Stop the presses!

I read a web comic called Concession. http://concessioncomic.com/ I like the comic, I really do, but the page I just read (#111) has just ruffled my fur. Now when I first started reading the comic I looked at the character profiles and noticed that it listed the sexual orientation and chosen religion of each of the characters. So I knew this would play a big part in the comic (or at least I guessed...). I didn't know (and still don't know) the orientation of the author, but seeing how most of the characters were either homosexual or bi-sexual I sort of figured it was going to be a pro-gay comic. And that's okay, you know. I don't have a problem with that. Freedom of speach and all that. I urge comic authors to write about whatever they want regardless of how others feel about it.

Except for those bastards at Softpaw Magazine! Burn them all! *Laughs at his own double standard*

But there are still some things I don't like. One of such things would be misrepresentation. (Look at the currant conversations between Shadow and Virgil in my own comic, The Black Marker Detective) And I came across two things that ruffled my fur in the before mentioned page of Concession.

First off, we have Father Timothy McNeil (who is like a Catholic priest I guess. He's Church of the Shepard but I took it to be his world's version of the Catholic Church) telling Matt that homosexuality is not wrong. I could simply write it off by saying 'Oh he's Catholic, what do you expect? He's probably sucking some poor alter boy's cock himself.' But this isn't the kind of priest Timothy is portrayed as.

You know, this is the same reason I hated Associated Student Bodies. If you are going to make a pro-gay comic fine, but why is it every time some one does they feel a need to show the church approving of the main character's choice? Because let's face it; the church does not approve... The christian religion does not approve... The Bible itself calls such an act "an abomination"! So I don't know why people keep doing this. Why not be realistic and show the church rejecting him instead? Do you really feel such a need to impress your views onto others who don't share them? I think I'll stop on this topic before I Really start ranting...

The other problem I had with the page came when Father Timothy says, "As long as no one gets hurt, you'll be fine." More misrepresentation. I happen to know very well that this isn't a christian teaching. In fact it sounds a lot like the Wiccan code of conduct which states "As long as no one is hurt, do as you will."

So did the author know what he was doing when he wrote this page? Because it seems to me that he's making the christian church (or the Catholic church at least) out into something it's not all so it can serve his own needs.

As I've made clear in other blogs, I'm against censorship and I am all for authors making comics about topics other people may or may not approve of. I love controversy. But misrepresentation is the same as slander. Having been the victom of slander before I don't like it when I see it. Some may think I'm just bashing on this comic for it's pro-gay statements since I'm not gay myself. But I don't care if anyone want to be gay or promote it in comics. I have every issue of Circles and I rather like the comic. That doesn't bother me. It's making one thing out to be something it isn't that bothers me, no matter what it is...

Vacation

I didn't do any work over the Holliday weekend. It was sort of like taking a vacation from my 2nd job. I still had to work at my first job though... I was even a day late on one of my deadlines. Wow I'm lazy. But on the up side, Star Trek was really really good!

Another comic idea...

I have moved Confessions Of A Teenage Carnivore off the front burner to the back burner for the time being. Not that I don't like COATC or don't intend to work on it. I'm still working on it. But I came up with another comic idea that has taken top priority at the moment. It happened while I was sitting at my desk doodling. I looked at a page of the Sunday comics that was laying around and started doodling in the style of Newspaper cartoons and when the picture was finished I thought, "what's going on here?" So I put in word balloons. Then I thought, "this is interesting... It wouls make a good comic..." And then I started working on a comic called "Unrequited Love" there on the spot.

But after I checked the availability of the name I found out that there was already a comic called Unrequited Love. Now I have to find a new name for this comic. I'm quite disappointed with this. Unrequited Love was the perfect name for that comic. How am I going to find another name that captures the feel of what the comic is really about? Well I can I guess... But I don't want to...

But for the readers of The Black Marker Detective, or anyone who was excited about the coming of COATC, don't worry. This new comic won't change things where they are concerned. My unrequited love is not a weekly comic so I won't have to sacrifice time I would have used on the other comics to make this.

That makes you gay?

Yesterday while I was on my lunch break at work a guy I work with asked me, "Does it bother you that people think your gay?"

This was new. I didn't realize people thought this about me. Well I knew Will had asked me at least twice if I was gay, but that's Will. If you knew him you would understand. But I didn't know everyone else was thinking this as well.

I told the guy that I didn't care what other people thought because I knew for myself what my sexual orientation was and that was the only thing that mattered. Then he started rambling on as he does and while I didn't get all of it, I heard him say "just because you don't have a constant string of girlfriends or aren't on a cell-phone all the time people shouldn't think that about you..."

Really? Is that what people judge this stuff on? How many girlfriends you have, how fast you go through them, and how much you are on the cell-phone? Because that doesn't sound like something that would make me happy. Going through girlfriends all the time would mean I was constantly breaking up with people, which isn't fun... And being on the cell-phone all the time would mean I don't have a life of my own and had to talk to other people every moment of the day... I have devoted my time to things that matter, to me at least. Like being a cartoonist. So if spending my time on that instead of these other superficial things makes people think I'm gay then let them think I'm gay...

I should note about my last review...

#1 I said zoophilphia when what I was trying to say was zoophilia. It's not a word I use a lot so I didn't know how to spell it and my spell checker was telling me that "zoophilia" wasn't a real word...

#2 When I said that the comic made me question if zoophilia was even that bad I was referring to the context in which it was used in the story, not real life. I don't support zoophilia or bestiality in real life and I'm not saying the comic was either. Just that in an alternate world where people's pets are no different then people I didn't see how it was so bad...

(Comic Review) Raine Dog

If I had to describe the comic "Raine Dog" (which I do conisdering I'm writing a review on it) I would say 'subtle, yet breathtaking'. Those three words seem to sum up the whole thing quite nicely.

The art is simple yet beautiful is it's clean, smooth, cartoon look and the way the only color the cartoonist uses is blue almost makes me think I'm looking at a Picasso. Sure, Dana Claire Simpson doesn't exactly draw like Picasso, but it inspires the same kind of mood and feelings in me that I get when I look at Picasso's blue works. This helps set up the mood for the comic's story; a slightly melancholy tale of life through a dog's point of view. Or, if you look a bit deeper, what the comic really comes down to is a look at all the classic cartoons where humans keep sentient, talking animals as pets, and then asks "what would that really be like?" Think if you were to take 'Calvin and Hobbes' or 'Garfield' and then set it in the real world. That's sort of what 'Raine Dog' does and it's just amazing.

The story touches on many subjects and makes the readers look at them in ways they probably never have before. It was interesting when after reading the comic I found myself wondering if animals have souls, or if referring to a dog simply as "girl" wasn't just as disrespectful as making a racist comment towards another human? But the topic of forbidden love reaching well into the taboo and the consequences of such actions was what really grabbed my attention and made me take notice of this comic. I don't want to give away too much of a spoiler for those who haven't read the comic yet, but once the mentioned consequences had been had, I found myself asking if it was really fair? In fact, I found myself asking if zoophilia was even such a bad thing? (note I said zoophilia, not beastailitly) That's some talented writing when you can make me ask a question like that! And that's the kind of stuff I look for...

The comic itself isn't very far along at the moment; only 22 pages... But I will be keeping a close eye on this one. It has the potential of becoming a real masterpiece in my opinion. And that's just what I expect it to become.

http://www.rainedog.com/

Much is random

It's 2 in the morning and I'm still wide awake because I drank a Nos. I did that so I could stay up and draw all night but then I found I wasn't in the mood to draw... So I read all the pages that were up on "Raine Dog" (which really wasn't a lot) and found it to be a really incredible comic. I'll do a review on it soon so keep an eye out for that. Then after farting around on the computer for a few hours and not getting anything done I turned the thing off and put away the pile of clean clothing that was heaped on top of my bed after I pulled it out of the dryer this afternoon and was about to go to sleep when I realized I was too excited after reading Raine Dog to sleep. Either that or the Nos is still in my system... (which is very likely) So I turned the computer back on and started jotting stuff down in my blog. Which brings me to where I am now...

Remember Calvin and Hobbes? That was a great comic. I wouldn't be drawing comics today if it wasn't for Calvin and Hobbes.

And that was very random...

I guess that's what you get when I'm this awake this late at night. Pure, unfiltered Shaddy Lovencraft.

Speaking of which... No... Never mind. I forgot what I was going to say.

God... Are you still reading this crap? You know I'm not going to say anything important in this post. You should just skip it and move on to the next one. Hopefully it will be a review of Raine Dog and I'll actually have something clever and/or thought provoking to say. Because right now the lights are on (and they're 10,000 wat bulbs BTW) but no one is home.

Oh, my comic, The Black Marker Detective, made it up to 2,000 hits. Yeah! I know that's not really a lot, but I don't have a lot of readers. So it's a lot for me.

And the huge spider I captured in my bedroom and stuck in an old fish bole died after only two days. I'm sad. I wanted to keep him... or her...

Platypus

Three cheers for the platypus! The 2nd most amazing animal in the animal kingdom! It looks like the result of a duck and a beaver getting drunk on the beach one night. It's a mammal yet it lays eggs. The males are poisonous. It's a mostly aquatic animal (and does all it's mating under water) despite the fact that when under water it is 100% blind and deaf. And if you ever need to introduce an interesting new character into a comic to keep things from getting boring the platypus is always a good choice! Look for the coming of the platypus in The Black Marker Detective.

And did you know I use to think that the platypus had an abdominal pouch, like a kangaroo? It doesn't, but I always thought it did. I think this is because the artist Steve Burt had made a platypus character named Katypus who had an abdominal pouch. Most of the pics of her sadly seem to have been removed from his VCL account along with the rest of his adult art and I don't know where to find them anymore. -_- I always thought Katypus was a cool character even if she DID have me very confused on the platypus anatomy.

(Comic Review) Cats n' Cameras

I use to do anime reviews all the time on an older blog, but this will be my first web-comic review. Something I plan to do at least a few times a month.

Today I'm looking at Cats n' Cameras (c) TJA Productions & V. Kyrie

This is a comic I have had my eye on since it first came out. The reason being that it came out at the same time as my own comic, The Black Marker Detective. I wanted to see how well a well drawn comic did in comparison to my own comic with it's experimental art style that was... umm... not well drawn. Although I now know I picked the wrong comic to use for this. The reason? Cats n' Cameras is sexed up. My comic isn't. I was expecting Cats n' Cameras to get more page hits then me but 319,358 hits vs. 1,936 hits over the same amount of time? And Cats n' Cameras doesn't even update as much as my comic does. Could it be that people really are more concerned about art then story? Or is it just the sex?

Cats n' Cameras is about Josephine Rodgers, an anthropomorphic cat who has returned from college to become a partner of the store in which she helped her friend, James Di Benedetto, (the comic's leading male character) fund the purchase of. The comic is never 100% clear on what this store really is. As best as I can gather it's a camera shop where they also shoot porn in the basement/back room. Do people know they shoot porn there? Is it bootleg? Do they sell the porn in the shop? I have no idea. The actual function of the store isn't really a big part of the comic, or at least it isn't yet. It's more of a plot device used both to bring Josephine back home, triggering the start of the story, and to show a lot of her, James, and their best friend, Sarina Doyle, (the comic's comic relief) having sex at work.

Don't get me wrong. The comic is beautifully drawn, fun to read, and the characters are very distinct and memorable. It's a very nice comic, even if the story is going nowhere fast. I guess the bottom line is, if you were to stop me on the street and ask me what Cats n' Cameras was all about, I wouldn't really be able to tell you. I could tell you I like the comic and read it every week, but that's about all...

How I sat around and did nothing

I haven't been very productive the last week. My paying job has been working me pretty hard and I have been busy with the return of my younger brother and sister who are both back home from college. I have spent more time out hitting the thrift stores and antique shops looking for cool steampunk clothing then I have drawing. I also picked up a copy of The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers at the library and have been trying to read that on top of the book a friend (of sorts) gave me to read. (I hate when people give me a book and say "read this". I can't just read a book unless I'm in the mood for that particular one.) TBMD is still on schedule but COATC will be a bit longer in the making. I still haven't even finished the 2nd page...

The allegory

Tolkien once said that he hated allegories. So in his mind the ring of power didn't represent anything else. It simply was what it was. I on the other hand love allegories. It's a great tool for an author to do and say a great many things without actually having to say them. And I do see the 'whole' Lord Of The Rings as one big allegory even if Tolkien didn't intend it that way.

The new comic I have started working on, Confessions Of A Teenage Carnivore, is itself an allegory. Even though on the outside it seems to be just a vore comic, if you look a little deeper you may see that it is actually talking about something else altogether. I didn't do this with The Black Marker Detective, but with COATC it just seemed to work really well. What I find the most interesting is that after I started to write it I began to see other possible allegories besides the one that I myself intended. So different people may come to different conclusions about what the story is really about. I hadn't tried to do that, but now that I see it I'm going to leave it as is. I think it's great.

But if you are wondering what the story is really about in my mind... Well I'm not going to tell you. You'll just have to read it as soon as the comic comes out and try to see for yourself what the stoer means to you. Besides, I think if I told the story straight out instead of using an allegory I would probably be crucified by today's society. People like me who speak their mind even if they know others won't agree aren't very popular right now. At least not where I live.

Controversial Webcomic Project

Yippy! My first scheduled update on TBMD was today! I made my first deadline! The other 64 pages that came before it don't count because they were sporadic updates. Now I'm officially a weekly webcomic! But moving right along...

I started working on a 2nd comic today. It's the vore comic I have had planned for some time now. That's right, I'm doing another comic with a controversial topic. (As if I don't have enough controversial topics planned out for TBMD's currant two year script...) One which could very likely get it labeled as a fetish comic. But that's okay. I like controversy and questionable subject matter. If a comic doesn't cause controversy or provoke some kind of thought from it's readers, then what was the point in writing it? It's like when I open the Sunday paper to the comic pages and the very first comic there is Peanuts, so I read it... Then the strip turns out to be pointless and only just barely mildly funny at best. And I say, "why did I read that?" But the better question is, why did the writer write that? If the comic inspires nothing from it's readers other then a desire to have back the time wasted reading it, then I don't think the writer should have even bothered getting out of bed that morning.

So yes, I'm making a vore comic. It won't be just an excuse for kinky porn like so many other vore comics are. In fact it will take place in the same universe as TBMD and quite possibly have a number of cross-overs with said comic. And hopefully when it's finished it will inspire some kind of thought, some kind of emotion, from it's readers. Even if the only kind of emotion it can inspire from some of you is disgust, it's still better then nothing at all.

So keep an eye out for my new up-coming comic, Confessions Of A Teenage Carnivore. I'll post more about it on this blog as the project progresses, as well as a link to the comic when I get it up.

Working on a deadline

I have started a deadline for my comic, The Black Marker Detective. from now on I will be updating every Tuesday and Friday at around noon (my time). This should prove to be interesting. I'm sure I will have time to get pages done on time seeing as I already have a small stockpile of finished pages sitting in my desk. But there are times when I will go for a week or more without drawing and I hope if I DO fall behind the deadline won't make the pages seemed forced. I also don't know how only two pages a week will affect the flow of the story. There are times when I like to put up five of six pages a week if it's a slow part and I want to move things along so my readers don't get bored. With the Tuesday/Friday deadline I won't be able to do that any more...