I'm holed up in my room today -_-; So I thought I'd finally get around to doing the meme I meant to do a million years ago!

1. What do you like about your style?

That I can get a whole lot out of a very few lines.




2. Which is the most popular deviation in your gallery? Why do you think people like it so much? What do YOU like about it?

I like that other people find it as funny as I do!



3. Pick one of your least popular deviations. What are the things you like about it, despite the lack of popularity?

It's not my LEAST popular one (but I'm leaving out the Harry Potter Tarot and the Easter Eggs). I really like the contrast and attention to detail. I especially like how the horns turned out.



4. Which is your favorite picture, concept- or idea-wise? Would you ever revisit this idea and try to make a new picture based on it again?

^_^; I've already revisited this one once, so I probably wouldn't do it again. I'm really, really proud of this one.



5. Do you have a favorite quickie? What are the things you like about it?

Once again, it makes me laugh. Crazy dinosaurs!



6. Do you have a favorite piece that involved tons of time and effort?

This one took way more effort than I thought it would have, but it was fun to get to tell some of PoJo's story



7. Lastly, pick your top favorite image in your gallery. (If you picked this picture in any of the previous answers, please pick the next favorite or something.) Why do you like it so much?

I surprised myself with this choice! But I'm so happy with it. The colors came out great and for once I actually like the composition.

Okay, okay, so I didn't actually make to the comic book shop today to pick up my weekly fix. But that doesn't stop me from blathering on the subject anyway (for those that know me personally, there's very little that will stop me from blathering on the subject of anything!).

Today's topic, which was touched briefly upon last week, is comics for kids.

Actually, allow me to ammend that: Comics for all ages.

It has long been my belief that one of the reasons comics aren't doing so well is because of the misconception that comics are primarily for children. This was true back when comic books first started gaining popularity (we're talking back in the 1930s, here), but really hasn't been the case in ages. For the longest time the market has been geared towards pulling in teenaged boys.

Here's the thing: If no one is making comics for kids, how are kids supposed to get into comics and want to read MORE comics when they get older?

Sure, there's a few titles out there aimed directly at kids. Allow me to site Archie and Sonic the Hedgehog. Sounds silly, but that one is one of the most popular titles out there and has been for years...It's here where I have to confess that it's also one of my guilty pleasures, even though the writing has gone to crap since when it first started up...But I digress. The point that I'm making here is that kids titles could be so MUCH better than these two examples.

Let's face it: Archie is STILL trying to figure out which girl is right for him. Does anyone REALLY care anymore?

Kid's comics shouldn't have to be dumbed down just because they're appropriate for children under the age of 12. Here's where I bring in the term "for all ages." I'd love to see some more comics out there for kids that aren't so completely vapid, that their parents could pick them up and get a kick out of them too.

I was so excited to see that the publishing house Scholastic (the same people who put Harry Potter out stateside) has started up a line of comics marketed directly to children called Graphix. It looks like they've finally gotten the right idea too. There's a few titles over there that I'm not really into (like Baby Mouse for one), but there's a lot of really solid books too.

Since I can't leave you on a Wednesday without offering some recommendations allow me to let you in on some of titles that you don't have to hide from your parents and you shouldn't be embarrassed to be caught reading:

Bone (Jeff Smith) Already mentioned in last weeks Comic's Journal, but bears worth mentioning again as I believe it to be the best all ages comic money can buy. Speaking of Graphix, I should mention that the entire series is being reprinted through them in color (instead of the original black and white).

Akiko (Mark Crilley) These are hard to find in the local chain bookstore, but you can still get a hold of them on line. The art and the characters are so much fun! It's about a little girl who ends up going into outer space and going on fantastical adventures.

Amelia Rules (Jimmy Gownley) Admittedly, I've only paged through some of the books and read a few exerpts in various compilations, but what little I've seen has been great. It's about a 9 year old girl and her friends, very true to life, and I've seen it compared to Schultz's Peanuts.

Magic Pickle (Scott Morse and Jose Garibaldi) It's a shame they've only put out one comic (most of their stuff is illustrated novels for kids, probably worth checking out, but I haven't looked for myself)! The Magic Pickle is a super hero who's been cryogenically frozen since the Cold War. Hilarity ensues.

Now get out there and read some comics: It's Wednesday!

It's Wednesday and you know what THAT means: New Comic Book Day! New comics always ship Wednesdays for some reason, and so once a week, I go down to my local store to get my fix...And here we are right smack-dab in the middle of DA's Comic Book Week. What a conicidence seeing as how I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject of comics lately and I've decided to kick off my own Comic Education Project. I'm going to try and put something up in my journal (Or maybe I'll switch to news articles) every Wednesday about the art form. Post or ask questions if you're interested...Now, on with the journal!

My kitten, Harley and I, both love comics...Although she likes to eat them, so they have to sit in the closet where she can't get at them (her clumsy kitten-paws haven't allowed her to master the door knob), while I prefer to read them. Yes, my books are bagged-and-boarded for the most part, but that's not gonna stop me from whippin'em out and reading them over and over.

I wish more people did.

Unfortunately, the industry is still rocky due to a slew of misconceptions about the genre. That's right. I said "genre." If you don't watch out, I might even start referring to them as literature. I can't really blame the public, I suppose, for anything more than simply not paying attention to how much the stories and ideas have changed. The people that bother me the most are the ones who A) think comics are solely for children, B) think comics are only about beefy men and huge-breasted women flying around in tights, and C) (and this is always the one that'll get me in trouble) the one's who think that the Japanese manga titles are the only comics that exist.

On the first point: Most comics aren't for kids. And good chunk of the ones that are marketed for kids are crap. Sure, once comics are dead and gone, Archie Digest will still be on the stand at the grocery store check out, but geez: that comic's lame. Even the old familiar super heroes have changed for the darker. There's several Batman story-arcs I can think of that I wouldn't hand over to a six year old. Never mind the fact that many of the titles over in the "Graphic Novel" section of your local bookstore aren't what I would call kid friendly. Bearing that in mind, the thing that really irks me is that so many people pass off a perfectly legitimate art form as crap simply because they think it's only for children. Not because it actually is, but because they've already decided that just because there are speech bubbles that it's obviously infantile. Bah.

On the second point....Okay, okay, there's still plenty of comics about men in capes and tights and women with impossible anantomy. The stereotype has to originate from somewhere, and I'm not here to deny it. But I can promise you that there's so many titles out there that have nothing to do with capes and super powers. Plenty of titles out there are just really, really good stories. Stories about anything: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Romance...Huh, almost sounds like the genre lables sitting over the "real" books in the bookstore. Funny that.

On the third point: I could write up an entire separate piece (and probably will) on the differences between Manga and American Comics and why I prefer one over the other, but I'll try and keep it short here. One thing I can say about the Japanese comics is that the idea of making a comic for everyone? They've got it down. In the manga section, there is a comic about something you're interested in. Don't believe me? I have three words for you: Prince of Tennis. I've never read it, but somewhere out there, there's a tennis player wetting himself with joy because here's a comic about his hobby. The thing that makes me most crazy about many people who read manga is that a lot of them have a tendency to read exclusively manga. Not because they truly prefer one style over the other, but because of the exact SAME crap-reasons that the general populace doesn't read comics. I almost had a coronary at work the day I heard some girl say to her friend in a snobbish voice: "Oh, I don't read American comics. They're all only about super heroes anyway."

I think I only foamed at the mouth a little bit.

You could at least TRY looking at them. That girl was no better than the crazy moms who won't let their kids read Harry Potter because they think it's (literally) written by the devil. Nevermind the fact that they've never actually read one, but they KNOW. The bottom line is American comics have changed a lot, and a lot of them have Japanese influences, and I'm not talking about the art style.

My love affair with comics runs deep. For me they've always been the perfect vehicle for telling my stories, words or pictures as stand-alones never being enough for me. Just like there's so many things that can only be done with prose or with cinema, there's some things that can only be achieved with that perfect marriage between pictures and words. This one's run on kind of long, being an old blog from another site (albeit edited a touch), but before I go, let me leave you with some good recommendations:

Bone (Jeff Smith): Hands down, the best all-ages comic that money can buy. Action, fantasy, and humor all rolled into one. Beautiful art, great story...Honestly, I can't say enough good about it. Jeff Smith is my hero. He's done what I dream by saying: "Hey, I want to make a comic all by myself"....and then he did.

Sandman (Neil Gaiman): Everybody that knows me knew I was gonna say it. Gaiman's one of my favorite authors, and at least the first trade is really worth the read. If nothing else, just so you'll know what the heck people are talking about when it (inevitably) comes up in a conversation about comics. It was one of the first titles to prove that comics could be more than just super heroes.

Strangers In Paradise (Terry Moore): The man is a god. The art is absolutely amazing...Which reminds me, if you do decide to pick one of these up, do yourself a favor and go for the full-sized versions and not those digest-sized ones. The art is just too good. The characters are exceptionally real and the story is not what you are expecting.

Other good titles include:

Watchmen (Alan Moore): A story about the Real Lives of super heroes. Kind of like the TV show Heroes. Pick this one up if you really looking to educate yourself about the genre, this one's one of the greats...And for God's sake read the prose in between the comics pages too.

Transmetropolitan (Warren Ellis): Not for the easily offended, with lots and lots of creative swearing (making it one of my favorites...Sorry Mom!), but it makes journalism seem like the sexiest job on the planet.

Fables (Bill Willingham): Not the "next Sandman" as it is often touted, in my opinion, but still a lot of fun. The art is solid and the writing is usually pretty good. Especially if you want to know what happens after "happily ever after."

The backstory for my last journal entry, about why my friend was in the hospital:

The spleen seems like such an inconsequential organ until someone you know gets shot through it.

Early, early, Thursday morning (June 5th), one of my friends was shot in the back while unloading his car in the parking lot of his apartment complex. He had just gotten back from a vacation with his family when two men came up behind him and shot him in the back. Just so you know, there's really a lot of organs in the torso. The bullet clipped his lung, part of his liver, went through the spleen, through the diaphram, and into his stomach. After the guys ran, he called his roomates and they came running and called the police and the ambulance.

I got phone call on my way to work and proceeded to spend the rest of my workday as a complete zombie, until my shift was over and got directions to Grady Hospital.

Which, apparently, is the best hospital in the region to go to if you've been shot. I learned that it's one of nine hospitals in the country where they train military surgeons.............Because they get so many gunshot victims for them to practice on.

Comforting.

At any rate, my friends and I spent most of that weekend shuffling between waiting rooms and the cafeteria and occasionally getting to see our friend in the ICU when they would let us. Geez, and hospitals are the last place ANYone wants to visit. They're full of everyone who's become disillusioned with life because they've truly seen it all. There was the crabby receptionist who wouldn't let us wait in the...um...waiting area for us to go in (two at a time) to visit our friend, or the security guard who wouldn't let us wait in the elevator hall just for our friends to come down from the next floor up, and the parking attendant that made me write a check for five dollars to get out of the parking garage.....

The parking attendant was the one that REALLY got me: Drive up to the little booth, and hand him my parking ticket, he takes it and punches some buttons and tells me that the cost is five bucks. I whip out my debit card (because, honestly, how many people carry cash anymore?), and he responds by looking at me like I'm a moron and says huffily, "We don't take PLAStic." I'm completely thrown offguard by this, and it's been, really, The Longest Day Ever, so all I can manage is, ".........You don't take cards?" He responds that there are signs everywhere saying this....

Oh, I'M sorry. As I was circling around the building fifteen times to try and legally get into the parking garage while also worrying whether my friend who's been freaking SHOT is going to live or die tonight is in there, I failed to notice the tiny, tiny sign sitting ON THE GROUND said in small letters that you don't take cards. Join the rest of the century, please.

But I digress.

It's easier to talk about it now because my friend is officially going to make a full recovery. He's extremely lucky to be alive, but he's definitely a fighter, and that was what really counted that night. His parents moved him to a hospital in Alabamia to be closer to home, because there's going to have to be a lot of rehabilitation...But, geez, it's only been a little over a week and he's already out of bed and shuffling around.

It's been the craziest week ever.

But cheers to him, good luck, we're all routing for you, and we'll be glad to see you when you get back!

Just a short update, because I more than need to change my journal. Stuff and stuff keeps happening, and it's making more and more difficult for me to get things done and post on my normal daily basis.

The short version: One of my friends ended up in the hospital, so I've been spending most of my free time there.

I'll be back when I can, and as always, thanks for watching.