Hi there everyone! Shards of Reflection is still kickstarting and it has roughly a week to make 2k. Please spread the where ever you can.
And for folks that met me at Wondercon, thank you for getting my books and signing up for the newsletter. Here’s a run down of what I do.
- The City Between is my webcomic about werewolves in the future. It updates Wednesdays. The current story is titled Glass Diamonds. It is free to read on my website, or you can follow my patreon to get it emailed to you.
- Blue Moon is a werewolf romance graphic novel I’m writing and Meredith McClaren is going to draw.
- Cautionary Fables and Fairytales is a kid-friendly folklore anthology series I edit and organize for Iron Circus Comics.
- You are the Chosen One is a fantasy comic that is exclusive to my patreon but is currently on hold until I’ve gotten a few other things off my plate.
I have two day jobs. One is as an editor for Seven Seas, so I’ll occasionally share manga I’m editing for them. I’m also the managing editor at Iron Circus Comics. I like folklore, fantasy, and especially like werewolves.
This month I’m mostly gonna recharge from doing cons. But I will be at Comic Con Oakland at the start of May. So incase I don’t have May’s newsletter out by then, catch me there on May 9th and 10th.
But while I rest up for that, join me as I watch some movies on Saturday afternoons. Here’s what I’m watching
- April 4 – Battle Royale
- April 11 – Frankenstein (1931)
- April 18 – Death of a Unicorn
- April 25 – 9 to 5
All the movies start at 11am pacific time. You can join by clicking here.
And as usual, I’ll be streaming, thought I changed some of the times.
Everything else will be the streaming schedule:
- Tuesday at 7pm – 10pm PST – Art times
- Wednesday at 7pm – 9pm PST – Art times
- Sunday at 8pm – 10pm PST – Baldur’s Gate 3
I enjoyed Wondercon. I’ll probably go next year. It being more spread out/having wider aisles made it feel nicer to browse and walk around. I saw some good costumes. I posted them all on my blusky. But here’s an especially good werewolf.
One fun thing that happened at Wondercon is I have a stuff wolf that props up copies of Can I Pet Your Werewolf. A little girl asked me what the wolf’s name was. I told her he is a wolf and since wolves are wild animals they don’t have names. Little girl DID NOT like that answer. So I guess next time a kid asks me the wolf’s name I should have an answer. I’m thinking Talbot.
Between the two big conventions, I’ve been thinking a lot about Buffy. If you didn’t here, Hulu canceled the Buffy reboot they were planning. Jessie Gender did a run down of everything as well as her thoughts its cancelation is mainly due to misogyny. I agree with her that misogyny is probably what ultimately killed it, I think this project was doomed from the start. Now I am a huge Buffy fan and it was obviously a big influence on what I create, but when I first heard about the reboot and Sarah Michelle Gellar was playing Buffy in it, I thought that was a bad decision. In general, I want new stuff to get made rather than infinite reboots/sequels. Then even if you are doing a reboot, if the intent is to get a new generation into Buffy, having SMG there is bogging the series down with a continuity and creating a barrier to entry. And if new teens aren’t the plan, they just want the old audience back, then why are we focusing on a new Slayer? Jessie mentions in her video the executives claimed Zhao was a bad fit for the show, but her work is pretty well known with all the successes she’s been having. So why didn’t the executives figure out she was a bad fit from the start? Jessie is right to say that is on them for not knowing what they wanted and not trusting Zhao to do her job. But that trying to have it both ways mismanagement was something I thought was coming since the announcement that Sarah Michelle Gellar was returning as Buffy. If they have to reboot Buffy, they need a fresh start. But this is a lot of text. So here’s some old drawings I did for a Buffy art test.
This month I watched All About Eve. A lot of youtubers I watch that I watch have mentioned it. I can see why because like Casablanca last month, this movie is kinda classics are classics for a reason. I especially liked the costuming being used to mislead the viewer. Like Bette Davis’s character is in all these dark dresses that mixed with her sharp eyebrows that give her a real villainous look. Then Anne Baxter is dressed like an ingenue with most modest light colors at first. Then half way through she starts wearing dresses that mimic Bette Davis’s and it is around the same time the audience is completely clued into Anne Baxter’s character being a villain.
The week after I showed my discord something completely different. We watched Annihilation. I over all liked the movie but it left me with a lot of questions. I wouldn’t call them plots holes, more stuff I wondered about that I assume the movie just didn’t have room for. It made me want to check out the books. I was really impressed with Gina Rodriguez in the movie. I had only seen her in Jane the Virgin before. So seeing her lose it the way she does in Annihilation was impressive. Also, as scary as the bear monster was, I find the alligator with extra teeth more unnerving.
I did more reading this month. I accidentally let my to read pile get bigger than I like. The book club I’m in read Reel to Real by bell hooks. The book is a collection of her criticism of various movies. Most of the movies were ones I hadn’t seen. So it mostly just made me add to my movies to see list. It also made me wish bell hooks lived longer because I would have loved to have read her thoughts on more recent movies like American Fiction and Moonlight.
After Reel to Real, I jumped into A Ruin, Great and Free by Cadwell Turnbull. It is the final book in his trilogy that started with No Gods, No Monsters. It continues to work on a big picture community look at the supernatural that I don’t see very often, while not becoming too detached from his characters personal humanity. I immediately wanted go back and reread the series from the start.
This month had the release of a new Seanan McGuire book Butterfly Effects. It is the 15th book in her Incryptid series, so I wouldn’t recommend jumping into it cold. The series as a whole is about a family of cryptozoologists. A lot of the plot in this particular book is resolving things from a few books before. The main thing I found interesting is the antagonists are a hivemind but part of the hivemind is trying to rebel. So the logistic of a rebellion in a society that is all psychically connected was interesting to dig at.
Final book I read was Player of Games by Ian M Banks. Two of my friends, Spike Trotman and Blue Delliquanti, have talked up the Culture Series to me. I don’t have a lot to say about Player of Games by itself, other than I liked it. Blue told me to start with this one and it is an easy into. I’m intrigued and will end up reading more Culture Novels. So I might have more to say when I’m deeper in.
That’s it for this month. Thanks as always for your support and once again, please spread the word about my Kickstarter.