#that's how an omnibus usually works after all - the first book in the series is the first book in the tome

[inkskinned]

sometimes we just need someone to pay enough attention.

for the longest time i had been trying to read The Lord of The Rings. everyone had sung the praises for it, over and over. i'd seen clips of the movie and it seemed like it could be fun, but actually reading it was fucking horrible.

my parents had the omnibus - all the books squished into one big tome - and in the 4th grade i started sort of an annual tradition: i would start trying to read TLR and get frustrated after about a month and put it back down. at first i figured i was just too young for it, and that it would eventually make sense.

but every time i came back to it, i would find myself having the exact same experience: it was confusing, weird, and dry as a fucking bone. i couldn't figure it out. how had everyone else on earth read this book and enjoyed it? how had they made movies out of this thing? it was, like, barely coherent. i would see it on "classics" list and on every fantasy/sci-fi list and everyone said i should read it; but i figured that it was like my opinion of great expectations - just because it's a classic doesn't mean i'm going to like experiencing it.

at 20, i began the process of forcing myself through it. if i had to treat the experience like a self-inflicted textbook, i would - but i was going to read it.

my mom came across me taking notes at our kitchen table. i was on the last few pages of the first book in the omnibus, and i was dreading moving on to the next. she smiled down at me. only you would take notes on creative writing. then she sat down and her brow wrinkled. wait. why are you taking notes on this?

i said the thing i always said - it's boring, and i forget what's happening in it because it's so weird, and dense. and strange.

she nodded a little, and started to stand up. and then sat back down and said - wait, will you show me the book?

i was happy to hand it over, annoyed with the fact i'd barely made a dent in the monster of a thing. she pulled it to herself, pushing her glasses up so she could read the tiny writing. for a moment, she was silent, and then she let out a cackle. she wouldn't stop laughing. oh my god. i cannot wait to tell your father.

i was immediately defensive. okay, maybe i'm stupid but i've been trying to read this since the 4th grade and -

she shook her head. raquel, this is the Silmarillion. you've been reading the Silmarillion, not the lord of the rings.

anyway, it turns out that the hobbit and lord of the rings series are all super good and i understand why they're recommended reading. but good lord (of the rings), i wish somebody had just asked - wait. this kind of thing is right up your alley. you love fantasy. it sounds like something might be wrong. why do you think it's so boring?

#thanks for reminding me this happened #writeblr #warm up #i don't think this story translates well to the page #IRONIC!!!! :) #but yeah man i read the Silmarillion before i read the hobbit #the omnibus didn't explain what it was and i figured - you start at the beginning and then you read from the beginning #that's how books work #how was i supposed to know #EDIT IN THE TAGS: hi i think i worded this in a confusing way #the omnibus had ALL the stories in it - the silm #the hobbit #and all of LOTR #they just put the silm in the front so i thought logically it was the first book #that's how an omnibus usually works after all - the first book in the series is the first book in the tome #to be fair i GUESS the silm takes place “before” the hobbit????

[autolenaphilia]

Transfem authors of fiction: a list

I wrote a version of this list in Swedish for a meatspace friend, figure I might redo it for a tumblr audience. The books recommended are usually novels, and in case of prolific authors, the one recommended is usually the most successful and acclaimed one. I haven't read all of these, but I'm working on it. The list is in alphabetical order after the author's last name. I added some notes to the list, to introduce the authors and their books.

Nota Bene this list is based on my personal research, and largely reflects my own tastes in fiction, as in what I've read and considered reading. And it is of course not at all complete. And it's a transfem authors list, so no transmasc authors no matter how worthy. And it's about authors of fiction, not memoirs or non-fiction. So no Christine Jorgensen, even if she wrote a book I want to read. And Jan Morris gets in based on her two Hav novels, not her more prolific non-fiction work. Links are to my reviews on this blog if they exist.

Anders, Charlie Jane - SF/F writer, debuted with Choir Boy (2005), but most famous for All The Birds in the Sky (which won a Nebula).

Aoki, Ryka - her latest sf/f novel Light from Uncommon Stars is her most popular, but she has published both fiction and poetry before.

Becker, Saga - Våra Tungor Smakar våld (Swedish author, her book is untranslated, although quite good)

Binnie, Imogen - Nevada

Daniels, April - Dreadnought and its sequel Sovereign. Novels about a teenage trans girl superhero.

Deane, Maya - Wrath Goddess Sing

Felker-Martin, Gretchen - Manhunt (horror novel)

Kaveney, Roz - Tiny Pieces of Skull (also wrote the Rhapsody of Blood fantasy series, plus numerous poetry collections and non-fiction)

Kiernan, Caitlin R. - Usually categorized as a horror author, written numerous novels and short stories since her debut novel SIlk in 1998. The most acclaimed are probably her novels The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl (which won the Bram Stoker Award)

Leitz, May - Fluids and Girlflesh (review forthcoming)

Morris, Jan - Hav (mostly wrote non-fiction, history books and travel literature, Hav is an omnibus of her two novels about Hav, both "imagined travelogues" about a fictitious country)

Peters, Torrey - Detransition Baby

Plett, Casey - Little Fish (Lambda award winner)

Pollack, Rachel - Prolific writer of several kinds of books, including a pioneering career as a sf/f writer. Did her fictional debut with a short story in a 1971 anthology (credited under her deadname) and published her first novel Golden Vanity in 1980, which are literally the earliest pieces of fiction by an out trans person (not memoir or non-ficton) I've been able to find. So very much a pioneer. Her most acclaimed book is probably Godmother Night (1996) which won the World Fantasy Award. Also wrote comics, most notably Doom Patrol.

Rumfitt, Alison - Tell me I'm Worthless

Serano, Julia - 99 Erics (her debut as a novelist after years of pioneering transfeminist writing and poetry)

Thornton, Jeanne - Summer Fun (Lambda award winner)

#my posts #transfem literature

[ace-trainer-risu]

what are your fave diana wynne jones books that aren’t howl’s moving castle??

Oh whattt a lovely and fun question which I was definitely not secretly hoping someone would ask!!!! Yay!!

Hm okay so, not specifically in order, probably my top fave Diana Wynne Jones books would be:

Deep Secret! Deep Secret is not just one of my favorite books by DWJ but one of my favorite books full stop! It’s so good. Basically, the premise is that there is an infinite series of interconnected worlds, some of which have magic and some of which don’t, at the center of which is a vast interdimensional magical empire. Magic in the multiverse is overseen by an organization of magicians called Magids and there must always be a specific number of Magids in existence. When Rupert, a young Magid living on Earth, discovers that his mentor has died (ish) he becomes unexpectedly responsible for finding and training the next Magid, which is extremely inconvenient timing for him because the aforementioned magical empire is on the brink of civil war and chaos and its his job to stop it. And also almost all of this takes place at...a science fiction convention. It’s amazing.  I have read this book minimum four (probably more) times and every time it’s absolutely delightful and hilarious. I would like to go to the sci fi convention in this novel more than anything. It’s such a good read and its one of her few novels which is specifically aimed at adults, so I would EXTREMELY recommend it. Plus the romance in it is extremely good...not exactly enemy-to-lovers but more like ‘annoys-the-shit-out-of-each-other’ to lovers.  (**One note about this one...there’s a few very briefly mentioned side characters who are gender noncomforming and even tho they are actually portrayed very positively, it’s not necessarily ideal and 100% respectful (basically the protags comment on them being very beautiful and nice but also keep trying to guess their “real” gender). Additionally there’s a different briefly mentioned side character who is fat who isn’t portrayed very nicely. Both of these are brief incidents, just wanted to provide a warning for them)

Dark Lord of Derkholm - Okay this one is weirdly hard to summarize but it’s about this magical fantasy world which has been taken overy and is being used as a tourist destination by a non-magical world (heavily implied to be Earth) for people who want to role play at being in a classic high fantasy story, including fighting and killing THE DARK LORD...who is really just a random magician pretending to be evil. The inhabitants of the fantasy world do not enjoy this and are trying desperately to stop the tours, but unfortunately according to a magical oracle, their best hope of stopping the tours is this year’s Dark Lord, a hapless farmer magician named Derk, and his, um, eccentric family consisting of his glamorous wife, seven children (of whom five are griffins and one is a bard) and a simply improbable amount of magical animals. And also there is a very good dragon.  I think Derkholm is so great as a novel b/c it’s a very funny, loving but sharp, parody of high fantasy stories...but a lot of the time parodies only function as parodies but not as good stories in their own right, you know? But this novel completely functions as a story too, and in fact the first time I read at maybe age nine or ten, the high fantasy parody went completely over my head...but I still loved it. I also really love that this novel is very accessible to all ages, I think I enjoy reading it as an adult just as much as I did as a kid, which is rare.  For anyone who has read Howl’s Moving Castle but nothing else by DWJ and isn’t sure where to start, I think this is a great place to start. (TW: There’s a brief, non-explicit scene which has implied sexual assault.) 

Fire and Hemlock - This may be the most controversial one since it features a romance with a significant age gap where the two characters meet when one is a child and the other an adult. And I fully agree that that’s :/ and normally that trope is NOT my thing but it doesn’t come off at all creepy in this story imo, and if you think you can deal with that then this is a very weird, atmospheric, cool book about storytelling and fairy tales and growing up. The short summary (this is another hard to summarize one) is that as a child, Polly encounters and strikes up a friendship and correspondence with a young man, Tom, which mainly consists of the two of them jointly making up a silly, ongoing fairy tale type story...but things get weird when parts of their story start to come true in real life.  I’ve only read this one twice but it really stuck with me and in fact just describing it here...really makes me want to read it again!

The Chrestomanci Series - So all of the above are either specifically aimed at adults or a general audience whereas the Chrestomanci series is aimed at children, mainly a middle grade type audience. And tbh I started reading them as a kid (fond memory - I bought an omnibus of the first two with my allowance money...b/c it had a cat on the cover!) so I don’t know what it would be like to first read these as an older teen or an adult. BUT. Honestly they are really good and would be a quick read so I do still recommend them. There’s seven overall, with th seventh being a collection of short stories, and they’re only semi-chronological so the reading order isn’t vital. My recommended order (b/c this the order I read them in, haha) is Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, The Pinhoe Egg, Conrad’s Fate, and then Mixed Magic you can read whenever you want so long as you read it after Charmed Life and The Magicians of Caprona.  So the very core premise of it is not dissimilar to Deep Secret - there’s an infinite series of worlds/universes and there’s a magician, called the Crestomanci in this case, who is responsible for making sure magic isn’t abused across the multiverse. The Chrestomanci is an extremely powerful enchanter who has nine lives, and the novels are various semi-connected stories about the adventures of Chrestomanci as an adult and child. Chrestomanci is a title so it’s not always the same person, but for the majority of the stories it is the same guy and he’s...the best/worst...He’s this extremely handsome, charismatic, powerful enchanter who is very good at his job, loves his wife a lot, wears very beautiful clothes and makes, um, questionable life choices and is very annoying to everyone. I’ve thought about this very hard and I believe that he’s what happens when you take a fundamentally chaotic good person and make him do a fundamentally lawful good job; yes, he’s going to do it and do it well, but he is going to do it in the most chaotic, ridiculous way possible, and he IS going to die at an ALARMING rate, doing things that would not normally kill a person, such as playing cricket and trying to catch stray cats. He also, as previously mentioned, frequently wears very dramatic silk dressing gowns with elaborate embroidery, which the protag of Charmed Life finds deeply alarming.  It’s very odd to me how these books don’t seem to be well known, because the Chrestomanci books were some of my absolute favorite books as a child. I still have my omnibus editions of the first four novels and they are very worn and very beloved. And it’s so WILD to me that I don’t think I have ever talked to someone who also read those as a kid! Like I’m not saying those people don’t exist, I’m sure I just haven’t met them, but that’s so weiiirddddd to me. If I bring up Tamora Pierce or Garth Nix or other authors of weird, eccentric children’s fantasy novels to other avid childhood consumers of fantasy, people usually know what I mean, but Chrestomanci and its just..crickets. Is it b/c she’s British? Anyway all of the Chrestomanci books are very degrees of good, but if I had to pick a favorite, I think, controversial choice here, it would be Conrad’s Fate. Particularly in terms of recommendations to others, Conrad’s Fate works as a standalone and, unlike the other books in the series, it’s aimed more at a YA audience, so if you wanted to read a Chrestomanci novel without getting into the whole series, that’s a good way to go. It’s about a boy, Conrad, who is told that he has a terrible, possibly fatal Fate awaiting him unless he goes to work as a servant at a wealthy, and weird, estate neighboring his town, at which place he encounters things including color changing livery, an extremely annoying teenage Chrestomanci, and the greatest liminal space house EVER. It’s like a combination of an upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey type social drama with bizarre fantasy shenanigans. How could that not be good??

Also as Honorable Mentions - A Sudden and Wild Magic and The Time of the Ghost. A Sudden and Wild Magic is fun b/c it’s one of her few works aimed specifically at adults and it’s (gasp) a little bit NAUGHTY which I was very surprised and delighted by when I read it. (This may seem like an unfair statement considering that Deep Secret fully has an orgy in it, but Rupert is so fundamentally unnaughty of a character that he completely unnaughtifies the whole novel, whereas Sudden and Wild Magic embraces being a (little bit) naughty.)   The Time of the Ghost on the other hand is weird and haunting and creepy and atmospheric. I only read it once but it’s one of those novels you just think about periodically and go “wait what the fuck that was a weird novel” (Also known as the “Garth Nix” effect) 

#the ask and the answer #i spent...too long writing this out but i love talking about her novels soo muchhhh #that i couldn't help myself!!!!!!!! #diana wynne jones #things you didn't care to know about veronica

[chernobog13]

Another DC hero adapted to cartoon form by Filmation as a “guest star” for The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, Hawkman was the one character who underwent the most changes from his comic book stories.

The Silver Age Hawkman was Katar Hal, a police officer from the planet Thanagar who came to Earth with his wife, Shayera (Hawkgirl, later Hawkwoman), to study police methods.  Katar and Shayera adopted the secret identities of Carter and Shiera Hall, archaeologists and curators of the Midway City Museum.

In the cartoons he is just “Carter Hall, scientific genius from a far-off world” who works in a sprawling lab complex outside Midway City.  Carter shares the lab with Professor Barnes, who is also aware that his co-worker is Hawkman.

There is no mention of Shayera, but in 1967 it was pretty rare for a superhero to be married.  Or maybe the artists at Filmation did not want to draw and animate female characters.  Besides Lois Lane in the Superman cartoons, Lana Lang in Superboy, Wonder Girl in the three Teen Titans cartoons, the occasional appearance of Mera in Aquaman, and a single female villain who faced Green Lantern, I can think of no other female characters appearing at all!

So instead of Hawkgirl, we get a sidekick in the form of Skreal the Hawk to accompany Hawkman on his adventures (and before anyone takes me to task: yes, Hawkgirl/woman is Hawkman’s partner, NOT his sidekick).

Skreal is not your typical hawk: he understands English and obeys Hawkman’s commands (the cartoons never establish that Hawkman can “talk” to birds like Aquaman can “talk” to fish; Skreal is the only bird we ever see), he can smile, and he sounds like a seagull, not a hawk.

Skreal’s handy against enemy aircraft.

I think that gun barrel was stuck on with double-face tape.

Oh, and Skreal is lazy.  Very lazy.

You may notice that half-glove on Hawkman’s right hand.  Unlike the medieval weapons he used in the comics (mace, crossbow, spear, etc.), this al-purpose weapon was created specifically for the cartoons.

Like Space Ghost’s power bands, this claw fired a number of different rays, like the Repello Ray in use above, which was the ray Hawkman used most often.

Additionally, the claws were razor-sharp and able to slice through anything.

I have no idea if this claws influenced the creation of a certain clawed Canadian mutant a few years later.

The half-glove was never given a name itself; Hawkman usually just announced (like Space Ghost) what beam or ray he was going to utilize.  I always thought this was a cool weapon for Hawkman to have, and was surprised that DC never gave a similar weapon to Hawkman in the comics.

It’s only my personal theory, but I believe this half-glove was the influence behind the creation of The Claw of Horus.

The Claw of Horus first appeared in JSA #22 (2003) and saw limited use for the next few years before disappearing from the comics after the Blackest Night crossover event.  It was a weapon created from Nth metal by the sorcerer Nabu and given to Hawkman to use. 

Another weapon that Hawkman had in the cartoons but lacked in the comics is indestructible wings.  He uses the wings several times to protect himself from enemy weapons fire.  Which begs the question: why didn’t he construct a full suit out of the same material as the wings to protect himself?

The cartoons granted Hawkman a power that he did not have in the comics: radar vision.  This was a type of x-ray vision that allowed Hawkman to see through solid objects.

Here Hawkman uses his radar vision in one of the Justice League of America cartoons to locate Superman who is hidden in a room constructed of kryptonite.

One element from the comics that the cartoons kept was Hawkman’s orbiting spaceship.  However, the folks at Filmation greatly improved the sip’s design.

Here’s how it appears in the comics:

Yeah, that’s not a very inspired design.  In fact it looks like Hawkman borrowed this puppy from Green Arrow and just slapped on a new paint job.

Now feast your eyes on the spaceship from the cartoons:

Sleek, elegant, and resembling a bird in flight, this is a much superior design.

I remember as a kid wishing someone would release a model kit or toy of this spaceship.  I still do to this day.

Of course, inside it was little less elegant:

Hawkman is steering the ship with controls that very strongly resemble the differentials that are used to steer tanks and other tracked vehicles.  I should know, because I drove tracked vehicles for 2 1/2 years while working for my Uncle.  Those controls just don’t lend themselves to spaceships.  But hey, that’s how things work in cartoons.

Hawkman was featured in three 7-minute solo cartoons, as well as appearing in the three Justice League of America cartoons.  Filmation had plans for more series featuring additional DC characters (including a Wonder Woman cartoon), as well as continuing the omnibus format of The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure.  However, all those plans went out the window when CBS (the network that was airing the show) acquired the animation rights to Batman in 1968.  Batman was still wildly popular because of the live-action show, so CBS had Filmation drop all their plans and focus on producing Batman cartoons, and we got The Batman/Superman Hour. 

Hawkman wouldn’t be seen on the screen again for 10 years, finally appearing in Super Friends in 1977. 

ADDENDUM: thanks to @roguetelemetry​ for pointing out that the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century television show totally ripped-off Hawkman’s spaceship design for the character Hawk.  

That’s pretty blatant to my eyes.

I never realized this because I never watched the Buck Rogers show.  I tried an episode but it was so bad I was gone by the first commercial break.  Pretty much my reaction to any show produced by Glen A. Larson.  I guess the daily re-runs of Star Trek: The Original Series spoiled me.

The semi-good news is that the is a model kit available of Hawk’s ship available at monster in motion.  The bad news is the kit costs $110.00.  Had I the cash and the skill, I would be inclined to get the kit so that I could modify it into Hawkman’s ship.

But perhaps that’s a project for one of you more enterprising souls out there.

#Hawkman #The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure #DC Comics #Filmation #cartoons #Hawk #Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

[theliterateape]

How Zero Tolerance Policies in the 1990's Caused Our Modern Puritanism

by Don Hall

The notice was posted on all four doors entering the school. On pink (or maybe fuchsia) paper, in block letters big enough to read from the curb was the headline: ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY.

Underneath this draconian bark was a list of behaviors by students that would now result in immediate suspension. The list included everything from chewing gum in class to bullying other students. It was a laundry list of control. The policy took away any teacher discretion when dealing with kids who might need a bit and aped the attitude if not the specific policies of President Clinton's recently passed omnibus bill known as the "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act."

The school was now officially tough on crime.

Except most of the list of offenses hardly felt like crimes. Most were venial sins at best. I knew the gum chewing thing was from our librarian. She was a nasty woman who had, over a career that lasted thirty years or so, learned to love books but hate children. And, man, did she hate them. Every faculty meeting she brought up the gum chewing, the gum stuck under the desks, under the chairs, in the pages of the dictionary. She was a woman obsessed.

Effectively, the jackboot of authoritarian rule had descended upon the necks of children.

At the next faculty meeting, I argued that this was not going to solve the problems we had but make them worse.

“The kids who are already following most of the rules will continue to. The kids who break them will now only break them more.”

“Just because that’s how you would react doesn’t mean the children will,” replied Mrs. Johnson, a math teacher who ran her classroom like Mussolini ran his trains.

She was right about me—I bent and broke rules like it was my personal creed. Somewhere along the line of two-year old baby cussing his mother out in a grocery store—

The story is somewhat legendary in my family but the gist of it was that my then seventeen-year old mother took me to the store. She set me in the cart like you do with babies. As we rounded a corner, my little monkey hands grabbed a bag of Pinto beans. She put them back.

“We don’t need beans.”

“I want those fucking beans!” I screamed.

“We don’t need the motherfucking beans!”

“Gimme the FUCKING BEANS!”

All the while, the spectacle of a toddler cursing like a veteran about Pinto Beans and his child-mother cursing right back at him likely caused many adults in the place some measure of dismay

—and being hired to teach seventh graders about music, my compass was almost always pointed a bit west, a bit east, but rarely due north.

Mrs. Johnson was wrong about the kids.

Just as I thought, the students who were already prone to chewing gum, tagging the bathrooms with markers, gathering in loud packs in the hallways, and picking on the smaller kids flaunted the fact that ZERO TOLERANCE just meant they were suspended and sent home more often. The students who were on the rule-following side got angry. They tattled more often. 

“Jerome was tagging the boy’s locker room!” “Tanya is chewing gum!” “Billy Hash flipped me off and called me a fag!”

The school had just north of 1,500 students and two security officers. These two were hopelessly outnumbered. This meant that it was up to the teachers to enforce this new policy while also trying to, you know, teach.

The librarian loved the policy and her new role. In her opinion, less kids in the library was a good thing and certainly less work. Mrs. Johnson suddenly found herself in the hallways more than her classroom and started complaining that we needed more security officers on school grounds. I, typically, decided to ignore the policy and, as I had before the notices, use discipline as a series of teachable moments.

Granted, my discipline was creative.

Billy Hash spent a day with wooden popsicle sticks and packing tape on his hands affixing his ‘fuck you’ fingers up and saluting for a day to teach him to avoid flipping others off in school. Instead of suspending Jerome, he spent the day washing off tagging all over the school with brill-o and soap. I solved the gum chewing thing (at least on my floor) by creating a ‘gum sculpture’ that any kid caught chewing was required to contribute their mastication object upon.

What I expected was that either I’d get written up for ignoring the policy or that the policy would fade away as so many of these sorts of policies do. When the work involved in policing a thousand+ students becomes more than the benefits usually it just goes to background.

What I didn’t expect was that my rule-following students would add me to list of offenders.

“Mr. Hall didn’t suspend Javier for pushing Gabriel in the hallway!” “Mr. Hall let Maria call Julia a bitch!” “Mr. Hall was supposed to kick Billy Hash out of class instead of just talk to him!”

I wasn’t the only teacher in the building trying to use these moments to educate the monkeys on how people behave in civilization so I wasn’t the only teacher tattled on but I was the one most targeted because I had spoken up against the policy in the first place.

Soon it wasn’t just the kids calling me out. It was their parents, too.

“I understand that ‘wetback’ is a racial slur and that Billy Hash should never use it. I also think Billy is thirteen-years old and is not so far gone that he can’t be taught that rather than instantly punished for it.”

“That’s bullshit! My daughter will not be called names at school. That Hash kid is a fucking monster and should be in a prison instead of a middle school!”

“I hear you. Did you know that Billy’s uncle is in prison right now? And that his dad just got out? I’d like to hope that with a bit of education and compassion, we could help him avoid the same fate.”

“Fuck that! Isabella doesn’t feel safe in class! This school has a zero tolerance policy and we expect you to follow it!”

Isabella would be roughly thirty-six years old now and would classify as a Millennial. Her kids are the protocol-typical Gen Z crowd. Both she and her kids seem to operate still with this zero tolerance policy in mind. They have become the hall monitors for their collegiate experience, the snitches of social media, and the ‘Karens’ of every Walmart and Starbucks in America.

It’s our fault they’re like this.

We taught them with our zero tolerance policies to forego context or nuance and call for maximum punishment for even the slightest of mistakes. We taught them that the only teachable moment is expulsion, the only appropriate response to insult is absolute exile, and that one should always ‘call the manager’ before accepting any sort of slight.

They are the children of Purell, the offspring requiring helmets and knee-pads, the progeny who, because we didn’t want them to feel pain or discomfort, feel it in every interaction.

Billy Hash was suspended after multiple infractions. Mrs. Johnson was thrilled as was our librarian. They couldn’t stand Billy. Sure enough, a few years later, Billy dropped out of school and graduated into a cell in Joliet, Illinois. Carrying on the family tradition as it was set out for him.

We let Billy down. We let Isabella down.

Now they come for us. They grew up believing in the Puritanical resistance to redemption and no second chances for mistakes. They grew up believing in zero tolerance. Go ahead. Make a joke about George Floyd or rape or climate change. You will reap the whirlwind of what we were sewing.

You will be met with zero tolerance perhaps even written on pink (or fuchsia) paper.

#Woke #Zero Tolerance

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: May 2019

Here’s how I spent the month of May!

……….FILM……….

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) I don’t think I was mentally prepared to get right into the violence and the film doesn’t ease you into any of it. If anything, I found this chapter to rely on the combat more than the previous two and by the end, I was a little numb. Still a great film and perhaps I’ll feel differently on a second viewing. For now, I’d say it’s very good and has like...10 minutes too much fighting.

Bridesmaids (2011) Always great but in watching this I realized what makes the improv stand out from other films: the underlying storytelling. While there’s lots of back and forth between characters that are funny, it’s usually doing something else at the same time (showing characters competing and in conflict with each other, showing the casual report between friends, etc.) The humour never feels like it’s there because the movie is a comedy, but that we’re watching funny people live their lives. It really works.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) So I admit that I know only a surface level of info about Ted Bundy and what he did. With that in mind I found it frustrating that the movie took the perspective of “did he or didn’t he?” I get that the film’s perspective was that of Liz Kendall but then I wanted more concrete proof that he did it (not seeing the crimes, but through evidence in the courtroom). The one bit they did show (the teeth marks) felt flimsy and was undercut by Bundy’s rebuttal. I just didn’t vibe with the coy approach.

……….TELEVISION……….

The Magicians (Episode 1.01 to 1.09) Having read the books, I had no interest watching a series that also centres around Quentin. Only after friends told me it doesn’t revolve around him did I try it out and it’s great! The casting is still a little too CW for me (you can tell if a character will eventually play a major role based on how conventionally attractive they are) but the overall dynamic works. The magic is still dangerous, the fighting is still petty, and the world is still as complex as the novels.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Episode 2.08 to 2.09) So ep 8 (with the mandrake) is peak Sabrina for me: a little horror, a little melodrama, and a fairly contained episode. Perhaps I’m longing for a different type of television but I really want this series to become something in the vein of Buffy where there’s a monster of the week and perhaps it all ties to a bigger plot. The season finale was fun and I mistook the Phantom of the Opera song for a current top 40 hit so...I’m out of touch in a whole bunch o ways.

Queer Eye (Episode 3.01 to 3.08) Ugh what a great season.

Life in PIeces (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) It’s starting to grow on me. The format works well though I’d say their consistency (even within a single episode) varies. Maybe I just need more time with the characters but so far I’m just luke warm to it.

……….READING……….

Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson (Complete) Without giving up too much of the story, this is a heart wrenching read and one that is foreshadowed by the tone and content of the first chapter (a skill I really appreciate in both literature and film). It’s dark and light and human and really left an impression after I finished it.

Hawkeye by Matt Fraction & David Aja Omnibus by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth, Chris Eliopoulos, and so many more (Complete) Seeing Avengers:Endgame made me long for a Hawkeye that I liked and in rereading this, I found what I needed. I cannot say enough kind things about this run. It’s singular and small in its focus and the art/direction is phenomenal. It at times feels gritty and grounded, and yet has a real spy thriller vibe to the overall tone. If you can get your hands on the omnibus then do it. It’s human and heroic and good-spirited and funny in a dry, world-weary way and Kate Bishop is a wonderful foil to Clint Barton (and vice versa).

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso (Complete) Oof what a read. I knew the book dealt with the aftermath of a woman’s murder, but I didn’t realize it would be such a reflection on the modern media landscape. It deals with conspiracies, allegations of fake news, death threats, and the general paranoia that victims endure after a tragedy. This video essay says it all better than I could.

Be Prepared by Vera Brogsol (Complete) Charming and personal and while I don’t have many experiences with camp, I do feel a deep connection with a protagonist that never quite succeeds at fitting in with the “in” crowd. It’s a great all-ages read and is beautifully illustrated and I can’t say enough kind things about it.

Adventures of a Japanese Businessman by Jose Domingo (Complete) Just fantastic. I picked this up after a glowing review from my friend and it didn’t disappoint. Silent and surreal, the series of unfortunate events told across each 4-panel page is a masterclass in setup and resolution. There are tiny 2-3 panel arcs happening all over and it truly rewards rereads. I loved every minute of it and can’t recommend it enough.

Ragnarök Volume 1: Last God Standing by Walt Simonson (Complete) It’s fun to read a comic about Thor and it not be the Marvel version: the mythology is a little different (closer to the myths), the tone is a little different (Thor and the gods have lost and Ragnarök has happened), and I’m sure there isn’t as much editorial influence since it’s wholly the creator’s vision. It’s fairly self-serious and the overall vibe is fairy 70s Heavy Metal, and it all works. Not necessarily my go-to tone, but it’s good at what it does and is refreshingly different.

Domu by Katsuhiro Otomo (Complete) Just fantastic. Akira was always a little overwhelmingly big (though no less impressive) so this smaller, more intimate story was right up my alley. It’s creepy and kinetic and beautiful and a really good read. It’s hard to come by in print, but if you can find it then I defo recommend.

……….AUDIO……….

Dedicated by Carly Rae Jepsen (2019) You know what? This album is a lot of fun and very good and you should check it out. I really wish it kept the energy of the first couple tracks all the way through, but I really just can’t hold every artist to the level of Andrew W. K.

……….GAMING……….

Curse of Strahd (Wizards of the Coast) What I love about this group is they often spend so much time discussing who is in charge of the money, avoid conflict with a ghost that is trying to kill them, and yet really want to pursue the mystery creature that was rummaging around the pantry two sessions earlier. Also they’re still in a haunted house with ominous chanting and undead everywhere.

Maze of the Blue Medusa (Satyr Press) The party has started to explore other parts of the maze (now moving away from the Lich-haunted gardens) and continue to find countless unsettling beasts and creatures. A couple near death experiences but overall, they’re doing well.

And that’s it! As always, I’m keen to hear your suggestions for what the read, watch, hear, and play next!

Happy Friday.

#Monthly Media #Rambles #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

[mahalzevran]

DA 20+ Questions

Tagged by @antivan-surana​ thanks! Tagging @situationnormal​ @the-dread-doggo​ @acepavus​ @aroundofgwent​ @lakambaeni​ @kxnways​ @fuckbioware​ (no pressure ofc) and anyone who wants to?

The rest is under a read more because it’s long

01) Favourite game of the series?

Origins, only because you got less and less op as a mage as the games went on. I love all the games tbh.

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

My friend got my sister into it. They kept talking and talking about it so finally I was like “ok lets see what the big deal is” and here I am now

03) How many times you’ve played the games?

I’ve done Origins twice fully, DA2 four times fully (omg I didn’t realize this until now lol) and DA:I just once fully. I have one unfinished playthrough of Origins with a Cousland, and I’m in the middle of maybe two of DA:I. I think I’ve gone back and replayed certain parts of both Origins and DA:I plenty of times.

04) Favourite race to play as?

Elf I guess? Though I’ve only fully played as a human and elf. I’m in the middle of a dwarf playthrough and I’m thinking of doing a qunari one in the future. It might change idk.

I just really liked playing as an elf in Origins so that’s why I got into elves. But the funny thing is, I wasn’t even thinking of playing as an elf when I played for the first time. I wanted to play as a human. I just did it on a whim.

05) Favourite class?

Mage, hands down. Realistically, they’re the most versatile class. They can do range and melee since anyone can learn how to fight with weapons. But the last two games won’t let you so :)

Also, this stems from the fact that I’ve been a harry potter fan since I could remember.

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

In my full, proper playthroughs that I’ve finished, it’s slightly different but still the same basic ideas. Sided with mages, agreed with Anders, etc.

But I am planning to try an evil playthrough in the future so

07) Go-to adventuring group?

DA:O (I have two)

Leliana, Wynne, Shale - the OG crew; they were my main crew in my first playthrough and it was a pretty even party

Zevran, Leliana, Alistair - the elf crew; esp. with Rhian they’re all elves because I saw a theory that Leliana is half elf and I’m down

DA2

It’s a mixed bag. If I’m not playing as a mage, I usually take Anders a lot because we need a healer and Merrill can’t heal. I tend not to take Sebastian as much after I max his friendship. After Sebastian, I take Aveline the least. Other than that I just mix it up. Unless I’m romancing someone, then I take them every time.

I’d love to take Anders, Fenris, and Merrill out more often but I hate how mean they all are to each other (looking @ u bioware 👀)

DA:I

My first playthrough, I mixed it up a lot in the beginning but then I ended up bringing Solas, Cole, and Blackwall a lot near the end for some reason?

I love taking Vivienne, Dorian, and Solas out, especially if I’m playing a mage, because it’s such a pretty fireworks show

In general though, if I’m romancing someone I take them with me almost always.

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

I think it’s a tie between Rhian and Lu.

09) Favourite romance?

To no one’s surprise, it’s Zevran :3

Solas is second because I just really like that angst.

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

I’ve read The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, and Until We Speak (because someone gifted me the Omnibus) and The Calling.

I also have Hard in Hightown, which I should probably read lol, and the art book of inquisition.

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book?

The Calling solely because of my mom Fiona and my dad Duncan. 

12) Favourite DLCs?

Awakening because I love everyone and its also really funny that Rhian, who is 19 at that point, had to basically babysit people older than her and also run a whole arling.

I love both Legacy and Mark of the Assassin. Mark of the Assassin was really funny (though I hated the stealth part). I love Legacy specifically because when I was fighting Corypheus, both Varric and Anders K.O.’d and it was just me and Carver. It was a special family moment bringing down a whole entire magister together. I also hc that that was canon and it brought Kaia and Carver closer together.

13) Things that annoy you.

I’m gonna talk about the game bc if this is about the fandom, then that’s a whole other thing.

Anders’ writing for one. It doesn’t make sense that he’d approve of giving Fenris back to Danarius. And also that he wouldn’t tell f!Hawke that he’s bi? Then there’s the fact that Anders, Fenris, and Merrill all don’t get along when they have a lot in common.

Anything that was written by Lukas Krisdkjsdhkdk. Aveline, Sera, etc. he did a really bad job.

Also didn’t like that mages got less OP in the last two games.

There’s also the tone-deafness? Dorian, a brown man, saying slavery is ok. And also there’s the dialogue between Solas and Vivienne where Solas supposedly “owns” Vivienne. I think he says something like “may you learn”? Solas, a white person, saying this to Vivienne, a black woman, when there’s obvious colorism in Thedas? I think not.

There’s probably other but I can’t think of them right now.

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Orlais is too snooty and Ferelden doesn’t season their food. I pick Seheron and Laysh because that’s where the Asians are at.

15) Templars or mages?

Mages

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

Originally, my canonverse was Rhian, Kaia, and Luwalhati. Alden and Bolin were part of an AU. Then Alden finagled his way in there, then I decided to have Bolin in there too. So now i have twin Hawkes and Bolin is part of the Inquisition (if he’s a companion or not, I haven’t thought about)

I have plenty of other OCs that I’m planning on, but they’re currently sorted into a different universe.

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

Pikamon for the Origins mabari. It’s a mix between the names of my two dogs, Pikachu and Cinnamon

Cinnachu for the DA2 mabari, also a mix of Pikachu and Cinnamon.

Lu’s mount is the royal sixteen (hart), which is given to you by Clan Lavellan if you manage to keep them alive iirc, and its name is Luntian, the tagalog word for green which is her favorite color. (In a teen!Lu AU, her mount is the bog unicorn bc she’s an edgelord)

18) Have you installed any mods?

It would be more surprising if I didn’t. How else would I manage to have my characters look like the’re poc?? And also get rid of whitewashing and have some continuity. I usually just do cosmetic mods if it’s my first playthrough. Then I do like “cheats” after I finish the game fully.

Fun fact, I once spent like 2+ hrs modding Origins to have the Zev romance the way I want. I also stayed up until like 5am trying to make Solas look like his concept art lol (it didn’t really work)

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

Rhian didn’t not want to become a warden. She read about them and thought they were an honorable order, but she didn’t expect to ever have a chance to become one. Her goal was to just go up in the Circle hierarchy, maybe even become First Enchanter. Then when the time came, she didn’t really have much of a choice.

20) Hawke’s personality?

Kaia is blue and Alden is purple

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

At first, I didn’t get what the big deal was with crafting. It didn’t seem fun at all lol. Then I tried it and was hooked. I don’t have them matching, but I do tend to try to match my Inquisitor with their LI in some way.

My usual procedure for armor in Inquisition is like this. I make everyone wear heavy armor and pick the materials that have the highest attributes, not caring how ridiculous the colors are. Then I go to tint them using a guide for each companion’s color scheme. This is the same for helmet but I usually have them turned off or have no one wearing one.

The only exception is Varric, Cole, and Blackwall. I have Varric wear the rogue armor that looks like his DA2 outfit, and Cole and Blackwall wear the Grey Warden heavy armor. I tint the grey warden armor using a guide for its color scheme.

I have Bull, Vivienne, and Cole wear their unique helmets.

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

Rhian - She’d probably want to re-do how she told Zevran that she wasn’t exactly dead.

Kaia - Taken Quentin’s threat more seriously and killed him before he got to Leandra

Alden - He has no regrets

Luwalhati - wouldn’t have taken Sam and Wis with her so they wouldn’t have had to have died in the conclave explosion

Bolin - None, all of his decisions led him to Dorian and he’s happy with that.

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

They’re all at least part Seheron?

I also hc that neither Carver nor Bethany die because Kaia was able to cast a barrier on both of them before the ogre got them. Then they both became Grey Wardens because Carver contracted the taint in the expedition and wouldn’t join the Wardens unless Bethany came with him too.

Another hc I have is that Sebastian didn’t leave when Anders was spared and stayed to help out. But he went his separate way after because he still didn’t approve of sparing him.

Oh shoot, I almost forgot. The most against canon thing I’ve done probably? Rhian didn’t do the Ritual but she did slay the archdemon without dying. Rhian’s an arcane warrior, so when she slayed it, she was partway in the fade. Being partway into the fade was enough for her essence, I guess, to survive it. But she’s not mortal anymore and kind of a spirit now? So she periodically has to chill in the fade because being in the real world takes a toll on her.

25) Who did you leave in the Fade?

In the game, it was Stroud. I killed Loghain and no way is Alistair gonna be trapped in there. Fiona will be sad. So I made Alistair king in the game only, so Stroud was the one that was left.

This is another off canon thing I did. In my actual canon, Alistair is the warden contact. The Hawke that comes to the Inquisition is both Kaia and Alden. Alden brings Fenris with him because he doesn’t go anywhere without his Boo-Boo. Bethany and Carver also come because Weisshaupt was being weird and it seemed like they would be safer in the Inquisition. Lu + her party, Alistair, Kaia, Alden, Fenris, Bethany, and Carver all come to Adamant. Because there’s so many people, everyone was able to escape the Fade. No one is left behind.

26) Favourite mount? The nugs! All of them :) 

Though I don’t really use the mounts lol

#tag meme #whew this was really long omg #thanks for tagging though! #about me

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 10/15/18

Bleach, Vol. 74 | By Tite Kubo | Viz Media – I have never actually reviewed Bleach as a brief… or indeed at all. I followed its periphery, keeping track of what was going on and trying not to be too invested. The final volume shows off many of its strengths and weaknesses… I enjoyed seeing Ichigo and Orihime fighting together, and the finale was sweet, but far too often the volume was Yhwach screaming “can’t you see your powers are USELESS against me!” like an MST3K villain. Still, say what you will about Bleach, it was always itself. It may feel like it was cancelled for not getting on with it (it probably was), but changing anything seems churlish. It’s that middle son who’s always a hot mess, who always gets forgiven. – Sean Gaffney

Dragon Half, Omnibus 2 | By Ryusuke Mita | Seven Seas – This continues to be a giant nostalgia trip, feeling very much like the sort of anime and manga that North America was getting in the early 1990s. Which it essentially is. Even the translation and adaptation feels like it’s a “dub,” and a good one like Shinesman. It’s not easy to analyze—aside from one or two heartwarming moments that last about one panel, it’s balls to the wall comedy every single page. But the comedy is ridiculous fun, with Mink shedding her skin and becoming stronger (and bustier), the villains still being 100% useless, and Lufa being 100% DTF. I think there’s one more omnibus to go, and theoretically this is coming to an ending, but the plot is irrelevant compared to the laughs. – Sean Gaffney

Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 26 | By Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki | Viz Media – Eventually, theoretically, this arc will end. But it’s not this volume, or indeed the one after that. That said, it is nice to see Soma punted to the side here so that we can focus on some of the other cast. Kuga has a grudge, and wants to make his name remembered—I suspect the name will be remembered but he’ll lose. As for Mimasaka, it’s quite interesting to see his stereotypical evil cheat powers used in the name of good. And then there’s Megishima, and though we find out why he’s helping Soma and company in this book, I have to admit I simply like Rindo more, and I hope that she pulls it off. So yes, a good volume, but pretty sure the bad guys are gonna win, which means… more tournament arc. – Sean Gaffney

Haikyu!!, Vol. 28 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – We are nearly caught up with Haikyu!!, which goes to “once every three months” starting with the new year. It’s been fun reading this volleyball title every week, and it helped me keep track of what’s going on better. The bout against Inarizaki takes up much of the second half, and is up to the usual high standards. I was also amused to see a hint of boy/girl romance in this book, as Ryunosuke’s childhood friend—there with her women’s volleyball team—clearly has a thing for him, but in the end, like a lot of shonen titles, she decides to emulate his SPORTS PASSION rather than confess. Besides, he’s still crushing on the manager (has she retired or not?). Haikyu!! is great fun. – Sean Gaffney

Himouto! Umaru-chan, Vol. 3 | By Sankakuhead | Seven Seas – We are reminded several times in this volume why the two siblings are the way they are—they’re very much on their own in the apartment. Here we learn their mother has passed away, and it seems there’s no father either. This explains a lot of Umaru’s immaturity, as well as Taihei’s tendency to let her do what she wants. I think I like the series best when it shows off the occasional sweet moment. Still, it’s because it’s occasional that it works so well—most of the time this series is content to rely on funny “Umaru is lazy” humor, such as accidentally screwing up the modem and having… NO INTERNET!… or forgetting about her New Year’s Resolution to be less slothful. Cute. – Sean Gaffney

How to Treat Magical Beasts: Mine and Master’s Medical Journal, Vol. 2 | By Kaziya | Seven Seas – There’s not much here beyond “heartwarming stories of a magical vet,” but sometimes that’s all you need, and if this is going to be manga’s equivalent of All Creatures Great and Small I’m content to be along for the ride. The chapters are named after either the magical beast or their ailment, and despite involving supernatural creatures manage to be rather educational—the discussion of rye bread was particularly fascinating. Ziska is cute, Niko is patient and caring, and you root for both of them, even as some of the situations prove to be a lot more difficult to solve than others. This is the sort of title that will run as long as the audience is there to enjoy its peaceful, relaxed mood, and I’m one of that audience. – Sean Gaffney

Natsume’s Book of Friends, Vol. 22 | By Yuki Midorikawa | VIZ Media – Twenty-two volumes in, and Natsume’s Book of Friends is just getting better and better. The first two stories involve Natsume’s classmates—first, the story of an inn beloved by good yokai where the staff forget to display the curtain to ward off bad yokai one night, and second, the story of a mysterious nightly visitor who uses Natsume’s face to befriend Nishimura—and seeing events from their perspective ramps up the creepy atmosphere tenfold. As if those weren’t enough, the final story involves Natsume meeting the first yokai whose name appears in the book and learning more about Reiko in the process. It’s a tale both melancholy and lovely and I loved it very much. The twenty-third volume only came out in Japan last month, so sadly we’ve probably got a long wait for our next installment. – Michelle Smith

New Game!, Vol. 3 | By Shotaro Tokuno | Seven Seas – There’s some workplace development here—with Kou’s promotion, Hifumi is also encouraged to take a step forward, which she does shyly and reluctantly. Kou and Aoba also manage to collaborate on a character design, after some brief but well done drama, and the game looks ridiculously cute. For the most part, though, this continues to be about a group of girls and their everyday life, the same as many of these 4-koma titles. I had honestly thought there would be more yuri, but it’s mostly invisible—Rin clearly as a thing for Kou, but there’s no forward movement there. If you enjoyed the anime, or just like this style of manga, it’s a good volume. Needs to have the cast holding hands and jumping in the air. – Sean Gaffney

To Your Eternity, Vol. 6 | By Yoshitoki Oima | Kodansha Comics – Every single volume of this series has managed to shatter my heart and the sixth is no exception. To Your Eternity remains a manga that is both astonishingly beautiful and incredibly devastating. Oima utilizes a fantastical narrative to explore deeply philosophical and existential themes. Even as an immortal, Fushi struggles to survive in a world full of death. Fushi continues to learn, grow, and evolve, but the process is an exceptionally painful one requiring difficult decisions to be made over and over. The sixth volume dramatically concludes the Jananda arc–on an island populated by exiled criminals, Fushi is forced yet again to confront the complexities of human morality and mortality. Yes, there are crushing losses, but along with the sadness comes some amount of hope. The strength of the relationships that Fushi develops with others is a shining, guiding light in a life frequently punctuated with darkness and tragedy. – Ash Brown

By: Ash Brown

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

[kelmcdonald]

Read Sorcery 101 writer notes Final Thoughts

New Post has been published on http://sorcery101.net/news/read-sorcery-101-writer-notes-final-thoughts/

Read Sorcery 101 writer notes Final Thoughts

Here is another batch of writer notes on Sorcery 101. If you want to read ahead on these got ahead on these head over to my patreon. Sorcery 101 was my first comic. It took me 11 years to completely. In that time I learned a lot about storytelling and basically grew up. It’s hard for me to look at the beginning chapters because the pacing in those early days meanders a lot. Now I definitely prefer tighter stories. That change in preference and my general tightening up of writing has left Sorcery 101 lopsided. Looking at the two omnibus volumed, a lot more happens in the second half. It’s also unclear what the story is about in the first half, even though I always planned to end it the way it ends.

I’ve gotten comments about the ending being abrupt and leaving nothing resolved. But there isn’t much else to do with Danny. The unresolved bits are parts of stories that are only tangental related. It would have been impossible to wrap them all up without another several hundred pages. I put them all in there because I saw in the stories I really enjoyed hints of other stories going on beyond the one we were paying attention to. It was something I wanted to replicate. But with my inexperience in storytelling I gave too much screen time to what should have been shorter looks at the world beyond Danny. As I realized that I started to cut out stuff in the latter half of Sorcery 101, most of it about Jeff, Connor, and Kayla. Their stories effected Danny the least, so I cut them down to what was tied to the main plot or had an effect on it, like Connor sleeping with Seth.

The amount of filler in the beginning of Sorcery 101 makes it a weird story to read. It doesn’t quite work online or in final print. I’ve notice this odd pacing in a several other webcomics. It makes me wonder if the influence/source of the problem was the same. I’m dyslexic and didn’t get into books until I discovered audiobooks in college. At the start of Sorcery 101 my main influencers of story telling were mostly TV and a handful of manga. Both of which are designed to keep going until the audience loses interest rather than to tell a story. I liked stories where there was a big picture getting slowly built from tinier stories. Shows were you still had to watch episodes in order. Those episodes had filler but never for too long and usually that gave the characters room to breath and grow. I tried to do something like that with Sorcery 101. But it is hard to read when you get 3 pages a week. It wouldn’t even work if you got a page everyday. See when TV had a filler episode or manga had a filler chapter, you didn’t have to wait long for the next chunk. Next week their be more. Where as a filler chapter of Sorcery 101 meant a 3 month break. Then if you are bingde reading the book, your story is getting interrupted by something that ends up not mattering. It reads a little bit better in print but it’s still a weird pacing for a book. Overall, after writing 1400 page comic I think long and hard about how long my stories are now and how they read but as they update and when they are finished. I also frequently ask myself is this page/scene/chapter necessary to the story I’m telling.

Another thing I started thinking about more toward the end of Sorcery 101, was world building. But that has more to do with why I’m probably not returning to the Sorcery 101 world rather than Sorcery 101 itself. Until about 2012, I fully intended to do more stories in this world. After all, then I could actually tell all those stories I was hinting at in Sorcery 101. At that point I had started to tighten up Sorcery 101 main storyline. It was easier because I told myself “Jeff and Connor starting college can just be it’s own comic.” I even wrote a whole draft of the story of how Brad became a werewolf and met Ally. But as I wrote that I started to chafe at the Sorcery 101 world. It was too close to our universe and I was tired of telling people this world wasn’t ours. Also I was going through audiobooks pretty quickly and getting a taste of better more interesting world building. I wanted to put something together that someone would look at the art and instantly see the story didn’t take place in our world. That’s why I ended up writing Fame and Misfortune and started The City Between. It would be a series I could start and stop as it interested me since that stories would all be able to stand alone and I could fully design the world. I would keep the made up histories and city names there and keep anything that needed a setting like the modern day real world in the modern day real world, like Misfits of Avalon.

I’m glad I stuck to my plan for Sorcery 101 over all though. As flawed as that end was, I don’t think I would have finished the comic if I had to come up with a better ending. There was too much about the comic I had out grown. The redoing the first 450 page to make a book made that clear. A lot of the jokes got toned down or thrown out cause they weren’t funny were over done or just plain offensive. I still liked writing and drawing Danny and everyone at the end of it but I was also starting to get offers that would help push my comics career further. Nearly everything about my life was telling me it was time to move on from this.

#Sorcery 101 #Writer Notes

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

asks (40)

Anonymous said: Holy frick that is so encouraging and I needed that so much bc I literally visited my college to measure my dorm room and drove home in tears bc I panicked myself into a frenzy about whether or not everything leading me to this point has been a mistake and what if I fail and ruin my life before it even starts (I have since calmed down a little) so your encouragement was much needed & is much appreciated

I’m glad I could help <3 <3 <3 Good luck at school! I’m sure you’ll kick its ass

areverieofchaosdreams said: It's Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day. So thank you for all your amazing stories!!!

Oh goodness I’m all a blushin :’)

Anonymous said: *HAPPY WRITER APPRECIATION DAY* Send this to someone whose talent has blown you away, who you'd like to encourage to keep on writing always, and who you'd like to thank for working their butt off to provide fandom members with breathtaking stories to consume! THANK YOU :D

Aw thank you!

Anonymous said: Hi! I Hope you're well! Do you still take fic requests? Because I really miss Colin Wilkes and I'd love to a story of him with your writing!

Unfortunately I don’t often take requests these days, but I’ll definitely keep Colin in mind!

dirtycherrypie said: hey! applying for WE for the R&D department (may or may not be aware of producing bat gadgets)

dirtycherrypie said: SHit forgot my name - Bea, at your service!

[Bruce Wayne voice] hired

tigers-and-weeds said: Literally just fell down the rabbit hole on your tumblr for the last 12-24 hours. I am in love with with you headcannons and fics! The angst feeds my soul... So I figured I would request: anything angsty with Dick and Damian please please please

Okay again I don’t usually take fic requests BUT I like me some angst so the odds that this will eventually happen.... are extremely high. I’ll try to remember to dedicate the next one to you :) And thank you!

math--ew said: I went on a little birthday vacation to california and I've never been to the beach before. I was bending down to grab a pretty shell and this huge wave knocked me face first into the sand. Like, five people saw and laghed but I got the shell so I guess it's a win win.

Duuuude back at Lake Michigan last month the same thing happened to me. I was taking care of my little sister and her five year old friend, so I was so busy making sure they were okay that the wave plowed me halfway across the beach

babybatbrat said: when i was in ap physics i once spent an entire study period in my physics teacher's room working on one problem. as far as i could tell i was doing all of the work correctly and had all the initial values right so i was racking my brain trying to figure out why i wasn't getting the right answer. the third time i went up to my teacher and asked for help he told me to start at the beginning and walk him through my process bc he couldn't tell why i was getting it wrong either (1)

babybatbrat said: (2) so i start the problem and explain how i got through all the values - "okay so the rod is 5 inches long and half of 5 is 3 and a half -" and i stopped there bc it occurred to me that 3.5 is not half of 5. "it's what?" My teacher asks. i put my head in my hands and stood there for a minute before picking up my work and walking to the back of the classroom while he laughed, bc i had just spent 45 minutes convinced that half of 5 was 3.5 and not, in fact, 2.5, and that was the only thing wrong

Honestly??? Relatable

babybatbrat said: One time i woke up at six in the morning to hear the neighbor's dog barking and instantly realized that meant my dog had jumped the fence, so i went racing outside and sprinted down the street to catch her. when i did i picked her up and turned around to go home and then saw my neighbor standing on their front porch, realized i was in only an oversized spiderman tshirt and snowman pajama shorts, holding a twenty pound labrador and thats how i met my new neighbors

Incredible...... 10/10.....

thrakaboom said: Not a funny story,but two days ago at comic con I met Tom King and he showed me a picture of his kids while he was signing my books

Well hey that’s pretty cool

Anonymous said: I adore your Tumblr. It was a wonderful way to get into the Batfamily fanbase; prior, I thought that there was only one Batman and a single Robin, dearie me was I wrong. And those stories you write, just great. The Headcanons are just as enjoyable. As for Batman, that has come to be a sibling enjoyment. Thank you for your contributions and existence!

!!!!!! Welcome to the crew!

frnkensteingrrrlz said: hey!!! i just went through ur reasons to be happy tag and!! i'm so so happy bc of it (esp the damian hcs, they're spot on imo and he's my favourite) so i hope u have a good day!!!

Thanks! I am having a good day today! Although I’m sure it’s been a long time since you sent this :////

Anonymous said: HELLO I have just discovered and binge-read all of your fics with my homeboy Damian in them, and just wanted to pop by and say that I love you & you are my hero & you write my boy so well so thank u and I hope your life is blessed & you achieve your wildest hopes & dreams

My day is made :D

badfaith00 said: Best batman storyline you've ever read ?

Ooooooh hm I’m mighty attached to n52 Batman and Robin? Particularly the first storyline, but the second is also fantastic

Anonymous said: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHAMELESSLY REBLOGGING YOUR OWN WORK BC I HADNT SEEN IT BEFORE AND ITS HONESTLY SO PHENOMENAL ITS GOING ON MY LIST OF ALL TIME FAVORITES THANK U AND BLESS U

THANK YOU!!! THAT ONE IS MY FAVORITE AND I AM VERY PROUD OF IT

onwardmotley said: In today's Detective Comics someone finally told Bruce and co that Tim's alive. They didn't explain where he is, or how to get him back, but hey. It might've had more impact if anyone was seen actually mourning Tim and it wasn't just played as him being in cosmic time out, but at least it should end soon idk. Hopefully.

Tim Drake? It’s been years since I heard that name.....

Finally. Thank goodness.

Anonymous said: Idk if I prefer your soul crushing angst or your heartwarming fluff... actually I like to suffer so I'll stay with angst lol

Y’all seeing this? Anon gave me permission. Can’t yell at me next time because it won't be my fault (thanks babe :))

Anonymous said: for music, idk what kind of music u like so here is variety: St. Vincent - Paris is Burning, Sea Wolf - Dear Fellow Traveler (tbh everything by Sea Wolf is great), Dirt Poor Robins - Eleanor Rigby, Between Wind and Water- HAEL, Ellem - Kings and Queens and Vagabonds, The Rigs - Rise & Fall, Tally Hall - Light and Night, and Streetlight Manifesto - The Hands that Thieve.

Thank you! I’m excited to listen to these! I’ll start right now!

Anonymous said: 1) What are the good comics to read for Batfamily stuff (from any point in time) and 2) what are the best Jason Todd comics? Thanks!

Okay for Jason I would definitely start with the big ones, which are A Death In the Family and Under the Red Hood. After that you could try Red Hood: the Lost Days and Countdown to Final Crisis. I would avoid the n52 series until you have a good enough grasp of the character to recognize bad writing when you see it. 

For the generalized batfam.... that’s pretty broad. My personal favorites are Red Robin, Batgirl (2009), and both B&R series. If you have more specific questions, you should IM me! I promise I’m better about answering those than asks

yellowwallsbluesky said: Have you heard Swooner by The Zolas? I've really been jamming to it lately

Listening to it right now! Sounds like a bop so far :)

Anonymous said: Hidden citizens paint it black 💜

Much obliged!

Anonymous said: Harry styles "sign of the times".

[adds to list] thank you!

neo669 said: I MISS CASA OLE!! Sorry just read that you lived in Bryan/College Station and I used to live there as well. It's kinda hard to find people that even know that it exists. But I'm sure you can kick law schools butt. You got this!

Yooooooo I miss cstat too :((((

palliddark said: Adalgiza, and I'll be a translator (English to Brazilian Portuguese)

[Bruce Wayne voice] also hired

maeofthedead said: I love your headcannons and now I sort of want to cry thank

Excellent that is the exact target response 

Anonymous said: Love your rant in the tags about the pizza making I'm laughing so hard

Listen..... I have strong feelings

Anonymous said: Did you hear they're making an omnibus of Tomasi's entire run on Batman & Robin?? I just heard and now I kinda want to get this massive book in honor of my favorite batkid and the series that made me love him so much

Man I already have all the individual volumes but if I didn’t......

sonicboom00724601 said: Hi. :) Nice headcanon. :)

I’m not sure which one you’re talking about, but thank you! You're real sweet

Anonymous said: can you maybe write an interaction between Wonder Woman and Captain America? I absolutely adore your style and would love to see your take on it.

Hmmmm I don’t really have a good enough grasp of Captain America’s characterization to try that one :////

Anonymous said: i tried to kill on mosquito that was on my ceiling by slamming it with a book but mosquito was on the move so i bounced swiftly and jammed both my wrist and thumb and now my existence is Pain. also my thumbs swelling and looks purple, so that's nice

Oh shit anon you good???

daziy said: Do we know who Barbara's mother usually is?

Yeah! In her original version, Babs had a birth mom and an adopted mom. She was originally Jim’s niece, so her birth mom’s name was Thelma Gordon. After the adoption, her parents were Jim and Barbara Gordon, with her adopted mother being her namesake. So two Barbara Gordons.

I think for awhile the canon was that her mother died in a car crash, but the current version has her still alive. She left Jim when Babs was young, taking her son (Babs’s brother) with her. James Gordon (the son) turned out to be a serial killer. 

Barbara Gordon Sr. and James Gordon Jr. both appeared in the n52 Batgirl series during the Death of the Family arc. There’s also a very good story about James from the Dickbats period. That one’s called The Black Mirror, if I’m not mistaken?

Anonymous said: Hi! What do you think of the upcoming metal event? Dick and Damian seem to have a big role in it ( I hope Jason is involved too but there's still no sign of it)

Hmmmm I don’t know that I have an opinion just yet, but as always, I hope to be pleasantly surprised 

Anonymous said: bless you are your wonderful tagging system. know that i may have avoided death because of how easy it was to f ind the thing I wanted in your tags. bless

Oh goodness anon I hope you’re not serious about almost dying.... but thanks?

Anonymous said: hi amy! would u say that damians narrative is written as a child abuse one? like there are definitely many allusions to it but its also not as explicit as say, cassandra or rose. like how much of it would u chalk up to comic world dynamics and how much to actual abuse? also would u consider jason to also be a case of this?

Oh I have very strong opinions about the role of abuse in Damian’s narrative. It’s absolutely there, and the effects are staggeringly large. There is no doubt in my mind that the league was an abusive environment, and I can’t justify some of the things Bruce did either.

I think I would say the same thing for Jason, if not quite as strongly. I definitely think that some of the things that happened to Jason as a child shaped his story later on, but less of those were abuse than outside circumstances. The n52 takes a different track on that one, I think, but I don’t put much stock in that characterization. 

Anonymous said: has jason forgiven bruce for not killing joker? if so, what made him?

Unlikely. They get along better these days, but I would argue that comes from poor characterization of Bruce, not an actual resolution process. 

mellenabrave said: My mom accidentlly threw my Damian doll away (╥_╥)

Tossed in the garbage by yet another parent--

Anonymous said: Whoa where'd you get that bat and oracle shirt you're wearing in your necklace pic? It's so cool! (The necklace is also gorgeous!)

Shoot I think it was from Redbubble? But I can’t find it now

Anonymous said: Omg that necklace was so cool!!! Kudos to the maker of it!! Also I really like your top!!

Thank you <3

#......dont look at me #listen i JUST got wifi again #asks

[aion-rsa]

Joker: DC Comics Reading Order - The Best Stories With the Clown Prince of Crime

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Has the Joker movie inspired you to read some comics? We've got some suggestions!

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The Joker is the most recognizable villain in all of comics, and as such, there are as many takes on him as there are creators who have worked on a Batman comic. Fortunately for us, for every Jared Leto out there, there are fifteen awesome comic stories. So if you’re coming out of the Joker movie with a thirst for more good, thoughtful, interesting stories using the Clown Prince of Crime, we’ve got some comics for you.

Batman: The Killing Joke

This is probably the most influential Joker story of all time. Alan Moore’s dense psychoanalysis of the Joker is formative to just about every writer who came afterwards, and Brian Bolland’s stunningly gorgeous pencils combined with John Higgins perfect colors to create an eerie, dark, vicious story that has become the generally accepted origin for the character.

read more: The Many Joker Origin Stories Explained

The story bounces back and forth between showing how an unnamed, down on his luck schmo got wrapped up in a heist that ended with him at the bottom of a pool of chemicals, and showing that schmo, now a criminal mastermind, kidnapping Commissioner Gordon and trying to drive him to the same kind of mental break that the story implies is at fault for the Joker’s creation. It’s the first one to really draw strong parallels between the Joker’s mental state and Batman’s, casting the two of them as two possible outcomes to the same break.

And did I mention it’s incredible to look at? Whether you’re a comics scholar or new to the medium, I can almost guarantee you’ve seen that cover, with the Joker holding a camera sideways in front of his face telling you to smile. 

Buy Batman: The Killing Joke on Amazon

Batman: The Man Who Laughs

Ed Brubaker isn’t often talked about as a seminal Batman writer, but he’s defined entire swaths of Batman’s world over his career, and The Man Who Laughs is a big one. This book, drawn by the great Doug Mahnke, takes a look at the Joker’s first interaction with Batman. He’s poisoning people all over Gotham City, and he has a plan to poison the reservoir. Batman works to stop him.

It’s a much more straightforward, less avant-garde Joker than he can get in later times, but the story is told with a modern sensibility and outstanding art from Mahnke. Brubaker (and Greg Rucka, who we’ll talk about in a few) writes detective Batman as well or better than anyone in a generation, and The Man Who Laughs is full of really great detective work with Bruce piecing together who the Joker is and what he’s trying to do. And the fight sequence at the end of the issue is good, classic, straight up Batman/Joker brawling. If you want a way to ease into Joker stories, this is a great one.

Buy Batman: The Man Who Laughs on Amazon

The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge

It’s not often an entire character can be distilled down to a single panel of comics, but Neal Adams effectively did that in Batman #251. Adams is a tremendous artist who changed the entire industry with his panel layouts and action sequences, but the Joker’s “ta daa!” hands and his smile next to a bearing down shark as he says “We resemble each other!” is incredible.

read more: What the Joker Controversy Gets Wrong

This one-off story has the Joker breaking out of a pre-Arkham Asylum mental hospital, hunting down the five ex-henchmen who might have betrayed him to put him away. Only one of them did, but he’s covering his bases, and the issue ends with a wheelchair-bound ex-aide precariously balanced over a tank with an angry shark in it. Batman gets dropped in and has to beat the shark and then save the henchman. It’s one of the best Batman sequences of all time, and the issue captures so much about the Joker that makes him great: his meticulous planning and forethought and his absurd, violent sense of humor. This one is collected in The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told and will likely be wrapped up in a Neal Adams omnibus sooner rather than later.

Buy The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge on Amazon

The Laughing Fish

Detective Comics #475-476 is another quick story that was incredibly influential on how both Batman and the Joker were portrayed moving forward. That importance stems from two things: the ridiculous, malicious joy of the Joker’s plot, and Marshall Rogers’ art.

The plot was turned into the episode of the same name for Batman: The Animated Series.  A fish wholesaler has made fish that look like the Joker for branding purposes, and the Joker, mad he can’t monetize his own visage the same way, goes on a killing spree to get his rights back. This is darkly hilarious, especially the deeper you dive into the metaphor - the mid ‘70s was a big time for comic creator rights, and Rogers was a big part of that. This comic is basically an effigy for comic creators rights.

read more: The Many Deaths of the Joker

It’s also incredible to look at. Rogers is one of those Batman artists everyone should read at some point, a definitive Batman artist who used the Joker to get even better. Rogers’ Batman is bulkier than some of the Batmen of the time, powerful and intimidating. By contrast, his Joker is long and lanky and bony, the kind of guy who hangs with Batman in a fight not with brute force, but with deceptive speed and a weird amount of torque. You can find these issues collected in Legends of the Dark Knight: Marshall Rogers vol. 1 along with another handful of Batman comics from the same era. These creator compilations are some of the best money you can spend. Especially if you get them on sale digitally or find them in a sale pile at your shop.

A Death in the Family

Great Joker stories are often about what they bring out in Batman. “Death in the Family,” an event story from 1988, is memorable because it brought out pure, shaking, rage from Bruce. This is the story where fans called in a vote on whether or not to kill Robin.

read more: The Actors Who Have Played the Joker

Jason Todd was the second person to hold the Robin mantle. He was a street kid who fell in with Batman and didn’t really know his mother. After he gets benched by Batman for being unreliable, he runs off to try and find out who his mother is, finds (maybe) her working for Shady Doctors Without Borders in Iran, and promptly gets captured by the Joker, beaten almost to death with a crowbar, and then blown up in a warehouse by said Clown Prince. And right afterwards, the Joker is given a position with the Ayatollah’s government and gains diplomatic immunity, effectively pulling a Lethal Weapon 2 on Batman and Superman.

This story is odd, but it’s also significant in the history of Batman, and revealing for the Joker’s character. He’s not all high-concept death traps. Sometimes he’s just a guy with a crowbar. In either case, he’s one of the most dangerous villains in the DCU.

Buy A Death in the Family on Amazon

Joker

If you really enjoyed Heath Ledger’s aesthetic in The Dark Knight, you’re going to love Lee Bermejo’s Joker in this book. He’s everything Ledger was in the movie - disheveled, magnetic, menacing without being intimidating - but he’s also fashionable in a street level mob boss kind of way. That break from Ledger’s Joker is the perfect match for this story.

read more: 10 Times the Joker Almost Nailed Batman

This Joker is grimy and street level. He’s EXTREMELY violent but without the comic book panache he usually has. Here he’s just aggressive, with bottles and guns and knives and no sharks or hot air balloons or parades. But he still maintains that core Jokerness, that unpredictability that makes the character so terrific. 

Buy Joker on Amazon

The Batman Adventures: Mad Love

Paul Dini and Bruce Timm are responsible for the greatest and most definitive Batman of all time - the animated one. They also created Harley Quinn, and told a bunch of great stories with her (“Harley’s Day Out” is one of the best Batman stories ever told), but Mad Love also functions as an excellent examination of Batman and Joker’s relationship.

If you’ve watched the show, you probably know what happens in this comic, as it was adapted in a later episode of the cartoon. The Joker won’t pay any attention to Harley because he’s obsessed with killing Batman, so she decides to do it for him so they can spend time together. We get a look back at her origin, working as a doctor at Arkham and falling for the Joker as she tries to treat him, with all the unreliable narration that entails. The weird hate-triangle this issue explores is a fantastic dynamic to add to the Joker’s backstory, and the issue is by a pair of Batman masters. 

Buy The Batman Adventures: Mad Love on Amazon

Gotham Central: Soft Targets

Gotham Central is incredible. It was a police procedural comic, following the cops of the Major Crimes Unit in Gotham as they worked on all of the various awful stuff that happened in the city, from regular old crimes of passion to a parade of dead teenagers in Robin outfits being left randomly across the city. It was written jointly by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, with Rucka writing the day shift cops, and Brubaker taking the night shift. "Soft Targets" is the storyline that ran from issue 12 to 15, where the Joker just starts sniping people. For the hell of it.

Police procedurals are comfort food, but Gotham Central succeeded because it added something to the formula that made it shine. The characters felt familiar and real at the same time. The conflicts were down to earth for a superhero comic - the first issue dedicates about a third of its story to the Mayor and the Commissioner arguing over overtime pay for the Major Crimes Unit. And even the Joker’s plan, spree killing for chaos’ sake, was remarkably toned down. But it gives us one of the best interrogation scenes in comics history, just by taking the Joker out of his predictable formula, too. 

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and The Clown at Midnight

A word of caution here: these books are challenging for even serious comic readers. They’re very rewarding, but they’re not comics you can just pick up an see the Joker and Batman fighting. Both are written by Grant Morrison, with Arkham Asylum drawn by Sandman cover artist Dave McKean. This book is a dense, psychological character study of a LOT of Batman’s villains, but it spends a lot of time on the relationship between Batman and the Joker, as Batman is in the Asylum trying to shut down a riot.

The Clown at Midnight is also written by Morrison and...drawn...by John Van Fleet. I hesitate because what art is there is very evocative, intentionally early period computer graphics. This issue, Batman #663, was published in 2007 (and again as part of the Batman & Son collected edition), but the art looks like it was made on a Compaq 486. That’s intentional - the issue is full of prose segments about how the Joker sheds old personalities like a snake sheds its skin. It’s a very granular way to understand who the Joker is and what he does, but it’s also very good - it’s part of Morrison’s larger Batman story that starts with Batman & Son, runs through R.I.P. and Batman & Robin and finally ends with Batman, Inc. Arkham Asylum is kind of a precursor to this run, so if you want to get started here, it’s worth doing both of these collections and seeing how you enjoy them.

Buy Arkham Asylum on Amazon

For more Joker comics you should read, more Joker movies you should watch, or more about the Joker’s best video game appearances (spoilers: #1 is Shang Tsung’s fatality in Mortal Kombat X), stick with Den of Geek!

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature Jim Dandy

Oct 9, 2019

DC Entertainment

Joker

Batman

from Books https://ift.tt/35ePMml

#aion-rsa #Books

[chadnevett]

Random Thoughts! (November 14, 2017)

Another one of those random updates where it eventually just fizzles into "I did/read/listened/watch this and... I have nothing to say...?"

* Real life update: work is busy, Ryan turned four, Michelle and I have been married for five years... From that, you'd think I were a proper adult or something. Like most 'proper adults,' I usually feel like a younger version of myself who is faking his way through every single day, afraid that someone will eventually notice that I'm a fraud... Still just faking it until I make it. Some people say that you never feel like you make it.

* My bank account will soon be taking a hit with Christmas and a few personal purchases. Some new albums, the first Dan Jurgens Thor omnibus (I'd briefly deleted my Amazon order until I saw the price dropped by fifty bucks...), that Robert Rodi Thor collection, the Wildstorm 25th anniversary hardcover... It's taking a lot of willpower to not buy the Thor vs. Hulk collection, too...

* Comics I'm enjoying: Mister Miracle is all atmosphere and works quite well at that (listen to new issues with MASS:LIGHT by Murray Lightburn on -- perfect album for that comic thus far). As always, Thor is nice. I'm looking forward to Kieron Gillen's Star Wars run. Jason Aaron's run had kind of begun to spiral into "Oh yeah, I read that comic still, I guess..." territory. I'm surprised at how much I dig the new Darth Vader series. Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses is brilliant. The latest issue was one of the weirder ones... The Wild Storm and its spin-off Michael Cray are both quite good (surprise surprise).

* From the Thorsday Thoughts where I discussed Marvel Legacy #1:

So much of this comic is "Look at this concept! Won't that be cool when we tell an actual fucking story about it?" Stone Age Avengers! Diseased Celestial! Ghost Rider fighting Starbrand! A bunch of one-page teasers! Something something Fantastic Four something! Wolverine has the Mind Gem Stone (fuck you, Kevin Feige, you fucking asshole) and is back from the dead even though Old Man Wolverine has been around since pretty much when Less Old Man Wolverine died! You know how much I got from the comic that I didn't get from interviews and summaries and post-release interviews?

Dick all.

Thorsday Thoughts continues to be a weekly newsletter that I write about Thor comics every Thursday. Well, I guess not just comics soon as I have the next three weeks mapped out: Mighty Thor #700, Thor in the MCU thus far, and, then, Thor: Ragnorak, written once I get home from seeing the movie on the Thursday night it premieres... So, sign up and enjoy. Lately, I've been writing "MANGOG IS COMING" a lot. And, as you can see above, I've got some new Thor books coming in, so lots of comics to use as material. The one on Rangorak will be the first one of year two of the newsletter. It's a thing I continue to do.

* I recently read The Force by Don Winslow and Difficult Men by Brett Matin. The former was like all of The Shield crammed into a single novel and not as good. But, enjoyable. The latter is a book about TV from The Sopranos up through Breaking Bad. It was interesting and well worth the $1.25 I paid for it at Dollar Tree.

* Michelle and I have been rewatching (or, eventually in some cases, watching for the first time) some Marvel movies. She wanted to, because they're dumb and fun and enjoyable. I wanted to rewatch the four with Thor in them for Thorsday Thoughts. I'll talk about Thor more there, but this was the first time I watched it beginning to end since seeing it in theatres and it was better than I remember. The Loki stuff was better.

* That recent Joe Casey collection Annual was really great. Just my sort of thing, of course. I like how his sons each did a strip that he inked. That was a surprise. Otherwise, it collected a bunch of stuff that I didn't have already (along with a couple of text bits from issues of Sex that I do have). It's a nice contrast to his work on the Catalyst Prime books (he's got a third one starting soon...), which... well, let's see where they go. Currently, they're in that "Joe Casey obsessive/expert" territory of reading where I do it for the children. Because, some day, someone will remember me and that I'm the Joe Casey guy and ask if those books are any good and I'll feel like I should provide an answer longer than two words. I think the third one is about a Superman analogue. That could be fun. After all, Casey (co-)wrote the best Superman analogue and, then, did the most interesting year on Superman since he died.

* Related: once a year or so, I'll look on my bookshelf, see the Poptopia trade and I'll read the first issue of Casey's Uncanny X-Men run again. Someday, I'll figure that issue out and see exactly what he was going for. I haven't yet.

* Taking a break from wrestling right now... not enough time... not enough quality... Not a hard and fast rule or anything. I just haven't been making an effort to watch anything lately.

* Jim Starlin is doing more Thanos graphic novels -- with Alan Davis on art. That's both good and bad. Good for obvious reasons; bad only in the sense that, of their two books together thus far, I didn't find them to be a good match. It felt off. I love both of their work, but something about them together just doesn't work for me like it should. Not that that will stop me from buying anything and everything they do together. Maybe I'll figure it out.

* I've been wondering lately like why Coke doesn't bring New Coke back as a thing. I've never tried New Coke. I'm curious what it was like. I get that it failed and everyone hated it -- but that was as a replacement, not as an alternative version. I think it would do well in a 3-month release or something. Failing that, just give me fucking raspberry coke in bottles.

* Finally saw Machete Kills. It started as a swerve to a James Bond flick, except with Danny Trejo as Bond (which we should all be up for) and, then, it became something else, eventually ending terribly. I caught the end of the first one on TV a couple of weeks back and, man, that is the movie for 2017 if there is one. Go back and watch Machete and see how it was made for now.

* They're making a Teen Titans Go! movie. Can my son and I buy tickets yet?

That's it. I need to go wake up my wife, because she always falls asleep when she puts Ryan to bed.

#random thoughts #thorsday thoughts #jason aaron #comics #jim starlin #joe casey #movies #books #don winslow

[whatmattered]

About TV show Lucifer, plot, main characters, recap

About TV show Lucifer, plot, main characters, recap Lucifer is an American TV series created by Tom Kapinos. Tom Kapinos is an American television writer and screenwriter best known for his creation of the Showtime series Californication and the Fox series Lucifer. Welcome to Devil time. Lucifer based upon the characters from DC Entertainment's Vertigo engrave, "Lucifer" is the series tell about the story of Lucifer Morningstar,  after being cast out and fallen from Heaven, he was the Lord of Hell, who has abandoned his throne, decides to spend some time on Earth to better understand humanity. He settles in Los Angeles, the City of Angels. The best part of the series is, the Devil As Hero.

Plot of Lucifer

lucifer tv show plot The series revolves around Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis), the Devil, who is exhausted and troubled as the Lord of Hell. He leaves his honored position in insubordination to his dad (God) and surrenders his kingdom for Los Angeles, where he ends up running his nightclub "Lux". Charming, charismatic and devilishly attractive, Lucifer is making the most of his retirement, enjoying a couple of his preferred things wine, ladies and song. Through the investigation of the passing of a human friend, he  finds himself matched up (in a way) with Detective Chloe Decker, who tries to punish people for their crimes through law and justice. Now he wants to make his own path. He helps humankind with its agonies through his experience and telepathic capacities to bring people's deepest desires and thoughts out of them.

Main characters in Lucifer

The main characters of Lucifer are, Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar, Lauren German as Detective Chloe Decker, Kevin Alejandro as Detective Daniel "Dan" Espinoza, D. B. Woodside as Amenadiel, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Mazikeen, and Rachael Harris as Dr. Linda Martin. Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar

Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar Lucifer Morningstar, some time ago Samael, is the main character of Lucifer. He was the brightest and most powerful of all of God's angels and leader of Hell. He is normally known as the Devil or Satan by people. Having grown tired of ruling the Underworld for billions of years, after being cast out and tumbled from Heaven, Lucifer intentionally left his position in Hell to become a club owner in Los Angeles. His personal guardian is the demon Mazikeen. Lucifer started working with L.A.P.D. homicide detective Chloe Decker. This position gave him an outlet to punish sinners. But when evil spirits came to Earth to raise troubles, Lucifer chose to come back to Hell, to govern as their king again to keep them contained. Lauren German as Detective Chloe Decker

Lauren German as Detective Chloe Decker in Lucifer She is a homicide detective working in Los Angeles as a member of the L.A.P.D. Chloe's dad was a detective with the L.A.P.D., while her mom was an inferior on screen character. Before Chloe was conceived, God sent Amenadiel to Earth to bless a couple that had trouble conceiving a child. When she began working at the L.A.P.D., Chloe met Dan Espinoza. They later married and had a little girl named Beatrice (nicknamed "Trixie"). Chloe and Dan were separated, as she accepts he would consistently put work before his family and never set aside a few minutes for them. While examining a homicide at the Lux club, Chloe experiences Lucifer Morningstar. She is helped by Lucifer looking into the issue before falling in love with the fallen angel. Kevin Alejandro as Detective Daniel "Dan" Espinoza

Kevin Alejandro as Detective Daniel Dan Espinoza in lucifer Daniel "Dan" Espinoza is a homicide detective in Los Angeles, working as a member of the LAPD. Dan is the ex-husband of Chloe Decker. Together, they had a daughter named Trixie. Dan dislikes Lucifer  due to Lucifer calling him "Detective Douche" and his connection to Dan's ex-wife, Chloe Decker. Dan blames Lucifer for Charlotte's death, even when it was Pierce's fault. As a result, he becomes bitter and deluded. D. B. Woodside as Amenadiel

D. B. Woodside as Amenadiel in lucifer Amenadiel is the eldest child of God and Goddess. Amenadiel loyally serves God. After Lucifer's rebellion, Amenadiel took his mom to Hell under his dad's orders. Amenadiel was the one that gave Cain his mark. He was made by his dad God many billions of years ago, and he is among the most dominant holy messengers at any point made by God. Amenadiel came to Earth on many occasions to persuade Lucifer to come back to Hell. Lesley-Ann Brandt as Mazikeen

Lesley Ann Brandt as Mazikeen in lucifer Mazikeen is a demon from Hell.  While Lucifer was the king of Hell, she faithfully served him. Lucifer has called her "one of the strongest and most powerful demons who ever lived". She tortured Goddess for thousands of years. she worked for Lucifer as a servant, lieutenant, enforcer, assistant and right-hand woman and worked with Lucifer at the Lux nightclub in Los Angeles. After that start a new career as a bounty hunter with the LAPD. Rachael Harris as Dr. Linda Martin

Rachael Harris as Dr. Linda Martin in lucifer Linda Martin is a therapist living in Los Angeles.  Lucifer Morningstar goes to see her as his therapist. She was married to Reese Getty but had been separated from him. She told Lucifer and Chloe about Delilah's relationship with a famous celebrity in exchange for sex with Lucifer. Want to know about another popular TV series Jane the Virgin in interested in Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie Once Upon a time in Hollywood?

Recap from Lucifer

Lucifer Season 1

lucifer season 1 Lucifer Morningstar the Lord of Hell, he leaves the hell and retired to L.A. Running a nightclub "Lux". He meets with detective,  Chloe Decker, during the Delilah’s murder investigation. They solve cases together. Lucifer becoming interested by her compassion for mankind, which causes a battle between his temptation toward the side of Good and his original calling toward Evil. At the point when Lucifer is near Chloe it makes him mortal. He spared her life during that deadly shooting in the pilot.  Homicide detective Malcolm Graham who turned out a gangsters and underground criminal. Chloe follow Malcolm to Palmetto Street, then unknown third party killing both gang members and sending Malcolm into a coma. Dan Espinoza was the third party, who completed the deed just to spare Chloe's life. Amenadiel saved Malcolm's life so as to enroll him to his motivation. Lucifer turned Malcolm against Amenadiel with a “get out of Hell free” token. Lucifer Season 2

lucifer season 2 Lucifer’s mother has escaped Hell, Lucifer and Amenadiel working together to find their mother. Lucifer’s mom wasn’t evil, she’s not there to kill him. Maze tortured her in the hell.  Chloe got Lucifer's blood and she's moving to test it to discover who he truly is. Chloe clearly needs answers. All Chloe has to know is that Lucifer is great at what he does, and it helps her become better detective. Lucifer was finally able to reconcile with his mother and send her to a place where she could be happy. A decision Lucifer was at last prepared to give Chloe by being straightforward before his awakening with his freaking wings back.

Lucifer Season 3

lucifer season 3 Lucifer’s wings appeared, and Devil face taken away. Charlotte was a lost woman when she returned to Earth, she suffered in Hell, she got a second chance to make herself perfect. She fought to change herself, and was from that point carried to heaven by Amenadiel. Amenadiel regained his angel wings.  Dan is broken by Charlotte’s death. Linda and Maze make up.  Lucifer finally kills Pierce/Cain and his devil face returned. Chloe sees his real face and accepts that everything he ever told her is real.

Lucifer Season 4

lucifer season 4 Chloe having an issue with seeing Lucifer's actual self. Lucifer feeling down about that dismissal. Eve appears and Lucifer doesn't really discover joy with her.  Dan is dealing with his grief over Charlotte and looking to blame and takedown Lucifer however he can.  Maze will be an auntie to Charlie, Linda and Amenadiel's son. Chloe tells Lucifer that she loves him. He returns her declaration, telling her, "My first love was never Eve. It was you, Chloe. It always has been." And with a kiss goodbye, Lucifer returns to hell to rule as its king.

Final words

It’s part fantasy drama, part buddy-cop comedy, and one of the best comic series TV right now. By his very nature, Lucifer is overwhelming to nearly everybody and he has the extraordinary capacity to compel individuals deepest desires. Each episode deals with a different crime, murder or mystery, which is usually solved at the end of episode. Lucifer Morningstar originally appeared as a supporting character in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, making his debut in 1989. He plays Lucifer as the ultimate sexual playboy, who’s a bit of a man child with serious daddy issues but has a reluctant heart of gold. The show is full of strong, fierce and intelligent female characters.Lucifer is the ruler of clever, amusing and suggestive jokes. Netflix renewed the series for the fifth and final season of 16 episodes. Here are some more good reads not only from the writer himself Lucifer Book OneLucifer: The Complete Third Season The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil Lucifer and The Hidden Demons: A Practical Grimoire from The Order of Unveiled Faces Lucifer Omnibus Vol. 1 Lucifer: Complete Series Seasons 1-3 DVD Read the full article

#lucifermorningstar #lucifertvseries #lucifertvshow #tomellisaslicifer

[witchcraftnow]

I don’t know, sir. Was it Molotov?

This was going to become another abandoned project. Not in totality, the seeds of it would have been scattered on, but this particular iteration of what I intended to do: Go through The Invisibles issue by issue and write about it from the perspective of a practicing witch, wasn’t going to happen. But I found spontaneous cause to re-read issue #1, and it’s buzzing with such synchronicity for me at this moment that I think this is actually going to happen. Obviously, SPOILERS if you haven’t read the series, definitely for the issue currently being discussed, and possibly for the series as a whole, but I will try to preserve the overarching Mystery of the series as much as possible and only discuss what is necessary and vital for my own ongoing practice. "And so we return and begin again.” We open with pyramids and scarabs; life, death, and rebirth. And Molotov cocktails. This won’t be a close reading but a series of impressions and significances. We begin with this theme of returning, and just as I’m returning to read this, almost every “good guy” character in the first issue is in some state of time displacement. Some of this is only cryptic suggestion at this point, to be explored later (King Mob looks pretty young, how can he be “the same today” as in 1924). But the protagonist of this arc, Dane McGowan, classic “troubled youth” sees ghosts, sees “DEAD BEATLE$” Oh. Beatles, I just got that, another scarab reference. Dead Beatles, deadbeats, death and rebirth and “godhead made of living music.” This is where Grant Morrison’s magical author avatar, his “fiction suit,” does his somewhat embarrassing but even now somewhat captivating (to me anyway) “John Lennon summoning.” You can find the result of that ritual here, at a panel with Gerard Way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP22pAOVlVI This brings up two important points. One, so much of this series is about fame and aspiration, something I’ve found not to be the false consciousness or debased distraction it often assumed to be in many “spiritual” or leftist circles. Fame is a key aspect of Glamour, something any magician who uses smoke and mirrors to reach other worlds must grapple with.

The big ol’ omnibus I have of The Invisibles, released near the end of the world in 2012, opens with an introduction from Gerard Way. He describes meeting Grant Morrison at the DC Comics offices and being blown away with an immediate sense of: HOLY SHIT IT’S KING MOB!!! But by now, from his tenure in My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way is more famous than Grant Morrison has ever been, and the moment described in the introduction is echoed (perhaps more profanely, but no less powerful for it) in the above video when Grant Morrison says, “Look, Gerard Way’s getting my guitar!” When Dane McGowan sees his ghosts of “Dead Beatles,” Stuart Sutcliffe is morosely discussing leaving the band, to which John Lennon replies, “I don’t know why you’re going on about death, anyway, you’re only leaving a *band*, Stu. It’s not the end of the fucking world.” But Stuart Sutcliffe would die a few years later. And from Dane’s perspective, he’s also right to say, “Maybe we *are* dead, John. We could be dead and not know it.” The Invisibles is filled with these little moments, these nexuses in time where ships pass each other in the night, where one party “misses the boat,” and the other rides off for glory. And usually at some other moment, those fortunes reverse. Here at the crossroads. This is also where Dane re-meets his childhood imaginary friend. And it’s moments like the one described above, combined with this connection to childhood, combined with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s conviction that he as an octogenarian can heal his childhood self through his magical cinematic memoirs... that has made me think I might be able to do the same thing, and attempt time travel. Point two of the aforementioned duo: One of the reasons the John Lennon ritual is a bit embarrassing is that John Lennon was such a little shit, abusive, misogynistic, racist; contrary to the glamour he’s been given as an avatar of love. And at that, the Beatles, while significant, are pretty monumentally overrated in the big scheme of things. But at this point in the timeline, I reflect upon how much I love and find solace in the work of particular artists inspired by the Beatles (most significantly Grant Morrison and Julie Taymor), even if the position of the Beatles themselves in the canon is a bit grating at best, and counter-revolutionary at worst. And I think about a connection I didn’t think to make upon first read-through: What if Dane McGowan is intended as some kind of rebirth of John Lennon? A do-over. A chance to make the real person more like the avatar. Dane is kind of a little shit at the start of the story, and pointedly so. Nowhere near as horrific as some of the stories about John Lennon (he is still a kid at this point, after all), but certainly misogynistic and transphobic. He has to unlearn these patterns, and ultimately die as the old Dane, to progress as a magician, to become Invisible. This is one of the core arcs of the series overall. A child of poverty and neglect who becomes a Buddha. Through, I would argue, something quite similar to vanguardism. The melancholy with which the series reflects upon the various missed opportunities for a more liberatory history is countered by a bright, powerful, fearless joy that in moments is utterly convincing: time travel is possible, those lost histories can be reborn. Those alternate universes still exist in latent form, and can be brought to bear upon the present, can be made to shape Reality. Fitting then, that the issue also opens with a reflection on unity and division within the Left, Dane’s teacher explains: “We’re going to be looking at the ways in which the early links between communist theory and other radical political movements were *severed* following the revolution.” As a Marxist-Leninist myself, I may have a different perspective on that severance than some of my anarchists friends, but I think we’d agree that the Left is in many ways lesser for it. I think the USSR was vitally necessary for global liberation, and the world would be a hell of a lot worse off without it, but that doesn’t mean that the different sides of the various schisms within the Left have nothing to learn from each other. Maybe it’s time to crack open that old Bread book after all. And it’s so interesting that a Kropotkin reference should play such a key role in this issue. I had just been looking him up earlier today after witnessing a Facebook argument between Marxists and anarchists where both sides were accusing each other of not being sufficiently materialistic. And Marxism has materially *worked*. But there is always more material to be found in our failed attempts, its potential coiled tight and ready be let loose on the world. We should be realistic about our current dialectic, but it is possible, through science and magic, to travel to worlds outside it. And to bring something back. I want to conclude with a reflection on a failed effort of mine. For a long time, when I was still a practicing Buddhist, I had planned on writing and directing an ongoing film series called American Kensho. Only the first one was ever completed. I have been planning for a while on finally making a link to it public, with a message to collaborators and crowdfunding patrons about how we might reward their patience on years-delayed rewards, given the radical change in direction of my life and practice. I’m not a Buddhist anymore, though I know that path works very well for countless people around the world. And some of them may even be able to render it compatible with witchcraft. But I could not, and the Devil won out in the end. As such, the ideology of the film is no longer exactly what I’d ascribe to. I’d no longer be interested in associating the Devil with the various markers of oppression the villains in this film obviously embody, nor would it be acceptable to have only the bad guys speak in tongues. But it’s still a film I’m very proud of, and there are seeds of what I would become within it. Apple seeds perhaps, because what’s making me post this film first here rather than in that more sober announcement is the character of Julia, and striking parallels to the introduction of Ragged Robin in The Invisibles. Julia (in a comic shop no less) similarly muses on apples and Eve. And just as one of my favorite scenes in the film involves Julia reading Tarot, we first meet Ragged Robin pulling the Moon card (in a setting I can’t help let remind me of several of the locations in our film). But the card is reversed. While Julia seems to deeply believe in the Tarot, uses it urgently, Ragged Robin is listless and “thinks it’s bullshit.” While Julia, “rather thinks Eve had it right,” Ragged Robin “isn’t going to fall for that one.” But she takes the apple anyway. And this would make King Mob, who offers the apple, the Devil. “Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”

https://vimeo.com/cell23/manifestdestiny

#the invisibles #witchcraft #marxism #devil

[recentanimenews]

Manga the Week of 8/18/21

SEAN: Mid-August, and I cannot confirm this, but I imagine it’s hot. At least here in North America. Australia might be saying something different.

Airship, in print, gives us Adachi and Shimamura 6 and Mushoku Tensei 12.

Digitally, the early debut is The Haunted Bookstore – Gateway to a Parallel Universe (Wagaya wa Kakuriyo no Kashi Honya-san), a fantasy about a girl who lives in a bookstore that caters to spirit people. Then one day she rescues a boy from an exorcist family! Can she convince him all spirits aren’t evil?

ASH: This appeals to me on multiple levels.

MELINDA: Okay, same.

SEAN: There’s also The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter 5.

Cross Infinite World has a 2nd volume of the enjoyable but exhausting to say title Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends: The Figurehead Queen Is Strongest At Her Own Pace.

Dark Horse has the 2nd and final What’s Michael: Fatcat Collection, rounding up the rest of what Dark Horse published from this classic 80s manga.

MICHELLE: Oh, hey! I was wondering what had happened with this.

ASH: Glad to see it finally coming out! I love the series and am happy to see it back in print.

MELINDA: Oh!!

SEAN: Ghost Ship debuts Shiori’s Diary (Shiori no Nikki), from Nihon Bungeisha’s Manga Goraku Special. A wife finds a diary showing evidence of her husband’s many affairs, so decides to start a diary of her own… and start having sex with others as well. From what I hear, this is more ‘high tone’ than Ghost Ship’s usual fare.

ASH: Huh!

SEAN: They’ve also got Destiny Lovers 7 and the final volume of Yokai Girls.

J-Novel Club has some nice print stuff for us this week. We get the debut in print of The Unwanted Undead Adventurer, which is a skeleton isekai, but this one is a kinder, gentler skeleton.

MICHELLE: I was not prepared for the existence of the skeleton isekai genre.

ANNA: Nor was I.

MELINDA: Well, huh.

SEAN: Also debuting in print is the manga omnibus of The Faraway Paladin (which is also getting an anime soon). If you ever wondered what Superman would be like in a high fantasy world, this is not far off. This has Vol. 1-2.

ASH: I’m still waiting for the original novels to be released in print (supposedly coming next year!), but I’ll take the manga in the meantime.

Also out in print: Ascendance of a Bookworm 9 (aka Part 3, Vol. 2); By the Grace of the Gods 5; In Another World with My Smartphone 17; and Otherside Picnic Omnibus 2, with Vol. 3-4.

Digitally, J-Novel Club has Can Someone Please Explain What’s Going On?! 6, Mapping: The Trash-Tier Skill That Got Me Into a Top-Tier Party 6, Otherside Picnic 5, Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke: This Time I’m Gonna Tell Her How I Feel! 2, and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen: The Wayward Journey 13.

In print, Kodansha brings us the latest Kaoru Yuki title, Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost (Rakuen no Bijo to Yajuu). This runs in Kodansha’s Palcy, and is probably in the artist’s usual genre of “is this romance, horror, or both?”.

MICHELLE: That cover is great.

ANNA: Good to see more Kaoru Yuki coming out.

ASH: Ooooh! Kaoru Yuki!

MELINDA: Oh, I’m so excited!

SEAN: They’ve also got That Wolf-Boy Is Mine! Omnibus 1, containing the first two volumes.

Also in print: Blue Period 4, the 16th and final volume of Boarding School Juliet, and Go with the Clouds, North-by-Northwest 5.

The digital debut may be more familiar to mystery fans: The Decagon House Murders (Jukkakukan no Satsujin), a manga based on the classic mystery novel. A mystery club travels to a remote island to solve an unsolved murder… but is this really all it seems? Umineko fans will find a lot of this rings a bell.

MICHELLE: I’m looking forward to this one!

ASH: Oh, nice! I enjoyed the novel, so will want to check the adaptation out, too.

SEAN: Also out: Cells NOT at Work 4, Nina the Starry Bride 4, Undead Girl Murder Farce 3, and Will It Be the World or Her? 8.

One Peace debuts a new title: I Belong to the Baddest Girl at School (Pashiri na Boku to Koi suru Banchou-san), a Kadokawa series from Young Ace Up. A boy is being used as an errand boy and bully victim by the girl gang leader of the school… or so he thinks. She’s actually trying (badly) to confess. I am always down for banchou girls.

ASH: Same!

SEAN: Also from One Peace, the 5th manga volume of The Reprise of the Spear Hero.

Seven Seas debuts Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero (Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha), a title from Houbunsha’s Comic Fux that seems to be part of the popular ‘demon lord in modern Japan’ genre.

They also have Slow Life In Another World (I Wish!) (Isekai de Slow Life o (Ganbou)), an Overlap series from Comic Gardo. A reincarnated guy does his best to avoid conflict in his new world… but he’s getting attacked, he’s getting slaves, and he’s getting more problems.

There’s also Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor 12, The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue 3, Arifureta: from Commonplace to World’s Strongest 7th manga volume, Magical Angel Creamy Mami and the Spoiled Princess 2, School Zone Girls 2, Superwomen in Love! Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit 2, and Thigh High: Reiwa Hanamaru Academy 2.

ASH: I’ll have to admit, despite greatly enjoying the original series, I have yet to actually try any of the spinoffs of The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

Viz has a new Junji Ito manga, Sensor. Is anyone else reminded of the days when an Arina Tanemura manga would come out from Viz every month? It seems like we’re at that point with Ito.

ANNA: I would like to read more Arina Tanemura manga!

ASH: As would I! And more Junji Ito for that matter.

SEAN: Also from Viz: Asadora! 3, Assassin’s Creed: Blade of Shao Jun 2, Golden Kamuy 23, Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt 16, Urusei Yatsura Omnibus 11, and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead 3.

Yen On debuts the print version of Megumi Hayashibara’s The Characters Taught Me Everything: Living Life One Episode at a Time, which had a digital version out a while back. This memoir is part talking about roles she’s had over the years and part self-help book.

ASH: I’m looking forward to this one.

SEAN: Yen On also has Baccano! 17, which wraps up the 1700s arc (and might seem familiar to anime fans), and Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki 6.5, which, as you may have guessed from the number, is a short story volume.

What manga will you read no matter which continent you’re on?

By: Sean Gaffney

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf