Routine Course

Have a lot of people been following Westbury Detectives? We're nearing the end of chapter two, and I really need to express that I love Cora to bits. I wanted to finally make a strong female lead who was powerful but not needlessly sexualized (I went as far as to make her asexual), and I feel I've succeeded at this. Part of my adoration might be due to how much I love drawing wavy or curly hair.

I'm planning on getting a table at Christmas Carnival 2011, but in order to get a discounted artist's table, I'm going to print a limited edition Westbury Detectives #1 with a new colour cover and some bonus pages. These pages will be available in the online edition maybe a month after the event, but I promise these are going to look great.

I'm also thinking about going to this event as Ryo Saeba from City Hunter. I've offered a female friend the idea of paying for her to get in if she dresses as Ryo's assistant Kaori Makimura, even getting her an inflatable prop mallet too, but since that seems to be going nowhere I might just turn up as Commander Lisa Hayes.

Also, I'm running Ask Giant Robo on Tumblr, where visitors send the GR characters questions and they "answer" through drawings. I'm following the guides in the official series artbook, and it's actually fun to do.

"What Has She Done?"

Recently, my all-girl English class finished studying Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", and the final unit project called for continuing the end of the novel. (For those of you whom haven't read the book, it pretty much goes like, "I have to go now. My home planet needs me.")

Most of the girls made videos for the project, two groups made radio dramas, and I made a comic. I am above bragging, but after I finished screening the whole thing, everybody was absolutely awestruck. Here's Handmaid's End, five pages in total, with cameos throughout. I warn you that one of the characters is heavily implied to have been shot in the head on page two.

On an extra note...the Commander was oddly my favourite character in the book, mostly because I liked how he was a bit of a doofy guy in his off-time. Atwood tends to put Older Creeper Men in her books, however, and anybody who's read the book probably knows about how he lets the main character put lotion on her hands...and just watches her quietly. It retrospect, it was weird as hell.

Also, Quinn will be coming to a formal end within the month. The quality has risen and dropped throughout the series run (this comes from the past tradition of only drawing the strips when inspired at school), and after the gap in updates, I've come to realize that Quinn needs closure. I'm going to ask my fans on deviantART what they've been waiting to happen, and then, I'll make sure the whole series comes to a happy ending. Quinn's been with me since 10th grade, and he's a pretty important - although neglected - character to me.

Things I Googled While Working on Westbury Detectives #1

Note: These are in chronological order, all of the following searched at some point during January to April 2011. You can kind of see the evolution of the story (along with a hint at a story about an art thief I dropped at the last minute)...

• what happens if someone builds a bar near a school
• map of Texas/New York State/New York City/Brooklyn/Westbury/Queens/Nassau County
• industries of new york
• black car
• cement factory
• cement factory hours of operation
• places that can get shot and not kill you
• 20000-names.net
• miya
• depressants drugs list
• how long does a statute or limitations last
• mulberry's saskatoon
• colours that look good with black
• cerulean blue
• video games that came out in 1989
• chinese restaurant interiors
• statute of limitations for art theft
• led zeppelin lyrics
• hospitals in nassau county
• what is pistol whipping
• how long does it take to recover from a shot wound
• how long does it take to recover from a stab wound
• new york police officer uniforms
• chinatowns in new york state
• american hospital rooms
• hospitals in nassau county
• hospitals near westbury ny

Free Comic Book Day

I went to 8th Street Books and Comics today for the event, dropping in before I went to get art supplies. So for the first time, I randomly met someone who'd read Cinderelliot. The guy introduced himself, but for the life of me, I can't remember his name. It almost certainly contained a K at the beginning of it.


Of course, I'm always really nervous when it comes to talking about my works, since I don't like bragging and they're not perfect. I think I mentioned that I've got another work coming (this is Westbury Detectives) and that it's pretty hard to get stuff published but it's fun. I don't know what I was supposed to say, man...I can only imagine how weird it is for one to actually meet me after reading something I've made. I mean, like, Cinderelliot is easily my most crass work that I've let the public view (and I made it when I was sixteen), and Westbury Detectives is my most violent work. But when you meet the author, she turns out to be a timid, gangly bag of nerves.


So, my most sincere apologies to Guy I Met At Comic Book Store. I am completely unable to talk to random people due to insufficient programming, but it really means a lot to me to be able to meet my readers and fans. Thank you so much for reading Cinderelliot, and I really am sorry I seemed sort of dippy.

Everybody Calm Down

I really wanted to stay away from political matters with this blog, but someone of my generation really needs to put something uplifting up. After this message, we'll return to our usual programming of robots and gun violence.

So, much to the sheer abhor of everybody under the age of 45 who lives in Canada, Conservative Stephen Harper was voted in as prime minister, with NDP's Jack Layton as the official opposition. There's a difference of about 50 parliamentary seats between, which for non-Canadians, means both parties are really close in size, and Harper is able to do anything he wants now that he has more seats. People my age generally hate the crap out of Harper because he's so outdated when it comes to gay rights, environmental matters (Protip: look up "Alberta Tailing Ponds & Ducks" and prepare to never sleep again), Aboriginal matters, women's rights...basically, ask any college student how they feel about Harper's majority government and they'll start crying. But I'd like my generation to consider the following...

1. Sometimes the Conservatives never show up for a vote.
This is one of the side effects of being a rich bigshot. On even some of the crucial votes, members of the Conservative party tend to not come by, whereas the NDP is basically programmed to appear on time every day. You know that bill about transgender rights? Yeah, don't worry about it.

2. If you vote NDP in the provincial election, things won't suck as much.
I'm saying this especially because the Saskatchewan election is coming up, and a lot of my friends will be voting age by then. Not only will the NDP be around to help the majority of us who aren't rich white Christian folk, but Harper will have to acknowledge that his opposition is leading the province. We may not be the only NDP province, for that matter.

3. Just support the NDP and encourage your friends to do so.
I can't stress how important this is. Just talk it over with your non-voting friends and encourage them to register.

We're all going to be fine. Harper's gonna do the same stuff as before but slower, and how many elections have we had over his last term, three? There might be another election sooner than we might know. No matter what awful thing he does, speak up against it, and we're all going to be fine.

That's Just Wrong

In the spring of 2007, I attempted to write "Hannar", based on a recorded script of Revolution Nine played backwards. It was a nice project at first, until it turned into this demented story of a satanic murderer somehow coming back from the dead and plaguing a small town's police department. So then, I found it almost three years afterwards and wrote some more, and the story got even more twisted, and then Westbury Detectives showed up and filled the place of "gritty experimental detective drama". After that, I dropped Hannar, until now.

What I'm wondering is whether or not I should keep poking at Hannar. I'm seriously not kidding when I say that this is the most gruesome thing I've ever created, and I don't know what to do with it. There's four years of effort in it, so I can't destroy it. But the story contains ultraviolence, elaborate hallucination sequences, and multiple characters slowly going insane. There isn't a solid demographic it appeals to, so what the hell do I do with it?

At the moment, there's only four lines of the Revolution Nine script left, so where's this going to go? I might figure out where to post it when the whole thing is finished, but some stuff in it is pretty rancid, so it might only be tolerated on Livejournal.

Fragments of Meldaizer

Not too long ago, Westbury Detectives Part One finished its run and is available in full here. The whole series takes a while to script, but will span three chapters in full, titled "Fragments of Manhattan", "The Chinatown Killer" and "Cry For Me". I named the chapters after tracks from Miki Matsubara's 1984 album Cool Cut because that's how I roll.

I've been writing more and more of Super Defender Gigan-X (the title's been changed, since General Kagiyama would certainly complain "fighting isn't a desirable trait."). The three pilots, Roger Ross, Emi Kagiyama and Diego Cortez have been finalized. I'll be posting almost the whole thing chapter-by-chapter on its own blog with illustrations, but...things depend on the title. Gigan-X sounds kinda dorky to me, especially since it's supposed to be a brand of military robot, and I'm considering other names. Like, stuff that sounds like it came from a 90's anime and then the German and Japanese languages exploded on each other:

Meldaizer, Keldaizer?, Giganex, Gigakaizen (especially since "kaizen" is Japanese for "change for the better"), Melkaizen, Sentodor

I'm going to run this list by a few people and see what I get. It's a bit of a pain how this is will be the second time I had to rename one of the titles previewed in the back of Cinderelliot...

Work on the Side

So I'm listening to a compilation of the Giygas background music, literally praying that the Tokyo power plant doesn't melt down, and am recovering from an embarrassing attempted call to Japan. I have a dumb little comic here to calm myself down. My method of stress relief is stupidly crude but harmless.

Behold, how a younger Jack Arthur got back together with his last girlfriend for thirty-four minutes. This is canon.

(Warning: crude language and boobs)

This is Ruth Howell, the one who stole his CDs and accidentally got shot before the current storyline. She's based directly on a Ruth I made in 2005, whom was sadly underdeveloped, despite how much Twelve Year Old Me thought she'd work with ProtoJack. I even have a couple of ancient drawings of the two getting married, back from when Becky was still a talking bird and everybody lived on a space station. I wonder how Twelve Year Old Me would have reacted if she found out that I'd later break them up over a 'stache argument.

Also, I talked to someone who asked if I'd ever continue Cinderelliot. I had to tell them that it's just a standalone and my debut work, and the characters appear "re-casted" in Westbury Detectives, but I'm happy she enjoyed Cinderelliot that much. (This sounds odd, but I always wanted someone to ask me about a sequel.) On the other hand, I wish people would stop asking to see a copy, thumb through half of it, and just hand it off to me.

Everybody Wants To Be A Cat (Until They Are A Cat)

I'm so sorry to anyone waiting on Hyperspace Bunny #6...it's been sidetracked ever since I started to prepare Cinderelliot for republishing, and then it got pushed back further by the sudden appearance of Westbury Detectives. I think since this chapter lingered more on Dr. Hatcher and Dr. Scar, it drained my will to write, since Bunny is really the character I have the most fun drawing. This isn't to say I don't love the hell out of Hatcher, though.

In other news, I turn eighteen on March 1st. It's really startling to hit this age all of a sudden...it's made me think, "When was the last time I just sat down and drew a picture for fun? What would Thirteen-Year-Old Me think of my comics today? Am I going down the right path to get to animation direction?" About two years ago at this time, I first designed all the Cinderelliot characters. It's really startling, to say the least.

On the plus side, my birthday always means my friends who can draw give me pictures. Here's the first one, of the Fairy Godfather as a purple cat, by Jackie Regnier (my oldest high school friend).

Furries scare me, but getting this picture supplied me with some comfort...I have the theory that when a series has reached a certain level of fame, anthro artwork starts coming out of nowhere. I've just cracked up through the floor of this level (if that makes any sense aloud), so all my efforts in getting my work out there haven't been for nothing.

I am in a good mood, internet! On the eve of my birthday, we shall have insane partying-- no, wait, I have a meeting. And it's a school night.

Westbury Detectives Now Online

It's taken me nearly six years to do something with this story...first it was "Jack the Space Detective", then it was "Tales of the Earth Federation", then it was grounded and became something with furries, and now it's my four-part detective adventure. Each page is done with meticulous care, so pages come out maybe once a week, and randomly at best. The first issue cover and three pages are now available...

"It was such a haunting and comforting memory, though..."

Detective Jack Arthur is temporarily transferred to the village of Westbury for his own safety, following a shoot-out that wounded his girlfriend. While adapting to the laidback mood of his new agency, Jack is pulled into a rivalry with an up-and-coming mob boss, and struggles with a haunting memory from when he was five years old.

It was a strange process cutting up Westbury Detectives to resemble something more realistic than it used to be. I've never done more research on Nassau County than I've done in this last two months. I cut a subplot about a female character dressing as a male thief with a robot face, because that sort of doesn't fit in anywhere. I turned Westbury from this insane techno-metropolis to what it really is: a simple little village in New York state, but in this case, there's a crime syndicate passing through it. Anybody following the characters since 2005/2006 will recognize them all over the place and the drastic changes they've gone through.

I really love this story at the moment, and I hope you all will too. I almost wish I could talk to my thirteen-year-old self and compare versions closely with her...

Crashing Into 2011

So, Hyperspace Bunny #6 really should have been finished by now, but due to this being the final exam season, I've of course had to set aside the next page in favour of working on things like an Interior Design poster, a Japanese 30 poster, and two different essays for History.

Skipper the Robot Kid has been renamed Android Girl A.M.I., and A.M.I. is the only particle of the show whose character design hasn't changed at all from the 2006 original. I actually need to keep a text file with all the changes I'm making in strict detail, since I know I'll slowly forget it all. It's going to be good.

Now, I know I mentioned Westbury Detectives in the "Coming Soon" section in the back of Cinderelliot. (Speaking of which: Cinderelliot is now available to order online.) It's going to be three chapters long, have a giant mash-up of my characters, and focuses on a young detective trying to deal with two different supercriminals and an accident that happened when he was five. It's been in constant development since 2005, and it went from being this massive crime-fighting epic to a mini-series; just like melting down plastic, every time something new is made of it, it gets smaller. I like Neo-WD.

And, in non-sequitor news...I had a dream where I had to bike through a dangerous part of town, and there were billboards advertising drugs. One of them called marijuana "Shigeru", and I started freaking out in the dream, since I've got a Major Shigeru Kagiyama in Gigan-X. I'm still reeling over how 1/4 of Cinderelliot's fans are stoners (ohgodwhy), but after waking up, I realized nobody would nickname a drug with a male Japanese surname.

I hope.

A new title is needed

My A.M.I. keychain (previously pictured here) has been purchased this morning by my Japanese teacher, whom was planning to go to Christmas Carnival (just to see my table, no less) but was unable to. I felt kind of bad about letting a keychain go, but she really loved A.M.I., and I made more money towards the Japan trip next year.

Now, huge notes...Skipper is no longer capable of being a main character. I've tried to develop his character several times over the last four years, but he's either way too plain, a little snotball, or a cross of Astro Boy and Tails Prower. This is why he's being downgraded to a secondary character, one who never gets into his classic and sort of pointless car accident at the beginning of the series.

Instead, the story starts with A.M.I.'s reactivation.

You can probably see who's the lead now.

Con Updates

Remember how I said I'd be dressing as R Tanaka for Christmas Carnival? Well, I lied to you. Recent complications have led me to choose an Evangelion character:


There are certain people a girl should not be dressing as, but so far I'm pretty dead-on as Kaji. You'll be able to identify my table next Saturday fairly easily; I'm the one in the ponytail and red tie, sitting next to a cardboard posterboard, stacks of Cinderelliot and shirts, and an aura of transvestite tension.

In less awkward news, I finally designed the lead character of Super Fighter Gigan-X.

Roger Ross, a gay Scottish mechanic and the lead pilot of the government-funded Gigan-X robot project, potentially the only pilot. He's fun to draw, and hopefully after some further developmental stages everywhere in the series, I'll launch the miniseries next spring.

If You Wish To Be A Nerd

There's a Saskatoon convention coming up called the Christmas Carnival, and I'm set to have an artist's table there. I will, however, be in attendance in a Japanese schoolboy uniform and black wig, as Masami Yuuki's character R Tanaka, coinciding with a related AMV I've entered into the video contest. My crippling mental problems aside, there will be merchandise.

(Left to right: Quinn Haverly, Quinn; Shigeru Kagiyama, Super Fighter Gigan-X; Elliot & Magic Elliot, Cinderelliot; Endo Hiramatsu, The 27 Ghosts of Endo; The Fairy Godfather, Cinderelliot; Bunny Clea, Hyperspace Bunny; A.M.I. Phillips, Skipper the Robot Kid)

Keychains! They're about 2.5" wide and set to be $4 each. They each have hand-drawn artwork in a thick plastic disc, with one of my flagship characters on the front, and my name and their home show's title logo on the back. I love these.

These are going to be in pretty limited quantity, but there's Fairy Godfather shirts, two designs. I'm going to have a deal where you can get one and a copy of the comic for $10, whereas the comic is $5 and the shirt is $10. The one pictured is a men's large, so any obese and/or disproportionately muscular fans can get their fix here.

I'm pretty excited for this. Let's hope I'm not scheduled to work cashier that Saturday...

In other news, I have a story to tell you all. About two months ago, I bought the All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku manga from 8th Street Books and Comics, and watched the whole OVA series a few weeks later. That's when I realized it was about a semi-insane divorced scientist father and his shy young son, and the teenage girl humanoid whom lives with them, and occasionally the scientist's successful businesswoman ex-wife.

This is, of course, the Hatcher family's dynamic in Hyperspace Bunny. I knew Nuku Nuku existed when I designed HB, but I didn't watch it then. I have an alibi, but I still feel terrible whenever my ideas infringe on someone else's, especially on something adored by thousands. All I have to do to is add an annoying trigger-happy female rival* for Bunny, and I'm set!

(*I don't like Eimi. I've gotten e-yelled at for this, but really, she pushes all the wrong buttons on me. Dr. Kyuusaku is utter buckets of awesome to me, however.)

This is sort of funny

Last night, I looked up and downloaded the Black Jack & From Eroica With Love crossover, which is a big deal to me and two people. I read through it and was disappointed, especially when the third-to-last page featured a splash panel (I wanted to avoid calling it that) of one of the characters vomiting. It sort of had to do with the plot, but Yasuko has a thing about barf jokes, and that's terrible.

That night, I had a dream where I was reading through Cinderelliot one more time, and was getting increasingly furious with myself at the fact that I seemed to have forgotten to change all sorts of things in the updated edition. There was some page about Elliot throwing up in the parkade, and I was yelling at myself, "You stupid little homo! You thought this was funny in 2009, didn't you?! Why don't you go slam your hand in a car door?!" And then I woke up, repeatedly reminding myself that a page like that never existed.

But then I remembered that King persuades/threatens Elliot to stay behind and watch Pinhead and Palatino's "final test' to determine his mob successor. And I was getting so mad at myself; how could I drop a bomb like that and not explain it? I really never said what the final test was. After a short period of trying to remember it, I realized the comedic nature of the "test" would have disrupted the overall mood of that scene. And here it is...

King randomly shows the guys one of Charmy's bikini photoshoot pictures. Pinhead says nothing and doesn't move, but Palatino whistles and makes some crack about beachballs, then gets punched in the face. Pinhead wins.


So, that's it.

Really.

Black Jack Webdoujin Now Open

The site's front page is here. I submitted a four-page fancomic here, and it's honestly an honour to be part of the 'Big Five', even if my renditions of Black Jack, Pinoko and Kiriko don't hold up next to all the other artwork. The Cinderelliot homepage is linked to through my name on the main page.

I was flipping through it, came across Brunch With Kiriko and I just went "GUHH--" like I got elbowed in the stomach. I guess I'm just being hypersenstive...the only downfall I can really see is my fantastic inability to draw certain positions of the hand or arm. It's a little startling that these comics will be up for years, and I wonder what kinds of fan kidlets are going to see it, and what they'll think...

If you just want to get to my comic, here's where it starts. All you really need to know is that I find Black Jack and Kiriko's character dynamic fascinating (not in a slashy kind of way), and Pinoko has a speech impediment.


OTHER NEWS: Got a haircut. Look like Major Klaus von Ebernach from From Eroica With Love. Not cool; waiting for bangs to grow longer.

Angel in My Failed Premise

There was this song I always heard as a kid, Angel In My Pocket by One To One, that eventually inspired me to attempt to make a comic based on what I thought of the song. I was twelve; it crashed.

I'm almost reconsidering it, albeit completely pulling apart my original ideas. When I was fourteen, I thought it could become some sort of magical girl story, especially since One To One's music is so Eighties that it delights me, and Eighties miscellania and retro anime go hand in hand in my mind. So, I can only see a surreal oneshot in my mind, but nothing else yet from this point.

An interesting note...there were two versions of Angel in My Pocket, either the version where the angel is a girl (which I always heard) or where the angel is a boy. I find certain parts of the male version jarring (especially "I wanna keep him 'til the end of time", which sound better as "her"), but I adore the video's art and costume design.

Cinderelliot Now Available

I'm rather overjoyed by this release. The cover's coloured part is actually glossy! The only possible problem is the fact that I used the wrong file for the cover, as I had an identical one without "First Anniversary Edition" on it, but I don't mind as much anymore. I mean, it is the first anniversary, even if it's a little late. If a second print is needed, they won't have the anniversary mention on the cover.

There are five copies on the shelves at 8th Street Books and Comics at the moment, and I'll be visiting people whom expressed interest in the comic tomorrow, as well as sending a copy to Green Candy Press. Anyone outside Saskatchewan interested can email me (see my Blogspot profile) and ask to order.

Sexy Site Update

The official Cinderelliot website has been remodelled in anticipation of the new release. I've currently got the site address on the back of each book and the site linked to from the Black Jack doujinshi anthology, so I'm happy the most of the HTML work is over. All that's left is nine pages about the gobs of other comics I'm working on, but all but one of those can wait. I am in love with the character page.

I'm also going through the list of episodes I had planned for The 27 Ghosts of Endo...some of them are surprisingly dark, especially "Missile Boy" and the one with the vengeful monkey ghost. It's all how the episodes are presented that decides the mood, but some of them are more suited for a later TV slot, and I don't blame Nelvana at all for turning it down.

The printed version is coming by the end of the month.

I retract my earlier statements

I've got a job now. And a reprint of Cinderelliot is quickly approaching. Right now I'm in the process of fixing the entire comic...adding pages, replacing pages, replacing text in certain bubbles, and redoing the ending. The cover I had planned for it says "First Anniversary Edition", but it's now a over month after the anniversary, and the way this is going, I'd might as well call it a Director's Cut.

So, yes. The Director's Cut is well on its way, and will have five extra pages and a wider distribution. I'm considering adding a bonus comic too, but I can't think of anything I want to write about (all the things I was going to put in it have already been cleared up through the new material). I try asking people what they'd like in a bonus story, but I get multiple variations on "Fairy Godfather gets laid". (Plus: in the new cut, he's not sex-crazed at all. He's in fact ten times more likeable, only looking for career success and affection.) I'm considering pitching it to a Canadian publisher, but the only one who would take it prints mostly books about romance, gay and S&M guides and marijuana. Well, if they accepted "Doll City"...

Gigan-X...three more characters are nearly stable, these being Michelle Rossi-Menard, Adam Graye, and Benjamin Ross, the French female pilot, the American pilot and the gay British pilot respectively. There's a fourth guy in development, Famiel Doba, the Chilean pilot. I almost considered making Major Kagiyama the main character, but since he's totally Ichirou Mizuki, I figured Aniki would find the series one day and be all " 一体何をやってるの？"

So, anyway, Cinderelliot is returning, better than ever. Gigan-X is biking around in circles. Hyperspace Bunny is in its prime and needs love. And stop asking me to make the Fairy Godfather get some ass, please, because it's hurtful at this point.