#i think it would be good for the comic book eco system if he was dead for a bit

[strunmah-mah]

Wonderfam book in the style of PKJ's Action Comics, so you can get the ongoing, and also the rotating short stories for some of the side characters.

Let Yara have her own mantle since she hates being called Wonder Girl and doesn't fit the role.

Revive Lyta Milton and make her Wonder Girl

Retcon the retcon to Artemis's origins. Making her the daughter of US Soldiers was a bad idea and it sucked. Let her go back to being Bana-Mighdall born and raised.

Let Peng Deilan hang out with the Amazons. I want to examine her feelings about The Ministry of Self-Reliance giving her a name from a culture she has 0 connection to.

Send Jon back to Hamilton and have him interact with Kathy. They haven't seen each other since his age up, I wanna see them grapple with that.

YJ core four gets new mantles. They're adults now, let their Superhero identities reflect that. Kon=Supernova, Cassie=Olympia, I don't have good ideas for Tim or Bart

A new Justice League Dark ongoing, same team as the rebirth era + Xanthe and/or Raven. Have them interact with the All-Caste make the world build around that more coherent.

Bring back Bizarro, the one from RHATO. My boy's been trapped in hell too long and I miss him. He can go hang out with the JLD, or the upcoming Doomsday story line since Doomsday is breaking out of hell, or he can hang out with Boodwynd. There's options here, just bring him back

Natasha Irons solo. In Superwoman she made armors for a group called the Sapphire Angels, but there's no information about them anywhere which means they haven't been in much. Which means you could do anything with them. Let Nat lead a squad of heroes it would be fun.

Traci 13/City Boy team up. I feel like their powers could synergise really well.

Make Raven Desi again! Genuine tragedy she's only ever been drawn as a generic anime girl since the Teen Titans cartoon.

This poses a common but never dull question... Tell me what the first thing YOU would do if you became a writer at DC with no editorial backlash? What would you make canon? What story would you write? What would you retcon?

[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Notes from Robert McKee’s “Story” 09: Genre and Expectations

The majority of this section defines genres and sub-genres of story. I’ll provide a summary of them at the end of the post. I think that we all as writers know what genre our works tend to lean toward, so I instead want to focus on what McKee has to say about what is expected of writers as dictated by genre and by the audience. 

Mastery of Genre

As life-long consumers of media, we have ingrained expectations of a story once we hear the genre. A rom-com? Well then, we’re in for a light-hearted comedy with a happy ending for the love interests. High fantasy? There’s gonna be lore and magic and elves and dwarfs, and a massive conflict that will probably span multiple novels or films. 

“The genre sophistication of filmgoers presents the writer with this critical challenge: He must not only fulfill audience anticipations, or risk their confusion and disappointment, but he must lead their expectations to fresh, unexpected moments, or risk boring them. This two-handed trick is impossible without a knowledge of genre that surpasses the audience’s.”

As writers, it is our job to identify our genre and research it thoroughly. In the previous section about setting, McKee explains how the setting of the story gives the writer both limitations and inspiration. 

Genre is, in a certain way, the frame in which the setting and story sit. Depending on the genre, the frame can be pliable or it can be rather fixed. Here you need to study your own genre deeply to find out exactly how flexible it is. For example, the genre of “Comedy” is much more pliable than that of the “Crime” genre. There are sub-genres, of course. But under the vast umbrella of “Comedy” almost anything goes as long as we can get a laugh out of it. “Crime” on the other hand, generally involves a struggle between a criminal and a justice-seeker (with the justice-seeker most commonly being the protagonist) and culminates in one triumphing over the other. 

How to Master Your Genre

“Never assume that because you’ve seen films in your genre you know it. This is like assuming you could compose a symphony because you have heard all nine of Beethoven’s.”

McKee states that genre study is best done in the following way:

List all the works that feel similar to yours, both successes and failures. Studying works that are similar to yours but were failures can lead to great insights.

Study each of these works from page to page, breaking each one down into elements of setting, role, event, and value. 

Stack these analyses on top of each other and look down through them all and ask yourself, “What do the stories in my genre always do? What are its conventions of time, place, character, and action?

Until you find these answers, the audience will always be one step ahead of you. 

Personally, that sounds like a lot of work lol. But doing case studies like he describes would certainly help me to better understand my genre. Idk when I’ll have time for it, but...well. I’ll work on it. 

Creative Limitations

This section really echoes what McKee had to say about setting, in that both setting and genre create boundaries for you to work within, but having boundaries pushes you to be more creative. 

Until now, I’ve always started writing a story on a whim, based on a single scene in my head that grows into some 300 page monstrosity. I resisted plotting and just wrote what I wanted to write that day. I enjoyed the freedom that came with having no specific plans and not thinking much about my genre. 

However, McKee uses a brilliant example to illustrate the beneficial aspects of understanding and working within the bounds of your genre:

“Robert Frost said that writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down, for it’s the self-imposed, indeed artificial demands of poetic conventions that stir the imagination. Let’s say a poet arbitrarily imposes this limit: He decides to write in six-line stanzas, rhyming every other line. After rhyming the fourth line with the second line he reaches the end of a stanza. Backed into this corner, his struggle to rhyme the sixth line with the fourth and second may inspire him to imagine a word that has no relationship to his poem whatsoever--it just happens to rhyme--but this random word then springs loose a phrase that in turn brings an imagine to mind, an image that in turn resonates back through the first five lines, triggering a whole new sense of feeling, twisting and driving the poem to a richer meaning and emotion.

Thanks to the poet’s Creative Limitation of this rhyme scheme, the poem achieves an intensity it would have lacked had the poet allowed himself the freedom to choose any word he wished.

The principle of Creative Limitation calls for freedom within a circle of obstacles. Talent is like a muscle: without something to push against, it atrophies.”

So one of our first steps as writers is to identify our genre or combination of genres, and then learn the genre conventions. 

Genre conventions are the expected aspects of a certain genre. In a “Boy Meets Girl” romance genre, an obvious convention is that a boy and a girl must meet. It isn’t a cliche--it’s a necessary part of the equation. These conventions force us to use our imagination to reinvent the paradigms our genres and audiences demand, and if we can do it right, we fulfill their expectations while giving them something they had never dreamed of before.

Mixing and Reinventing Genres

What better way to sum up this section than Run DMC’s “Walk This Way,” which was the first hip hop hybrid video every played in heavy rotation on MTV? 

Generally, a work tends to be a mix of two or more genres. For example, there is a Love Story subplot in just about EVERYTHING nowadays, for better or for worse. By mixing genres we as writers have a chance to give the world something that has never been seen before. 

Something that McKee stresses is that genres are not static. He says:

“Genres are simply windows on reality, various ways for the writer to look at life. When the reality outside the window undergoes change, the genres alter with it.”

Social attitudes change. This means that what may have been a compelling story 50 years ago may not be as compelling when looked at once again today. The example McKee uses is the 1950′s film FALLING IN LOVE, which was about a man and woman who fell in love with each other but were already married and in unhappy relationships. Nowadays, in mainstream America, divorce isn’t a big deal. If an audience in 2020 watched this film, they’d just say, “You’re married to people you hate--just get a divorce already!”

“The audience wants to know how it feels to be alive on the knife edge of the now. What does it mean to be a human being today?

Innovative writers are not only contemporary, they are visionary. They have their ear to the wall of history, and as things change, they can sense the way society is leaning toward the future. They then produce works that break convention and take the genres into the next generation.

The finest writers are not only visionary, they create classics.”

McKee’s List of Genres

McKee states that there are many different ways to break genres down, and his is neither the best nor the most complete. Also, keep in mind that this book is actually focused around storytelling through film, so the references he uses are not books, but films. 

LOVE STORY. It’s sub-genre, Buddy Salvation, substitutes friendship for romantic love. 

HORROR FILM. This genre devices into three sub-genres: the Uncanny, in which the source of horror is astounding but subject to “rational” explanation, such as beings from outer space, science-made monsters, or a maniac; the Supernatural, in which the source of horror is an “irrational” phenomenon from the spirit realm; and the Super-Uncanny, in which the audience is kept guessing between the other two possibilities. 

MODERN EPIC (the individual versus the state).

WESTERN. 

WAR GENRE. Although war is often the setting for another genre, such as the Love Story, the WAR GENRE is specifically about combat. Pro-war versus Antiwar are its primary sub-genres. 

MATURATION PLOT or the coming of age story

REDEMPTION PLOT. Here the film arcs on a moral change within the protagonist from bad to good. 

PUNITIVE PLOT. In these, the good guy turns bad and is punished. 

TESTING PLOT. Stories of willpower versus temptation to surrender.

EDUCATION PLOT. This genre arcs on a deep change within the protagonist’s view of life, people, or self from the negative (naive, distrustful, fatalistic, self-hating) to the positive (wise, trusting, optimistic, self-possessed)

DISILLUSIONMENT PLOT. A deep change of worldview from the positive to the negative.

COMEDY. Subgenres range from Parody to Satire to Sitcom to Romantic to Screwball to Farce to Black Comedy, all differing by the focus of comic attack (bureaucratic folly, upper-class manners, teenage courtship. etc.) and the degree of ridicule (casual, caustic, lethal).

CRIME. Subgenres vary chiefly by the answer to this question: From whose point of view do we regard the crime? Murder Mystery (master detective’s POV); Caper (master criminal’s POV), Detective (cop’s POV), Gangster (crook’s POV), Thriller or Revenge Tale (victim’s POV); Courtroom (lawyer’s POV); Newspaper (reporter’s POV); Espionage (spy’s POV), Prison Drama (inmate’s POV); Film Noir (POV of a protagnoist who may be part criminal, part detective, part victime of a femme fatale). 

SOCIAL DRAMA. This genre identifies problems in society--poverty, the education system, communicable diseases, the disadvantaged, antisocial rebellion, and the like--then constructs a story demonstrating a cure. It has a number of sharply focused sub-genres: Domestic Drama (problems within the family), the Women’s Film (dilemmas such as career versus family, lover versus children), Political Drama (corruption in politics), Eco-Drama (battles to save the environment), Medical Drama (struggles with physical illness), and Psycho-Drama (struggles with mental illness). 

ACTION/ADVENTURE. This often borrows aspects from other genres such as War or Political Drama to use as motivation for explosive action and derring-do. If ACTION/ADVENTURE incorporates ideas such as destiny, hubris, or the spirtual, it becomes the sub-genre High Adventure. If Mother Nature is the source of the antagonism, it’s a Disaster/Survival work.

HISTORICAL DRAMA. The treasure chest of history is sealed with this warning: What is past must be present. He must find an audience today. Therefore, the best use of history, and the only legitimate excuse to set a film in the past and thereby add untold millions to a budget, is anachronism--to use the past as a clear glass through which you show us the present. 

BIOGRAPHY. This cousin to Historical Drama focuses on a person rather than an era. BIOGRAPHY, however, must never become a simple chronicle. That someone lived, died, and did interesting things in between is of scholarly interest and no more. The biographer must interpret facts as if they were fiction, find the meaning of the subject’s life, and then cast him as the protagonist of his life’s genre. These caveats also apply to the sub-genre Autobiography.

DOCU-DRAMA. A second cousin to Historical Drama, DOCU-DRAMA centers on recent rather than past events. 

MOCKUMENTARY. This genre pretends to be rooted in actuality or memory, behaves like documentary or autobiography, but is utter fiction. It subverts fact-based filmmaking to satirize hypocritical institutions.

MUSICAL. I would love to see a musical novel lol.

SCIENCE FICTION. In hypothetical futures that are typically technological dystopias of tyranny and chaos, the SCIENCE FICTION writer often marries the man-against-state Modern Epic with Action/Adventure. But, like history, the future is a setting in which any genre may play. 

SPORTS GENRE. Sport is a crucible for character change. This genre is a natural home for the Maturation Plot, the Redemption Plot, the Education Plot, the Punitive Plot, the Testing Plot, the Disillusionment Plot, Buddy Salvation, and Social Drama.

FANTASY. Here the writer plays with time, space, and the physical, bending and mixing the laws of nature and the supernatural. The extra-realties of FANTASY attract the Action genres but also welcome others such as the Love Story, Political Drama/Allegory, Social Drama, and/or Maturation Plot.

ANIMATION. I guess you could equate this to graphic novels, comics, and manga. 

Source: McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. York: Methuen, 1998. Print

[thecomicsnexus]

Return Of The Good Gumbo

SWAMP THING #64 (MOORE’S FINAL ISSUE) SEPTEMBER 1987 BY ALAN MOORE, STEVE BISSETTE, TOM YEATES, RICK VEITCH, ALFREDO ALCALA AND TATJANA WOOD

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

Somewhere in the Louisiana swamp, Gene LaBostrie paddles a gondola across the bayou to his home. He feels as though the swamps have lost their soul, and his family is not living well as a result. He hopes that one day, it will return.

Meanwhile, Abby Holland and Swamp Thing are happy to be together again. He tells her some of his adventures in space, but hesitates when it comes to telling her of how he ended a famine on the planet Rann with his abilities. Inwardly, he wonders why he chose not to tell her, but ultimately fails to reach a conclusion. He realizes that with his powers, he could do almost anything on earth. After hearing about Abby's own ecological activism, he hints that he could do a lot to help the earth.

Swamp Thing offers Abby a tuber from his body, and she eagerly bites into it, beginning a hallucinogenic experience which facilitates their love-making. Afterwards, Abby sleeps. Swamp Thing uses the time to think further on his power. He thinks back on how the members of the Parliament of Trees have chosen to take a passive role in earth's development, going so far back as the beginning of life on earth. He realizes, eventually, that if he chose to feed the earth's starving, or grow back rain forests and barren deserts, man would simply become dependent on him to do it again as they increase their pollution, rather than changing their ways.

He makes a decision, and wakes Abby. He returns life to the swamp, and offers to let Abby live there with him forever; a place to retire, finally. She happily agrees as he brings roots up out of the waters, and builds a home for them on a small island.

Abby calls her friend Chester Williams to say goodbye, knowing that she and Swamp Thing will be withdrawing from society for some time. Chester is actually is genuinely pleased for both of them, and even offers to move in with Liz Tremayne and help to rehabilitate her. He reveals that there are already new recruits to their ecological group, and that they will be fine without Abby. The friends all part amicably, with Chester and Liz apparently sharing a romantic bond.

Elsewhere, Gene LaBostrie encounters Howard Fleck, photographer for the Houma Daily Courier. Fleck is looking for the recently returned Swamp Thing, hoping to get a photo. LaBostrie feigns an inability to speak and understand English, and simply paddles away. He is pleased, knowing that the Swamp Thing has returned and the life has returned to the swamp.

REVIEW

This was a very smart way of explaining why Swamp Thing doesn’t solve world hunger. It is one of those issues there really makes you think. Maybe all super-heroes are wrong. Maybe they shouldn’t help humanity make the same mistakes over and over again. It is 2019 and it feels very obvious that humanity will be extinct by its own doings (eventually). World Hunger may be a very obvious problem, but we are also running out of drinking water. And we are running out of it alarmingly fast. Sadly, we won’t be the only ones affected by this, we’ll affect the whole eco-system and it will probably be the end of this era. Me, the optimistic.

Anyway, not all heroes are the same, and Swamp Thing is not exactly one (and he never intended to be one). This inaction is based in wisdom, but it’s something Superman wouldn’t do. Heroes wouldn’t stand on the side knowing they can help others. They have empathy. But Swamp Thing is an elemental, and humans are killing the green, so...

The issue also offers a goodbye for Liz and Swamp Thing (although, she may come back in a future issue).

It’s been a very intense run. Pasko’s run started slow, but became very interesting very fast. Then Alan Moore took it to unexplored places and really changed the character forever. Moore and his favourite artists did an amazing job making these stories worthy of being in comic-books. It’s for comics like this that we got the Modern Age, and Vertigo Comics.

Some pages in the end are drawn by original artist of this volume, Tom Yeates. They look weird next to Bissette and Veitch. But it helps bring everything full circle.

I give this issue a score of 10

[onkeywritings]

Beautiful Life

Rating: G

Warnings: N/A

Beautiful Life part 1 (before X)

When Jinki isn’t studying fresh-water fish and baleen whales, he is sipping black coffee in a secluded spot in his favourite café. The barista, a senior named Yunho, knows him all too well and has taken it upon himself to gently jab at Jinki’s lack of life every time he enters.

But it isn’t Jinki’s fault that he is a marine biology student and that he wants to be the best student in his class. And to be the best, he has to study.

Jinki’s interest of all things marine has been there for as long as he remembers. A memory game with sounds as a toddler and ever since then, he’d fallen asleep to the gentle song from the giant whales.

Jinki knows his major is looked down upon by some people.

His mother wanted him to be a doctor, his father saw him as a lawyer. Jinki, however, could only see himself as a marine biologist - and a good one at that.

So he’d pursued his passion and it led to a lot of black coffee and minimum hours of sleep to become the best.

A group of girls, freshmen Jinki assumes, stumble into the café and chatters loudly about an idol.

“He’s so cute!” one of them says and shows her cellphone to the other’s in the group. They continue their conversation about the idol while they order and Jinki looks up to grin at Yunho.

Yunho subtly tries to flip him off but Jinki just shakes his head fondly and tunes out the excited squeals and the male voice that sounds throughout the café when the girls loudly play the music video.

As they file out of the café again with their frappuccino’s and cafe latte’s, they silence after them is both pleasant and deafening.

Jinki returns to his text books and he doesn’t look up when he hears Yunho loudly drum his fingers on the desk.

“Jinks!” a shrill voice says and two slender arms wrap around his neck. The weight on his back forces him towards the table.

“Junghee!” he says and tries to shake her off but Junghee stands her ground. She’s a lot stronger than she looks, but Jinki doesn’t make the mistakes of assuming anything about her anymore. It would be needless too, considering they’ve been best friends since elementary school and share everything.

When she lets go and removes herself from behind him to sit in the chair opposite of him, Jinki reaches up to massage his neck gently. Junghee leans over the desk and takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee before she scrounges up her nose in that cute way that makes Jinki want to protect her forever.

“Guess who just asked me out on a date?” Junghee says excitedly when she’s forgotten about the disgusting coffee.

“Uuuuh.”

Jinki tries to remember, he really does, but he comes up short. There are plenty of people interested in Junghee, but few she has any interest in. Junghee sighs when she realises her best friend really doesn’t know.

“Tall, brown hair, gorgeous body?” she tries but Jinki doesn’t look any less confused. So she continues. “English major, loud obnoxious laughter?”

Jinki shakes his head and sighs.

“Oh for god’s sake, Jinki, come on. It’s Minho!”

“Minho?” he asks. “Wait, Minho? As in Choi Minho who you’ve been pining over the last year Minho?”

Junghee sighs in relief.

“Yes!” she exclaims and her features light up in a giddy, girly smile. That’s not something Jinki often sees on her face and he wrinkles his nose.

She laughs and reaches over to close his books. Jinki protests but Junghee isn’t having any of that when she stuffs his now-wrinkled papers into his bag followed by the books and drags him out to “celebrate being noticed by the hottest man on campus”.

Two weeks follow and Jinki is busier than ever. He needs to find scuba-diving gear before the class start in another two weeks and he has yet to finish a big essay on kelp forests as eco systems that is due Friday.

So Jinki feels pretty hung up with dark circles under his eyes and probably wrinkles on his cheek from when he fell asleep over his textbooks in the morning.

Yunho looks at him with pity and hands him an espresso on the side, just to make sure Jinki stays awake, and Jinki - tired as he is - doesn’t watch his steps as he walks towards his table.

As fate wants it, his bag is open and the books in it tilt until they tumble out. With a squeak he tries to grab them with his feet and the coffee is dangerously close to tipping over the edge as well as he balances on one leg.

It’s just inevitable, really, that the book Jinki tries to save lands directly on a stranger’s foot. It’s also just an unlucky coincidence that it’s the heaviest of his books. Jinki looks up, ready to apologise when the stranger speaks up.

“You just broke my toe!” he says and clutches his foot. Jinki widens his eyes almost comically and places the coffee on the table so he can bow 90 degrees before he sinks to his feet and gathers his book and the few papers that went with it. 

“Did you hear what I just said?” the man says and Jinki looks up to get eye contact. The man is beautiful and angry. He’s probably also in pain if his facial expression is anything to go by. “You just fractured my toe. You’re going to pay for medical expenses. Give me your name and number.”

Jinki blinks unintelligently.

“I … it’s a book. I’m pretty sure they don’t fracture toes…” Jinki says nervously, not entirely sure. But it’s just a book, right. A book can’t fracture bones, even if it is a heavy book on marine mammals.

“Oh yeah?” the man challenges. “But I’m sure your book just broke my toe, so…”

Jinki sighs.

“I’m sorry, I really am. I can take you to the hospital?”

The stranger looks up as if Jinki is an idiot and shakes his head.

“No, I just want you to pay, is all. Hand me your name and number.”

Jinki frowns.

“I’ll pay if I take you to the hospital. I don’t want to just receive a huge bill for some procedure you might not have needed. I’m not stupid.”

They glare at each other, but Jinki doesn’t back down. A minute later the stranger exhales deeply and agrees. He acts out his injury and Jinki lets him because he’s too tired for another argument.

“What’s your name?” Jinki asks while they’re waiting to see a doctor in the ER. The man looks at him with suspicion and Jinki doesn’t understand. “It’s just a name?”

The man looks towards his feet and nods a little.

“Kibum. My name’s Kibum.”

Jinki nods in understanding.

“I’m Jinki,” he says and leans back against the chair.

“I didn’t ask,” Kibum counters and Jinki just hums.

Jinki is about to fall asleep when the nurse finds Kibum and asks him to follow. Jinki stays in the waiting area and instead fumbles with his phone.

He could read up on toothed whales while he’s waiting or he could finish up the kelp forest essay but he doesn’t really want to study. Instead he texts Junghee who answers immediately despite having classes. He tells her about Kibum and their trip to the hospital and Junghee tells him he’s a clutch before she digs for information on the stranger.

When Kibum returns, he’s looking rather grim. Jinki smiles wide when he notices that Kibum’s foot isn’t in a cast or a boot or shows any other sign of injury.

“Don’t say it,” Kibum says when he’s in ear-shot and Jinki just grins.

“Not broken?” he asks and Kibum mumbles incomprehensibly. He sits down, defeated, on the chair next to Jinki and then he steals Jinki’s phone.

When he hands it back, he closes his eyes and leans back. Then a whisper sounds and Jinki looks around and finds a pre-teen girl gossiping with a slightly older girl. Kibum ignores them too, but Jinki catches the words “isn’t that Kim Kibum?”

He doesn’t know Kim Kibum, but it’s obvious to him that Kibum next to him doesn’t want anything to do with the girls, so Jinki stays quiet. After 5 minutes of being silent, he stands and grabs his bag. Kibum reaches out to grab his wrist and prevent him from leaving.

“I’m coming with you,” he says and stands. Jinki just looks at him, exhaustion slowly overtaking his body again and reminding him that he only slept 3 hours in the morning.

“Sure,” Jinki agrees and he walks out of the ER, followed by a limping Kibum who may be clutching his lower arm a little too tight.

Jinki doesn’t think much of the encounter until he sits on his bed and finds that he has a new contact. The text message sent from him to the new contact says “for injury money” and the name of the contact is ‘Kibum’.

He slowly pulls his feet towards him and leans back against the wall when he sends a text to Kibum.

[peepgamecomix]

Comic shops don’t care about Indies

I came across this article by Comix Central: Comic Shops Open Up About How to Get Your Comics on Their Shelves. And it bugged me.

These were comic shop owners and managers giving an honest account on why Indies don’t succeed in their shops.

But something under the surface just kept nagging me until I came to this conclusion: Comic shops aren’t for Indie Comic Book Publishers.

And this article by Comix Central and others like it actually explains why.

The questions Comix Central asks are pretty benign. It’s the responses that range from scathing to bipolar that caused me so much ire.

I’ll walk you through it.

QUESTION 1: Any Insight into why certain titles seem to take off compared to other titles? What seems to misfire?

So here they are supposedly helping Indies by explaining to them why they fail in comic shops when in reality it seems they are just explaining why they HATE indies so much. Describing them as, “3rd rate DC/Marvel/Image/Dark Horse wannabe books…Overall, crappy art, lame writing, uninspired storytelling. In many cases, you can judge a bad book by its cover.”

One guy says, “It’s like Batman except his butler is a girl! Whoa.”

So all that’s really established here is that Indies don’t sell in comic shops because most retailers believe Indies suck.

News Flash! They are supposed to suck!

Most Indies are first time publishers who typically don’t have the technical knowledge or the resources to create a top notch book. So grading a title based on a set of standards they may not achieve in the short term seems counter productive from the start.

Note to first-timers. No one nails it their first time out in anything. Most creatives suck for years before hitting their stride.

But more importantly, If you are using your access to comic shops as a gauge of how good you are you’ll never succeed because they typically are biased from the start because you are self published.

Which brings me to the next question.

QUESTION 2: How does the person responsible for ordering make their specific choice of titles and the quantity they order?

This is very telling here. Pay close attention.

Want to know why there is no room in comic book shops for your “sucky” Indie book? It’s because they are over run with sucky comic books that happen to be prettier and published by bigger names.

When a retailer says, “we order based on what is pre-ordered mostly, and…based on mainstream exposure and hype,” that means all that talk about “quality” is just a lame excuse not to support an Indie creator.

By their own admission, retailers don’t have an accurate guage as to what really sells because they just don’t know. They are trusting that publishers and websites like Bleeding Cool and Newsaramawill tell them what will sell. And they regergitate that hype to their customers hoping it sticks.

So DC/MARVEL tells the shop which book/series is hot and they believe them. [Insert Secret War/Secret Empire joke here.]

That being said, I can appreciate Benn Ray’s honesty when he lays out all the stuff he refuses to buy. Notice, it covers 90% of the Indie publishing eco-system:

“If the book looks like a wannabe DC/Marvel superhero book, I’m not ordering it. If it’s a hokey-looking genre book, sci-fi/ fantasy, I’m not inclined to order it. If I’ve never heard of the publisher, the writer, or the artist, it’s unlikely I’m going to take a chance on that book. If the art looks poorly computer colored, computer-generated or the story concept seems hackneyed, I’m probably not going to order it. If the art looks “manga-inspired” I’m probably going to skip the book.”

QUESTION 3. In terms of sales does anything stand out to you as remarkable from the past few years, as far as indie publishing?

If I haven’t proved that comic shops are no place for Indies wait until you hear this.

None of the retailers in this article could name an Indie title that stood out to them as “remarkable” in terms of sales. Or just plain “remarkable”.

And to add insult to injury, Dave Micheals says, “I don’t know if this counts but I would say the resurgence of Archie and the whole relaunch of the Archie line of comics shocks me.”

I’m not knocking Archie’s hustle but they’ve been around since 1939! Indie they ain’t.

And maybe we are getting into some semantics here as to what exactly is “Indie”. That’s an arguement for another day.

What stands out to me is their inability to point to any Indie project within their own shop.

Mentioning Image and Valiant is cool I guess but there was an opportunity to share their favorite small press project in their store and they totally missed it.

QUESTION 4: Any advice or suggestions as to how someone with a self-published book would best go about getting it on comic book store shelves?

So after explaining to Indies why they won’t make it in comic shops Dave Michaels offers this piece of brilliant advice: “go to local comic shops and ask them to put your stuff on the shelf. There are not many stores that won’t support local content. Make friends and fans and get out there!”

Unless, of course, the shop owner is Benn Ray. (Refer to his tirade above).

The only real solid advice comes from Jim Drucker who advises Indies to:

A. Have a ground breaking idea B. Have a strong social media presence C. Have the necessary capital

Translation: Don’t walk your sorry ass up in this shop until you’re ready!

Which is actually a valid point.

Indie creators should take the time to perfect their craft and figure out what works; build a fan base that will support their work; and secure the necessary funds to make their dreams a reality.

Unfortunately, I don’t think comic shops are the place to accomplish that.

[funkymeihem-fiction]

The A-Mei-Zing Outback Adventure (Chapter 23-FINAL CHAPTER)

(This is the final chapter of my first Meihem story! And I thank you all so much for reading and following along. This may be the conclusion to their Outback adventures...but it’s not the end of the MEIHEM!

If you want, head on over to my new sequel to this story:

Hot Headed, Cold Hearted

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11796141

Thank you again!)

Their recovery had not been easy. Her insides had turned red and black and rebelled against her own body, the remainder of her hair had fallen from her scalp, her first attempts to eat real food had resulted in immediate and violent expulsion, and there had been nights of pain where there was no relief until she begged Angela to put her under, better to lose herself in sleep yet again than suffer any more. Junkrat and Roadhog never made any such requests, and endured the treatments with the same angry muttering and resigned stoicism with which they had faced other equally unpleasant things. Dr. Ziegler oversaw their medical recuperation with a keen eye, guiding them through their healing with the help of Ana and Lucio (Zenyatta’s offers of meditation and renewal arts had been swiftly and viciously denied) while Mei filled out pile after pile of paperwork explaining every minute detail of what had happened during their disastrous expedition into the wastes of Australia; often with Junkrat chiming in to not to forget to include some of the more ‘juicy bits’…though Mei wisely decided to leave most of his more scandalous suggestions out.

Winston and Bastion came with yet more paperwork (although this was a great deal more fun to fill out) about possible scientific excursions in the future, and her gorilla friend seemed both sincere and eager to possibly get out of the lab for a while himself, although he hoped it would go a little more smoothly than the mission to the Outback. Bastion had marked several dot locations on the world map, but merely tilted its head when asked what they were and simply pointed to them again, while Junkrat whispered suspicion and threats in the background at its strange behavior. And after that, they had a steady stream of visitors simply coming to see them; from Ana and Roadhog’s knitting club, Lucio and D.Va stopping by to play video games with Junkrat, and when Zarya had returned from a mission abroad, she had nearly crushed Mei in one of her all-encompassing bear hugs and had visited every day after that; with books, stories, and a Russian stew that she swore would make Mei feel better in no time.

Even Torbjorn had dropped by, though it was merely to drop off the newly repaired Snowball. He had painstakingly worked his way through and around Junkrat’s makeshift ‘repairs’, though even he seemed baffled by how it was functioning at all. The little drone’s AI had been transferred into a sparkling new blue hull, and its pixel eyes no longer sputtered or went randomly dead, and it no longer sounded like a flatulent oldworld modem when it beeped hello to her. Mei had been overjoyed to see it back to its old self, and it hovered over to nudge and hug into her arms…before promptly turning around and starting to flash more Mandarin curse words across its screen, aimed at Junkrat. She had been giggling too hard to really scold it as the two started fighting across the room again, and decided to leave her companions as their imperfect selves.

And they had been interviewed numerous times as they lay in their beds. Even Roadhog had been pressed for as much information as possible, though the old junker rarely offered more than his usual grunt or a shake of the head. When the dreaded questions came about Junkrat’s and Mei’s ‘relationship’, as they professionally called it, to Mei’s relief it amounted to little more than a few awkward inquiries as to their mutual consent. Winston never mentioned any more accusations of Stockholm Syndrome, and instead spent most of that interview cringing and trying to avoid any more of Junkrat’s winking and bragging about his self-proclaimed ‘irresistible animal attraction, sheer virility and amazing sexual prowess, an absolute vision in the nuddy, and hey are you writing all this down?’ while she hid her face in both hands and wished that the radiation had killed her to spare her the embarrassment.

But that had been months ago. Things were starting to get back to normal.

Her hair was starting to grow back in now, and Symmetra had kindly trimmed it into a feminine bob for her so she no longer looked like a shaggy mess. The color had returned to her face, her lungs no longer hurt when she breathed, and she had regained some of the weight she’d lost during her months of ice and fire in the desert. She was beginning to look and feel like herself again, and now she could smile when she brought up the eco-monitor program, watching the red blobs of the radioactive storms roll across the wastes. And though Overwatch couldn’t publicly take credit for her work and she had to remain a mysterious benefactor, Winston had let her know that the early warning systems she’d programmed were now a mainstay in the lives of the Outback’s inhabitants and was already saving lives.

She had helped. Despite everything, she had helped. She still couldn’t say if it had all been worth it. There was still something small and poisonous and black lurking somewhere in her, something even Mercy’s medicine couldn’t fix, something that made her angry and hurt every time she started really thinking of things…What a cost she’d paid…

But it was over, and she had helped.

***

The sweet breeze of the ocean air of Gibraltar felt cool against her face and ruffled the ends of her hair against her cheeks, bringing some small relief from the hot sun. She sat on one of the far rooftops by one of the communications tower, listening to the crash of the waves and the shrieking gulls as she scribbled in one of her personal notebooks.

“Tried to read your diary there one time, ya know. Your lil’ journal thing?” Junkrat was laying stretched out on a towel a small distance away, his mechanical limbs discarded nearby and a comically large set of sunglasses on his nose as he lay basking in the sun. Like Mei, he had recovered and was looking his old self again. His own hair had grown out at a record pace, even over most of his bald spots, and his eyebrows were as mysteriously bushy and healthy as ever, as if they had grown back overnight.

“Oh?” She looked up from her writing, glancing over.

“Real smart of you to encrypt it all in Chinese, love, real smart.”

She smirked and went back to scribbling. “Do you want me to write some in English for the next time you decide to spy on me?”

“Sounds great. Be a doll?” That familiar toothy grin spread across his face, tucking the stump of his arm under his head. “Mostly I just wanted to see if you ever wrote about me. You know, silent yearning from afar, who’s that mysterious man, maybe a kinda sexy intrigue? That sorta thing.”

“Well, I can assure you that that was really not what I was writing about you back then…It was probably best you couldn’t read it,” she admitted.

“Owch, darl.”

“Sorry! I mean, it wasn’t anything terrible, just…not the nicest, either,” said quickly. “But I’ve written more about you since then!”

He leaned up slightly, adjusting his sunglasses with suddenly renewed interest. “Is it real good?”

She smiled demurely, looking away. “It might be good. It’s a shame you can’t read any Chinese...”

“Owch again! That’s ice cold! C’mere, you.” He waved his good arm as she scooted a little closer, pulling her in. “I know that look. Somethin’ bothering you? Is it the pills? Is it your hair? I like it short, looks real nice on you.”

She shook her head, laying down beside him with a little nudge to make room. “Nothing. It’s just hot out.”

“Pft, this ain’t hot. Still, you wanna go in?”

Another shake of her head, closing her eyes against the sun. “It just reminds me of being back in that little house again, back in the desert. For a while there I kept thinking I would wake up and be back in that shack. It’s just like when I would wake up and think I was back in…back when it was cold instead of hot. Jamison, are you…Are you glad we came back?”

“Of course I am! They saved ya!”

“But…are you glad? That we’re back here? I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I’m asking…”

His gaze turned a little wary behind the lenses of his goofy glasses, his bushy brows furrowing slightly. He was silent for a long moment, shifting restlessly atop the towel, before replying with a low “Well, that’s a bonzer of a question, ain’t it? Arright look, I know you ain’t actually asking me, you’re asking you. But! For what it’s worth, my answer is…’I don’t know’. You got no idea how much this place pisses me off, most of the time. But, it ain’t all bad. Got my own place, food whenever I want it, getting paid by a monkey to blow things up, and they got the doctorin’ facilities that saved my most favorite lady in the world…and then I got fucking bullied into the doctoring stuff too, might I add.”

“Oh, that wasn’t bullying!” She protested half-heartedly. “And I’m glad I did. I’m glad you’re better.”

“See! Then there’s something to be glad about! Yours truly! And I don’t mind saying that’s a lot to be glad of, you snagging the most handsomest and humblest bloke this side of Oz. Look, you don’t gotta figure out the answers all the time. And you don’t gotta be happy, neither. Sometimes things are shit, but it’s better than being attacked by bees, ya know? Dunno if I’m glad to be back. Just glad you’re here, wherever. And if you go trying to find whatever you’re trying to find, I’ll go with ya.”

There he was again, cutting through to the heart of the matter she could only ever dance around, blunt as always. He could blast a path of destruction wherever he went, and this was no different. No matter how many walls she put up, he was one of the only ones who could tear them down just as quickly. Sometimes it irked her, and sometimes it was exactly what she needed most, even if she couldn’t come out and say it. It hadn’t been the desert that had broken through her ice. Not really. It had been him. She’d been cold before, for so long, and it still felt like his body heat was burning even warmer than the sun above them. She could feel it against her cheek as she pulled in closer to his side, running her fingers up his side and feeling the sharp angles of his jutting ribs. “You’re awfully philosophical, you know. And maybe romantic. In an extremely odd way. I never would have guessed it before.”

His grin returned, leaning to press his nose to hers smugly. “Heh! S’truth!”

She had felt trapped here before, would probably feel trapped here again if she stayed too long…but it was nice, in its own way. It was a place at least worth returning to. How could she be too sad when the sun was shining, the birds were calling, and the sea was lapping gently so close by, and with her strangely charming companion smiling at her like that? Maybe it wasn’t ever going to be her idea of home, but maybe she’d been too hard on it.

Maybe she’d been too hard on a lot of things.

She was distracted by a pair of lips on her jaw and neck, starting to creep downward, and she squirmed as he started to roll on top of her, pressing both hands to his bare chest to keep him at bay. “Jamie?”

“Too much thinkin’! Live in the now! Give your brain a rest, lovey. Lemme help get your mind off your troubles, eh? We got a good thing going here, and I’m gonna enjoy every second of it. And I plan to make you enjoy it too, multiple times, kinda like last night…How bout I wind you up until you’re ready to explode? Lemme show you one of my newest and most favorite specialties…”

“Lewd!” she gasped, even as she leaned her head back to give his lips more access to her throat.

His hand was just starting to slide down her side when both their communicators went off at the same time. Her shoulders slumped a little in disappointment and Junkrat cursed loudly, but moved off her so she could roll upright, struggling to get her hair in order. She still wasn’t used to it being so short, but at least he said he’d liked it this way? Clearing her throat, she activated her comm, seeing the icons of other agents lighting up one after the other. “Zhou Mei-Ling and Jamison Fawkes present.”

Winston’s gruff voice piped up on the other end. “We’ve just had call go out that Talon has made another advance into Oasis. I want following agents; Pharah, McCree, Genji, Mercy, Mei, Junkrat and Roadhog, Symmetra, and Zenyatta to mobilize immediately. You have an hour before the Orca is fueled and stocked, get ready to move. Over.”

Mei groaned audibly as she clicked her affirmative response. “Another desert? I was hoping for something a little more…snowy? I’m going to get another awful sunburn on top of my other sunburns, I just know it.”

Junkrat snorted, strapping his prosthetic into place on the stump of his thigh. “Well, don’t be too hasty about the snow thing, lovey. But ugh, sending us into the middle of posh bot central? S’the only place worse than Numbani. Makes me sick.”

She thought for a moment, then pressed herself to his back and wrapped both arms around his narrow shoulders as he started to pull on his arm. “I guess it beats sitting around here wasting away in bed, or getting attacked by bees?”

He pulled off his sunglasses, his scowl soon replaced by his usual toothy smile as he rested his head against hers. “Now you’re getting the hang of things! Guess I might even be more careful this time, can’t stand the thought of another minute in that fuckin’ hospital ward again. “

“Good,” she leaned to press a kiss to his cheek before pulling herself upright. “I want you to take care of yourself out there. Although it’ll be nice to get back in the field again. I’ve had lots of time to make adjustments to my endothermic blaster, now my icicles are sharper than ever. Time to show those Talon agents what we’re really made of!”

“Oh yeah, those blokes are in for it. You chill ‘em, I’ll kill ‘em, heh, get it? Oh, I’m liking this side of you…After we’re done with all that, might have to get you in one of them fancy-arse Oasis hotel rooms and wind you up, just like I said before.” His lanky body also heaved upward to stand, his height looming over her as he spotted a familiar, similarly giant figure slowly making its way across the field towards them. “Oi, there’s Roadie! Guess I’d better go start double-checking the frags and getting everything ready to move out…” He hesitated, seeing her pause again and look out over the ocean, although he couldn’t see what was in her eyes this time. But when he took her hand, she readily looked back to him. “If you need me out there, I’ll be right beside ya.”

She nodded slowly, and her smile returned. “I know.”

“And if you get pinned down in the field, just give me or Roadie a shout and we’ll be right there. From now on, I’m the only one allowed to pin you down!”

“Ugh, really?” She elbowed him lightly in the arm, and he elbowed her right back. “…You ready?”

Pulling her forward, he let her take the lead into their next mission. “Let’s go!”

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Batman and Harley Quinn (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: So this movie was released on digital four days ago now but if you haven’t seen the movie yet I will be talking spoilers so go watch it then read on.

General Reaction:

Dear Gotham Penthouse forum...is clearly how Bruce Timm started his pitch for this movie based on what the actual movie turned out to be like. Timm is very much on a self-destruct mission to undo all the good he did with Paul Dini creating Batman: The Animated Series back in the 90s, first with that horrendously pointless Batgirl prologue in The Killing Joke and now with what he has done particularly in the first half of this movie to his original creation Harley Quinn.

Now that’s not to say Harley has never been overly sexualized; Everyone remembers the infamous “You wanna rev up your Harley? Vroom vroom!” scene in the animated series and of course Harley is one of DC’s bombshells for a reason most recently made apparent with Margot Robbie’s portrayal of the character in Suicide Squad, but Harley’s sex appeal has always more or less been an allusion in animation...never has it gone to the degree where I genuinely feel I’m watching animated porn.

Also the fact that Nightwing basically goes along with this, is slightly better than originally perceived in the trailer with Harley overpowering him, but also once again portrays men as collateral in a movie that is trying to show women at the forefront.

Speaking of which the “Batman” part of this movie title is very much overshadowed by the Harley Quinn part as he doesn’t really progress or add to the story in any way other than identifying Jason Woodrue isn’t Swamp Thing and also telling Nightwing to go get Harley Quinn. Nightwing, as I pointed out earlier, is only used basically as a play thing for Harley and Jason Woodrue aka Floronic Man...on first appearance I thought was Swamp Thing and in terms of character just basically acts like Poison Ivy’s Joker...also Swamp Thing does make an appearance at the end and I continue to not see the point of this character; he was in the animated Justice League Dark and also is a player in Injustice 2...both see him yammering on about “the green” and neither really sees him doing anything. I get he’s supposed to be a passive eco-warrior but seriously I was with Harley in this movie where he should’ve kicked Woodrue’s ass.

On the subject of Poison Ivy, I was pleasantly surprised to see her in this movie and did like how the movie kept the animated series’ design work for her was great, also for Nightwing but not so much for everyone else as it looked really cheap. But I did like how Ivy was one of the main villains in this movie but was turned away because of her love/friendship for Harley...I still don’t see the outright villainy in Ivy as all she wants to do is protect the eco-system and it is great to see Ivy used more in recent animation.

Voice Work:

The standout in this movie is definitely Melissa Rauch, who proves herself to be quite the versatile actress as if you didn’t know who she was by name you’d find it hard to make the link between this version of Harley and Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory. Also Rauch has a surprisingly good singing voice, I wasn’t sold on her basically turning ditsy Harley into bitter Harley with the change-up in voice but with that song she won me over.

Also Kevin Conroy and Loren Lester returning as Batman and Nightwing respectively was good to see; Conroy of course reprised his Batman role last year with The Killing Joke which for me was where he worked out better because why he would agree to return here is beyond me but with Loren Lester, he doesn’t really have the same gravitas as Conroy but he is still he is still the original actor and the most famous portrayal of Nightwing so again could sign on for better work than this.

Kevin Michael Richardson as main villain Jason Woodrue, whenever I heard him I just think of either Jerome or Principal Lewis giving into villainy and Paget Brewster, I haven’t seen physically work since Kathy in Friends but more recently have heard as Peter’s psycho ex Gretchen in Family Guy. Both did a great job along with Rauch as the newbies but Rauch definitely outshined them.

DCAU Legacy:

I do worry slightly for recent DC fans that see movies like this as an access point for earlier works in the DC Animated Universe. I think what Dini and Timm did not just for DC but superhero animation back in the day was so ground-breaking and the fact the Batman animated series is still used today either in reference or in callback is such a bar raiser that when you consider this movie to be part of that universe taints the memory of it slightly, again also when you consider Batman: The Animated Series is where the Harley Quinn character originated.

Recommendation:

If you grew up with the DCAU or are a fan of it then I’d suggest watching this movie for that nostalgia feel of seeing the old character designs as well as Conroy and Lester’s voice work. If you’re a Harley Quinn fan you’ll want to watch and see what they’ve done differently with the character. If you’re looking for a great movie you won’t find it here because even the storyline is flimsy but it the movie and particularly that Harley and Nightwing scene will be a discussion point among comic-book fans.

Overall I rate the movie a 5/10, this is by no means a solid movie but for what Melissa Rauch brings it’s not terrible to sit through...it is just slightly awkward in at least three scenes.

So that’s my review of Batman and Harley Quinn, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more DC Movie Reviews, as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

[jpowssbcu]

Producer as a Designer: A brand called Purity Brewery Co (award winning beer) were called in to ask us Art & Design students to develop a piece of art work/design to represent one ,two or all of the Purity Brewery pillars, ‘Pure Eco, ‘Pure Community’ and ‘Pure Quality’ which meet the size guideline ‘115x115mm’. About Purity: They are a brand that craft vegan beers which is very important as a lot of the population are now becoming vegan. They craft beer with conscience: saving their waste water and having a wetland system which naturally recycles their waste water. https://puritybrewing.com Before I started to start generating ideas, I searched the internet for ‘beer labels’ and came across this: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/03/brew-period-craft-beer-labels-works-of-art

I started this project with the word association technique. I took the values of the brand I’m designing for (Purity Brewery Co) ‘Pure Eco’, ‘Pure Community’ and ‘Pure Quality’. Which I then came up with a collection of words which have been expanded from other words in these brainstorms. I then made a selection of sentences; picking a word from each value which helped to form a sentence which gave me a new starting point.

Government evolution is the future.

Be the end to Earth Pollution: Create sustainable designs.

Vegan friendly memes to help the quality of nature.

Fictional agricultural creatures.

Witches purify land and protecting endangered species.

Animals love vegans – vegans love animals.

I then started with “Witches purify land and protecting endangered species” to start developing my ideas. I started to think about tarot cards for my design and their uniqueness which help get the message across to the reader. I started to illustrate and combine some images within my sketchbook to create a somewhat mood board.

‘I came up with the idea to conceptualise with tarot cards as a way to express the current state of Earth and my feelings towards Earth. Thing’s I currently like as part of this project development: Illustration, limited colour palette, text, sci-fi, human anatomy and collage’.

Developing my tarot concept by changing some key features of the card ‘The Star’. This card has 7 eyes in the sky of the tarot. I change these stars to eyes which are a symbolism for the eyes of Mother Nature – She’s always watching. I thought that this would be a nice feature to add as it’s making my design relevant. I also used the method of collage and illustration to create mood. I collaged artist work and layered my own drawings on this page.

I moved on from this idea (also keeping it in mind). In my previous project, I created sculptures of mutated creatures which were brought to the Earth by Mother Nature. These creatures had a purpose to replenish/cleanse the Earth from pollution and to give genesis to the Earth. So, I thought that it could be an idea to re-introduce these mutants into this project with new intentions. I feel that a good idea is to make drawings of these in a comic book sort of way?

I also started to look into more artists such as Ken Barthelemy. He created his own creatures and characters. He is mainly known for the character design in the movie, ‘Maze Runner’. I feel that his work relates to mine in a sense of fictional character design but created with a purpose. Are these character designs actually what will be living among humans/preying on humans in the future? Post-apocalypse?

After illustrating one design idea I began to like the new concept – especially the eyes in the background which give the impression that someone is watching. However, when we were critically analysing work as a group, my peers found that this theme, concept and drawings was too dark and wasn’t appropriate for the brief. So, I decided to revisit the tarot card idea and to develop that further.

I found a tarot card that I really liked and found that I could easily manipulate and play around with the image, colour and crop. I found that blocking in the bottle made it seem more like a ceramic bottle rather than a plastic bottle. Printing out an image and sticking it on my illustration was more affective and was a nice way to include collage.

I took a break from thinking about illustrations and started to think about daily waste which has an impact on the Earth: Flyers, candy bar wrappers, receipts and gift wrap. I decided to create a collage of these materials which could then be used as backgrounds for my tarot card design idea. I then traced the Purity drip mat on my collage background and then cut it out to see how it would look. I like how this design looks and it works quite well with the concept.

Likes:

I like the texture that the collage in the background of my design which creates a crispy aesthetic which actually contradicts what the sky in the real world looks like. I like that there’s a sense of fiction in my design as well as fictional details.

Dislikes:

I dislike the shape of the drip mat which wasn’t in my control. The drip mat limits me in ways I had to manipulate my own art work and limited what I could do in terms of bigger details and parts of the drawing would be cropped out due to the big random corners.

I dislike the river that I illustrated. I chose the clean water vibe which is blue, rather than expressing plastic pollution through better choices of colour such as purples, greys, greens and blacks.

Things that helped me develop my work:

Speaking to my peers and asking what they like, dislike and what they would change. I believe that always asking people around you is how you can usually make the best choices. Even if you don’t take what they say 100%, you are able to manipulate what they say to something that works for you.

[denisekalb97263-blog]

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There are numerous posts that Dr. Peter Bender, took note public speaker, has published relating in wonderful detail these character styles and also these jobs are accessible on his web site; The four bird icons work with specific continuous qualities and also characteristics that are common throughout these individual kinds and folks with typical individuality types, in some cases flock together like birds carry out. A lot of significant firms use this design of personality type training to boost their leadership and also sales crews. Guy were actually raised to reveal on their own and also get in touch with those around all of them by means of ACTIVITY. Affection is one of one of the most gorgeous points in the world that can ever occur to anybody on earth. Uses that make use of Direct Messaging integration to send CCDAs to HealthVault for Meaningful Usage functions, have to register a request in the Treatment Configuration Center, enable Significant Make use of on the Strategies tab, and also connect their sending Straight Texting domain name with the treatment ID on the Meaningful Usage tab. When she turns off the lighting to visit sleep, picture her pleasure as well as surprise observing those words from you. The words this author usages are interweaved all together to create effective as well as mentally demanded tales that challenge the visitor to definitely think of the planet, as well as motivate them to react in beneficial techniques. Your lifestyle is actually no other; the power you are throwing away on trying to develop meaningful hookup along with thousands of people through your several social networks systems is lost. Some males could feel ashamed regarding this, yet possessing a cooking ability is a fantastic conveniences. She teams up with web site growth and posts contents such as blogging sites, digital book as well as banner concepts which provide significant hookups along with the guests online. Today I am a trainer as well as practice expert not too far coming from my mentor origins yet I have actually had years to really assume just what I wanted from my work and how you can insure that it was meaningful job. Depending on your service as well as the people you serve, there are dozens of other techniques to touch the lives of your clients in a purposeful means. Today that you offer your maid from honor should be actually personal as well as relevant. To get in contact with your notions on purposeful job take down every little thing that comes to mind regarding exactly what the overall agreement of the term purposeful job is. It may be practical to document titles of folks who seem significant and why. Applications can begin with the DOPU model, and if the cases expand beyond Meaningful Usage with HealthVault, they can easily back then modification to use a record authorization-based design.

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Diary Of Thought 2014 Vol 48 Problem 3 & 4.

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Final Letter from Boston from info@martinomalley.com

Blue State Digital Mailing Template       : All semester I have had the honor of teaching at Boston College Law School. The Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy has been my gracious and kind host. The aspiring young American lawyers whom I’ve had the honor to teach, have also taught me. They have caused me to re-think. To renew. To remember. We look at case studies in getting things done — reducing crime, building public trust for public safety, restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay, taking action to reverse climate change, healthcare reform. This is not a paint by numbers exercise, or a paint by numbers course. There is an alchemy required — especially in the Information Age — for maintaining the precious consensus necessary to get difficult things done. Read my blog about my last week in Boston below or here.   Yours truly, Martin   Final Letter from Boston Revolution They call it, “the freedom trail.” The small case letters for a big case concept. Small case letters that seems to whisper a solemn “small d” democracy. Everybody in Boston knows what it is. Most school kids have done class trips to one or more of the places along “the freedom trail.” The bartender at J.J. Foley’s in Boston’s South End rolled his eyes when I mentioned it to him, remembering his own class project in grade school. For my part, I last visited “the freedom trail” when I was 14 years old. The year was 1976. Bicentennial of the birth of our One Nation, Under God. My parents loaded us into the green, wood-paneled, Ford family station wagon. We were going to New England to visit Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, the Old North Church. (“…Do not make me pull this car over!!!”) I return to these places now — with my youngest son, Jack. He, too, is now fourteen. Jack and Governor Martin O’Malley at Bunker Hill We visit Bunker Hill where so many Patriots fought and died facing, what seemed to others, overwhelming odds. We climb all 294 stairs of the monument — more easily done by 14 year olds than 54 year olds… We visit the Old North Church. In the car (just like my own parents), I force my son to read every stanza of Longfellow’s poem, “The Mid-Night Ride of Paul Revere.” Reluctantly, he obeys; shifting to a comic voice around stanza four. (I vaguely recall doing the same thing years ago when reading from a dog-eared family poetry book rather than a battered iPhone.) Like Paul Revere, we rode north. Again, it is April. Jack at 30 Paces Away We walk the battle green at Lexington; face each other at 30 paces. Then up to Concord where we read the familiar words penned for the centennial by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Here by the bridge that arched the flood, To April’s breeze their flag unfurled, Here, once, the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard ‘round the world.” A Higher Enlightenment All semester I have had the honor of teaching at Boston College Law School. The Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy has been my gracious and kind host. The aspiring young American lawyers whom I’ve had the honor to teach, have also taught me. They have caused me to re-think. To renew. To remember. The title of the course is, “Performance Management and Leadership in the Information Age.” So much information. So much opportunity. Such a need for leadership. This generation of Americans has its work cut out for them. We look at case studies in getting things done — reducing crime, building public trust for public safety, restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay, taking action to reverse climate change, healthcare reform. This is not a paint by numbers exercise, or a paint by numbers course. There is an alchemy required — especially in the Information Age — for maintaining the precious consensus necessary to get difficult things done. Good Mayors and good County Executives in America seem to have figured it out before our Governors or Presidents have. Governing Ourselves What is the formula in the Information Age? It is a radical commitment to openness and transparency demonstrated every day through actions not words. The primacy of effective collaboration rather than mere command and control. Feedback loops and a relentless cadence of accountability paired with short, regular meetings around open data — the latest emerging truth. The ability to model “belief space” with probabilistic certainty. And an eco-systemic approach to understanding the array of actions which impact the common good we share. I used to think effective self-governance was 10% policy and 90% follow-through. I was way off. This semester I learned for the first time — or perhaps, remembered for the first time — that, today, governing is 10% policy, 40% follow-through, and 50% leadership. Leadership One of the quirky benefits of serving as a Governor is that at least once a month a new book on “Leadership” lands on your desk, a complimentary copy sent by a publisher, author, or promoter. Most of them are crap. The one I teach from is not. It is the “Eight Driver’s of Leadership” by David Traversi. It is practical, real, and good. A description which also applies to the young Americans in my class at Boston College Law. What are those “eight drivers”? Presence, Openness, Clarity, Personal Responsibility, Intention, Creativity, Intuition, Connected Communications. Knowing what those qualities are is one thing. Finding them within yourself — and others — is another. The only other book I teach from is a book of poetry — with a forward by my friend, Parker Palmer. It is called, “Leading With Fire.” For the final class, each student is randomly assigned one of the eight drivers of leadership. Then they are asked to find one poem in “Leading With Fire” that speaks clearly and deeply to the quality of leadership they were assigned. Each student reads their choice aloud — to the whole class — one by one; and then they explained why they chose it. Hafiz, Rielke, Mary Oliver, Daniel Whyte, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Martin Luther King. Join, or Die is a political cartoon symbolizing colonial freedom, drawn by Benjamin Franklin and first published in his Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754 Solitude In a brilliantly insightful address to U.S. Army cadets at West Point in 2009, Prof. William Deresiewicz said on the subject of “Solitude and Leadership” — “the great books, the ones you find on a syllabus, the ones people have continued to read, don’t reflect the conventional wisdom of their day. They say things that have the permanent power to disrupt our habits of thought. They were revolutionary in their own time, and they are still revolutionary today. And when I say “revolutionary,” I am deliberately evoking the American Revolution, because it was a result of precisely this kind of independent thinking. Without solitude — the solitude of Adams and Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison and Thomas Paine — there would be no America.” Boston College campus Conclusion In one of the most heartening “reaction papers” I received this entire semester, a young patriotic American Muslim student in my class wrote: “…because of this class, I choose not to view the actions of our current politics through a lens of despair. Rather I see incredible opportunities to speak a higher enlightenment for my generation — and generations to come.” And so it is. The siege of Boston has been lifted once again. Expectations become behavior. And the Revolution lives. “Come my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world.” ____________________ Martin O’Malley is the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Visiting Professor at Boston College Law School for the spring 2017 semester. He is teaching a class on Leadership and Data Driven Government, while also participating in several panel discussions as part of the Rappaport Distinguished Public Policy Series. Every Monday he is publishing his thoughts in a series titled, “Letters from Boston.”     Donate                   PAID FOR BY O'SAY CAN YOU SEE PAC NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE'S COMMITTEE 421 M St NW Washington, DC 20001Unsubscribe