I'll Be at Emerald City This Weekend

Crossposted from my newsletter. 

Hey everyone! Hope you had a good February. I'll be at Emerald City Comic Con this weekend! Cautionary Fables and Fairytales will be at table 20815! There is a nice map up top (I took Kory Bing's image of our booth because I didn't have time to make my own.)

Emerald City is the big thing this month. But Failure to Launch is still crowdfunding! It goes until March 9th. Me, Spike, and Amanda will do a special Iron Circus Geekshow to close it out. That will be Thursday March 9th, at 6pm PST. Grab it while you still can!

My discord is still doing the full moon movie will be March 7th at 5pm PST. We will be watching the movie Cursed (2005). It's not a good movie but it is a fun movie. Anyone who wants to join, is free to sign up for my discord and join us.

As always I'll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:

• Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST
• Wednesday 8pm-10pm PST
• Thrusday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)

Last month I was a guest on War Rocket Ajax. I was promoing Shards of Reflection and the Fame and Misfortune live reading. But really we mostly talked about videogames.

I also did a live reading on twitch of Fame and Misfortune. It was fun and I want to do more live readings. But it turned out my mic was broken. So I'm gonna redo it. You can give the first try a listen, but it will get auto-deleted in about a week.

I got a bad sinus infection last week. So I haven't really had time to work on Blue Moon. It's getting to the point where I think I might have to put You are the Chosen One on break again. I don't want to, but right now it's the comic that takes the most time (mostly because it's in color). I'm gonna see how much I get done this month when it comes to Blue Moon. Then I'll decide. If it goes on break, it will be after the current chapter is done posting (in July).

Getting sick really threw off my exercising. I'll get back to it after Emerald City. Kinda a double whammy of sickness and then con to mess up the routine. It's a shame because I was getting used to/forming a habit until I got sick. 

But sick meant I watched more stuff. Last month this section was kinda long. Maybe I should post these on my blog more frequently and just link to those posts? Anyway here's what I watched and read:

• Posthumous Education (book 8 in The Utterly Uniteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred the Vampire Accountant) by Drew Hayes - The vampire accountant series is one I always grab as soon as it comes out. It stood out to me because most urban fantasy books are about magic cops or magic detectives. The series as a whole are episodic short stories and I like that they are mostly small stake conflicts. Like this volume the main character is teaching a business class at a supernatural college. The first story is about him trying to convince students how important learning basic contract knowledge is, not just for dealing with humans but also the fae and really any supernatural that makes deals. The series as a whole has bit about how higher ups abuse these legal tricks to control the inexperienced. I'm definitely gonna keep up with the series because small scale stories like this are harder to find.

• Woke - This is a hulu show that is loosely based off the K Chronicles by Keith Knight. I didn't know much going in and wanted to see how Keith's work was turned into a TV show. I ended up really enjoying it. The first season is about what an artist's responsibility to the world. Like if you have an audience, how much do you have to use it for talking about important topics vs using it for escapism? And then how does commerce tight into an artists work. It was very funny and clever. It also uses Keith Knight's hand letterer for all the captions, text messages, and another another thing that needs a pop up label. It gave the show a unique look that helps tie it more to the comic it is based off of.
• Baby Driver - Another thing with a unique look was Baby Driver. I like Edgar Wright movies but never got around to see Baby Driver until now. Basically, when it came out I was only interested in it because Edgar Wright was the director. Like everything I heard about it made me think that it might not be for me. And my instincts were right. While Baby Driver was a very pretty/stylish movie, the story and characters kinda fell flat for me. I might revisit it if I want to mimic it's specific look in an illustration, but for now it just made me want to rewatch Hot Fuzz.

• Puss in Boots: Last Wish - To continue the line of stuff that is stylish and looks interesting, Puss in Boots: Last Wish is much better than it has any right to be. I mostly saw it because everyone was telling me it was much better than you'd expect. That is 100% true. The usually Shrek style was dropped in favor of something that is more stylized like Into the Spiderverse. The whole cast is after a fallen star they can make a wish on is the main driver of the story. That's a simple plot that allows for a lot of cool action and slapstick humor. So they can put the new style to good use. Then since the plot is so simple, there is also room for the characters to grow and change. Which means, unlike Baby Driver, you have a very strong sense of who everyone is and why they are involved in the story. Maybe I like it so much because I had low expectations, but it was very surprising in how good it is.
• The Banshees of Inisherin - My favorite stories are ones that are funny and sad at the same time. The Banshees of Inisherin is just that. I think it's also a great example of how you can make something that seems small feel like the most important thing in the world. If you don't know, it's about two men in a small Irish town that have been friends for years. The starting incident is one telling the other he doesn't want to be friends anymore. The other can't accept that. I like that while you watch these two men argue about whether or not they should be friends there is an underlying heart and sadness that isn't spelt out. The man who doesn't want to be friends says the other man is dull and he is wasting his life listening to the other guy. So he is clearly wrestling with how short his time is on earth. And for all his desire to do something "important" with his life, he is spending a lot of it arguing with this former friend now. And the other guy is so upset that he is bringing his donkey into his house. The donkey is making a mess of his house but it's something for him to cuddle while depressed and lonely. Both situations are a combo of sad and funny. This is a movie I'll probably think a lot a bit and will revisit.

• Aggretsuko Season 5 - I have some mixed feelings about Aggretsuko's last season. I really liked the first 3 seasons, but the more the show pushed Retsuko and Haida as a couple the more I lost interest. So season 4 and now season 5 giving him more scene time made me lose interest in him. It seems like a shift to try and justify him as a love interest. Also Haida's brief bit of being homeless felt like something the show wasn't prepared to properly address. Like the show wasn't to be sympathetic, but gives reasons for why the homeless characters are "stuck" that way. So it wants to be sympathetic while blaming the homeless for their situation. And then that story line is kinda tossed aside for Retsuko to run for office. I like Retsuko running for office, but didn't really like that she was strong armed into it. She has been repeated pushed into important plots each season. I wish the last season changed that. It would have been a nice way to end a series of her being so passive. Like the whole show has been realizing her unhappiness with the system and seeing others also unhappy under it. I would have liked her to make an active choice to try and change the system. And then maybe tie the homeless plot line into that more. As is, the two plot lines don't mesh with each other super well.

I've also been listening to the podcast Mangasplaining. It reviews manga and guides people through a wide variety of series. It makes me want read more manga. But only so much time is in the day. Either way, there might be more manga in these write ups. I at the very least should reread Akira (it's been like 15 years). 

Thanks as always for your support this month. Have a good one everyone.