I decided to pull an all-nighter, and then I decided to sleep. But then the insomnia hit, so now I'm pulling an all-nighter again. As I mucked around, covered in ink and wearing very little in horrible humidity, I noticed a strangely tall trailer whose top is nearly as high up as my bedroom window, but it was so dark that I ignored it.

Got up to go pee and glanced out. I saw the entire cross street lined with plastic cones and cars being asked to move and/or actually getting _towed_.

Then, now that the sun is coming out, I can see racks of clothes with name tags (one of which appears to be a medic uniform. Or security guard.) and.... it appears the trailer parked under my window is labeled 'Wardrobe'. The other parts of the street are now filled with trailers. It looks like a pretty large production. o_o

All I can say is (a) I had better not have any problems getting to the bodega downstairs (b) I wonder if this is a big enough production for there to be people I actually recognize... (c) why is it so hot/humid/deathly? (d) This street is high foot and car traffic. If the place is clogged with gawking peoples when I step foot outside to do my bizness, I'm going to be punching people in the street with RAGE. NOTHING BUT SHEER RAGE.

With hormones and the humidity bloating me agonizingly past all recognition and physical comfort, the last thing I want to do is truck my fat self into a sea of slow moving, sweaty humanity and like, yanno having to actually _deal_ with people.

Also, these crew people outside my window are damn noisy and CHEERFUL at this hour in the morning. YOU PEOPLE SHOULD BE GLAD I WASN'T SLEEPING ANYWAY. GORRAM asidjfouaiwy efawea sdasdf *flail*

Also re: comic pages - I AM ON THE FINAL LEG. JUST 10 MOAR PAGES AND I WILL BE DONE WITH THIS EVIL INKING BIZNESS AND ONTO OTHER THINGS LIKE THE SCANNING AND EDITING I REALLY DON'T WANT TO DO.

God I hate scanning.

I need a tech monkey.

Also, someone give me a new body. This one has expired and does not appear to be doing well with the global warming.

So. As I've been a Trekkie since a very young age (I grew up on ST:TOS cartoon and episode reruns) For my b-day, I got to go see the new Star Trek movie.

Cue Complete Fangasm Meltdown. I need to see it again as I'm pretty certain I missed parts due to my europhic happy state.

A few minor quibbles at best but the entire main cast rocked. so. hard.

Go see it if you haven't already. Go go go.

Uhura is FIERCE. Spock is.... moe. Suluuuuuu. And omg, I wanted to squeeze Chekov. And Scotty while I'm at it. And Kirk was pretty great too. XD

I want fic. I want fic nao.

Will post again later with more detail and coherency.

( want fic...spoilers maybe? )

For some reason, I have gotten somewhat into roller derby, which includes this desire to draw a short comic with an entire team (named something sassy yet geeky like the Crystal City Space Buccaneers)versus an MMA team consisting of a Street Fighter style lineup of Sanshou/Ninjitsu/Lucha Libre etc. Who would win? Rocket Betty or Chun Li's thighs?

Anyway, I barely know what the rules are, but I still want to se The Gotham Girls Roller Derby: The Queens of Pain vs the Bronx Gridlock. I am seriously digging the black/yellow cabbie look for the Gridlock gals.

Maybe I'll be free/have the money by then...


<3

ETA: OHO. Apparently, each borough has their own team at Gotham Girls: Queens of Pain, Bronx Gridlock, Brooklyn Bombers, and Manhatten Mayhem. This vid also has a nice intro tutorial to the game.

Cuuuuute. This is just screaming to have a comic/manga based off it. It'd be like. Eyeshield on skates.

article - Not sure if this means anything or not.

India is out, and I did the cover image Here's the site.

And here's a large version of the illustration.Hands, hands everywhere~~

And this is a commission I did-- cover for a friend's poetry collection. Full of symbolism and all that jazz.

:D Yay to productivity!

And now, for some chicks --- 4 Minx comics reviews and a book I loved.

( 2 that I liked, one I was ambivalent about and one I hated. Also the novel I reread to wash it all down )

What the fook? D: Ads! I haven't had the chance to log onto LJ in ages, and the place is slathered in ads! Why is it that I find the LJ ads more annoying than the IJ ones? (maybe because I signed on to LJ specifically for the lack of ads, and IJ, I kind of was already resigned to them? Hm. Oh well.)

Anyway, I missed the deadline for the Morning Magazine International Manga contest -- If they hold a third contest next year, I highly encourage artists/witers who do NOT work in what is popularly concieved as "the manga style" to join. The judges have been bemoaning the fact that everyone seems to want to send in things that are very clearly not Japanese influenced: or more specifically in the US's case and it's Naruto obsession, Moar Superheroes Pls.

I am currently working on two actual projects whose deadlines will be rolling in soon - Inking one book for Markosia and working on a short story for an anthology by Image -- which, on seeing the names of the other participants, has me alternately weeping in a corner and running around screaming about becoming stronger like a tardastic Shonen-Jump protagonist. TSUYOKU NI NARU!!

While the DC line MINX has failed dramatically from terrible advertising, Viz is now open to the public for submissions, with the caveat that they are not only looking for typical 'manga' as is conceived in the US. Yay! I have always liked Viz and will be keeping a close eye on them to see how they handle their original line as opposed to Seven Seas or Tokyopop. (Both of which I view as Fail.)

(In case you haven't noticed, that is my excuse for suddenly not updating these days. Bad me.)
(also I'm certain I've waxed on this shonen jump theme in the past, along with deadline woes. If I have - my memory is dying - I apologize)
(also also what day is it? Am I alive? Why are there men knocking on my window? D:)

Also also also I am disturbed at how I am unable to differentiate between screams of enjoyment and screams of danger. Yesterday, I was getting ready for a shower when I could have sworn I hear a girl/boy/young thing screaming "No, no, no, please stop!" over and over again from the building across the street. I yanked the window open and still could barely understand what the person was shouting. I wanted to call the police, but then I heard shrieks of laughter from-- I couldn't tell if it were the same person/kid? Maybe it was someone else being loud in the same building. Maybe the first voice was some kid getting spanked by their parent. I don't know. This sort of thing constantly worries me. I never know what to do exactly.

But! I realize that my promised reviews have been stalled for yonks, so I'm going to start pasting them in, now. For those with a Goodreads account, my username is speedtribes.

Since I'm talking about comics right now, I'll rekick the reviews off with my thoughts on the Image anthology of works named Popgun.

( the amazon blurb )
( mai review )


Annnnnddddd: Why is it that I suddenly can't make lj-cuts? Did they change the tag format?
A/N: Oh, I can. It just isn't visible in the preview mode. Nevermind!

YES YOU DO.

I know I was going to make an art post and various replies and thingy thingy, but what I am giving you now is a link to a mini Joss Whedon project -- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

FREE episodes (at least until July 19th) of an aspiring supervillian's video blog. Sung. Prettily.

Main site here

Act I
Act II


This is what "I Will Soon Be Invincible" should have been. Just saying.

It's been some time since I've last posted on here, or anywhere. It's summer time and I'm battling the same feelings of professional and personal inadequacy -- though I will admit that this time I am forewarned and armed with teeth, and a healthy preemptive kick to the bum. (and mine is quite sizable for the kicking, I must say.)

I see that at least half of you on my flist are old friends who've locked themselves down or someone I don't know. I'm glad that I continue to have access to your thoughts and life despite my current inactivity. To the new people, hello. There will be a sizable art dump coming soonish.

Deadlines are like a brush with death, or a great, false pause button on your life. -- something like that.

( It's been awhile since our fingers touched and my world imploded in a million tinkling bits of glassy starlight )

India is being relaunched with a double issue, here.

As Endtimes is not being serialized at this time, I've switched over to illustrating Alternate Futures - I did the title image in the first chapter. Will be doing more as issues come out.

Go look, comment, enjoy~ :D

I don't know what program this is, nor what the story is. I found a ton of videos for an absolutely FANTASTIC Chinese puppet kungfu story. Beautiful sets. Beautiful dolls with moving eyes and mouths. (Uhm,I think all the characters are male. Just idealized. Like SD13 style idealized. So far, all the clips I've seen, there were only 2 girls that floated onto a scene and back again.) The narrator wibbles in falsetto if a character is female.

Also... I think the narration is being done in a Mandarin dialect? Or a deliberately stylized Mandarin? I dunno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tq2ELjG-YM&feature=related (a girl shows up at the end of this one to save the hero)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZyrSG1NGuE&feature=related Plotting? Things? Angry accusations, obligatory man fights and bloodletting? Someone had been possessed by a paper doll, I think. BUT NOW HE'S DEAD! Or at least mostly dead. And beautifully at that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwiZKA_Zay8&NR=1 A low quality trailer for the series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DfnEdR_2HI&NR=1 OH NOES! BAD GUY LOVE DRAMA IN THE FLAMING PIT HEADQUARTERSssssss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syejz1BwkHg&NR=1 It's the good guy's turn now! Flirtation in the night! And his eyelashes are longer than hers! And he's far prettier! And more emo! And coy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGMa2bbylc4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjbYDdtYr_8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY4XNoD28YI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjfILj4ONE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91y2J66O_D4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RGdVANsnfU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lc7Nh6HxU4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOXSpK-YMuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XRIjiqput8&feature=related Girl character going on some sort of soul quest where she battles armadillos and kabuki actors, and is allowed an instantaneous change of clothing.

This is like.. Jim Hensen, but a lot more violent and fast paced. And with explosions and flying high kicks. And a LOT of Gorgeous Hair.

Milk-chan

Essentially... a very cute, anthropomorphic breast plushie.









-----
Also: apparently it's possible to get sunstroke in the winter.

A Machine that squeezes oil and gas from just about anything and returns 18 times more energy than it takes in to run itself. Here's a link to the article in Popular Science, as well as commentary from various peoples. I believe that Long Island has commissioned the first commercial version? -- costs $5mil. Hm. I think that, even if it is difficult or slow to change the frequency of a microwave emittor, it shouldn't be too difficult to work around it. Perhaps by finding a way to sort through 'junk'? And do them by batches? Week 1 = rubber based, week 2 = tampons, week 3 = random office goods. Though I do wonder what happens to the byproduct (being that there has to be bits and parts that don't get turned into fuel.) Also, small and more concise blurb at the PopSci site. Here

Cheap solar panels that are silicon free and can be printed onto a surface Keywords being "Cheap" and "Silicon-free"-- one so that developing nations can potentially afford it, the other because silicon isn't a very environmentally friendly material (And damn costly to boot)

Also, some sort of ethanol creating 'junk in/power out' mobile bioreactor still in testing phases

A tube thing that could halve your heating bill Still being tested, tho

A green Brick Created from coal fly ash -- so if we must use coal, here's a useful way to keep its waste from ending up in the sky.

ETA:

Guilt Free Flushing A recyling unit that you can attach to your bathroom pipes to help save water. I'm also currently looking for another home-water-recycling unit that I read about somewhere, which is supposed to somehow... I think, it's supposed to recycle the heat from hot water running down the drain into extra energy?

Greenest Train I love it when I hear stories about how a group/country/corporation can't find what they need, so they create it themselves. The Army did it with the Flying Fortresses. Now, GE did it with their engines. I just love the idea of using their own breaking energy to create more power.

LED lighting fixtures Interesting-- they've already experimented with using it in car lights and the such. The problem is that LED lights are also very bright white. I mean, painfully so. Anyone that's come across a car with LED headlights in the middle of the night know what I mean. I hope these particular ones have been adjusted with some sort of color or... something so that they don't cause the same sort of problem.

Verticle Farms Remember my past posts about this? I'm just posting this link to the recent Popular Science article-- it appears he's actually getting funding for this project which is VERY cool in my opinion. I still say that some place like Dubai would benefit greatly for having/sponsoring a couple of these.

Hi. I'm alive.





Those are supposed to be spaceships racing past overhead in the distance. Not gnats. And this isn't happening speedy enough-- though, mainly because I had no idea what elephants looked like. Er. Proper-like, I mean.

We baked lots today.

Working on old comics again, as well as the current one. Complete website update in thar warrrksss. Pfftl.

ok. That was a mistake. Looking through the oni press books and all that wonderful art-- a bunch of them from people whose name I recognize because I used to chat with them when I was wee, and new to the internets way back when--

/me wallows in suckitude.

Man.

Comics
Omega the Unknown by Jonathan Lethem, art by Farel Dalrymple (MARVEL)
Blue Beetle by Keith Giffen and John Rogers, Art by Cully Hamner (DC COMICS)
The Highwaymen by Marc Bernardin & Adam Freeman, art by Lee Garbett (WILDSTORM)
Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord by Keith Giffen (MARVEL)
Polly & the Pirates Volume 1 by Ted Naifeh (ONI PRESS)

TV
Dexter
Life on Mars

Manga
....nothing really.

Games
Starcraft

Want to read/check out:
...Uhm. I'll make that list later. If you're really interested, check out my Goodreads account (speedtribes). Needless to say, I've discovered that Onipress has a lot more titles than I'd previously thought, and they also have previews on their site. I want to read almost everything they have. :( Also: WHY do I not hear more about this company and their books? Seriously? As far as I can tell, these people are putting out all sorts of fun and entertaining comics that aren't superheros stuff. They've got romance, zombies, spys, cowboys, thrillers, pirates! I want. But... so costly. I need money.


---


ficcentricity!!! The Highwaymen was the one I was telling you about with the old married straight guy couple. It's a tad violent, but most of the worst of it gets the speedblur treatment, so you don't see it in full detail, even if you get the idea.

Remember this Manga and Comics recs list? I'm currently updating and retooling it. If anyone has comics, manga or anime they want to add to the list, let me know. Or any suggestions on categories, comments on things that don't seem to make sense, etc.

Thanks!


ETA: Also, think I should maybe add webcomics?

Imaginary Beats Issue #6: Fairytales is up. I did the illustration for Ravenbell's Guido -- picture entitled "Portrait of a Young Artist".

The Conundrum formerly know as "India and the Conundrum" has updated as well-- though the illustrations I've done haven't been posted up yet. I'll let y'all know when they do go up.

---

As for the UNIQLO tee-shirt contest, unfortunately, I have recently been told that we did not make the third cut. Oh well, there is always next year!


I am also incredibly behind on, well, everything, but I've finally finished playing the original Starcraft game (albeit with MAD CRAZY CHEATING) -- The story was wonderful. I want to do all sorts of art for it. :X Will refrain until I've got the time.

Was messing on OC1 with angrybabble the other day, and this was what I did.
( I think this took about an hour? )

Well. Here goes the first of the prompt sketches.

( prompt: Smax, minimalist color scheme, identity as submitted by das_dingsi )

Had a few things to commentate about, but I can't remember anymore. Currently battling intensely depressing things suck.

( to do list )

Fanart help. Yes, y'all on my flist.

Here's a list of fandoms I'm feeling vaguely interested in drawing for a variety of reasons. I need to narrow down to specifics. Feel free to be bizarre. I just... need something to nail my brain to.

Vote for one, or two, or several and give me some word prompts? (IE: Avatar: ZUKO, wangst, IN SPACE) I may not actually end up doing your prompts, but I'll probably use your characters. If that makes sense. I may not get to everyone's prompts either. This is... an attempt to draw. Period. >_<


1. Jojo's Bizarre Adventures (I like Jotaro and Dio and stands from series 3. I love Trish and Bruno and Mista from series 5. Jolyne from series 6. And... haven't quite gotten to Steelball run yet, but I have plenty of reference images)
2. Jiraishin (these will all probably have to take place in NYC-- I'm not going to look for reference images of Japan--I don't want to ref on other people's photos this time.)
3. the newest Blue Beetle
4. Cable & Deadpool (Cable. Deadpool. The Cat. Bob.)
5. Shimotsuma Monagatari
6. Kishidan
7. Harry Potter
8. Top 10-- (Smax and Toybox, mainly-- not much interest in anyone else)
9. Starlord (like the recent one that's all paired with Annihilation-- I like..uh. The Spandex Pusher, and RAccoon guy, and Big Tree Prince)
10. Ghost In The Shell (more specifically for the Novel: After The Last Goodbye)
11. Shiina Ringo
12. Hitmen (the comics-- with the white british guy and black kick ass american driver)
13. The Foreigner Series by CJ Cherryh
14. Freebie: because maybe drawing something I'm unfamiliar with will pop me out of my lethargy (band/music video related, comics, manga, anime, game, novels-- anything in a uniform, up to and including air stewardesses, historical -- like Saitou Hajime, or Abe Lincoln, etc)