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.