#A Distant Soil

[randimason]

“What makes their collaboration so interesting is how Colleen does so many different things depending on the tone and direction of the story,” said curator Kim Munson. “There are so many visual references and touchpoints, and so much range to her style.”

New retrospective of @colleendoran’s work with @neil-gaiman appears in Forbes (!) in time for the opening of the Colleen Doran Illustrates Neil Gaiman exhibition at NYC’s Society of Illustrators.

#illustration #colleen doran #neil gaiman #Chivalry #troll bridge #snow glass apples #A Distant Soil #new york city #nyc #society of illustrators #mocca #mocca arts fest

[colleendoran]

The Hierarchy from A DISTANT SOIL. Private commission. Pen and ink.

#a distant soil #pen and ink #commissions

[tomoleary]

Colleen Doran “A Distant Soil” Partial Page Original Art (undated) Source

#colleen doran #A Distant Soil #original art

[dirtyriver]

A Distant Soil pin-up by Colleen Doran in Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special #4, 1993

#Comics #Colleen Doran #A Distant Soil #Zine #Amazing Heroes

[balu8]

Ads (Amazing Heroes #50)

#advertising #amazing heroes #a distant soil #dalgoda #colleen doran #kevin nowlan

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week 

Collen Doran’s A Distant Soil [ADS] was groundbreaking for being among the first comics to feature openly gay characters and gay romantic leads and explore questions of gender identity. It is also an important early example of a creator-owned comic. Doran is a foremost figure in comics self-publishing, known for her advocacy for creator rights in addition to her award-winning career as an comic artist. 

Based on characters Doran started drawing at the age of twelve and developed in fanzines throughout her teens, A Distant Soil’s first official appearance was in Elfquest #16 (WaRP Graphics, 1983), followed by a nine-issue run for WaRP (1984-1986). The first 5 were published as magazine-sized comics, with the remaining in standard comic format. A tenth issue was completed, but an acrimonious split with WaRP halted it’s publication. According to Doran, WaRP not only attempted to claim ownership of the series, but claimed to have created it as well. The issue was settled out of court, and Doran maintained control of ADS.

Doran was then approached by the Donning Company to relaunch the title as a full color graphic novel on their imprint, Starblaze Graphics, turning down offers from Marvel and Dark Horse. Doran made a fresh start, rewriting and redrawing the comic from scratch, abandoning the pencil-only textures of the original run. In the afterward to the first of those graphic novels, Immigrant Song (1989), Doran acknowledged that fans “enjoyed the textured look of that, but after a few too many nights of a cramped hand soaked in epsom salts, I had to beg off that technique.” Unfortunately, the Donning Company folded and only two ADS books were published. 

Doran decided to take a leap and self-publish ADS as Aria Press. A new series was initiated, launching in 1991, drawing on art and story lines from the Starblaze graphic novels (note images 7 & 8, from the Starblaze and Aria Press runs). After fourteen self-published issues, the title was picked up by Image Comics in 1996. The latest installation (#42) came out in 2013. 

The images shown here are from our Comic Book Collection, as follows:

The first image is from Elfquest #16 (WaRP Graphics)

Images 2-4 are from the WaRP Graphics run.

Images 5-7 are from the Starblaze Graphics/Donning Company run.

Images 8 & 9 are from the self-published Aria Press run.

Image 10 is the cover from the first Image Comics publication (a continuation of the Aria series)

View other posts from our Comic Book Collection.

View our other Staff Picks.

-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern

#Staff Pick of the Week #A Distant Soil #ADS #Colleen Doran #Image Comics #Aria Press #Starblaze Graphics #WaRP Graphics #Elfquest #Creator Owned #Creator Owned Comics #Self Publishing #Comics #Graphic Novel #Pride Month #Pride #Pride 2022 #Queer Comics #LGBTQ #olivia

[phatburd]

🧂

#im trying to read this comic book again #its supposed to be a classic #ive tried to read it multiple times #a distant soil #colleen doran #i cannot get over how ass ugly the 1980s character designs were #yes #i know it was originally published in the 80s #its still ugly #holy fucking christ on a cracker #i feel bad for saying this

[thewandererh]

GOOD GOLLy I NEVER SAID ANYTHING

busy rn so now art but

HAPPY LATE CCCC DAY !!!!!!

on may 2nd the Chonny’s Charming Chaos Compendium album came out!!! happy birthday heart mind and soil we love u sm 💜💙❤️‼️‼️‼️

for context (finally), chonny covered 47 tally hall-related songs and made a narrative out of them featuring the personified concepts of the Heart, Mind, and Soul! Whole (chonny, the guy himself…ish??) was dumped by a girl then split into three (literally, metaphorically, smthn else?? maybe the hms are physical, maybe hes in a coma and fighting with himself, maybe it’s just inner demon stuff as he writes songs. prolly the last one). then they fight and heart shoots mind then soul blinds heart bc theyre supposed to stick together and then they do other stuff and make up and get mad—thing stuff!! angst and goober potential!! SO. MUCH. ANGST. GIVE THE MEN SOME ROOM TO B r e a T H e gosh dangit. they do have literal designs bc chonny cosplays in the music videos, but lots of people make their own designs. heart has wings oftentimes, mind is a partial robot, and soul has a trident + sometimes half-n-half stuff. but stuff can switch up!! me and a friend rainworld-ified the four 👀✨. CCCC is such a wild ride pls listen to it if you’re interested. it’s kinda aggressive so i can understand if some peeps don’t like it, but i’ve been consumed by the narrative and stuff. its very full and often loud but that’s expressive music babeeyy. an album of song covers but its basically a remix!!!! yum🍜

this album changed my life for the better. thank you mr jash we love u sm <333 hopefully ur having a good time and taking a good break after the power hours. wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo forever!! /ref

let’s hear it for the evil fabloo album everyone🎉🎉🥳🙏✨✨ happy birday cccc!

#HAPPY BIRTHDAY CCCC #HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEART MIND AND SOIL #soul. i meant soil #imEAnt sOL?? sUL. soUl…i meant soul /silly #chonnys charming chaos compendium #chonny jash #im late to the party #sorry this is the first post i post after distant-frontier-simp follows me XD #i could say this album has TAKEN us FOR A RIDE!!! FAR AWAY FROM YOUU!! NO LONGER LEFT INSIDEEE!!! #cough #ok back to work lmao #to the fans: what’s YOUR favorite song from the album?

[taigarrryen]

Your post about the hermitcraft meets scifi horror or something is riveting. Sounds? Amazing. Smells? Yes and I’m so hungry. V excited

Heheheh yuuup. There's a catch tho, it's still a light-hearted thing at the end.

What I dream to achieve with this au is "wow everything is so sweet and silly- waiT WHAT. WHAT WAS THAT. WHAT IN THE- ah nevermind?? sweet and.. silly...?" :D

#it sounds like laughs and chatter distorted by the walkie-talkie type thing and air-filtration masks #and like eerily quiet nights on a distant planet #it smells like freshly-cooked pasta made in celebration of Doc's success in growing tomatos in alien soil #and like sulfur and copper sulfate #taigaskyen #notes&thoughts

[ehlnofay]

fun character fact: caelestis has struggled with anxiety problems since childhood, which culminated in a long period of total agoraphobia in zir teenage years. by the time ze's arrested before the events of morrowind ze's mostly recovered from that phase - which is to say just about back to zir prior level of activity, which was also very plagued by nerves and not much. the stress of zir arrest freaked zem out so bad that if ze was sent back home ze for sure would have had a Significant relapse, but being put in a position where retreating to safe ground was impossible meant that ze had to just. deal

#there's an element of that that's nerevarine-y things too #like ze steps foot on vvardenfell soil and some deep distant part of zem is like 'hm. we have potential here' #so the fact that zir entire time in morrowind is not just one long panic attack is the first indicator that ze could be an incarnate lol #I should write something about zir relationship with zir mother too... a lot going on there and I've barely touched on it #oc tag #caelestis

[anarkhebringer]

I finally saw the cutscene of Karlach visiting her parents' graves with Null and I've had tadpoles about it all this time

#baldur's gate 3 spoilers #OC: Null Number #category 7 autism event in the tags incoming #imagining Null visiting his own family's graves that night #he'd told they're buried in the city graveyard but didn't tell where #so late that night Astarion notices him slinking out of camp and decides to follow him out of curiosity #and what does he find but Null standing at three graves in a line for his parents and sister #and it's the most heartbroken Astarion's ever seen him #he's sobbing so hard no noise is even coming out aside from shaky breaths and the occasional whimper #repeating to himself what he said to Karlach about becoming soil‚ water‚ and air‚ and how we don't die‚ we change #and now Astarion understands why Null looked so distant in his gaze despite the warmth of his smile when talking with Karlach #he didn't even approach like he planned to he just left and let Null be alone #his entire plan fell apart seeing how broken Null was and he had no clue what he could even say in that moment #sorry I'm exploding about this because Null's been raw about his family's deaths his entire life #and the Emperor's first meeting with him being in the form of his sister didn't help AT ALL #like his main goal in life alongside getting his wings and power back by breaking the curse he's under is finding solace in their deaths #he just wants peace and for them to rest in peace knowing he loves them and still lives for them #anyway #sad fae that's cursed to live as a drow hours again I'm so fucking happy I made Null in this game and made an AU for him

[nightmarecountry-a]

corinth.ian: i fucking hate both of you

#( ooc. ) #[ THIS IS SO FUNNY JFKCJFUGKFNGNFNG #the distant detached dream that can't give him what he wants #and the overbearing cold dream that he's terrified of. #horrible duo.] #re: how cold and desperate (mythboundmuses: dream) #re: my face to the soil; my teeth to the sand (peacereflected: dream)

[colleendoran]

I am incredibly privileged to do what I do for a living.

Please buy my books so I can keep doing it.

I realize there are more important things in the world...but I really do think you will enjoy these books by me and the wonderful writers for whom I make the pictures.

#Neil Gaiman #barry lyga #a distant soil #snow glass apples #chivalry #dark horse comics

[rhavendell]

Colleen Doran

#colleen doran #distant soil #sandman #chivalry

[headspace-hotel]

How people in the USA loved nature and knew the ways of the plants in the past vs. nowadays

I have been in the stacks at the library, reading a lot of magazine and journal articles, selecting those that are from over fifty years ago.

I do this because I want to see how people thought and the tools they had to come up with their ideas, and see if I can get perspective on the thoughts and ideas of nowadays

I've been looking at the journals and magazines about nature, gardening, plants, and wildlife, focusing on those from 1950-1970 or thereabouts. These are some unstructured observations.

The discourse about spraying poisons on everything in your garden/lawn has been virtually unchanged for the past 70 years; the main thing that's changed is the specific chemicals used, which in the past were chemicals now known to be horribly dangerous and toxic. In many cases, just as today, the people who opposed the poisons were considered as whackos overreacting to something mostly safe with a few risks that could be easily minimized. In short, history is not on the pesticides' side.

Compared with 50-70 years ago, today the "wilderness" areas of the USA are doing much better nowadays, but it actually appears that the areas with lots of human habitation are doing much worse nowadays.

I am especially stricken by references to wildflowers. There has definitely been a MASSIVE disappearance of flowers in the Eastern United States. I can tell this because of what flowers the old magazines reference as common or familiar wildflowers. Many of them are flowers that seem rare to me, which I have only seen in designated preserves.

There are a lot more lepidopterans (butterflies and moths) presumed to be familiar to the reader. And birds.

Yes, land ownership in the USA originated with colonization, but it appears that the preoccupation with who owns every little piece of land on a very nitpicking level has emerged more recently? In the magazines there is a sense of natural places as an unacknowledged commons. It is assumed that a person has access to "The creek," "The woods," "The field," "The pond" for simple rambling or enjoyment without personally owning property or directly asking permission to go onto another person's property.

There is very little talk of hiking and backpacking. I don't think I saw anything in the magazines about hiking or going on hikes, which is strange because nowadays hiking is the main outdoor activity people think of. Nature lovers 50-70 years ago described many more activities that were not very physically active, simply watching the birds or tending to one's garden or going on a nice walk. I feel this HAS to do with the immediately above point.

Gardening seems like it was more common, like in general. The discussion is about gardening without poisons or unsustainable practices, instead of trying to convince people to garden at all.

Overall, the range of animals and plants culturally considered to be common or familiar "backyard" creatures has narrowed significantly, even as the overall conservation status of animals and plants has improved.

This, to me, suggests two things that each may be possible: first, that the soils and environments of our suburbs and houses have sustained such a high level of cumulative damage that the life forms they once supported are no longer able to live, or second, that our way of managing our yards and inhabited areas has become steadily more destructive. Perhaps it may be the case that the minimum "acceptable" standard of lawn management has become more fastidious.

In conclusion, I feel that our relationship with nature has become more distant, even as the number of people who abstractly support the preservation of "wilderness" has increased. In the past, these wilderness preservation initiatives were a harder sell, but somehow, more people were in more direct contact with the more mundane parts of nature like flowers and birds, and had a personal relationship with those things.

And somehow, even with all the DDT and arsenic, the everyday outdoor spaces surrounding people's homes were not as broadly hostile to life even though the people might have FELT more hostile towards life. In 1960, a person hates woodpeckers, snakes and moths and his yard is constantly plagued by them: in 2024, a person enjoys the concept of woodpeckers, snakes and moths but rarely sees them, and is more likely to think of parks and preserves as the place they live and need to be protected. Large animals are mostly doing better in 2024, but the littlest ones, the wildflowers and bugs and birds, have declined steeply. It's not because "wilderness" is less; it seems more because non-wilderness has declined in quality.

#plants #nature #the ways of the plants #save the bees #kill your lawn

[jayrockin]

Centaur Aliens Lifespan: 80 years Adult weight: 500-1000 kg Adult height: 2.5-4 meters Visual range: near infrared to blue Diet: Obligate hypercarnivores Centaurs' evolutionary ancestors were savanna pack predators who used ambush to hunt prey, nomadically following prey animal herds as they traveled round the global continent every year. Modern centaurs emerged when they started to use tools to help with hunting and land management, eventually resulting in some groups settling down and becoming reliant on fishing, animal agriculture, and food preservation to survive. Centaurs remain obligate hypercarnivores, meaning approximately 70% of a healthy diet is meat and animal products, but they opportunistically supplement their diet with grain, starchy tubers, and small amounts of roughage and vegetation. Similar to humans, centaurs have a bisex reproductive system with an inseminator sex and gestator sex who gave birth to live young, but functionally are more akin to Earth's marsupials. Centaur’s distant ancestors had larvae that lived in the soil like grubs before pupating into adults, and their viviparous silk eating clade first emerged after parental care of the larval stage evolved. While other members of their clade have development and pupation both happen in-utero, centaur litters leave the womb early and feed on their parent’s nutritive silk until they are large enough to pupate, spinning a cocoon on their parent’s back. They emerge as an imago, resembling a miniature adult with the physical capacity of an six-week old kitten. Centaurs are pseudo-eusocial, with a social structure hierarchy somewhat similar to meerkats. At its most basic level a clan consists of one matriarch, a female who is responsible for bearing the clan's young; the entourage, who are the matriarch's partners and usually mostly male; and the clan's "workers," who are not involved in reproduction. These non-reproductive clan members are generally either the matriarch's children, childless relatives, or individuals married in for their skills or political purposes. Read more about centaur biology on my janky eternally work-in-progress website here, or look at the old centaur reference post here. PATREON | STORE | Runaway to the Stars

#rtts centaurs #speculative biology #jayart #runaway to the stars #yaaaay finally an update to the janky ass old reference post