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fakeosirian · 1 year

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"house of anubis has bad writing"

so i have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to critical discussions about tv, and i'm going to use house of anubis as a vehicle through which to talk about it since i think it's a very good case study of this particular problem.

it's pretty simple: "x has bad writing"

saying something has "good writing" in passing is fine -- not every conversation needs MLA citations -- but for the sake of this post not being a million words long to account for every nuance possible, let's discount those situations and suppose that this is in the context of an extended critical discussion about something, and specifically calling out the "writing" as the culprit.

the funny thing about "writing" is a lot of the time, that...isn't what's being identified in a statement like this. this is where i'm going to start talking about house of anubis so i can give you an actual example

house of anubis has what i would call strong writing for most of its run, with a few notable exceptions (that i'd like to note are localized, specific problems!). when i say this, i'm thinking about specific parameters: the coherency and structure of the story, the pacing, the tone, the consistency and fidelity of the characterization, the quality of the dialogue (doing everything possible to only consider the words themselves, not the performances from the actors), and bells and whistles/creative choices that elevate it past functional narrative and into a piece of art. that is writing.

things that aren't writing that have a huge impact on how the writing/story is digested and are heavily influential creative choices in their own right BUT are literally just. not writing. that get commonly conflated with writing: ACTOR PERFORMANCES (i would write this one 100 times if it made a difference), shot composition, editing (both cut-to-cut and structural editing), and in some cases production design (so sets/props/costumes).

house of anubis is a great case study for this because oftentimes (especially in this VERY cynical phase of pop culture we're in) people conflate things that are earnest, low budget, or camp (especially when talking about elements in the "not writing" category) with "badness" when, while you don't have to like it, if you changed the lens through which you observed them, "bad" would be...not apt as a description. that being said, house of anubis isn't a great case study just because it's camp, but because, as the strongest example here, sometimes the performances are just Not Good. i will not name names (especially since everyone has their moments/odd line reads AND you can see clear improvement over time). but hopefully you know what i mean. it CAN affect your opinion of the story as a whole in a way that like...okay if you were watching season one for the first time as an adult, i wouldn't blame you for being turned off by the pilot, or hell, even a solid 80% of the entire first season.

i've attempted hoa watches with rl friends 3 times now, very recently finished s1 with someone actually, and noticed that more often than not, it was the acting (either because it's a very characteristic/camp/borderline theatrical style that takes getting used to or because it's...roughest at the beginning) that was turning them off. sometimes that was highlighting existing writing issues, but especially during arcs like the play/patricia's kidnapping that are structurally sound, perceived "cheesiness" in the acting would leach into the perception of the writing. we actually skipped the first 5 episodes entirely to try and mitigate the parts that are a bit hard to sit through without prior investment (i showed them the recap portion of the video essay i'm working on instead because they'd seen the pilot before and quote "could not handle that again" LMAO) but i noticed something interesting: while it took them a while to come around to fully enjoying the show, there was a period before that where i could tell that something shifted -- they were invested in the story, but they were still reacting like we were watching a neil breen movie. once the acting picked up, "oh this is garbage" (affectionate) turned to "wait a minute this is good."

that is the difference between bad writing and bad [something else].

this is a post about how house of anubis has good writing more than anything, but i do have to talk about the actual bad writing to make this point. early s1 has a particular type of writing flaw that's both INCREDIBLY interesting to break down, requires good writing ability to make in the first place, and unfortunately, is a KILLER for interest in a show like house of anubis, especially when it's taken out of its original context of being released every couple weeks in runs of 4 days of a new episode each night (which side note: COOLEST release schedule i've ever seen a show do. BRING THIS BACK) and binged instead.

quick interjection because i realized that how i define the plots in this show is not at all universal and i haven't talked about it before/released that damn video yet so you won't know what i'm talking about: until episode 9, season 1 has TWO A plots -- whatever nina/fabian/amber are doing (A1), and whatever patricia's doing (A2). at episode 9, they converge, so it's a more conventional singular A plot, but the reason i insist on it being 2 A plots before that instead of the show having an A/B/C/D plot and then A/B/C is a) for clarity's sake since the other plots don't change at all so why shift their categorization b) calling patricia's plot the D plot so you don't have to do that would imply it's the least important when it's easily the MOST important (it gets all the coolest reveals let's be real) + the C plot usually changes every episode/couple of episodes so putting a long-running plot after what is usually just a runner in the hierarchy makes things needlessly complicated c) they DIRECTLY converge in a way that's well telegraphed from the start. you KNOW whatever nina's doing is related to what patricia's doing from the pilot, and that's good.

so let's be real here: the A1 plot kinda sucks. not because the content itself is bad on its face -- that part of the writing is fine -- but because the individual scenes and what information they drip-feed the audience are poorly paced. the most egregious scene is the one in episode 5(!!!! FIVE) where fabian finally notices the eye of horus in the stair railing (by getting his shoelace caught on the doorknob somehow -- don't get me started), shows nina, and they come to the EARTH-SHATTERING realization that robert frobisher-smythe was really interested in egypt! 💀 it's not so much about them...coming to an obvious conclusion...even if that was what caused my ??? kneejerk reaction, but more that we spent an entire scene on this information (that even to a kid wouldnt bear stating), and it's not the first (nor the last) time that something like this happens in the A1 plot. meanwhile, in the A2 plot, patricia is learning something LEGITIMATELY earth-shattering once or twice a scene, and with multiple scenes in an episode for her, it's difficult for the A1 plot to keep up in terms of intrigue/information weight. the audience can tell that nina's the main character and that whatever she's doing is the "main point," but it gets increasingly difficult to make that case when patricia is getting gangstalked while they're visiting sarah over and over without learning anything new.

the real rub here isn't even in the comparison itself but in the fact that they're still, ultimately, both the A plot, and the characters in each need to get to specific places in the information they have/things they've experienced before their plots can converge properly at victor kidnapping rufus. when you compare them, there's a discrepancy pretty quick: patricia has way more things she has to piece together than sibuna do. thus, the sibuna plotline is artificially sandbagged with repetitive scenes, reveals that don't deserve the fanfare they get relative to the actual content of the reveal, and contrivances (see: fabian shoelace doorknob scenario) so it won't outpace things going on in patricia's plot and undermine the reveals there. when you add in how the B/C plots tie in and have impacts on the A plots or vice versa, it makes sense that something would end up being sacrificed in the pacing department. it seems kinda nuts that it'd be A1, but at a certain point of fiddling with events/moving stuff around, i can see why it had to be A1 that got this treatment.

i'll add that while it was airing, i didn't mind that and even liked how things felt ""sort of normal"/not that supernatural relative to where it was going to end up for a WHILE so when, say, the elixir is introduced and alfie gets trapped in the cellar and they REALLY start using their effects budget, it feels like a considerable shift in the setting. a mystery story that lets you get used to some sense of normal first before yanking the rug out from under you is the best kind, but striking a balance between "something weird is going on here that needs my urgent attention" and "but it's still not THAT weird" so the reveal is both shocking but entirely appropriate and satisfying is VERY difficult. (it's also a move that improves the rewatch at the expense of the initial watch, which i can't help but have a soft spot for as a certified Pretentious Bitch.) that's what i mean by it being a problem that comes from a good writer -- they're trying something! it might not be working perfectly but they're trying and to me, that's far more interesting than technically "clean" but very unambitious writing! but i digress lol

something neat that scene i ragged on early does do is the presentation of the information, though, and it makes me trust this was a particularly thorny structural issue and not amateurish writing. it seems to us that the takeaway is that they need to look into egyptian mythological sources for further information, and that the rollers likely belonged to the frobisher-smythe family. what ends up actually being relevant, though, is a) the naming of the eye of horus for the scene later where rufus asks patricia to look for them (specifically the locket, as we find out later, but he doesn't give that away, same as the scene not giving away why it used the eye of horus in the railing to clarify ^ the above dubiously useful information) and b) the subversion of the audience's attention. i'm not sure if this was intentional, but there's something magical about the way it primes the audience to be dismissive of nina and fabian's discoveries and investigative ability early on. for one, it makes the scenes where nina makes fun of amber for investigating every nook and cranny extra ironic in a way that i love (yes! giving your prototypical blank slate audience insert main character hints of a personality that ends up commenting on the nature of blank slate characters/how their behavior would actually come off if they were real people later down the line!), it makes the audience more likely to get invested in making connections/speculation independent of the characters solving the mystery (audience engagement is critical in a good mystery!), and by hiding the "most important information" in plain sight, it reinforces the illusion that this is a living, breathing world where everything is interconnected in unexpected ways. sure, it's cheesy and may feel cheap, but through that, it hits something real.

to sum up, i can see why if you're just turning this show on expecting a straightforward supernatural teen drama you wouldn't see this stuff first (especially since that genre is predominately cynical in tone right now and house of anubis is reminiscient at first blush of the type of show that a lot of other shows in the genre are...making up a guy like and parodying (badly)) and feel inclined to call it bad, especially without watching season 2. if you're someone new to the show, hi! i hope i haven't scared you off! if you don't mind spoilers, i did a writeup about a scene in late s2 that's an example of both good acting and EXCELLENT writing, both in dialogue but most importantly on a structural level. while it is a standout phenomenal scene, it's only that good because of the writing around it supporting that level of subtext in the first place, and the bones of that are present even in early s1.

i'm holding myself back from writing about cynical vs. earnest media because that's better saved for another post (specifically the fabled s3 writeup i will do someday i promise), but i cannot overstate how much of an impact that has on this, too. to state that conclusion as concisely as my verbose ass can manage: you need both cynical and earnest media in your media diet, elsewise your taste and critical skills will just Be Bad. too much cynical media, in particular, can trend towards a lack of appreciation for the earnest media it needs as reference material to respond to, and at that point, you're just adulating hatred ("intelligence") over loving, y'know, love. earnest media can suck, but at the very least, it's less insufferable to argue with.

(also, sidebar that's been said a million times, but these are TEENAGERS!! so many teenagers on tv are written like adults who make bad decisions, but there's an inherent corniness to being a teen that IS sorta "cringe," and you can't take that out without ruining the experience. i'm a super risk-averse person, but i'd be willing to bet a considerable amount of money that if you wrote up some early-ish s1 dialogue in script format (incl. action lines, etc.) of a scene with all kids and compared that to a scene of just adults, so stripping out the performances/keeping those from interfering in your interpretation, the dialogue that comes off "cringe" would read like perfectly fine, age appropriate language/cadence. i HEAVILY respect a show that doesn't pretty that up, even at the risk of coming off "amateurish.")

in conclusion, i asked my friend when their opinion of the show shifted from essentially "well i'm having fun watching it with you at least" to "ok wait a minute this is actually good," and they said the last four episodes of s1. while i'd place the "officially Good" marker for myself somewhere around episode 9, maybe a little later, i can see exactly why it'd be far later (and at that point specifically) for someone else, particularly someone that hasn't taken...extensive notes on every single moment of s1 and poured over them like it was my job for a solid couple years.

episode 23 and onward has: jerome and alfie getting more complex material to work with AND get to play off one another (and thus two of the show's best actors get to show us that), the rube-goldberg-machineification of the plotlines is setting in (the scene where mick and mara are playfighting while doing the dishes (as a result of their relationship turmoil up to this point??) and spill water on victor right when jerome chases alfie into the kitchen with the drawings of the ankh pieces?!?!?!??!?! LIKE!!! YOU CAN'T CALL THAT BAD WRITING...); reveals are paying off; stakes are high without spiraling out of control; actors in general are refining what elements of their characters work the best/need highlighting; beyond that the characters have weathered enough conflicts that their choices are cropping up to be consistent and solid characterization with a direction; it's clear that this is a campy endeavor with writing chops to back up the cheese.

the way that manifested in my friend's reaction was "wow, that was a good scene." "wait, that was acted really well. everyone did a good job there." "oh my god, they're not. theyre not doing this. oh my god, they are."

that is the essence of house of anubis, i think. it's not for everyone, but "bad writing?" a bit unfair, if you ask me.

#house of anubis #house of anubis meta #hoa meta #hoa #my writing #i feel like this is too vague and soupy so i might write a sequel to this at some point lmao

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fancy-rock-dove · 1 year

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Chapter Head Art for Maybe Sprout Wings (Full set)

I have had just, So Much Fun working on these. This story really is built on such a great concept, and with such fantastic worldbuilding, and with action so thoroughly in tune with its themes that it really does reward digging into. @moorishflower's writing kills me in the best of ways (and in the sleep deprivation kind of ways but I have no regrets), and designing them was a great time. And on top of that, everyone here has been just, so lovely, so I'm very excited to post the full set of chapter head illustrations!

Stylistic consistency continues to elude me, but hopefully these look like a matched enough set regardless. Cursive titles are the chapter titles, block print is my own title for the illustration. Just for fun, and in tribute to the (probably truly unhinged) amount of time I spent thinking about Symbolism while making these, I'm including one selected Fun Fact relevant to my thoughts on some part of each of these at the bottom of this post in case that interests anyone!

Ch 1: Baobabs are some of the oldest living flowering plants on the planet and can live up to two millennia. I have a lot of feelings about the sheer volume of life these trees can contain (both spatially and in time) and what that means for how we look at them.

Ch 2: If Abel were looking to avoid anachronism, he could still absolutely have left out books that were machine-printed with moveable type, but they'd probably have to have been in Chinese or Korean, from somewhere that had already widely adopted the technology by the 14th century.

Ch 3: Homer's works contain what is believed to be the first written mention of apples in Ancient Greece. Its writing is about as many centuries removed from the events of the Odyssey as the events of this chapter are from the first recorded mention of apples in England.

Ch 4: An ink quill is definitely more aesthetic, but graphite had actually been discovered in England and pencils invented in the decades prior to Shakespeare's first writings. It's entirely possible he could've been jotting down quick notes with a pencil like any stagehand today.

Ch 5: Though Corinthian style architecture is named for the Greek city of Corinth, with which it's associated, its inventor Callimachus is actually thought to be Athenian. The spiny, curling acanthus leaves used in its motifs are generally associated with long life, immortality, and rebirth. Go figure.

Ch 6: Symbolically, clovers are a sign that others are thinking of you. They're associated with good fortune, and apparently also male energy, and seen as a sign of protection. Excellent Fiddler's Green groundcover here.

Ch 7: Three-masted, fully-rigged ships became common in Europe by the 16th or 17th centuries during the Age of Sail because the extra space for sails became more necessary with the increase in open-ocean voyages. Making them the go-to type of vessel for both trade and exploration.

Ch 8: The simple but effective design of drop spindles is largely unchanged from their first documented use in the first century CE. there's evidence of their use for spinning (making a single, stronger thread from many disparate fibers) dating back at least to the advent of agriculture, some 10,000 years ago. Definitely what I picture Clotho using.

Ch 9: The fractal, branching structures of roots, lightning, and Lichtenberg figures are all self-similar: you can get much closer and they'll still appear very similar or identical to the way they were at a distance.

Ch 10: The throne room scenes of Sandman were shot in Guildford Cathedral. The Dreaming's Castle was intentionally designed to be a mashup of a whole ton of architectural styles, but the facade and throne room definitely feel gothic or neo-gothic. It's been a classic for centuries and the gothic-style window is definitely the kind I picture Hob's room having, at least on days the castle's feeling a bit fancy.

Ch 11: The item at the front left there is a weaving shuttle. According to Artemidorus, while dreaming of most kinds of looms indicates that you should expect rest, dreaming of a warp-weighted loom -- the kind which was common in bronze-age Greece and enables multiple people to work together on the weaving -- indicates an upcoming journey.

Ch 12: I feel like I've already talked about the symbolism of this one elsewhere, so for this one, instead of a fact, a comment (that I found fun): The binding circle in this only shows up in areas covered by the puddle of the Dreaming Sea, the means by which the nature of the "gilded ring" was elucidated. :)

Ch 13: Greek ships often had eyes on their bow, which among other things, was intended to imbue them with some will and ability to avoid obstacles. The Argo famously had eyes and also some innate awareness/intelligence, and could actually speak to the crew.

Ch 14: While Calliope, muse of epic poetry and eloquence (and the one invoked at the beginning of the Odyssey) is associated with a book, scroll, or tablet, Erato, muse of romantic poetry and love stories, is depicted in crowns of rose and myrtle. My title for this one was very nearly just (Invocation pt. ii). Also, I have a headcanon that Dream has only seen very bad performances of the Odysseyif ( he's seen any at all) since antiquity. Any show that literally begins by calling his ex is something he's not gonna stay for unless he's really sure she won't actually show up.

Whew! thanks to anyone who actually read to the end of my rambling here! Clearly this whole story has been really, really fun to just turn over in my mind. Cool stuff just keeps falling out of it! Since I would literally be two photos under Tumblr's limit on this post otherwise, how about a couple bonus alternate versions at the end here? Because why not?? I added some red accents to a couple of these for fun, and though it doesn't fit the for the chapter headings, I do think it looks cool!

#Maybe Sprout Wings #fic rec #my art #the sandman #hob gadling #dream of the endless #long post #sorry?#how do I write art posts idk #dreamling

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toon-kirby · 4 months

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(apologies for potentially double-posting)

any headcanons pertaining to the first gen trio and the way they parent their sons?

Alright, I finally got this done... because I did all the first gen parents! Surprise!

Siggy/Dee - Deirdre, having grown up in the woods, ended up opting for a very natural parenting style. Organic and home grown foods, minimal/reused plastic, lots of outdoor time, etc. Sigurd makes enough money for that kind of lifestyle, though Deirdre knows how to do it on a budget. She's not extreme about it, though. Sigurd's introduced her to lots of cool things she didn't have growing up (like video games that aren't hand me downs from people at church). With his encouragement, she's also working on her degree at the local college. Not sure what she's going for, but probably something Earth Science related. Deirdre tries to schedule her classes while Seliph is at school, but when she can't, she has Oifey babysit him.

Quan/Ethlyn - Quan is very into good grades, so both Leif and Altena are in tutoring and private school. They're also both in sports as soon as they're old enough. Altena is really good at soccer, and by goodness does Quan make sure to brag about it to Travant. Ethlyn isn't very happy about this. Travant's a widower, he doesn't need someone bullying him! Quan just needs to let this stupid rivalry go. Plus, Altena seems to be friends with Arion! Quan shouldn't ruin that!

Eldie/Granhye - Very classy parents. I mean, it's Eldigan and Granhye. Ares began music lessons at a very young age, just like his father. These paid off, though not in the way anyone expected. Ares ended up being into punk and metal music rather than classical. Instead of getting mad, Eldigan and Granhye decided to embrace it (granted Ares keeps his grades and behevior good). His electric bass is his favorite present ever. He nicknamed it Missiletainn.

Midir/Edain - Edain found out early on that she really liked to read books to her kids. She ended up volunteering at the local library to read more books, and that's how the little Tirnanog friend group came to be. She and Midir take turns staying at home since neither of them have a standard monday-friday schedule. They make sure to spend a lot of time together when they're both off. Family board game nights are a regular occurence in their house.

Lex/Ayra - The sporty parents. As soon as Larcei and Schatach were old enough they enrolled them in soccer. Then came martial arts, swimming, you name it. The kids' diet probably consists of Issachian home cooking, granola bars, and gatorade. Shannan has stepped in multiple times to babysit or get the kids to practice. He's the super cool older cousin, after all!

Azelle/Tailtiu - Super nerdy parents. I'm talking DND and cosplay type nerdy. Tine was born premature, so they spent a lot of time in the hospital. The nurses absolutely adored Arthur. They were all so happy when he started to walk and say his first words. Hilda, however, was jealous of all the attention Tailitu and Tine got when they finally came home.

Finn/Lachesis - I think your headcanons about Finn and Lachesis being Malewife and Girlboss are pretty spot on. Lachesis has some sort of high ranking office job, while Finn stays at home. Diarmuid sometimes spends time with Beowulf (his bio dad), but lives with Finn and Lach. Beo's very chill about the entire thing and even gives Nanna gifts for her birthday and christmas. (Slightly off topic, but in an AU where all the games exist at the same time, I can see Finn being really good friends with Dedue since they're so similar. I mean, their leiges are even both voiced by Chris Hackney!)

Alec/Sylvia - I actually headcanon Lene and Coirpre to have different fathers in canon, as Coirpre was young enough to get the attention of the cult and that wouldn't be possible if Coirpre was born pre-Belhalla (though he does have severe baby face). Anyways, since this is a modern au with no cults or political scheming (hopefully), I'll go with them both being Alec's kid. Neither Alec nor Sylvia ended up with a high paying job, so money was tight. Then Alec got a job under Hannibal. He became close to the family and agreed to become the children's godfather. He likes to spoil the kids since he could never have any kids of his own. I'm thinking of Uncle Drosselmeyer from the Nutcracker from some reason. Speaking of Ballet, Lene's lessons are free since Sylvia works at the studio. Coirpre… well I'll be honest, I don't know what he'd be doing.

Lewyn/Erinys - Not a day goes by where these two can't figure out how Ced ended up being a straight a student. Erinys was a good student, but she wasn't super into it. And Lewyn… well, Lewyn is Lewyn. Fee ended up more free-spirited and laid back like her dad, though to a more responsible degree. She credits this to having her dad's love for life mixed with her mom's responsibility.

Jamke/Brigid - Somewhere inbetween Ayra/Lex and Edain/Midir on the parenting style spectrum. Patty ended up really enjoying gymnastics, so they kept her enrolled in it. She also took up magic tricks, including (to Jamke and Brigid's dismay) lock picking. Super cool cousin Dew totally didn't teach her that. Febail took up archery like his father.

#fe4 #apologies for the wait!

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rockmiyabideusexmachina · 2 years

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2022 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest Results! (Part 1)

I will try to keep the dialogue short and sweet, but you know it’s hard. And I’m a little rushed in posting this, so apologies for anything that I did not proofread well. Hopefully I did not screw up any of the links. Thank you to all who participated, and hope you all can enjoy and heap loads of praise on everyone’s creations!

Hey, I did my own promo art for the first time in forever! I’ll post more on that later. This is more about you guys, first.

This will be broken up into 2 posts, due to the amount of entries in the first category. This post will just focus on Category 1. See Part 2 for Category 2 and 3.

I actually do have updates to one participant’s entries, but because it happened as I was writing this up, I have not have had the time to edit them in and reupload things. (Which had no effect on judging or these results) So expect a possible update to these posts late tonight after I get off work, which you can check out tomorrow.

Again, the top 3 who placed will be announced first, followed by the remaining entries in alphabetical order by alias. Winners will be contacted later on tonight, after I get home from work. Check your email/DMs tomorrow.

After the break, here are your winners and galleries full of art!

CATEGORY 1: Under my Nombrellan

For this category, participants were to draw a rainy day scene with the characters of their choice utilizing an umbrella or containing a character that was umbrella-based, like Nombrellan, in it.

And you guys made it really hard, because there were a lot of great ideas, and I probably made the theme too vague to judge it as well as I could with the others. Because I really had a time trying to place these. ^^; But that is also a testament to what you sent in.

After each entrant’s name, there will be a link to the entry, too, just in case the inserted external images don’t load for you. In the interest of not breaking your browser with the usual super-scrollingly-long post, entries consisting of more than 2 images will only have 2 embedded into this post, with links to each page separately.

[Full Cat. 1 gallery]

1.) @subzeroiceskater: [Entry]...is 23 pages, so I’m just going to link to the first page, and you can arrow to the right to view them all ($125 prize)

If you have been following my contests for the past few years, you know Subzeroiceskater has taken up the giant comic entry mantle from artists like Wintesm and Fenril Huayra. And those ambitions were well placed here, with a fabulous kids book-like story that will have you laughing and crying, with pages that are bright and cheery, and pages that are dark and sad. You incorporated multiple umbrella designs and characters, and told a very sweet story, which I feel like was your best yet.

2.) Zackxson: [Entry] ($75 prize)

For pure technical style, your painterly piece stood out and looks fantastic! The glow from the yellows on both Rock and Roll draw my eye in amongst the dreary rain, and while it can be seen as a smaller detail, the digitalization lines of the umbrella was a nice touch. Overall, real fun to zoom in on and look at in close detail. The realism and lighting are just really well done!

3.) VCampan: [Entry] ($50 Prize)

Defeat a Robot Master, and still have to sit there and listen to him spill his guts out to you after...well,...his guts have been blasted out. The emotions of the scene is what helped put this one here to me, as Rock is both being kind to his enemy, but seemingly not comfortable with it. And whatever Top is telling him sure got to that Nombrellan, who is welling up with tears, that it probably won’t be much different from the rain on the bots soon. The soft glow from the stage lights on them also turned out really nice.

And the remaining wonderful entries, in alphabetical order by alias:

@dahlia-the-nurd: [Entry]

Toad jiggly time! Jumping in puddles and splashing around in the mud is part of the fun of rainy days, and it looks like everyone is having a good time in this scene. Until Rock’s feet splash that mess on everyone, that is. The Nombrellan sure looks like it doesn’t want to get all dirty, and knows what’s coming! LOL Love that the siblings have matching froggy ponchos. Just a cute, fun scene!

@digitallyfanged: [Entry]

One of multiple entries featuring umbrellas as acts of kindness shielding furry friends, Volnutt has stumbled across a trio of kitties. The face on the one he’s holding is adorable. Not sure if it’s feeling uncomfortable being drenched or just being cuddled that close. LOL At least the claws aren’t out yet. Love the detail of the soaked cardboard box and how you drew the water dripping off of things like the cat’s tail and umbrella itself.

@dwn-059: [Entry]

Of all your entries, this was probably my favorite in terms of overall detail and composition, but since you placed in a different category, that kept this one from placing here. Chivalrous Sword Man might not have an umbrella himself, but that shield works just as well. The background is so pretty, definitely fitting of the opening of his stage. Even the smallest of detail was a focus, like the solo ladybug on the leafy blade. The Sheep Man umbrella design turned out really cute!

Jewel Maiden: [Entry]

Living together in a world where only Reploids exist, as it almost feels dream-like with the white fog around them. Very clever take combining Zero’s Z-saber and Iris’ gem in your umbrella design, it definitely stood out as unique! The cobblestone path looks wonderful as well as they take their stroll.

Marquelle Power: [Entry]

In the digital world, it must be nice to be able to have an umbrella sit above you without having to use your hands to hold it, as Toadman illustrates. Very cute pic, and reminiscent of his battle with him on the lilypad. The tall stands of water grass drawn in the background really frame him in nicely.

Mattasaurs: [Entry]

Another fun splashing in puddles pic, this time without the dirtiness of mud, as Misora gets Subaru all soaked outside of school. Just don’t hit that Tel Tel with anything that will change the rain to snow. The way the water splatters turned out really good, as is your background work of the school gate/wall. Subaru’s umbrella has a cute design with Toadman.EXE and the lightning bolts, while still incorporating a little shooting star into it.

Miralie: [Entry]

I really thought this was minimalistic-ly beautiful, telling a story without showing too much. Iris is obviously excited to see Zero outside of the frame, and it’s cutely funny to see the taller Zero’s heels lifting up like he was the one leaning in for a kiss with the shorter Iris. Fantastic job with the details of Valentine’s Day Iris’ dress, and I love how the lineart for her just curves and flows so well. Very pretty overall.

@nightopianfoxgirl: [Entry]

This scene with Mamoru and Serenade encountering a little birdy in the rain is very adorable, as is Mamoru’s froggy umbrella. I thought that was a very clever, yet subtle, design for the umbrella. Made me instantly think of the froggy trash can in EXE when I saw it. Also clever way to make use of Serenade’s scarf raiments to act like an umbrella to shield them from the rain. The way the water drips off of them turned out great as well. The pink hydrangeas in the background are pretty and add some cheer to a dreary day.

@papillonthepirate: [Entry]

Sunshowers are a wonderful thing to experience, and you brought some brightness and cheeriness to a dreary theme with the rainbow overhead breaking through the storms. The ‘lil Escaroo with an even tinier real snail friend is super cute. The shading work with your colored pencils, especially on Tornado Man, turned out really good!

Ryan Vogler: [Entry]

Only an evil genius would have an umbrella with a lightbulb on top of it. I would love to see this in animation action, as he thinks up a Robot Master that will surely defeat Mega Man this time, and the light above the umbrella just lights up super bright. Clever, and gave me a good laugh. The chaotic sketchiness of your linework is more noticeable zoomed in, but it really does reinforce the downpour of the rain in that way as well. That detail and style helped make the whole piece really unique, and I really liked it!

@stephodell: [Entry]

And finally, one more lone kitty in a cardboard box beside Enzan. The background detail with the huge amount of hydrangeas in bloom turned out very pretty, as did the little details like the blades of grass along the pooling water on the sidewalk. Having a clear umbrella lets that background stand out, and the ‘lil ghosty Blues hanging from it helps echo the transparency of it.

____________________________

And once again, head here for Part 2 of the results.

#Rockman #Megaman #Mega Man #Rock Miyabi's 2022 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest #Fanart Contest

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carpisuns · 3 years

Note

Do you have any art tips? Also, What platform do you use for your art?

ngl, i feel kind of silly giving art tips because i really don't know anything lol and my skills are still very Underdeveloped. but here is what I've found most helpful as I've been trying to improve. (these are more general tips rather than specific technical tips—hope that's ok!)

Oh and I use photoshop and a Wacom intuous tablet :)

Use references! I look at references with pretty much every single thing I ever draw lol I’m incapable of drawing purely from my imagination 😭 but using refs is good practice anyway. Sometimes I draw things based on a single reference but often I end up using multiple references for one drawing.

Study art that you like. This has been huge for me! I’m constantly staring at other people's art both out of admiration and for education haha. When I discover an artist whose style i really vibe with, I like to try to break it down and pinpoint exactly what I love about their art and what their strengths are so I can maybe try to incorporate it into my own art. A few of the ones I've probably studied the most are @bugaboo-n-bananoir @anna-scribbles @jooitshere @shishitsunari @celerydays @picayunearts @leviaana @masilvi @buggachat @ladyblargh @yunyin @sabertoothwalrus — all super skilled and talented and i learn a ton just from enjoying their art!

Draw what you want to draw. I don't often draw things just for practice—I draw things because I feel like it. So instead of saying, "Man, I have to practice drawing X thing until I'm really good at it, and then I can finally draw the idea I have," I say, "Okay, I want to draw this thing and it's kind of out of my comfort zone and I don't know how to draw it but I'm going to try to figure it out and learn as I go." This might seem kind of backwards so hopefully it's not terrible advice lol but I've personally found it to be a helpful approach. Drawing purely for practice will definitely help you improve and is probably the method recommended by 9/10 dentists, but I am the 10th dentist who says, "nah i'm just gonna do what i want" alsfkdafj. My skills are limited but I don't want that to stop me from trying stuff, and it's in the trying that I improve. Basically, all the drawings I post are my "practice drawings." Because almost everything I've posted (unless it's like a headshot at a 3/4 angle asdlkfjasjf) was out of my comfort zone a bit and I was not confident i could pull it off but I just tried and worked at it until I thought it looked ok lol

Don’t worry too much about “style.” I feel like a lot of artists (including me) overfocus on finding/developing a consistent art style, but I think it’s better to just draw lots and build your skills and have fun! Your art style will come through naturally as you do that. Also, there’s nothing wrong with variety. Not all your stuff will look the same, and that's okay. And chances are that your style looks more consistent to other people than it does to you. Even if your drawings look different, they’ll all still have your fingerprints on it and feel like you :)

Give yourself credit for the things you create. It's so, so hard not to compare and get discouraged. Everyone suffers from art envy and gets frustrated with themselves—I definitely do—but it's really important to be patience with yourself. Growth is not a linear journey. There will be ups and downs, and that's okay. I probably get the most frustrated with myself for struggling with anatomy/full-body drawings and for taking a million years on every simple-looking drawing lol. But it's helpful to compare my current work/skills with my past work/skills. When I feel like I'm improving at a snail's pace or not at all, it's nice to be able to look back at my older stuff and see that yeah, I still have a long way to go, but I've also come a long way, and I'm capable of going even further. There is a huge gap between where I am and where I'd like to be someday, but I'm working on being inspired by that gap rather than intimidated by it.

Sorry this turned out so long,,, im a huge rambler lol. but I hope this is helpful. best of luck and happy drawing!! 🤠💜

#anon #ask #art tips #positivity

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h-worksrambles · 2 years

Text

Overdue thoughts on Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

I’ve been meaning to talk about my reaction to the latest Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes trailer, and now I’m finally gonna do it. This isn’t some super in depth theory crafting. Much like my Kingdom Hearts IV post this is just some early reflections.

I’ll start with what I’ve noticed in terms of gameplay because this’ll be the shorter part. Also, I’ll just quickly point out that most of my Musou knowledge comes from the two Hyrule Warriors games. So if I sound ignorant about specifics of Dynasty Warriors gameplay, it’s because I am. Just a heads up.

One thing I’ve been consistently impressed by in Koei Tecmo’s latest Musou spin-offs is how committed they are to trying to make them feel like part of the series that spawned them. Persona 5 Strikers and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity both perfectly match the graphical style of the games they’re based off. They also both pull a ton of aspects from the gameplay of their source material and blend them with Warriors gameplay. Sure enough, we have already seen Combat Arts, Gambits, Adjutants and the class system in these trailers. Combat Arts are particularly neat, since OP special moves are a Warriors tradition, but letting you choose from multiple ones is a neat bit of customisation (or maybe it’s already been done idk). Teaming up with allies on the battle field for group attacks is also cool as is more control over AI allies, but I hope this doesn’t replace actually swapping characters which I think is a great mechanic for these games both to keep variety, and bolster their light strategy elements. Three Houses’ training is also back, and hopefully will be used to cut down on the typical Musou grind rather than increase it.

Ok, that’s all I can observe from the gameplay as far as I can make out and it all looks great. Here’s hoping there’s not any egregious performance issues.

Anyway, onto the story. So far I’m getting major vibes of Age of Calamity. This very much appears to be an alternate timeline, much of which revolves around our new protagonist, Shez. The idea seems to be that Shez’s absence was the main reason Three Houses played out the way it did, and now that they’re here, things may go differently.

Incidentally I’m glad Shez isn’t a silent protagonist. Byleth had more characterisation than your average silent protag, but they really couldn’t carry a story without the three lords (see Silver Snow for proof). I’ve already praised the new redesigns, and yes they are all chef’s kiss. But I wanna talk chronology. Anime ages are hazy at the best of times, but from what I see, there is definitely a timeskip here and they do look older, but the changes are way less pronounced than they were in Three Houses. The war has not been going on for five whole years it seems.

The game also seems to be going out of its way to tap into some unexplored ideas from the original. For instance, we see a pink haired warrior in the trailer who could very possibly be Holst, Hilda’s previously unseen brother, as well as a new character who resembles Claude (another member of the Almryan nobility?). Even Monica seems to be here, though the jury’s still out on whether this the real or Monica or simply a disguised Kronya.

Shez also has a companion figure much like Sothis named Arval, but this guy’s whole colour scheme resembles the Agarthans. I know that, as such, some people are expecting a twist villain but I actually hope not. The Agarthans were probably the weakest part of Three Houses’ story as they hindered the game’s gray morality by being obvious villains who masterminded many of Fódlan’s worst aspects. Giving them a sympathetic god figure similar to Sothis, or at least having one Agarthan who isn’t cartoonishly evil could provide them depth, much like the Nabateans.

And of course, we gotta talk about Byleth.

I think posing Byleth as an antagonist is a great reversal. It takes their silent, borderline Gary-Stu/Mary-Sue nature and turns it into something threatening by turning it against us. Nice to see them living up to the Ashen Demon name. And supposedly, they nearly killed Shez at some point in the past and the story is hyping up a rematch of sorts. However, I highly doubt they are a true villain. We see that their name and gender is still decided by the player, which implies they’re playable. So I’m expecting a dual perspective story simillar to Gaiden and its remake Shadows of Valentia. This would mean switching between Byleth and Shez at story intervals much like Alm and Celica, leading up to their second confrontation. Then again, this game apparently has three routes, so I don’t know how this could logistically work in that context. Interestingly, Sothis’ narration in the first trailer makes some comment about revenge and given how, normally, only Byleth can hear her, that implies to me that maybe Jeralt’s death plays out differently in this timeline. Could Shez themselves be involved? We’ll see I guess...

Lastly, there’s the question of whether this game will have any kind of ‘everyone lives’ golden ending. On the one hand, Three Houses is supposed to be a tragedy. It has no completely happy ending and I think it’s a better game for it. That being said, the Warriors crossovers have often been kind of fanfic-y. They’re bombastic fan-pleasing spectacles that run on hype, and Age of Calamity specifically set itself apart as an AU so it could run wild without contradicting Breath of the Wild. I see no reason Three Hopes couldn’t do the same. Though the fact that it still has multiple routes means that unless there’s some Fates/Sonic Adventure 2 ‘last story’, it probably won’t have a fully happy ending. So maybe bring tissues to be safe.

There’s still a lot we don’t know, but I’m still really excited. I loved Age of Calamity (though I suspect some people would shoot me for saying that because something, something ‘false advertising’) and this looks to bring a lot of the same buckwild AU energy to one of my favourite Switch titles. Plus I’m just looking forward to seeing these characters again, AND using them to curbstomp entire armies. I just hope the playable roster is up to par, considering how much I love Three Houses cast.

But yeah, long story short, I’m incredibly excited.

#fire emblem #three houses #three hopes #thoughts #speculation #kinda

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gb-patch · 3 years

Text

Ask Answers: May 15th Part 1

It’s been longer than usual since our last answer session, so I’m answering a ton of questions today! It’s so big I split it into two parts. Thank you for the patience on getting a response to these.

Thanks for reaching out to us with your questions and kind words ^^!

Sorry if this has been asked before or isn't something you can say but is there anyway for Cove to confess in step 4? I wanted him to confess in step 3 and followed all the steps to make him do it but ended up texting my family instead of Cove at the end.

Yeah, Cove can confess in Step 4!

Hello! I heard that Cove is on the spectrum, albeit undiagnosed. As someone who is ND, this makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy. I literally was brought to tears! Thank you for that!

Out of curiosity, will Cove be diagnosed in Step 4? I have a strong feeling y’all won’t make it a HUGE deal/make it out to be negative, so I’m not worried about that whatsoever! I’m just curious just he’ll off handedly mention it? Or will it just not be touched upon at all (which is ok!)?

Either way is ok, I’m just curious!

I’m happy it made you happy! Admittedly, Cove simply being someone with autism that grew up not being diagnosed was something I included for myself. I didn’t really think anyone would notice or ask about it, aha. But players did start to have questions about his traits, so I started to talk about it outside of the game. It’s great to see it get such a positive response and now I do feel like having it be a non-topic may have been the wrong choice and bringing it up would’ve been good in terms of having positive representation for that. I don’t know if I’ll find a way to mention it in Step 4 now, with how far along the game is, but I am at least thinking about it when originally it wasn’t something I really even considered.

Hey! Just wanted to say thank you for Our Life. It's been a bright spot and a needed escape in what's otherwise been a crummy year. I know you just did a Q&A post but I figured I'd ask anyway. Was just curious about Step 4. Will it be similar to the other Steps in that it consists of several different moments or will it just be one long sequence?

Step 4 is shorter than the prior Steps because it’s just an epilogue rather than a full arc of a story. It’ll consist of scenes that all happen in a set row one after the other. There won’t be a collection of Moments to choose from. But it’ll still be very sweet and fun.

¡hola!, you see, first I want to say that I love Our Life! (°◡°♡) and I have 2 important questions, would Cove cry watching titanic? and what is the saddest part according to him? (sorry for my english)

Titanic would make him cry. He’d probably think the parts showing people who aren’t able to make it to the life boats/are choosing to stay and go down with the ship were the saddest.

Hello, I wanted to ask how much you earn with creating games? Like is it possible to make a living? Thank you >< <3

How much I earn varies a lot month to month based on Steam sales, Patreon backers, and how many projects are in full production at the time. It’s also hard to say how much I make historically, since that also changes dramatically year by year. But I do earn enough to work on these games full time! I really appreciate all the support that allows me to do that.

Hey!! I was wondering for the 18+ Our Life moment, will there be an emphasis on safety/comfort for all involved? I feel like there would be just going off of what the rest of the game is like, but I wanted to ask

Yes! Cove is a nervous boy himself and also super cautious about doing anything the MC doesn’t like, so clear consent from both is absolutely needed for anything to happen. It’s a conversational sexy times Moment with stops/starts so the two can talk about how they’re feeling, rather than a heat of the moment just going for it kind of thing.

Hey!! I was wondering how long the wedding dlc would be? Will it be broken up into moments, or just one big event?

It’s one long series of scenes all in a row rather than a collection of Moments to pick from. It’s the shortest and the least expensive of all the DLCs. It’s not super crucial to get and those who aren’t into big weddings can totally skip it without worry.

HELLO AMAZING DEVS 👋 i am hopelessly in love with the worst guy ever (jeremy king) and because of this i have a really stupid question: does he really hate people who are nice to him? TvT he’s too cute to be mean to istg it’s a miracle JB held the urge to be consistently nice to him bc just look at his FACE he is so cute! thank you for jeremy’s route it’s so lovely (and awful bc he’s scum 11/10) it gave me so much laughs LMAO i hope you guys have a good day!!

Haha, thank you. He doesn’t hate them but he’s certainly not pleased with them. Jeremy is either uncomfortable with or annoyed by people being sweet on him, depending on how they approach it. He’s far more comfortable with jerkiness. It lets him relax and he can be himself without it being a problem, since he’s also a jerk. He feels a level of guilt being such a little punk to kind people, not enough to be a better person but still.

Has Cove dated or been interested in someone other than MC?

Nope! He stays single over the course of the game if he’s not with the MC.

Is Step 4 more mature? Or it's gonna be set in similar atmosphere as Step 3?

Step 4 is a similar atmosphere as Step 3. Though, it’s actually kind of less mature-topic heavy than Step 3 since it’s just a ‘hey, let’s check in on the gang to see what they’re up to’ style epilogue rather than a story arc with serious issues.

will there be new music for now and forever?? or will the old our life music be reused?

It’s gonna be a brand new soundtrack. We’ll be opening up a job position for that soon.

Hi, is it okay if we use the assets in Our Life (like the sprites) for fanworks or fan content content, like edits?

Sure! Just as long as you don’t use the assets made by those artists to make money.

Quick clarification on Step 3 choices: I hope I didn't come off rude (because I LOVE the game, really!!), I was just curious because the intro threw me off at times. For example, you could choose how you felt about Elizabeth in Step 2 (Dinner), but during the Step 3 intro, it says that you got closer to Liz and I didn't get a choice in it.

For the example, it can’t be helped that you’re closer to Liz in Step 3 than you were in Step 2 because she’s inherently closer to the MC regardless of whether you liked her or not in Step 2. Her feelings are out of your control and the game isn’t so dramatic that you can push her affection away and not let her bond with you, haha. But ‘being closer’ can still be relative. For some people maybe that means you’re best buds now and for others it might just mean you’re not fighting all the time any more. If there’s other parts you want to mention, feel free to let us know.

Did the illustrator for Our Life change?

We have many OL artists! The main artists who set the game’s style haven’t changed, but there’s multiple other artists who help finish assets.

So Miranda's type is confident and outgoing, huh? So...does that mean Terri's her type?? 👀

Haha, sorry for the late reply on this. As you might’ve seen in our post yesterday- yeah that is her type.

Hey! First, I just want to say I've really enjoyed how detailed OL got with gender identity and sexuality and how respectful the topics were handled! It's been so wonderful to play since the experiences could be close to my own (I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up at parts). Second, I was wondering, would future games explore the topic of polyamory? I'd love to see more visual novels allow room for that and I saw you've explored the topic before.

Keep up the amazing work! ♡

Thank you! We do want to include polyamory in at least some of our future projects. Floret Bond, which might be what you’re referring to when mentioning how we’ve explored the topic before, is on hold unfortunately. So right now I’m not sure when something might release or what will be the first game of ours to come out with poly relationships (we might do something else before FB is done). We’ll have see how things ends up coming together.

Hey um. I feel like im not allowed to ask this on the private discord cuz people will yell at me but why is there so much focus on OL2 and not finishing OL1 stuff? I like the new people but i kind of want to finish cove's story and get derek and baxter stuff first. didn't people pay for it?

I’m sorry, I don’t understand entirely what’s making that situation a concern. There’s a channel in the discord for critique where no one is allowed to comment back. People can voice things they’re worried about without any way for others to push back on it. And the two teams working on the OL games are different. We try to post pretty often about how we’re hiring brand new people to start on Our Life: Now & Forever. The OL1 team is all still working on OL1 like normal. There’s only more updates on the Patreon for OL2 because the expansions to the first game are mostly script-based at this point while OL2 is just starting to get all its art, which means there’s a lot more to show off as previews.

Also, there was a Kickstarter for the first Our Life, if that’s what you mean by people paying for it. But one of the stretch goals was to start Our Life 2 early, before fully completing Our Life 1, so that the new game could be out sooner. It wouldn’t make sense to stop doing OL2 work because that would be going against what backers were promised. Maybe you didn’t get the full story before and hopefully this clears it up!

Hello! I know it's up to every player but.. What is your recommendation for playing order? Did you ever had any timeline events planned?

I didn’t make the events with a planned timeline. The events got made simply as I had ideas for them and then I just kind of organized them from left to right on the screen in an order to space out more dramatic ones between more lighthearted ones. Any order the player wants to go with is totally valid!

Hi! It's Step 4 a paid dlc or update? And how long it's planned to be? Ps. Love the game!

The Step 4 epilogue is free! The Cove Wedding DLC does cost money, though. Those are planned to be shorter than the usual Steps/DLCs.

Will we have options for what sort of job the MC might have by the time step 4 takes place?

Yeah, you can. It’s not super exact or detailed, but there are options about it.

Is there a pandemic in Our Life world, or is it just in a better timeline with no pestilence?

Our Life is pandemic-free! That didn’t exist when we began working on the project and it’s not something we’d like to feature in this story now that it has unfortunately come along, aha.

Hi, you said that you can play tic-tac-toe or hangman with Cove in Boating if you're sick/scared but I keep getting tic-tac-toe. Am I doing something wrong?

After being sick/scared you have to continue to be upset/unwell. If you calm down and decide to just chill you’ll end up playing tic-tac-toe.

Hi, GB Patch! Since Lee was initially commissioned to only appear in two Steps does this mean she won't appear in the Wedding DLC? I really like her character so it'll be a little weird to not have our cousin at our wedding, aha.

She is gonna be in Step 4/the wedding DLC after all! We’re still working with her creator to make sure it fits with what they wanted.

Is Sunset Bird based on a real place? Asking for a friend, not trying to move there or anything. 👀

It’s based on small beach towns in So-Cal, but not one specific town you could go see in real life, I’m afraid. It’d be nice if it was real, though.

—– —– —– —–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

#our life #Our Life Beginnings & Always #Our Life: Now & Forever #ask #gb patch #gb patch games #xoxo droplets

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sl-walker · 3 years

Photo

All right, since I’m in the middle of a flare and have to work manual labor for the next four days despite it, I figured I would make myself -- and hopefully other people -- laugh by talking about one of my favorite OG Captain Marvel stories. Namely, from Whiz #50, with a cover date of January, 1944, meaning it was probably produced sometime in late 1943.

I want to share it because why not, this is some absurdly charming stuff.

I’ll get more into why it’s one of my favorites as we go, in the form of running commentary. So, full story (with said commentary) under the cut. If you wanna just read the story without my commentary, stick to the pictures. XD

First, let me say that the cover and splash page definitely live up to the story, though the cover’s a bit more sensationalized. But the premise is pretty damn simple: Our intrepid hero and his newsboy alter ego are on vacation. Cap decides to go swimming. It goes hilariously wrong and thus ensues a bit of a madcap adventure, no puns intended.

Second, the fact that Cap and Billy are depicted as essentially different entities makes what Billy does next the ultimate trolling:

Gee, airing out the stolen laundry on the radio? Really? I’ll leave it up to you, gentle reader, whether Billy actually was trolling his own alter-ego for ratings or whether he was just innocently sharing the story while his other-self winced quietly in whatever ether-space he exists in when not front-and-center.

Either way, I love it.

Continuing on...

I get a kick out of the fact that Billy’s monologue is that he’s no dare-devil. One, because that’s so obviously not true in any way -- (that kid is awesomely, sometimes recklessly brave on the regular even without Cap) -- but two, because the bridge is actually named Dare-Devil Bridge. We aren’t given any reason why this dangerous potential death-trap is there, hanging without so much as a gate or a warning sign or anything, because we don’t need one. It’s there specifically for what happens next.

Which, of course, is Billy calling in Captain Marvel, who does some light complaining about the situation Billy left him in. There’s no bite to it, which I find adorable -- Cap actually does get frustrated once or twice in other issues with Billy calling on him for mundane stuff, though he’s never mean about it -- but there is a bit of the sense of being put-upon there that’s just-- I dunno, cute. It’s something I miss a lot in the various post-crisis takes on the character: That duality, that difference in personality, and the way each of them responds to different situations. Often, they’re on the same page, but notably, sometimes, they aren’t.

Someday, I promise, I need to sit down and write how I think that works between those two without being a truly frightening mental illness manifested, what with them being the same person but not the same person. Because I have so many ideas, and I’ve only had since the early-2000s to percolate them. LOL! But until then, just enjoy this.

Here is another reason why I love the Golden Age Captain Marvel books and why I love this specific story: This is an absolutely normal, mundane thing to do. It’s the human thing to do. These aren’t the actions of some super-serious superdude. These are the actions of a pretty shockingly normal guy doing something mundane. And a whole story is built around that normalcy.

It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s the reader already knowing that he’s getting himself into a situation that he absolutely could have avoided, but also completely understanding how it happened anyway. It’s pretty brilliant writing: I say this as a pretty damned good writer myself.

So much of the reason why, I think, Cap was so endearing as a hero is that humanity. He’s got pretty much god-tier power in the Golden Age, once his powerset is established. He’s utterly invulnerable to all physical harm while powered up. But-- he’s human. He knows he’s human. He acts like it, and decides, “You know what? I’m going skinny-dipping.”

He and Billy are both characters it’s so easy to empathize with.

Also, a reminder that the art under Chief Artist C.C. Beck is really, really good. (He had a whole stable of artists to help produce this stuff!) Ignoring registration issues on the printing press, the actual line art is amazingly good; proportion and perspective and consistency.

But anyway--Cap does get to enjoy his swim. But, then, oh no.

I love the idea of a world where the prime hero -- and he definitely is in that world -- can take off his suit and go swimming, and where someone else is bold enough to steal the damn suit off of him. The first time I read this, I started laughing here. Not at him, but at the situation he’s found himself in. At the idea that some random passer-by saw Captain Marvel’s costume and went yoink!

Another thing I love about this particular story is how much Cap and Billy have to work together, just by necessity. Like-- it’s just really good. But anyway, thank everything Billy Batson is on the ball, coming to the rescue.

Sheer bad luck via the weather keeps this story rolling along in hilarious misdirections. Realistically, that uniform probably wouldn’t be all buttoned together (we see Cap take off pieces of it aside the pants in other issues, including socks!), but who cares? The point of the story is that giant bear rug on the floor’s gonna get put to use.

Man, when have you ever seen Superman creeping naked through some stranger’s house wearing nothing but a random polar bear because he went skinny dipping? No wonder these comics sold so well. This next panel is when I start wheezing, though, and pretty much keep wheezing.

“A lady, too! I’ve got to get away from here!”

I’m dying at this point. That’s such a characteristic response, and yet, I think that’s why it’s funny.

Anyway, because this is an excellent story (I mean this without an ounce of irony, too), our dynamic duo stumbles across a plot in play to rob the hotel they’re staying at.

Here’s a big part of why this is such a good tale: Everything fits. Even when it isn’t explained, like Dare-Devil Bridge, it still fits. Why is the tree down? Because there was just a thunder storm, the same one that blew Cap’s suit into the room with the gangsters.

I don’t know if this is Otto Binder’s story, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. It’s a complete story told in relatively few pages that accomplishes everything it’s meant to.

Anyway, using foliage as cover, Cap gets to be heroic----then Billy gets to get back to the business of trying to stop the robbery of the hotel and get his heroic alter-ego dressed again. Which leads to a rather adorable and funny scene of Billy not only trying to describe what Captain Marvel wears, but what size it would need to be tailored in.

(Cap is supposedly a 44 for a suit coat, we find in some earlier appearance, which would refer to his chest size. So, an XL for shirts and suit-coats. He’s a big guy, but he’s actually not a hulking huge guy. But more on that later.)

I love the fact Billy tries to like-- use himself as a model. Maybe in another ten years, kiddo. Billy’s actually pretty buff for like a 12-14 year old, he’s not a scrawny kid at this point, but yeah, no. LOL!

Another thing I also really, really love about this style, though, is that they draw Captain Marvel as being strong, as having a powerful build-- but not as a dehydrated body-builder with deep cuts. He’s got human proportions, regardless of his strength; he’s got a human build, not a superhuman one.

C.C. Beck had a lot of things to say about superheroes who were just muscles on top of muscles, all clearly defined, and he didn’t like it. As someone who first got into comics in the early 90s with Jim Lee’s X-Men--

I do get Beck’s point. I not only get it, but I really highly approve of it. He maintained to the end that he drew (and oversaw) the Marvel family to look like high school and college athletes, and I can see that. I think the one person who’s gotten it right in the modern era is Evan “Doc” Shaner, who did Convergence: Shazam! He not only nailed that strong-but-not-hulking build for Cap, but also how young he looked. College-age, in fact.

But anyway, enough digression into art and why I like this better than most modern takes on the character. Also, that’s just a cute set of panels.

I also like that there wasn’t an easy fix there. Cap’s still in his not-birthday suit, and Billy’s still stuck running around trying to solve the issues at hand. Next comes some other really good panels:

-snorts- He’s locked in. Yeah, that’ll hold him.

Anyway, what I really liked here was again that tandem working; Billy can’t punch through a wall, but Cap can. Cap can’t crawl out while he’s au natural -- well, he could, but he’d probably rather die first -- but Billy’s got no such issue. It’s just fun when you get to see them doing something like that. You have to really think for a minute about the trust each of them must have in their alter-ego.

ANYWAY, we get the rare treat then--

--of Captain Marvel not only yoinking a dude into a dark room, but then stealing his clothes. Except, not his underwear. Because that’s nasty. LOL!

I love that in this series, you do actually get to see him wear other stuff. Go incognito. Get his red suit messed up enough to take it to a dry cleaner’s, wherein he ends up dressed like a musketeer after. Jerry Ordway’s series is, I think, the only other time we see Cap not wearing his famous suit, but it happened enough in the Golden Age that it wasn’t a shock.

Like, I hate to be the one to say this, but I do think DC drops the ball often on just how much you can do with Captain Marvel (or Shazam, depending on timeline, but that’s the wizard’s name to me so mostly I’ll stick with the original name) if you unbend enough to. It’s not just the costume change, or the duality of him and Billy being the same but not, but also his inherent, essential humanity.

But I am digressing again, sorry. XD I just feel strongly enough about these versions of these characters to spend hours writing this.

Anyway, only a single panel later:

And that’s that! Billy Batson has just outed his own alter-ego’s most embarrassing moment to whomever’s listening to WHIZ radio -- thank everything podcasts and the internet weren’t available then, ha! -- and we get to see a recounting of a very fun story.

Like I said earlier, I love this one for its essential humanity. The hero got himself into this mess, he and Billy got him out of this mess, and stopping the criminals was actually just kind of a lucky stroke thrown in there. But even though Cap got himself into this, the story never treats him like he’s stupid. It never treats him like he’s some kind of idiot. You’re laughing, but-- not in a mean way.

I love how human it is. How complete it is. How genuinely funny it is. It’s a thousand times more funny when you genuinely love and respect Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dissertation on a skinny-dipping hero. LOL! I enjoyed sharing it with you.

#dc captain marvel #billy batson #shazam #whiz comics

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crystalnet · 3 years

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Current X-book Mood-Ring Guide

There are an awful lot of X-books on the shelves right now. They are most of my monthly haul. No joke it is at least 12 books at this point. So, in order to cope with that, I’ve organized all the books into one of four different categories, aka “booster-pack�� themes. Click through if you want to jump aboard the best X-men run since Morrison before the boat pushes off for the Hellfire Gala this summer! These are the 4 categories:

-Mainline Blue/Gold-style

-Jr. Mutants Academy

-2nd-Wave Krakoa Niche (aka “the good stuff”)

-Cetera

#1. Mainline Blue/Gold-style

Mood-color/vibe: Actually 90s-style Blue/Gold and like bright primary colors (but also muddy-ass colors from X-factor).

Books included: X-men, Excalibur, Marauders, X-force

Typical Pokemon: Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Betsy Braddock, Kate Pride, Beast, Black Tom, Storm, Bishop, Emma Frost, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Kid Omega, Domino, a Pyro, Iceman, Avalanche. Rare drops: Apocalypse, X-23, Synch, Darwin, Kid Cable, Fantomex (in that Giant-Sized!)

These be the books for someone who wants those direct, mainline, core-members-style lineups. On the main book (adjective/word-play-less X-men) Hickman/Yu have worked wonders with their run, but it hasn’t been a stable team, instead focusing on Scott and his adventures dealing with some of the more prominent threats to Krakoa.

So it’s essentially been a revolving door of a book with Cyclops sometimes leading assaults against major problems and sometimes just being a dad to teenagers from the future, and it’s been generally great.

Meanwhile, the teams we find on the other 3 books could basically be a main X-men team if you just throw Jean/Scott/Logan onto them (except for X-force because Logan is usually on that one, actually, and Jean sort of is..)

X-force: Wolverine usually, Kid Omega, Beast, Jean (quitting?/back-up), Domino sorta, Sage, Black Tom Cassidy, Colossus once? Forge sorta. [Lot’s of backup or sometimes-members on this team but kinda centers on Beast, Omega, Wolverine and Jean or Domino]

Excalibur: Betsy Braddock, Rogue, Jubilee, Gambit, Avalanche, baby/dragon Shogo, Apocalypse (honorary, mia)

Marauders: Kate Pride, Storm, Emma Frost, a Pyro, Iceman, Bishop

On X-force, you get a little Morrison-homage energy going on what with Beast being sus, Quentin Quire having a character arc and dating a cuckoo and then all the body-horror. This one hasn’t been amazing and the art sometimes has issues for me but it’s been a solid expansion on Krakoa-Era lore.

On Marauders, you get a book centered on Kate Pride and the Hellfire Club. It’s been aight but I’m not the biggest Kate fan. Definitely has heart and the art has been beautiful.

Excalibur started a little weird for me... I lack the references or attachment to Otherworld or Davis/Moore-era Excalibur so I don’t think I’m even really the target demo, but I will say it recently, post-X of Swords-- which it set up single-handedly basically [along w/ one ish of X-men]-- has gotten more interesting in recent months. The Betsy + Kwannon stuff was great! And Howard did great with Apocalypse before he went off to another dimension. (points off for iffy color-palettes sometimes).

#2. Jr. Mutants Academy

Mood-color/vibe: Pastel

Books: New Mutants, X-factor, Children of the Atom, Cable

Common Pokemon: Magik, Cable, Rachel Summers, Doug, Warlock, Armor, Boom Boom, Scout, Dani, Warpath, Karma, Glob, Beak, Daken, Eye-boy, North Star, Rachael, Prodigy those Children of the Atom kids, Magma, Rahne, and a lot of lil kid mutants runnin’ around in Akademos/the Wild Hunt area of Krakoa whose names I don’t know yet.

This is the junior-crew club. New Mutants would be in the Blue/Gold books practically due to being part of the first wave of post-HoX/DoX books, but its basically been 3 different books/teams over its run and along w/ Children/Cable/X-Factor, it feels like there a whole handful of books offering up junior-crew shenanigans specifically.

So New Mutants has been all over the place, starting with a lineup of OG Claremont era New Muties, then focusing on a team consisting of Glob, Armor and Boom Boom (perpetual...”young adult” I guess?), now settling on a new team under Vita Ayala with Magik and Warpath heading up a squad of young ‘uns (beautiful art on the recent stretch). Hopefully it’s settling into its self now, because I can see longevity for this new squad... maybe.

I still have to read the 2nd issue of Children of the Atom, but am intrigued by it. X-factor meanwhile seems to be focusing on queer representation with people like Prodigy, Daken, North Star and Rachel on the same group together. Polaris started out the lead of that title only to be plucked out by Duggan (or the fanbase) for the main X-team coming up. This honestly makes sense, because even though she isn’t drawn this way, shouldn’t Polaris be considerably older than someone like Rachel? Eh.

Also, in issue #4 of X-factor we had a beautiful homage to the Academy X mutants, with several cameos, so it seems like Marvel is intentionally using these junior-crew books to acknowledge all the various junior-crews, whether it be OG Claremont kids, Generation X people, the kids intro’d under Morrison and Whedon, or even the dang ‘ol Academy X ones, they seem to all be getting at least some representation in some book.

Also Cable owns. Didn’t know I’d like the Kid-Cable guy until this book and his appearances in the main title, but now it’s confirmed. Him dating Esme, Kid Omega dating Phoebe? These crazy telepaths! Anyway, I hope Duggan’s main-team book is more like Cable than Marauders, in terms of pacing and characterization, but they both have beautiful art!

New mutants: Karma, Magik, Mirage, Scout, Warlock, Warpath and Wolfsbane

X-factor: Daken, Eye-boy, Polaris (quit?), North Star, Rachael, Prodigy

#3. 2nd-gen Krakoa Niche aka “the good stuff”

mood-color/vibe: purples, metaphysical/cosmic pallets, tertiary colors

books included: Hellions, S.W.O.R.D., Way of X

common Pokemon: I mean they’re basically all rare drops

This is the good stuff! Who would have thought. And when I think about it, Way of X and S.W.O.R.D., as part of the second wave of Krakoa-era books that started with Cable, both address some of the core issues and ideas that the whole HoX/DoX mini kicked off better than-- or at least more directly-- the other books. So I guess the non X-men, first-wave Krakoa books feel “mainline” in terms of their team lineups, but in terms of content, these newer ones almost feel more relevant by design. S.W.O.R.D. focuses on the cosmic context of the mutants post-Krakoa and Way is Kurt’s first spot-light moment in the era and is expressly concerned with Kurt’s addressing of the deeper moral quandaries that a people who have conquered death will be faced with. I mean, it's expressly about religion and like, spirituality-- a very tall order, but first issue pulled it off super deftly.

Also Hellions is better than it has any business being! Read this if you want savagely dark humor and some very obscure mutants + Havok/Psylocke/Sinister. But if I had to reccomend one, it’d be a tie b/w S.W.O.R.D and Way. First issue of Way was exceptional and got right into things and Kurt’s very well-written and will surely prove a meditative lead for a book like this, whereas S.W.O.R.D is epic in scale while still have sick character moments/dialogue. Manifold had a great issue or two and is now my favorite new mutant, even in the context of a somehow-actually-good King in Black tie-in. Damn! And everything going on b/w Magneto and Fabian Cortez (who was made to argue for why mutants should be allowed to murder “flatscans”/humans to the whole Krakoan council this week whilst naked. It’s fantastic. Hell, even the Snark-War sounds...interesting? What’s happening to me.

S.W.O.R.D.: Fabian Cortez, Magneto, Abigail Brand, Peeper, Manifold, Wiz-Kid, Mentallo, Fenzy

Children of the Atom: Cherub, Marvel Guy, Cyclops-Lass (?), Gimmick, Daycrawler

Hellions: Havok, Psylocke, Empath, Orphan-Maker, Nanny, Wild Child, Sinister, Greycrow

#4. Cetera

Mood-color/vibe: colorless, “normal” element

Books included: Fallen Angels (complete 6-ish mini), All the damn Wolverine books, the uh Sword of X “guidebook” and the new Peach Momoko Demon Days books and whatever X-men Legends is.

These are titles which are either complete or don’t fit in with other things or in Demon Days or the X-men Legends’ books’ case, I think don’t even occur in-universe. And per usual of course there are multiple Wolverine books... the main one seems fine.

Anyway all-in-all, these books are doing weirdly well. Mutants as a concept shouldn't be able to be spread this thin story-telling wise, but the books don’t really feel redundant and most are filling a specific niche or purpose. I may be dropping some of the first-wave Blue/Gold style books (Marauders and X-force I'll probably just check in on from time-to-time), but S.W.O.R.D., Way, the main book under Hickman or Duggan and Hellions all have me verrrrrry satisfied. Even standard stories in the Krakoa era feel special, and that speaks to the power of Hickman’s vision. Hellfire Gala, here we come.

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tyrantisterror · 3 years

Link

I did a four part series of trivia posts when ATOM Volume 1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us! came out, and that was pretty fun! You can see that set of trivia posts here if you’d like. I thought it’d be fun to do another now that ATOM Volume 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth! is out - just one this time, because a lot of the trivia I talked about with Volume 1 still applies.

I’m gonna divide this into two sections: non-spoiler trivia, for things that really don’t give a lot of plot points away, and spoiler trivia, for things that DO give away major plot points. I recommend not reading the spoiler trivia until after you’ve read Tyrantis Roams the Earth!, for obvious reasons, and will put the spoiler trivia under a cut.

Ok, let’s go!

- So if you read ATOM Volume 1, you probably noticed that the book is split not only into chapters, but “episodes,” which consist of four chapters a piece. It’s kind of a nod to how the series owes a great deal of its DNA to various monster of the week shows, with Godzilla: the Series and The Godzilla Power Hour being obvious influences. It also allowed me to pepper in some illustrations and cheesy b-movie style titles into each volume.

- The first “episode” of Volume 2, Tyrantis in Tokyo, pays explicit homage to the giant monster movies of Japan, perhaps even moreso than the chapters that came before it. Given how much Japanese media influenced ATOM - from tokusatsu like the Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman franchises to anime like Digimon and Evangelion (hell, the title of this episode itself is a tip of the hat to Tenchi Muyo by way of one of its spinoffs) - it kind of felt obligatory that Tyrantis visit Japan and pay his respects.

- Tyrantis in Tokyo also fits in a tribute to another staple of Atomic Age pop culture: Rock and Roll.

- Kutulusca, the giant cephalopod that appears in Tyrantis in Tokyo, is one of the oldest kaiju in this series, dating back to the first iteration of Tyrantis’s story that I put to paper back in 2001 or so. It’s changed a lot since then, but its fight with Tyrantis goes more or less the way it originally did.

- Old Meg, the giant placoderm/shark, and Nastadyne, the bipedal beetle, both owe their existence directly to Deviantart’s Godzilla fandom. Old Meg originated as a dunkleosteus monster I submitted to a “create a Godzilla kaiju” contest held by Matt Frank, while Nastadyne is based on a Megalon redesign I made during the “redesign all the Godzilla kaiju” phase of DA’s kaiju fandom.

- The second episode, Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace, gets dark as we visit the USSR, which had enough REAL horror with atomic power in its history to make creature features seem a bit defanged by comparison. It’s probably the episode with the strongest horror elements - ATOM’s always been influenced by Resident Evil, and this is probably where that influence shows the most strongly.

- It also features the first fully robotic mecha in the series, the mighty Herakoschei! Its name is a combination of “Heracles” and “Koschei the Deathless,” with the former part being added by its Russian creators to make it seem a bit more international as they offer it to the U.N. in hopes of gaining aid for a very extreme kaiju problem they’ve developed.

- Most of Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace takes place in the Siberian Monster Zone. Its name is a reference to the Lawless Monster Zone in Ultraman, which is such a cool fucking name I wish that I wish I could go back in time and steal it.

- The next episode, Tyrantis’s Revenge, is... full of spoilers, so we’ll move on for now.

- The penultimate episode, Tyrantis vs. the Martian Monsters, is a love letter to MANY different sci-fi stories that involve life on Mars, though the most prominent of them is of course The War of The Worlds (one of my top 3 favorite books) and its various adaptations. From its tentacles sapient martians, the tripodal leader of the titular monsters whose name includes the word “ulla” which is uttered by said sapient martians, the plant monster made of red vines, the cylinder-shaped spacecraft the Martian monsters are sent to earth on, the copper-skinned stingray-esque flying martian who shoots lasers from its tail, and the fact that every chapter title in this episode is a quote from the book, the H.G. Wells influence is STRONG.

- The final episode, Invasion from Beyond!, is shamelessly inspired by Destroy All Monsters, although there’s a dash of “To Serve Men,” Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and The Day the Earth Stood Still mixed in as well. It’s also sort of a tribute to my first “published” bit of a kaiju fiction - a rewrite of Destroy All Monsters that included EVERY Godzilla monster that had appeared at the time, which my middle school self wrote back in 2002 or so for Kaiju Headquarters, a kaiju fansite I’m not sure exists anymore. Invasion from Beyond! is just as ambitious (but hopefully better executed) as my DAM Remake, with dozens upon dozens of different kaiju duking it out, earthlings vs. aliens.

- There were three different documents I made to outline the final battle of Invasion from Beyond! It’s the largest episode of the series so far and more than half of it is that fucking fight. My inner child is pleased, though, so hopefully you will be too.

Ok, that’s all I can share without spoilers. READER BEWARE WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW THE CUT!

JUST MAKING SURE you know that SPOILERS will follow from here on out. Read at your own peril! YOU WERE WARNED!

(I’m gonna start with lighter ones just in case you scrolled too far and want to turn back)

- There’s a number of explicit Spielberg homages in ATOM Volume 2, from a “we need a bigger boat” joke during a chase with a giant shark to the fact that Invasion from Beyond! opens with a group of people flying to an island of monsters to review whether or not it should get more funding.

- When Tyrantis appears in the first chapter, I snuck in modified lyrics of The Godzilla Power Hour’s theme song. “Up from the depths”... “several stories high”... “breathing fire”... “its head in the sky”... Tyrantis! Tyrantis! Tyrantis!

- The two rock bands in Tyrantis in Tokyo have real life inspirations ala Gwen Valentine, albeit a bit more muddled than hers. The Cashews are inspired by The Peanuts (see what I did there), while The Thunder Lizards are a mix of The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper. I wanted The Thunder Lizards to be more akin to the myth of a famous rock and roll band than the reality - less the real Beatles and more the Yellow Submarine cartoon version of them.

- The song The Thunder Lizards write for Tyrantis was written to fit the tune of “The Godzilla March” from Godzilla vs. Gigan, though ideally if someone made an actual song of it it would be its own song. I got the idea from Over the Garden Wall, which used the Christmas song “O Holy Night” as a a starting point for “Come Wayward Souls.”

- Perry Martin, UNNO reporter and peer of Henry Robertson, is a nod to Raymond Burr, with his name being a combination of two of Burr’s most famous roles: Perry Mason, and Steve Martin from Godzilla King of the Monsters (1956).

- Dr. Rinko Tsuburaya is a few homages in one. Her name comes from Rinko Kikuchi (who played Mako Mori in Pacific Rim), while her last name is obviously in homage of Eiji Tsuburaya. Her being the daughter of an esteemed scientist is inspired by Emiko Yamane from the original Gojira.

- Nastadyne’s Burning Justice mode is named after a similar super mode from various Transformers cartoons, though it’s more directly inspired by the Shining/Burning Finger super move from G Gundam.

- Martians sending kaiju to different planets via shooting them out of cannons (with or without cylinder spaceships around them) is another War of the Worlds shoutout. So is martians living on Venus after their homeworld was made uninhabitable, actually.

- Kurokame’s vocalizations are described as wails in explicit homage to Gamera. His name can be translated as either “black tortoise” (a reference to the mythical guardian beast Genbu, which can also be construed as a Gamera reference thanks to Gamera: Advent of Irys implying Gamera and Genbu are one and the same) or a portmanteau of the Japanese words for crocodile and turtle - “crocturtle.”

- Burodon’s name is just a mangling of “burrow down.” It also sounds vaguely like Baragon, who Burodon is loosely inspired by. AND, since Burodon is sort of a knockoff/modified Baragon, that kinda makes him a reference to various monsters in Ultraman!

- The final battle of Tyrantis in Tokyo is sort of a hybrid of the finales of Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster and Destroy All Monsters.

- The Japanese kaiju teaching Tyrantis the art of throwing rocks at your enemies is both a joke on the prominence of rock throwing in Japanese kaiju fights AND the tired trope of an American hero learning secret martial arts from a Japanese mentor ala Batman, Iron Fist, etc. In this case, the secret martial art is throwing rocks at people.

- When introduced to Herakoschei and its pilot, we are told that the strain of piloting this early mecha is so intense that many pilots have died in the process, with the current one passing out on more than few occasions. This is of course a Pacific Rim homage - sadly, no one invents drifting.

- Herakoschei’s design is a loose homage to Robby the Robot and Cherno Alpha, because big boxy robots are cool.

- The Writhing Flesh and ESPECIALLY Pathogen are both hugely influenced by Resident Evil and The Thing. Giant body horror piles of raw flesh, tendrils, mismatched mouths and limbs may be a bit outside the main era of monster design ATOM homages, but they fit the themes and bring a nice contrast.

- I came up with Pathogen long before Corona but MAN it definitely feels different in 2021 to have a giant monster whose name is a synonym for disease driving other creatures crazy in a quarantine zone than it did when I plotted out the story in 2016.

- The chapter title “Hello, Old Foes” is a riff on “Goodbye, Old Friend”

- Minerva, the kaiju-fied clone of Dr. Lerna, is meant to be an homage to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, which is a genuinely good giant monster flick. I am sure many of you will also believe I included her because I’m a pervert whose into tall women, but you’d be wrong! I included the seven foot tall Russian mecha pilot Ludmilla Portnova because I’m a pervert whose into tall women. Minerva’s inclusion was just coincidental, I swear!

- Since Promythigor is a play on the archetypal ape kaiju to contrast Tyrantis as a play on the archetypal fire-breathing reptile kaiju, their fight has a lot of nods to King Kong movies. Promythigor attempts the famous jaw-snap maneuver of Kong (with less success), J.C. Clark paraphrases the “brute force vs. a thinking animal” line from the King Kong vs. Godzilla American cut, and Tyrantis slides down a mountain to knock Promythigor off his feet in a reversal of Kong doing the same in King Kong vs. Godzilla.

- Tyrantis sliding down a mountain on his tail doubles as a Godzilla vs. Megalon homage.

- Though Promythigor is the archetypal Ape and Tyrantis the archetypal Fire-Breathing Reptile, I think it’s fun to note that in some ways, Promythigor is the Godzilla equivalent in their matchup, and Tyrantis the Kong. Promythigor has a slight size advantage, was scarred by humans performing unethical weapons technology, and is associated with violent explosions. Tyrantis is a good-at-heart prehistoric beast who humanized in part by his unlikely friendship with a human woman.

- Of course, in the context of the famous quote from the American cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla, they remain in their archetypal lanes. Promythigor is the more intelligent of the two (though not necessarily wiser), and Tyrantis is in many ways a brute reptile. Their battle is a rebuttal of sorts to the assertion that Kong is the “better” animal because he is closer to human. Promythigor’s near human creativity and emotions don’t make him the kinder/more benevolent monster, but instead fuel a very self-centered and destructive attitude that makes him the far more dangerous threat. On the other hand, Tyrantis, who is less intelligent, limited in communication with others by his reptilian mindset and instincts, and simple in his thoughts and desires, is nonetheless a sweet creature that is easily dealt with when others consider his animal needs and mindset. There’s a quote from Hellboy I love that probably sums up all of my writing thus far: “To be other than human does not mean the same as being less,” and that’s what the matchup between these two in particular tries to illustrate: the “less” human Tyrantis is nonetheless more benign than the “more” human Promythigor.

- Kraydi the psychic lizard began life as a soft sculpture I made of the Canyon Krayt Dragon from The Wildlife of Star Wars. The sculpture didn’t look much like the illustration, but I liked how it came out, and so I made it an original monster named Kraydi (see what I did there). Figuring out an explanation for that name in ATOM’s world was possibly the most difficult kaiju naming task in the series, but it worked out in the end.

- Kraydi and Promythigor having psychic powers is a result of my time on Godzilla fan forums in my middle school years. Most of the forums had OC kaiju battle tournaments, and SO many of those kaiju had a wide array of beam weapons and psychic powers just to win the tournaments by beam-spamming and mind controlling their foes into oblivion. There’s a special kind of rage you get when your original creation is beaten by “Fire Godzilla” because he has a genius level intellect and the power of unstoppable telekinesis. Kraydi began as (and still is I suppose) my attempt to do a psychic kaiju well, while Promythigor’s villainy being tied to psychic powers being forced on him is sort of my passive aggressive commentary on people foisting powers on a monster without any real thematic reason for them.

- Henry Robertson and Dr. Praetorius chewing out the laziness of people giving kaiju completely unaltered names of mythic beasts will probably be seen as a jab at the Monsterverse and/or the numerous writers in the kaiju OC scene who do the same, but it’s ACTUALLY a jab at my past self, who had DOZENS of kaiju whose names were just Greek mythological figures verbatim. There are dozens of kaiju named Hydra, Scylla, Charybdis, Chimera, etc., past me, try to make the names stand out! Oh wait you did. I mean, don’t pat yourself on the back too much, you still went with “Mothmanud” as a canon name and never came up with something better, but, like, good on ya for trying I guess.

- Dr. Praetorius takes his name from the evil mad scientis in Bride of Frankenstein, who basically has all the wicked traits that Universal’s Frankenstein downplayed in their take on Dr. Frankenstein. Ironically, ATOM’s Dr. Praetorius is a bit less evil than his fellow mad scientists in ATOM. I really like how his character turned out, he surprised me.

- Isaac Rossum, the pilot of the USA mecha Atomoton, is named for Isaac Aasimov, whose robot stories are to robot fiction what Lord of the Rings is to high fantasy. His last name is a reference to Rossum’s Universal Robots, which is where the word “robot” came from.

- The unfortunate pilots of MechaTyrantis in ATOM Volumes 1 and 2 are all nods to Jurassic Park. John Ludlow = John Hammond and Peter Ludlow, Ian Grant = Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant, Dennis Dodgson = Dennis Nedry and Lewis Dodgson.

- A good way to pitch Invasion from Beyond! would be “what if the staff and monsters were able to fight back when the Kilaaks tried to take over Monsterland?”

- Ok, here’s a fun joke that no one will get but me because it requires a very specific chain of logic based on some obscure and loosely connected nerd bullshit. There’s a rocker in ATOM’s universe named Sebastian Haff, right? One of his songs, “Darling Let’s Shimmy,” is referenced right before a mothmanud larva emerges from the ground in both ATOM Vol. 1 and 2. Ok, so, in the Bubba Hotep, an aging Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff claims he is actually the real Elvis Presley, having changed places with the real Sebastian Haff as a sort of Prince and the Pauper deal that went wrong. Got that? Ok, so, in UFO folklore, a common joke is the theory that Elvis didn’t die, but was rather abducted by aliens (or he actually WAS an alien the whole time - the whole “Elvis didn’t die, he just went home” joke in Men in Black is a good example of this). Ok? Ok. So, in ATOM’s universe, we can surmise that their equivalent of Elvis, whose name is Sebastian Haff, WAS abducted by aliens, and that his song “Darling Let’s Shimmy” is subconsciously influenced by his repressed memories from his time aboard the Beyonder spaceships, which is why it accidentally awoke a Mothmanud larva in Volume 1. There’s a lot of bullshit jokes I put into ATOM, but this is perhaps the bullshittiest of them all.

- One of the most common bits of feedback on ATOM Volume 1 I got was “I kept waiting for something to eat Brick Rockwell, he’s such an asshole.” And I had to smile and go, “Oh, yeah, guess he never got his, huh?” the whole time without letting on that he was going to die here all along!

- Dr. Lerna and Brick Rockwell’s nature as foils to each other is probably most apparent in Invasion from Beyond!, where both are given fairly similar situations - a nonhuman approaches them with a solution to a global crisis - and react to it very differently. I worry that some people may think they both made the same choice and got different results, and that that’s hypocrisy on my part, but I hope I wrote it so you can see how their choices and situations actually differ in key ways, and why their decisions, while similar on the surface, are ultimately very different, and thus result in almost opposite outcomes.

- So, when I planned out this book in 2016, I swear I didn’t know about the Orca from 2019′s Godzilla King of the Monsters. Having the plot hang around Dr. Lerna deciding whether or not to use a sonic device to rouse all the kaiju to save the earth was not INTENDED to be a Monsterverse reference - it came about from me looking at Pathfinder’s take on kaiju, who are all explicitly influenceable by music, and thinking, “Oh, wow, music and songs DO have a major connection with kaiju in a lot of media, I should do something with that.” Whem KOTM came out a few days after Volume 1 came out I realized I was kinda fucked here, because the comparison was definitely going to be made, but I’d also set this all up already and you can’t just change suddenly to avoid looking like a copy cat and make a good story, so... I dunno, I leaned into it a bit, but it is what it is.

- While most people will probably think they’re a reference to the Reptoids of UFO folklore, the Reptodites are more inspired by the Dinosapien of speculative evolution fame and, even morso, by the Reptites from Chrono Trigger. Me wanting to avoid the “lizard people control the government” conspiracy theory trope is one of the main reasons why Reptodites have this non-interference clause with humanity.

- Lieutenant Gray is a bunch of different humanoid aliens rolled into one - a little Hopskinville goblin, a little classic gray, a little this one weird alien with five-fingered zygodactyl hands, etc.

- There’s some Beyonder Mecha in this volume that are basically kaiju-fied versions of the Flatwoods Monster. The species that built them ALSO engineered the Mothmanuds, because connecting Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster is fun!

- Pleprah is, obviously, a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.

- Tyrantis’s brush with death, in addition to being so very anime, was inspired by my dad outlining how mythic heroes often have to travel to the underworld/land of the dead before they can finish their journey. It’s one of the plot points that I’ve had planned for this series since middle school.

- I’m sure some will view it as hackneyed and corny, but as a person who’s battled with depression for decades, having Tyrantis’s choice to live be the big heroic turn of the finale was very important to me. Tyrantis incorporates elements of a lot of imaginary friends I made as a kid, and in many ways he’s kind of the face of my more positive side in my head. He’s been telling me to choose to live for a while, and while maybe to an outsider it may seem hackneyed, it’s just... very Tyrantis. He chooses life and kindness in the face of pain and struggle. That’s Tyrantis.

- Tyrantis’s powered up form is called “Hyper Mode,” which is another Gundam reference. Originally it was a lot gaudier and involved him turning gold like a fuckin’ Super Saiyan. I opted for something a little more toned down here.

- Also, speaking of KOTM references, I decided to make Hyper Mode Tyrantis’s final duel with Pathogen be a sort of foil to Burning Godzilla’s final bout with Ghidorah in KOTM. Instead of ravaging the city, Hyper Tyrantis’s pulse of energy rejuvenates his fallen allies, and as a result he is “crowned” not out of fear for his supremacy in the wake of killing a powerful enemy, but in gratitude for his kindness. See? Leaning into it!

- And now I can finally reveal that Yamaneon is ATOM’s equivalent of The Monolith Monsters - that is, a kaiju that is also a mineral. I took the “strange continuously growing rock” thing in a very different direction, though, as unlike The Monolith Monsters, Yamaneon is actually alive.

- At various points in the pre-writing process, either Promythigor, MechaTyrantis, or both were going to die fighting Pathogen. I ultimately decided to let them both live, with MechaTyrantis even getting his flesh and blood body back, because I think it’s more interesting and thematically consistent that way. They get a chance to heal their wounds by changing their ways.

- The Great Beyonder and Dorazor both almost didn’t make the cut, as I felt they didn’t have the same pull as villains that Pathogen, Promythigor, and MechaTyrantis did. But then I thought that could actually be the gag - build them up as the final boss, only to have Pathogen take their crown. I want to explore post-face turn Dorazor a bit more, though. We’ll have to see about that in a later volume.

- Volumes 1 and 2 make up what I call “The Ballad of Tyrantis Arc” for ATOM. I call it that because Tyrantis’s storyline in these two volumes was patterend after Chivalric ballads like Yvain the Knight of the Lion. Tyrantis, a heroic warrior who is kind but dumb of ass, learns of strange goings on outside his home and investigates. During his journey into the unknown he falls in love with a powerful woman, whose favor he tries to win. Through happenstance he is separated from his love and, distraught, wanders around fighting various foes to prove his worth, before finally returning to his love a better hero. Invasion from Beyond! could even be seen as a sort of Morte d’Artur, with Tyrantis and a bunch of other kaiju heroes (including Nastadyne and Kemlasulla, who are built up as Hero Kaiju of Another Story) take part in a huge battle that threatens their idealic kingdom (of monsters).

- Volume 2 isn’t the end of ATOM, but it’s designed to work as an ending if you want to tap out here. As a reader I feel a definitive ending is important, but as a writer I’m always tempted to revisit my beloved characters, so I feel giving closure while leaving a few doors open for possible future adventures is a good compromise between these positions. There will be more ATOM stories, some (but not all!) following Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna, but if you want to know that Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna get an ending and the resolution to their arcs such a thing promises, here you go. An ending, if not THE END.

#The Atomic Time of Monsters #A.T.O.M. Trivia

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kumeko · 3 years

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Title: home isn’t a place (it's a person)

A/N: For A Lover’s Lullaby: @doropetrazine! I wanted to write some tender care during the war, with Petra helping Dorothea center herself in the midst of all the tragedy and bloodshed.

…

Dorothea had long mastered the art of post-battle self-care. Trapped in a war she’d never wanted, she had to. This wasn’t like her academy days, where the worst she’d faced was a menacing brigand, where her faltering attacks only had to maim and not kill. If she had failed then, her housemate or her teacher could pick up the slack. And if she killed, well, it was only a ruffian. There wasn’t any need to hold back.

Not that that made it any easier. The ever-stoic Hubert had treated those missions like another duty, just another item in his checklist to help Edelgard, and Felix had the strength to shrug off the blood like water off a duck. Dorothea had done neither of those things, the red staining her clothes too bright for her to ignore. A life was a life, no matter how corrupt. Back then, she would beg Ingrid to take her on a long, lazy flight, or borrow one of Hilda’s trashy romances for an extensive hot bath.

Those weren’t options for her anymore. The blood on her hands burned like a brand these days. Her enemies were her former schoolmates, old friendships gone wrong. Dorothea’s attacks were deadly, living in a kill or be killed situation. Any reprieve she’d find off the battlefield was a solitary one.

No, that wasn’t entirely right. Dorothea smiled softly as she stood in front of a plain beige tent, on the outskirts of the battle camp. Five years ago felt like an eternity sometimes, with how everything’s changed, but at least one thing remained consistent. No matter where she’d went the past year, Petra had been by her side.

And hopefully, no matter where she went after, that would still ring true. Ducking into the tent, Dorothea smiled automatically as her eyes landed on her paramour. It was hard not to. Petra stood out no matter where she was, and nowhere more than against the drab browns and greys of their standard issued tents and linens. As with all tents, there was a single cot on the side, with barely enough free room for a person to pace, let alone decorate. Despite that, Petra had managed to put her colourful touch on everything—her clothes strewn against her bed, the bags and pillows that covered her floor. Two lanterns hung off center pole, casting long shadows that did little to dim Petra’s natural cheerfulness. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her axe to her side. It gleamed in the flicker light. Humming off-key, Petra’s focus was entirely on the bow she was restringing.

“I didn’t mean to make you wait so long!” Dorothea apologized as she stepped further in, the tent flap closing behind her.

Surprised, Petra’s attention snapped to her. It took mere seconds for her serious expression to melt into a softer smile, her eyes lighting up as she took in Dorothea. Setting aside her bow, she leapt to her feet. “Dorothea! You have come much later than I was thinking!”

“Sorry, I had to…” Dorothea clasped her hands. After several rounds of washing, they were practically scrubbed raw but she could still feel the grime in her nails. “Clean up a bit,” she finished lamely.

Petra grimaced, no doubt remembering the muddy terrain they’d just crawled through. “I do not want to be experiencing that again. My weapons are very dirty.”

“I can tell.” Dorothea chuckled, gesturing at the polished weapons and then at Petra. “You still haven’t taken your armour off.”

“Of course.” Petra turned to her axe, her chest puffed slightly with pride. “These weapons are how I am being able to protect you.”

Her heart made a funny flip at the casual line, at how matter-of-fact Petra was about it all. Petra always acted like it was common sense, these small trinkets of devotion, these little declarations of love that Dorothea had never experienced before. “Petra…”

“Hmm?” Petra looked back at her and cocked her head. “Is something being the matter?”

“No, not at all,” she replied truthfully, her ears burning red. Reaching out, she tugged on Petra’s armour. “Here, let me help. It’s good to take care of your weapons, but you have to remember to take care of yourself too.”

“That is why you are being here,” Petra replied, her smile growing broader as she turned around to give Dorothea access to the many straps that kept her leather armour together.

The hide always felt too thin to protect Petra as she fought on the front lines, but it was lithe and flexible, allowing her to move as freely as she wanted. Dorothea would probably never stop worrying about it. Keeping her gaze firmly down, she calmed her beating heart she nimbly pried off the armour with a practiced hand.

It wasn’t long before Petra was free of it all and back to her usual bright outfit. She extended her arms above her, her eyes closed as stretched out her muscles. “Thank you! That is much better.”

Dorothea giggled as her girlfriend rolled her shoulders. “You wouldn’t be half as stiff if you’d just take this off sooner.”

“I will be keeping that in mind,” Petra agreed amicably, leaning backwards to realign her spine.

“Now the last part.” Dorothea sat down on Petra’s bed.

“Are you sure?” Petra asked, stepping closer. She leaned down slightly, her hand cupping Dorothea’s cheek as she studied her face. “You are looking tired.”

Reaching up, she covered Petra’s hand with her own. It felt like touching the sun. “Aww, you don’t want me to fix your hair?”

“That is not what I am meaning,” Petra replied softly.

“I know.” Dorothea lowered her eyes, leaning into Petra’s touch. “I know, I just…I need to fix your hair.”

It was her aftercare, though she hadn’t told a soul about it. She wasn’t sure she could even admit it to herself yet, just how much Petra had ingrained herself into Dorothea’s daily routine.

Petra frowned before pulling away. Dorothea immediately missed the warmth. “After this, you must be resting. You are tired, even your laugh is tired.”

Dorothea had appeared in several major productions, acted since she was little, and made it a point of pride that no one could tell when she was faking it. Somehow, Petra always saw through that. It was something she both loved and hated about her. Nodding, she agreed. “I will. Just after this.”

Satisfied, however reluctantly, Petra plopped on the ground in front of Dorothea. She leaned back slightly. “You could get hurt if you are tired.”

“I’ll be careful,” she promised, already reaching for one of Petra’s braids. It didn’t take long for her to unravel it, to take the thick strands and split them apart. Petra had spent weeks teaching her Brigid’s braiding styles and Dorothea’s hands had long memorized the steps.

For a second, she was transported to another time, another place, when the hair in her hands had been golden and the room they were in made of stone. Five years ago, she had carefully brushed Ingrid’s hair while Annette had worked on her nails. Hilda had gone through her closet, searching for something, anything, that could work for a ballgown. It had been a gossip-filled day, enhanced only by Ingrid’s constant flustered state. “We can’t do that again,” she muttered.

“Do what?” Petra asked, curious.

She hadn’t meant to say it aloud and Dorothea smiled ruefully. “Silly classmate things. If the war hadn’t started…we could have worried about balls.” Distracted, she stopped braiding. “If the only battle we’d faced was the Battle of the Eagle and Lion…I wonder what could have happened.”

Petra didn’t say anything, and Dorothea chuckled awkwardly. This was supposed to be her relaxing session, not deep, dark thoughts session. Trying to dispel the heavy mood, she went back to Petra’s hair. “Sorry, that was a silly question.”

For a while, there was only quiet. Her dress rustled slightly as she shifted in her seat. Petra’s long soft locks bound together easily, unlike her own silken mane. Outside, the sun might have set, people had their dinner, patrols walked the camp. Outside, a war raged on but here, in this tent, there was only peace. Only her hands and purple hair and more colours than she could ever name. The candles flickered, casting long shadows over them, and Dorothea wished she could see Petra’s expression right now.

“I am glad,” Petra finally uttered. Despite how quiet her voice, her tone was unerringly confident.

Dorothea blinked, not sure she understood. “You’re glad?”

“That even though war is happening, we are being together.” Even without seeing Petra’s face, Dorothea could picture the gentle expression on it. “I do not think I could be fighting you. Not ever.”

“Me neither,” Dorothea replied immediately. It hurt to imagine Petra on the battlefield, under the banner of a different army. Of them facing each other on opposite sides of the war. To have lost love before it could have even started, a world without these quiet evenings—she would have been infinitely poorer for that.

Petra turned back now, her eyes shining in the dim light. “No matter what will be happening, I am happy. You are my home.”

Dorothea swallowed and maybe it had been better when she couldn’t see Petra’s expression, couldn’t see the naked love that shown brightly for all to see. All those years ago, when she had worried about marrying for money, when she had pictured her future as an empty one as some noble’s consort, she could never have imagined she’d be here. Flustered, she reached into her purse, pulling out a small seashell. If there was ever a time to give her gift it was now. Pressing it into Petra’s hand, she murmured, “For you.”

“A shell?” It was Petra’s turn to be surprised and she held it up, admiring how the light reflected off the reddish-brown shell. “It is very pretty, but I am not understanding.”

“You can’t go ho—” You’re my home and Dorothea faltered, her skin too hot. Me too, lingered on her tongue, too heavy to say. “To Brigid for a while, right?” She held a hand to her ear, motioning for Petra to do the same. “It sounds like the sea. It’s a lot clearer than other shells, and I know it’s not the same but—”

“It is beautiful,” Petra interrupted, closing her eyes as she listened. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you for, for…everything.” It had been a silly crush all those years ago. Now it was something far deeper than that. She tucked a lock behind her ear, her cheeks still flushed red. “You…you’re my home too. I’m glad I’m marrying love.”

At that, Petra opened her eyes, indignant. “It is better to be marrying love, but you are to be marrying me.”

Dorothea couldn’t help it, she laughed. She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Petra and burying her face in her neck. Pressing a chaste kiss against her brown skin, she murmured, “You’re right, I’m marrying you.”

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #doropetra #dorothea arnault #petra macneary #fanfic

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ghostboy-gamedev · 4 years

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Learn Log #4 - Grassy Grove

On week 4 of my pixel art journey, I learned how to make objects of nature including grass, bushes and trees. Unfortunately, I had to postpone this to this week when the learning and blog post was set for last week as I was just preparing for a return to university (it’s all online – social distancing dw). Anyway, I ended up making the forest scene you see above, and it was a lot of fun. I think that the GUI elements last week had a focus on technicality and exactness. Letters are very rigid, and we have somewhat set ideas about what each character should look like. However, nature is more flexible and therefore logic isn’t as heavily involved.

Tile Sets

Before jumping into the actual elements of this week’s piece I want to talk about making pixel art tiles. You will have probably noticed that the nature scene is quite rigid like each element is set into a box. This is because I’m learning pixel art to make games and games often use tile sprites to build their environment.

Tile sprites are the floors and sometimes walls of the environment. They often loop or repeat to cover the environment, however, some engines have tools allowing game designers to build environments tile by tile.

In the first case, the tile sprite will have to be created with its looping in mind and details may be added to provide variation in the environment. However, these added details may highlight the repeating the pattern and the more a detail sticks out the obvious the repetition becomes. Additionally, smaller tiles will repeat more frequently, and this also shows repeating textures.

The second scenario requires variation to be created from the creation of multiple tiles. This is great for creating variation; however, the tiles will also have to line up with each other which may be trickier for more rigid surfaces like rocks or bricks.

Since Unity has a tile builder tool and I was creating a natural environment where tiles wouldn’t need to line up so clearly – I decided to go with the second option.

The size of the tiles may also dictate the size of the rest of the game. For example, a bush may be 1 tile large in terms of level design, so the size of that bush is determined by the size of the tile. This also goes for the player whose sprite will typically range from 1 tile to 2x2 tiles. I decided to just make my tiles 16x16 as I enjoy learning within that space.

Grass

A grass tile is typically made of a green background with blades of grass texturing the surface. Many people may open up a couple of green canvases and start texturing them with green lines, however, there’s a much better way to do things I think. Since we’re working with 16x16 tiles there’s a limited number of shapes that look like grass and are small enough to fit within the tile. So, if we make a bunch of lines in green then we have blades of grass that we can copy and paste into each tile (the blades should typically be a lighter green as light will be hitting them).

However, having blades of grass like this make tiles look flat. Adding shading will fix this issue by giving the grass depth, however, more complicated shading will obviously make the background more complicated which can affect the readability of your game.

Each blade of grass can now be copied into a 16x16 canvas to make grass tiles. I made 4 grass tiles shown below putting approximately 10 blades into each tile. I made each tile with different elements of the environment in mind such as short grass, long grass, bushy grass and leafy grass.

With these tiles, I created a larger image to test the repetition of the tiles. The repetition wasn’t a big issue; however, I didn’t think the leafy grass fit with the rest of the grass, so I decided to leave it behind for the next stage.

Next, I was going to add an extra tile for each of the current textures to reduce repetition as well as two flower variants for each tile type to add some colours into the textures. I did another test of the tiles’ repetition and overall look and it looked good but somewhat cluttered though I figured that this wouldn’t be an issue when I deliberately place the tiles rather than randomly scatter them.

I had in my mind the type of scene I wanted to make for this week, but it required dirt paths. Luckily this wasn’t an issue to make. I made two variations of the straight, one-way paths as they would be tiling and altered one of these tiles slightly to make the curve and intersection tiles.

I then assembled these 15 tiles into the image below.

Trees

Next, I wanted to add some plant life which would involve trees and bushes. I decided to do trees first as they would be larger than the bushes. First, I started with the shape of the tree which would be fairly basic. I made a rough tree trunk shape to start with and topped it with a circle that was a little squished before refining the shape a little more to get what’s shown below.

I then added colour into the tree. A simple brown for the bark and 4 shades of green for the leaves. These greens were made by colour picking the base green background and hue-shifting it towards yellow so the tree would stand out more from the background.

The colours are organised into ovals to help give the tree a sense of depth. The dark shades wrap around the edges of the tree to show the tree’s roundness. The colour thins out as it goes around because you’re viewing the shaded leaves from a side-on perspective.

Next, I blurred the lines between these circles by mixing the colours slightly. This was the start of adding leaves onto the tree. Quickly after that, I added more detail to the leaves by spotting the head of the tree with lighter greens. The details added were in ‘leaf-like’ shapes like hearts, single lines, and arrows. They don’t look like leaves individually and can’t receive much detail themselves (such as a stem) but together they make the tree look nice and bushy. I also added some detail to the tree trunk including shading.

The tree trunk seemed a little off when I checked it out with the image I had so far, unfortunately. So, I added some extra trunk at the bottom along with a nice shadow. This shadow was the colour black at a transparency of 127 (or half transparency). This works really well as a quick and easy shadow on detailed background, but it does, unfortunately, mean the shaded area is not hue-shifted as typically preferred. The final product is below.

Looking at this sprite you may think it would be difficult to construct a game environment due to the leaves, trunk shape and shadow involved. However, we can place each section down as a separate 16x16 tile with the main trunk tile being a collider and other tiles not having a collision box (like decoration tiles – we don’t want players to run into tree leaves). This works out really well, and I focused on the main trunk tile when positioning the sprite in the piece. Which is shown below.

However, the scene below is bit lonely so I thought I’d add some pine trees as a level border. The process of the pine tree is similar so I won’t describe each step but will show the images. This time around I did shape the tree a bit more wildly with branches and leaves sticking out from the tree. I also hue shifted towards bluer colours rather than the more yellow colours I used in the round tree.

Next, it was time to add more trees into the scene and add some grass beneath them. I made the grass beneath them short grass simply because it looks a bit neater than the other grass types.

I think it looks pretty neat! I made a pine tree variant by swapping the colours with that of the round tree for some variation which worked as a nice, easy trick. But it would look livelier with some bushes.

Bushes

You might have looked at the trees just before and thought, ‘That kind of looks like a bush on a stump.’ That’s because the techniques used to make bushes and trees are typically very similar depending on the style of the game. Since we’re using a 16x16 size which is somewhat limited they will likely turn out in roughly the same way.

I started with a circle shape that was modified at the bottom to be a bit flatter. This will hopefully give the impression that the bush is touching the ground and rounds out on the top

I did a similar process in colouring the bush as I did with the tree, however, I used fewer colours as I didn’t have as much room for highlights with the bush. The colours used are actually the same as those in the pine tree.

I then adjusted the outline to give the bush a wilder feel as well as texturing the inside of the bush to create the appearance of leaves.

The bush still felt a little flat, so I added highlights to the top of it to add a greater sense of depth. The highlight was rounded towards its end at the bottom to enforce the rounded nature of the bush. This required me to add another outline tone for highlights which I might apply to other elements of the picture. I was pretty happy with the bush, so I made another for variation and added them into the picture with some shadows.

The picture looked pretty good, but I thought some touch-ups might make it just that little bit better.

Touch-Ups/Conclusion

To touch up the piece I added some more trees for denser looking forest, added the lighter outline colour to the tress and expanded shadows around some of the pine trees. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I think the shadows could use some refinement at the top border of trees. I also think that top border highlights the repeating pine tree trunk which could also be changed to tile better. I do wish my bushes were a bit leafier than shrub-like, however, I think my ability to make leaves on both bushes and trees will improve as I practice. I also think a 32x32 base picture would allow me to make some more defined leaves. The lighting on the pine trees also uses a different technique to the round tree so next time I’ll try to be more consistent with that. Overall though I’m happy and I quite like the outline highlights as they make the image a bit softer.

That concludes week 4 of learning how to make pixel art. Next week I’ll be looking at sand, water and rocks to make a top-down beach scene.

My learning and this blog post wouldn’t have been made possible without these fantastic resources. Go check them out if you wanna learn some stuff about pixel art!

How to Draw Tiled Pixel Art by TipTut

Creating Variation in Pixel Art TutsByKai

Pixel Art 101: Grass by Pixel Pete

How to Make Pixel Grass Tiles by TutsByKai

RPG Grass Background Tiles by HeartBeast

Pixel Art 101: Trees by Pixel Pete

[Let’s Pixel] Tree by HeartBeast

[Let’s Pixel] Spruce Tree by HeartBeast

Pixel Art 101: Bush by Pixel Pete

#pixel art #learning #gamedev #pixel aesthetic #pixel #gaming #learn

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lavalampelfchild · 3 years

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Lava’s Art Masterpost

Hey, all! Welcome to my art masterpost! I have no idea if this is a thing that is done typically for art, but oh well, I like organizing things, so here we are! What you’ll find here is mostly Dragon Age, with a few non-DA pieces in there, and there’s a range of styles I like to use, depending on my mood. But a lot of what you’ll see will most likely combine lineart with some other form of coloring/shading.

Feel free to browse at your leisure, and I hope anyone who stumbles upon this enjoys what they find! :D And thank you to anyone who sees this and likes, or reblogs, or even just stops by to peruse a bit!

All that said, away we go!

Digital Portraits:

1. Portrait of Nameless Woman, 2020 - This one is just an experiment with a watercolor brush that I did. It’s not anatomically perfect, but I enjoyed playing around with shading.

2. Sketch of Aja Amell, 2020 - This one is basically sketch practice with my Amell~ Not really the most expressive pictures, but it’s a start toward drawing her more expressively. Full disclosure: Aja is one of those OCs of mine that I have had trouble with deciding on a definitive appearance for several pictures, and I really want to work on upping my level of consistency when drawing her.

3. Long-Haired Fenris, 2020 - Exactly what it sounds like; this was for practice drawing Fenris’s features (I love how distinct they are), but with long hair because I am weak for it. This one was a fun piece to shade, and mixing the stylized lineart that I normally use with a greyscale shading spectrum was really enjoyable.

4. Portrait of Ilorin Lavellan, 2016 - This is an oldie. Basically practicing expressions, and it is technically a WIP, but I’m still very happy with how the shading turned out, especially because this is actually (aside from the unfinished hair) one of the more minimal pieces I’ve done in terms of lineart It’s still there, and it still shapes the flow of the picture in some ways, but it also ends up flowing with the shading instead of standing out next to it, which I like. (Both styles are good, though, and I love seeing other artists try both too.)

5. Old Portrait of Aja Amell, 2016 - Much older picture I did of Aja; she... honestly looks very little like the newer one, I think, and that consistency is something I’m still working on, but this one was the first picture of Aja with that particular hairstyle I drew. What I like about this picture is how young she looks; it fits with her image as a fresh and sheltered Circle mage who’s only about 20 years old at the time of DAO.

6. Old Portrait of Trilyn, 2016 - They very first piece of art I posted to tumblr~ It’s not exactly how I envision Trilyn anymore, but it was still very fun to draw, and helped me get a feel for drawing him in the future.

Dynamic Movement Pictures/”Moment’s in Time”:

1. Tabris in Arl’s Estate, 2020 - TW: blood. I am super proud of this one. My ultimate goal is to draw all of my Warden DAO OCs, and I could not believe I’ve never drawn my Tabris, and so here she is. This was, in large part, practicing expressions because I absolutely love art that depicts characters in motion, or capturing some kind of expression.

2. Velyn in the Rain, 2017 - This one was actually based on some art that I saw in a Teen Wolf fic! It was an experiment with a more expressive style (and one of the first pieces I did without lineart left in the finished version) and it was a huge step out of my comfort zone. But overall, I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

3. Jem Nocking an Arrow, 2016 - And here is the lineart version. This was entirely an excuse to draw my DAI baby, Jem, and to do a cool archer pose because archers are my fav, and I love characters in motion.

4. Solas Teaching Trilyn Fade Magic, 2016 - This one was a painterly picture that was also (like the Velyn picture) something which I tried to keep lineart out of. Overall, I am proud of a lot of parts of the pic, but I think I would definitely go back over it and change a few things now if I had the patience.

5. Trilyn Closeup WIP, 2016 - TW: injury, blood, mention of abuse in the author’s note. A lot of early pictures I have are of my OC, Trilyn, and this is one of my absolute favorites. His entire upper body is technically in the picture, but I hadn’t finished rendering it yet, so this was what I posted. And it was an experiment with a cross-hatching style with the pencil tool for some texture, with air brush shading and a blurring tool. It’s a style I had fun playing around with!

6. Trilyn Blood Ritual, 2016 - TW: blood, injury (the slight cut used to supply the ritual with blood). This one was definitely a sort of “captured moment” from a backstory I gave Trilyn, and I think what I was really going for was an atmospheric piece that could fit with any potential fic I wanted to write for Trilyn. And then it ended up being practice for extreme lighting/shading techniques, and drawing the blood and the gross mass of demon ichor (or whatever the heck that is) turned out to be highlights of making the piece for me.

Art + Text:

1. Freedom and Control, 2020 - TW: scars, but very difficult to see. This one was ambitious for me! It started originally just as Solas and my Tal-Vashoth OC, Saara, facing each other, because I love the dynamic I’ve built for them in my head, but then it turned into an attempt at a tarot-esque background, and just sorta grew from there... Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out, especially with how Solas and Saara themselves turned out. The version you can actually see a larger view is here.

2. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 1, 2020 - I love writing my own codex entries, first off, and I love combining art with text to create a (hopefully) seamless work. This work was an attempt to flesh out these OCs of mine with both art (because unique facial structures are hard for me to get down, but so important regardless) and text (because writing~). I think it turned out well overall, but there are elements of the portraits that I might at some point touch up a bit.

3. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 2, 2020 - Part 2, with what I refer to as a “DAI Outfit Change” because I have always loved seeing fans show their own OCs as they look in DAO, DA2, and then finally DAI. So I absolutely wanted to jump on that bandwagon myself. The skin tones are a little off (and I’m sorry about that!) because I was playing with the watercolor brush at that point, and it dilutes the colors I use. Still working to figure that out, but I was very happy with the overall lineart and structures of the faces.

4. Alistair/Aja Amell Picture with a Blurb, 2017 - Ooooold, old, old, old, OLD! I still love the art, and I’m soooo happy with how the interaction between Alistair and Aja turned out (drawing kisses is extremely difficult for me; I always end up creating a distorted weird lip-creature, instead of realistically puckered lips...). I’m not as happy with the blurb that went with it? At that point, I was still very much figuring out my own DAO worldstate, and the characterization for everyone, so, eh. Take it with a grain of salt!

Unfinished Costume Designs:

1. Ancient Elvhen Armor with Dwarven Influence, 2018 - People who do costume design work are amazing and mystical beings, and I wish I could do what they do. This was an attempt at merging the Keeper robes from DAI with a more dwarven armor aesthetic, solely because I created an ancient elvhen character, Ceda, who was taken in by the Cad’halash dwarves mentioned in the Witch Hunt dlc, and I wanted this character to have a mix of the elven style of armor and the dwarven style. I’m overall decently happy with it, but there’s still that persistent level of self-criticism present.

2. Herald of Andraste Outfit WIP, 2016 - This was a very old picture, not one I showed around a lot, but the idea for this was entirely born of my intense interest in how fashion and outfit designs could be used to create a symbolic image for the Herald of Andraste. In general, I love the combination of ceremonial armor with long and flowing cloth, so that was what I went for here. I’m still actually very proud of how this came out, and headcanon something similar for my Herald in my canon DAI worldstate.

Pencil Sketches:

1. Quick Saara Sketch, 2019 - TW: saarebas mouth scars. Exactly what it says; very quick sketch of Saara I did in a small notebook I carry around with me. This was basically a test for myself to see if I could manage to draw Saara with the features and facial structure I envisioned for her without needing to use a lot of references.

2. Mass Effect Character Sketch; Jesse, 2018 - Similar reason for drawing this one as the above Saara sketch! With these characters, I love sometimes the way they can turn out with the specific character creator used for them, and when I draw them, I enjoy trying to create a definitive look for them using what I get from the CC, and my own knowledge of Hooman Faces.

3. Saara Sketch, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars. A more detailed sketch of Saara than the one above, and one I definitely put more time into overall. It’s currently the profile picture I’m using for ao3, and is the definitive go-to reference picture I use whenever imagining Saara in a fic, or for other Saara pics I make. I am extremely proud of this picture, and feel like I should work in graphite more often. It’s such fun, and the texture is so nice to look at.

4. Sketch of Nameless Alamarri Woman, 2017 - This was a sketch I did of what I envisioned some Alamarri tribes to look like; I used artistic depictions of Gaul tribes and hairstyles for inspiration, and have used this as a go-to reference for my version of Alamarri tribes. Nothing super notable about this one, but I really liked the way the shape of her face turned out.

Events and Gifts:

1. Another Scar, 2020 - TW: blood, injuries, gore. The most recent piece of art on the list, and a gift for @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold; featuring sisterly love between Rica and fem!Brosca, which was her requested prompt. This was a tough piece for me because of the difficulty with the lighting I dealt with. For some reason, that one particular element of it gave me so much trouble. Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out, though, especially the skin tones of the sisters; Brosca I always sort of like as having this greyish, more gaunt look to her, while Rica I like seeing with a darker, richer, and warmer tone to her.

2. A Very Cousland Christmas!, 2019 - This was for a holiday exchange for a server, and I drew a friend’s Cousland (Elissa, the girl on the left) with my Cousland (Gazza, the girl on the right). I love kid-fic, and I love kid-art, and so I decided... baby Cousland art! Drawing kid proportions was the toughest part, I recall, and I thiiiink it turned out well, and I’m still quite proud of it overall. Elissa’s design came entirely from my friend, but I added the holly~

3. Exchange Gift with Dis Brosca and Mabari, 2018 - This was an exchange gift for @fanfoolishness, using her lovely Dis Brosca, and was my first real attempt at backgrounds... I struggled with the coherence of the foreground and background a bit, but I’m still very proud of how it turned out, especially with the colors I had to work with. What I also really enjoyed working with was the lighting and the expression on Dis’s face. Backlit subjects are always fun to play around with!

4. Inktober Picture, “Deep”, 2017 - TW: scars, injury, mentions of abuse in the author’s note/attached dialogue snippets. This was for an Inktober prompt (the only one I’ve ever done, sadly... because I am bad with deadlines...), and again features Trilyn. Trilyn’s backstory has him a former slave in Tevinter, and a lot of the early works I do for him are sort of deep-dives into his life there. It’s all meant to be an exploration of the things he endures, and then those moments when he overcomes it all and takes back his own autonomy and self. This art is definitely provocative, and I can understand if not everyone likes it, but to me, I just wanted to show just what he faces (without glorifying it) before showing the moment of his own triumph.

5. Christmas Holiday Picture with my Brosca and a Friend’s Amell, 2017 - This was a piece of art drawn first by a friend of mine, @nanahuatli~ She drew the Amell, the background, the mistletoe, etc. All I did was add my Brosca to the mix to finish the image. It was a lot of fun to do, 1) because it was fun trying to match her style so that the picture looked cohesive, 2) because I love doing collabs with friends, and 3) because it was just such a fun thing to imagine my surly short Brosca, looking at this weird plant/fungus/thing dangling over some puckering human! It was an absolute joy to do this collab with her!

6. OC Kiss Week Pic of Jem and Saara, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars. A spur-of-the-moment thing meant to demonstrate just what kind of dynamic my OC, Jem, has with my other OC, Saara (both of whom are members of Leliana’s network in DAI). This was a very quick picture (deadlines...) and was mostly just to have fun drawing these two characters interacting, and to see if I could make them look like themselves. I think I did a decent job with it overall, especially with Jem’s kissy-face! (Again... drawing kisses are the bane of my existence, although hands and feet take a close second.)

#lavalampelfchild's art #masterpost #dragon age #some not DA stuff

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davidmann95 · 4 years

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Superman’s 10 Best of the ‘10s

Good Miracle Monday, folks! The first third Monday of May of a new decade for that matter, and while that means that today in the DC Universe Superman just revealed his secret identity to the world on the latest anniversary of that time he defeated the devil, in ours it puts a capstone on a solid 10 years of his adventures now in the rear view mirror, ripe for reevaluation. And given there’s a nice solid ‘10′ right there I’ll go ahead with the obvious and list my own top ten for Superman comics of the past decade, with links in the titles to those I’ve spoken on in depth before - maybe you’ll find something you overlooked, or at least be reminded of good times.

A plethora of honorable mentions: I’m disqualifying team-ups or analogue character stories, but no list of the great Superman material of the last decade would be complete without bringing up Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #7, Avengers 34.1, Irredeemable, Sideways Annual #1, Supreme: Blue Rose, Justice League: Sixth Dimension, usage of him in Wonder Twins, (somewhat in spite of itself) Superior, from all I’ve heard New Super-Man, DCeased #5, and Batman: Super Friends. And while they couldn’t quite squeeze in, all due praise to the largely entertaining Superman: Unchained, the decades’ great Luthor epic in Superman: The Black Ring, a brilliant accompaniment to Scott Snyder’s work with Lex in Lex Luthor: Year of the Villain, the bonkers joy of the Superman/Luthor feature in Walmart’s Crisis On Infinite Earths tie-in comics, Geoff Johns and John Romita’s last-minute win in their Superman run with their final story 24 Hours, Tom Taylor’s quiet criticism of the very premise he was working with on Injustice and bitter reflection on the changing tides for the character in The Man of Yesterday, the decades’ most consistent Superman ongoing in Bryan Miller and company’s Smallville Season 11, and Superman: American Alien, which probably would have made the top ten but has been dropped like a hot potato by one and all for Reasons. In addition are several stories from Adventures of Superman, a book with enough winners to merit a class of its own: Rob Williams and Chris Weston’s thoughtful Savior, Kyle Killen and Pia Guerra’s haunting The Way These Things Begin, Marc Guggenheim and Joe Bennett’s heart-wrenching Tears For Krypton, Christos Gage and Eduardo Francisco’s melancholy Flowers For Bizarro, Josh Elder and Victor Ibanez’s deeply sappy but deeply effective Dear Superman, Ron Marz and Doc Shaner’s crowdpleasing Only Child, and Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro’s super-sweet Mystery Box.

10. Greg Pak/Aaron Kuder’s Action Comics

Oh, what might’ve been. In spite of an all-timer creative team I can’t justify listing this run any higher given how profoundly and comprehensively compromised it is, from the status quo it was working with to the litany of ill-conceived crossovers to regular filler artists to its ignominious non-ending. But with the most visceral, dynamic, and truly humane take on Clark Kent perhaps of all time that still lives up to all Superman entails, and an indisputably iconic instant-classic moment to its name, I can’t justify excluding it either.

9. Action Comics #1000

Arguably the climax to the decade for the character as his original title became the first superhero comic to reach a 1000th issue. While any anthology of this sort is a crapshoot by nature, everyone involved here seemed to understand the enormity of the occasion and stepped up as best they could; while the lack of a Lois Lane story is indefensible, some are inevitably bland, and one or two are more than a bit bizarre, by and large this was a thoroughly charming tribute to the character and his history with a handful of legitimate all-timer short stories.

8. Faster Than A Bullet

Much as Adventures of Superman was rightfully considered an oasis amidst the New 52′s worst excesses post-Morrison and in part pre-Pak, few stories from it seem well-remembered now, and even at the time this third issue inexplicably seemed to draw little attention. Regardless, Matt Kindt and Stephen Segovia’s depiction of an hour in the life of Superman as he saves four planets first thing in the morning without anyone noticing - while clumsy in its efforts at paralleling the main events with a literal subplot of a conversation between Lois and Lex - is one of the best takes I can recall on the scope on which he operates, and ultimately the purpose of Clark Kent.

7. Man and Superman

Seemingly geared on every front against me, built as it was on several ideas of how to handle Superman’s origin I legitimately hate, and by a writer whose work over the years has rarely been to my liking, Marv Wolfman and Claudio Castellini’s Man and Superman somehow came out of nowhere to be one of my favorite takes on Clark Kent’s early days. With a Metropolis and characters within it that feel not only alive but lived-in, it’s shocking that a story written and drawn over ten years before it was actually published prefigured so many future approaches to its subject, and felt so of-the-moment in its depiction of a 20-something scrambling to figure out how to squeeze into his niche in the world when it actually reached stores.

6. Brian Bendis’s run

Controversial in the extreme, and indeed heir to several of Brian Bendis’s longstanding weaknesses as a writer, his work on The Man of Steel, Superman, and Action Comics has nevertheless been defined at least as much by its ambition and intuitive grasp of its lead, as well as fistfuls of some of the best artistic accompaniment in the industry. At turns bombastic space action, disaster flick, spy-fi, oddball crime serial, and family drama, its assorted diversions and legitimate attempts at shaking up the formula - or driving it into new territory altogether, as in the latest, apparently more longterm-minded unmasking of Clark Kent in Truth - have remained anchored and made palatable by an understanding of Superman’s voice, insecurities, and convictions that go virtually unmatched.

5. Strange Visitor

The boldest, most out-of-left-field Superman comic of the past 10 years, Joe Keatinge took the logline of Adventures of Superman to do whatever creators wanted with the character and, rather than getting back to a classic take absent from the mainline titles at the time as most others did, used the opportunity for a wildly expansive exploration of the hero from his second year in action to his far-distant final adventure. Alongside a murderer’s row of artists, Keatinge pulled off one of the few comics purely about how great Superman is that rather than falling prey to hollow self-indulgence actually managed to capture the wonder of its subject.

4. Superman: Up In The Sky

And here’s the other big “Superman’s just the best” comic the decade had to offer that actually pulled it off. Sadly if reasonably best-known for its one true misfire of a chapter, with the increasing antipathy towards Tom King among fans in general likely not helping, what ended up overlooked is that this is a stone-cold classic on moment of arrival. Andy Kubert turns in work that stands alongside the best of his career, Tom King’s style is honed to its cleanest edge by the 12-pager format and subject matter, and the quest they set their lead out on ends up a perfect vehicle to explore Superman’s drive to save others from a multitude of angles. I don’t know what its reputation will end up being in the long-term - I was struck how prosaic and subdued the back cover description was when I got this in hardcover, without any of the fanfare or critic quotes you’d expect from the writer of Mister Miracle and Vision tackling Superman - but while its one big problem prevents me from ranking it higher, this is going to remain an all-timer for me.

3. Jeff Loveness’s stories Help and Glasses

Cheating shamelessly here, but Jeff Loveness’s Help with David Williams and Glasses with Tom Grummett are absolutely two halves of the same coin, a pair of theses on Superman’s enduring relevance as a figure of hope and the core of Lois and Clark’s relationship that end up covering both sides of Superman the icon and Superman the guy. While basically illustrated essays, any sense of detached lecturing is utterly forbidden by the raw emotion on display here that instantly made them some of the most acclaimed Superman stories of the last several years; they’re basically guaranteed to remain in ‘best-of’ collections from now until the end of time.

2. Superman Smashes The Klan

A bitter race for the top spot, but #2 is no shame here; while not quite my favorite Superman story of the past ten years, it’s probably the most perfectly executed. While I don’t think anyone could have quite expected just *how* relevant this would be at the top of the decade, Gene Yang and Gurihiru put together an adventure in the best tradition of the Fleischer shorts and the occasional bystander-centered episodes of Batman: The Animated Series to explore racism’s both overt and subtle infections of society’s norms and institutions, the immigrant experience, and both of its leads’ senses of alienation and justice. Exciting, stirring, and insightful, it’s debuted to largely universal acknowledgement as being the best Superman story in years, and hopefully it’ll be continued to be marketed as such long-term.

1. Grant Morrison’s Action Comics

When it came time to make the hard choice, it came in no small part down to that I don’t think we would have ever seen a major Golden Age Superman revival project like Smashes The Klan in the first place if not for this. Even hampering by that godawful Jim Lee armor, inconsistent (if still generally very good) art, and a fandom that largely misunderstood it on arrival can’t detract from that this is Grant Morrison’s run on a Superman ongoing, a journey through Superman’s development as a character reframed as a coherent arc that takes him from Metropolis’s most beaten-down neighborhoods to the edge of the fifth dimension and the monstrous outermost limits of ‘Superman’ as a concept. It launched discussions of Superman as a corporate icon and his place relative to authority structures that have never entirely vanished, introduced multiple all-time great new villains, and made ‘t-shirt Superman’ a distinct era and mode of operation for the character that I’m skeptical will ever entirely go away. No other work on the character this decade had the bombast, scope, complexity, or ambition of this run, with few able to match its charm or heart. And once again, it was, cannot stress this enough, Grant Morrison on an ongoing Superman book.

#Superman #Miracle Monday #Opinion

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