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#hero monthly fan magazine
tnbscans · 6 months
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All scans are my own unless otherwise specified. There are hundreds in the queue, two posts per day (one art, one interview/other text) with occasional extras.
Messages are open for questions, comments, requests for specific scans, or just brain rotting this show. Donations of any material scanned by you are also gratefully accepted. Anyone can translate anything found here into English or any other language without asking. Please let me know if you do and I will add links to your translation.
The goal is preservation of artwork, raw and translated interviews, canon information and other rare print material.
I am working on a merch wiki for this show, look forward to it in the future.
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By Book/Pamphlet: English of Heroes Hero Gossips Hero TV Fan Vol 1 Hero TV Fan Vol 2 King of Works Katsura Artbook Katsura Artbook 2 Monthly Hero Multi Pouch Book Scenerio Document Smart The Rising Special Book Sum Up The Beginning Souvenir Program The Rising Pamphlet The Rising Pia Mook The Rising Souvenir Book The Rising Super Prelude Pamphlet
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Lyric scans can be found here
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10yearsofblindchannel · 7 months
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Blind Channel Fan Week 2023: Day 6 - Tommi & 2021 Day
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Today is day 6 of the Blind Channel Fan Week! Today we are celebrating Pearl Finnland artist⚪️, social media ghost👻, first member of the band to her verified on Instagram, logistical responsible, designated driver of the band🚐, Alex Mattson tote bag collector, background singer on "Bad Idea", beast on the drums 🥁 and registered nurse👨‍⚕️ Tommi Tapio "Bear" Lalli. 🐻
We are also celebrating and taking a look back at 2021, the year that everything changed: Blind Channel had their big breakthrough, released "Dark Side"🖕, became the #1 viral video on YouTube Finnland, debuted on #5 on the official finnish single charts, won UMK 2021 🏆with more than 50% of the votes, became #1 in Finnland, started the #Join campagne, after years of trying and over 70 attempts finally got their band account verified on Instagram🔵, later also all got their personal accounts verified🔵, made many important Spotify Playlists, such as Top of the Rock and Rock Rotation, got a platinum streaming single, singed a recording deal with Century Media✍️, placed 6th in ESC 2021 🙌🏻 (Finnlands second best result ever untill Kärijää came around🟢), made the cover of Soundi Magazin, charted in the Top 100 of 15 countries, placed #62 global and #47 on the US official Active Rock Radio charts, had their first sold out headlining gig🫶🏻 and their first filmed and televised gig at Allas Sea Pool, pulled of 5 gigs in three days, made the cover of Top of the Rock and Kickass Metal (the biggest metal playlist in the world) playlists on Spotify, went on the Joonas Nordman show and MTV Posse📺, were the most streamed finnish artist worldwide🇫🇮, hit 100.000 followers on Spotify and 1 Million monthly listeners, released the never give up anthem "Balboa"🥊, which went #1 on YouTube and #6 on Spotify Finnland, had "Dark Side" go tripple platinum and "Left Outside Alone" gold, performed at Elämä Lapselle for a good cause🐻, reminded everyone that they we're normal Humans with the (sort of) release of "National Heros“🤲🏻 and "We Are No Saints"🙅🏼‍♂️, went on Live on the Dark Side and XMas on the Dark Side Tour, won Song and Artist of the year from Suomi Rock Station🏆, headlined Yles big New Years Eve concert and did sooooo much more.
Feel free to celebrate however you want using the hashtag #10YearsofBlindChannel. 🎉(I try to reblog as many posts as possible, but if you want to help me see your post please don’t hesitate to tag me @10yearsofblindchannel. If I accidentally reblog something you don't want me to share here please let me know and I will delete it asap.)
Edits made by the talented and creative mind that is my butterfly in crime 🦋 @there-is-just-me-myself-and-i.
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showamagicalgirls · 3 months
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I feel like I was waiting so long for this film. It was released in theatres in Japan back in June of last year, and it's just now available to international viewers because of the Region 2 DVD release. Despite the long wait (and the lack of an actual international distribution announcement), I was glad to finally get to see it.
Here's what I wrote on Letterboxd, hoping that it might help people who aren't Sailor Moon super-fans understand what's going on here:
The film is a very close adaptation of six manga chapters released in a monthly magazine for preteen Japanese girls in 1996. They represent the first half of the fifth and final arc in the Sailor Moon story.  The original creator of Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (美少女戦士セーラームーン), Naoko Takeuchi (武内直子) wanted this cycle of animation to remain extremely faithful to her vision in the manga. She has often noted that she felt the 1992 TV anime was filtered through the male gaze, although some of the auteurs’ genders have not proven to be so simple in the intervening years.  Still, her desire to see a tight adaptation—a desire, it’s worth saying, that was also reflected in much of the fandom—means that this film can only be understood as a monthly fantasy super hero comic book. Everything from the pacing to the incoherence of the cosmology reflects that original context.
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Behind the comics: Building character.
Moon Knight, Issue 15 afterward: "Shades of Moon Knight" by Moench. 
We have our first after comic special! This one gives us a wonderful look behind the creation of Moon Knight! 
It starts with how he described the vision he had for the look of Moon Knight at first. He wanted stark contrast. He wanted a dark figure that also stood out. Silver and black. (he also wanted the crescent moon on his chest to be crimson red). 
1975, Werewolf by Night issue #32. 
Moench wanted to introduce a new anti-lycanthropic "villain" called 'Moonblood'. 
There was an "intriguing problem confronted by those of us who were writing Werewolf by Night, Frankenstein, Man-Thing, Dracula, Man-Wolf, Morbius, and all the other sundry grotesqueries rampant during Marvel's early/mid-seventies supernatural boom. When you're 'hero' is a monster, your villains are often actually heroes. Either that, or someone/something even worse than the monstrous character of the series' title. After all, who else would risk life and limb to battle werewolves, vampires, and zombies!" 
So he created an unscrupulous mercenary. Moonblood would be the villain in the eyes of the werewolf, but to the average joe on the street, he was a hero. 
He described the look for Moonblood to be in silver with black outlines in stark contrast. He wanted him to have a silver and moon motif because the werewolf gets his power from the moon but silver hurts him. So this character would be a moon that hurts him. 
The name didn't stick because at the time, Marvel was running rampant with characters that all had 'blood' in their name. 
He wrote down a list of names, noting Moon Knight was his favorite and the editor agreed. 
The artist for Werewolf by Night at the time was Don Perlin, who helped develop the look of the character further and gave us the iconic cape and silver crescent moon on his chest. 
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Once the character was all drawn out, Moench knew this was not a one shot throw away dude. 
When Marvel Spotlight asked for a new character to feature, Moench and Don Perlin got together and set out to redesign him further. 
Moon Knight needed a past, a home, and an identity that let him gather information and resources. These three things became the source for the three identities. 
Marc:Past
Steven:Home base
Jake:Information gatherer
While people enjoyed the two parter in WWBN, it didn't sell the idea. 
Years later, HULK magazine was in need of a backup strip. The editor was apparently a fan of Moon Knight. When they needed a character, the editor jumped at the chance to toss in Moon Knight. (Thank you Ralph Macchio). 
Bill Sienkiewicz was new to the field and was given the task to illustrate the feature. 
Now Ralph liked the cape but hated the original design. So he gave the order for Bill to redesign it like a crescent moon. 
They also took away the fist spikes. They wanted him to be able to fight common people and be a true good guy and it’s hard to do that when you have spikes on your fists. (These come back later when the comics get gritty and Moon Knight gets VIOLENT in later runs by later authors). 
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People took interest (AND APPARENTLY IN JAPAN IT WAS MADE INTO A TV SHOW?!?!?!!) so Moon Knight at last got his own title and monthly run in 1980! 
Now we get into the characters themselves:
Moench was born in Chicago and moved to Manhattan. He had a friend that ran a comic shop where they used to hang out. One of the employees working there asked to get a character named after him and Moench said "Sure." 
It took him a while to "come up with a character spooky enough to deserve the appellation. His name? Marc Spector. 
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"Spector is the 'past'. [...] Moon Knight's original and real name, the only one of the multiple personalities who possesses a history dating back to birth. I see Spector as a wayward Man, [...] a man who teetered on the brink of ruthlessness and who barely managed to retain his footing this side of disaster. I also see him as a man Moon Knight would sometimes like to forget." 
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"Moon Knight needed that home base, remember? I wanted it to be a haven of resources in every sense of the world". Steven was meant to invest and finance all of Marc Spector's ill gotten money into altruistic ends like financing Moon Knight's crime fighting activities. 
"I see Grant as a reserved, refined, capable and committed man Marlene wishes Moon Knight could truly and more fully become-But also the man with whom Moon Knight is least comfortable. The fantasy of wealth come true holds less interest than he'd imagined." 
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We have Jake next. The "believable means of gathering info." A great contrast to Millionaire Grant too. 
Jake's name has no significance. Moench called him "Jake Blank" for ages until Don Perlin suggested the name Lockley. 
"I See Lockley as the man Moon Knight is most comfortable with, no pretensions and no real responsibilities, always on the move, always in contact with people on an easy, earthy level. Indeed, Lockley is the closest to Spector, MK's 'real' identity, yet he lacks Spector's guilt and grimness while possessing a capacity for humor and absurdity." 
Just look at those images! The same face but look how different they look! The eyes, the mouth, the hair! I’m so in love with the original face of Moon Knight. He was sharp and rugged and older. He wasn’t the pretty boy he is today. You could tell he’d been around, seen things, done things. 
Jake was just a new york cabbie. Steven was a sleek and high class man. Marc was tired and angry and in pain. (Marc can also be a bit of an idiot sometimes too and I loved that about him). 
The curly locks of hair, the often slightly misaligned mustache, the style of hair that was careful, easy, or just on the fly. 
This is the face of Moon Knight. 
I also love the thought put into how the needs determined who the characters were. Past, Home, and information. 
Without realizing it, Moench put into play a real system. A system based around needs. And it’s nice to see that this has grown over the years. 
In the current Mackay run, we see that Steven, while he has lost his mansion and resources, has taken the job of keeping the body in working order. Jake is still a goofy guy full of love and able to connect to people to get information. 
Marc, while still holding the past and the trauma, he has taken the aspect of holding down the fort too. A brick wall that can carry out the fights and brutal needs the others can’t. When Jake doesn’t want to glide, Marc steps in. When Jake takes a rough punch, Marc shows up to finish the fight. 
I also love the evolution of the outfit. The graduation from a figure in the shadows to a stark white and silver form that can still somehow manage to blend in despite being bright as the moon. The cape has long been my favorite part of the design and it letting him glide is a fantastic addition. 
Even the thought put into removing the spikes as Moon Knight steps away from brutal mercenary work for hire and into a more protective role for the people. 
The journey from Villain to hero was a great line of thought too. How the hero is a villain in the eyes of the monster. The hero isn’t even defined as a hero until an outside force looks to them for salvation and reassurance. And in this case, a monster could become a hero! 
What’s also interesting is that Marc Spector is originally supposed to be the intended man behind the cowl that is Moon Knight, so Moon Knight himself is not given a personality intro. But as the comics progress, you do get a distinct impression that he is his own man, but a man that takes more of a cue from Marc than the others, while also being upset about how Marc ran his past life. 
I’m so curious to see how Moench planned out the other characters like Gena and Crawley and even Marlene. 
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aciddaffodil · 2 months
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2024 Winter Season-What I Dropped
So here's the anime I decided to not to keep up with after 3 weeks:
The Demon Prince of Momichi House
I know we as a collective anime fans, are suffering from a sever lack in shoujo series but I couldn't hook me. Himuri with no family history, an orphan I assume, receives a will and the deed to the Momichi house. She goes, excited to have a place to reconnect with her unknown family past to find it already occupied. I'm sure they're be hijinks and she and Aoi end up together but I just didn't vibe with it.
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Tales of Wedding Rings
An actual good fantasy OST for the first episode, a bop of an opening and then it's a harem fantasy anime...with yet another "Dark Lord" of the realm to beat and you can only fight with light magic. The cliche of that turned me off for the series, and I just couldn't stomach the thought of watching it? I may give it another shot when I can binge it but until then...nope!
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The Strongest Tank Labyrinth Raids- A Tank with the 9999 Resistance Skill got Kicked from the Heroes Party
I watch too much fantasy survival series as is and had a suspicion it would turn into a harem anime (cursed genre/lh) so I dropped it. There wasn't anything stand out for the protagonist to me. He adventurers in search of a light-something that can cure his sister's incurable illness. After he leave the party, he saves a random chick and journeys on with her. Just wasn't my cup of tea.
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The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil
A war with angels and devils exists and is happening, the devils are at disadvantage, so Masatora Akutsu comes to Earth to find someone to rally under and selects the sweetest girl in his class to find uh oh-she's an Angel and to spare his life is collared and has to obey her. Yeah no, not here for that. Also the CG in their short fight scene, ugh questionable? (apologies for the shitty photo quality)
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Delusional Monthly Magazine
There wasn't a particular reason why I'm dropping this, I just didn't vibe with it. The character design is very remanent of Bullbuster , which I regretted last season keeping up with. It's an interesting take for including ancient Atlantian technology and spiritual powers but I just didn't vibe with it. I may give it another chance considering my boredom of not having many anime releases during the week.
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Sengoku Youko
I was insanely bored with this. The fight scenes were anticlimactic and the characters too overpowered? Plus its going to be 37 episodes long...that's a TON of commitment from me so hard pass. I just am a very particular person when it comes to fantasy and mythology. I'm sure it's an amazing series but to stick around just for the shamisen music wasn't enough to keep me.
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Snack Basue
For as many animanga accounts have praised this, especially since it's an adult comedy with some dark humor. Follows the shenanigans of a snack bar with the hostesses and a revolving door customers. I couldn't find myself watching another episode. The animation is, animated but the writing is on point.
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And lastly Chained Soldier
Yet another harem anime (they're in my nightmares/j) but homedude is used to unlock the Captain's power so he's just used as a house husband going forward except for when they need him in battle. I already am losing braincells at work, might as well lose less by not watching this.
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absurdpatronusdraws · 3 years
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I did it! Here’s all three of them, now including Mirio! I will say it was a hard choice between mirio and Nejire but I only wanted to do three (limited on time here) and I needed more male illustrations for my body of work. I didn’t forget Nejire! I might draw her another time
Please don’t repost my art! If you like it, consider reblogging it!
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kitcat992 · 2 years
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the ending of NWH was absolutely awful. they took everything that made tom hollands peter parker unique/interesting and ripped it away so now he’s the same as all the others before him, a poor vigilante who works alongside the police. no more avengers, no more of tony stark’s legacy, no more ned or mj. any future i was looking forward to him having is gone. they just decimated years worth of great plot :|
So, here's a hot take. When I first saw Civil War, I absolutely hated MCU Peter Parker. I had the same exact complaints as all the fanboys -- "Ugh, another way to shove Tony Stark in the middle of something. Why does Tony have to give him his suit? He's ALWAYS made his OWN tech. This isn't Spider-man, this is Stark Jr"
I left the theater quite pissed off. I mean, I was pissed off for MANY other reasons as well...it was Civil War, after all. That movie is the ground zero of what destroyed the MCU. But the way they forced Tony Stark into an origin story he didn't need to be in left a really bad taste in my mouth.
They changed that with Homecoming.
Sure, Tony was in Homecoming-- for like, a second, if you blink. But that movie took those complaints and worked with them. "Peter learns he doesn't need his suits, Peter learns to be a hero without anyone's help, PETER learns how to be Spider-man BY HIMSELF." I loved it. I fell head over heels for it. That's where my Irondad obsession began, but even without Irondad, I REALLY fell for this new version of Peter Parker.
You see, I've been a Spider-Man fan for over 2 decades now. I've seen so many versions come and go. Not just on the big screen, not just these movies. The cartoons, the comics -- there's ALWAYS new versions of characters, and Peter Parker is no different. But the frustrating part is almost always, he's the same. He's stereotypical Peter Parker. He can be summed up with just a few words. "Broke/poor, living in a dumpy apartment, with great power, dead parents, dead uncle, relationship struggles, quippy jokes." If I had to sum up most iterations of Peter Parker from the last decade alone, it's right there. No originality. No creativity.
As a Spider-Man fan of over 2 decades, it gets boring. It gets to the point where I skip my monthly comic-book order cause "eh, not feeling it this time."
The MCU Spider-Man broke that trend. It created something unique and fresh, it created something that had NEVER been done before. The closest I could ever relate it to is the Ultimate Spider-Man, where a teenage Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man, but receives the help of SO many other superheroes along the way. He's never truly alone, he's always got help at his side.
The MCU created a Peter Parker that was fresh, and required fresh writing alongside it. They didn't just follow the rhetoric of the many Spider-Men before it. They took small bits (Uncle Ben's death, struggling/poor Peter Parker, relationship troubles) and baked a whole fresh cake with it. All the other iterations took the same cake and cut a piece out, calling it a cupcake. This one started all over with fresh batter.
But fan boys will be fan boys. They're toxic MF's who think reading and studying comic books makes them superior to everyone else. They whined, they complained, they yelled and bitched. And you SAW the effect that had on No Way Home. We literally had a shot of a magazine with a cartoon Spider-Man, sucking a pacifier, dressed in Ironman jammies with the title "Iron Man Jr!"
By the way, that was the biggest insult the MCU has ever given me. That was a direct slap in the face. So many of us have written novels worth of Irondad fanfic but they decided to thank us with THAT.
Fuck you, MCU.
Anyway. Yeah, I had complaints about MCU Spider-man when he first came around. But they didn't just throw him on the screen and call it a day. They molded him, created him, turned him into something unique, creative, and energizing. They reinvigorated my love for Spider-Man.
And then they took it all away with one single scene.
They bent over, kissed the hairy ass of every fan boy who complained, and said "there you go! We returned him to form!" And thus, left many of us to view the shocking aftermath of their decimation to a character THEY created and WE loved.
I've gotten a few asks on why I'm so anti-MCU. Shit like this is why, and shit like this is why I won't be participating in new MCU content. It's an abusive relationship. I'm out.
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deokmis · 2 years
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DRAMAS I WATCHED IN 2021:
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completed kdramas [favs ** marked] : beyond evil ** + dali and the cocky prince ** + doom at your service ** + hello, me! + hometown cha cha cha ** + hospital playlist s2 ** + how to be thirty + imitation + lost + mine + monthly magazine home + my roommate is a gumiho + navillera ** + nevertheless + one the woman + racket boys ** + sell your haunted house + so i married an anti fan + taxi driver + the king's affection + the veil + vincenzo + you are my spring
dropped kdramas: jirisan + so not worth it + the witch's diner + youth of may
completed cdramas [favs ** marked] : crush ** + cute programmer + fall in love ** + forever and ever ** + hello mr. gu + love at night + love scenery ** + miss crow with mr. lizard + my fated boy + my little happiness ** + once we get married + please feel at ease mr. ling + sweet teeth ** + the day of becoming you + the rational life ** + unforgettable love ** + you are my glory ** + you are my hero **
dropped cdramas: a camellia romance + lie to love + out of the dream + the flaming heart
completed jdramas: only just married/Konin Todoke ni Han wo Oshita dake desu ga
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IOTA Reviews: Optigami
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For the first time this season, we're actually acknowledging what happened at the end of the last season. Of course, it's the thirteenth episode chronologically, so you can tell the writers really wanted to strike while the iron was hot.
Let's get into the ninth (chronologically the thirteenth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Optigami.
We start off with Nathalie recounting the events of “Miracle Queen” to Gabriel, where Chloe exposed the identities of the temp heroes, which is kind of odd considering they were both there. Then again, it's entirely possible Gabriel forgot what happened given we're literally halfway through the season chronologically. According to Nathalie, she created a Sentimonster the very next day to spy on the heroes. After a lot of surveillance by the Sentimonster, named Optigami, all Nathalie and Gabriel really found out was that the heroes were just regular teenagers who occasionally got a Miraculous from Ladybug without even learning her identity, all while we learn she continued to give Miraculous out to the heroes despite the risk to their safety.
Okay, a few questions here. First, why the hell didn't Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth or Mayura try something like this from the beginning? It took you two lucking out in finding out the identities of seven heroes to think about spying on your enemies? Second, Mayura created Optigami the next day? Wasn't she in a lot of pain as a result of using the Peacock for a whole season? At least when she created a Sentimonster in the New York special, it was set a vague amount of time after “Miracle Queen”. Third, Ladybug is seriously recruiting the same heroes again after the rules that she imposed onto Chloe? You know, the person who couldn't use the Bee Miraculous again because of the risk to her safety, and ultimately betrayed Ladybug because she hated the rule? Seriously, the video footage shows Ladybug recruiting Ryuko, someone whose identity Shadowmoth already knew before “Miracle Queen”, so this makes even less sense. If Chloe doesn't get her Miraculous after exposing her identity to the whole world, the same should apply to the other heroes too. If they wanted to make Chloe an exception, all they had to do was have Ladybug bench Queen Bee because she didn't trust Chloe in her civilian life. This just makes Ladybug come off as a hypocrite who serves to justify Astruc's warped mentality that Chloe doesn't deserve a Miraculous even though she lost hers for the same reason as the others.
Nathalie calls Optigami a failure, but Gabriel actually uses his brain for once and comes up with a plan to take out all of the temp heroes at once by putting them in a situation where Ladybug is forced to recruit one of them in order to stop an Akuma. He calls Audrey Bourgeois, a major fashion magazine writer and praises her idea to give a monthly award to a fashion icon, and Gabriel says “there's no better introduction than giving it to his son”, so I'm not sure if he told Audrey to give the award to Adrien, or if he already got the award and Gabriel was just capitalizing on the chance.
So we cut to Marinette and Alya hanging out in the former's room, and surprise, surprise, Marinette is gushing over Adrien. It isn't a love story if there's a single scene not talking about the love interest according to Astruc.
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Yeah, despite not being on the list of targets, Marinette got a ticket to the award show because the writers weren't sure how else they could work her into the plot. The Kwamis ask if they can come along, forgetting about the fact that they need to be a secret or be with an owner (guessing Marinette learned her lesson after “Furious Fu”). I'm starting to think I was a little too harsh on Master Fu considering he managed to put up with these godlike idiots for 176 years.
Alya and Trixx, the Fox Kwami, bring up a decent point that now that Alya knows she's Ladybug, she can take a more active role in helping her as Rena Rouge if she had the Fox Miraculous full-time, while Marinette points out the fact that it's too risky for anyone but her to hand out Miraculous. This is brief, but I like this little disagreement here. While I think Marinette could have brought up the fact that Shadowmoth knows Alya's identity in her argument, both sides still make a good point, and this will come into play later on, for better or for worse.
So Marinette and Alya head out to the award party where they meet up with Adrien, Kagami, Luka, Kim, Max, and Nino, with Alya doing a secret handshake with him that I'm sure won't be important later on. We also get a hilarious scene of Alya once again trying to force Marinette into an elevator with Adrien with the explicit intent to have her get closet to Adrien, while she unsurprisingly freaks out, leading to some brief Unfunny Marinette Slapstick.
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So much for Marinette growing after the second umbrella scene.
Optigami is set up, and Shadowmoth creates a Sentimonster of the man hosting the award ceremony, and takes the opportunity to do what we've all wanted to do since Audrey's first appearance in late 2018.
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I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank you, Gabriel Agreste. You're the real MVP of this episode.
So Shadowmoth sends out an Akuma to akumatize Audrey into his “magnum opus”, Style Queen, once again (Audrey is also implied to be willingly akumatized like Chloe in “Queen Banana”). And since the titular Sentimonster plays a big role in Shadowmoth's plan this episode, I think now's a good time to talk about Optigami.
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Optigami has a simple design, a butterfly colored like Mayura, but I like the role it plays. It has the power to hide in any solid object and observe the environment like a camera Nathalie watches, all while Style Queen chases after the temp heroes and turns them into piles of gold dust. Whether that's because she's been powered up by Shadowmoth or because the animators can't afford to create new models of the characters as gold statues isn't clear. It still really shows the writers are taking advantage of the concept of Sentimonsters as support for Akumas outside of more muscle.
So Kagami tries to distract Style Queen while Adrien runs, and she is the first to be taken out. Chloe then tells Style Queen where Ladybug went, but she gets targeted because she laughed at her mother earlier, and then tries to use Zoe as a human shield before getting blasted. Oh, thank God. I thought Chloe was going to appear in an episode where the writers didn't remind the audience how much of a terrible person she is and anyone who supports her is just as bad.
Marinette and Adrien both run off to transform, but get into the same elevator together, which then gets broken thanks to Style Queen's interference. This leads to an interesting setup where neither of them can transform and hope their partner will save them, leading to some real tension. There's also thankfully little to no stammering from Marinette in these scenes. It's almost like the writers only have her struggle to talk with Adrien so they don't actually have to write scenes like this. Alya briefly teases Marinette for saying she's stuck in an elevator with Adrien before realizing she's trapped in an elevator with a civilian and can't transform.
After Max and Luka get taken out, Marinette calls a phone she set up near the Miracle Ball to call the Kwamis, pretending to talk to the fire department and secretly tells them to send Kaalki to help her, but Adrien sees Optigami spying on them in the elevator, so Marinette is forced to hang up. Marinette and Adrien are about to transform and reveal themselves to each other, but because neither of them are on the list and because Shadowmoth felt like actually being a decent father today, Optigami retreats with Style Queen, who then takes out Kim, leaving only Alya and Nino left.
Marinette tells Alya to call the Kwamis, but while she does so, she gets a call from Nino, who is soon taken out by Style Queen and... is replaced... by an... evil... doppelganger... The eighth one in four seasons...
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The only question I have is how did Shadowmoth create two Sentimonsters in the same day? Did he recharge offscreen? Either way, he sends “Sentinino” after Alya to lure her out, but Kaalki arrives and portals her to Marinette's room, leading to the funniest joke of the episode.
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Alya takes the Fox Miraculous and transforms into Rena Rouge and creates an illusion of Ladybug to distract Style Queen while she meets up with Marinette with the Bee Miraculous, but she decides to take the Turtle Miraculous even though Marinette didn't tell her to just to be safe.
Rena Rouge meets up with Sentinino and gives him the Turtle, alerting Shadowmoth to the fact that Alya may have a bigger role than he anticipated. Sentinino transforms into Carapace (or would a more accurate term be Sentipace?) while Optigami hides in the Turtle Miraculous, leading to another interesting conflict. If Style Queen gets Ladybug's Miraculous, Shadowmoth wins, but even if Ladybug wins, Sentipace can swoop in and steal Ladybug's Miraculous when her guard is down. This is David Xanatos levels of planning here.
Rena Rouge escorts Adrien out of the elevator via one of Kaalki's portals, and Marinette transforms into Ladybug before unifying with the Bee Miraculous into Ladybee.
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Ignoring the creepy look on her face, I think Ladybee has a pretty good design. I think the black and gold go well with her suit, and the ponytail with the gold streaks is a nice touch. I'm not sure if it's referencing Queen Bee's design, but I like it, as well as the slight antennae on her head. I still prefer Dragonbug's design, but I can see why so many fans love this one too.
Ladybee is surprised Sentipace is there, but accepts his help anyway. Ladybee summons her Lucky Charm, a compact mirror, but when looking around, she doesn't see how to use the Lucky Charm with Sentipace as he isn't highlighted in her vision like certain objects/heroes that play a part in stopping an Akuma. Ladybee uses Venom, and with Sentipace's Shelter, manages to tank Style Queen's blasts and stun her before de-evilizing her.
Cat Noir tries to cataclysm the golden shield Style Queen placed around the building, but shows up too late, being surprised at the presence of Rena Rouge and Sentipace. He jokes about it, but this will somewhat come into play in future episodes.
Ladybug prepares to throw the compact mirror to use Miraculous Ladybug and fix the damage, but through the mirror, sees Nino fail to do the secret handshake with Alya. Ladybug pulls a John McClane and swings off the top of the building and tells Cat Noir to use his Cataclysm to destroy the Turtle Miraculous, releasing Optigami, and giving Nathalie a major headache. Shadowmoth undoes the creations of Optigami and Sentinino and retreats.
Alya is naturally upset that she screwed up and almost let Shadowmoth find out Ladybug's identity, but then, well...
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Like with “Gang of Secrets”, I'm very mixed on this ending. Both Alya and Marinette make good points here. Alya knows she almost let Shadowmoth win, but Marinette points out how invaluable Alya was today and realizes how helpless she was doing a lot of things on her own. Even if Alya didn't give the Turtle Miraculous to Sentinino, Marinette still had to face the possibility of revealing herself to Adrien. Like it or not, she needs someone to help her more, and Alya is the only one able to fill that position.
The problem I have is that because of how Marinette phrases that sentence, it comes off like Alya is being rewarded for what happened this episode. I get she helped, but I just find it weird that Marinette doesn't feel a little uncomfortable trusting Alya more after going behind her back and almost screwing up the entire mission in the process. I think the scene could have worked if Marinette was a little more stern towards Alya and realized she had no choice but to give her the Fox, creating a little tension between the two as a result.
So the episode ends with a post-credits scene where Gabriel and Nathalie realize they need to focus more attention onto Alya due to her connection to Ladybug.
But yeah, this was honestly a really good episode. It's become my favorite this season.
The plot has a fair amount of suspense and tension, most of it derived from the very clever plan Shadowmoth has this time, taking full advantage of the repaired Peacock in order to make what was already a very powerful Akuma even more of a threat. There were jokes, but unlike in other episodes that focus on humiliating Marinette or interrupting the tension, they're well-placed. The same goes for the elevator scene. The writers easily could have made Marinette stammer all of her words around Adrien, but for once, they realized that they needed to have her actually interact with him in order to maintain the tension of the episode.
Granted, there are still some flaws, like Marinette really had no reason to be invited to the award ceremony. All they really had to do was have Adrien invite her himself, which would justify her eager reaction at the beginning. It's also strange that nobody brings up the fact that all of Adrien's friends who were invited were temp heroes. I've already gone over the problem with timeline at the beginning as well as the ending and I plan to talk about Rena Rouge's partnership with Ladybug next time.
Overall, this was still a really good episode. Even the evil doppelganger plotline had an interesting twist to it. What's the next episode about again? What? Another evil doppelganger of Nino?
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ch4rmsing · 3 years
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Fantasy Novels that Imprinted on me
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine I think I asked my mom to buy this for me at a scholastic fair in 6th grade. I remember circling it in the monthly scholastic magazine my school handed out. It’s the reason why I’m a slut for fairy tale retellings. It’s also the reason I have a lifetime grudge for the movie adaption, why I hardly read books anymore on the off chance they will be adapted to prevent untold heartache like I did when the Ella Enchanted Adaption came out. Avatar fans, I know your pain. The original book from 1998 was read many times over and has since fallen apart, but my friend who knows how dear this book is/was to me got me a sturdy hard back version with the original cover art. Dragon's Bait by Vivian Vande Velde I found this in my junior high library and I was intrigued. Girl accused of Witchcraft? Sent to be eaten by Dragon? Dragon helps her get revenge? Hell yes sign my 7th grade ass up for that adventure. I ended up checking this out so much from school, I decided to just buy it from a bokstore in early high school. It’s a quick read, a delicious story of revenge, questioning morals, and highly influenced my writing style as the years went on. Dragon Riders of Pern Series by Anne McCaffrey Okay, so looking back it’s not that hard to see *why* I fell so hard and so fast into the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ fandom. I definitely have a type when it comes to reading fantasy and dragons are my jam. I also found the first of this series in that same junior high library and eagerly devoured the the three books in the main series and then moved onto different books set in the same world. It was a bit more mature and serious but a beautiful and interesting fleshed out world! There was also revenge involved. Okay I have two types. Dragons and Revenge.
The Everworld Series by K.A. Applegate I found book #1 in the local library YA section in 8tth grade (I used to spend hours there before the Ella Enchanted movie adaption) and read it and was immediately smitten. For the time, the pop culture references were fresh, funny, and the mystery and danger kept getting more intense. The premise was amazing for a little nerd like me who loved memorizing Greek mythology and seeing 4 modern-day teenagers transported to a world where these old gods lived was like my mind on fanfiction before I knew what fanfiction was. It was a a high octane, always six inches from death while tackling relatable and serious issues for teens in the early 2000′s/late 90′s kind of story and it remains my favorite series to this day. I scored them all for myself when an acquaintance in high school heard me raving about it and gave me his series cause he didn’t want it anymore. I leant book #1 to a friend in college and never saw it again :( Old Magic by Marianne Curley I found this book in early high school, and I don’t remember exactly where but maybe my local library YA section. it was 1999. It delved into time travel, paganism, and a reluctant hero and competent heroine trope that ended in romance. I am a sucker for a good romance. I ended up buying this one as well. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer I saw the cover of this in Barnes and Nobel in the mid-2010′s, and remember, as a slut for fairy tale retellings, I was like ‘TAKE MY MONEY’ and I promptly took it home and DEVOURED IT. I had to go back to B&N about two more times that week so I could get the rest. I still to this day have not finished a series that fast. It was a great series, really interwove the fairytales, left me feeling satisfied and loving the characters. The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher So I have never read this book with my own two eyes but have listened to it about 3 or 4 times on audiobook because damn, whoever did that reading has a great voice and I knew it was a winner when they were describing a battle scene and I was riveted. I usually kind of check out and skim battle scenes. This is one I constantly recommend to my friends because it’s another one where there’s a cool, fleshed out world of steam airships and houses that rule at the top of society ala Game of Thrones, and talking cats. This is way more of an adventure story but it’s rich with imagery.  My husband introduced me to this because it’s by his favorite author. It’s supposed to be a series and I am eagerly awaiting the second book.
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justforbooks · 2 years
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At the age of eight, Wilbur Smith was given his grandfather’s Remington rifle, which had 122 notches on the butt. He shot his first lion when he was 14. Such a boy seemed destined to become a hunter, but it was on paper that Smith realised his dreams of adventure – and millions shared them through his 49 novels over half a century.
In recent years Smith, who has died aged 88, would say proudly: “I don’t write literature, I write stories,” and added that he always saw himself as the hero in his books and always fell in love with his female characters. His African settings and blood-and-thunder approach to plotting proved a winning formula. Each of his thrillers, translated into 30 languages, sold in their millions, with his total sales more than 140m.
From the instant international success of his first published novel, When the Lion Feeds, in 1964, it was clear that Smith had tapped into the golden seam of masculine adventure writing that flowed through John Buchan back to H Rider Haggard. Initially, the reviews were ecstatic – “the world’s leading adventure writer”, “a natural storyteller” – but while his output and sales figures continued unabated, the critics’ enthusiasm waned and his latter work became dismissed as “dads’ books”.
Some lukewarm film adaptations did not help. Hollywood versions of The Dark of the Sun (1965), filmed as The Mercenaries, starring Rod Taylor, Gold Mine (1970), filmed as Gold, with Roger Moore, and Shout at the Devil (1968) failed to set the screen on fire and prompted Smith to write a novel that “couldn’t be filmed”. This turned out to be The Sunbird (1972), which combined present-day African adventure with chunks of ancient history and some dodgy archaeology. It became one of his best-loved titles and, 20 years later, inspired him to write a series of mystical novels set in Ancient Egypt.
Smith’s many historical settings – from 17th-century Madagascar to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 – earned him the accolade of “best historical novelist” from Stephen King. Whatever the period, there was one constant factor in all his books. “I only write about Africa,” Smith was fond of saying, and when asked by an Australian fan if he would ever set a book in Australia, he replied that he might, but only after living there for 50 years.
Wilbur was born to Elfreda (nee Lawrence) and Herbert Smith on their 25,000-acre cattle ranch in Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia (now Kabwe, Zambia). While his mother encouraged young Wilbur to embrace books, his father most definitely did not. “Most of my early reading was done in the outhouse,” he said. He was, though, influenced by the stories told by his grandfather, Courtney James Smith, who had commanded a machine-gun team in the Zulu war, and used Courtney as the family name in his most successful series of African historical sagas.
Smith was sent to the Cordwalles prep school and then Michael-house “academy for young gentlemen”, both in Natal (KwaZulu-Natal) , South Africa, where he excelled only in English. Writing for the school newspaper gave him a taste for journalism but his father told him: “Don’t be a bloody fool, you’ll starve to death,” and insisted he got “a proper job”.
As a result, Wilbur studied commerce at Rhodes University in Grahamstown (Makhanda), from which he graduated in 1954 and then qualified as a chartered accountant. His stable career choice was not matched in his private life: he had married, fathered two children and been divorced by the age of 24.
In 1960 he sold a short story to the magazine Argosy for £70, twice his monthly salary. His first attempt at a novel, entitled The Gods First Make Mad, was rejected, and Smith later said he had destroyed the only manuscript so that it could not be published after his death. He dispensed with “philosophy and politics” for his next effort, When the Lion Feeds, and immediately struck gold. When the book was published, he later told an interviewer, “I worked for the income tax department and as it stands now I’m still working for the damned thing”.
The novels began to appear at regular intervals, but while sales soared, Smith’s private life was stormy. He married and divorced a second time, then in 1971 he married Danielle Thomas, from his home town of Broken Hill, later to become a novelist in her own right. Smith dedicated all his books to her until her death from brain cancer in 1999.
In 2000 he met a Tajik law student, Mokhiniso Rakhimova, in a London bookshop. After a whirlwind romance they married and Smith began dedicating his books to her as “the Queen of my heart”. In recent years media interest in Smith focused on his relationship with Rakhimova, known as Niso, and his life as a property-owning tax exile with homes in London, South Africa, Switzerland and Malta, more than his books, which from 2015 were made in collaboration with a team of co-writers.
In 2018 he published a memoir, On Leopard Rock, “a rollicking yarn of slaughtered wildlife” in which he lamented today’s lack of “real men” such as his grandfather. Smith himself said he was proud to have fathered three children without ever changing a nappy, possibly a misplaced pride considering his eventual estrangement from them.
Smith had a son and daughter, Shaun and Christian, with his first wife, Anne Rennie, and a son, Lawrence, with his second wife, Jewell Slabbart. He also adopted Danielle’s son, Dieter.
Wilbur Addison Smith, author, born 9 January 1933; died 13 November 2021
Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com
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maxwell-grant · 3 years
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The pulp origins of Godzilla
I am incredibly pleased to announce that, amidst my quest to find pulp characters across the world and the history of pulp across changing nations and time periods and audiences, I discovered that one of the biggest icons had actually been one of my favorite characters of all time ever and in plain sight all along: Godzilla.
Yup, you heard me right, Godzilla is a pulp character. And no, this isn’t me stretching the barely-existent definition of pulp hero to encompass a character I like and want to talk about, as I usually do. No, this time I stumbled onto a piece of information that lets me make this claim with veracity. 
Meet the first version of Godzilla ever created: The Godzilla of the 1954 pulp novel Gojira, by Shigeru Kayama, one of Japan’s most prominent pulp writers at the time. Published about a month before the film, and the first version of Godzilla ever officially released to the public. 
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The following excerpts are taken from the Project Kayama website, where you can find the novel available for reading
In the 1950s, Kayama was one of Japan’s preeminent science-fiction authors. 
In 1952, Kayama published a particularly bizarre and horrific tale: a story in which a large, lizard-like monster that stands upright on two legs wrecks terrifying havoc on the residents of a pacific island. The story’s name was Jira Monster, and both its name and plot foreshadowed the cinematic beast that was to come. 
It was his talents that Toho producer Tomoyuki Tanaka sought out after deciding to pursue the creation of a giant monster film. 
A mere 11 days after accepting the assignment, Kayama had completed his 50-page outline. The manuscript – stamped as CONFIDENTIAL and titled G-Sakuhin Kentoyo Daihan (G-Production Script for Examination) was submitted to Toho before the end of May.
As many G-fans know, much was changed from Kayama’s original concept. By the time Godzilla went before cameras, the monster itself had evolved from a vague, reptilian beast with flappy ears and a hunger for cattle into an allegorical destroyer whose lack of clear motivation was its greatest terrifying strength. Dr. Yamane, originally conceived as a mysterious, cloak-wearing weirdo living in a gothic mansion, had transformed into the distinguished and kindly Takashi Shimura.
Despite the changes that Ishiro Honda and writer Takeo Murata would make to the tale, the basic structure and flow of the plot remained the same. It was Kayama who envisioned Japanese fishing ships sinking amidst radioactive fire, an island where a giant beast-god is worshipped by fearful villagers, the deadly fire that spews forth from Godzilla’s mighty maw, and a terrifying new super weapon whose use against the monster leads to the heroic suicide of a war-scarred scientist.
Upon its release, Godzilla became a smash hit. But a little over a week before Japanese audiences got their first cinematic look at the monster, the story was already available to the public in the form of a full novelization.
First published via Iwatani on October 25, 1954, Kaiju Gojira (Monster Godzilla) was penned by Shigeru Kayama, but retained little of his original vision for the story. This adaptation of the original Godzilla drew from two different sources: Honda and Murata’s initial script for the film, and Toshi Tatsuno’s serialized radio-drama adaptation of the same script.
August Ragone, writer of EIJI TSUBURAYA: MASTER OF MONSTERS, additionally writes
Actually, there is literally tons of concrete evidence of the Japanese equivalent of American pulps. These have been chronicled in books on the history of Bokura magazine (and other such nostalgic retrospectives), as well as books on the Post War period and children's toys and hobbies of the Post War (1950-1970).
As soon as the war ended, a number of Japanese editions of American publications, such as Amazing Stories began to flood the market -- as well as Japanese-penned stories (Japanese children were especially fascinated by tales of the American Wild West, Science Fiction and Jungle Adventures)
During and after the war, there were numerous cheaply-printed, garish periodicals aimed at children -- not to be confused with manga (comic books), which contained exciting illustrated stories. These continued into the 1960s, but slowly absorbed as features of larger weekly or monthly manga anthologies, mostly containing serialized comics (the size of phone books), and were largely phased out by the 1980s.
In fact let’s look at the whole process behind Godzilla’s debut on pop culture again: Started off with an idea, that then became a novel, partially based on a radio drama, and then made a big hit as a film. That is exactly the kind of trajectory most of the pulp heroes took when getting adaptations outside of their original material. It’s the same trajectory that The Shadow followed, from book to radio to film. Vastly different circumstances that led to them getting there, sure, and Godzilla’s obviously grown into something much more vast and influential than his origins, like other pulp-influenced properties that broke big into the mainstream, but the fact remains that Godzilla began life, first made his debut in pop culture, as a pulp character, by the most exact definition possible.
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Not that I actually ever needed an excuse to talk about Godzilla, my other favorite character of all time, and of course I have a “Shadow meets Godzilla” post on the pipeline because of this, but this really was a revelation that threw a lot of things into context for me. 
Actually, not just Godzilla. Turns out, my other other favorite character of all time, Mothra, also had a start in magazines. As a serialized novel written in 1961 called The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, that eventually got adapted and turned into a feature film. Which only makes sense especially considering Mothra has an incredibly similar story to King Kong, which is commonly put side by side with pulp characters, and the kaiju’s connection to Kong has reemerged time and time again.
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And you can bet I have a lot of further things to say about this, but that’s for a different post. I’m just sitting here unreasonably happy that I finally found a reason to put The Shadow and Godzilla in the same room (not that I needed one).
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littleeyesofpallas · 3 years
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Was chatting with a coworker the other day and two things crossed my mind...
that I've been at this weeb shit so long that I forget what I just sort of take for granted and what might not be commonly known little factoids, and
that VIZ's attempt at a monthly Shonen Jump magazine has been gone so long most people probably never saw them. (nevermind the old RAIJIN Graphic Novels that tried the same thing)
So, here's some fun little things you might not have known about manga if you've only ever read English publications and/or digital scans...
For one, there's the matter of print formatting... In general, Japan actually uses their own standards for print that tend to differ from those in the US; The JIS(Japanese Industrial Standards) series A and B. Magazines like the typical anthology format manga are printed in JIS B5, which is comparable to the US Letter standard, or the ISO A4.
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This was the same format that RAIJIN Comics printed in as well, and although I don't have a copy of the old English Shonen Jump for reference, if memory serves they printed in the same format as well in an attempt to really sell that "authentic" manga feel. Sadly, I don't know that the effort or attention to detail was much appreciated. Neither published a volume comparable to a Japanese weekly or even monthly serial magazine, though --not by a long shot. But this might not be the most practical for comparrison, since there actually just isn't much of an English language equivalent format. (unless you count actual magazines that happen to include comic illustrations or miniscule comic strip segments)
Despite the mammoth size of a serial magazine, Japanese tankoban are actually smaller than the North American equivalent. But notably the Japanese small book format isn't just a matter of contending with nearest print standards... What I believe is the JIS B40(although I could be wrong) tends to be the standard print size of small books in general, not just manga, and it's a print size that is only marginally smaller than VIZ's standard size manga, but with the very particular benefit of being deliberately portable. The small difference in size is the difference between a Japanese manga fitting in my coat pocket where as the English equivalent can't.
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(I realize I photographed a copy of Shonen ACE, and not Weekly JUMP, but I measured a copy of Weekly JUMP for the thickness and not the copy of ACE; the copy of JUMP was around 506pg, while the copy of ACE was 570pg. Those are both older though, and the most recent digital copy i have of Weekly JUMP actually had around 520pg)
And I don't think it's always addressed just what a difference there is, culturally, in how Japan approaches the print medium. It's kind of an old cliche by this point, and I don't know how accurate it's remained in the past decade or so, but the quintessential image passed around between comic nerds has always been the Japanese bullet train; A place packed with commuters all passing their transit time with isolated preoccupation with music and/or reading, with manga being the king of this time killing arena. And its not just about sheer popularity driven by interest, American comic vendors have long envied the sheer accessibility of manga in Japan.
Here in the U.S. we used to have a thriving newsstand retail scene for comic books, and a kind of similar ease of grab and go comic purchase, rather than the explicitly niche interest driven "direct market" model that has been slowly but surly strangling the comic market ever since. But in Japan serialized manga has remained in relatively quick, impulse friendly, arm's reach of readers on the go. And what lubricates that business model more than anything is price.
I still remember a time when VIZ dominated the English manga market by offering at $7.95(and am I crazy or am I remembering a time when it got down to $6.99?) but now'days it's settled on a low end of $9.99. You know how much the recent vol.29 of My Hero Academia goes for? ¥484. That's less than $4.50.
You know how much that big ass magazine with 500+ pages and 21 different series goes for? Do you think it's more or less than the little pocket-size tankoban? Did you guess something close to ¥290? That's less than $2.75. But how does something bigger in both page size and page count managed to sell for less???
There are a few secrets to that, but one is that the things are packed to the gills with ads. But that's the boring answer. The other feature contributing to keeping an accessible cost on weekly/monthly manga is something we don't think about much in the U.S.; it's the paper and print quality.
The nice little books are printed in what you might expect as far as starch white paper and clean black inks, but those big honkin' phone book(do people still know what phonebooks look like??) size magazines are printed on cheap recycled pulpy newpaper with typically rough print jobs. This is most noticeable in the quality of solid blacks, and when scanning the texture of "white" space.
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(I tried to take individual photos of different series chapters to show off the fact that the paper is differently colored... but my phone's camera seems to be smart enough to auto balance that kind of thing when there's no other context to anchor it to. (It doesn't help that it's night and my lights have a harsh yellowing glow to them.) but on th left you can still kind of see the different paper colors; this particular issue alternated every 3 chapters between pink-ish, green/gray, a kind of off-white/gray, and sepia, but I've also seen blue-ish, oranges, and a different shade of yellow different from the sepia-ish one.)
Back in ye olden days when it came to fan scanlations, more slapdash teams and projects would often stumble over levels in photoshop (too much black and the pulpy paper texture shows up as grainy shadows, but too far white and the edges of lineart get crunchy and ugly) but those who had more robust readership and a regular streamlined flow of work, we'd actually go in and touch up the solid blacks and whites by hand. We'd also redraw art to erase overlaid text so the type setters could lay the new English in over top.
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(Weekly Jump: Left, Bleach tankoban: Right)
They do however keep a few coveted color pages in better quality paper and ink. In contrast, the standard quality tankoban actually don't include color pages at all, and just print what had been color pages in grayscale. There are also all kind of irregularities between publishers and special editions and such, but on the most basic level this difference in quality both keeps serial prices down, while also incentivizing tankoban purchase.
In the U.S. we might still have the draw of an ad-free reading experience in our TPB, but the print quality between a biweekly issue and a TPB are basically the same. Incidentally, even though manga are generally drafted at a much larger scale than even the serial magazine proportions anyway, the scaled down size of the tankoban also serves to sharpen the image. When put side by side the nice clean tankoban print looks noticeably better than the serial.
Now'days the English scanlation scene seems to be conducted almost entirely through ripped digital releases (at least as far as I can tell with popular, regular weekly titles) which is great for quality, frankly, but it does kind of lack the charm and personal touch of a band of amateurs finding round about solutions to a convoluted bootlegging pipeline. But obviously I'm a little biased.
[edit]: Oops i posted this without really ending it in any sensible ro conclusive way... I feel like ive lost sight of the point since i first drafted this but I guess its mostly just me pining after if we could just get super cheap, disposable quality, bulk manga in that classic Japanese magazine model to work here in the states. I already tend to sell manga in big runs, even at $9.99+, and frequently I'll have customers put volumes back, or clearly want the next volume but just can't afford it and wait to come back. If I could sell these customers more volumes, and more importantly more titles, at the same price, I would love to. I would love to see these things fly off the shelves. I would love to see people keeping up with multiple series. I would love to see someone look at a 44vol long series and actually feel like that's a number of volumes they can afford.
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jaelijn · 3 years
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The Darrow Westerns - Words from the Author
A little while ago, for the Gauda Prime Day Calendar, I wrote a little something about a series of B7-avatar novels I had discovered, the Darrow Westerns by Gillian F. Taylor. My little self-indulgent review reached the author, and now, I am thrilled to share with you a piece Gillian Taylor wrote specifically for all of you about her experience of writing Westerns in general and the Darrow Westerns in particular. As someone who always thought that books should come with “DVD commentaries” too, I am more than happy to receive and be able to share these insights.
You will find the piece below, under a cut purely for length and for the sake of better separating it from my introduction. I have done the most minor of formatting for the sake of Tumblr readability, but all else is exactly as Gillian Taylor shared it with me. All pictures were provided by Gillian Taylor. Enjoy, and feel free to pass on your appreciations to the contact provided!
Gillian - thank you so very much for doing this for us!
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Image: One of the covers of Darrow’s Gamble, showing a coach drawn by four horses rocketing towards the viewer.
I began writing westerns by accident. I saw the film ‘Young Guns’, loved it, and needed to write the story about what happened to the characters afterwards. I wanted to be a writer, had written some bits and pieces in the past, so when seized with the urge to write about those characters, I did, more as practise than anything. Having ended up writing an entire novel, I looked to see if anyone was still publishing westerns in 1991. It turned out that there was just one publisher, but you didn’t need an agent to submit to them, so I reworked my story, giving the characters new names, changing the location and making it my own story, not just a recognisable fanfic. It was too long for that publisher, Robert Hale, and not their style, but they were encouraging. I started over, using just two of the characters to write what was basically the beginning of my overall story. Rocking W was accepted, and I became a published author.
 It took some trial and error to learn what sort of stories Robert Hale wanted for their westerns, which were aimed at the library market.  I wrote a sequel to Rocking W, which was accepted, but the pay was very low, so I determined to write quickly, producing a 40,000 word novel in two months from start to finish. I succeeded, with The Horseshoe Feud, and set about writing another. I was getting more confident in writing something Hale would accept, so decided to do something a little different to the previous, cowboy-based stories.
 I’d been a fan of Blakes 7 right from when the first series was aired. I had all the monthly magazines, the annuals and the novelizations. I was a member of Horizon, looking forward to receiving the thick magazines when they appeared. My friend, Alyson, was a Blakes 7 fan too, and we hired the videos from the local video store to watch together. At some point, I remembered an anecdote by Michael Keating in an interview in the second Blakes 7 monthly mag: in his bio for the BBC, Paul had said he wanted to act in a western, so Michael said he wanted to act in a western with Paul Darrow. Well, I don’t make western films, but I was now writing western novels, so I could put Paul and Michael, in the form of Avon and Vila, into a western that way. I was aware of Tanith Lee’s book, Kill the Dead, so I figured that if a pro writer like her could do it, so could I.
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Image: Gillian Taylor in Western costume, photographed in Durango, with a fellow writer.
(Here be some minor spoilers throughout for character development)
 When planning the book, I knew I had to work within the style that Robert Hale wanted for the Black Horse Westerns line. They were very traditional in format: there had to be plenty of action and the protagonists had to be good guys: tough and determined heroes. No way would Hale accept a story about a pair of criminals, even if they did occasionally do the decent thing. So I made ‘Avon’ and ‘Vila’ into lawmen, albeit somewhat reluctant lawmen.
 Avon was an Alpha, clearly one of the elite. By making Sheriff Darrow a Southern aristocrat, who had lost everything in the civil war, he had the privileged background, but also a reason to need a job and a reason for his cynical and sometimes sour take on life and human nature. Vila was a Delta grade, though he claimed it was through choice – he’d bribed someone to get the classification he wanted. His inclination was away from the pressured and mannered world of the Alphas, and towards the outcasts and undesirables. I had a book on English gentlemen in the wild west. Some were there for adventure and wealth: others were ne’er-do-wells, sent abroad by their families to commit their indiscretions far away from polite society. So I made Hugh Keating into an English aristocrat with Vila’s laziness and reluctance for physical danger, but also his charm, loyalty and sleight of hand.
 If I was having Avon and Vila, it seemed logical to have Servalan as the villain, so I created Isabel Montague. She was beautiful and ruthless, out to gain control of the town, which brought her into direct conflict with Darrow. I didn’t really think to include avatars of anyone else from the Liberator/Scorpio, as I was just writing a story about ‘Avon’ and ‘Vila’ in a specific setting, rather than planning to transplant most or all of the ships’ crews. It would have been particularly difficult to represent the women and to do them justice as the equal-opportunity fighters that they were. A gun-toting female deputy modelled on Dayna or Cally was pushing the boundaries of reality too far for me. A woman using a gun for hunting, or self- defence, is one thing: a professional law-woman was just too far outside the norm, even for the wild west. Nor I didn’t want to reduce any Cally or Jenna avatars to be standing around, looking after the office while the men got all the adventures.
 I did take the opportunity to drop in a couple more Blakes 7 references. I named a saloon keeper, Nation, after Terry Nation, and included a visiting speaker named Blake, who lectured on prison reform.
 While the Darrow novels are about lawmen, who deal with crime, they still needed to serve the demands of the traditional western genre. This meant a regular flow of action in the form of fight scenes, with the book almost always ending in a shoot-out of some kind. This meant Hugh had to be hands-on involved in combat somewhat more than Vila tended to be.
 The required emphasis on action meant that there wasn’t as much room for character exploring as I would have liked. The books are barely even long enough to qualify as a proper novel, rather than a novelette. There was a set maximum of 45,000 words, so the size and production would be uniform across the entire range – Hale issued between 10 to 6 Black Horse Westerns each month, the number declining gradually over the years as demand from libraries dropped. Therefore, the stories had to be pacey, with little time to explore the characters. The same is also true of most of the individual television episodes. There were exceptions, like ‘Trial’ and ‘Sarcophagus’, which explored motivations and interactions, but most were more like ‘Gold’ or ‘Redemption’. And of course, there are only four novels in the end, but 52 TV episodes, allowing much more overall time for characters to develop and be revealed.  
 I didn’t start with an overall plan for the novels. I wrote the first one almost as an indulgence, wondering if I could get away with introducing two favourite characters from a favourite TV series into a western. I had no long-term plan for the characters as the book was written as a one-off. I did achieve my plan to write it in two months, though that was possibly the last time I ever achieved that kind of speed of production.
 Hale accepted the book, though with some reservations about Hugh. John Hale, the managing director, described him as a twerp – “most of the time”. There was also a mention of “an element of humour” – relating to Hugh – which was “unusual in most westerns”. I felt this was a rather narrow-minded attitude, but I was thrilled at having another book published, and especially one with Blakes 7 woven into it. When it was published, I sent a copy to Paul Darrow, with an explanation of putting Avon in it, in tribute to his love of westerns. He wrote me a lovely letter in return, saying how much he’d enjoyed it, and that he wished he were as charismatic as Sheriff Darrow.
 After Darrow’s Law was accepted, my next book was based on a light-hearted roleplaying game that I ran one evening for four friends. The game was a very enjoyable success, and I couldn’t resist making it into Cullen’s Quest, with four principal characters named for the people who played them.  It features a group of travellers on a stagecoach, being harassed by Comanches, with a subplot at finding the stolen map for a silver mine.
After that, I had been re-reading my first two books again. These took the characters up to the point where my first, unsuitable manuscript began. I suddenly knew how the whole story ended, some ten years on, with one character coming back to confront his past. This was written up as San Felipe Guns, making a complete trilogy. With those stories told, it was time to see what Darrow and Hugh were doing next.
 I’d watched ‘Rio Bravo’, where the sheriff and deputies were essentially under siege, holding onto a prisoner who has allies trying to free them. I liked this as a basis for a plot and combined it with the isolation of the Long Winter from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book. Having the town isolated by snow was a reason for the lawmen not to be able to get their prisoner to a proper jail and added the pressures of shortages and trouble within the town, as food ran out. The prisoner, Beatrix, is a charming and beautiful young woman, used to manipulating men to get her own way. Hugh is susceptible, but Darrow, like Avon, is no sucker. Beatrix was not from Blakes 7, but inspired by a pretty, young student I knew at the time, who took advantage of men and gave little in return beyond a smile.
 Minnie, whom Hugh had met in the first book, stayed in the story, partly because I liked her, and also as she made a good contrast to self-centred Beatrix. As the story developed, I had to make a decision about the relationship between Hugh and Minnie. Vila, famously, turned down a chance for love, knowing he would never settle into an ordinary, steady life. If Hugh did choose to marry Minnie, it would alter his path away from Vila’s life. But while Hugh has many of Vila’s qualities, he does not have the compulsion to steal (he couldn’t, as a hero in a Black Horse Western). So Hugh makes a different choice.
 I struggled a little with the title for the book. I wanted to use the Darrow name again, to link it to the first book and attract readers who had enjoyed it. Paul Darrow always insisted that if Avon gave his word on something, he would keep it (the hard part was getting him to make the promise in the first place). I had Sheriff Darrow make a vow about getting his prisoner to jail properly and I wanted to reflect that aspect of the character in the title. ‘Darrow’s Vow’ and ‘Darrow’s Promise’ both sounded too much like romance novels, so the book became Darrow’s Word.
 This time, John Hale wrote that Hugh was perhaps too unsympathetic a character to play the part of a hero or joint hero – he did note that this was a personal opinion. Fortunately, even though the lack of ‘action’ was remarked on, Hale still found the book very enjoyable, and was happy to publish it. ‘Traditional’ western or not, I now had my second Blakes 7-inspired book to look forward to.
 When Darrow’s Word was accepted, Cullen’s Quest had been published, so I read that again. Two of the characters had formed an alliance in the book, and I saw there was a story about what they did next. So Hyde’s Honour was about Hyde and Cullen’s struggles to develop the silver mine, with the Hyde struggling with the temptation to betray his friend for the money.
 After that, I rewrote an earlier story, again centred on two friends, who end up in trouble. This was Navajo Rock, a stand-alone story which remains a favourite of mine. When that was accepted in its revised form, I started thinking about Darrow and Hugh again. I was just thinking about the characters in general, and what was happening in their lives, what were they up to after the end of Darrow’s Law. Well, Hugh was going to marry Minnie, so I was imagining their wedding, and Minnie being presented with beautiful jewellery belonging to Hugh’s family, and the culture shock for her. It was all rather domestic and lovely, but not exactly material for an exciting western. I was telling this to my friend, Sarah, who was also a Blakes 7 fan, and she said, “What if someone steals the jewels?” So there was the plot I needed.
 When thinking about Sheriff Darrow and his world again, I felt that the little, one-horse town of the first novel had probably grown and was starting to flourish. Up to now, Darrow and Hugh had been principally occupied with keeping the law in the town, Govan. In fact, as a sheriff, Darrow was responsible for an entire county, including mining camps, ranches, and other towns. Realistically, there was too much work in the town alone for just two lawmen. I’d introduced Josh Turnage, the town undertaker, in Darrow’s Word, and had him acting as a temporary deputy when extra manpower was needed. Now it was time for a permanent second deputy, so I turned to Blakes 7 again, for Deputy Pacey.
 Pacey is an ex-soldier, handsome, confident and dashing – Hugh naturally dislikes him. Like Tarrant, his self-confidence caused clashes with Darrow/Avon and led him into charging headlong into situations that got him into trouble. I had fun creating Hugh’s older brother, Richard, and his wife, Louisa, but they are original, and have no Blakes 7 predecessors.
 The four jewel thieves were also original characters. Irish is big, bulky and mild-looking but is based on the appearance of a friend of mine: it never occurred to me that he could be taken for a Gan avatar. With the B7 avatars, I was working to keep them as much in character with their originals as possible within the context of the setting. With Irish, he was just himself and I never tried to match him to Gan’s personality and quirks – possibly because there is so little of Gan to go on, beyond the limiter.
 I made the leader of the outlaws, Black Elliot, mixed-race, to show some of the diversity on the frontier. I had a couple of non-white townsfolk already, a Chinese cook and a black livery barn owner, and a few non-Americans, like Queenie (English) and Mrs Irvine (Irish). Elliot’s skin colour was meant to be more of a simple fact, rather than a defining characteristic. However, it seemed plausible that Elliot would have suffered prejudice from people of Darrow’s class, and so he would be keen to make the sheriff suffer in retaliation.
 Darrow’s history with slavery is not mentioned in my books. He certainly would have grown up in a family that owned slaves, as household staff at least, though they were not necessarily plantation owners. Avon very much valued his independence, and rarely harmed the helpless (except, maybe, Vila). Darrow would have been courteous to slaves, aware of how dependent they were on him, unless they caused harm by carelessness or neglect. He fought in the civil war, but more to preserve the independence of the southern way of life, than because he wanted to keep slaves. Some of his bitterness after the war was not only the loss of family, wealth and status, but because he knew in his heart that slavery was wrong, and the war had forced him to face up to it. Like Avon, Darrow doesn’t talk much about his past or his motivations and there wasn’t enough room to explore all this in an action-packed western as demanded by the publishers.
 I had fun putting Darrow’s Badge together, though progress was hampered by my health and major work being done to my flat. In spite of the difficulties, the characters really came to life and delivered some of my favourite lines. I even managed to reuse a joke that Paul Darrow and Chris Boucher had contrived to get into ‘Deliverance’, which itself had been borrowed from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (It may even have been in ‘The Seven Samurai’ first, for all I know – the film that was Westernised as The Magnificent Seven). Blakes 7 and westerns have a long history together!
 Darrow’s Badge was finished and accepted not long before I attended the Star One convention, in April 2004. John Hale still made comments in the acceptance letter about wanting plenty of hard action but at least there were no comments on Hugh, or on the humour.
 For my next book, I went back to a story I’d tried to develop a couple of years earlier, and this time made it work. Two-Gun Trouble was, at the time, a stand-alone story, though I did write another about same characters a few years later. Then, having got away with indulging myself in writing a western with Blakes 7 characters, I thought I’d try the same with favourite characters from another fandom of mine. I like Star Wars too, and I’m a particular fan of the X-wing pilots, especially as written about in the EU (now Legends) novels.
 I took four pilots, led by Wedge Antilles, and made them into a Sheriff and his three deputies. I set them in Colorado, rather than Wyoming, and a few years later than the Darrow novels. Sheriff Lawson (named for Denis Lawson, who played Wedge), and his men were all former soldiers, and had a rather more professional attitude to the work than Darrow and Hugh. There were still plenty of humour with the action and I was very pleased with Silver Express. The fellow pilot-fans I sent copies to enjoyed it very much too.
 After this, I read Hyde’s Honour again, and started thinking about the two characters, Cullen and Hyde. Somehow, a bit of Blakes 7 crept into idle thoughts, and I imagined the two colleagues facing one another, with one demanding to know:
 “Have you betrayed me? Have you betrayed me?”
As soon as I imagined that scene, I knew I had to write the whole book.
 The real drama was that Hyde, who had kept his word and not betrayed his friend in the previous book, should now be the one falsely accused of something he’d been sorely tempted to do, but resisted. I built a story basically to get to that scene between Hyde and Cullen, and that question. Thinking about a famous betrayal for thirty pieces of silver, I came up with the title for a book about fallings out over a silver mine: The Judas Metal.
 With those stories set down and out of the way, there was another story about Darrow and Hugh that had been waiting some time for attention. For some time, I’d been visualizing a scene where Darrow let his emotions get the better of him, causing him to charge recklessly towards an enemy, with unhappy consequences. I also had a rough idea about the sheriff being ambushed and left for dead. It took some time to flesh out how to make these things work together – the details of building the plot from A to B.
I realized that Darrow couldn’t go off in pursuit of his attacker in the new story: he had duties as sheriff, plus Hugh would want to stay close to town, as he had a new baby. I’d got very fond of Tomcat Billy and Irish, from Darrow’s Badge, who had potential for plenty of adventures of their own. They’d been arrested and jailed at the end of Darrow’s Badge, so I somehow had to get them released if I was going to write more stories about them, as I wanted to keep continuity in my world. These two situations came together nicely. Darrow could arrange for Tomcat and Irish to find the outlaw attacker, in return for a pardon. The bad guy could be brought to where Darrow could deal with him and my two genial outlaws could become free men, ready for their own adventures. And to keep up the Blakes 7 references, the villain is named Croucher.
 As well as the main story, the character’s lives had moved on. Hugh’s life has diverged considerably from Vila’s now. He becomes a father in this book and is very happy settling into his new, domestic life with his family. There’s no such prospect for Darrow; he seems fairly indifferent to the ladies of the town, no matter how many baked goods they send to the office at Christmas. Thanks to Hugh’s observation, and understanding of the sheriff, we do learn that there was a woman in his past, who was important to him, but no details.
  The working title, almost until the manuscript was submitted, had been ‘Darrow’s Debt’. As the story evolved, that didn’t seem to fit any more, even though I liked it as a title. The book became Darrow’s Gamble, putting emphasis on the risk he takes with relying on Tomcat and Irish to help and not simply vanish, once released from jail. And of course Sheriff Darrow, like Avon, does not like to have to rely on others. The stress of having to wait for Tomcat and Irish to do their job is what drives Darrow into recklessness.
 It took a long time to wrestle the book into shape – the plot was gappy, the pacing of the first part was hard to get right, it was too long, and the characters had their own ideas about what they were going to do. Irish and Tomcat developed their own, personal storylines which had to be resolved too, rather than simply serving Darrow’s plot. When I finally got it together, I was very pleased with it. I love the character interaction, especially between Darrow and Hugh.
 By the time I submitted Darrow’s Gamble, John Hale had retired from day-to-day work, so the response came from the editor, Gill, who said it was an excellent western and they wanted to publish it. The company had been gradually moving into the 21st century. I was submitting books by email, which was a whole lot quicker and easier than printing out each page, assembling them into a manuscript and carting the parcel down to the post office. Hale had even started putting out some of the westerns as e-books. They still wanted action, but at least humour seemed to be more acceptable – that, or they had just given up on trying to discourage me.
 As soon as Darrow’s Gamble was accepted, I had to get on with writing some actual Blakes 7, a novella for the Big Finish book, Anthology, which was a joy. Next, I went straight into a second story about my other lawmen – the X-wing pilots. Dynamite Express came together well and is a favourite of mine. My writing then slowed, after doing those three projects one after another. I did complete a third Sheriff Lawson story, Outlaw Express, but Hale rejected it.
 Not too long after that, the publisher, Robert Hale, closed down when John Hale retired fully. Their non-fiction imprints were bought by another independent publisher, Crowood Press, who decided to keep on the line of Black Horse Westerns as well. Not being such a traditional company, Crowood were open to a wider range of storytelling, which was exciting. I sent Outlaw Express to them, crossing my fingers that they would have a less hidebound attitude, and it was accepted.
 With three Express novels done, I switched around and wrote a sequel to Two-Gun Trouble. I liked my handsome, vain bounty hunter and the feisty prostitutes he’d befriended (the women are named after friends of mine – with their permission). I knew they had more stories and came up with The Sins Of Motherlode. Then it was back to Sheriff Lawson and the Express series. The next story expanded as I developed it, and there was too much material for a single 45,000 word book. I split it up into three books, each of which would work on their own, but which would link closely together. The first part was written and eventually published as Gunsmoke Express.
 I then took advantage of Crowood’s willingness to accept less formulaic stories, and decided to revise and submit a much earlier story that Hale had rejected. I hadn’t expected Hale to like a western about a character with supernatural abilities, but a song, ‘Faith Healer’, by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, had just triggered the character. I wrote the book quite quickly; it just flowed out because Healer Man had to be written. I was going to be busy with real life stuff after Gunsmoke Express, so I quickly revamped Healer Man and submitted it as a placeholder, so I would have something out that year, while I took time over the next two Express books.
 Crowood loved Healer Man, especially because it wasn’t a formulaic western. However, shortly after its acceptance, they first announced they weren’t taking any more manuscripts for a while, then, sadly, closed the Black Horse Westerns altogether. They were produced for the library trade, but sales had been declining, and the e-book sales weren’t enough to make the westerns viable. As well as the two other Sheriff Lawson books I had planned, I’d outlined a third Motherlode story for the bounty hunter and the prostitutes, had the basis of a story for Tomcat and Irish – following up on the job offer they get via Hugh at the end of Darrow’s Gamble, and finally had the seed of an idea for a new story about Sheriff Darrow and Hugh. It’s highly unlikely that any of these will see the light of day now.
   I gave Paul a copy of Darrow’s Word soon after publication. It wasn’t until 2016 that I managed to give him the final two books, Darrow’s Badge and Darrow’s Gamble, when I met him at the Supreme Cat Show. He was as charming as usual and seemed pleased to find there were more books to help him fulfil his Western fantasies.
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  Image: Paul Darrow at the Supreme Cats Show 2016, smiling towards the camera while petting a white shorthair cat.
All the Darrow books are out of print. If you are in UK, you may be able to find them in a library – if not in your local branch, then somewhere in your district’s network. Darrow’s Badge is available on the Kindle. Copies of the four titles, Darrow’s Law, Darrow’s Word, Darrow’s Badge and Darrow’s Gamble, can be found via Amazon, Abebooks and on Ebay. Some over-optimistic sellers are asking silly money but there are usually some about at a reasonable price. I have brand new copies of Darrow’s Badge and Darrow’s Gamble available at only £5 each, plus postage. I will happily sign them for you if you buy direct from me. If you are interested, or just have questions about the books or my writing in general, just email me at skiffle[DOT]cat[AT]gmai[DOT]com.
 I hope you have found this interesting, and a useful insight into a piece of Blakes 7 fandom that you never expected, as well as the process of writing series of books.
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dancecave67 · 2 years
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Case Study of Vanitas Anime Review
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The Case Study of Vanitas anime is a Japanese anime series written and drawn by Jun Mochizuki. It was serialized in Square Enix's monthly manga magazine Monthly Gangan Joker from December 2021 to May 2021. The story revolves around Vanitas, a young man who lives in the Grandvalor Empire of Vampires. However, he is also the Prince of Sleep, a nobleman who rules the empire with an iron fist and is described as the strongest man in the land.
The story revolves around Vanitas, who is said to be the reincarnated prince of sleep. He is the Prince of Sleep who is strong and cruel because he has the capability to control people's actions. One day, he encounters the hero Ritsuka Ebon, who happens to be someone who is aiming for the throne of the kingdom. Because of this encounter, the prince decides to take a leave of absence. However, he promised to return once he finds the person who will befitting for the throne.
With this reason, the anime was about to receive its third season cast, which will consist of the characters Tsubasa and Sayaka. This is actually the main premise of the case study of vanitas anime. Sayaka, who is Vanitas' younger sister, became a Shinigami after she was bitten by a vampire. She has the ability to control people's actions just like her brother. With the help of Tsubasa, Sayaka gets out of the slumber she has been undergoing and becomes an active member of the Shinigami clan.
The Case Study of Vanitas anime is about the story of the whole clan. It starts when Tsubasa, Sayaka, and other Shinigamis are transported to the palace of the King of vampires. There, they learn that the king is planning to raise a new generation of vampires called Vampires. They will be transformed into powerful beings called Vampiras. Thus begins the series with the battle between the human world and the darkness.
This anime series has become popular among the audience. The first episode had a very strong impact on the audience as the story and the entire show is full of fantasy. The show has received praise from many. Most of the critics think that this show is very innovative and it gives them a surprise. It makes you feel that the story is a part of your imagination. The animation is excellent, the story is filled with fantasy, the action scenes are very well drawn and the music and voiceovers are top notch.
One of the most important points about the Case Study of Vanitas anime is the artwork. The art style is very unique and it makes the show more interesting to watch. The first episode had excellent animation which was followed by the second episode which received a very positive response from the fans. The first few minutes of the show are full of fantasy related scenes. It looks like the art is generated by hand and the designs look like a work of a professional.
One of the key points about the Case Study of Vanitas anime is the story. It's only halfway through the show and the story becomes very vivid in the later episodes. The story revolves around a young man called Yuusuke Tozawa who was taken away as a baby by vampire hunters called "Kagami" in Japan. He was found living with his vampire mother in a cabin near the woods. There he became the main target of the vampires because he is the master of the dark arts.
Many people have loved the anime and the story has gained a lot of popularity in the west. Many fans have created their own fanpages on the internet to discuss the show and express their opinion. There are also many live discussions that you can join on the internet. The anime has received many positive reviews and many think the animation is excellent.
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absurdpatronusdraws · 3 years
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So apparently I’m doing a small series of these magazine covers now. Here’s Tamaki aka Suneater! Next up is Mirio 😉
Please don’t repost! Instead consider reblogging!
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