#the person who wrote this comic

[oifaaa]

https://www.tumblr.com/oifaaa/700481510010175488/i-am-once-again-thinking-about-baby-medic-jason

Just found this post and I’m in love. I need to know what you meant by reading comics the writers didn’t write themselves? Is there any comics with any hint of medic Jason that I missed? Or just him performing like first aid and stiff that would hint at any interest in medicine? Please I am dying to know!! ❤️❤️❤️

So that's actually a reference to the time jason briefly joined the new teen titans during which he kinda comes to the realisation that he'll never be as strong as the other titans but maybe he'd be better off as a medic it's one of my favourite robin Jason moments and it kills me that it's never mentioned again

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[eveningdawn222]

people who act like batman isn't "judge jury and executioner" because he doesn't kill people are like. genuinely so funny to me because. they're very obviously thinking of "executioner" as like. the stereotypical guy with axe who chops people heads off, and not, yknow, the literal definition of the idiom itself, which is about someone who has the ability to judge and then subsequently punish someone unilaterally. which is quite literally what batman does.

he has the ability to decide what is a "crime" to him, he is the one who decides whether people are guilty of those crimes, and he is the one who executes their punishment. the severity of the punishment doesn't matter - he is unaccountable to anyone else, and indeed is allowed to commit as many crimes as needed to reach his arbitrary ideal of "justice."

the ideal of batman is this: a man who is so fundamentally changed by an act of senseless violence that he takes it upon himself to fight back against the rot and corruption in the world. he does this not through political activism, not through ridding himself of his wealth in favor of a greater good, not through community outreach, but through an individualistic fantasy of being a hero.

and you'll say: charlie, but he does do that !!! he donates his money all the time, he funds social programs, hospitals, orphanages, gets people jobs -

and i will say this: so why don't things get better?

because here's the base of it. gotham, at its core, can't get better. no matter what bruce wayne does, there will always be more crime, more villains, more death, more people for batman to beat up in back alleys. because that's what sells.

reoffending rates don't matter in gotham, prison reform doesn't matter in gotham, what actually causes crime doesn't matter in gotham because that doesn't sell books.

and so here it is; dc has unintentionally created a world where batman can't win, but can't be wrong, and where thousands of nameless, faceless, only-created-to-die civilians must be pushed into the meat grinder that is gotham, to fuel bruce wayne's angst and vindicate his constant, tireless, noble fight against the forces of evil.

and then: a new robin, who is poor and who's parents are dead or gone because of this cycle; who is happy go-lucky and hated by editors and fans for being robin, for not being dick grayson, for being poor.

and this robin is written, unintentionally or not, to be angry at the ways in which batman's (the narrative's) idea of justice is detached from its victims. bruce seems perfectly fine to allow countless unnamed women to be at risk from garzonas in his home country, yet robin is the one who is portrayed as irrational and violent.

this robin is not detached from gotham in the way bruce wayne is: this robin is a product of gotham.

(and here's the thing. you can't punch aids. you can't fight a disease with colorful fights and nifty gadgets. and how would robin dying from aids add to batman's story; it would call into question the systemic changes that haven't been made in gotham. how does a child get aids, in batman's city?)

so robin dies, and then bruce (the narrative) spends the next couple of decades blaming it on him. it is jason's fault; he was reckless, he just ran in, he thought it was all a game. if only bruce had seen what was coming, if only he could have known that jason wasn't rich enough or smart enough or liked enough to be robin.

batman gets a little more violent, a little more self destructive. he hurts people more and almost (!!) kills a couple guys. this is bad because it's self destructive and "not who he is." it is not bad because batman should not be able to just beat people up when he's angry.

and then he gets a shiny new robin - who is all the things jason "wasn't": rich and smart and rational and he doesn't put who batman is into question. batman and robin are partners, and jason is a grave and a cautionary tale, and (crucially here) never right.

the joker kills thousands and it doesn't matter because they were written to be killed.

batman beats up thousands and it doesn't matter because they were written to be criminals.

and then jason comes back, and nothing has changed. there is a batman and a (shiny! rich!) robin and the joker kills thousands. (because it sells)

and jason is angry - he has been left unavenged - his death has meant nothing, just as willis' had, just as catherine's had, just as gloria's had, just as -

thousands. ten of thousands. hundreds of thousands. written to be killed.

but one of them gets to come back.

and he is angry - not only at the joker, but at bruce (the narrative) - because why is the joker still alive (when thousands-)

here is the thing - jason todd is right. not because the death penalty is good, not because criminals deserve to die, not because of everything he says -

but because of what he calls into question. why is the joker alive?

because he sells books.

and dc has written a masterful character, through no fault of their own, because jason knows what is wrong, and he knows who is at fault - batman. (the narrative)

so the argument that bruce can't kill because he's not judge jury and executioner; the argument that jason is a cop or that jason is insane or that jason is in the wrong here; they hold no weight.

batman can't kill the joker because the joker sells comic books.

and jason can't kill the joker because the joker sells comic books.

so he will beg and plead and grovel - he will betray everything that is himself, he will forsake his family and his city and kill himself - just so that bruce (the narrative) will let the joker die.

he was condemned to death by an audience, and after he came back he has spent his whole life looking us in the eyes and screaming, asking, pleading; why is the joker still alive?

why are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands (the number doesn't matter, see, because they're just a number. not people. not real.) why are we expendable for his story? why did i have to die just for nothing to change?

and the answer is money. and the answer is the batman can never be wrong. and the answer is shitty writing. and the answer is -

nothing jason can ever change.

which is the worst of it all. he is a victim with no power, and no one else in the world can see it. he is raging and crying and screaming at his father and his writers and you - and it doesn't matter. jason doesn't matter. and he knows it.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

more volo in botw/totk hyrule. back on his bullshit :)

[ganondoodle]

everyones more than welcome to send me asks about stuff* btw, i know i havent been that good in answering, but i think thats largely bc i always want to do too much, like .. drawing entire character design sheets and everything and then never having the energy or motivation for it so it sits around like all of my hundreds of wips i never finished bc i lost energy/motivation, waiting for it to come back .. which might never happen (and i still dont know how to handle compliments ,, i might never will tbh- if i havent answered a compliment its very very likely i dont know how to properly convey my gratitude- feeling like theres no amount of things i can do or say to 'pay back'? ... kinda weird if you think about it .. but i am weird so what do i know jsklfnhsdk, i promise you i treasure it)

im pretty sure not everyone that sends an ask expects a drawing or multiple and pages long text right? thats my skewed perspective isnt it?

*stuff being like .. about my ocs, about my zelda comic, about the totk rewrite project, suggestions, ideas, rants too, kind of anything though im less likely to respond to personal things (and in case theres anyone newer to tumblr, asks dont have to be literal questions, you can write in those what you want, i like them alot bc its a lil message without the chat type of commitment to it ... im even worse at keeping up responding in chats (not intentionally .. my short term memory sucks) o3o)

[necrotic-nephilim]

What do you think about the fab five polycule

(Dick x donna x wally x garth x roy)

i'll be SO honest i wish i had like. insightful interesting opinions on them but i've always been a Young Justice kid and sort of. breezed past consuming Fab Five Teen Titans content-

but of what i *do* know, from the few comics i've read with these characters is this is one of the best ships for Dick, honestly. it always deeply annoys me when fanon content breezes past the Titans as if they're just some distant teammates and not some of Dick's closest friends, if not a second family. *especially* the Fab Five. for most, if not all of them, it's the first time getting to actually connect with other teen heroes. so there's something fun about how sort of terrible they are at it, at first. they all care about each other a lot. but they're kind of chucked into the deep figuring out how to work with each other and get along with *very* different personalities, so it's fun to see where the conflict comes.

as a ship, i do really love it. the Titans are a family. like we call a lot of teams found families, but for the Fab Five, that shit is the truest. they depend on each other and trust each other. when Dick and Bruce are on outs and Bruce fires him, he goes to the Titans.

i also enjoy how, to an extent, all of them are outsiders of some kind. Donna is alone in a new world she's never experienced, the same as Garth. Roy is still new and awkward to living the rich life with Oliver. Wally doesn't connect to his parents well. and of course, Dick has lost his parents and only has Bruce, who isn't the most emotionally available. of course they're going to cling to each other, as the first people they can really develop connections too. they're very clingy with each other and i think that's both cute and *fun* to explore like, codependency issues with them. how protective they can be of each other, how they default to trusting each other over their mentors, etc. it's all very interesting for a polycule, especially since for most of them, it's their first real relationship. i'm a big fan of "none of us know what dating looks like bc we've had such strange childhoods so we don't understand the Rules very well. we're all just going to date each other bc why would i date only one of you. do teamups count as dates now." vibes with teenage polycules. and the Fab Five just. have that on lock. they each fulfill a different "niche" in the group. Garth is the softer, more emotional one you can go to if you're upset. Donna is the one for planning bright fun trips and making sure you don't wallow. Roy is protective and can pretend to be suave, but he shows affection through gift giving and grand gestures where words fail him. Wally can cheer any of them up with jokes and distractions. and of course Dick is the logical one who makes sure they all keep their heads on and don't drown in the responsibility.

overall i think it's a really cute ship and i do wish i just. knew more about them to be able to write them/read fic of it because i do love their dynamic. and i'm just a firm believer in the Titans being Dick's family, just as important to him as the Batfam. they're a disaster and for that you gotta love them.

[strawberrytalia]

those “putting Damian on a team of superhero kids” concepts are cool in theory, but more often than not, they’re really just ways of shitting on him and making him look feral in comparison to “the nice hero kids” who are then tasked with civilizing him as if that’s not inherently racist. even worse is when he’s paired up in a duo with a white goody two shoes (cough Jon and Colin cough). and doubly worse is when there is no intention at all to give Damian character growth, he’s just used as a tool for shipping (this is 99% of the time).

I only read a bit of Gotham Academy, but I fully do see the appeal in having Damian hang with them, and be proper friends with Maps because that’s like one of the rare times another kid is friends with Damian, and they just accept his weirdness and don’t expect him to get fixed or “civilized” for them. or with Maya, in which there was conflict, a resolution, and growth for both sides and she actually helped Damian develop positively without putting him down.

[heph]

Hey, I remember you mentioning on your IG something about two types of popular artists and one being good at social media and the other being good at art or something like that (I can't really remember lol). But it got me thinking, any tips for how to be good at social media? Cuz I'm certainly not even after posting art for six years lol

Heya!

What I meant by that is that there are traits that allow you to grow on social media, and traits that determine what a highly skilled artist is, and those traits do not always necessarily overlap.

I've seen so many amazing artists that post artwork that blow my head off, and yet they don't have many likes. On the other hand, some artists at the same skill level who draw more popular things will get way more attention.

That is not to say that either is the correct way to create art, but there is definitely a formula to social media that is in play.

There are a lot of posts about how to grow a social media account, particularly on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram art spheres, and imo you really need to examine what you want from your art before jumping into social media mode

The stuff you create to pander to social media might not be art that you want to create at all - I'm lucky, because I am less artist more storyteller, and what I enjoy is telling jokes and silly stories to liven up people's moods :] this, of course, conveniently does well on social media. On a personal note, I have a history of being a recluse and not connecting well with people, and art is my way of trying to communicate my feelings, one way or another.

So of course, if you draw for any reason other than my own, my approach to art and it's relation to social media might be inappropriate for you.

All that being said, if u take a look at those "get big on social media" videos they always cite the same few points... And you can look into that, for sure, but this video sums up how I feel about all that.

I spent like 20 minutes drafting words after the above paragraph, but I really ended up regurgitating sentiments from the video... So really don't listen to me, listen to that video

EDIT:

I just realised I didnt actually answer the question with my anecdotal experience, so here's a list of things I did

1. Posted like 3 doodles a day on social media

I did this for 6 months on a side account on Twitter recently and got the account to 11k followers... And I did this for 3 months on Instagram a few years ago and I think got 3.5k followers. Of course, do not spam maliciously and make sure your art is still of good quality, but for those artworks I posted quickly, I did not colour, and mostly did clean sketches. This also trains you in the matter of line confidence haha. Again, this worked for me because of my set of circumstances (love for the media, want to tell stories, simple art style)

2. Focus on my favourite aspects of media

This helps with respect to burnout - kinda hard to burnout when you love what you're making! For me, it's character interactions and comics. I want to see my blorbos kiss and if I'm not the one drawing it who will?!

3. Interact with people

People eat up work that they can interact with. A choose your own story situation, one of those like/rt to strip a character 😭 those do numbers for a reason.

Additionally, if you post stuff people love, people will respond to it with comments, maybe their own headcanons, adding on to the work... I've gone into long looong Twitter thread conversations with people who added onto my ideas that I threw up onto the screen and I think it's also a nice thing to do to respond to positive comments haha... I'm not very good at this (read: bad at communication)

I think that's the key points... Hope this helps!

[i-may-be-an-emu]

Tom wrote a sapphic dystopian sci fi comic and I just CANT with knowing that 🥺

[pup-pee]

yesterday i killed myself bc i caught up w/reading nightwing 2016

[ah0yh0y]

finished vol 2 of The Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya today

and can i say ITS ON MY SHELF BOTH OF THEM

oh MY GOD

i am literally gesturing to the floor right now its so good

the character relationship THE ACCURACY OF THE MUSLIM REP THE MAIN ROMANCE like tis SO REALLLL

and the mc's faith is front and center and its like not just an aside IT GUIDES WHAT HE DOES

LIKE IT TACKLES ORIENTALISM SO WELL

i started crying in the middle of study my guys its OS GOOD

if i had money i would buy it but like like the first vol is $45 and the second is like $60 something and im too broke for this ISIDSIJDIODI

ANYWAY READ

READ THIS GRAPHIC NOVEL

ITS FREE TOOOOOOO

FEAST YOUR EYES AND YOUR SOUL UPON IT

[oifaaa]

What is your preferred explanation for Bruce’s no kill rule?

Personally a combo of Bruce was severely traumatised as a child watching his two parents be murdered in front of him to the point he literally can not watch someone die in front of him without it triggering him and he knows himself well enough to know that if he can justify killing one person then he can justify killing another and he's sure he will not have the self control to stop once he gets started

[queen-lotti3]

dear jeremy adams,

please bring back helen jordan in your green lantern run, i miss her very much and hal should be a dad. i know you won’t let me down

[halloweeneva]

Okay so, while I was working on the leviathan comic (complete version here) I saved a version of the wip to make sure tumblr would cooperate with the comic layout I had in my head. Recently one of my friends convinced me to share it as an insight into my process so I’m going to walk you through some of it!

Warning: long post ahead

Starting with inspiration, the original poem was very evocative and really called to me. I do a lot of art of skeletons and hands and mythology and I knew those elements would play really well with the poem.

In all honesty I’m much more of a physical artist than a digital one, so all of my comics start with pencil and paper thumbnails to really help me nail down my ideas. (though as you can see, by the time I get to actually making things sometimes I lose or change elements as I go!)

Even in my original sketches I knew that I wanted the panel of the first background to be negative space and for the pillars to physically be the white of the page, basically making it so that the rest of the comic literally rests on top of them. (Note that the background of the comic begins and ends with a fade into white.)

Going into this I knew that I wanted to play with a limited warm and nonliteral color pallet, and that I wanted to play with breaking the comic boxes. I didn’t initially plan on using purple or blue at all, but it ended up being important to provide contrast (it’s hard to get some of those colors to show up when lettering) and to really emphasize the drowning/whalefall/leviathan imagery.

Red was an important color for this story, the original poem by @/narcissistcookbook used it to add a punch and I knew that I would need to use it in a similar way. it became a great contrast for my lovely skeleton hands and worked very well as flesh beneath the scratches on my big hand. My favorite though was using that initial inversion to turn the ribs red in the next panel. I really liked the fact that they weren’t white and I got to play with scale by fading the other side of the ribs so that they looked like an environment unto themselves. Then I pulled most of the red out so that the blue could really wash over the image and give the reader a minute to breathe, really emphasizing the quiet of being underwater. Then we get the crow eating flesh, the leviathan’s glowing red eye sockets, and the word Devoured. The restraint in the prior section is what really gives these elements such a punch, they’re the first things to draw your eye and the most important to understanding the image.

In the final page we also see the return of white, turning the bones of the leviathan back into pillars and bringing the comic full circle.

The whalefall section was improvised on the page and all of the elements evolved from the first very rough image shown below. I really liked the idea of showing the whole body that had previously only been seen as snapshots of certain parts. The yellow body was a bit too plain though and in noodling on the page I realized that I could use negative space and erase out parts of the body to add detail and emphasize how dead the body was. It started with the skull and then I realized I could use the same skeleton idea to emphasize the fingers/arm/rib elements right next to the text talking about it.

Once everything is 90% done, it gets very easy to spend hours on minor tweaks and I personally start to get bored. So my system is that even if it isn’t 100% polished I will declare it finished. There will always be little things that you could have changed or done better no matter how long you work on something, and critically, NO ONE is going to nitpick it except you and jerks who are just looking for an excuse to be rude. Art is not precious, it is not perfect, it is human. Imperfect art is a million times better than no art.

[eponymousfics]

It’s interesting to me that I often have a lot of kind of angsty fic ideas and sometimes even get a little ways into writing them, but those are never the ones I finish/get hooked on.

My Fare Lady is probably the darkest one I’ve got that’s gotten as far as it has, and I definitely think that the angst elements are both why I wanted to write it and also what prevents me from working on it unless I’m really in the right mood for it.

Not that I can ever bring myself to write straight angst, it’s always hurt/comfort with slightly heavier hurt depending on the fic

Anyway this post is me trying to dissuade myself from writing a more somber Harvey/oc fic with a Gotoran oc so we can talk about the war and also so I can unpack what I call my ancestral trauma dream about the bombing of Hiroshima WHICH IS, YOU KNOW, PRETTY DARK FOR A SDV FIC

[sovamurka]

I find it kinda funny that my shortest playlist is also the fastest to gain any views and likes! ZLATOMAKI NATION, GO, GO, GO!