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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Updates and Gigan-X

Wow, it's been just over four months since the last time I posted here. Not much happened this summer - I was expecting to get a job to pay for a professionally-printed omnibus of Cinderelliot, but of course that never happened. And my opinion of Cinderelliot right now is tanking, so to spend $50+ on reprints would be horrifying. Maybe when I have more money, it'll happen...but for now, I'm considering just dumping the entire thing for free on Smackjeeves. When I think back on the comic, all I think of is what it could have been if the Fairy Godfather wasn't so offensive. The way I portrayed him still haunts me to this day.

Hyperspace Bunny is approaching its sixth chapter, and Quinn is in Season Two. The 27 Ghosts of Endo got rejected by Nelvana earlier this year for being too dark, but I want to start on a comic version of the first episode. There's something I've had in planning for months now, and it's about giant robots in 2084...

The working title is Virtual Fighter Gigan-X, about three young men in their early twenties who pilot twenty-foot-tall defence robots (i.e. Patlabor or Votoms), their squadron led by the enigmatic Major Shigeru Kagiyama. Kagiyama is the only character who I've completely finalized, and I need to be honest that he is directly based on Ichirou Mizuki, also known as the Tom Jones of Japan who's sung over 1,200 anime theme songs. This all smashed together into what potentially could be my most badass character.

The things keeping Gigan-X grounded are my current inability to design mecha, and my inclanation to add a female pilot in somewhere. The mecha pictured was supposed to be piloted by the American Adam Graye, so I gave it a red-white-and-blue colour scheme, but now it looks like a baboon-flavoured Kamen Rider. And on the female characters - I keep falling prey to the slimy giant-robot-anime stereotypes for females. My past attempts include a hybrid of Asuka Langely and Lynn Minmei, whom dies in the third-to-last episode.

So, I like 10% of Gigan-X so far, and I don't know how long it'll be before it gets off the ground. I'd might as well just put Kagiyama as a guest character in Hyperspace Bunny.

Bulletins

Attention everyone, I would like to mention a few things.

1. A professionally-printed omnibus edition of Cinderelliot will be coming out by July, but I need to raise money for printing costs and get an estimate of how many people would actually buy it. The book would include a new cover, an extra page in the second half, and a bonus two-page comic at the end.

2. I will be at the Saskatoon Anime Blitz this Sunday the 16th, dressed as Lisa Hayes/Misa Hayase from Robotech: The Macross Saga. This is what I will look like, except I won't be a toy. Anyone interested in talking to me about Cinderelliot or anything else is welcome to approach me during the convention's free times.

3. Endo Hiramatsu will cameo in Hyperspace Bunny #4. Also on the way is a comic version of the pilot episode of The 27 Ghosts of Endo.

Bunny; Paperback Cinderelliot

First off, this June, I want to release a "First Anniversary" republishing of Cinderelliot, this time in paperback graphic novel form. At the moment I'd place the books - which would have both issues and a three page bonus comic - in the $5 or $6 price range, but I'd have to see how much each book would cost from Mr. Print. I'm really excited for this; this new format would make online selling easier, and maybe I could get attention from a Canadian publisher!

At the same time, I'm torn between releasing Hyperspace Bunny in print or online. At the moment, the first story rests at ten pages completed, and I can see maybe another five in the story. I'm planning to put the first two stories in one issue. After school, I'm going to pick up some small canvases and paint a picture of Bunny for the cover, in case the cover image I have right now doesn't turn out well.

My first series was about fairies and the mob. Now my next one is about aliens, robots and mad scientists...

Merry Christmakwanzanukah Solstice!

I was inspired by a Giles strip while working on this. It look two days of planning and sketching, and two more days to ink and apply the grey marker. May Ray (holding the streamer) is one of my oldest characters that I still like, whom I've put in a comic for the first time in two years. There's another four characters that I haven't quite yet put online yet...

Cinderelliot: Elliot/Cain, Miles/Arbrook, King, Pinhead, Fairy Godfather

Westbury Detectives: Mara Wright (all of the above are also in this, but still...)

Hyperspace Bunny: Bunny, Ray Hatcher

Skipper the Robot Kid: Sarai Mizuno, A.M.I., Robby Phillips, Bunny2000, Sera (from the remake)

Quinn: Rick Jones

Our Own May Ray: May Ray

The 27 Ghosts of Endo: Endo Hiramatsu (that guy about to get copped by the Godfather)

I'm also in the picture frame!

As soon as I finish some maths homework, I've got some model sheets of The 27 Ghosts of Endo to post. It's based on a dream I had (which I encorperated into an episode), and odds are that it's going to be my next project.

For anyone interested, this was the Giles strip I was inspired by...

Cinderelliot Site!

http://cinderelliot.tripod.com/index.html

This was made of pure HTML. I started learning HTML and CSS back in 7th grade or so, and it's helped out now, seeing as SiteBuilder had closed down and so has Geocities, and I'm certainly not going to Webon.

Anyways, the profile pictures for Miles and the Stepsisters aren't done yet, but everything else is totally functional. Let me know if there's anything I should revisit and edit there.

Also, I saw "Planet 51", and it was a...complete disappointment. I'll have a bigger review later on. I wish we'd just waited five days until The Princess and the Frog came out, because I really want to see that.

What the hell is this

I'm listening to Michael Jackson and goofing off in printmaking, and wanted to show you all something. The following is the first result in a Google search of "Cinderelliot"*...

http://www.fictionwise.com/servlet/mw?t=book&bookid=35179&id=5069

So, apparently my debut comic shares the same name as a women's erotica book. However, this Elliot is a complete Mary-Sue and is effeminate. Look, another Fairy Godfather!

I tried reading the larger summary on that page, but I got the horrible feeling that the author masturbated to it while writing it. Luckily, this whole dilemna doesn't bother me too much, because I refer to my Elliot as Cain (which is technically his "birth" name, if I should be getting creepy on this).

Should I be concerned about copyrights? The book is selling for $2.98 and can probably not be brought up in polite company, so I doubt if there's anything that could happen. My biggest dream is to have an animated, feature film length version of Cinderelliot (my version! my version) and it would be funny if we had a Larry Potter disorder.

*Yes, I searched this. I am egotistical.

So, I've got Cinderelliot #1 in the school library's magazine section. It seems to be getting read...it's switching spots quite frequently, so either someone has a Mad Hatter-esque obsession of constantly moving the magazines over by one spot, or it's getting attention.

In the meantime, I'm waiting to be driven to a friend's house for a Tetsujin 28 marathon, because we're almost done the series and are only going through the episodes with Kenji. I've been feeling mildly fluish since Tuesday, so right now I'm eating blueberries in the hopes that it'll do something for me.

For now, have a Fairy Godmother scribbling:

Someone suggested early on that it would be easier to offer the comic to people if there wasn't a gay man involved. Imagine the Godfather's personality in a woman...we have what is known as a Tsundere, and the thrill of inverted gender is gone. Similarily, if someone were to use a devious, attractive, sniper lesbian in something, everybody would love that character for the reason that she differs from the female "standard" towards the male. Not to mention that lesbianism tends to be more marketable...

Anyhow, this is who you saw in issue one. Now if you don't mind, my ride is late, and I have finished the blueberries.

New Cover Page

If I were to have a formal paperback reprinting of the book, this is what I would want to be on the cover. Personally, I think King is the best-drawn person here, but nobody's going to notice him, because every living female who I have forced the comic on is in love with the Fairy Godfather. I had trouble colouring his party outfit, because I had never planned what colours would be used. Blue and grey, I think.


(Did I ever mention how Garrett Morris influenced King's overall being? If you're too young or haven't seen old episodes like I have, Garrett was the first African-American on Saturday Night Live. Despite being very typecast and having few notable parts, I always rather liked him. Not as much as Belushi & Akroyd, but Garrett was up there with them. Strangely, I just didn't like Chevy, and the only way I could tell Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner apart was by their hair.)

Lost Scene, #1

Midway through the comic, I started to come up with a lot of individual scenes that were only extra character development. I embellish my characters as it is, so there were three short scenes that never really went anywhere. I was planning to just let them go (or put them into an extended film version, DUN-DUN-DUN), but I realized that I'm the creator! I can make these supplementary scenes, and they'll be completely legit.

Today's page is of how King and Stepmama/Alexis ended up having the affair. Notably, you get to see Alexis when she was younger (by six years) and non-bitter, and King when he was a little less mature and easily moved by his libido. Did you know that I find it a huge turn-off when women smoke? I put this in, but you're probably more surprised that women would attract me in the first place.

The moral is, if anyone promises you a ridiculous amount of money for a one-night-stand, get that shit in writing.

Coming soon:
*Fairy Godfather talking to Mina near the end of issue two
*Elliot and his brother arguing in the apartment house lobby, early in issue one
Someday, whenever there's a professional paperback printing, I'll have all the pages together in one tidy alignment...

ALSO COMING SOON! HYPERSPACE BUNNY

Relevant to Some

Having shown the comic to a dozen girls, I can tell that the Fairy Godfather now has an immense offline fanclub. Katelyn, if you tell me "he needs a sexy boyfriend" one more time, despite my adding of the characters George and Klide the hitman, I'm going to come at you like Nevada-Tan. Aside, I'm very happy to have made a character that is such a hit, and I wonder if it'll be the same results when I test the comic on male classmates.

To my extreme disappointment, these same girls a) hate Elliot, or b) want to pair him with the Godfather. Remember in issue one? I immediately severed any sort of Godfather's attraction to Elliot that would secure him from being paired like so. The reason for this is that Elliot, alternate name Cain, is extremely important to me. Let me break down the influences that brought Cain together:


In a Tezukian method of character creation, Cain/Elliot is based on my favorite actor of all time, whom unfortunately died of a drug overdose just when he was trying to get into a different genre of movies. He was supposed to be in Ghostbusters, for God's sake! Disturbingly enough, I've mourned this man more than I've mourned deceased family members. Adding to this, Hideki is based on him too, but if you look at pictures of Cain from late 2008, he has a bastardized version of Hideki's hair. Cain is pretty much a distant substitute for John. Unfortunately:

...When I first showed off the first issue at a sleepover, the following verbatim conversation resulted:
K: Maybe this Elliot should just get together with the Godfather. You know, just go, "This girl's too hard to get! Maybe I..."
V: No, he said he found him ugly, remember?
K: Oh.
In my head, I was pleased that making the Godfather extremely unattracted to Elliot had worked. But this was a requested piece, and my only consolation was not having Elliot blush as well. Because he doesn't want to do it. I'll tell you people when you can slash someone.
(KingxGodfather is acceptable)

Fan Art & School

So, recently I've been bringing issue one with me to school, and letting people read it if they want to. (I'm considering offering it to the school library!) By a complete landslide, the most popular character is the Fairy Godfather, so far having seven fans in real life. I've never been responsible for an actual fangirl; what should I do? And I'm actually not surprised by this turnout...I wrote him to be a likeable and entertaining character. Personally, I have more than one favorite character, but then again, I am the series creator. You need to be able to tolerate all of your characters if you want to be able to draw them consistantly and repeatedly. (While you think it may be a good idea to make characters every day, or make ones designated to be hated, that will become a burden on you.)

In the meantime, I had a person in France who wanted to buy both issues, but was too young to understand Paypal. I offered her a chance to get both issues for free if she could draw a picture of Elliot and the Godfather. She did, and the issues are on the way.



by ~AKHTS
I actually have this in my school locker as well. My friends (big Fairy Godfather fans) saw it, and their general reaction was "OH D'AWWWWWWW"