Howdy, all!

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, I just wanted to let you know that I am now a published children's book illustrator!

[link]

The book just came out today, and we could really use a bump in the rankings so Amazon will list it as a "favorite children's book" and we can get some real publicity!

So, feel free to buy, borrow (Only with Amazon Prime. Surprisingly, borrowing somehow gets me more money than buying? IDK) like, and comment ASAP! And spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested in the book--parents and grandparents of small children, librarians, etc.

Thanks in advance! <3

My hometown was one of the hardest hit by hurricane Sandy, internet and cable didn't come back until one week ago today (hence my not writing about it earlier). For you folks who aren't facebook friends with me, here's some pics I took of the crazy massive damage:

[link]

(Okay, so maybe I have no idea how to imbed images into a journal entry. Links are fine, too)

Trying to get around the day after the storm was such a surreal experience. No cars, no lights, no people on the streets. It was like living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The only time I saw other people was when there were large groups of them working together to try to clear debris off the road, those who had gas-powered chainsaws bringing them out to cut through the more obstructive trees. Which was actually kind of uplifting, the sight of the community coming together in a time of crisis like that. Also I saw one guy driving down the street on a quad, but that kind of fit, somehow.

I did go out in my car once, to see if the Wendy's where I worked was still open (I was on the schedule for that day, after all). Despite it being early-morning rush hour on a major road, only a few sparse cars dotted the landscape. All the businesses were closed down, my Wendy's included, and, of course, all the traffic lights were off, which was particularly jarring. Again, upliftingly, I found that the drivers were unusually considerate of each other, everyone perfectly obeying the rules of right-of-way, and giving other plenty of room to maneuver, each move slow and deliberate. With no lights to guide us, we began to see past the cars to our fellow drivers as human beings; we knew we were all in the same boat, and we had to look out for each other, since no one else would. Getting home, however, was a less pleasant experience. So many roads were blocked off by fallen trees, it was exactly the experience of navigating a maze. First I think I'll make this turn, then I find my path is blocked, so I backtrack and try the next turn. I take that road as far as I can, try another turn, only to find that way blocked as well, so I backtrack again, etc.

My parents happened to be in Florida when Sandy hit, so my younger brother and I were the only ones home, further adding to the isolated, roughing-it feel (because I am a child, and the thought of taking care of myself seems like an adventure, as though I didn't go to college for four years) subsisting on whatever non-perishables we had had the foresight to buy (not many, as it happens). After a day or two, my eldest brother drove by (or, drove as near as he could and walked the rest of the way. He couldn't quite figure out how to navigate the maze) to take us to his apartment one town over, where he miraculously still had power.

"We always have power," he bragged.
On the drive over they lost power.
Lovely.

Still, hanging with Ted and his two roommates was better than hanging alone, so we stayed. Plenty of people kept dropping by. Apparently Ted's place is the usual hangout for his group of friends, all the more so now that no one had anything else to do. We lit candles and put them all around the apartment (which, sidebar, you shouldn't do, it's really easy in a blackout to knock candles over and start a fire, and it's hard for rescue workers to get to you), fired up the barbeque and gas-grilled everything in their fridge before it had a chance to go bad. Those of us on diets quickly abandoned them in favor of taking food where we could. Besides, what else were we going to do with our time but eat? It was at this point, all of us hanging out late into the candle-lit night, grilling and eating whatever we could scrounge up over the fire, work and school completely forgotten, that Ted's roommate aptly declared it a "hurrication."

More and more, the time before the storm seemed like some long-ago, legendary Before time. The age of civilization had passed, and this was the age of the hurrication. I haven't been watching NBC's Revolution, but I kept thinking that they really dropped the ball in jumping ahead ten years from the apocalypse, this was what they should have shown: the early days, lost survivors trying to adapt to the new world, no TV, no computers, no heat or light, no cell phones that actually functioned properly, and no idea what remained of the outside world.

It was actually pretty cool is what I'm getting at.

Anyway, anticlimactic story end: my parents came home, the lights came back, and, eventually, as you can see, so did the internet and the cable. None of my family or friends were hurt, although my cousin and her husband and children did lose their home to massive flooding, so that sucks. Still, it was an amazing experience, and I'm glad I'll be able to look back and talk about where I was during the long, dark hurrication.

Not me personally, but it still stung.

Let me back up.

My little brother Cian happened to have gone to Mass last night instead of this morning, and had told me that there was this guest speaker who got kind of political.

Now, I probably ought to explain just how uncomfortable politics in Church make me. First off, as per the first amendment, the Church has (or ought to have) zero say in government. There is an argument to be made that we have a duty to vote with our conscience, and that, since our religion informs our morality, our religion will naturally inform our vote. I suppose this does, to an extent, hold true, but we bloody well can't go around outlawing things JUST because our religion is against it. My religion is against lying, but I can't outlaw lying, that's absurd. Hell, I wouldn't even outlaw adultery, and you can be damn sure God is opposed to that. Personally, I'm opposed to the death penalty because my religion tells me that no one is above redemption and everyone deserves a second chance. And I think it's okay for me to likewise oppose the legal institution of the death penalty, because I can use reason to back up my case, and because quantifiable physical harm is being done to someone. In any more abstract case, my Church should stay out of the government and opt instead to affect social change.

Secondly, and more importantly, I feel very strongly about the sanctity of the Mass and the church. I go to Mass to grow closer to God, to learn more about my Faith and what God's will is for me, and I can think of little more despicable than using this sacred time and place to twist the Word of God to one's own personal ends. When Jesus Christ Himself found out people were using the area outside the Temple selfishly, he flipped out and trashed the place (Mark 11: 15-19). And they weren't even doing anything evil, they were just selling sacrificial doves--sacrifices which were necessary for a Jewish repentance ritual--but for personal profit. When Jesus Christ, a man who, by all accounts, was the forgiving sort, reacted so strongly to such a small misuse of church grounds, you'd think the modern-day Church would take things just as seriously. Alas, no.

Anyway, I groaned, and bitched about the over-conservativism of the Church with him, then we ate Pizza and I went to bed, feeling confident I was prepared for whatever Mass was going to throw at me in the morning.

Fast forward.

I go to Mass, wide awake for once (hooray for energy drinks!) and ready to learn about God. I love to learn about God. I think it's just about the most important thing you can do, so I love when the readings are from passages I've never read before, or when the homily is really insightful. Today's readings were about how God provides for his children. Pretty standard stuff, nothing so terribly enlightening, but uplifting nonetheless. Then Father Tony got up to do the homily. I like Father Tony. He's a pretty light-hearted, personable guy. He tries a little too hard to be funny, sometimes, which some people would probably find wince-inducing, but to me even that means that at least he's trying to connect with people, to make them comfortable, without taking things too seriously. I take myself seriously enough, I certainly don't need any encouragement.

Anyway the homily is crazy short, and Father Tony calls up a guest speaker. I remember what Cian told me and I begin to get nervous. I actually say a quick prayer that the man doesn't say anything inappropriate for Chuch (Because if you're not gonna pray during Mass, when are you going to pray?) Then, having put my hope in God's will, I try to remain optimistic. The speaker (whose name I can't recall) is a Franciscan. I love Saint Francis! I chose Francis as my confirmation name, we've probably got a lot in common, me and this guy, right?

Wrong. The man starts out by telling us that there is a "war" on Catholics in our country right now. Okay, seriously, people need to stop saying there's a "war" on anything. Even when the subject matter is something serious, calling it a "war" makes the opposition think of them as spoiled whiners, not people with a legitimate complaint to consider. And of course, sometimes they ARE spoiled whiners, case in point: the war on Catholicism. I am very much a Catholic, and do, indeed, live in America, but I'm the institutionalized majority, and rarely face any sort of prejudice. The speaker helpfully informs me, however, the the war is very real, and unsurprising considering the secularization of the country. You know, like those dreadfully evil words "Happy Holidays."

I can't believe he's actually going there. It's in no way relevant. It's October, and this "Happy Holidays" thing has absolutely no bearing on the greater point he's trying to make, but whatever, he went there. I never understood this disgust at "Happy Holidays." Obviously I'm not offended when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, I celebrate Christmas, but this is New York. I know like fifty bajillion Jews. I know Muslims, I know Hindus! Why would I be wishing all of them a Merry Christmas when they don't celebrate Christmas? Not that they'd probably be offended if I did, but then if they can suck it up, why can't my fellow Christians endure a "Happy Holidays" here and there? But no, the speaker tells me, motioning to the large crucifix over the altar, to utter the phrase "Happy Holidays" on Christ's birthday is (and this is a direct quote) "hitting and kicking him in the face!"

I began to tremble. I began to quiver with indignation. This man is telling me, from the pulpit, that I am "hitting and kicking" my God and Savior in the face? Because I used a different phrasing than he when exchanging pleasantries. How dare he? Where did he even find the nerve to say that? Event then, of course, I might have wrote it off as an isolated use of extremely distasteful hyperbole, if not for what Cian had warned me was coming next:

The HHS mandate.

Yes, this was the point he was building to, his real reason for being here. The "war on Catholics" amounted to requiring us to pay for women's contraceptives. That was what was so horrible that time needed to be taken out from Holy Mass to decry it. And not a short time, this was a good 15 or 20 minutes. Now, I make no secret of the fact that I am Pro-Life. I am very Pro-Life, I always have been, and I think I always will be. And I will fight tooth and nail to see my view reflected in the law, because, as I said before, I can make a secular argument for it, and (and this is very important) LIVES are at stake. And you know what? I see the gray area with the HHS mandate. The government shouldn't force people to betray their morals if at all possible, and contraception is not, strictly speaking, necessary. But some women need it for reasons other than procreational sex, like to deal with painful periods or hormonally-induced headaches. And the Church never raised a stink about health insurance covering Viagra, which has NO use outside of sex, so what's the deal with the double standard here? Now I get that the Catholic Church takes an official stance against the use of any contraceptives ever, so, I guess they can make a sermon out of that, that's their right. But if you want to tell me how to vote, you better get the hell off the pulpit, and away from my God's altar. At my God's altar, I want to hear about what my God wants from me, not what you want from me, not what some random Fransiscan wants from me.

But today, instead of learning about the wonderful "God provides" message the scriptures set up, I got to listen to said random Franciscan talk about his (by the way unconstitutional) political views. Instead of learning how best to avoid evils like pride and selfishness, I learned solely how to avoid the evils of contraception and sterilization. "Sterilization!" cried the speaker "When's the last time you heard about that? The Nazis!"

The Nazis. He had just called anyone who receives a vasectomy, hysterectomy, or tubal ligation a Nazi. Nevermind that the Nazis didn't themselves receive sterilizations, they forced them on unwilling victims. Nevermind that in addition to their most heinous crime of sterilization, the Nazis also from time to time dabbled in racism, torture, and, oh yeah, mass genocide. Apparently, if you receive a vasectomy, you're just as evil as they were.

I got up. And I left.

I wanted to throw something, to hit something. I was sorely tempted to flip off the speaker, but I couldn't do that. Not in the church. Not during Mass. These thing are sacred to me. So instead I went to the door, genuflected as I crossed before the tabernacle, dipped my hand in the holy water, and blessed my head, my lips, and my heart, just like I always do. I hoped that someone might notice, and might realize that I was, indeed, a practicing, believing Catholic, and that this was not all right with me.

I paused in the hallway, and took deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. They were deeper than I thought they'd be, heaving. I hadn't realized how upset I was. I heard the speaker inside finish his speech, heard the congregation clap for him. I new they were as much being polite as anything, clapping for guest speakers is kind of what you do, but it made me furious. More furious. I considered going back in now that he was done, but I wouldn't. I was disgusted by what had happened, and I had to leave, if only for myself.

I don't skip Mass. Not ever. When I was in New Jersey with my friends, I got up bright and early to search for a nearby church. I came late to Comic Con on Sunday two weeks ago because I had to make it to Mass. And I didn't go to the earliest Mass I could have, either, because I didn't want to miss nodding off during it. Because Mass is sacred. But I skipped out on Mass this week. Because today, under the watch of the priests, Mass was made into something less than sacred. Because for all their talk of the evils of secularism, the actual homily of the Mass was a brief footnote, and the longer sermon had almost nothing to do with God, and everything to do with government. A government which is supposed to be secular itself, despite the speaker's parroting of the unresearched, self-centered, self-entitled, and false claim that this nation was founded to be a Christian nation. My breath is heaving, and I'm trembling again, just writing this. I don't go to Church to hear your political views, and I don't go to Church to be called a Nazi, and most importantly, I don't go to Church to be told I am hitting and kicking my God and savior in the face. I am so, so disappointed that my Church, which is supposed to serve my God, allowed--endorsed!--such disgusting behavior. I still want to go to Church every Sunday, because my God wants me to, and I want to please my God, and I want to grow closer to Him. I would think the clergy and my fellow Catholics would agree, but if not, they can go start their own, new Church that talks politics and name-calling instead. But keep that behavior the hell out of mine.

So I turned 22 yesterday. It was fun times. My younger brother got me Rhythm Heaven Fever, you know, that Wii rhythm game.* Parents got me a GPS, which will come in handy on trips, as I have notoriously bad directions-taking skills. My older brothers haven't seen me yet, but I assume they'll give me gifts when I see them this weekend.

Speaking of which, what I'm really excited about is this weekend is COMICCON! I'll be going, and cosplaying (can't tell you as who, yet, it's a surprise. But oh, the stories they will tell of my magnificent cosplay!) I'm so excited, I haven't been to a con at all in years, stuff's just kept coming up. There's gonna be food, and panels, and gifts I can buy myself without feeling guilty b/c I'll have already gotten gifts from my family so there's no risk of getting myself something one of them also got me. Also I just got some birthday money, so yay! And of course, I'll get to see my lovely friends, both from home and from Pratt.

Lastly, have I mentioned I got commissioned to illustrate a comic? It's pretty rad. I put some illustrations up already, though, of course, you already knew that I'm sure. Maybe I'll post my progress as I actually make some. Maybe. Playing this by ear, here.

Well, that's all for tonight, further updates after ComicCon!

*Can't spell that word for my life. Rythym? Rhythym? Rythm? This is what I go through every single time I try. (Only, of course, naturally as I was trying to spell it WRONG this time, I got it right on the second try. What. The. Frig.)

Now that I've graduated, I am, for the first time since I was 2, staying home while everyone else goes back to school. It's like a (WAIT FOR TITLE DROP) neverending summer of superfunhappytimes! (END TITLEDROP) I'll have to work hard to use my time wisely and work on my art and stuffs instead of just lazing around the house. This short little journal is one step of that process. I'll begin uploading arts I've made lately again, and also I just probably link all ya'all to my super-legit professional portfolio once I get further in prettifying it.

Off to work hard! ENJOY SCHOOL, NON-GRADUATED SUCKERS!

It has been 364 days since my last journal entry. I'm pretty sure this is a record for me.

Anywho, hello internet! People I don't know: sorry for vanishing. People I know: sorry I wasn't around much for the winter break. For your up-to-date Zith info, here's me telling you stuff.

Did some cool work in class last semester, it's pretty much all up in my gallery now, so you've probably already seen it. But it's fun times. I did some AWESOME work (not on here) on my previously mentioned modern-day Peter Pan book, which apparently is a never-ending project for me. But seriously, this past semester was great for it, my senior project professor was nice enough to let me keep working on it for her class, and she really helped to encourage me to take the style in a more fun direction. Before it was too clean. This is a book about a gang of teenage runaways doing drugs on the city streets and living below a strip joint. It should be dirty. And now, it is! This also helped me to learn to be a lot faster and looser with my art, which was very important, as I always take too long to finish stuff.

Running the anime club was a blast, we got more members this year (which is to say, we got members) so instead of just five of us there's like ten or fifteen? And I became much close with them, which is great, b/c I don't really have a lot of close friends here at college. It's nice that now I have people I can hang out with in my rare moments of spare time. I also got involved with the Christian Fellowship on campus, but not nearly as involved as I'd like. Zith is a guilty Zith.

Also! I started dating this girl named Haley. She's pretty cool people. She's actually been in the anime club for a few years now, so I already knew her, but we just went out on a few dates shortly before Christmas Break. Then it was Christmas Break so I couldn't see her. Nice timing, Zith. Anyway, now we're back at school so we kept going out so I guess it's all good? This is me trying to act like all this is no big deal. How am I doing?

(The other day we was over at her place watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I had my arm around her. It was kinda crushed against the wall and a little bit falling asleep but I was all like "Damn it, there's a girl in this arm, I'm not moving it now!" I am somewhat a dork)

And yeah, back at school now. First day of classes was today (it was fine, thanks) and I figured I should put this up before school kicked into serious gear and I got busy and put this off even more. Once again, I'll try to update more often (I was actually doing pretty good there for a couple of months last year!)

Love to everyone! <3

Okay, so it's hardly "spam" per se, just 10 pieces I uploaded... also it was days ago by now, but the journal title stays nonetheless.

Well, Christmas came and went, and it was lovely, as it always is. All four of we brothers were home, which is happening less and less frequently, what with Ted being 25 and living in his own place somewhere around here, me being in college, and Kev being way the hell down south in Georgia getting his master's/being engaged. But we came back for Christmas, and hung with Kev's fiancee Val for a few days, so fun times all around. She gave us snacks! DELICIOUS snacks!

There were many movies and stuff watched:

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
While having almost nothing to do with the children's story that inspired it, this movie is friggin amazing, guys. I am so totally in love with this movie, it is so so funny and awesomeness. Not so much for kids, though. I mean, not that there's anything terribly inappropriate, as such (except for that line about Mrs. Fox having been "the town tart." Seriously, what was that about?), but a lot of the humor would be over their heads.

The Secret of Kells
Not the world's greatest movie, but pretty good. The real draw, of course, was the animation, there was no secret about that. All the backgrounds are insanely detailed, and weirdly abstracted, inspired by the medieval Celtic art that would have been contemporary with the film's setting. The music was beautiful, too, I'm a nut for any Irish music (ethnocentric though that may be, myself being 50% Irish). I wish this had been out last semester, I would have loved to talk about it in History of Animation. Also, this frame: [link] Yeah. Sleep well tonight, readers!

Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers
It was good. Not amazing, not bad, but good. Since it is alternate universe, I'm not too disappointed. Hell, even if they totally screwed up my favorite character (which they did) it's still alternate universe, so what do I care? And it was still a good movie, with lots of fun little references (I love how Holland and Talho looked like Norb and Sakuya as kids), just not as good as the series. Renton and Eureka's relationship, for example, seemed far too rushed. The music also wasn't on par with the original's, though it was still good.

Avatar: The Last Airbender
The series, not that horrible movie. And yes, obviously I've seen this before, but my younger brother and I got my parents (or at least my mom, I think my dad's on the fence) to re-watch it all with us, now that I have it on DVD. Which is awesome.

Also I got comics!

Marvel: Civil War
Enjoyable, yet so, so dumb. It's a pretty famous failure, but I wanted it anyway.

Marvel: Secret Invasion
Better. Still not perfect, but thoroughly enjoyable, IMHO

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War
So cool! So epic! So awesome! Except that whoever was in charge of page layout did a crap job. Seriously. A lot of the time it was hard to tell what order the panels and speech bubbles were in. The double-page spreads were a huge problem. Most of them weren't obvious enough, with no panels actually going over the centerfold, making it seem like two separate pages. Almost the only time this didn't happen was when the spread was portrait-style, requiring you to turn the entire comic sideways to read it. This should be like, the cardinal sin of comic production. It is utterly absurd. The story was solid, though. Except, by the way, what kind of lame-ass intergalactic police force doesn't allow its officers to use lethal force when necessary? I mean, I'm pretty anti-killing. I mean REALLY anti-killing, but come on, guys! Wasn't the writers, fault, though. Quite the contrary, part of the point of the book was removing that dumb rule.

Green Lantern: Blackest Night
Was too expensive so I didn't get it. I'll wait for it to be in softcover.

BONE
Been reading this one for a while, finally finished. It was okay.

With the Light
Is a fascinating and shockingly down-to-earth manga about a mother going through the struggles of trying to raise an autistic child. I have to admit, in a way, not a lot actually happens. There's tons of narration and monologueing, and unnecessary reiteration of things that we've already gone over like a million times. The plot itself is really just slice-of-life. The child is born, grows up, goes to school, also is autistic. The end. Just the same, I find learning about what the parents go through to get through to their son just too interesting to care about the book's (numerous) faults. I've already shot through four of the volumes in the past few weeks, and each volume is double or triple the size of an ordinary manga. Sadly, the manga-ka died before she could finish the series, so I know it will abruptly end before a satisfying finale.

Then there was New Year's, and parties, and friends. We held a Festivus Party, where I got to wrestle a guy, that was pretty sweet. And I was very surprised and proud of all my friends for how we were able to hold the "airing of grievances" without anyone getting upset at one another, and I really felt like it was good that we all got stuff out in the open and we could now confront these problems rather than bottling them up and pretending they weren't there. Of course, a day or two after that, some fights did start breaking out. Okay, in hindsight, this was inevitable, but it's really a shame, I wish we could all communicate our problems with one another without resorting to pettiness and grudgery, we should try to FIX problems when we have them. Of course this was a two-way problem. One the one hand, some people said some things they shouldn't have, and on the other hand, some people took some remarks too seriously. Oh well, baby steps, I suppose.

Then, at the very end of the break, I got a cold or something and now I'm coughing all the time and my voice is shot! DX But these things happen, and at least i got to also spend the last few days of the break with my super-awesome-adorable-sweetness-cutetime-cousin-kids! <3 while their sister was sick in the hospital and their parents had to stay with her (she's getting better now)

And now I'm back at school. Huzzah!

It was extremely difficult to get that title to fit.

So I failed at Halloween, if you didn't read the title. Now I really really love Halloween, it's gotta be my favorite holiday after Christmas (probably) and I had so so much fun all throughout October when I was a kid. Since coming to college, though, it just sort of faded into the background, which seriously sucks. But there's too much work to find the time to make a really sick costume, and even if I had the time I couldn't cannibalize all the old costumes we have at home. Obviously, I can't really go trick-or-treating anymore either--I know some college kids still do, but no one at Pratt does, so even if I did I'd be alone. Anyway, I usually find something to do or someone to hook up with. Freshman year we went to the parade in the city, last year we went but it was raining so we left, then three of us watched a movie, but this year I didn't find anything to do. (I did, however, go out in a scary clown outfit with scary clown facepaint, but mostly just to go get dinner. Friend of mine said I did a good job, though) So I rented two Halloween movies from the library, took some of my own, and decided to have a Halloween Movie Marathon.

CORALINE

I'd been meaning to watch this forever. I love Neil Gaiman, and of course Henry Selik (of Nightmare Before Christmas fame, who was at least as responsible as Burton) and here's the crazy thing about this movie: it was ALL stop-motion. This might not sound crazy, but if you actually watch it, there are some crazy complex sets, like towards the end where the whole world is collapsing and unraveling piece by piece around her into the air? Yeah, all real sets. Like a million little individual pieces coming apart and flying of into the sky. It's amazing. The story was great, too, but so not for kids. Which, not being a kid, isn't a negative for me, I'm just throwing that out there is all. I should also mention my laptop's CD/DVD drive is crap, so it skipped over some bits at the climax. Fortunately TVtropes.org was more than willing to offer me spoilers, as always, so I could read up on what I missed afterwords.

Then I was tired so I went to bed, which was a double Halloween fail in my book. Later, however:

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

What's the cure to Twilight fever? No, the answer is not "more cowbell," it's Let the Right One In a 2008 Swedish movie based on a 2004 Swedish book (thereby predating Twilight by a year), which was just this month remade Stateside as Let Me In, probably as a response to the nationwide Twlight epidemic. (NOTE: I have never actually read or watched Twilight, so I don't actually hate it, but it's hard not to dislike it some after all the shit I hear about it.) Anyway, great movie, super dark thematically. Only real problem with it is there's no climax to the story to speak of, it's kind of just a series of events based on a concept. And it's a great concept, but since you know it before you start the movie, it does tend to spoil a bit of the fun. But there are enough really good scenes to still make it thoroughly enjoyable if you're an audience who doesn't need an immediate payoff. I advise you to find a dub whose actors don't completely suck, however.

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

Actually this was a few days before Halloween. Showing Rocky Horror is tradition here at Pratt, and I never miss it. I dress up, wear makeup (don't worry, there will be pictures) and I love all the crazy-ass cues. And dancing the Time Warp. This year had a lot of Rocky Horror virgins, yet paradoxically, there was a lot of different people shouting all the time. Perhaps they were just shouting because they thought they were supposed to, without actually shouting anything in particular. Come to think of it, with all of them shouting at the same time, I couldn't really make out any words... Anyway, had fun, people were impressed with my costume (Why is everyone always shocked to find me willing to be feminine? I guess I'll take it as a compliment? Maybe I'm manly? Maybe it's the beard?) though it wasn't the best one there, now I can't stop singing the songs. I was especially hyped this year, because I had just watched the Rocky Horror episode of Glee, which, while not very good, at least had some great renditions of the songs, even better than the movie in some cases.

And that was it. It's already three daysish after Halloween, I'm probably not gonna bother watching Hocus Pocus a classic from my childhood which was next on the list, or Zoo which is some Japanese thing my brother got me for Christmas a few years ago and I haven't watched yet.

I also observed M-Day on November 2nd, as I do every year, by drawing a Bishop-style "M" on my face to honor those mutants who lost their powers 5 year ago on M-Day 2005. May we never forget. A surprising number of people found this "awesome" or some variant thereof. There was bashing of Joe Quesada.

Also also (***SHAMELESS PLUG***) everyone keep checking this new webcomic: [link] My past experience with these artists suggests that this comic will be thoroughly entertaining (and yes, I am pretty sure I already used that phrase one in this review).

Tootles!<3

Better late than never.

I did, indeed, go to NYCC/NYAF the other week. It was okay. I'm probably the only one of my friends who wasn't upset by NYCC being by far the more prominent con. There are plenty of other Anime cons we can and do go to in the area, but NYCC is pretty much my only con for western comics. That said, it seriously was at least 75% ComicCon, which I thought a little unfair to the anime fans. They essentially just eliminated NYAF from existence, which is a shame, because it's freakin' New York City, why would you want to alienate a fanbase there? If you must alienate any sort of fanbase, make it somewhere that isn't a WORLDWIDE cultural-social-economic hub. Also, I was looking forward to Japanese sweets. I wants me some Choco-Bread!

I didn't do too much that day: saw Uncle Yo's routine, went to a thing on copyright law (not terribly exciting, but very useful for an aspiring artist) and shopped a bit. I think I only bought two comics: BONE complete collection, and Serenity: Better Days. The latter was a huge disappointment in that it ended with Mal being a huge asshole with absolutely no repercussions, even being somewhat praised by Inara for it! (I would have marked "spoiler alert", but Mal being an asshole is hardly a spoiler). I didn't get to hang out with my friends, either--sorry friends! T_T--because I was showing my younger brother around. It was his first con, I told the 'rents we'd try not to be separated for too long.

I would have bought more from the con, except A: I forgot the dealer's room closed early, and B: we were celebrating my birthday the next day so I didn't want to buy stuff I might get another of in a day.

Yessirree (there is no way that is actually how that is spelled) I'm finally 20! Mixed feeling about no longer being a teenager, and that much closer to a grown-up, but we won't get into that. It was great, family had cake and all that. Also I got a Dropkick Murphys CD, a new iPod (yay!) a shirt from my brother down in Georgia, and the complete series of Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.. If there is a in the audience, see if you can get ahold of this, this is one superhero comic you will find highly entertaining.

I will also be getting a birthday present to myself (actually not a birthday present at all but I needed a segue) in the form of Machine of Death: Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die, a book I've been looking forward to for 5 whole years! Created and edited by Ryan North of www.qwantz.com (Dinosaur Comics), fans are all ordering from Amazon on October 26 to help make it a bestseller for a day! Read more: [link]

More art soon! Seriously!

Back to school now!

Actually, I been back a week. It's looking like it'll be a good year, my classes are cool and teachers are okay, and only one looks like he's gonna give shit-tons of homework and the rest not so much (yay!). Since it's only the first week, of course, it's impossible to say for certain. Gonna be a busy year anyway, I'm trying to get involved in the hall council here in my dorm building, and it looks like I'm going to start up an anime club here at Pratt that only uses legally acquired anime. Internet piracy is something I feel pretty against, you see (respectful debate is welcome in the comments section)

So even of the things I said I'd get up by summer's end, I still failed, anyone noticed that? I designed some of the guys from my X-Men thing, but didn't do any pics worth putting up here. Also I didn't get around to uploading the portraits from my portraiture class. Also also I lost one of them DX Where the hell is that thing? I wanna show pplz! It sucks b/c I really liked that one, too, it was probably my favorite, and I haven't the faintest idea where it vanished to. In case anyone cares.

Hopefully I'll have some cool stuffs from class this semester to put up. We have a semester-long project in Children's Book Illustration, and I'm excited for an idea I got going there. Not telling the whole story here, but it's a modern-day reimagining of Peter Pan on the streets of New York.

By the way, turns out? Peter Pan is amazing. You'll note the use of italics. I am referring to the book, not the character. The character is a self-centered brat, and while that's kind of the point, it really gets on my nerves, especially in the Disney version where he's older and should know better and really just comes off as a total jackass. But recently (to help my project in Children's Book) I took the original book out of the library and it is really, really clever. It's very funny and has some very interesting, original, and insightful ideas. It's also nice and bittersweet, the whole story feels a lot more meaningful than the Disney version, which is just kind of a fun adventure and then they go home, no one really learns anything. So yeah guys this book is great. I love when it turns out classics really did earn their popularity, unlike some people I know *coughcoughWizardofOzI'mabigfanofyoubutyouwerereallyprettypoorlywrittenIMHOcoughcough* sorry I must be coming down with something.

IRL friends, see you all 'roundabout Thanksgiving, I guess. <3s to all of you, b/c you all deserve 'em. ^_^


"I'm so tired of all were going through
I don't want to live like that
I'm so tired of all were going through
I don't want to love like that
I just want to be with you
Now and forever, peaceful, true

-Radames, "Elaborate Lives" from Aida

Guys the Disney-produced Aida musical was severely underrated. Maybe everyone goes out and buys the soundtrack after they're done reading my journal? Maybe?

Anyway, figgered I oughtta update what you can expect me to put up on the site for the rest of the summer, for the curious.

Dryad is a cute comic I did in the fall, only 8 pages, so I'll just upload it all sometime in the next few days. You'll like it.

Terragoth is a comic I've been writing very slowly. The premise is that I took the characters from my previous Dungeons and Dragons campaign and put them in a modern-day AU setting. It will be a mystery adventure comic, but largely character-driven, with no small amount of comedy of course. I've tried to make it accessible to everyone, however, you don't actually need to have been in my group or even play D+D to enjoy it. I plan on putting that up here eventually, but no promises as to "soon." It may be in full color.

Sword and Sorcery X-Men is exactly what it sounds like. The X-Men (and related characters) as adventurers in medieval Europe. This is an idea I have been giving a lot of thought for some time now, I'm building a whole universe here, and am very excited about it. In fact, contrary to what I said earlier, I kind of really want to make a comic out of this, but for the time being, I just want to do some art pieces taking place in their world, portraits and pin-ups and fight scenes and the like. Actual comics are very time consuming, at least for me.

A few pieces I made in school still need to be uploaded.

Portraits from the portraiture class I just finished also need to be uploaded.

Live-action movie posters were something of a failure of an experiment, I'm afraid. If you'll recall, I was gonna make mock-posters of live-action versions of FMA, X-Men, and Super Mario Bros. I honestly did start the FMA poster, but didn't get far before I was overloaded with schoolwork and subsequently went crazy for a few months (as explained in my über-depressing earlier journal: [link] ). The X-men... meh, I'm already doing an X-Men thing. The Mario one still intrigues me, I work on ideas for that from time to time, but for now, I have no plans to really do anything with it other than concept sketches. Maybe later.

Say fellas, anyone know why the Journal History is so... limited? Kinda bugging me.
TTFN

"Is it written in the stars,
Are we paying for some crime,
Is that all that we are good for,
Just a stretch of mortal time,
Or some god's experiment,
in which we have no say,
In which we're given paradise,
but only for a day?"
-Radames, "Written in the Stars, Aida

Before I begin, let me say that I just suck at updating. I just suck.

Anywho, AnimeNEXT. I went to it. In New Jersey. For three days.  I had a blast! I’ve been to three cons before, but never for the whole weekend like this, so that was really great. I got a boxed set of a series I had been in search of for some time, which was super great because A. the individual DVDs cost $25, and the whole set only cost $35, so money saved there, and B. they don’t make those DVDs anymore, so quite a good find! Also tried fun Japanese candies (Choco-filled bread? WTF? But so good!! XD) and bought a Starcraft shirt… which I now can’t find. Bummer. Also I just misspelled “Starcraft” at least 10 different ways before getting it right. Staracrdt, Starcarft, Starcartf, etc.

I also was delighted some old friends, such as who until this month I hadn’t seen since High School, and , who I don’t get to see often anymore, and Kara, who I also don’t see much. Rooming with friends at the Hotel was fun. We watched FMA: Brotherhood, which BTW was the episode of possibly my #1 favorite chapter (maybe #2 behind ch. 70 “The First Homonculus” where we finally learn who Pride is.). Mad points to Laura Bailey, acting against type and doing freaking phenomenal.

Perhaps most notable about the con is that I got in 4 FREE! “Why?” I choose to believe you asked. Well, I will answer your presumable question. I helped my friend Scott out with his three panels, Video Games We Love to Hate, Anime Wheel of Fortune, and Anime Jeopardy. It was great, they were very casual panels, lots of fun opportunities for back-and-forth banter between us and the audience, so I didn’t really have to worry about screwing up or anything. This was good b/c I break out in sweat really easily when public speaking, which is kind of odd b/c I was in the drama club and even starred as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast at summer camp one year.* But that’s how it goes. People loved our panels, too, although Jeopardy got a little screwed up b/c apparently it had been double-booked b/c some other guy had ALSO planned to do Anime Jeopardy, but it all turned out okay. I would definitely do panels again. Maybe even if I didn’t get a free ticket! Not definitely though. But maybe.

The ride home was rather… eventful as well. I was driving myself, Scott, my friend Kevin, and my friend . First, we were hungry, so we stopped at Sonic before we really got on the road, since we don’t have Sonic her in NY, you know? They had ice cream there, so we decided we may as well get ice cream, but then was like “Wait guyz! We don’t get Dairy Queen in NY either! Let’s go get DQ ice creamz instead! w00t!” (with just that wording, misspellings and all, I swear) So we went to DQ. So far, a good trip, and we were on the road by 5. Now, remember, I’m going from NJ to Long Island, so that’s an hour or so North, then the city, then an hour or so East, getting home at 8:33 (so claims the GPS). I did take one wrong turn, however, but that wasn’t so bad, b/c I turned into a state park, and just turned around again. Little did I realize, however, that that one wrong turn had confused the crap out of the GPS. Our first clue was that the arrival time was no longer displayed. Instead of 8:33 PM, it now read __:__AM. We didn’t know what to make of that. We kept driving, though, and slowly the land became hillier, like big and growing rock faces all along the road, and our ears are popping from the altitude, and when we look out the window we can see down the cliffside with trees for miles. Eventually Scott and Ama go “…shouldn’t we at least have hit Manhattan by now?” Lo and behold! The GPS, for whatever reason, had decided to skip Manhattan and take us upstate, west past Iowa and Ohio, NORTH TO MONTREAL, and finally back south through New York to get back to Long Island. We had a good laugh. We got home at 10:30, two hours behind schedule.

Overall, a good weekend.

Updates will come more frequently now, promise! I’ve got some stuff to upload/projects to update about, so that’ll happen soon. Toodles! (I have never said that before in my life)

*Sorry, gotta make a little side-note here. Why doesn’t the Beast have a name? Originally he was going to be named “Adam” but then they just, I don’t know, never got around to it? Seriously, at one point Belle says “Beast, please don’t leave me, I love you!” Oh really? If you love him so much, why didn’t you so much as learn his NAME sometime in the past YEAR Belle? I’ve got other problems with this movie, too, but I haven’t the space here. Perhaps this rant will get it’s own journal soon?

P.S. YES!!! I finally learned how to remove the "mood" icon! Drinks are on me tonight, guys!

(warning: very very long)

Okay, I will freely admit it, I really dropped the ball here. See, here’s what happened…

Last semester was honestly, not kidding, not exaggerating, the single worst semester of my entire life. In fact, the single worst experience of my entire school career (including that time in middle school when the entire Drama Club thought I had stolen some girl’s retired cop dad’s badge she brought in, which I absolutely did not, and I started crying). I must have chosen the exact perfectly wrong combination of teachers, like every single teacher that gave the most homework in the school, because I. Never. Had. A. Single. Moment. Off! Seriously, again, not exaggerating here, I would get up, go to class, come back, have lunch, go to class again, come back, have dinner, do homework, go to bed, repeat, repeat, then on the weekends? Get up, have lunch, do homework, have dinner, do homework, go to bed, repeat, repeat, ad infinitum. Not one single moment off, ever. Oh, and does anyone remember how last year I said Art History was the worst class ever? I actually had a good teacher last semester. Oh, yay, so Art History isn’t as hard, guess that means one class isn’t as bad… oh, wait, now I have World Civilizations. Oh, World Civ, don’t get me started. 30 pages to read every single week, tests on material we never covered, a ridiculously in-depth research paper we had to work on all semester, complete with bibliography, primary resources and citations, oh my gosh, new least favorite class, which if you know how much I despised Art History, is saying something. I was pulling legit all-nighters by the end of the semester (hooray for the college experience?) and then at Survey, the gallery where we all have to hang our work at the end of the semester, I was up all night reprinting all my old work—which didn’t wind up working anyway b/c the computer lab TURNS OFF ITS PRINTERS EARLY tell me, how does that make sense during finals week?—and mounting it all, but then not finishing a bunch of it anyway despite staying up straight through the night, and having to rush to Survey last minute and just tack it all up on the wall as best I could, no time to make it look pretty, and then I got kicked out before I could even hang it all so half of that was left lying on the floor! So yeah, wound up getting C’s in 6 of my 8 classes, one of which I actually should have failed for not being able to print out and hang for Survey, but my professor was out sick that day (turns out he has Lime Disease. Still coming to class through the pain, though. Guy’s a tank) so I slipped by there. NOT A GOOD SEMESTER.

On top of all my schoolwork, there was another thing (not done yet? Oh, goodness no, I’m just getting started). Possibly you may recall from my last update that I went off my antidepressants this summer. Reports that I am “doing okay” may have been… hasty. It’s kind of a “chicken or egg” thing here, or more accurately, a vicious cycle. I would have a big workload, this would get to me and get me depressed, which in turn would make me unable to focus on my work, which would increase the stress of all the work and inrease the time it took to do it, which would make me depressed! It was like, I KNOW I had too much work, but I also KNOW it shouldn’t have been QUITE that bad but for the depression. I couldn’t DO anything, all my time was spent living in my head, even when I was trying to do my art, I wasn’t focused on it. It built to such a point that one night I just had to get out of my room. I just had to go DO something. So I ran down the stairs—all 11 flights—and I ran across campus to get some Ice Cream… and I just kept running. I just kept running and running around the campus, just to be able to get my heart working, to get myself out of my funk (I had heard exercise is good for depression). Yeah, sort of had a little breakdown there. My friends called it my “Forrest Gump Moment.”

If this weren’t enough, then my faith got thrown into the mix. As has been mentioned in the past, I am a devout Christian. Now, I’m a very intellectual and curious person, so I’ve always had questions about my religion, things I didn’t understand, and I’ve certainly had my doubts in the past. But add that to depression and it gets amped up to 11. Suddenly I can’t accept anything anymore. I have to scrutinize and scrutinize every aspect of my life, trying to make it perfect, just in case I’m sinning. Then I have to spend every minute of every day philosophizing about just what sin is, so I can know right from wrong and better live this “perfect” life. Naturally, this contributed much to my crippling indecision, and the vicious cycle went on. Then, of course, I find God harder to connect with. I begin to find the very idea of God’s existence almost unfathomable, and all the reassuring philosophies, all the beautiful songs that spoke to me in the past, all the wonder and contentment that there was a Being out there, wholly perfect in absolutely every way, and He just loved me—slowly I just couldn’t feel anymore. That’s depression for you, after all. Apparently not uncommon amongst even famous religious figures, either, it’s called “the dark night of the soul” (wikipedia it). In fact, while I’m at it, even Jesus had his moments of religious despair—the Agony in the Garden (wikipedia it) and at his death “My God, My God, why hast Thou abandoned me?” (that one’s also from Psalm 22). But I digress. I would try, with what tiny scraps of spare time I could scrape together, to research, to talk with my Priest, to read this book I bought (My Struggle With Faith by Joseph F. Girzone. It’s phenomenal, he’s very scientific and scrutinizing, like me, and knows all about struggling with faith, as the title implies. Naturally, it wasn’t long before I couldn’t read this book, either, however, as I was unable to focus on anything! Books and TV and movies especially I couldn’t do.), to go home and sit in on the Youth Group, to meet with the Newman Club here at Pratt, and these things helped, but their reprieves were usually brief. Any small inconsistencies in the Bible or in Christian philosophy—what some consider Divinely dictated, inerrant truths—would send me spiraling into despair. Most Christians try to work through these trying times with prayer. I naturally tried that. Sadly, I screwed that up, too, big time. See, I figured I should apologize to God for all the things I did wrong and thank him for all the things that went well. Since I was in this place where everything I did I thought I was doing wrong, I was apologizing a lot, and increasingly. It got to be habitual, I would pray constantly and about any little thing—or nothing. I prayed so often that I found it becoming completely compulsory, I had said the same things so many times in the past that I was just reciting a script, going through the motions and not actually feeling really like I was actually praying to my God. Naturally, I was thanking God less and less—not out of any malice towards Him, of course, but just because I couldn’t get myself happy enough to be truly thankful, I was too busy apologizing for my perceived wrongdoings. I say to you, with some hesitance, that for the first time in my life I really understand why some people find religion not just unrealistic, which I can respect but disagree with, but also upsetting. To my thinking, God loves you infinitely more than you can even imagine, and he just wants you to be happy, and all he asks of you is to—what, not lie, steal, hate, or murder, and take a single hour a week to learn about Him and celebrate Him? Consciously, I still believe this to be true, I just understand now why some people can’t accept it. (Okay, also I get that people don’t like the Christian views on sex, but come on, people, keeping it in your pants until you’re married is not that difficult) So yeah, obviously I’m realizing how horribly wrong I was handling Christianity last semester by now, hence my telling you about it like this. I realize there is no way in Hell that was the way God intended me or my faith to be, I was helping no one, not me, not Him, not anyone else, really. So I’m working through that, but it’s still a struggle. My Priest reassures me that faith should be a struggle, that struggles are how we grow. To an extent I agree, and I certainly hope so.

(But any Christians in the readership who want to drop me a line and offer their advice would be more than welcome)

So, went home for Christmas break, had the worst Christmas of my life, got some movies which I absolutely couldn’t focus on watching, got some comics which I absolutely couldn’t focus on reading, spent half the break in my room with the door shut (praying, compulsively, usually for an hour or so at a time) hung out with friends and could barely focus on that (sorry, friends) and had another little breakdown or two (One night while driving home from Christmas shopping I started singing at the top of my lungs to myself in the car, just to stop myself from thinking so much).

You know, you hear about people who go through years of depression and you think “that sucks” but you don’t really understand until you’ve been through hours of depression. Hours after hours. You just want it to stop, but it doesn’t. You just want to end the anxiousness, the unease, to go back to some small measure of peace but you just can’t. You think you can deal with years if you have to, but you absolutely cannot deal with hours.

Eventually, thankfully, I decided to go back on the meds. Life’s not perfect now, but I’m getting better, slowly.

So sorry for not updating my DeviantArt account at all for 7 months, and barely updating Facebook, and barely doing anything else, at all. I hope you understand from my 3 whole pages of type that my situation was entirely out of my control, and I will do my best to begin being alive again. Not necessarily a lot, and not necessarily immediately. Like I said I’m only getting better now, and I do still have a not unimpressive amount of schoolwork (but better than last semester). But I will do my best.

Much love, and congrats if you read this far, you get +20 cool points!

(scroll down for art news that actually matters)

So, haven't posted in a while. In all honesty, that's just me being me. But you know what else? I've been in Ocean City, New Jersey, for a week or so, and even if I had time, I didn't have internet access. If anyone was wondering, though, it was great. It's this small tourist town on the shore with a boardwalk and stuff my family goes to every single year. You know, it's really cool having the whole family together for stuff like this, what with me being in college, my older brother having just graduated college, and my eldest brother having moved out a year ago. Yeah, we all had a great time. The last day, in particular, all 4 of us brothers went down to the arcade. We played the Simpson's arcade game ([link] together through to the end. It was pretty bizarre, though, because Homer's "attack" button wasn't working, so every time someone got a game over, they had to play as Homer until the next guy got a game over. Eventually, of course, we realized that there was no point in keeping Homer alive, he was just a waste of our precious, precious quarters. So then whoever got a game over just didn't play for a few minutes. Anyways, it was a total blast, great times for all.

Oh, also there was Mini Golf. Now, let me tell you something about that. As some of you may know, I've been on antidepressants since I was 13. Now I know a lot of people () believe that America has become obsessed with its drugs, and the idea that we would chemically alter our own minds for any stupid little thing any real person worth a damn would solve with force of character is nothing short of horrifying. You're right. But believe me, if you knew me back then, you'd agree, I NEEDED THE DRUGS. I was the most obnoxious horrible little brat like you wouldn't believe. I was like an angsty teenager at his worst except I was 11. It wasn't that I refused to ease up on the angst, it was that I was medically unable to feel any kind of lasting happiness. It is very very likely that had I continued that path, it would eventually have ended in suicide. So, to make a long story short (Cast of Clue: "Too late."): drugs. I'm better now. In fact, beginning this summer, I decided to wean myself off the meds and try to earn my own happiness the old-fashioned way. I've been seeing a therapist for years, so we discuss this stuff and he'll be able to help me through the transition, and I can always go back if I start feeling like suicidal or something again, but I think I'm strong enough now that I can work through this myself. , you can rejoice now (but make no mistake, you were not a factor in this decision, I still maintain that I needed the meds THEN, I just may not NOW) So, what does all this have to do with Mini Golf? Well, back in the day, for some reason, Mini Golf brought out the worst in me. I enjoy Mini Golf, I really do, I find it fun, and I'm not terrible at it, but for no reason whatsoever, 9 holes in I'd just start to snap, every time. It was like a curse. As I got older and more mature, thankfully, this happened less, but I was afraid now that I've been off the meds for a month or two it might start up again. However, my three brothers and I (and my brother Kev's girlfriend) went to "Dragons and Wizards" golf on the boardwalk, and I was absolutely fine. It was a sort of test for me, a victory at once literal and deeply symbolic. So, yeah, I think I'm gonna be fine after all.

Now as for art.

Of the very very few people who responded to my previous journal, most seem intrigued by the idea of a live-action Fullmetal Alchemist movie. So I will be doing a series of posters of that soon. I have been unable to do so so far for two reasons. A. I realized I had no idea what such a movie would actually be about. FMA has a lot of characters, and a lot of plot twists, I have no idea how it would all be crammed into 2 hours or so. I considered a trilogy, but decided it would be better as one at first, as though we were uncertain whether the studio would pick up the sequels. Anyway, I have ideas now, though if anyone has any of their own, feel free to post them in a comment, I'm sure they'll help (just bear in mind I'm basing it on manga continuity, not anime) oh, and B. I've been really busy. My best friend's birthday is coming up, and helping out with that has taken up a lot of my time, and I also work part-time.

I will also, for whoever's interested, be putting up my sort-of fantasy comic "Terragoth" after all. I have been working on that when I could, but only in pencils, no color to speak of just yet. It will be very slow going, I imagine, but I won't wait until it's finished to star uploading, which could take, like, years? When I start a page should go up every week or two, we'll see.

The FMA posters and Terragoth will be coming to a Deviantart account near you (namely, this one) relatively soon, I'd say in a month or two when I settle back in at school, at the latest.

And If anyone can tell me how to just not set my "mood" that'd be super great. Seriously, WTF is up with that crazy-ass llama?

Greetings friends and watchers!

So I thought I'd keep everyone updated on some of the new projects I'll be uploading (or at least beginning to upload) soon.

First I'll be uploading my final project from my "Light, Color, and Design" class. I took Christian Iconography (portraits of saints and stuff) and reproduced some pieces in acrylic, but replaced all the religious figures with Mario characters! They're really cool, if I do say so myself.

I began working on a new comic called "Terragoth". It has a very very small target audience, but I figured I'd upload it just in case people find it amusing anyway. It is about my Dungeons and Dragons group's old characters if they were reincarnated in modern times. It will be equal parts school drama and action-adventure. I've been having a really fun time creating my own kind of style, part anime and part DCAU. Also, it will be in FULL COLOR!

I will be doing a series of portraits, probably via tablet and photoshop, of the X-Men (and villains) as if they were medieval sword-and-sorcery characters. For example, Prof. X. is an old master wizard, Jean Grey is his apprentice (with Phoenix familiar, natch) Colossus is a knight, Shadowcat a ghost, Storm a druidic priestess, Beast some kind of werewolf thing, etc. There will be a sort of general "plot" to this project that I will outline with each posting, but this is NOT a comic. Repeat, NOT a comic, only portraits.

Also with my tablet, I will be doing a series of mock-movie posters for live action versions of fandoms I like. So far, I have Fullmetal Alchemist, Super Mario Bros., and X-Men (I am aware that the latter two were already live-action movies, but, well, they weren't very good. First two X-Men movies were mostly okay, I GUESS.) There may be others. Again, for each poster I will outline my ideas for what the plot for such a movie would be, but don't expect, like, a script or anything.



So, my faithful readers who have bothered to read this far (or you cheaters who skipped ahead and will now have to backtrack), I would like you to vote on some things regarding said upcoming upload updates:

1. Of the FMA posters, X-Men posters, Mario posters, and X-Men fantasy portraits, which would you like me to work on first (You can vote for a tie between two of them if you really wish)?
2. Is anyone even at all interested in Terragoth, or am I just fooling myself?
3. Riceball readers: You think I should be a little late uploading the last page but make it in full color?
4. Do I love using parentheses a little too much?

If you could all vote on these, friends and strangers alike, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks all!

First off, I hope you all had a great first of may! [link] (Note: Link very NSFW)

So, yeah, I really love the spring, the warm weather, the birdsong, the longer days, and all that jazz. Of course, last week was just sweltering over here and I was like "what the hell, air currents?" But they didn't answer me. Still, I love spring, and I love summer even more, although I'm not as excited for summer as I usually am, because it's so weird to think I'm almost done with a year of college already. I mean where did it all go? I'm still barely wrapping my mind around the fact that I'm IN college. It'll be great to hang out with all the old friends more, though. Anyway, before that I have to cram for my art history final! Man, do I ever hate that class! (the answer is a vehement "yes, yes I do.")

So you know what I DON'T love? injuring myself. So yeah, the other day (actually two weeks ago now, I just never felt like typing it up) I was in 3D class, making shoes out of wood. Now, these are heeled shoes, so they have to be just the same height, which is difficult, meticulous, precision work. So I had to get in really close to the bandsaw to cut off just a tiny piece of wood, and then sliiiiiiiiice. Right in between my right thumb and forefinger, a big slit in my skin. Blood flowing out rapidly. I tried to stay calm (while swearing) and ran to the bathroom to wash the cut out and wrap my hand up tight with a paper towel mitten. I went back to the classroom to find my teacher wasn't there, so I told the class to "Tell Todd I went to the health center, 'cause... I'm a little bit bloody." Then they all saw my hand and freaked out. (I was later informed they didn't actually know how bad my wound was, and were frantically looking around the workroom for a finger) The health center was really helpful, what with being a health center, and they patched it up right away and gave me some spare bandages. I didn't even need to go to the hospital, thankfully, though they said it would probably heal a bit faster with stitches. I didn't really want to go to the hospital with all the paperwork and insurance and stuff, though, and anyway it was raining and I didn't have a car. Of course, someone said there was a hospital like ten minutes away, but the nurse lady was like, totally deadpan "Come on, priorities. He'd get wet." It was so funny.

So yeah, that's my super-amazing story of awesomeness. I'm on the mend now, though, so no worries. I've been telling people I saved a bunch of orphan boys from being bullied... by a bear. Weirdly enough, everyone always believes me until the bear.

I am just thrilled at the good response my doujin Riceball is getting. It'll be done by summer's end, so I guess I'm excited for that, too. I'm also going to put up a series of 7 painting I did for class in the next couple of weeks, and I think you'll all love them, because everyone does. After that, will probably come more Dungeons and Dragons artwork, and maybe a new comic? Who knows?

Friends, looking forward to seeing you soon, and watchers... keep watching, and thanks as always!

That's right. I said it.

Judge me all you like, but I stand by it. Was he a sympathetic character? Absolutely. Was he a victim of circumstance? Yeah, sure, whatever. Did I like him? No. Neither did I loathe him or anything, I should say, but I didn't like him. I loved Dr. Manhattan, I loved Nite Owl, I loved Ozymandias, and Silk Spectre was all right. Did not like Rorschach.

I first picked up Watchmen a few years ago, maybe a year before the movie was confirmed. I'm a huge comic books fan, but I hadn't picked it up earlier, because, come on. Have you seen the cover? It is so, so, boring. The art isn't phenomenal either. A quick trip to our good pal the internet, however, informed me that it was "Teh greatest comic book evah!...xors." (I paraphrase) so I read it. I absolutely loved it. The ending especially. Dude, he did it 35 freakin' minutes ago! But I digress. Our hero/protagonist/narrator thing, struck me as kind of... evil. Not mustache-twirling, child murdering, cackling laughter evil, but a real-world type evil. It is no secret that he is a sociopath, in a very real definition of the word. This isn't just "Oh, society doesn't understand him so they give him a label" no, he is a sociopath. He deals out "justice" (read: death) with equal fervor to child rapists and petty thieves. He never, however, once stops to question whether he should deserve the same fate. I'm not saying he does, of course, but he is definitely a hypocrite of the highest order. Is he not a criminal? Does he not kill? Does he not think himself above the law? By his own philosophy, he ought to be murdered himself. He would hate him if he ever met him. He justifies himself by saying he does it all for love of his country, in the same breathe as he calls it full of "whores and politicians". Readers justify him by saying that he is the only true sane one, or the most heroic when you get right down to it. To the former I would like to say: huh? Seriously, WTF does that mean? To the latter, I scoff. True, he is the most determined to stop the villain's plot. It would appear he is the only one who never compromises his morals. But this is not so. It's not that he wants to stop the big bad because he has a strong sense of moral right, he just feels that it's the thing he's supposed to do, like it's his duty for no particular reason. In fact, I would go as far to say that the aforementioned plot is something he could totally have thought up himself, and have been all for, but he is really freaking stubborn, so he just HAS to stop the antagonist, he has no choice.

Also, he's really homophobic, and I'm not really cool with that.

So I also saw the movie opening night with two friends from home and two from college. I very nearly missed it, I was so upset, practically in tears, really. I spend all this time and money on an Ozymandias costume (actually, Nite Owl just beats him as my favorite, but I could never have gotten that costume together) and then we took the wrong subway. Fortunately, although we were late for the 12:00 showing, it turned out there was a 12:10 as well. We got there just past 12:30 and arrived right amidst the opening credits. I was so thankful. Anyway, yeah, movie was great. The gore got a little unnecessary to the point of being pornographic, and the sex... WAS pornography, but still, it was great. The fight scenes were SO well choreographed, I don't think you'll find any better out there. Was not a fan of the squidless-ness, but the ending came out intact anyway, though a bit less BAM, shocking, IMHO. Overall, I would call the movie great eye candy, hence my mood up top there (actually that's a lie, I just chose that face because it looks cool). One thing that occurred to me after all these years: why doens't anyone else become Dr. Manhattan? I mean, the experiment is very much repeatable, and we've never been given any reason to believe it would simply kill others where it deified him, but no one ever tried it. Weird. Well, Doc's always been the biggest problem logistically, but he's so cool we forgive him.

This is Zith, wishing he could write comics like that, signing off.

NO MORE PRESIDENT BUSH!!!! WHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Now I know not everyone out there is a Democrat, and many people would never have chosen Barack Obama as their first choice for President. But my own politics notwithstanding, I think this should be a day when the whole nation can join hands and sing praises to whoever or whatever they hold dear in thanks that he cannot possibly be much worse than MISTER George W. Bush.

Also, I'm back at college, after a lovely winter break.

I passed all my classes, with a B+ average at that! I honestly thought I was gonna fail Art History, like, there wasn't a doubt in my mind. Well, okay, I thought there was a slight prayer that I might pass with a D, but a C would have been nothing short of cosmically miraculous. I got a B+. You know when tween girls see their idol in person and screech with glee? Yeah, I sorta did that when I found out.

I got sooooo many awesome clothes for Christmas! I got these corduroy pants, which go great with this nice corduroy dress vest I got, and a black trenchcoat, a must for any conceited male vanity queen such as myself (jeez, when did I become That Guy, anyway?). The best, however, was my bowler derby. It is so so so so hot on me. Or anyone, for that matter. It is just such a cool hat! I love my parents.

I also got a camera, some book, some comics, and some video games. With some gift money I got, I bought myself that old manga Cyborg 009. It's quite good. I mean, it's terribly cheesy, being from the 1970's and all, and their depiction of the black man physically hurts my eyes (picture a monkey in clown makeup and you've got a pretty good idea) but there's something very fun about reading them nonetheless.

I played Psychonauts. Actually, I got that last year and never got around to it until now. Anyway, the first level or so were pure agony. They spend two or three times longer than necessary on cinematics, with four or so BEFORE I began playing, and they wouldn't shut up during gameplay about how to perform the most basic controls. The characters are also very ugly to behold. I really wanted to just stop playing, really bad, but I had heard great things, so I figured I'd give it another level or two before I gave up. Boy, am I glad I did. It was a very fun, very old-school-platformer, very unique, extremely entertaining game. Lot's of puzzle-meets-action stuff, kind of like Zelda, or Sly Cooper. The script was hilarious, too, I loved it.

Other cool stuff that happend: I got a new short haircut (an ectreme rarity for me), I finally finished FMA (Loved the ending, even with the real-world nonsense srtuff. I especially loved the Dante/Hohenheim flashback scenes.), I got my Mom to start reading Watchmen (did I mention I love my parents?) I gave my friends the big present I was working on: a "wedding album" of their D&D characters, featuring 10 pieces made by yours truly as "photos" (they loved it so much, I don't think I've yet come off the high of being so appreciated)

Hey, anyone watch Battlestar Galactica? You catch the newest episode? I think they're screwing with us, I know who the REAL final Cylon is: it's Bob Dylan. Come on, it has to be, it all makes sense! Think about it...

I adored seeing all my friends again, I'm so sorry to have to go back to school, but, you know, I'd like to graduate. All ya'all keep in touch, and I'll be seeing you at NYCC if you go, and at Otacon if I go!

So I discovered I have a superpower. And it is perhaps the best superpower in the world. It both makes the world a more beautiful place, AND it does wonders for my ego. I have the nigh-miraculous power to go on the internet, find a debate between Gay-rights advocates and Christians who oppose them, explain my position in a very polite, scholarly manner, and suddenly... everyone becomes much kinder. Bear in mind that this is the internet we're talking about. We all try to spread the love around as best we can, but I spread it VIA THE INTERNET! Land of the jackass-anonymity effect! It feels spectacular.

Since I last updated, I had an Art History final (failed), made a skeeball machine ("The Skuillatine", arcade game of DEATH) made a fun video for my so-called "4D design class" and re-watched all of Joss Whedon's Firefly. Guys? That is such a good show. Seriously, not even joking. Go watch, please.

I was also in the very unique position to say, in all seriousness, "Tell me if I ram this wood too far up your ass." I opted not to. I do not regret that decsion.

Anyway, I got home yesterday evening, and MANOMAN am I ever excited! I will be home until, like, January 18 or something? So, that means I have a month here. And I must spend that time wisely, seeing the friends I haven't seen in a while. this means you, and (Did I do that right? Did they come out as icons? I hope so.) Also there's like a million other people I have to see, too, that was just off the top of my head, kay? If there's an anime club meeting at the high school I can make it to, I'd love to go, but someone will have to tell me when.

It's snowing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anywho, in the mean time, I'll have to rapidly finish up several art projects I'm giving out as gifts, and do all of my Christmas shopping. That's right. All of it. In five days. Joy.

Merry Christmas and happy whatever-else-you-celebrate!

I am thankful!

Thanksgiving came and went, and it was great. I saw that new Futurama movie: Bender's Game and me and my little brother laughed at the D+D jokes the whole time (Haha, a d12, no one uses those!) I also saw my whole family, and my eldest brother's girlfriend, who's also all right. We went to Olive Garden, my #1 FAVORITE restaurant, and also Friendly's, which is also delicious.

Sadly, I didn't see my friends much. I did go to my Youth Group's Thanksgiving Mass, which was so great, but my close friends I only got together with twice, and one time was to see Four Christmases which was about as horrible as I thought it'd be. I shall see EVERYONE over Winter Break, however, most of them MANY times.

Oh, man, I'm so excited for Christmas! I'm working on a BIG art project as a gift for someone, but of course, can't say who or what, too many people read this. And I only have 3 weeks left in the semester! I'm sososososososo excited! I really love Christmas, something about the season is just so... happy!

So everyone, be prepared to hang out over Christmas... or else.

Now I must go draw a skull for Drawing, read The Tempest for English, and build a skeeball machine for 3-D (yep, THAT skeeball)