clearly conflicted and deeply regretful about that service. If you’re setting your comic in the original time period, there’s no reason to alter Flash’s story like that.

The second problem I have is that Spider-Man: Life Story has a big problem in how it depicts women. With the possible exception of Peter’s daughter, depending on how the last issue goes, women in Life Story have two purposes: to sleep with Peter, to die, or both. Aunt May is only there to get dementia and die. Gwen similarly is there to be a plot device in its Clone Saga remix: the “real Gwen” dies, and Clone Gwen, apparently happily married to Original Peter as far as her own recollections, goes off without any on page internal struggle on her part with Ben Reilly upon the discovery that she’s a clone, because clones are meant to be with clones, I guess. I would think it would be difficult to give Gwen less agency in a new version of the story where an older man who is obsessed with her clones her in order to possess her, but somehow Life Story manages it. She’s never seen on page again. As she goes off, in comes Mary Jane to comfort Peter in a far more hollow version of ASM #122′s door scene, to bear his children, to take care of his ailing aunt, to leave him only to take him back, because of course she does, she’s a good woman, to be terrorized by Peter and then beg and plead with Morlun for her children’s lives. Mary Jane goes from her complicated, nuanced character in 616 to a beat down caricature, watching paralyzed with fear in front of the television as Peter fights. Additionally, she becomes her original self’s biggest fear: a battered wife. 

Which brings me into our third problem: Peter himself. It’s hard for me to tell whether the intention is to depict Peter as an abusive husband and father, however, by issue five, it’s hard to deny that’s what he is. Look at the above bottom right panel: Peter’s fist is clenched, his wife and children cowering in his shadow. I won’t lie: it’s a deeply uncomfortable page. Part of the reason I wish Life Story was more tightly written was so I could be sure it meant to do the things it is doing with Peter: depicting him as a man who is simultaneously deeply damaged and deeply unlikable. There’s no two ways around this: in Life Story, Peter repeatedly abuses Mary Jane. Not only is there the threat of physical abuse in issue #5, but there’s the fact that he made her take care of his ailing aunt long past the point May should have been kept at home, refusing to put her in a care facility. Let me be very clear as someone who has cared for elderly relatives for dementia: it is not caring to keep a relative with dementia at home past a certain point, especially when, as Peter does in Life Story, you have more than enough money to put them in a good care facility. It is abusive behavior both to May and Mary Jane, predicated solely on Peter’s selfish wishes and egotistical behavior, and it goes against 616 Peter’s characterization. 616 Peter did, at a point in time, put May in a care facility, because it was what she needed at the time, and while he stressed about paying the bills, he still did it, because it was the right thing to do and because he loves her. During the saga of his parents’ “return” (they were robots – I note Life Story chose not to tackle this particular story), when Peter fears May has Alzheimer’s, he tries to make plans about what to do if that does turn out to be the case. He does not force Mary Jane to take care of her. He’s not abusive. Life Story’s Peter is. And worse yet, Mary Jane is expected by the narrative to take him back after that. 

To be totally fair, I think Life Story tries to make Peter unlikable on purpose, to show that you can’t do what Peter does over a period of five decades and not have it take it a toll. The problem is there’s a huge gap between a hardened man or even an unlikable man and an abusive one, and Life Story doesn’t seem to understand that. If you look at Spider-Man canon as a bigger picture, there’s a pretty clear pattern present of men who have great power and abuse it among his villains: Norman Osborn, Otto Octavius. Curt Connors and the Lizard are a pretty clear domestic abuse narrative; Martha and Billy Connors live in fear of the reemergence of this violent “other” side that exists in Curt and could manifest itself at any time and upend their lives. What sets Peter apart from his villains is specifically that he is not an abusive man. 

Life Story also fails to understand the purpose of Parker Industries – though to be fair I think Dan Slott lost this towards the end, too – as something that does not organically coexist not with Peter Parker, but specifically with Spider-Man. Slott’s Superior Spider-Man is not actually the first appearance of Parker Industries. It first comes up in the prelude to Peter selling his marriage to Mephisto during One More Day, when he’s shown two alternate paths he might have gone down if he hadn’t been bit by the spider. In the life where ordinary Peter Parker forms Parker Industries, he’s rich and respected, but his emotional life is hollow and empty:

(Sensational Spider-Man #41) In the second appearance of Parker Industries, it is founded by Otto Octavius in Peter’s name in a bid to be a “better” version of Peter, ie, a more successful one, the critical message here being that Otto doesn’t understand Spider-Man’s true value as an unselfish protector of the people. To have Peter found Parker Industries of his own free will and volition, with no mitigating circumstances, fundamentally misunderstands the point of Peter as a protector of the people and why his socioeconomic status is important: Peter is not rich in the larger web because he stands for the ordinary people against the corrupt corporate landscape, just like Norman exists as his “biggest” villain because he is the symbol and the representation of that corruption. Life Story fails to understand that within its narrative, and so it fails to understand Peter Parker, especially when it tries to set him up in opposition to either Reed Richards or Tony Stark – both of whom I also find written very poorly.

I admit I was unimpressed with Zdarsky’s Peter in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man because I found his dialogue too rambly and light; I felt like he couldn’t commit to writing a serious Peter; in Life Story he’s writing a very serious Peter, but in a way I feel fundamentally betrays and insults the core of the character. If he writes another Spider-Man series, I hope he’s able to find a middle ground. I will say the covers he did for the book are incredible, though. I’d love to have them as posters.

Basically, if I were redoing Spider-Man: Life Story, I’d focus on these three main points: streamline the canon and cut extraneous references, give the women of the book some actual agency within it, and make sure Peter is not depicted as a domestic abuser. Which, now that I’ve written that out, seems a little bit like scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of things to hope for in a Spider-Man series. There’s one issue to go and while I hope the book goes out on a good note, at this point there’s really no way it can recover from the grim landscape the previous five issues have set.

[scumgristle]

You’ve been vocal about your hate for My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way, what is it about the guy that gets under your skin, because Boneyard Press published his first book “On Raven’s Wings”?

HDF:Short answer? Gerard Way is a liar and a fake who devalued Boneyard Press products and implied I was a liar by his deceits and instead of owning up to his deceptions he kept on lying and set his fans loose on me for an online hate campaign that hurt my wife’s recovery from Chemo and Radiation therapy to combat her ovarian and cervical cancer.

In order to inflate orders on his upcoming comic book, “The Umbrella Academy”, Dark Horse, editor Scott Allie & Gerard Way made a major press push stating the falsehood that “The Umbrella Academy” was Gerard’s first published work in comics, which they knew was a lie.

Gerard’s first published work was done over a decade earlier when Boneyard Press published his series, “On Raven’s Wings”. Issue #1 was published in April 1994, written by Gary Way, drawn by Jose Santos with inks by Dana Greene and a fully painted cover by Rob Nemeth. Issue #2 was published in September 1994 with Gary writing, Jose & Dana on the art, another great painted cover by Rob Nemeth. When Gary couldn’t hold his art team together, we canceled the series, but that didn’t stop me from schleppin’ this kids books to convention after convention telling everyone what a great new writer this kid was and that yeah, he’s got the goods. I did this for YEARS.

Dark Horse and its editorial staff knew all about this but decided to pump the numbers up with the lie about ‘first published work’. They were even lying about it when directly asked by some members of Gerard’s fan club. They claimed that Garry Way was not Gerard Way. According to Dark Horse, they were two different people.

Why did they do that? Because any comic geek worth his salt can tell you, an artist’s first published work is generally the most valuable, knowing this, fans will invest in a new book so they can have that “First published work” tag. Dark Horse & Gerard lied about it all to inflate their sales on the book.

They kept right on lying even to Rolling Stone. Dark Horse’s Scott Allie said, “Hart published Gerard’s first comics when Gerard was fifteen. I don’t think we’ve ever said Umbrella Academy is the first comic Gerard did.” Funny thing was, the very day this was quoted in Rolling Stone the Diamond Preview catalogue came out with a full page add proclaiming that The Umbrella Academy is Gerard Way’s first published work. Full page ad. Big ass bulletin points. Dark Horse and Scott were full of shit and they knew it but they threw me under the bus in the press anyway.

Ripping off your fans like that, gaming store owners, that’s some pretty low shit to pull, but it was going to get a lot lower when he sicked his fans on me & I was unable to keep my wife from reading the hate mail, which just wrecked her. I mean, she was already emaciated from the Chemo & the Radiation… Watching her crying, reading that shit he sent my way because he wasn’t man enough to own up to his own actions…

Yeah….

This shit is personal.

You ready for the background on why this is such a burn? Because here’s the long story…

So it’s the early 90’s and I get a submission packet from a high school kid named Gary Way. He was a big fan of mine so he sent this comic book that he & his buddies were doing together to me. I thought it was pretty good. So I decided to invest my money & publish it. That’s when I got to know him, when I took him under my wing.

I did this with a lot of the lost souls & angry young kids who found their way to me. I wasn’t just their publisher, I was their friend, I cared about my guys. They were important to me and I wanted them to get stronger, to be stronger, to do the best work they could do. My philosophy at Boneyard Press was give me your stragglers, give me your battered & cast offs… I would rebuild them… I would forge them into wolves and together, we would own the shadows.

Gary was one of these kids.

I used to have talks with his mother about how to keep him from getting beat up & bullied at school where he lived in Jersey. I talked with Gary quite a bit too. This was before email & texting, so people actually talked to each other then… So… after Boneyard published the first issue of his on going series, I took a liking to the kid so much I got him on the Sally Jesse Raphael show as an “Official Boneyard Press Writer” and he got to stand up & ask a question on the air.

Pretty cool for the school punching bag, right?

Gary gets out of high school & stays in touch with me through his days in college. A lot of my interns & guys did that as they were growing up. When he called me from the offices of DC & told me about his new job at Vertigo, I thought, Fuck yeah, now one of my guys is rising up! Kick Ass!

911 happens, I don’t hear from the kid again. Me, my life moves at light speed, so I don’t think twice about it… a few years go by, I’m working full time in Adult films, then I get the youtube/mail from a fan who tells me all of her friends are calling her a liar over my book, On Raven’s Wings, and it’s author Gary Way.

You see… Apparently there was a Gerard Way with a new comic book coming out from Dark Horse comics & they were marketing it as the first published work of Gerard Way, the frontman for My Chemical Romance, which will have more value in the collectible comics market & would help them get a sales bump. My fan said to her friends, “Hey, that’s not his first published work, he did a series for Boneyard Press as Gary Way, that’s his first published work.” She contacts me to get the truth. I go fucking ballastic.

No motherfucker is going to make a liar out of one of my fans. Fucking no one.

I write a blog on my Live Journal account wondering if Dark Horse is a knowing partner of Garry Way’s charade to game the fans & the retailers or are they unwitting pawns. I was very, very, very angry. Then I got my hands on the My Chemical Romance video interview with all grown up Gerard Way telling people that he wished someone had taken a chance on him & published his comics when he was a teenager, that only someone believed in him enough to publish his work back then.

I’m fucking LIVID watching this & listening to this. I watched it over & over.

Then when Rolling Stone get’s involved, the press goes nuts, my lawyer tells me to shut the fuck up for once and since my wife was recovering from ovarian & cervical cancer, which nearly killed her… and the chemo turned her into a walking skeleton… I mean… I’d go to rub her feet, and there was no meat on the bottom of her foot. It was all bones.

Since the doctors in Japan had told me her cancer was stress related and that too much stress would kill her… I had to shut the fuck up & do my best to keep Waka from reading all the hate mail & hate memes on the web. That didn’t need to happen. Gary could have just owned up to the truth.

Only he didn’t.

Instead of manning up and owning his lies and deceptions, he chose to hide behind a bunch of clueless emo twits and chose to sick his fan base on me… On my wife. Who cried & cried reading this shit. She doesn’t want me to talk about this, she doesn’t want to acknowledge how this puke & the scum bags online got to her, but she was vulnerable back then. I was her only caregiver. The only one. Her family was back in Japan. And I couldn’t stop her with from reading this… I could only shut up, try to let it blow over while I consulted with my lawyers about what to do.

For what Garry Way did to my reputation, to my company and most of all, what he did to my wife… in the midst of her suffering… When I was only speaking the truth. If he wasn’t lying why did he call my office from the middle of his south American tour, when this whole thing blew up, he sure was able to find my number and communicate with me AFTER the truth came out. It didn’t have to go down the way it did. My wife should have been able to focus on recovering from cancer, from never being able to have a baby. But no, this asshole put us through the ringer to save his own pride when caught in a lie.

For that… For what he did to my wife… I hate that motherfucker.

I hate that motherfucker like you cannot even put into words.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Spider-Man Far From Home (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the weekend after the movie’s release in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen the movie do not read on until you do because there are some rather juicy spoilers here.

MCU Ad Campaign:

This is why I feel Kevin Feige needs to have full control over Spider-Man because he is a master of teasing us with enough in the trailers to get us excited for the movie.

Even with Avengers: Endgame which kept so much secret in the trailers built up that hype and anticipation, okay yes it was the culmination of 11 years of movies and the second part of what was one of the greatest cinematic cliffhangers in history, but even so there were so many theories and speculation about what could happen that it obviously helped with that juggernaut release.

But the issue with Spider-Man: Far From Home is the trailers and promotion just made the movie seem like your average superhero flick. It was necessarily the case of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 or Suicide Squad where so much was shown in the trailer that wasn’t in the final movie, but there wasn’t enough to speculate on or build up the hype unless you’re already a comic-book fan and want to see another Spider-Man movie and know that in the comics Mysterio is a villain so want to see what happens with him here.

I’d say the introduction of the multiverse may have been what both Feige and Pascal thought could be a key plot point to draw in the hype, but that was proven just to be a facade. It was only really mentioned in that scene that everyone has seen in the trailers and there was never a time in the trailers where I thought “Yes that is what everyone will talk about”.

With Thor: Ragnarok for example, it was penned as a fun 80s style buddy movie and that is what the trailers showed, but then you add in Hela and that shot of her destroying Mjolnir as well as the “He’s a friend from work” scene and that’s what made it one of the most watched trailers of all time.

I said in my non-spoiler review that I fear for this movie’s performance if we are to base mainstream audience interest on watching the trailers, I still feel that even though the two times I have now seen the movie the theatres have been relatively full.

Characters:

Spider-Man:

As I said in my non-spoiler, Tom Holland continues to prove why he was such a perfect casting choice for Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Not only does he still look like a teenager so you believe he should still be at school, he has so much charisma and charm that you can’t not like the guy.

I loved when he was at Aunt May’s support centre and was, as May said, a little stiff but it was believable.

Let’s face it, this is a guy who is still a teenager, he is still dealing with the average student problems like fancying a girl and possibly getting good grades, although at Midtown it’s a wonder any of them can get good grades with those teachers, we’ll get to them. But also Peter is dealing with the added stress not only of being Spider-Man but the aftershock of what happened in Endgame both in terms of “The Blip” and Tony’s death.

It was interesting to me that they were kind of going down the Iron Man 3 route of Peter having PTSD from “The Blip” but that quickly turned simply into either guilt or grief over Tony’s sacrifice and the responsibility everyone is now putting on his shoulders. With great power comes great responsibility, that saying is echoed throughout this movie in particular.

I also really like the Spidey suits in the movie, because there were so many it was like a Spidey fashion show at one point.

I loved the fact he kept the Iron Spider suit and especially seeing it pixelating in that container was really cool. Also the upgraded suit he was given which is a mainstay of the character at this point.

Then there’s the return of the original Spidey sweatsuit during one of Mysterio’s illusions which was a nice little nod and a reference to the Emperor’s New Clothes with who the world has built him up to be compared to how he feels on the inside.

Also, his new red and black suit that he created in the Stark Industries jet was a fantastic sequence. Not only was it crystal clear that they were trying to make Peter resemble Tony in that scene, but it was done so effortlessly and it was really fun once again to see someone play with the Holo chamber.

But in terms of my negatives, because I do have negatives for all these characters, I cannot believe he was that stupid that he gave away EDITH to Mysterio, not because Mysterio was an obvious bad guy because he wasn’t, but because EDITH was such a useful device and Peter apparently doesn’t have KAREN anymore so he needs some form of AI assistant.

I did however really enjoy the onscreen partnership of Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland, you can tell off-screen the two really got on and it resonates on screen.

There was also a really stupid moment when he’s facing Hydro-Man and he wears that mask to try concealing his identity from his classmates, despite the fact that he is wearing the same clothes his classmates know he is wearing so why didn’t anyone attempt to put 2 + 2 together. I mean it’s implied MJ may have but who knows.

With the Elementals as well, as much as I think they are brilliant antagonists visually, and of course in this instance weren’t real but may still exist, I don’t see how Spider-Man can combat any of them because his synthetic webbing would have no effect on water, fire, sand or air. It was obviously Mysterio’s perfect plan to make himself the hero, but the fact no one thought to question that Spider-Man was less use than Black Widow would have been in that fight really bugged me.

I did like him trying to court MJ, I thought his six-step plan was well thought out and the rivalry between him and Brad over MJ was also refreshing to see in a superhero movie.

We’ll talk about the post-credits scene further down but that ending scene before the credits of him doing Spidey’s traditional scout of the city was a great way to end the movie. The main reason I love playing the Spider-Man games is simply to swing through the city and will gladly spend a lot of time doing it just to explore. Also if that’s not the Oscorp building he swung through than it’s the biggest misdirect in a Marvel movie.

Mysterio:

By far my favourite Jake Gyllenhaal role, I have never been a massive fan of his as he and his sister have simply been actors I gloss over. But Mysterio was a very comical villain for me in terms of looks yet Gyllenhaal manages to make the suit and the fishbowl look awesome.

I loved how he was so committed to his role as a parallel world superhero, you honestly believed he was a good guy right up until the moment when the illusion fades.

Speaking of illusions, these are potentially the best use of visual effects I have seen since Doctor Strange. I haven’t seen the movie in 3D but I was almost tempted to the second time just to experience the splender of how the visuals looked. They were literally effects ripped from the comics, everything came together and it was magic.

When he was revealed as a villain and that epic reveal scene of his and his crews master plan, including throwbacks to Captain America: Civil War and the first Iron Man was jaw-dropping. I really appreciate both Feige and  Peter Billingsley who was the actor playing the former Stark Industries scientist turned Beck’s henchman for making it seem like this was the plan overall all those years back. I doubt very much that Feige planned it from Civil War let alone 2008.

However, the ending for Mysterio is where my negatives come in. Not only did Beck turn into a raging child running out of ideas but also the fact they killed him off is something I really can’t get my head around. Vulture, Shocker and Scorpion are all alive and if they want to build a Sinister Six then surely this Mysterio is a likeable candidate, yet now he’s dead. It just reminds me of the likes of Hela and these one-movie villains with so much more potential.

Nick Fury:

I love Samuel L. Jackson, I know I sang his praises during Captain Marvel but he’s just as great here.

I loved the running theme of Peter ghosting him by sending him to voicemail, then eventually when Fury and Peter do meet and there’s the constant interruptions of staff and students that makes him turn and say “If one more person touches that door you and I will be attending another funeral” it was so great and only could be said by Nick Fury.

However, and I’ll get into the reasons more in my post-credits discussion, but with the reveal at the end that the Fury we have seen throughout the movie is in fact Talos the Skrull, there are tells throughout the movie that indicate that which I can’t tell as to if they’re deliberate or accidental.

For instance, during Spider-Man’s first meeting with Mysterio, Fury says “He’s from Earth, just not yours” so why didn’t he say “ours”? Also when he said that appearances can be deceiving I bet that was also a tell that he was the shapeshifting alien.

For that reason, it is hard for me to say that I enjoyed Fury in this movie because the real Nick Fury is only in one small scene at the end of the movie. But Samuel L. Jackson still delivers. Also “bitch please you’ve been to space!” never gets old.

MJ:

Commiserations to Zendaya for not getting Ariel, but at least now she is the girlfriend of Spider-Man so yay. 

I really love Zendaya in this role, I think she brings a much needed grounded modern realism to the role that I feel is needed for the younger female audience of today.

I loved it when she revealed that she always knew Peter was Spider-Man but when he eventually confirmed it she said “Really, because I was only 67% sure”. They really played up the character’s awkwardness and vulnerabilities in this movie which explain why she is such an outcast and how she just seemed to float on by in the first movie.

My one negative is where the character goes now, I think that scene after she found out Peter was Spider-Man was definitely her weakest because she just seemed like a very mopey love interest. But then she’ll have kick-ass scenes like knocking out a drone with a mace.

The ending with her swinging around with Peter was already shown in set photos but it was hilarious to see the final thing, I loved how she kept saying she wouldn’t look down and then kept looking down. Then when they landed and her hair had seemingly grown in weight was very funny.

Happy Hogan:

I am so happy for Jan Favreau being a mainstay in the MCU, you would think that after RDJ left that his entourage would also leave. However, now that Happy is seemingly Spider-Man’s support staff it gives him more reason to be around.

I will say this though, everything you see of Happy in the trailers you pretty much see in the movie itself, with some extended scenes. There are a couple more funnier scenes added in but other than that you’ve seen pretty much everything he does in the movie.

As I said, I loved the recurring gag of “ghosting” Nick Fury, it was interesting in the first instance because I swear up until now Happy and Fury have not actually met before, but now Tony is dead I guess they have some association with each other.

His relationship with Aunt May in the movie was a very sweet and understated coupling in the movie. I actually do see the two of them together and it would be great going forward if they remained in a relationship just to give them both something to do other than support Peter Parker.

It was such a great moment when Peter started designing his suit on the plane and Happy was watching in awe. He saw what the audience was meant to see which was Peter acting like Tony Stark.

I have also enjoyed his progression from Tony’s bodyguard to Spider-Man’s right-hand man. Not only did he come and save Peter from the Netherlands, but also he saved Peter’s school friends and put himself in danger in the process.

I really hope Happy continues to be a part of the MCU, even if it is in the Spider-Man movies but also branching out elsewhere.

Brad:

Hudson from Neighbours is in this movie. For anyone that doesn’t know what I’m on about there was a minor-recurring character a few years ago who was a gay competitive swimmer who became romantically involved with a main character at the time but also got into trouble with the police, this was him and I am so glad to see him still working.

I am unsure if the character was part of the first movie, but I am happy to see him here as he was a great example of how The Blip affected Midtown High.

He did present himself as a bit of a douche but also he did start off simply as a decent guy, it was just that he let his competitiveness for wanting to be with MJ and screwing over Peter get the better of him.

This did cause problems for me as the movie progressed, not only did he become the whistle blower that no one listened to and simply came across as a bitter individual, but also there was never really any resolve to his story after the outburst of questioning why Peter was always disappearing.

Aunt May:

Marisa Tomei continues to be a great and innovative Aunt May. I’m still unsure about having a younger and somewhat hotter Aunt rather than the sweet old lady we are used to but I still say Sally Field in The Amazing Spider-Man movies was my favourite of the bunch.

I am really happy that she set up her charitable rehoming shelter as she has done in the comics and the latest Spider-Man game. Her delivery of when she “blipped back” into existence and the new tenants of her apartment thought she was a ghost or a mistress was hilarious.

I do think May was a bit harsh to Happy, I don’t think she led him on but she clearly invited him to her office and you don’t do that if there’s not something there more than just a summer fling.

I am a fan of the fact that May now knows of Peter being Spider-Man and supporting him in his endeavours, as well as using him to boost support for her homeless campaign.

Maria Hill:

Much like Fury, it is hard to say how well Maria did in this movie because she spent the entire movie as a Skrull. However in terms of Cobie Smulders performance, I am glad she got more screen time than she has done recently.

Although she didn’t have many lines, she had a lot to do action wise. I loved in the climactic battle when she went to the roof with that bazooka because both she and Fury had anticipated Mysterio’s drone being sent to assassinate the two.

Ned:

If I found Ned annoying in Spider-Man: Homecoming, I found him unbearable in this one. Not only are the negative qualities of him from the first movie back in force here, but that added story of Ned and Betty getting into a relationship was simply pointless and made Ned even more unlikeable if possible.

First of all, I don’t care how he defends himself, Ned got a girlfriend and then blew Peter off despite not only being adamant in wanting the two guys to be American bachelors in Europe but also in supposedly being Spider-Man’s “guy in the chair”.

Also, Brad’s jealousy over Peter was understandable and actually good for the movie, Ned being jealous of MJ after she found out about Peter being Spider-Man was just pathetic. Not only because that is the point when he actually tries to help Spider-Man but also because MJ didn’t really need him, no one did.

Teachers:

With the teachers in the movie, I will say I miss Selenis Leyva as physics teacher Monica Warren from the first movie. Not only because her being Latina fit in rather well with the Queens neighbourhood, but also because it was some gender diversity in the ranks.

Here we have the Caucasian Harrington and Mr. Dell who I believe was created for the movie after J.B. Smoove was involved in the Audi commercial with Tom Holland to promote the first movie.

I do agree with Dell about there being no science on the science field trip and this is also why I’d prefer Monica Warren to be there over Harrington, Harrington is a crap teacher. Not only did he not plan ahead with the trip but also his incompetence nearly got a bus-load of students killed. Bearing in mind he was also the teacher responsible during the Washington incident.

Students:

Aside from the students already mentioned, the other students involved in the movie are Betty Brandt, Flash Thompson and Jason Ionello. I thought on the whole the students of Midtown High still continue to be a great and modernly accurate portrayal of Queens in the present day, but also they proved themselves necessary to the movie rather than just clutter in the way.

Post-Credits:

Alright so we have two very juicy post-credits scenes that not only shape the next Spider-Man movie but also the future of the MCU.

The first scene picks up directly where the movie ended and has Peter return MJ to the ground before taking off for some superheroism. However he is then stopped by a breaking news bulletin which was set up by Mysterio and delivered by William Ginter Riva showing a doctored version of events in the climactic battle where apparently Spider-Man was the one orchestrating the drone strike and Mysterio was the hero who Spider-Man killed.

The bulletin then cut to none other than J. Jonah Jameson, returning to the live-action Spider-Man movies portrayed by the one and only J.K. Simmons. My audience cheered at this point because not only is it about time Jameson returned to the movies but to have J.K. reprise the role he is probably most notable for is a delight.

Although here, the Daily Bugle seems to be an online media outlet rather than a newspaper company but for the modern day it works rather well.

However, believing that Peter will one day get a job at the Daily Bugle seems very slim with the reveal that Mysterio identified Spider-Man as Peter Parker, meaning the world now knows Spider-Man’s identity. I want to see the fallout now.

The end-credits scene shows Fury and Hill in a car before shapeshifting into Talos and his wife Soren from Captain Marvel. Talos reports to the real Nick Fury who is in front of the most fake green-screen imaginable as it is revealed he is actually on some form of space-station crewed by Skrulls.

This could be a myriad of things, but my favourite theory is that this is the start of S.W.O.R.D. to become Fury’s new organization after S.H.I.E.L.D.

Overall I rate the movie an 8/10, I’m not going to say it’s a perfect movie but it is a brilliant movie and definitely the movie needed to follow up after Avengers: Endgame.

So that’s my review of Spider-Man: Far From Home, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Marvel Movie Reviews as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

[gigslist]

New Groundbreaking Communication Technology

There is a problem with digital communications. There are so many hacks and deep fakes and fake-news-tubers you don’t even know if a news network is the real thing. Or the reporter is actually that person. Seriously you do not know who or what you are talking to or who or what is talking to you.

You think there are no more advances to make in communication to protect your privacy? It is blazingly apparent that digital has problems. People spend a lot more time, money and stress on digital communication than before the web. Ask somebody who was around before the web. 

The arts are taking a big hit big time. Including in recorded and digital arts. I’ve researched technology gearing up for this for four years. Expressing yourself is now banned by the internet. Some news outlets are now talking about it, but I still have to be careful how I word this… and not register this page for keyword search.

33 Reasons this new way is better than what you are using to read this…

A creative way to communicate.

Noninvasive and safe for anybody.

Improves brain function and thought clarity.

Best form of private communication protection.

A great way of identifying that it is from you.

A great way of identifying it is from who you know.

They impress employers and business associates.

They impress friends and lovers.

A treat for anybody who receives one.

People collect them and they feature in books.

People win prizes for their skill in creating them.

Some are in museums and major library archives.

No batteries, device, memory chip or wifi required.

You can do it on a mountain top in the middle of nowhere.

You can do it on a spaceship to the Moon or Mars.

When you get one you enjoy opening it and reading it.

Don’t have to worry about losing it if your computer breaks.

Hackers and scammers cannot digitally steal the info.

It is safe enough to put your credit card info on it.

It can be registered for tracking for extra protection.

People who are not experts in technology can receive them.

People who are not experts in technology can make them.

The practice improves mental health and coordination.

Faster to work out ideas and draft up plans.

You can do it with one hand tied behind your back.

The tools to make them cost a lot less than a tech device.

Artificial intelligence can’t create foolproof hacks for it.

It is vintage and revolutionary at the same time.

You can have a say on whatever you want.

You can’t get tagged and banned from social media for it.

The tools to make them are great as a gift.

They are considered a fine art.

No fear of no likes.

The illustrations show you what it is and instructions how to do it … :) Train yourself and others to get off the screen. Be selective and minimal when you are on the screen. Lectures and lessons are OK. Surfing and digital social and communications not OK. I am guilty too, but working on it. 

I like to get my info from real experts face to face whenever possible. So I know where and who the info is coming from. Any kid from anywhere with wifi can create a deep fake and tell you bullshit. That is not an exaggeration.

Deeper down the rabbit hole…

Ask somebody face to face, who actually works in a real hospital, how many virus deaths they’ve had. The real numbers are less than normal flu. My neighbor and friend of many years is neonatal ICU nurse with a masters in science. Safe vaccines cannot be made within a year. They need at least 3 years testing. Something artificial created this on the media and in computer messages and digital stats. A software virus is crashing your world, not a biological virus. There was no cheering in the streets of San Francisco inauguration day. San Franciscans would normally ignore lockdown to party about it. The little bit of a light show from Twin Peaks, didn’t make the news.

You have the power to get back to normal and give everybody their jobs back, and more, by following the above instructions. Share this and get your friends to share it and keep sharing it, so it doesn’t get erased. Print it out and send snail mail it. Stop letting the machines take over. AI doesn’t work for the real world. Quite the opposite. Ask any SciFi freak. They’ve been writing books and movies and animations and games and comic books about something like this happening for over a century. Even the Bible talked about it and that was written in 350 AD by Constantine’s scribes. My partner keeps saying “It’s Biblical.”

Here’s another strange couple of medical facts. Told to me by a medical doctor in Australia before the web and a doctor in San Francisco after the web. Number one is tobacco is not harmful, it’s the modern chemicals they started treating it will that are harmful. Tobacco is a medicine that helps with thought clarity, destress and immune systems. The shrub used for thousands of years by tribes in the Americas. A tobacco tree species grows Australia, used by Australian Aboriginals for 80,000 years. 

 Number two is you can’t patent a natural medicine. Natural medicines and techniques work fine for most things, but you can’t patent those. Nor can’ you sell a bunch of disposable implements to administer it. Nor promote a virus to make you think you need it. A company and its shareholders cannot patent natural lifestyle to corner the market. They cannot make money from you making stuff yourself and living naturally and independently or offline. Shareholders make the money and want more money, shareholders program the companies what to do. Big companies are just big computers with humans for circuit boards, just like a SciFi movie. It is a company’s job to dumb you down to buy their stuff. It is how they make more and more money for their shareholders. 

You cannot say that what is going on today with online culture and real world impact is a good thing. We’ve hit a brick wall that gets nastier every day. It’s time to turn left.

Learn how to go analog. You will enjoy it more than digital and save a lot of time, stress and money. You can relax while you do your stuff. Support organic mom and pop shops and tobacco. A little bit goes a long way. 

Wouldn’t you concerned about this?

[cindyfelicia]

Hi, I hope you’re doing well!! I was just wondering if you read comics? If so could you recommend some/ how to start getting into them? I want to start reading them, but it’s so stressful trying to figure out where to start. Also I love you blog!

Hi there! you’re all manners of sweet and kind thank u my advice abt approaching comics is going for solo runs first, this is how I, personally, did it and it’s way easier than jumping in on team books, or worse events bc they tend to be messier and need more bg info and pre-existing knowledge than a comic that focus on just the one character; I also feel it’s good to start with current or at least recent comics, you can always read the old stuff when you’re better acquainted with how comics work and which characters, artists and writers you like (or can tolerate).

actual recs under the cut because this got so long

i was gonna do a whole list of mcu characters’ solos because most people entry point to comics rn is superhero movies, and hmu if you want that, but instead I think I’m gonna rec you some good comics that are either separated enough from main marvel continuity as to be intelligible without extensive info gathering, or I just think they’re great and worth a bit of confusion (part of starting out reading comics is not knowing fully wth is going on sometimes, but stiking with it for some good art or for characters you love -I’m not gonna go so far as to say for good writing bc that’s just not realistic):

if you like yourself some spider-people:- silk (2015) and vol 2 (2016) are my absolute favorites- I’m not very much into spiderman but I read renew your vows  and it’s lovely,  it’s just not a main universe comic it’s an au where things are as, imo, they should be with ye old web slinger, and it’s good for getting your feet wet in the huge pool of spider-man comics;- I love miss jessica drew (spider-woman) but her solo is……. questionable if someone has a good jess drew intro rec pls tell me so I can pass it on, - miles morales has been written badly in more ways than one but I love him so I suffer, I can direct you without scruples only to his novel tho, absolutely lovely and not written by brian michaelbendis lmao- anya corazon is a really good character that marvel loves to forget it has, let’s not make the same mistake;- black widow 2014 and 2016 and bw: the name of the rose are all good comics (I know technically nat isn’t a spider person but like nothing about spider-woman’s powers screams ‘spider’ either so..

for wakanda I’d say good recent start-ups would be: - black panther (2016), - black panther: world of wakanda (w/ a lesbian couple as protag), - and rise of the black panther (ongoing)

some non x-men team books that are easier to approach as a beginner imho:-young avengers vol 2 (vol 1 has its moments if you want to start from the beginning with them but a lot of it involves the civil war arc and stuff.. also some characters die, the art is less good and I want to protect people from 17’s yo cassie lang’s nipples poking through her shirt.. I wish someone had protected me tbh) -I want to rec some Runaways but besides the current run (which is alright) there’s a lot to be said against the writing in most of the rest of them maybe vol 1? to have the origins pinned down-I feel like after a small read through of what exactly the hell was going on with secret wars you could approach A-Force vol 1 and the first half of vol 2 (the second half ties in with civil war II and I’m not touching that mess) and that and avenger world and sometimes secret avengers to me are good avengers books-she hulk 2014 and totally awesome hulk are my greens of choice but if you want an intro to bruce banner idont actually know, sorry-for the asgardians: thor 2014 and it’s follow up mighty thor, thor: god of thunder, angela: asgard’s assassin and its sequel angela: queen of hel, and loki: agent of asgard are my pick of this crop-we also have Fun here at marvel comics on occasion and both patsy walker aka hellcat and squirrel girl are nice in their own way although the latter isn’t really my thing

some follow up on the young avengers:- hawkeye (2013) an absolute fan favorite, good to discover that actually clint barton was a good character it’s that the avengers movies are just bad and hate people with disabilities- a couple of follow-ups to that (x) (x) and the kate bishop solo all pretty nice- america chavez’s solo (I’m just here to suggest gay comics, that’s almost all I read really)

I want to rec Champions to people but frankly it’s just a long series of event interruptions and bullshit interspersed with a couple of nice moments so far, so I’m gonna rec you some kids that are in the champions and have solos I haven’t already mentioned:- kamala khan’s book is probably my favorite ongoing series at marvel right now about any non-mutant char, I cannot say enough good about it,- nova is nice,- miles morales (spider-man) and amadeuscho (totally awesome hulk) are also there but I’ve already mentioned themalso in this house we love and respect elektranatchiosand any other attitude just isn’t tolerated.

on to the x-men, gotta love those guys, you just gotta:- like I said I prefer to tell people to start from recent comics but with the xmen that’s so difficult? it’s been 10+ bad years for them because of the movie rights situation and just marvel being shit in general, so my one recent team book to approach the x-men is prob x-men ‘92? because its based off of the xm animated series so you don’t have to straightaway deal with some mutant plague, eugenics plots, and other catastrophic events, but you can still get to know more of the char we all love - I want to say generation x vol 2, it’s not a good starting point for anything really but I love it so so much I had to mention it even tho it was cancelled and I’m still angry as hell about it.

the solo situation is better. I’m gonna be able to breathe without tasting my own bile while I type this, hurray!-all new wolverine follows laura kinney as she takes up the mantle from logan-iceman, good solid comic abt coming out and ice puns, who doesn’t like bobby really-jean grey, yes she’s a teen girl in this, yes it’s weird and I hate de-aging characters but it’s nice to see her train with different mutants, struggling with the incoming phoenix force and her adult self’s shadow, not really great entry point to jean grey but id read it anyway-if you were into the 00’s xmen movies like me, or at least a normal person’s amount the phoenix recently returned and with her adult!jean grey, it was a good book for me and good if you want to later start reading the actual phoenix saga (which is a lot of material so starting small with this might help) -I love wandamaximoff and despite what they’ve done to the maximoffs in order to bring them into the mcu (was it worth it for that result btw? really?) her recent book was good and I genuinely loved it -storm’s solo is so good, you’re gonna fall in love with an het ship and you’re not gonna regret it either-rogue and gambit, is ongoing and it’s good to get a little acquainted with these characters but mostly it’s about explorign their relationship

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of good x-men content atm but I can’t stop thinking I need to mention that there are ongoing series you could pick up its just.. I hate them.. some started out promising (xmen gold, astonishing xmen), but they’ve not developed in good directions imo, but I still feel they should be mentioned, there’s also a weapon x comic if you want to go for a more bloody kind of book and xmen blue if you like time displaced teens or something? god its bad

jeez this is so so long and guess what? I haven’t even finished yet.. there’s some excellent indie comics out there and with those you really don’t need to worry abt knowing any 30 years old lore or anything you pick them up and they explain themselves like any other normal media out there, I know, be still my heart:

- lumberjanes is my absolute favorite, a little corny, but so much fun and cuteness and if I could go back in time I’d give it to my little bi self so she’d know she’s not alone and anything I feel that ways about has a special place i my heart js

- Motor crush, there really isn’t any other comic book with a black lesbian as protagonist out there that I can think of, good if you’re into motorcycles but if like in my case that threatens to put you to sleep, it also has a sci-fi streak and solid character work, you won’t regret giving it a try

- moonstruck, cute non-white gay werewolves and other mythological creatures are there, I feel this cathers to me specifically every time I open it?? bless

- Hi-Fi fight club or heavy vinyl (they changed the title) if you want a period piece that’s fun and cute and gay (I meant it about me reading only gay comics as you can tell)

- saga, for a space, well ya know.. saga I feel that I can describe it as romeo and juliet in space with added racial commentary except they don’t kill themselves, I have to say not my favorite but you might stick with it for the characters, I sure do

- the wicked + the divine, I feel very much the same about this as I do about saga, only this is mythology based so like.. I sold my soul to it, but please do tread with care there’s a lot of deaths in it and so many of these dead people are gays and/or poc.. I’m none too pleased about it and I’d understand anyone not wanting to pick it up, I mean the deaths are basically in the premises of the books but that doesn’t change the end result..

lastly like I said dc is not my area of expertise but I’ve been following with pleasure both batwoman and green lanterns, and mr miracle was an amazing comic so I thought I’d mention them

[seimsisk]

Comic rec: White Noise

I’ve been meaning to take advantage of my newfound following of like ten <s>good omens fans</s> people to promote some of my favorite web creators who deserve more recognition (and patrons!) then they get. So here goes.

Do you like pretty, white-haired men with wings? Is shapeshifting into animals not a turn-off to you? Do you like monsters? Queer characters? Queer monsters?

Or do you like stories about travelling to different worlds, about long lived, magical creatures, with different cultures, skills and genders? Or stories about being on the road, living day-to-day, fighting back bullies and punching cops?

Are you living under racist, authoritarian rulers, and would you like inspiration to fight back, or at least fantasize about it?

Do you like comics? Or written, weekly fiction?

Then you should probably be reading White Noise, by Adrien Lee aka tumblr user @thephooka (btw if you’re reading this mate sorry I didn’t ask permission to promote your wonderful, awesome creation).

White Noise is a story about surviving war and discrimination, and finding people like you in a world that would kill you. It’s two parallel stories about two kids who had their home and family taken away in violence, and who have to make themselves new lives among strange new people, and learn to tell friend from enemy, against their own prejudices. It’s also a story about figuring out who you are, and what you can be, regardless of species.

Ofc, and I can’t stress this enough, it’s a story about queer and trans shapeshifting monsters. Thecharacters are all extremely well-developed, fun and easy to empathize with, and I don’t even wanna tell you too much about them so you get to know them yourselves.

The story gets kinda heavy at times, what with it being about surviving war and all, but I think it’s good that it starts off heavy (though not in pictures), so there’s no catching you off guard. The very first page sets the tone. You can read the first page and ask yourself “am I gonna be alright when the kind of thing mentioned in text here is later partially shown in pictures?”. I think Adrien Lee made a very good job setting the tone of the story and escalating how much violence we actually see on page in such a way that it adds to the story and is meaningfull.

Another really nice thing is that each page is accompanied by a written version, which I believe makes the story more accessible.

White Noise is the comic I look forward to reading every week. I cannot reccommend it enough. It’s obvious how much planning and care and effort goes into the comic (and it’s companion blog @tape-hiss ).

Go check it out!

[comfort--cafe]

Is it normal to feel so frustratedly ambitious? I want to improve and do great things, and my biggest dream is to be musical and artistic and as successful as Rebecca Sugar. I think if I work hard enough I could have the potential, but I often get depressed because for one, I'm a girl and animation is male-dominated, for two, I've just turned fifteen and I already feel like I'm wasting my life, and for three, the arts as a career are usually hit or miss. Advice on how to be successful?

Salutations!

I know what you mean…. Not having people take your artseriously or the idea of doing art as a job in the future is daunting. Knowing thatyou probably won’t get a high paying job and you will most likely be extremelystressed/overworked and tired if you did get one. Knowing that if you do loseyour job, it’s extremely difficult to get another one being an artist. Good artsupplies are expensive yet people expect you to work at low prices even though yourbills cost more. Studying art for your finals are graded down heavily, the debateof natural talent over hard work, all the artist child prodgies. Yeah, art canreally suck.

But honestly, that what makes it kinda good at the same time.Whilst the pressure is very real and very much a massive threat, it’s almostlike a motivator. Its motivates you and reminds you that you need to keep workhard and that if you truly want this for yourself, you’re going to have to workfor it. So, whilst it’s annoyingly awful. It becomes apart of you, and it trulyshows that all the effort to your art belongs to you and was created throughyour effort.

There is no advice on being successful, but I can give yousome tips here and there that I’ve found.

Create art that people can relate to or get lost in.

A massive beautiful scenery is good and everything, but goodart is art that people can relate to. Of course, appearance is a key detail. However;with all the recent art in contemporary society, art is usually relatable or itcomments on a recent issue.  This is aneasy way to get your audience thinking about the piece. It’s a cheap way tostart, but it’s good to have if you are just starting. Relating to a certainemotion or common experience is usually a good start to get people involve orinvested in your work. From that, you can build off your own creations. Anotherway is to have a REALLY GOOD INVESTING PIECE, something that interest peoplewhere the viewers want to know about the work and develop responses towards it.This is extremely difficult and easier to achieve in web comic like works. Thekey factor is response, if you can get your viewer to feel or response towhatever you are creating, it will be more enjoyable and interesting for theboth of you.

WORK TO YOUR SKILL AND TALENT.

I have seen this issue so many times, artist trying toachieve their ideal style or the style of their favorite artist. I’m going tosay it now, you will never be able to copy it. You can take influence or doartist studies, but in the end you will always use your own style. My bestadvice, learn the fundamentals, fundamentals like color and light and anatomy.Then apply your own style, taking influence from selected artist. Influencedoes not mean copy. But studying how they have used light or how they havepositioned the focus in their art. Loving your style isn’t easy, it’s somethingthat is worked through between you and you’re art. If you’re not loving it,keep practicing until you’re happy with your work. WITHOUT comparing it tosomething else.

Manage your heath.

Common knowledge, the majority of individuals in the artistfield have experienced or have some mental illness.  Managing your depression is a key step toyour health and your art. Regulating eating, sleeping, working times,relaxation, and if needed medication can all help. Get support from your familyand friends, vent to people and let yourself fall at times. But always pickyourself back up and continue trying. Get a diagnoses if needed, having all thesupport will really benefit you. Once you learn how to manage these moods, youcan eventually take away the support and become more independent. But youcannot learn how to run without walking first. So take breaks for yourdepression, acknowledge what exactly is bring you down. Then use whatever itmay be to push you forward, telling yourself you can achieve this and that ifyou want to your doing to work hard and keep on trying.  

Work, Work, Work.

Simple enough, even if it’s small quantity. Always practice,always do artist studies. As long as your actively drawing, you’re improving.

Take the chance.

The chances are slim, but you still need to take it. Ialways told myself it’s like this.

You have a 99 percent change of becoming a worldwide famousartist, this is something you have worked your entire life towards to andsomething you are willing to give up everything for. Whilst there is that 99%of failure that’s highly possible, you still have that 1% percent. This doesn’tmean that you shouldn’t jump and aim for that 1%. But acknowledge that youmight just get lucky. But also know that consequences if you don’t get that 1%and fall for the 99%.

Now compare that to if you didn’t decide to go through with yourdecision. You’re left with a 0% chance of achieving it since you never tried inthe first place. Wouldn’t it be better to have that 1% chance than 0%, knowingthat this will make you the complete happiest. Wouldn’t you want to attempt it?

So take that 1% chance, but don’t be a idealistic about it.Have back up plans, make multiple backup plans. You’re 1% chance would be themost ideal possibility (a worldwidefamous artist that is recognized everywhere), while anything that fallsfrom that is something else you would enjoy and is manageable. Always have a backupplan,  have multiple back up plans.

This is fairly long, so ill end it shortly here. But I hopethis helps you! I’ll also link some artist I quite link that I take influencefrom and learn from.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgr5CXNn7UA81fMlV8kZtsA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoBapgfK_m6G7airg1rdn8w

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGtGTAa-xarr2HrEKRgRUHQ

Thank you for ordering at thecomfort-café!

Come visit us again anytime!

Mod Chef

[animeushi]

Many amazing companies attended Anime Expo 2017 this year. One such company that made huge headway in America this year was Lezhin Comics, a Korean webtoon distribution company.  I had the privilege to sit down with James Kim, president of the American branch, and talk about the company and what makes it so successful.

Charlotte: So for starters, could you please tell us who you are and your role in the company?

Kim: Certainly. My name is James Kim, President of Lezhin Entertainment LLC, the English operations side of Lezhin Comics. It’s our first time exhibiting here a Anime Expo. Lezhin Comics is a digital webtoon service optomized for cel phones available on IOS and Android and also available on the web. They are digital comics, and not in the traditional US comics but the digital webtoon, vertical scroll format. We launched in December 2015 and in a little under two years we did see it grow rapidly and saw a lot of fan requests that we come and exhibit. And we listened.

Right now, we have more than 100 comics translated in English. Some of them however are originally written in English to start with so we have even started to import them back into South Korea as well. So we are growing and are pushing out one to two webtoon titles per week so the library is growing very fast.

Charlotte: I am actually an avid follower of Lezhin for at least a year now. I absolutely love the content you put out.

Kim: Oh wow, thank you!

Charlotte: On top of that you guys have a huge fan base here in America and I guess it would be silly to ask why you decided to distribute here but who essentially made that ultimate decision? I feel that we don’t have that luxury of a webtoon subscription service besides Webtoon themselves.  What I am really getting at is Lezhin distributes a lot of hentai and Boys Love and there’s really nothing here for those genres except maybe Fakku! but even then, the Boys Love and yaoi are very scarce legally.

Kim: I guess it was always looking at where the demand was at even before we started out. There were already a lot of our comics being translated by the fans and it was massive. We were surprised like, ‘Wow! So many of our titles are already out there. So the demand is clearly there, why don’t we just jump in and provide the fans what THEY want. So that was a huge reason why we wanted to push the brand out in English. And as you said, when we first launched, we were very small, only having I think 10 titles but now we have over 100 titles.

Back then, it wasn’t this much focused on Boys Love. Right now it’s about 50% but that was also following the same guiding philosophy: seeing where the demand is, what people clamor towards, what is the niche. And definitely what is the demand that is not being met as you just mentioned. We started toying around with the idea of pushing out one title and saying, “Yeah, this is good”, then two and then three then came Blood Bank, Out of Control and then Killing Stalking.

So that is kind of how it happened. I think that will remain our guiding philosophy. We as a webtoon platform, have almost every genre you can think of with different lengths, different pacing and I think that is one of the unique points of the webtoon. It’s experimental. Also with that philosophy, I think we will continue to experiment and see where those demands go and evolve as a platform.

  Charlotte: There are a lot of different series that are on the Korean site that are not in the American one. Is Lezhin planning on publishing all or the majority into English as well?

Kim: Again this follows the same guiding philosophy. One of the things that we do do is look at the new releases that we put out in Korean and see which ones get an immediate following and  if culturally there is something that can mesh with the US audience the we [SNAP] push that out very quickly. In South Korea we have physically hundreds of series so it will take time to bring out them all but we try to push out as much as we can.

Charlotte: Makes sense and quite awesome you you guys. You certainly love your fans and you are very interactive with them but what we did notice, and this is also a question from a reader, why don’t you have a community or forum on your app itself like Webtoon or Tapas?

Kim: Ah yes. Well, we did this for the creators and I guess every culture has it’s own breed of “internet trolls” and what we did find trhat a lot of our creators had suffered a lot of psychological stress from that type of “culture”. And as much as they have the fans who are always there for them, to support and protect them, it can be painful, too.

Charlotte: Yeah I can imagine. I have seen what people say about certain series and creators.

Kim: And we said, “Yeah, we know that there are the pros of having something and the fans can mingle there, too, but we didn’t want our creators getting hurt at all so it was a very calculated decision to not have something like that. We knew it was something that fans would enjoy less but we ultimately did this for the creators.

So you have realized that we don’t have any ads on the site, right?

Charlotte: I’ve noticed but never questioned it.

Kim: Right, and we are getting inquiries all the time to advertise but we really want to help the readers hone in on the experience on reading JUST the webtoon without ads. It’s all about the experience.

Charlotte: That’s really nice.

Charlotte: Back on the subject of Tapas and Webtoon, Lezhin seems to to more popular, at least to me. What sets you apart from other webtoon or comic book apps and subscription services?

Kim: Well one thing you said is we place emphasis on the readers and we try to listen to them and try to bring out more titles and genres that they want. We have Killing Stalking. Some of it is more mature but we still try to maintain the variety as well to increase that reach.

Charlotte: So, this is kind of the elephant in the room question: how are you handling the illegal translations online?

Kim: Well actually I get this question A LOT. So actually we are working with legal partners to try and minimize the damage to our brand. We are taking actions but I guess we ask ourselves internally, “Would it ever be possible to eliminate this type of culture altogether? ” We don’t think so.  I think it is here to stay in one form or another but we believe that if we are top notch and continue to provide the fans what they want, and quickly, and try to show them that this is the real deal. We also have found that on social media that types of readers who act as our brand defenders and say things like, “Hey guys please support the creators” and the like. We find that dual action to be proactive.

Charlotte: You guys are very adamant on supporting your creators and making sure that their work gets out there. How does one actually publish on Lezhin?

Kim: Well there are a few ways. We receive submissions 24/7  365 days a year. But, apart from that we run the World Comic Event which is a contest on Lezhin Comics.

Charlotte: Yeah I’ve seen that prize money!

Kim: [LAUGHS] The Grand Prize money is $100,000 and that money is used to publish locally in the United States, South Korea and Japan. And we do that annually so you will see another one comic up towards the end of the year. Anyone can enter regardless of nationality, occupation, experience in the industry, genre, style. Anything goes as long as it is in scroll format. Just submit two episodes and we’ll review it. That’s been a huge way in publishing content. Our featured title, Killing Stalking was last year’s Grand Prize winner.

Charlotte: What would you say is the ratio on where these submissions come from?

Kim: So buy and large, a huge portion comes from South Korea but we are seeing the global amount of entries increasing. So we hope to be pleasantly surprised by the number of US entries.

Charlotte: Everything is amazing so far. I have one last question: Does Lezhin Comics have any plans to publish physical copies of these comics?

Kim: I can’t say anything concretely, but we are looking into various opportunities. That’s all I can say.

Charlotte: Hmmm. Okay. Well that sounds awesome.

Kim: Also what I can say is that if there are any companies who are interested in co-publishing opportunities, we are also interested.

Charlotte: Well the company escapes me right now but I do know that there is an Italian company who is publishing a physical copy of Killing Stalking–

Kim: It’s J-POP. It comes out next year. They did a marvelous job. We are really pumped and thrilled.

Charlotte: Koogi is certainly popular. I mean, even as we do this interview, she is signing so many posters for a line of fans that wraps around the hall. I did have ONE LAST question about what your most popular title is but… I think we can hazard a guess of what that title might be. Could it be Killing Stalking or Blood Bank considering these two huge fan bases are ALL OVER the internet.

Kim: Oh yeah, definitely. They are our key titles and that is why we invited the creators here for four days of signings. So yeah I would have to say Killing Stalking is our most popular title right now.

Charlotte: So to wrap up, how is it at your first Anime Expo? Your booth has not been empty this whole weekend.

Kim: We are exhilarated and frankly we are quite surprised and we are thrilled to be here. As soon as the floor opened on Day 1, there was a rush towards the booth and we cannot thank the fans enough for their support. And to add, we will be here next year with more surprises, double booth space and triple the content.

Charlotte: Nice! Maybe you guys can opt for a booth up front with Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Kim: Uh, well we will be getting a bigger booth but nothing like that just yet. [LAUGHS]

Charlotte: Well that is about all I have. Thank you very much for talking with me today and I hope you have an amazing Expo!

Kim: Thank you for joining us today.

Lezhin Comics Interview with President James Kim Many amazing companies attended Anime Expo 2017 this year. One such company that made huge headway in America this year was Lezhin Comics, a Korean webtoon distribution company.