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I am not at all looking forward to the new Rogue One movie. I was trepidatious enough about Episode VII when I realized from the trailer that it was probably Episode IV re-done and it was. But seeing Rogue One being yet another re-telling of another story that has already been re-told is pushing the limits for me. I'm getting the distinct impression that Disney has decided to take the attitude of: "Any story you can tell we can tell better" when they make these new movies.
In case you're too young to know exactly what I'm referring to when I say this story has already been re-told let me take you back to 1995. It was a day when Windows was new and most computers still ran DOS. There were no smart phones, no tablet PCs and cable had 50 channels max. There were still only three Star Wars movies and a few novels and Lucasarts decided that the best way for fans to scratch their Star Wars itch was to create a video game called Dark Forces. The premise behind Dark Forces was that you were a mercenary named Kyle Katarn who was hunting down and killing a new breed of Storm Trooper being created by the Empire. However, there was also a storyline that made you find and steal the plans to the Death Star.
Fast forward to 2006 and we are given another Star Wars video game called Lethal Alliance. In this game you play a Twi'Lek mercenary who is tasked with finding and stealing the plans to the Death Star. Just eight years later we have Rogue One, a story about an Imperial Defector who is tasked by the fledgling Rebel Alliance with (stop me if you've heard this one) finding and stealing the plans to the Death Star.
Notice a trend here?
I have and I'm not at all happy about it. Regardless of the quality of the movie it's a story we've seen before. Episode VII was a lot of fun to watch (I bought it yesterday on DVD) and I really enjoyed it but I question it's longevity for the reason that it's a story I've seen before. It's a story I'm very familiar with and while the new characters are great save for Kylo Ren I just don't feel like that was the best move for ALL the new movies that are coming out especially the side story ones. I'll give the new trilogy some slack for this, after all the classic trilogy is fast approaching forty years old but for movies like Rogue One this is almost unforgivable.
Give us something new! Give us something we haven't seen before! There is a rich history around the galaxy that is Star Wars that has only barely been explored. The expanded universe of novels and comic books already showed us how many directions you can go, why is Disney falling back on the same old stories we've all seen time and time again? I'll tell you why. Because they want to play it safe. They already know that any movie that has the Star Wars Monikor on it is going to just print money but they also want to learn from George Lucas mistake. Except they haven't. George relied on his old formula when he made the prequel trilogy. He made the movies for young fans and pushed the limits of special effects to and past their breaking points. He relied as much on visuals as he did characters to tell his story. It didn't work. Episode VII and Rogue One is Disney relying on the already known quantities of the story we've seen over and over again for forty years. It's not working very well so far. Sure they've made their money back on every movie they want to make for the next fifty years off of just The Force Awakens but playing it safe isn't. It's going to backfire and I'm not going to feel sorry for the next poor schlob that fans start to bitch at non-stop for the next twenty years.
In case you're too young to know exactly what I'm referring to when I say this story has already been re-told let me take you back to 1995. It was a day when Windows was new and most computers still ran DOS. There were no smart phones, no tablet PCs and cable had 50 channels max. There were still only three Star Wars movies and a few novels and Lucasarts decided that the best way for fans to scratch their Star Wars itch was to create a video game called Dark Forces. The premise behind Dark Forces was that you were a mercenary named Kyle Katarn who was hunting down and killing a new breed of Storm Trooper being created by the Empire. However, there was also a storyline that made you find and steal the plans to the Death Star.
Fast forward to 2006 and we are given another Star Wars video game called Lethal Alliance. In this game you play a Twi'Lek mercenary who is tasked with finding and stealing the plans to the Death Star. Just eight years later we have Rogue One, a story about an Imperial Defector who is tasked by the fledgling Rebel Alliance with (stop me if you've heard this one) finding and stealing the plans to the Death Star.
Notice a trend here?
I have and I'm not at all happy about it. Regardless of the quality of the movie it's a story we've seen before. Episode VII was a lot of fun to watch (I bought it yesterday on DVD) and I really enjoyed it but I question it's longevity for the reason that it's a story I've seen before. It's a story I'm very familiar with and while the new characters are great save for Kylo Ren I just don't feel like that was the best move for ALL the new movies that are coming out especially the side story ones. I'll give the new trilogy some slack for this, after all the classic trilogy is fast approaching forty years old but for movies like Rogue One this is almost unforgivable.
Give us something new! Give us something we haven't seen before! There is a rich history around the galaxy that is Star Wars that has only barely been explored. The expanded universe of novels and comic books already showed us how many directions you can go, why is Disney falling back on the same old stories we've all seen time and time again? I'll tell you why. Because they want to play it safe. They already know that any movie that has the Star Wars Monikor on it is going to just print money but they also want to learn from George Lucas mistake. Except they haven't. George relied on his old formula when he made the prequel trilogy. He made the movies for young fans and pushed the limits of special effects to and past their breaking points. He relied as much on visuals as he did characters to tell his story. It didn't work. Episode VII and Rogue One is Disney relying on the already known quantities of the story we've seen over and over again for forty years. It's not working very well so far. Sure they've made their money back on every movie they want to make for the next fifty years off of just The Force Awakens but playing it safe isn't. It's going to backfire and I'm not going to feel sorry for the next poor schlob that fans start to bitch at non-stop for the next twenty years.
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So what's the Point of Wavelength?
2 min read
Specifically I wanted to create a transsexual character that would be the star of their own comic series. I had three rules for my story, one this character had to be the main one in the story line. Two, this character had to have super powers. Three the story line had to be about the character's adventures and while being a transsexual should come up once in a while the story should not be about the character being a transsexual. In short I wanted to create a super hero that just happened to be a transsexual and not a transsexual super hero, if that makes any sense.
Wavelength morphed into a wonderful super hero that I absolutely adore but am also a little scared to show you, hence the lack of updates. This is my baby, my brain child and it is very, very, very important to get her right. But what does that mean?
Despite all the rules and stigma associated with representation of minority groups in comics what I most wanted to get right was "Who cares if this character is (XYZ) they are a great character and I am a fan." Or even: "You know I'm not too fond of this character, they have a lot of faults." and what the character is never once enters the person mind. All too often we focus too much on what a person is and not who that person is. Wavelength is a geek, a gamer, an artist and a super hero. Basically me but with tits. As risky as that move was I felt it was the best way to make a character that I could make relatable. Someone you can you look at and think: "I know someone like this" which really is the ultimate aim of Wavelength.
They say you should be the change you want to see in the world and the change I want to see is people looking at one another and not caring about what we are. I want to see people getting along in spite of the differences we can see and touch.
Wavelength morphed into a wonderful super hero that I absolutely adore but am also a little scared to show you, hence the lack of updates. This is my baby, my brain child and it is very, very, very important to get her right. But what does that mean?
Despite all the rules and stigma associated with representation of minority groups in comics what I most wanted to get right was "Who cares if this character is (XYZ) they are a great character and I am a fan." Or even: "You know I'm not too fond of this character, they have a lot of faults." and what the character is never once enters the person mind. All too often we focus too much on what a person is and not who that person is. Wavelength is a geek, a gamer, an artist and a super hero. Basically me but with tits. As risky as that move was I felt it was the best way to make a character that I could make relatable. Someone you can you look at and think: "I know someone like this" which really is the ultimate aim of Wavelength.
They say you should be the change you want to see in the world and the change I want to see is people looking at one another and not caring about what we are. I want to see people getting along in spite of the differences we can see and touch.
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Featured Artist!
1 min read
Well I don't have a whole lot of watchers but I recently got some love so I wanted to spread it forward. The rules are simple, leave me a comment and I will feature three of my favorite pieces of your art. Then write a feature journal of your own and feature other artists in the same way. 
I'll start with Aquamagick! She's a wonderful watercolor artist looking to go pro, give her some encouragement.
I'll start with Aquamagick! She's a wonderful watercolor artist looking to go pro, give her some encouragement.
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Claiming Sexism to Hide Sexism.
5 min read
I've talked about this on my other blog, Bromopar but I wanted to go into more detail about my own personal discovery on this wonderful journey we all call comics.
Just because a character is attractive doesn't mean she can't be the hero.
Pay attention to the language on that one because its very important. "Just because a character is attractive doesn't mean she can't be the hero." This was done on purpose in case you were wondering. Male characters often look sexualized from a male point of view and men never really seem to get all hot and bothered about it. There is a very important reason for this, that is an acceptable male standard. Superman is what every male hopes to look like someday no matter how unattainable his body type may be. We want to be him and we don't really care that we never will be, its acceptable to us. Female characters on the other hand are not (I repeat NOT) the acceptable standard for men unless somehow they are in a submissive or secondary category. This is especially true if there is a male lead character. To men the unattainable standard that they have created for women should be perfectly acceptable to them whether they like it or not. There is a kicker, however.
Women like the male standard as long the female character is the lead or at the very least on equal footing with the male lead. There even seems to be a spectrum of how acceptable the imagery is but for now I want to stick with this idea that unattainable body types are okay in very, very specific circumstances to women. This is really starting to bug men. Men want to be the heroes, men don't want to play second fiddle, it hurts our fragile egos and some of us (This is the sad part) have decided that what's ours is ours and what's yours is ours and have been fighting back.
Claiming sexism to hide sexism is a very real thing.
Men have been hiding under the guise of feminism in order to put down the latest trends in comics and animation, strong female supporting characters and female leads. They do this by (how else?) criticizing their looks. They claim that the women are too sexy looking and can't be taken seriously. "The message you are sending is that girls can't save the world unless they are hot." The problem with this statement is that it sends a completely different kind (but no less sexist) of statement that hot girls can't save the world either. So what it is men? You put down women who don't look attractive and drag down women that are? How much sense does that make? It makes perfect sense if you're a sexist prick.
Female lead characters can and for that matter should be idealized to some extent. After all super hero characters are exceptional examples of humanity and as such should look exceptional. This is true for both male and female characters and as such should be applied equally. This rule gets real grey when your lead characters are only male or only female. However, there is a handy way to spot the sexist hiding in feminist clothing. They'll happily berate and babble on about female characters who are sexualized but never (not once mind you) bring up the corresponding male characters who are also sexualized. If its not good for the goose then it shouldn't be good for the gander either but these men don't see it that way. All they see is powerful female leads or supporting characters that don't need no man and that is unacceptable to them.
We need to stop putting female characters in the media down and start uplifting them. After all how are we going to get the focus off of a female character's bust size if all we do is talk about it no matter what capacity? When I picked up Catwoman: The Game I sighed. On the cover was Catwoman provocatively dressed and posed. Once I started reading Catwoman though I cheered. Selina Kyle is now a very powerful character and in one scene she actually scared the shit out of me. I stopped looking at her tits and started looking at her. I don't talk about her appearance if I can help it, I talk about her personality. I love the dual nature she struggles with, her unwavering loyalty to the forsaken of Gotham and most of all her fun loving nature. In my mind her skimpy outfit only adds an extra element to her already self destructive personality. Batman once asks her: "You could die, is that what you want?!" and she replies: "MAYBE I DO!" It brings chills to my spine just thinking about it.
Now I don't want to say that media portrayals of women don't need any work, there is gross inequality still but I do think its important to avoid the wolves in sheep's clothing. Just because an attractive female is saving the world doesn't mean you can automatically point a finger and cry; "Sexist!" There is wiggle room but we have to be careful not to send the wrong message. As artists it is our responsibility to level the playing field in some way. There are many ways to do this, we can portray both male and female characters as highly sexualized (like in Gen 13) or we can portray all characters as regular and normal (Like Strangers in Paradise) or we can make only the leads sexualized while all the supporting and secondary characters look normal, the options are nearly endless. The key is both male and female characters have to follow the same artistic rules. Otherwise, we're part of the problem and will never be a part of the solution no matter how well we write them.
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Just Draw Dammit!
5 min read
I want to start by saying this is a passing on of wisdom that was passed down to me from the awesome nebezial. The journal in question can be read here.
Moving forward I would like to add my own experiences as a newly minted comic artist. I'm referencing the above journal because in many ways the advice he gave all of us was put to good use by myself. However, I feel that its important to share my own experiences with HOW I put the advice into action to maybe give you, the potential comic artist some perspective.
The most important lesson was time management. Like all of you I have a full time job, I work nights from 6pm to 6am Sunday through Tuesday and every other Wednesday. This amounts to one 36 hour week and one 48 hour week, rinse repeat. Trying to fit in my normal life schedule into that time frame is difficult enough, now add onto that drawing comic pages and well... yeah. That by itself was enough to send me scurrying for the hills. If you read the journal entry (and hopefully by now you already have) that's the number one complaint nebezial hears. "How do I fit drawing into my crazy ass schedule?!" Well the first thing I did was go through a normal week and keep careful track of how I spent my time. The goal was to find ways to "trim the fat" and make room in my schedule for drawing. As it turns out the number one question I had to ask myself was; "Do I really need to spend so much time online?" I was spending several hours a day surfing the same four or five websites over and over again. Facebook in particular was a big leach of my time. Next was the number of hours I spent playing video games. By cutting down on these two activities I suddenly discovered I had several hours a week that I could devote just to drawing. Plus I can still spend time with my wife and daughter and make sure all the chores I'm responsible for get done. So step one really is to examine your daily habits and see if you can think of one or two things that you maybe don't need to spend so much time on and use that time to draw instead.
The next important lesson was getting over the whole; "But what if no one likes it?" mental block. I'm the worst when it comes this. Its why my old account, bromopar has languished untouched for so long. In the end what got me going was the title of this journal. I told myself to just draw out what I had and see what happens later. Who knows, maybe someone will even drop some helpful advice? The biggest asset for this though was being able to identify and correct any deficiencies in my work. Are my proportions correct? Is my shading helping the picture look three dimensional? Do my backgrounds look realistic? Are the characters interesting? Is there enough room for the dialogue bubbles that will be added later? All of these questions and many more came up as I drew. Questions I never would have thought to ask had I not just gotten off my ass (or perhaps on since I'm sitting down...) and gone for it. As Jamie Baker (former San Jose Shark and current radio color commentator) always says; "Its all about developing good habits." It'll seem kind of overwhelming at first but once you develop those good habits those questions will be answered without you ever having to even ask them.
Last but not least and this is strictly from me to you is don't care about your final product. That may seem counter-productive but hear me out. The end goal isn't to have that one awesome piece that will blow away the minds of everyone in the world. The end goal is to look at your piece and think; "How could this be better?" So the end goal is actually progress. Don't think you have to be top tier, master level, over 9000 super artist before you can post your work. No matter how good you think you are now in a few months you'll post something better and look back and think; "That's crap!" Good. As long as you always repeat this process then you're making strides as an artist. When I look at page one vs. page 10 of Their Own Little Worlds I think page 10 is awesome and page one is crap. At one point I thought page one was pretty damn good but my skills have progressed since then and I'm not the least bit upset to call the page I once thought was pretty damn good total crap. You shouldn't either. So I guess what I'm trying to say about not caring about the final product is that there really never will be a final product to care about. Each piece you make will be awesome and the next one you make will make the last one crap, but hey, that's progress!
So there you have it ladies and gents, my little shreds of wisdom combined with the wisdom that was handed down to me and well, all of you as well. So stop reading this journal and get out there and draw dammit!
Moving forward I would like to add my own experiences as a newly minted comic artist. I'm referencing the above journal because in many ways the advice he gave all of us was put to good use by myself. However, I feel that its important to share my own experiences with HOW I put the advice into action to maybe give you, the potential comic artist some perspective.
The most important lesson was time management. Like all of you I have a full time job, I work nights from 6pm to 6am Sunday through Tuesday and every other Wednesday. This amounts to one 36 hour week and one 48 hour week, rinse repeat. Trying to fit in my normal life schedule into that time frame is difficult enough, now add onto that drawing comic pages and well... yeah. That by itself was enough to send me scurrying for the hills. If you read the journal entry (and hopefully by now you already have) that's the number one complaint nebezial hears. "How do I fit drawing into my crazy ass schedule?!" Well the first thing I did was go through a normal week and keep careful track of how I spent my time. The goal was to find ways to "trim the fat" and make room in my schedule for drawing. As it turns out the number one question I had to ask myself was; "Do I really need to spend so much time online?" I was spending several hours a day surfing the same four or five websites over and over again. Facebook in particular was a big leach of my time. Next was the number of hours I spent playing video games. By cutting down on these two activities I suddenly discovered I had several hours a week that I could devote just to drawing. Plus I can still spend time with my wife and daughter and make sure all the chores I'm responsible for get done. So step one really is to examine your daily habits and see if you can think of one or two things that you maybe don't need to spend so much time on and use that time to draw instead.
The next important lesson was getting over the whole; "But what if no one likes it?" mental block. I'm the worst when it comes this. Its why my old account, bromopar has languished untouched for so long. In the end what got me going was the title of this journal. I told myself to just draw out what I had and see what happens later. Who knows, maybe someone will even drop some helpful advice? The biggest asset for this though was being able to identify and correct any deficiencies in my work. Are my proportions correct? Is my shading helping the picture look three dimensional? Do my backgrounds look realistic? Are the characters interesting? Is there enough room for the dialogue bubbles that will be added later? All of these questions and many more came up as I drew. Questions I never would have thought to ask had I not just gotten off my ass (or perhaps on since I'm sitting down...) and gone for it. As Jamie Baker (former San Jose Shark and current radio color commentator) always says; "Its all about developing good habits." It'll seem kind of overwhelming at first but once you develop those good habits those questions will be answered without you ever having to even ask them.
Last but not least and this is strictly from me to you is don't care about your final product. That may seem counter-productive but hear me out. The end goal isn't to have that one awesome piece that will blow away the minds of everyone in the world. The end goal is to look at your piece and think; "How could this be better?" So the end goal is actually progress. Don't think you have to be top tier, master level, over 9000 super artist before you can post your work. No matter how good you think you are now in a few months you'll post something better and look back and think; "That's crap!" Good. As long as you always repeat this process then you're making strides as an artist. When I look at page one vs. page 10 of Their Own Little Worlds I think page 10 is awesome and page one is crap. At one point I thought page one was pretty damn good but my skills have progressed since then and I'm not the least bit upset to call the page I once thought was pretty damn good total crap. You shouldn't either. So I guess what I'm trying to say about not caring about the final product is that there really never will be a final product to care about. Each piece you make will be awesome and the next one you make will make the last one crap, but hey, that's progress!
So there you have it ladies and gents, my little shreds of wisdom combined with the wisdom that was handed down to me and well, all of you as well. So stop reading this journal and get out there and draw dammit!
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