#was gonna make it as a zine but 8 pages was not enough

[twlfthnght]

innvocation, the odyssey by homer, trans. by emily wilson

[hockeyassforposterity]

A beginner’s guide to goalie equipment

//

I’m taking a class dedicated to zine making and self-publishing this semester - and I made this for my first assignment. It’s twenty eight pages, printed on cream coloured paper, and saddlestitch bound with blue linen thread.

You guys seem to love goalies so I thought you might like this. I also love goalies, but in a sort of narcissistic way.

//

Full transcript with page numbers below the cut

(3) Under normal circumstances, there are six players on the ice from each team. One of these players is a goalie.

Hockey has a lot of rules, but to understand goaltending, you actually don’t need to understand most of them. All you need to know is that your team’s objective is to put a vulcanized rubber disk into your opponent’s net. This is called a goal. If you’re a goalie, then all you need to do is to stop your opponent from doing that to you. Most goals wins. Simple.

If items in pairs are treated as a single piece, then my goalie equipment consists of eleven pieces. They are as follows:

//

(4) It’s called a jock or a jill depending on your personal plumbing. This is the one that keeps you from getting hit directly in the junk.

They make ones specifically designed for goalies, but I don’t have one. After thirteen years as a full time goalie, this is the only piece of equipment designed for players that I still own.

“Jock and Jill went up the hill…”

//

(5) They look like shorts but they call them pants.

Goalie pants have extra padding to protect the front of your legs and very little padding on the back. If you fall on your ass, it’s gonna hurt. Ask me how I know.

//

(6/7) In comparison to the skates worn by players, goalie skates are shorter. The boot sits in this hard plastic dish called a cowling that keeps your feet from getting broken. New goalie skates have these built in.

Skating technique for goalies is based on pushing laterally rather than gliding forward, so the blades are straight instead of curved.

I’ve had my skates for almost ten years.

//

(8/9) Big, box-shaped pads made of synthetic leather that attach to your legs with straps, designed to take up as much space as possible. Hard enough that pucks bounce off, but soft enough to move in. Smooth on the sides so they can slide across the ice.

//

(10/11) If I needed a visual metaphor for goalie pads, I would represent them as wings.

//

(12/13) A piece of cut resistant fabric and padding that wraps around the neck and is secured with velcro, protecting it from cuts and from the impact of getting hit.

There’s an additional piece of hard plastic that hangs off the goalie mask by strings so you won’t get hit in the neck at all. These are known colloquially as danglers.

Neck guards are not mandatory in the NHL or PWHL. Some players wear them, but most players don’t. It’s your life, but I think you should wear one.

It is mandatory to wear a neck guard in minor hockey.

//

(14) One big piece of equipment that covers your entire upper body. A lot of little plates all connected to each other.

There is a lot of padding on the front.

And no padding on the back.

Goalie equipment is like a turtle shell, but in front of you instead of on your back. You have to learn not to be afraid. You won’t get hurt if you let yourself get hit head on.

//

(15) Why do they wear jerseys in any sport? So everyone looks the same, but with numbers to still be identifiable, I guess. In hockey, the number 1, but also the number 30 and 31 and other numbers in the 30s are widely considered to be numbers specially for goalies.

//

(16/17) A lot of goalie masks have custom paint jobs. My dream is to someday paint my own. If you know someone who could help me with that, please give them this zine.

I want to cover it in hands, because I love drawing them - but I’m worried that would make me look like a freak. Maybe that’s the point, everyone always says that goalies are weird.

Goalies wear pads and goalies wear art and goalies have special numbers just for them. Goalies do not have to look the same.

//

(18/19) It’s loud when you get hit in the head. If you get hit hard enough, the material of the mask will flex to mitigate the force of the impact and the straps keeping it attached to your head will pop off. So you don’t get hurt, your mask is designed to fail.

I once heard someone say they could never be a goalie because they aren’t mentally strong enough.

I don’t think this is true. Every kid cries at first when they get scored on and then sooner or later they stop. You will learn how to fail.

//

(20) Called a catcher or a trapper, but sometimes just referred to casually as the glove, it has a pocket to catch the puck. You have to break it in like a baseball glove. My dad and I spent years playing catch to break in my first glove.

My parents have two daughters and no sons. After we were born, people would ask my dad if he was disappointed to have no sons.

I don’t know why. You can play catch with your daughters.

//

(21) The blocker goes on your dominant hand and is the one you use to hold the stick. It’s a glove with a literal block of padding attached to it. If you position it properly, pucks will bounce off.

Like your pants, like your chest protector, like your mask, you have to face the puck head on. If you’re afraid, then you’ll get hurt. Do not be afraid.

//

(22/23) Hockey sticks are made out of molded carbon fibre and are hollow on the inside. Goalie sticks have a wider section at the base referred to as a paddle. The ideal paddle length varies depending on your height. You wrap the blade and end of the stick in tape for increased grip.

When I was fourteen I subbed as a goalie for another team at a tournament. My first crush on a girl was on a player on that team. She was blonde and wore glasses. I don’t remember her name. I haven’t seen her since.

There is a company that makes hockey tape with a rainbow pattern explicitly as a symbol of inclusion.

Last year the NHL banned its teams from wearing specialty jerseys in support of causes, any cause, on the ice. Later, they banned players from using pride tape on their sticks. When Travis Dermott used it anyway, the ban was overturned.

Marie-Philip Poulin is the captain of the Canadian national women's team. She plays on the same team as her wife, Laura Stacey.

We’ll get through this, please don’t be afraid.

//

(24/25) Goaltending works by covering as much of the net as you can. Obviously, the taller you are, the easier this is, but the way it’s actually achieved is with angles.

The closer you are to the puck, the less net there is to see. The better you face the puck, the less net there is to see. And of course, the faster you get to the puck, the better.

I am not tall, but I can get to the puck anyway.

If I needed a visual metaphor for goalie pads, I would represent them as wings. Why else would they call it the butterfly?

//

(26) How to be a goalie, in four simple steps:

Learn how to put on your equipment.

Learn to fail.

Learn to fly.

Do not be afraid.

[elv-arts]

Silly little thing I made the other week when I was stuck in hospital while I was feeling up to making things. It's litterally just me complaining cuz I was feeling pretty fed up lol. I have been almost entirely in hospital for over a month now with a only few days off. Back home after round 2 of chemo though and hoping not to have a repeat of The Infection I made this about! lol

[ID: A series of images of a small handmade zine held together with washi tape.

Image 1 - The cover, titled "THE HOSPITAL" in big blue all caps. There's some bright pink lines shooting out for emphasis, and little doodles of plasters, pills and a syringe coloured in bright orange.

Image 2 - Page 1 and 2. "I have been in hospital for 5 1/2 days and it has thoroughly SUCKED. I only just got out from 2 1/2 weeks unplanned hospital time and was supposed to have to weeks mostly at home but nope!" In big yellow all caps is written "2 DAYS" with spikey emphasis lines. "I have been in a wonderful variety of pains, experienced many lovely symptoms, and have been bombarded with people and occurences." Written with hearts and pink flowers around it is "Thank You Neutropenia!" Followed by a doodle of a simple person giving a big thumbs up from a hospital bed with a smile and bags under their eyes.

Image 3 - Page 3 and 4. "I'm doing chemo for lymphoma, and the plan was to cut and dye my hair with my siblings like this" an arrow points to a drawing of a bright green mullet haircut with bright pink buzzed sides. There's a bright yellow zigzag shape around it. "Or this" another arrow points to a drawing of a longer bright green mullet with dark green roots. There's a bright yellow zigzag shape behind it. "asap BEFORE my hair started falling out, then when it did I'd buzz it, look like-"

Image 4 - Page 5 and 6. "-a mouldy potato for a bit, then be bald until it grows back after treatment." There's a doodle of a potato with green mould and a little smiley face, and one of a shiney orange egg with wide eyes. Then in big purple caps is written "BUT INFECTION STRUCK" "after my first pass at a haircut. I went to bed, ready to finish it the next day, then BAM! Hospitaled." The word bam has a green spikey shape around it and there's a doodle of an ambulance. "Didn't even get to wash it, so it's been GREASY until today. And now it's falling out." There's another doodle of a hand holding a clump of hair.

Image 5 - Page 7 and 8. "But that brings me to today. The other day, they switched me to a new antibiotic, and last night and today I've been feeling almost normal apart from some little side effects. I'm doing really well compared to how I was. They're saying I might get home tomorrow and I" in big yelloW all caps taking up the next page "REALLY FUCKING HOPE SO!" With lots of green zigzags.

Image 6 - Page 9 and 10. A doodle of a simple figure backed by shadow, with wide, blank, shadowed eyes hunched over the word "UPDATE" written in big purple caps with a shadow underneath. "I did escape. For long enough to have my dinner, then STRAIGHT back into hospital with a high temp. Not neutropenic this time though. Been in about a day 1/2. Hoping to go home later today." a pink squiggle between the pages, then yellow caps saying "UPDATE 2" "I AM HOME!! I have lit candles. I am chilling. I got mcdonalds on the way home :) There's stuff I need to do, but that's for later. Just gonna enjoy the peace while it lasts. AND THUS ENDS THE HOSPITAL ZINE!" There's a little doodle of a couple of green candles and one of a burger and fries.

Image 7 - The back cover. There's a little orange plaster doodle in the corner, and at the bottom it says "Made in Hospital* *mostly" End ID]

[cinnbar-bun]

So I saw you did some zines before and I was wondering, do you have any advice on how to get in as a writer 🥲🥲 I’ve been trying but it seems like I get rejected every time and it lowkey hurts.

Hi nonnie!! Sorry for not responding to this earlier but I wasn’t sure of the right thing to say. Yes, I have done a few pieces for some zines, and I’ll try to be as … honest as I can without being too harsh.

I’m just going to say it right off the bat, fanzines just aren’t the best for writers in general. You’ll notice a lot of times, that zines will open maybe 2-5 slots specifically for writers. Considering many might get over 50-60+ applications for those spots, it’s already a tough start. Don’t blame yourself for this, it’s not that you suck, but it’s just that there’s so much limited space. It is not your fault. Two people out of 50 applications is barely anything.

And you might think, well, what’s the reasoning for that?

And to be honest it goes down to the current culture of fanzines that made me leave it to begin with. Most of them are either for-profit/for donations. Which is cool! Buuuut that means you have to maximize profit and minimize costs. Who is most likely going to bring in the audience? Unfortunately, not writers. Who is taking up the most space (technically speaking) with their work… unfortunately, also writers.

Having writers is often seen as a loss of time and space that could be given to artists who most likely have more pull to an audience. I mean, you can even compare this in general from writing fanfics to simply looking at a piece of art. You don’t need to read art the way you do a fanfic. Art is eye catching and boom, you can continue to the next thing. Note: this is not me diminishing artists or writers, I’m explaining this from a business perspective that zine owners have shared with me that unfortunately constrains them.

Even if you follow the limits of like a 1-2k work, putting it in the zine with additional formatting, dialogue, borders, sizes, etc will take up around 6-8 pages maybe. To some owners, that’s 6-8 artists that could’ve taken that spot that would’ve had more pull than the one writer who wrote the fic.

Fanzines nowadays feel they have a standard to be almost close to “official” merch which… that’s not why zines were made to begin with. It was a celebration of fandom and fan creations. But everyone wants people with high follower counts now, so lesser known creators are often chucked to the side. Which, fair enough you’re tryna make profit for a cause- but it can be disheartening.

Trust me, despite me having participated in like 3 zines, it still hurt when I got rejected. And, you do have to take this to heart, the zine owners don’t think your writing is crappy or anything like that. They don’t. You can mourn being rejected but it’s not a reflection on your writing.

My advice? Go make your own zine. Or just continue writing fanfic for fun and posting. You’re not really gonna make money off them anyways even in a for-profit zine, but zines are meant to be by the fans for the fans. The current culture has sucked the fun out of it in exchange for profit, but you don’t have to wait around to get accepted. Even just yourself and a friend or two can make a zine on your own, and that’s really all you need. You make the rules and you get to make your funny zine. So go for it! Send your application to official ones, of course, it never hurts to try, but you don’t need some person to allow you to contribute. Fandom is for everyone, not just for profit or those only with master level talent or follower counts. Just make your own thing!

[ginosgarden]

Page 19 and 20 of my The April Fool Chapbook! The poem, as always, is written out under the cut.

That's it! That was my last poem I wrote in 2018. It's so massive that I need to spread it out over two page spreads. It's a poem filled with a lot of pain as I wrote it over the course on one agonizing day. While my April that year was super hard, things really turned around for me from that point forward. Through it all, I'm grateful for where I am now.

I did another poetry challenge in 2021, so I'm thinking of transcribing those and maybe making a zine for those as well. We'll see!

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 | Page 12 | Page 13 | Page 14 | Page 15 | Page 16 | Page 17 | Page 18

There’s nothing in this world you can depend on There’s nothing in this world I can give All I can do is make order of chaos And take the blame when there’s noone to blame I can’t stop the piling on And I can’t control what I get So I do my best to do the simple work of tidying up

I’m not a miracle worker I’m no expert, no irreplaceable genius. But I value and take pride in my simple tasks, In my efforts to stave off the inevitable

I’m not a miracle worker I’m no expert, no irreplaceable genius. But I value and take pride in my simple tasks, In my efforts to stave off the inevitable

I have an eye for detail but I cut corners where it counts I lie when it’s convenient though I value honesty I’m no better than the world I was given It’s naive to think so

I try and I fail and I fail and I fail But at least I can keep a neat home

I’m so scared I can’t start from square one. I can’t afford to But that’s where I might end up And I’ll take the blame because who else is there?

I want to do what I always do, To feel valuable and proud , To organize and categorize And make convenient and helpful But I am unable I have to wait

-

Me me me me me me! How fucking boring! Self centered child!

You’re a hack and You’ve always been a hack From the moment you were born You’ve been aspiring to be a poser Your entire pathetic life Is it any wonder you’ve made it nowhere? You think you’re so innocent and sweet But all you care about is how others see you. You cannot create you can only copy You’ve always, always copied. God forbid someone call you out on it You damn baby. Have you ever had an original thought in your head? You only care about the product About people being impressed But you put zero work into it And you’re so self congratulatory Like you’re some kind of goddamn picasso

You fake at it. You’ve never understood what it takes So you pretend like when You were a kid and would scribble on pages For hours playing like you were working. You know what it should look like but not what it is. What it means You get exactly what you deserve. Exactly what you put in. You halfass everything and make excuses So guess what? Enjoy your mediocre half assed life You fake, you fraud, you complete and utter loser. Who else are you going to cry to searching for pity points So you can slurp them up like your running snot From your perpetually crying face. Go ahead and cry, what’s it going to do? You want your mommy to validate you? You lie to her too to make yourself look better Yeah she’ll always be in your corner isn’t that sweet?

-

Brush a hand on the door Thank you for keeping me safe And please continue to do so

Where the heart is brewing

-

A sad clown town But the city turned and said, “But sir Pagliochi is me.”

-

Witchy stuff, City stuff Homesickness

-

How much longer do I have to be that girl? How much longer are you gonna shit on my world?

Crusty moldy Dried out turd Plopped inside of a plastic bag Don’t you think you’ve had enough fun yet!?

Enough is enough You old witch! It’s your turn now!

-

I was the April Fool Now I’m the May Fool

[gazeboarcade]

Where, besides Tumblr, can people find you doing fannish things? (Obviously only mention sites and usernames you actually want to be found at. Don’t expose your secret identities on my account.)

What other names have you gone by on these platforms, including Tumblr, if any?

When did you join the IT fandom? And what got you into fandom, to begin with?

What are your favorite ships, or characters, if any, and why? What do they mean to you?

In what ways do you participate in fandom? (ex. Posting memes, reblogging/commenting on content, writing fanfic, making fanart, creating fanmixes, etc.)

Do you have any in-fandom inspirations? Other members of the community that drive you? (And if you have the time/energy, in what ways do they inspire you?)

Name and link some of your favorite works, please!

Do you have any works of your own that you feel particularly proud of, or wish more people would’ve consumed? Please provide links if possible.

Have you ever participated in a fannish event (ie. IT Week, a fic Big Bang) or applied to be a part of a fanzine? If so, which ones, and can you please link them?

Without any form of bashing or lashing out, what is something you feel this fandom is missing?

GOSH this is a lot of questions, lemme give it my best shot.

1.) I sometimes still post art on my art instagram, but I prefer not to cross the beams of that and my tumblr so much. If someone rlly wants the handle tho, feel free to ask. 

2.) If this means like...nicknames, too many to count. One of my first URLs was something like “pensword,” which was a reference to Percy Jackson!

3.) I was KINDA in it in 2017 when the first movie came out, but it didn’t hold my attention too much. In September 2020, I really got into IT, tho! I got into it because I realized it was coming up on a year since I saw the second one in theaters (during a wind advisory night in the city I go to college, on Halloween). For a couple of silly reasons (my ex belittling IT a little and me being weirdly internalized homophobic abt it) I was scared to enjoy it publicly haha

4.) My favorite ship in the fandom, ofc, is Reddie! I am kinda basic so I also really think Ben and Bev are sweet. I also really liked Patty and Stan together in the book... they were so achingly sweet together that the bath chapter made me cry for a HOT MINUTE.

Richie is my all time favorite character for reasons I could probably write like 50 pages on! Some of those reasons are like super-duper personal lol so I pull punches on just dumping them on my blog haha! I just really really related to him for a lot of reasons (the humor coping mechanism and the werewolf thingy, to name a couple) so it was only natural I latched onto that boy and went full send kinnie moment!

Eddie is my second favorite bc I love him and wanted the best for him (I don’t want to start disc horse on tumblr, but my gf and I have schemed abt who should have kicked it at the end and it ain’t him). I also have a soft spot for kid Ben in the book, bc I really thought he was a sweetheart (I mean, cmon, walking around whispering Bev’s name? Adorable! Hiding away in libraries? Relatable!)

5.) I’ve done a bunch of stuff! This blog has a ton of IT content. I have made a bunch of fan art (most of which hasn’t been posted sdjbvkdsjbvk). I have written a couple fanfics (a finished oneshot and one unfinished longer one that will...probably stay that way). I have a reddie playlist on spotify, too.

6.) There’s been a few people who’ve done some IT stuff I’ve really liked! Uhh @stitchyarts  wrote some fics and has done some beautiful art to go with it that I really liked!! @skelesocks did some HELLA charming art, tho is now mostly Queen blog. No shade there, I have a Queen blog, too, lol. Ask for the URL if you want it. Both of them focused on the miniseries tho.

There’s a couple artists who have done Reddie stuff I have really liked, too, which is super inspiring. here’s a few of those: @trashcanprince @mxgicdave @meowsteryyy ..... tbh fave IT blog of all time tho has to be my gf, em, @dr-kaspbrakmd , bc she got me full swing obsessing and also it was a big bonding thing for us early into the relationship *pauses for crowd to say AWWWWW*

7.) Assuming this means fanfics, like I said, a lot of Stitchy’s works, especially Tinted Windows and TV Guides (which now i rlly want to re-read lol). I kinda have a hard time with fanfic reading bc im picky and sometimes it’s better to daydream my own stories. The other Reddie fics I’ve liked will make yall get the shepherd’s hook and yoink me off stage for public indecency for sure so I’m gonna leave that to ur imagination <3

8.) I feel positively heinous and pick-me trying to get ppl to read my old reddie fics that I wrote during the crushing weight of crippling lonliness so no. they r also not rlly that good so you’re welcome <3

9.) No actually! I have thought about it. I have also schemed the idea of starting my own reddie zine and being super choosey about who gets in but that’s just me wanting to curate content I like lollll.

10.) uhhh decorum, understanding of complex relationships/emotional situations, and the common sense not to fetishize gay men <3 that sounds rlly snotty but there’s some activity tm in this fandom that yucks me out big time. Also, I wish more ppl would have seen the miniseries/read the book but that’s just me being choosy.

Anyways, I’ve been running my mouth for WAY too long but I hope this answers the questions you had good enough!! Thanks for asking!!

[mamthew]

A Final Fantasy Ranking

Over the course of the quarantine, and because I had such a good time with the Final Fantasy VII Remake, I've ended up blazing through a ton of Final Fantasy games. Since April, I've played IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, and XIII. 6, 7, 9, and 10 I'd beaten before. 4, 12, and 13 I'd played to some capacity before. 5 and 8 were completely new experiences. I had no interest in going further back than IV, since it was the first one to really put any effort into character work, and I didn't play either MMO because MMOs don't really appeal to me (I'm planning to try XIV whenever this new update drops that makes the story mode more accessible, but it keeps getting pushed back so oh well). I also didn't replay XV because I've played XV three times and watched other people play it in its entirety twice, so I have a much better handle on it than any other game in the series.

Anyway, I didn't really have any plans for what I'd do with this, besides get a better understanding of the series as a whole, but I was kinda inspired to do my own Final Fantasy ranking. I'll probably be a bit more detailed than I should be because I tend to overanalyze my media and end up having too much to say. I’m actually not placing VII Remake in this ranking half because I regard it as a spinoff and half because it’s not yet a complete story, even though Part 1 is unquestionably a complete game. If I were to put it somewhere, it would probably be close to the top, possibly even in second place. Also worth noting that this is gonna have SPOILERS for every game I discuss here. I really just wanna use this as a place to nail down some of my thoughts on these games, so they’re pretty stream of consciousness and I didn’t bother avoiding any details from the plots.

10: Final Fantasy VIII.

I don’t think there’s another game in the series with a more obvious corporate hand in it than VIII. It’s kinda the Fant4stic of FF games; there are the bones of a substantive game in there somewhere, but every aspect of the game is such a bald attempt at checking off a 1999 list of “things gamers want” that the whole affair feels hollow and sickening. A major trend I’ve noticed throughout this series is the extent to which FFVII’s success pushed the architects of almost every subsequent game to try to recapture whatever it was that worked about VII, and VIII got the worst of it. It’s got the sullen guy with a special sword. It’s got the sci-fi. It’s got the terrorists with hearts of gold fighting against an oppressive state. It’s got the train scenes. It’s got the case(s) of amnesia that hides the true premise of the story. It’s got the ability to give any character any loadout.

Besides that, they kinda crammed in just a bunch of stuff popular with kids at the time. Jurassic Park? It’s in there. Beauty and the Beast? Here’s the ballroom scene. Hunchback of Notre Dame? Here’s that carnival. Alien? Now you’re alone on a spaceship running away from a horror monster. Saving Private Ryan? The party shares brains with war veterans and dreams of their experiences at war I guess. Half of anime? It’s all about a high school for mercenaries and the party is trying to get back in time for the school festival.  Fandom culture? Zines are a collectible item, and each one you find adds an update to Selphie's Geocities page. It also has astronauts, and transformers, and a haunted castle, and a prison break, and Rome, and Alpine Wakanda, and war crimes, and lion cubs that have attained enlightenment, and there’s almost no connective tissue from one idea to the next.

Also the junction system is convoluted and terrible, using magic makes your stats worse, all enemies level up every time you do, and I couldn’t tell you which character excelled in what stats. The characters were all very flat, and the first time I felt like I was seeing the characters interact in ways that helped me to understand them was in the cutscene that plays during the end credits.

Also the female lead’s role in the story changes entirely with no warning every five hours or so. She’s a terrorist, oh no she’s aristocracy in the country she’s terroristing against, oh no she’s jealous of the others because they grew up together and she didn’t, oh no she’s Sandra Bullock in Gravity, oh no she’s the villain and it’s too dangerous to let her out, oh no it’s actually fine and they were bad for locking her up.

It’s an absolute disaster of a game. However, the music and background art is absolutely beautiful. Maybe they never gave me a good enough reason to be in an evil time traveling haunted castle, but damn is it a gorgeous rendering of an evil time traveling haunted castle.

9: Final Fantasy XII.

I’ve known for years that FFXII had issues in development. The writers came up with a story for it, and execs got scared because there were no young characters and they’d convinced themselves that young protagonists are what makes games sell. So two more characters - Vaan and Penelo - were added, one was framed as the protagonist of the story, and the entire story was rewritten so it could feasibly be from his perspective.

While the two characters they added are egregiously tangential to the plot, XII honestly has no protagonist. The writers originally wanted Basch to be the protagonist, but his entire arc is really just following Ashe around and being sad about his evil twin. Ashe is probably the most important to the story, but doesn’t have much presence for a good chunk of the story, and makes her most character-defining choice offscreen before having it stolen from her by a side character. Balthier has the largest presence in the story, and is most closely related to most of the events of the story, but has pretty much no role in the ending.

Honestly, if I were writing FFXII and told it needed a young protagonist, I would have aged up and expanded the role of Larsa, the brother of the main villain, who shows up as a temporary party member from time to time. The entire game is about family ties, and a journey spotlighting Larsa could have involved his learning about Ashe, Basch, Balthier and Fran’s family situations and using their experiences to grapple with his own. Damn, now I’m sitting here thinking about how good that could have been.

As it is, the game feels disjointed and aimless, and the ending is so bad it’s farcical. When I reached the ending, I watched Basch and Ashe forgive Basch’s evil twin for his villainy rampage, harking back to the moment earlier in the game when Ashe turned down the chance to gain powers that would have allowed her to avenge her country because she realized that those powers could also drive her to hurt innocents in the crossfire. In this moment, I realized how Vaan fit in as the protagonist of the game. “Oh, he’s going to realize that violence begets violence, and that he must break the cycle by forgiving Vayne for the death of his brother. He’s going to let go of that hatred he’s been trying to push onto someone for so long, and it’ll finally allow him to heal.” I realized that even though the road to this point was rocky, the writers had managed to craft a satisfying ending from the seemingly disparate pieces of this uneven plot.

And then Vaan picked up a sword and screamed AAAAAAAAAAA and charged Vayne down and stabbed him, and Vayne turned into a shrapnel robot dragon and exploded all the star wars ships and I threw my controller aside and laughed uncontrollably while my characters beat him up and completed the game on their own without any further input from me.

Oh yeah, the battle system is also incredibly boring. Instead of battling, the player writes up an AI script for each character, then lets them act based on those scripts. I would straight up put the controller down and watch youtube videos whenever a group of enemies showed up. I was pretty excited about the job system, but then there didn’t really feel like much of a difference between jobs, and my characters all behaved pretty much the same as each other.

The hands-off battle system, unfocused story, lethargic voice acting, and tuneless music all left me pretty uninvested in the whole affair. The art style and locations are beautiful, though, and it did make me want to eventually check out some of the Tactics games, which take place in the same universe but are supposed to have excellent stories and gameplay.

8: Final Fantasy XIII.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had two such opposing opinions of a game’s story vs. its gameplay. This game is the only one that plays with a bunch of story elements from FFIX, which did a lot to endear it to me. It’s sort of a game in which the protagonists are Kuja, the villain of IX. Like Kuja, they are created as tools by an uncaring god for the purpose of fighting against one world on behalf of another world, and are subsequently forced to grapple with the horrors of having an artificially shortened lifespan.

The story actually has a lot of Leftist themes, too. The gods of that universe spread ideology among the populace, and the people unquestioningly believe these false stories, as the gods have provided for them for as long as there has been written history. Much of the character arcs center on the characters being forcibly removed from their places within those ideological frameworks and having to unlearn what they’d always believed to be objectively true about the world.

So the story actually is pretty good, but it’s held back by some really clumsy storytelling; it constantly uses undefined jargon, has almost no side characters with which it might flesh out the world, actively fights against players trying to glean information from environmental details, and maintains (at least for me) a weird disconnect between the characters in the gameplay and the characters in the cutscenes. I think this partly stems from Square’s original failed plan for FFXIII to be the first game in a much larger series of games sharing themes and major story details. Despite these issues, however, the characters are all likeable and (mostly) believable, and their interactions are grounded in real emotional weight even while their universe feels intangible.

This all got dragged down by the gameplay, which is total dogshit. It’s got the worst battle system I think I’ve seen in an RPG. The game only stops being doggedly, unflinchingly linear about thirty hours in, the whole game took me about fifty hours, and I spent the last fifteen hours beating my head against each individual battle, waiting until the system hiccuped long enough to accidentally slide me a win. That meant I had about a five hour window of euphoric play, convinced that I actually loved this game, thrilled with every new experience it gave me, and excited to see what would happen next. I guess those five hours are what pushed this game over XII in my ranking.

7: Final Fantasy V.

Until FFXV, this game was the last of the “Warriors of Light” games, in which the game follows a party of four set characters for its entirety. To this day, it’s the last of the “Warriors of Light” games to let the player customize which character holds which roles through the job system.

FFV’s job system is the reason to play the game. Its story is mediocre, and its characters are all fairly flat, but there’s something viscerally satisfying about building party members up in jobs that might enhance the role they ultimately will fill. For my mage character, I maxed out Black Mage, Blue Mage, Mystic Knight, Summoner, and Geomancer. Then at the end, I switched her to a Freelancer with Black Magic and Summoning, and she kept all the passive skills for those jobs and also the highest stats across those jobs.

It was super fun and kind of a shift of focus for me, since I tend to place story above anything else in games. Despite the story not being special, though, the game’s writing is actually a ton of fun. It’s definitely got the most comic relief in the series, and I came away loving Gilgamesh as much as everyone else does.

And while it’s nothing special graphically, it does have some really cool enemy designs, and the final boss design is one of the most memorable ones they’ve ever done. Which is impressive because I keep having to look up Exdeath’s name because the character himself is super forgettable.

6: Final Fantasy IV.

This wasn’t the first game in the series to feature actual characters with names and depth, but I have no interest in playing FFII, so it might as well be. I actually played the DS Remake for this game, so it definitely had some quality of life improvements, like full 3d characters and maps, voice acting, an updated script, the ability to actually see the ATB gauge, and the ability to switch to other characters whose turns are ready without using a turn.

Apparently one thing the remake didn’t do was rebalance the difficulty for more modern sensibilities. Instead, this remake is...harder? It requires more grinding than the original? Why??

Either way, though, the story is actually solid! The game opens on its protagonist, Cecil, committing a war crime on the orders of his king, who raised him as a child. The first ten hours of so of the game follows Cecil as he tries to understand why he was ordered to kill so many innocents, turns his back on his country, and works to redeem himself.

This arc is reinforced by the game mechanics, too, which is super clever. His redemption is marked by a change in job from a Dark Knight to a Paladin, which also resets his level. For a time, his life is considerably harder because he’s finding his footing as a new person, which is marked by battles which had been easy becoming much harder for the player for a time.

This game places storytelling over gameplay more than I think any other game in the series. Each character is locked into a job, which I much prefer in my RPGs to games where characters function pretty much interchangeably. I dunno if it’s because I cut my RPG teeth on Tales, but it really bugs me when I can give Tifa the exact same loadout as Barret. I want the lives of the characters to bleed into their functions as gameplay devices.

However, the developers clearly had a ton of different jobs they wanted to add to their game, but hadn’t figured out how to allow for the player to switch in and out party members in standby. To fix this, they increased the in-battle party to five characters rather than or four (or the later constantly frustrating three), rotated the roster a ton, and had a ton of characters who straight up leave permanently. One character dies and never comes back. Two characters die and only are revived after it’s too late to rejoin the party. Four characters end up too injured to continue traveling.

This let the developers make a ton of jobs, but it doesn’t let the player exploit these jobs to their fullest. Characters’ stats reflect their role in the story, as well. One character is quickly aging out of adventuring, so his magic stats increase on levels, but his attack and defense stats actually decrease, signifying his failing body. Another character has already achieved some form of enlightenment, so he gains no stats when he levels up at all. The purpose of IV is the story, over any other aspect of the game, which makes it even more mindboggling that the remake would have increased the difficulty.

Besides that, the biggest issue I had with this game was the overbearing constant drama of it. While there were a few more lighthearted parts, they were mostly relegated to NPC dialogue and sidequests. The characters in this game don’t become friends so much as they become companions who bonded over shared tragedies, and this makes for quite a few scenes of every character separately wallowing in their own immeasurable sadness. I played FFV directly after this game and the light story and jokey dialogue was a much-needed palette cleanser.

5: Final Fantasy VI.

Before the unexpected success of FFVII irreparably changed the franchise, Square constantly mixed up the story formula for the series. IV, V and VI all handled their stories really differently from each other, and what I remember of III also felt fairly different from the games that came after.

Every game from VII on had a very clear protagonist (except XII, whose botched protagonist was still clearly marketed as the protagonist). The concept of the Dissidia crossover series is built on the idea that every FF has a protagonist at the center of its story. FFVI’s Dissidia character is Terra, but Terra is not the protagonist of FFVI.

Apparently while developing FFVI, the directors decided they didn’t want the game to have a clear protagonist, so they asked the staff to staff to submit concepts for characters, and they’d use as many as they could. This game has fourteen characters, each with their own fun gameplay gimmick in battles. Three of the characters are secret, and one can permanently die halfway through if the player takes the wrong actions. Of these fourteen characters, the main story heavily revolves around 3-6 of them, while five more have substantial character arcs.

There’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether this game or VII is the best one in the series, and I can see why; this game is absolutely fascinating. No other game in the series has done what this game did, which means it’s one of the two FF games I really want to see remade after they complete this VII remake.

The first half is very linear. It breaks the beginning party into three pieces, then sends each character to a different continent, where they meet more characters and build their own parties before everyone reunites. Once the story has taken the player everywhere in the world, the apocalypse hits. The villain’s evil plan succeeds and tears the entire world apart.

The second half of the game picks up a year later with one character finally getting a raft and escaping the island on which she’s been marooned. In this half, the player navigates the world, which has all the same locations, but in completely different parts of the map. The driving factor for much of the second half is to learn from incidental dialogue where each party member has gone in this new world, to track them down, and to try to fix some of the bad that’s been done to the world before finally stopping the villain who destroyed it.

It’s unique and clever and occasionally legitimately tugs at the heartstrings some, which is impressive for a poorly translated SNES game. The final dungeon is a masterpiece all on its own. It requires the player to make three parties of up to four characters, then send them in and switch between them as new roads open. This way, the game manages to feel like an ensemble piece up to the very end.

4: Final Fantasy VII.

As I previously mentioned, there’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether FFVI or FFVII is the best game in the series. Neither is the best game in the series. FFVII is better than FFVI. Oops.

When I was first drafting up this list, it was before I’d reached my replays of VI or VII, and I tentatively placed them next to each other, with the strong assumption that I’d end up placing VI a bit higher than VII, since it has so many strongly differentiated characters with solid story arcs, beautiful artwork, great music, etc. etc. Then I reached FFVII and not even four hours in, I realized it would have to be higher on my list than VI.

VI has a better battle system, its characters are much more differentiated by their gameplay, its character sprites have aged much better than VII’s character models, and it has four party members in battles instead of three. But I couldn’t overlook VII’s gorgeous artwork, sharp character work, and character-driven story. In the end, I had to give it the edge.

VII is a strange beast. It simultaneously really holds up and has aged horribly. The story is excellent and I love the characters, but the actual line-to-line writing is pretty bad, making the whole experience of the game a bit like swimming upstream; you’re getting somewhere good, but the age of the game is still pushing you back the best it can. Similarly, the background artwork is fantastic and gives the game locations a sense of place incomparable to anything that had come before it, but the character models are so low-poly that the two are constantly at odds with each other.

Still, the game is more a good game than it is an old one. I think it’s managed to duck the absurd level of hype around it by actually being very different from what the most popular images of it make it out to be, if that makes sense. The super futuristic techno-dystopia city only makes up a very small portion of the larger game, and most newcomers to the game won’t have seen Junon, or Corel, or Cosmo Canyon. Heck, I didn’t know Cait Sith or Red XIII were characters before I played the game for the first time. One of the many reasons I’m excited for the rest of this remake is to see newcomers to the story learning just how much variety there is to the world, events, and characters of this game.

FFVII also began (and pulled off really well) a number of storytelling trends that continued in subsequent games in the series. Obviously, almost every game since this one has a clear protagonist with a cool sword for cosplayers to recreate, and an androgynous villain whose story is closely linked to the protagonist (or one villain who is linked to the protagonist and a second one whose purpose is to look like Sephiroth), but it’s started broader, more quality shifts, too.

FFVII is the first game in the series to try to give all its characters arcs based on a similar theme, for example, a trend that has helped give it and future games a sense of thematic unity, especially in IX, X, and XV. Heck, that trend was why I almost came around on XII before they nuked it. It was also the first game in the series to have a real ending, rather than closing out with essentially a curtain call featuring all the party members, like they did in IV through VI (and I assume earlier).

Another common feature of FF games that it didn’t start with VII but certainly was canonized with it was the mid-game plot twist tying the protagonist to both the villain and the larger story. FFIV had this as well, of course, but I feel like the orphanage twist in VIII, the Zanarkand dream twist in X, and the time skip twist in XV were all meant to recall VII’s twist of Cloud’s…very complex existence (IX’s two worlds twist actually is a clear homage to IV, but it’d be hard to argue that Zidane’s connection to Kuja - and the character of Kuja generally - weren’t more influenced by VII).

2: Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XV.

Sorry, this one is a two-fer. I’m not gonna spend too much time on why I placed these two together in the #2 spot (I wrote a long thing on it here, if you’re interested). In summary, the games kinda mirror each other, in story and design. Each game can be seen in the negative space of what the other game leaves out, and at the end, the characters react to similar situations in completely opposite ways. For this reason, and that they’re of comparable quality, I think they’re best viewed as companion pieces.

FFX was the first mainline Final Fantasy game I ever completed, six years late. It was the first FF game with voice acting and many fully modeled locations. It also kinda marks the beginning of the series’ constant changes to the battle system.

That’s not to say the previous games’ battle systems didn’t also differ from each other, but they all had the same setup, with levels and an ATB gauge. This was the first game since III not to have any real-time element to its battle system, nor numbered levels gained through experience points. Since X, no two FF battle systems have been remotely comparable, which is cool and innovative and keeps things fresh, but also means I’ve been starved for just a regular ATB FF game for too long.

In many ways, FFX feels like a bridge between the PS1 games and the later games. It feels much more streamlined than VII, VIII, or IX, in terms of both storytelling and design. The game is very linear, pushing the player from one area to the next and not allowing much backtracking until the very end. It also loses the aging look of the PS1 games’ menus and UI, finally updating the classic font and the blue menus with white borders to fully modernized and sleek graphics.

However, movement still feels very similar to movement in VIII and IX, the music definitely evokes the PS1 games more than the later games, and most locations are portrayed with beautifully painted backgrounds, rather than modeled in (which I actually prefer, and I was glad to see that VII Remake has gone back to that in some places).

Voice acting in this game is phenomenal for 2001, and honestly on par with many contemporary games. I can’t think of a voice actor for the main cast who didn’t do a great job. Tidus’s narration, especially, is emotional and evocative in all the right ways. Grounding the plot in a very personal story about Tidus’s difficulty coming to terms with and proving himself to his abusive father keeps the story relatable and real.

Something interesting about my experience with X is that because it was my first Final Fantasy game, I thought for a very long time that the series was about organized religion, and the ways it is used to justify evil acts. This might be the only game of the ones I’ve played that is about organized religion, or even prominently features a religious doctrine, which really sets it apart from the rest of the series.

The game’s thematic unity is on point, even if there is a scene where they state the central themes a bit too plainly. Every character, and even the entire universe of the story, is held back by the past, and every subplot and the main plot revolves around finding ways to move forward and leave the past behind.

I love FFXV. It feels like a return to form after XII and XIII. It’s also probably the furthest any game in the series has strayed from the original formula. Battles are entirely real-time, and the game is a straightforward action game. There is very little time spent with menus, and even the leveling system has been stripped down to a few skill trees. It’s immediately obvious that the game was originally created to be a spinoff, not a main title.

FFXV is also probably too much a product of the current era of microtransactions and payment plans. The full story is spread out across *deep breath* a feature film, an anime series, an anime OVA, a standalone demo, two console games, four DLC story chapters, a multiplayer side game, a VR fishing game, four phone games (though really three phone games because A New Empire straight up isn't in that universe and also is terrible), an expansion including several entirely new dungeons, and finally a novel set to release sometime this year. That’s a whole lot of story. I’ve not played the phone games or the VR fishing game, or read the novel yet, but I’ve experienced all the rest.

But I also played FFXV when it first released, before any patches, before I knew there was a film, just the game all on its own. So you can believe me when I say that without any supplementary material, the game is still great.

It goes back to the FFI, II, III, V “Warriors of Light” system, where the party has four characters who do not change at all throughout the game. While this bugged me at first, I soon came to appreciate having a story where almost all character interactions involved these four characters. It meant I came to understand them well enough to feel like they were my friends, too. Most characterization in this game is understated, presented through small shared moments, dialogue, and body language as they travel the world together. Much like X, the overarching story might be expansive and far-reaching, but the real show is in the personal journeys the friends have.

Much of the first half of the game is spent exploring an open world, driving along the road and getting out of the car for pit stops or to explore the forests nearby. This is one of the very few games where I don’t mind just exploring an area without the promise of an upgrade or a new scene, just to see what’s around the corner, or to hear whatever banter the characters might engage in next.

The entire world of this game is gorgeous, and the orchestrated music is some of the best they’ve ever done. The main plot is beautiful, too. It’s bittersweet and emotional, with a charismatic villain and a twist that blew me away the first time I reached it.

The supplementary material is also mostly really quality. I’d recommend the Royal Edition over the original edition for sure, and to watch Kingsglaive as well. The anime series is quick and fairly fun, and Comrades expands on the universe in some great ways, but neither has as much bearing on the overall plot as the DLC chapters and Kingsglaive. I’m so in love with the DLC chapters, actually, that two years ago I wrote a piece just on how much Episode Ignis affected me (here if you care).

This is definitely getting long, so I guess I’ll move on after saying I’m upset that they patched Chapter 13 to make it easier, and I’m angry at everyone who complained that Chapter 13 was too hard. It was a brilliant piece of storytelling through game mechanics, and it’s mostly been stripped of all that, now.

1: Final Fantasy IX.

It’s IX. It was always IX. I actually did come into this with an open mind, wondering if one of the new games I’d experience (IV, V, VIII, XII, XIII) might end up hitting me harder than Final Fantasy IX, but as I replayed my favorite game in the series I quickly realized that wouldn’t be happening.

There are only a handful of games that make me cry. IX is one of two without voice acting. There are several songs from IX that make me tear up just when I hear them.

The story of the black mages gaining sentience, learning that they can die, and trying to force themselves back into being puppets just to lose that knowledge really moves me. The same goes for the story of Dagger no longer recognizing her mother, setting out to find a place to belong, learning that her birth family is long dead, then watching her mother return to her old self a moment before losing her forever. And Zidane’s story, where he has nowhere to call home, finally discovers the circumstances of his birth, and realizes that had he stayed in his birthplace, he would have become a much worse person than he ultimately did.

More than any other, though, Vivi’s story will always stick with me. He was found as a soulless husk by Quan, a creature with the intention of fattening him up and eating him, but each of them awoke something in the other, and Quan ended up raising Vivi as his grandson. When Quan passed, a rudderless Vivi went to the city to find a new home, and eventually learned he was created as a weapon. Other weapons had also gained sentience, but none had the worldliness that Vivi had gained from his loving relationship with Quan. When Vivi discovers that most weapons like him die after only a few months, he grapples with the possibility that he may die at any time, and eventually decides that he can only take control of what life he has by living each moment to the fullest. He ends up becoming an example for the other weapons to follow.

FFIX is a game about belonging: both yearning to have somewhere to belong and learning that the place where you think you belong is actually toxic and harmful to you. Even the menu theme is a tune called “A Place to Call Home.”

IX ran counter to the trends of the series in a number of ways. It was a return to high fantasy after the more sci-fi VII and VIII, and was also much more lighthearted than those games, while still being heartfelt and occasionally bittersweet. Gameplay-wise, it locked each of its characters into a single job, gave them designs based on their jobs, brought back four-character parties, and introduced a skill system in which characters learn skills from equipment. It also had a much softer, less realistic art style, and mostly avoided the attempts to recapture VII that have plagued most other subsequent titles (besides Kuja’s design, I guess).

The story is also structured so well. It regularly shifts perspective for the first thirty hours, allowing the player to spend ample time with each of the party members, and shaking up character combinations for fun new interactions. It introduced a system similar to the skits from Tales games, showing the player often humorous vignettes of what’s happening to other characters at the time. Once the characters have all come together in one party, the game has earned the sense that all of them (except for the criminally underexplored Amarant) have become a family.

The supporting cast are a blast as well. Zidane’s thief troupe (who double as a theater troupe) are likeable and fun. Kuja’s villain arc allows him to be sympathetic without losing his edge. The black mages are tragic without being overdone.

The development team for this game put so much more work into this game than they had to. The background artwork was all made in such high-definition resolutions that the act of downscaling them to fit in the game removed details. Uematsu traveled to Europe to make sure he’d get the feel of the soundtrack right, and has said it’s his favorite score he’s ever done. Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, says IX is his favorite game in the series.

FFIX is one of the two games I would like them to remake after they finish the VII Remake, but I’m terrified they’ll mess it up in some way. Honestly, the game’s only flaws (which I do desperately want them to fix) are a lack of voice acting, the underdeveloped party member Amarant (and to a lesser extent Freya), the dissonance of Beatrix never getting punished in any way for her hand in a genocide, and the fact that very few of the sidequests are story-related because so many of the smaller story details that would normally be relegated to sidequests are covered in the main plot.

Despite the danger, though, I think revisiting IX is absolutely essential moving forward. It represents so much of what made older games like IV and VI great, and its story is much more grounded in real emotion than many current Square stories tend to be. Remaking VII will be good for getting VII out of Square’s system. Remaking IX would be good for putting IX back into Square’s system.

Here’s a IX song as a reward for getting this far. I’m gonna go listen to it and tear up again.

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | Q&A with DETH P. SUN

Influenced by the works of Richard Scarry, Charles Schultz, and the likes of Tove Jannson, artist Deth P. Sun’s interest in art and zines started early on–from drawing everything in an encyclopedia to creating his first zine in high school. From that point on, Deth has been a prolific painter, zine maker, and doodler, focused on making his art on his own terms. With his central hero– a genderless cat – Deth explores various  natural and strange worlds through a subtle narrative, created by his brushwork, ambiguity, and color palettes. 

Find out more about Deth’s art, his wordless storytelling, and what inspires him by taking the leap below. 

Photographs courtesy of the artist.

Introduce yourself?   My name is Deth P. Sun, I’m an artist living in a tiny coastal town in Northern California, but most of my adult life was spent in the Bay Area, primarily in Oakland and Berkeley. I tell people I’m Cambodian, which is mostly true.

When did you begin having an interest in art and painting? How or why do you think you gravitated towards this profession? I’ve always enjoyed drawing, I think I kind of like getting better at it and learning about new things that are centered around that. It’s one of the cheaper hobbies to get started in as a kid. It’s not really a thing I think about too much these days. Mostly I wonder how my life was set by my 17 year old self.

How do you describe your work to people who maybe unfamiliar with it? Until I moved to this town I live in now, I kind of never had to. Mostly because I don’t meet new people outside of my circle. I just tell people I’m a graphic artist. If they want more info I just stare at them blankly because I think it’s kind of rude to ask strangers what they do for a living.

There are various aspects to your paintings from being narrative and storytelling to those that feature various painted objects and natural things. Can you tell us a little bit about the narrative elements of your works and how that came about? Yeah, I just like suggesting that there’s a narrative with my work, which isn’t that hard as long as you don’t stray too much from your pallette or reuse images to find in each painting. I kind of like seeing a whole set of paintings, that’s when you sense that there is a story.

When did you protagonist character start to take shape? How did that evolve and come-about? I’ve just always drew a character like that. Probably in high school. It’s been so long I don’t really remember. It probably came from my sketchbook. Most of my sketchbooks are kind of boring because it was just me repeatedly drawing the same stuff until I got better at it. I think I was trying to draw a cat and I drew something else that I liked.

In some of your other works, you paint collections of items from food, mushrooms, crystals to swords and old style cell phones. How did these paintings originate for you? Were you finding yourself sketching certain things that you read about or were you just obsessed with a certain object that week? My parents taught themselves English using Richard Scarry books so they were the first books I had my hands on. It’s just pages and pages of him drawing things with words describing what they were underneath. When I was younger I had this project where I’d take an encyclopedia and try drawing everything in it. I think I only got to M. Also when I was kid while drawing in my sketchbook I would just run out of stuff to draw so I’d go room to room drawing everything in each room.

It was just a thing to kill time.

How has where you live and its landscape influenced the work you create?  What’s your favorite thing about residing there? I guess it does a little, but I think I drew the stuff and then when I got here, I liked it a lot, so I ended up on this tiny coastal town on the bluffs. I started drawing weird epic landscapes after watching a bunch of Swedish films a few years ago.

What was your last adventure or walk through your neighborhood that showed up in one of your work, thematically or just visually? One time a friend invited me to a barbeque. They lived near the train tracks a couple of miles from me, so I walked up the tracks passed the cemetery and over a few tressel bridges. It was really nice walk. Met a turtle. They had to come down and get me because I didn’t know the path to their house, and it was getting dark.

What IS your favorite thing to draw or paint? Do you have an UNfavorite thing to draw or paint? I like drawing pineapples. I hate when strangers ask me to draw them. I want to punch them in the face.

When did you start picking up the paint brush and taking your works to the canvas? What do you enjoy about painting vs. drawing? The first time I painted was in my high school art class, I think like most other Americans. I was using tempera, so it sucked. But I started buying acrylic soon after. I think painting and drawing is kind of the same thing, or least I just paint like I’m drawing. I don’t think it was a strange transition.

What’s a typical day like for you at home and in the studio? What’s your process like? I fill out internet orders sometimes, or a wholesale order. Sometimes I draw. Mostly I get up and look at my email and go, “I have a lot of stuff to do and this is gonna suck”. I don’t really multitask, so it’s usually me filling out orders for 8 hours and trying to get to the post office before 4:30 while watching dumb shit on the internet, or me helping a friend screen print in my garage, or if I have a show just ignoring everything else in life and painting for two months.

A few years ago I kind of got burnt out of making a living with just painting. So I was like maybe I should make more t-shirts and prints. So I ended up moving to Fort Bragg and screenprinting more stuff and making more drawings toward that. But now my days are filled with me screen printing and filling out small orders or hanging out on my computer photoshopping all day. So now I’m in some other kind of hell.

What are your go-to art tools? A Pilot Hi-Tec C (They’re called G-Tec 4s in other places) pen. I use the .4, but should probably switch to .5. You have to have a light touch with them or else they’ll jam. 

Right now I enjoy using Mitsubishi pencils, but the cheap Mirado Black Warrior pencil you can get at most stationary store is just as good.

Been filling a sketchbook using Opaque markers. Posca’s are pretty good, but the color choices are limited, so I started buying Molotow. The Molotow’s can be refilled so they might end up being a better value.

Lately I’ve been painting with cheap $2 craft paints mostly because I don’t like mixing colors. Just bought a few of the Martha Stewart’s at Michaels. I still buy Golden and Liquitex, but it’s nice to mix in other stuff.

Not only do you draw and paint, you are always printing and creating zines of your works. Do you remember your very first zine you made? Are you working on a new zine? The first zine I made was pretty horrible. It was staple at the top corner, and I gave it out to my friends when I was in high school. I put everything precious in a box before I left for college and when I came back my dad had threw it out. At the time I was pretty bummed, but now I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that. I’m always working on something. Sometimes things take a really long time. I drew everything I ate while in England and Scotland several years ago and just now getting it all together. I’ve gotten rejected from a bunch of zine fairs, so there really isn’t a urgency to get it finished. I’m thinking of making one for the tiny town I’m in, and other that’s like a newspaper, but filled with just my gibberish drawing of words.

Do you have a favorite zine maker out there you’d like to share with folks? I’m pretty excited to  be tabling at Comics Art Brooklyn. Last year  I sat nearby Evan Cohen (http://www.evanmcohen.com) who I had just bought zines online from a few weeks before so that was kind of unexpected. He makes rad work. There was a few other artists there whose work I enjoyed. I came home with a lot of nice prints which I never really get from strangers. Stuff from Natalie Andrewson, Tiny Splendor, most everything Peow Studios publishes, and Jen Tong. I like this zine called Terror House by Sammy Harkham that I’d buy a few to give out to friends and the zines my friend, Evah Fan makes.

What are you constantly inspired by? And who are some of your early and current art influences? I think what keeps me going is random problem solving with how I paint. Or maybe the natural world. I don’t really know if I’m being totally honest.   I grew up reading Peanuts. It has it’s good moments. I think I became comfortable with not always having to be in the up. I really like Tove Jannson’s work.. I’m not a fan Tintin, but I like the way Hergé uses color and lines. I was lucky enough to come to the Bay Area while the Mission School was around and Yoshitoma Nara had a few shows, so it made it okay for me to make paintings the way I do.

What do you do when you are not painting, drawing or making zines? How do you find yourself unwinding? I watch a lot of dumb shit on youtube and take long walks. Each week I go to a game night where I do board games (Catan, Ticket to Ride, Dixit, Pirates Cove are in the usual rotation). I like to cook and have people over. I actually unwind by drawing and watching a lot of basketball while listening to basketball podcasts.

What advice would you offer to an aspiring artist who might wanna follow in your footsteps? Be nice to everyone you meet ever. Always try to learn. Don’t get caught up in what people think of you or your work. Know that if you keep on doing something you’ll get better at it. Pick up different hobbies. Make friends with other artists. Be open to all opportunities. Get used to rejection.

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks? Some random wisdom you learned through your personal journey or just while making art? You know I don’t know if I’m the best person to get advice from since I sort of carved out this weird existence. When you’re young, it’s easy to get caught up in weird things and maybe a person should just get caught up in those things. I do meet old school mates who have regrets about how their time in art school was spent, but I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way of doing it. I think there really isn’t any rush, and also if you feel like you “failed” you can always just get back up because no one is really paying attention.

I think I hear a lot from folks who worry that they’re too old to try painting or doing art for a living. And I’d hear this from someone who’s like 25 or 30. But there really isn’t a deadline to any of this stuff and also no one really knows how old anyone is. I think everyone’s trying to get to some sort of finish line, but really just existing and making work is all there is.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist? In an alternate universe, what career would Deth find himself doing? I’d probably be working in tech if I’m being honest with myself.

What’s a question you never get asked in an interview that you wanna ask yourself and answer? There really isn’t.

What are your favorite style of VANS? My favorite Vans were the slip ons with a grey herring bone pattern on them. I had 4 or 5 pairs, but I think they switched to a smaller pattern because I couldn’t find them again.

What’s coming up for you the rest of the year or into the next? Comic Arts Brooklyn (http://comicartsbrooklyn.com), a solo show in January at Spoke Art (https://spoke-art.com) in San Francisco. I’ll have stuff at a print fair in Oakland (https://www.oaklandprintfair.com), and an art book fair in Berlin (http://www.friendswithbooks.org/content/about) through Vanilla Studios (http://vanillastud.io).

FOLLOW DETH | INSTAGRAM | WEBSITE | SHOP

[lwafunzine-blog]

[Little Witch Academia] A Collaborative Doujin Project!

What is this?

A collaborative doujin/comic funzine celebrating Little Witch Academia! Check out the original info doc here or just scroll down to continue!

Allowed Content

PG-13 please! Little witches are not for lewd

You can draw adventures, friendship and even your ships. However, you need to keep it Safe For Work. 

Submission Specifications

Grayscale/Black & White (You can submit color but it’ll end up grey anyway)

Page count

Minimum: 1 page Maximum: 8 pages

Page size

A5 probably with 3mm bleed (template will be provided)

Color model CMYK (even if you submit it in color)

Projected Timeline

August 18th: Open Call

August 25th: Applications close

August 30th: Artist confirmation

September 25th: Interim Deadline (Progress check)

October 25th: Final Deadline

End October: Pre-orders start

November: Onwards for production

January?: shipping

Compensation

You get a copy for free + any bonuses that comes out of this

I’m doubting any profit will come out of this as they will be shipped from Singapore to everywhere else in the world, nonetheless that will depend on the demand and external factors!

FAQ

Q. Who’s organizing this? A. Bento (with help from Saki making this blog, thanks! -b)

Q. Are OCs allowed? A. No OCs please. LWA Universe is rich enough. **This only applies to the witches tho, you can create a monster/creatures if you want (for example if in your story they fight a dragon or something like that)

Q. What’s the criteria?  Is there a minimum standard required to apply? A. You like LWA so much to draw some witches. That’s it

Q. What’s with the time gap between Preorders start and Shipping? A. We’re not risking shipping during holiday period, please understand!

Q. How many people will be in this? A. To be confirmed,Approximately 20-30 depending on how many pages each one will draw

Q. Have you made a zine before, how are you sure you’re not gonna screw it up??? A. I’ve(bento) have made a few doujins before and participated in many others, but I’ll try my best

Q. I can’t draw comics what do?????? A. Just believe in yourself that believes in your believing heart - Carro Brillante

Q. Can I draw artwork/illustration instead, like one page? A. It’s fine, but we’re aiming for a 7:3 comic to art ratio

Q. Can I draw pairings? A. Yes

Q. Can I submit stuff I’ve already drawn? A. Nope 

Q. What’s the criteria? Is there a minimum standard required to apply? A. There is no quality criteria but to be a fan of the series, tho no fanart of witches on your blogs/sites can be very unconvincing

Important

**Please answer both of these polls before, even if you wont participate as an artist!

About the Zine

About Bonuses

>>SIGN UP HERE<<

[hitmanrebornzine-blog]

Guidelines

Who runs this ? We’re @cheesecakecaramel and @gabbyndt !

When will the applications open ? The plan was to wait until January, but due to the overwhelming responses we got applications will be opening on December 18th, until February 4th

How many applications are you going to accept ? We will have around 40 pages dedicated to artists / cosplay in the zine, so we’re aiming for maybe 30 artists and we’ll figure out how to proceed with cosplay ! Fanfictions is still to be decided as they will be available separately.

What’s the theme for the fanzine ? The Theme for the Fanzine is Family!

We will also try to keep a rainbow theme thorough the art pages in the Zine (meaning that the flow of the art’s colors will ressemble a rainbow). This does not mean that you’ll be forced to draw the characters that are linked to this flame color, but instead will mean that you’ll have to consider using this particular color as the main accent for the piece. If you feel that this request is too difficult or too stress inducing, we are not forcing you to do it, but instead strongly encourage you to. It will give a nicer flow to the Zine.

A lot of people suggested TYL, if you want to draw the characters TYL, feel free to do it ! It will give some more variety to the zine. How many pieces are we allowed to contribute to the zine Good question! We’ve been thinking about it a lot but it’s really hard to answer this because we don’t have enough information yet. It’s gonna depends on the amount of applications and what category people apply for. However, we wanted to save space for a page spread or two.

We will need extra content for the bundle version of the zine, so if you’d like you could make an extra piece we’d offer as a postcard ! These will cost us practically nothing, so we just need to decide how many we’d want to make depending on the interest.

And for cosplay and fanfictions, how many are we allowed to submit?  It’s a bit hard to put a limit on things like cosplay because some people might have a lot of great High Quality pictures or some people might have more Selfies. Selfies will be put into a collage so they should take maybe one page, two if we get a lot so it’s not that bad. for HQ pictures, that will depend on how many submissions we get and if the photos are landscape or portrait, as we might be able to put 2 landscape photos together vs one portrait.

Same thing fic-wise – it depends if the author is planning to do small story vignettes or just a singular story. Furthermore, as suggested by some participants, we will keep the written part of the zine on a linked pdf instead of printing it, because of pages limitations. This will be easier, since we won’t have to limit the word count as much (and you’ll still get a share of profit!) we do understand if writers aren’t as inclined to participate in this case.

Basically, the physical copy will be printed with only art and cosplay and will be sold with a link to a fanfiction only pdf file, and the digital version will contain everything put together. If people want to, we could maybe also offer to sell the only art/cosplay and only fanfiction pdfs separately.

How many pages will the zine have ? About the pages number, we’re aiming for 48 (our goal is 40 to a maximum of 50, taking in account the cover pages and credits).

The reason for this is we took in calculation the intro (1 page) + introducing and giving credit to the artists (approx. 2 pages) + outro (aprx. 1 page) = 4 pages plus the first two pages and last two pages will be the booklet cover = 4 pages, which comes to a total of 8 pages less.

So in total, we’re left with 40 pages of art and cosplay ! Is this charity or profits ? The fanzine will be for profits, if however we make an underwhelming amount of money we’ll then discuss it among contributors !

Is NSFW allowed ? No, we’d like to keep the zine PG-13.

Are ships allowed ? The majority has voted against it, but if  you’d really like to include it in the Zine, keep it PG13 and try to keep it pretty subtle (ex : Characters french kissing is not considered subtle, but you could draw Dino and Hibari sitting down and having a chat together or something similar). Don’t forget the theme is family, we would love to see more platonic content and relationships.

I want to draw my OC with canon characters for the zine. Is that okay ? Unfortunately, we’d like to keep if KHR canon characters only (this includes the show, the manga, the games), this means no original characters.

Will there be any guest artists ? We did not plan for that, but if you know any bigger artists that might be interested feel free to let them know about applications !

[the-cassandra-project]

Genuinely Friendly Non-Passive Aggressive Reminder

No really, I mean it, I swear.

What Is The Cassandra Project?

The Cassandra Project is looking for art and writing that connects somehow to the mythological character of Cassandra, daughter of Hecuba and Priam, legendary seer and priestess of Apollo who foresaw the destruction of her home, her family, and herself and who never stopped trying to ward off the inevitable, even though she knew she was cursed to not be believed.  How you interpret that prompt is up to you –  you can hew as closely to Homer or Euripides or Aeschylus as you choose; you can take it as far afield as you want.  Past, present, future; Greece or the United States or the Philippines or maybe the moon.  If you can argue the connection, I’ll allow it.

What I’m gonna do with all of that art and writing is print a smallish, zine-style, handsewn anthology (because it’s cheap, and because DIY is kind of my thing), sell it on Etsy (because that’s where I have a space to sell things) and donate all the proceeds to charity.  Charity is TBD; once I’ve got a final roster of people involved in the project, I’ll poll everyone and we’ll figure it out.

The only rules are this: writing should be a maximum of 4500 words or roughly 4 pages in 18 pt. font – I’d prefer everything submitted via google docs, but we can make other arrangements as needed.  Art should fit onto an 8″ x 5″ or 8″ x 11″ sheet of paper, in as high a resolution as you can get it to me.   Please use only characters from Greek mythology or your own original creations – the Homeridae aren’t going to sue me, but I can’t say the same for Disney.

If you are interested in creating something for The Cassandra Project, please please please get in touch with me either at this blog or my main, @lookninjas, by July 15th. (For everyone who has previously expressed interest – please do check in with me again as well!  Liking this post will be enough; I just need to know you’ve seen it.)  First drafts will be due by September 16th; final drafts November 4th. My goal is to complete the layout and have the first batch of books printed, stitched, and ready to mail out by the time the book goes live on the wordstitcher press Etsy shop on December 2nd.  (You’ll never guess what my November project for Every Single Day is going to be.)

Please follow @the-cassandra-project  for info and updates – I can and certainly will try to reach out to everyone on an individual basis as needed, but it is a little handier for me to be able to reach most people in one shot.  And if you can’t contribute now but still want to help, please share this post around!   The more eyes, the better.

I will also be crossposting at http://the-cassandra-project.dreamwidth.org/ just in case Verizon gets...  weird.  Should anything untoward happen to your tumblr and you need to get a hold of me, I’ll be there as well. 

[essektheylyss]

alright writer rant because I’m still exhausted and dismayed and I didn’t cry in the dark last night for nuthin (this is so long I’m sorry if you click read more I had to get it out)

I had one really amazing creative writing teacher, in the third grade, where we got an hour everyday to write whatever we want, and it was amazing.  never again did I have anything like it.  fourth grade they implemented a ‘writing program’ and it was all about extreme structured writing for essays and I think they implemented it from the second up to eighth grade and it was truly awful.  there was no creative writing exposure past that.

like I dunno how other writers feel but I’m hardwired to write.  I can’t not write.  even if I’m not physically writing, I’m thinking about what I want to write.  even when I go years between actual writing like I did in college (for writing let me remind you) I’m constantly thinking about my characters and my plot and my world.  what I’m writing right now I’ve been writing and rewriting for eleven years.  that world is absurdly vivid in my head (translating that to words is harder but like it’s there) and I could go on about it for hours.  but what fucking outlet do I have for that???

so that’s how my brain works.  that’s how it’s always worked.  I do not remember a point (I started writing when I was 8, maybe before, and the first novel I finished was 100 pages handwritten at 11) when that was not how my brain worked.  but past third grade there was no academic outlet for it.  I had music and art class, but all of the writing done was formal and literary and academic.  and not saying that music and art courses are great but they were there.

and by the fifth grade I was up until 10pm finishing my homework?  math and bio and history and whatever else?  so with what time was I doing it on my own?  I wrote in class instead of taking notes and in the car on the way home and on road trips but it’s a miracle that I had time.  I was in sports even though I knew at that point that I suck at sports and that was only adding to how little time I had overall outside of school.

like there’s just no outlet for creative kids at all.  all of school is so ridiculously structured and conformist and you throw anyone who’s inclined toward any sort of art and you just quash it out of them and it seems like you can’t possibly do that as a career that isn’t practical and no one cares and then if you do pursue it years later it’s like you’re anxious as fuck cuz you’ve been conditioned your whole life to feel like you shouldn’t be doing what you want to be doing as if being a financial investor isn’t as useless (if not more) a profession toward the betterment of society

and whatever industry you’re in whether it’s publishing or performative or screen no one fucking wants you they don’t want people who want to go on to do what they’re gatekeeping like agencies and publishers and advertising want people they can conform to do the exact thing they do the exact way they want it (even though like 10% of those employees will get promoted probably) and they don’t want the writers because they won’t be as easy to exploit and mold later when they maybe get big enough for them to represent

I don’t even know where this is going I’m just so frustrated

and all of this new digital distribution is great if you’ve got something marketable on it like it’s clear just through what formats work on youtube that very specific ideas are marketable and being a writer??? doesn’t work on many platforms and things like periodicals and lit zines are taking their last breaths and there’s very few places to publish where it’s considered ‘credible’ like you can’t publish on wordpress once a week and stick that on a CV (I mean you can but unless you can really drum up traffic it doesn’t mean anything) and you can self-publish but that poses just as many problems and it’s likely to not do very well unless you’re already established online in a shorter format so if you write novels good fucking luck lmao

and then your professors are like ‘you’re 22 and you have a lot of new ideas and you know what your generation wants so you’re really desirable!’ and it’s like fucking yeah if you happen to know someone who’s doing the exact thing you wanna be doing, has read and likes your work (fat chance for most people who are that stressed about their work being perfect at 22, how many people are they showing), and is also vacating that position very soon.  like that’s it, in comedy, in screenwriting, not so much in publishing but from what I hear that’s even more of a crapshoot you’ve just gotta be related the a publisher l o l

so yeah, if you make creative people squeeze through the exactly shaped hole that the educational system requires, and then shit on and discourage their life goals, and then make it nearly impossible to get hired somewhere that’ll put you somewhere, yeah we’re all gonna be a bunch of awkward, mentally ill cynics who are too scared to share work with anyone for fear of rejection, theft, or general distaste like fuck man.

[faeuniblog]

Official Script For Visual Essay

Page 1

Hello there fellow melons, I’m gonna be educating you guys on the joys that are the publishing industry!

So, Melon Sandy, I see you have your book there!

If you’re a writer that’s just written the best story ever, you’ll probably want to share said book with the world so you can make lots of money and be really famous, right?

But almighty voice in the sky who sounds super amazing and cool - like it really sucks that this is a written visual essay and not an audio one - I here you cry!

How do I go about share my creation with the world?!

Well, you have two options little Melon Sandy. You can go to Publishing Company or Self-Publish your work.

Page 2

Now let’s talks about what a Publisher is and does.

Publishing Company – Basics, Pros and Cons.

If you decide to go with the Traditional method and get published by a big publisher, you’ll need to have your work accepted by a literary agent first. Once you get an agent, they will take care of selling your manuscript to the big publishers (2).

Literary agents take 15% of your total income from the first sale. (1)

By going through an agent you’ll be paid an upfront advance for your work. The advance could range from £1,000 to over £100,000 (2).

Having an agent take care of shit is nice, but its damn hard to get an agent to take your work and even then, there’s no reassurance that they’ll even be able to sell your manuscript to a publisher (3).

If you're lucky enough to get a publisher interested.

The publisher will take care of editorial, copyediting, and design work, as well as invest in sales and marketing (3). Depending on whether you’re with a small or large publisher, the budget on these things can range from £15,000 to £50,000 (2).

However, one down side is that Publisher might make you edit you story in ways you don’t agree with. (3).

You probably won’t get a moving or TV deal but you stand a much higher chance by going with the traditional method (2).

Your book will be released both in physical and digital shops (2).

So, you get a load of support from a Publisher and Agent but in return you will have to give up a percentage of your earnings and control (2).

Page 3

Let’s look at J.K. Rowling as an example for publishing with a Company!

The first Harry Potter book was rejected by the first literary agency she applied too, and to add insult to injury, they didn’t give back her folder! (4)

She would luckily be accepted by the next literary agency, Christopher Little. Little sent the manuscript to 12 different publishers (who all rejected it!) before finally ending up with Bloomsbury (4) (5).

As when you go to a publisher, J.K was told to change the title of the US version from ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone’ to ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone’ as they didn’t think America’s would know what a ‘philosopher’ was would think it sounded boring (6) (7).

Hopefully, Melan Sandy, you won’t have a much trouble getting you book published as J.K. Rowling did.

Page 4

Self-Publishing – Basics, Pros and Cons

If you decide to go with Self-Published, there are two types of self-publishing: Digital and Old-fashioned (2) (3).

Anyone can be an artist or writer with the internet around.

Amazon charges nothing for you to upload your work to its worldwide audience, and websites like Tumblr give you a place to post your art and stories for free (2) (3).

By Self-publishing, you have complete creative control over your work, meaning it can be about anything with no one to stop you!

And all the money you make, is your money, no sharing with a big company!

With online shops like Amazon, you won’t get a money advance like you would if you’ll with a publisher (2).

Your book won’t be in bookshops and you’ll still have to face some costs like editorial and copyediting (2).

Remember, Amazon has over 5,000,000 e-books in its store and your book will simply be one of them, so it might be hard to get attention (2).

With free websites like Tumblr, you’re not going to make any money unless you go to separate sources such as Patreon or ko-fi but you have basically no limitation on what your work is about.

Page 5

An example of the Old-fashioned method would be making, printing and selling Zine, at conversions or online.

A zine (short for magazine or fanzine) is a small self-published work made up of text and images and is usually reproduced via photocopier (8).

They can be made by a single person, or a small group. An example of some popular zines are ‘Aint-Bad Magazine’, ‘Home Zine’ and ‘Record Culture Magazine’ (9).

Examples of people who have done shit with Self-Publishing

The Martian is a science fiction novel written by Andy Weir in 2011. Weir started writing the book in 2009, and was rebuffed by literary agents when trying to get prior books published. Weir decided to put the book online on his website in a serial format (10).

Fans of his book later requested him to make an Amazon Kindle version for 99 cents (the minimum allowable price he could set). The Kindle version sold 35,000 copies in three months, quickly rising to the top of Amazon’s best-selling science-fiction list (10).

Podium Publishing an audiobook publisher, signed for the audiobook rights in January 2013 and in March 2013 Weir sold the prints rights to Crown for over US$100,000 (10).

Homestuck is a webcomic written, illustrated and animated by Andrew Hussie and published on MS Paint Adventures. The comic is a combination of static images, animated GIFs, instant message logs and games made with Adobe Flash (11).

Homestuck arguably has the largest fan community out there, which has said to reach in the millions. Unlike the other authors on this list, Homestuck never got involved with publishers, this may be because it’s the only one on my list that’s a comic (11).

If you go almost any conversion, you are likely to find a Homestuck fan there either cosplaying or selling zines or art (11).

Page 6

By going with a publishing house, they will bear the costs, such as editing, marketing and paying advances, but they also take a substantial share of the profits can take control away from you to better suit their ideas of what is best (2) (3).

The changes the published made you do could arguably be for the better, but they could also be for the worst.

While is you self-published, if you want help for advice, you’ve going to have to pay for it with your own money.

With Self-Publishing, the author bears all of these costs but gets the benefit of all profits being exclusively theirs.

I think another one of the appeals of self-publishing is the control you get to keep over entire process. The writer decides the price, distribution, marketing, and public relations, they can also outsource these tasks if they want guidance or support (2) (3).

A lot of people who go for Self-Published end up with a Publisher anyway, but with a lot more control and say over what your product is then you would normally have.

Is this detour into Self-Publishing this just an extra, unnecessary step to get a Publisher?

Page 7

The method you decide to go for should depend on what type of story you are publishing.

For someone like J.K, the internet wasn’t a viable option while she was writing and she wouldn’t be able live off the slow money that comes from publishing on the internet.

She didn’t have the means to advertise her book by herself either, going to a Publisher was the only option.

Andy Weir tried the publishing root first, but they weren’t interested, so he started writing his book in a format that worked well with the internet (10).

Homestuck, could only really be a digital comic, there might be a physical one somewhere down the line but the original could only ever exist on the internet.

Both methods have the negative and positives.

But hey, whatever method you decide.

Good Luck

By Fae-Jinni & Melon Sandy

Ending

Page 8

So Melon Sandy have you decided how you’re going to publish your awesome book?  (I turn to look at Sandy)

(There is a crushed Melon in the floor)

“Melon Sandy?” (Confused)

(It have bow like Melon Sandy)

(I look down to see a knife in my hand with Melon blood on it…)

(Camera movies to show my face. It is coved in Melon juice…)

 References

(1)  Staff, W. (2017). How Literary Agents Get Paid: Standard Commission Practices And Payments For Literary Agents - Writer's Relief, Inc.. [online] Writer's Relief, Inc. Available at: http://writersrelief.com/blog/2014/02/standard-commission-practices-payments-literary-agents/ [Accessed 18 Nov. 2017].

(2)  Writersworkshop.co.uk. (2017). How to publish a book: a guide | Writers' Workshop. [online] Available at: http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/How-To-Get-Published.html [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(3)  Here!, S. (2017). Pros And Cons Of Traditional Publishing vs Self-Publishing. [online] The Creative Penn. Available at: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/self-publishing-vs-traditional/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(4)  Flood, A. (2017). JK Rowling says she received ‘loads’ of rejections before Harry Potter success. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/24/jk-rowling-tells-fans-twitter-loads-rejections-before-harry-potter-success [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(5)  Kennedy, M. (2017). JK Rowling posts letters of rejection on Twitter to help budding authors. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/25/jk-rowling-harry-potter-posts-letters-of-rejection-on-twitter [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(6)  En.wikipedia.org. (2017). J. K. Rowling. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling#Subsequent_Harry_Potter_publications [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(7)  Theguardian.com. (2017). Why the name change from "Harry Potter and the Philosopher''s Stone" in the UK to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer''s Stone" in the United States ? | Notes and Queries | guardian.co.uk. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-18387,00.html [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(8)  En.wikipedia.org. (2017). Zine. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(9)  Format.com. (2017). 11 Cool Artist Zines You Need to Own. [online] Available at: https://www.format.com/magazine/galleries/art/11-cool-artist-zines [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(10)          En.wikipedia.org. (2017). The Martian (Weir novel). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel) [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

(11)          En.wikipedia.org. (2017). Homestuck. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestuck#frb-inline [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

[caveartfair]

8 Things Every Creative Should Know

Author portrait by Daniel Seung Lee. Courtesy of Adam J. Kurtz.

Pencil and book. Courtesy of Adam J. Kurtz.

Since graduating from design school eight years ago, Adam J. Kurtz has worked various full-time jobs in creative fields, from film production to advertising to designing gifs for BuzzFeed. But all the while, he was pursuing the work he loved on the side, through self-publishing zines and producing witty novelty wares like pins and stationery. That side hustle led the young designer and artist to develop his own business and become a published author. And in his latest book, he’s sharing advice for his peers.

Titled Things Are What You Make of Them: Life Advice for Creatives, the book is available this month through Penguin’s TarcherPerigee imprint. (Penguin is giving $1 per book sold before October 8th to the Tegan and Sara Foundation, and Kurtz is personally matching that total donation for up to $10,000.) It’s made up of essays from the advice column that Kurtz originally wrote for Design*Sponge, beginning in 2014. “The book is about my ongoing journey,” he explains. “It’s not like I’m an expert telling you all the stuff I learned; it’s more like I’m figuring this out as I go.”

Each color-coded chapter is made up of a series of handwritten notes, on ripped out sheets of notepaper, in Kurtz’s playful, all-caps scrawl. “The handwriting is my way of getting my own voice through, and it lets me say things in a really blunt way,” he says. “It’s like I just took a course one semester ahead of you and I’m saying ‘here are my notes, good luck.’”

His advice ranges from “How to Be Happier” to “Working with Friends & Family,” and truth be told, can be beneficial to people of all professions, right brain-leaning or not. We caught up with the author to discuss one of the foundational chapters, “8 Things Every Creative Should Know,” which he wrote in 2016. He shared the motivations and experiences that led him to develop these candid, edifying tips. Below, we share excerpts from that conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.  

It’s magical, not magic

“My feeling is that everyone has some semblance of creativity in them, it’s just that we don’t necessarily think of it as creativity. If you put on an outfit in the morning—that’s creative thinking. But, you’re not born a brilliant illustrator.

“I have a friend, Jeremy Sorese, who is an award-winning cartoonist, graphic novelist, and editorial illustrator. I think he’s really brilliant and in the past I’ve said to him ‘Oh, I can’t draw like you, I could never draw like you,” and he’s said, ‘Yeah, I couldn’t draw like me either, but after 10 years of drawing every single day, you learn a few things.’ It’s such an obvious thing: Practice makes perfect.”

You are kind of an idiot

“I think this is a funny way to say that no one knows what they’re doing, and I think anyone will tell you that, especially in terms of creative business. If you’re a graphic designer, maybe you’re good at graphic design, but invoicing or doing your taxes—that’s not easy. You can be a brilliant coder, you can build 70 websites, but good luck figuring out your freelance income taxes, good luck filing an LLC.

“The reality is just that you are always going to be learning new things and you are always going to come up against something you’ve never done before. Very often you won’t know that you can do it until after you’ve done it the first time, and then you’ll be able to do it 10 more times. I’m very good at making invoices now. I know how to file my sales tax. I figured it out.”

You don’t need permission

“Today, you can self-publish. I started making zines and publishing a weekly calendar entirely on my own. And even in the time since I was in school eight years ago, it’s become easier. We now have Google Drive—you have Google Docs, Google Sheets—and you no longer need to buy that software. Now everyone has a phone in their pocket that’s also a camera and records videos, and there are free apps for photo editing.

“The Shade Room is a really great example of a publication that was born as an Instagram account and now it’s extremely influential to pop culture. You don’t need to be offered a job, you don’t need a book deal to make a book—there’s print on demand, there’s Kickstarter and crowdfunding. Even digital garment printing has changed so much in the last 10 years; you can digitally print one T-shirt and the quality is good now (it didn’t used to be that good).

“I want people to stop feeling like they need to get the green light from someone else before they can execute their ideas. If anything, now you have to execute a lot and then you get the green light after proving yourself.”

Courtesy of Adam J. Kurtz.

Courtesy of Adam J. Kurtz.

Failure actually is an option

“People love to say failure is not an option, but it is. Generally speaking, there are two options: failure and not failure.

“Don’t set yourself up to be completely gutted if something doesn’t go your way. Instead, recognize that the failure is a possibility; brace yourself, be ready to roll with the punches, to pick back up again. In my mind, something is only truly a failure if you never try again. If you fail twice and then the third time you succeed, then all that failure was really just research. Failure is always an option and I think that instead of ignoring something that is scary, we need to think about how we’re going to come back from it.

“There are so many projects that I’ve executed where I thought, ‘Okay, this was cool, but it wasn’t amazing.’ Recently, I was excited about making fridge magnets and I ordered a thousand fridge magnets and they were all terrible. I could’ve been like ‘that was $400 wasted,’ but instead I thought, ‘I’m going to try again; I’m going to request samples first; I’m going to take my time and research better.’”

Labels will kill you

“Everyone does everything now. If you walk out the door and say ‘I’m a graphic designer,’ what happens if someone asks you to code out a simple web page? Are you a front-end developer now? If you draw one thing, are you an illustrator? The labels become less and less relevant.

“I consider myself at my root a graphic designer, in that everything I do comes out of design thinking and principles, and the combination of text and image. Some people don’t call me a graphic designer. But if you’re holding my book at Barnes & Noble, I’m not gonna slap it out of your hands and say ‘this is a design book!’ Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s a millennial therapy book—that’s fine. It’s whatever you want it to be.

“Very often we are so in our own thing that we lose sight of how others perceive us. Sometimes the outside perspective is not healthy, but other times it really can be. People started calling me an illustrator, and as someone who really admires contemporary illustrators, I find that a little bit offensive, to them [laughs], because I know what my skill level is and what I'm offering. But if enough people call you an illustrator and enough companies want to hire you to be an illustrator, you might be an illustrator. Don’t exclude yourself from the running. Don’t decline jobs before they materialize.”

You don’t have to be the best at everything

“This just the reality: You don’t have to be the best, and you won’t be the best. And the sooner you realize you're not the best at certain things, the sooner you can collaborate with people who are.

“One of the smartest things I’ve ever done was hiring an accountant, who I’ve been working with for seven years. I remember that first year when through my zines and my art I made $3,000 and he said, ‘Wow, you made $3,000 selling these novelty design balloons and zines?’ And we celebrated. Now, he’s like “Wow, third book deal.’ And he’s proud of me; I consider him a friend.

“I wouldn’t know how to do any of that stuff—I don’t know how to file separate income streams and I definitely am not good at expensing, which is everything, you have to keep track of things. So, I’m so glad that I didn’t try to do things myself and make it harder to grow, or miss out on so much money I could’ve been saving. I’m just not a good businessperson—that’s not my brain.”

Courtesy of Adam J. Kurtz.

Courtesy of Adam J. Kurtz.

You will hate your work

“I think everyone can relate to this idea: What your best is right now isn’t going to be your best in a year. You’re going to look back and say ‘Wow, I was terrible.’ It’s a little bit of a reminder to say, ‘Hey, don’t worry because this thing that seems super important right now, kind of isn’t.’ But it’s also kind of a backhanded way to say keep on growing. (If I wrote ‘keep on growing,’ you would probably roll your eyes.)

“We are so afraid to put work out there that doesn’t seem perfect; we’re worried about how we’re going to represent ourselves. But the truth is that your absolute best work is going to be total bullshit to you in two years. Make the work, put it out there, keep growing.”

Just be nice

“People forget that being nice is important and that being genuinely kind is not a sign of weakness. A lot of us forget that as hard as we’re working, everyone else is also working very hard. We sometimes confuse being kind with being weak, or we think it’s not cool to be kind or if we give someone else a leg up, then we’re taking a leg away from ourselves. But we can all succeed, and we can raise each other up and boost each other’s careers. We can collaborate freely and we can push attention to different people. We can all do what we do and it can help all of us as a group.

“The mindset of me against the world is not helpful. I’m close friends with several creatives who do very similar work to what I do and I shockingly don’t hate them. We support each other’s projects, we know how hard it is.

“This is so important, and it’s a page that really connects with later chapters in the book—there’s a whole chapter about comparing yourself to others, and another about using your power for good. “‘Just be nice’ is almost a thesis statement for my entire body of work, which is like, life is hard, we’re trying to get through it; do your best, laugh a little, make friends, have a sandwich.”

—As told to Casey Lesser

from Artsy News