RDE episode 1 is LIVE! Also, ahh, I was suspended from Twitter.
No time for me today? Here are the highlights:
RDE episode 1 is FINALLY LIVE
I got suspended from Twitter and have thoughts
There actually is some good 2020 news
HEY. Big announcement.
Ronin Digital Express episode 1.01, "Nashi," is now live. I'm officially a comic creator.
If you want to skip all the other bullshit in this newsletter, you can just click here to read it now.
I hope you like it. There were definitely some lessons learned for me. And episode 2 will be a lot quicker coming than this one, don't worry. I want to get at least 4 in the can by the end of the year.
Now some BTS.
Here's a scene that got cut from the final:
Ultimately, I just didn't have any room for it. It's a good world-building scene that shows you a bit about Sheji's economy, but I was never crazy about the design of the tech.
I really love that bit about "it's a promise" and that bamboo scroll holder with emergency tape is KEY to the Green-Eyed Ronin's story, so I wanted to get a chance to introduce it early, but alas, this page just didn't work.
And I couldn't figure out how to actually color it. I think I went with heavy chiaroscuro in the pencil stage without thinking about the lighting. Really I imagined something like the Blade Runner 2049 archivist's desk:
But I also wanted a grayish-green atmosphere from the rain and just couldn't bring it together.
The lesson? Next time think about your colors and light sources.
Idiota!
Also, here is my favorite splash from the episode, which is cut off in the Webtoon version.
It took forever, but I'm proud of it. See it in all its glory below:
This Spider-Man drawing will not leave me alone.
For about a month it was just the figure. I thought about putting Pete upside down on a ceiling of sorts, on a fire escape, next to a taxi or newspaper stand, and drew about a half-dozen options and nothing worked.
Finally I put together this cityscape background and I think this is the right one.
Now I don't know how to color it. And that's not just because I don't really know how to color yet.
All I know is I want Spidey's lenses to be yellow. I goddamn love yellow Spidey lenses. There's something so 90s and MTV about it.
Anyway, maybe I'll do some color studies. A sunset, night time with yellow light from below, etc.
I'll keep you posted, but I'm quite proud of this so far.
I got suspended from Twitter recently and learned absolutely nothing from the experience.
So the question posed by @NOIRComics was something like, "what's your online personality" or something like that, so I answered the above.
Closer friends than Twitter followers know I have a temper and can be occasionally obtuse and insensitive. This is something I'm hyper-vigilant of, and yeah, I've done some therapy.
In attempt to mitigate this character defect, I tend to be someone who is very quick to take full responsibility, apologize without conditions, and accept the consequences of whatever I did. Do the crime, do the time.
Anyway, the rant here is around the word "cunt." Sure, it's crass. But did it end up taking on some cultural baggage somewhere I'm not aware of? Has it become a specific go-to slur reliably deployed by some hyper-online alt-right group or something? What does this mean for Irish and Australian Twitter users? Come to think of it, I don't often run into many...
Any insight would be appreciated. I'd like to keep using the word if possible without the timeout.
Let's also take a moment to comment on the fact that Twitter is a place rife with terrorist recruitment, Russian bots spreading propaganda, racism, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, Antifa, MAGA, etc. etc. ad nauseam. But do go and punish an independent comic creator whose only crime insofar as I can gather is not buying an ad. That's just rich.
I really wish there was an alternative for artists. I wish something like Vero had taken off.
Instagram's algorithm is all eaten up by those cancerous re-post accounts, and Twitter is consumed in political toxicity from all sides.
Yeah I'll go there and "both sides" it. And it's because I'm no better. I'll log on to post some art, get lost in some kind of spiral about some -phobic thing someone said, see giant threads posted by people with squirrel avatars, and read a bunch of comments trying to figure out what's true and who's overreacting and just like that, an hour of my life is gone forever and I forgot to post any art, which according to people like Tristan Harris, is entirely the point, as long as I saw as many ads for sunglasses as possible.
Anyway I appealed the decision and in a surprise to no one, it stood.
As for me and my house, I hold that I never promoted violence against any group, and never would.
I may have no power over an arbitrary decision from an international corporation, or anything more than a whisper in the shrill mob dynamics of online discourse, and I agree by this point I'm thinking about this way too much (have we met?) but I know what's true about who I am and what I think and I just wanted that on the record somewheres.
Cunts.
I'm a recent convert to Spaghetti Westerns with a pulpy vibe and old samurai movies directed by the likes of Akira Kurosawa.
Being the product of the crossover-heavy 21st Century that I am, I've been thinking it's such a shame that there was never a movie that brought East and West together for an epic adventure, except, hold on, there was:
This is Red Sun, directed by the guy that brought us arguably the best Connery Bond movies, Terence Young, and starring Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, gods in flesh if there ever were any.
It also stars Ursula Andress, Alain Delon, and Capucine in strong supporting roles. If you don't know a lot about old movies, this is an international star-studded cast of A-listers from nearly every continent.
I'm struck wondering why it took so long for me to hear about it. Only one film nerd friend of mine knew it existed.
That friend said it was one of those films that "delivered and disappeared," which seems to be right. It's a well-done movie with a good story and great performances, but it lacks some of that epic flavor and dramatic heft of a Once Upon a Time in the West.
It's an out-and-out genre romp held back slightly by a terrible dub for Mifune and a few other missing pieces, but it also features a showdown between Mifune and a Comanche, so that alone is worth the $2 it costs to rent it on Amazon Prime for the comic book writers out there.
Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think. This movie has got me thinking about a comics project I've been mulling on for a little while...
Also, some good news (at least for me):
This is probably too arcane and regional to be relatable, so I won't dwell.
But if you used to live in the southern-midwest and now live in Wisconsin like me, this is a "never thought I'd see it while I was alive" headline.
Yeah, I'd prefer a vaccine + new president too, but I'll take my rays of sunshine where I can get them.
That's all for now.
Thank you for your support. It really means a lot.
Be good.
*rent