Abandoned Projects: Julia

This is the start of a recurring feature I’m going to call “Abandoned Projects.”

These projects are all stories I shelved for one reason or another: whether the reasons be it was too cliche, I didn’t have the artistic expertise, I got older and lost interest, it didn’t have an end in sight, or any other reason.

Why am I sharing them? Because

  1. I can, and
  2. I want to know if you’re interested in seeing these ideas actually become stories.

The first abandoned project I want to bring up is actually one of my oldest. I started scripting this back in high school and actually convinced the art teacher (somehow) that I should do this as an assignment for an actual grade. It was a project I legit wanted to make at the time, and I wanted to send it to Yen Press when they started doing annual talent searches.

It’s called Julia, and it was my retelling of The Little Mermaid.

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Julia was the youngest of seven sisters, and it was a right of passage among them that they go to the surface and see the world above.

Some saw dogs, others saw ships, the second youngest found a way to climb an iceberg and wave to passing ships, causing one of them to wreck, that kind of thing.

Julia’s first sight above the water is fireworks firing off from a ship. It’s the prince’s birthday, and she goes to investigate. And she falls in love with him at first fight.

Unfortunately, one of the fireworks catches the mast on fire and the prince falls overboard. As Julia goes to save the prince, the fire spreads even worse, eventually catching more gunpowder and causing the ship to burst. The survivors all swim to shore, which is where Julia drops him off (careful to not get spotted herself).

When she goes back to her sisters to tell about what she saw, they get angry at her – they have a rule that states that they don’t get directly involved in the affairs of humans, and Julia violated that rule by saving the poor boy from drowning.

Eventually there’s a falling out with her sisters, she sells her voice to a sea witch (who’s design is based more on an eel than a fish), she gets legs, and she gets to shore.

Unfortunately, the Prince doesn’t know who she is, and she is hired as an entertainer to dance for him in the great hall. Eventually she befriends one of the servants in the castle and slowly starts to develop a crush on him.

Her sisters find her and try to convince her to abandon the prince and come back to the sea. She refuses, even as her feelings intensify for both the prince and the servant boy.

The question is, who does she choose?

Well, I knew how it would end (which is a good sign for a project), but I shelved the project for a few reasons.

The first is that at the time, I didn’t have the artistic skill to pull this off. To be frank, my art at the time SUCKED. Also, I wanted to illustrate this in watercolors, but when I did a test page in the style, it was muddy and gross. At the time I didn’t know how to get my hands on Photoshop, so it was the traditional route or not at all.

The second reason I left it was because it was WAY TOO CLICHE. It was reading like a Shoujo Beat manga (which aren’t bad, but that wasn’t what I really wanted with the work at the time). Besides, the whole, “Who does she chose? The elegant, handsome prince, or the lowly servant boy with a heart of gold?” thing had been done to death. The only way I was going to make it unique was in the dynamic between the sisters.

Which, now that I think about it, the dynamic between the sisters was one of the best parts of that story.

The third reason? I missed the deadline to have pages finished and submitted to the Yen Press Talent Search at the time.

The fourth reason? The work was too long for the talent search anyway.

I MIGHT pick this up again in the future. What do you think?

My First Renaissance Fair

Last Saturday I went on an excursion with my sister and brother-in-law to (I’m not making up the name) Superstition Mountains to go to a Renaissance Fair.

I had never been to a Renaissance Fair before this…except one time in Cambridge, OH, but it was a traveling festival and was much, much smaller. That was where I bought my two empty halves of coconuts as tribute to Monty Python and the Holy Grail gags.

But this? This was my first time at a Ren fair and my very first time dressing for the part.

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I do not know how to pose in photos that show off my outfits.

I confess I wanted to take more pictures while I was there, but I was too entranced with everything in the moment to stop and take photos. Every since my trip to the Navajo Reservation, I learned that being in the moment is more important than taking a photo every five minutes.

However, I DID manage to nab a few, starting with ones of a performer who danced with whips. One was literally on fire.

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Honestly, that was the greenest section of the fair grounds, because the rest looked a lot like this.

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There were also a lot of people in period clothes, gypsy and pirate outfits, viking outfits, chain mail, Game of Thrones cosplay, TARDIS dresses (I wish I got a picture of that woman, but she looked like the type of person who avoids cameras).

One comedian performing joked that one day during the Fair he saw Storm Troopers and Klingons standing next to each other, and a row of Doctors Who sat in the front row and kept proclaiming, “We’re in order! WE’RE IN ORDER!”

We also saw several kinds of shoppes, like fortune tellers, archery specialists, leather shoemakers, bookmakers (I got a lovely leather bound sketchbook), pirate stores galore (I particularly wanted a skull necklace at one of the shops, but I missed my chance to get it), and even swords dealers.

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There was also a book shop where I got a book of “Folk Costumes from Around the World” and the first volume of A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel. Because I am a nerd.

At the end of the day we saw the jousting tournament.

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Each section of the stands rooted for a particular knight. Our section was rooting for the green knight.

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The jousting was kind of “meh,” but it got better when they started sword-fighting. That was when the knights got off their horses and KILLED EVERYONE.

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Or, you know, pretended to, because they’re all actors. Very good actors, but actors.

As we walked out, we found the lady my sister and brother-in-law found last year at the fair. The lady sold buffalo bone and ivory pins with nerdy things engraved on them. Several had Doctor Who quotes (one even had a TARDIS), and a few had some Firefly quotes (Shiny!). The one I got was a pin that says, “Hell hath no fury like a woman with a sword.” Because that’s a true fact, man.

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Also a true fact: Superstition Mountains is the best name for a natural rock face.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

On Opinions

WARNING: The following is a post about opinions (imagine that: the title is straightforward). You may or may not agree with the opinions mentioned in this post. Your concerns are legitimate, and you should be civil if you choose to talk about them. If you don’t want to read this, that’s ok, too: Here are some comics you can read instead, or you can watch a video about new discoveries of the Velociraptor.

ANOTHER WARNING: There is swearing. Deal with that as you will.

Moving on.

The internet fascinates me. Mostly because on one page, you can find one conversation that’s meaningful and honest and then a conversation right below that basically boils down to “SHE COULD BE HOTTER LOL SHE LOOKS LIKE A PIG.”

Everyone who uses the internet knows this, and they know it exists everywhere, from Reddit to Tumblr to The New York Times website.

For right now I’m going to ignore the trolls (who doesn’t?) and talk more about the importance of recognizing what opinions are – because I think in this age we’ve forgotten.

C.G.P. Grey actually brought this up in a Q & A video he made. Since it’s a long video, I’m just going to share with you my favorite quote from the video that’s about opinions and people:

“The trick is to keep your identity separate from your opinions. They are objects in a box you carry with you and should be easily replacable if they turn out to be no good. If you think the opinions in the box are who you are then you will cling to them despite any evidence to the contrary. Bottom line, If you want to always be right, you need to always be prepared to change your mind.”

I love this quote because it’s true: there are plenty of good people out there who have bad opinions, but if they change their mind, their opinions become better. They’re still good people, just with better ideas.

Lately there’s been a story circulating around discussion circles I’m a part of, including the Facebook group Diversity in Media Now. This story is about how a black singer changed the minds of several KKK members and even broke apart the Maryland branch of the Klan. (link to read it is here.)

How did he do it?

By talking to them and listening. By encouraging them that their opinions are not who they are, because if they can change their opinions, they can help make the world a better place for it.

I’d like to think I had a similar effect on a conservative couple I encountered on my road trip from Ohio to Arizona in September last year.

I stopped in Springfield, Missouri for a night and I decided to go across the parking lot to a sushi bar next to the hotel (because I had never been to a sushi bar and I wanted to try it out).

So I went inside and ordered my food. And a couple comes in and sits next to me at the bar and they order food.

There was one point where I tried this eel with some kind of orange spice on top. That was when my mouth felt like lava was burning my taste buds and I had to spit it back out.

The husband from the couple noticed this and was like, “Not your thing, huh?”

And we just started talking from there.

We even talked about the things we did for a living and I mentioned that I work as a comic artist on Validation. Of course, before I mentioned it I said, “I make comic strips about social justice issues,” and THEN mentioned it (because it’s kind of odd to just jump in and say “I make trans comics!”). While the wife wasn’t interested (She explicitly said, “I’ll just live in my black and white world and call it good!”), her husband was more talkative.

So the both of us talked about a variety of issues and we eventually got to welfare. And it’s here that I’d like to think I opened up his mind for consideration on some issues.

Because he had said, “You would think with food stamps they would get better food than pizza and pop and all that other shit?”

Now this was before I discovered the Cracked.com  article about the habits of poor people (Habit #1: You Eat Crappy Food, mostly because you need food that won’t rot, and the stuff that doesn’t rot is generally pre-packaged).

But my response was, “Part of that, though, is that there are companies who make contracts with the government to make their food cheaper on food stamps. Most of those contracts are with Coca Cola and other companies that don’t have the healthiest food and they’re lobbying to stay on SNAP.”

There’s an article here. Under the heading “Appeasing The Junk Food Lobby” was where most of my arguing points came from. That, and I come from a military family, and half of the conversations I hear are about how the government is fucking up because of the contracts they sign with other companies.

Back to the topic at hand: I’d like to think I opened his mind about that possibility. He certainly opened up my eyes about how conservatives think, why they think the way they do, and even got me to reconsider my old opinion about gun regulations.

(Alright fine I’ll get it out here: if you use the reasoning of “I need to protect my family” as your reason for owning guns, then you need to consider the possibility that you’re fucking with shit you shouldn’t be messing around with in the first place.)

(However, if you live in the back-woods country and you primarily hunt deer or other food animals and you don’t use guns on people, it’s totally fine. I grew up in the country where my parents ran a hunting and fishing store and I regularly saw them tag deer and post notices about how much hunting was allowed that season. It’s regulated for a very good reason. That, and there were times where we didn’t have any meat in the house other than deer meat, and without that deer meat we wouldn’t have eaten that winter.)

(There’s a difference between shooting at people to be a gangster and using guns as a carefully-managed tool so you don’t starve).

Before we talked I was of the opinion that guns needed to be off the streets, period. But gun rights is a bigger gray area than what the media or the NRA would have you believe.

Just like life. Just like people.

Be always open to others’ opinions, and listen. If they’re credible and don’t come from a place of hate, be considerate.

You don’t have to change your mind with every conversation you have. Just don’t hold on to your opinions too stubbornly.

That’s all for now.

New Art Added, Library Visits, and Other Updates

Today’s post comes to you in THREE PARTS.

PART 1:

So I was going through the site and I realized I hadn’t put any new art up on here for a while. So I fixed that!

There is now new stuff in Illustrations, Sketches, and even a few updated links in Comics, including a link to an old preview I made of The Legend of Jamie Roberts.

You can also read the preview comic by clicking THIS PICTURE:

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PART 2:

On Free Comic Book Day (May 3rd) this year, I will be speaking and showing off my work at the Apache Junction Public Library in Phoenix, AZ! It’s part of their celebration of Comic Book Day, so bring your family along! It’s an all-ages event featuring superheroes and local artists and lots and lots of books.

They asked me to make the flyer for this year, so start looking forward to some work-in-progress previews as I work on it.

PART 3:

The Legend of Jamie Roberts‘ script is almost finished. I was hoping to have it completely done two days ago, but no such luck. At least it’s 80% of the way there, so with much cracking of my fingers, I’m hoping to get it completely finished by April 14th.

With all of that said, The Legend of Jamie Roberts should be online by the end of June. I would launch at the beginning of June, but that’s Phoenix Comicon (another event I’m going to this year), so I’ll be doing convention-related work around that time.

Charlie & Clow is coming along pretty nicely, even though I need to change up the first few pages. It’ll be easy to tweak though.

There’s going to be a new story arc coming up in Johnson & Sir! And also, expect a new print sometime in the next month, inspired by this sketch:

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You can also reblog the sketch on Tumblr if you want to show it off to your followers (which you totally should).

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

P.S. I’m going to dare the biggest dare on myself and update my blog every day for the month of April. And no, none of the above is an April Fool’s Joke. I already pulled a joke on Johnson & Sir today. I’m joked out.

P.P.S. Actually I won’t be able to update everyday because for a few days in April I’m going to be in San Diego. Psych!

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang: A Review

Image courtesy of MTV-Geek News

 

Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers is a fantastic read.

This volume (which is paired with Saints) follows Little Bao, a dreamer of a boy who is eventually drawn into rebellion against foreign forces, who seek to bring Christianity to China (among other things). The events that follow are a retelling of the Boxer Rebellion, a significant historical event.

With subject matter like this, it can be pretty easy to be historical and dry, or have artwork that’s dark, sinister, or brutal. Yang’s work is none of that.

The art is vibrant and the colors are well-chosen: in the story, the commoners who join the Big Sword Society are possessed by the spirits of China. The spirits are colorful and vibrant while the peasants are in dull, muted colors. The character designs are delightfully simple but unique to each and every character. While the landscape of the story is simple, that’s fine – the focus is on the characters, as it should be. In stories about war, it’s important to know the people that fought in them, even if they’re not big names.

The pacing throughout is brilliant. There can be several pages to a slow and thoughtful scene, but when the action happens, everything is bold and fast. The design of the panels is simple enough that you can read the story easily and not get lost (which is important to note, because there are an awful lot of comic artists that try layouts to be artistic – Marvel’s SIEGE, I’m looking at you – and instead it becomes an artistic mess. Boxers is not that work).

Ok, so obviously the artwork is great, but what about the writing?

It. Shines.

The art is simple and classy to let the writing shine through.

This story is still posing deep and thoughtful questions in me three days after I’ve finished it. Questions like, What is worth fighting for? What would you sacrifice for the future? Love? Others’ lives? The concept of yourself as an individual? What is fundamentalism and how does it transform people?

If you haven’t read this yet, you should. Go get it on Amazon.com or at your local library (that’s where I got mine. I have no shame).

P.S. I have yet to read Saints, the companion book to Boxers. That review will be coming up soon!