SUNDAY FUNDAY but on a Monday. Yep-pah!
Typing again… for some fucking reason.
Hello from Miami where the sun has decided to go away for a bit and allow the clouds to drown us all. I can hear the manatees plotting to eat us too, wallow into the water, put Sedano bags over our heads, and take us down to the deep. Yeah, you say Sea cows, but I know the murderers they are, it’s all in their eyes. You may be okay with our Dugong overlords but I say thee NAY!
Other than that it’s been eventful as always, like to hear it? Here it goes:
THE COMICS
I’m enjoying the IPAD. As I’m learning the tools and developing things I’m already using in my freelance workflow and doing the portrait I make getting the sketches down by it. It’s funny because many clients start asking for the original pencils and when I show them the iPad they look at me like I’m out of my mind. I do see the difference though, there are times that I can see the pattern of the pencil tool repeated and some lines seem the same and I get an itch about that. I am still doing most of my thumbnailing and sketching by hand and still ink here and there but I had to do a correction to a piece the other day for Has Games on a sketch for approval and it was amazing to just go in, make a layer, erase a bit and do it right there. There I was with an eyebrow raised thinking “like a caveman banging rocks together”
I’m already thinking about doing one comic on the iPad at the inking and finishing it in Adobe Fresco. I like the program but it feels restrictive and young almost not fully developed. When I go to Procreate and I see it has things figured out. I dig it. But Fresco does have a workflow that works in Adobe overall and since I’m paying for it would be nice. Going to see what I do next. Fresco needs brushes I think. Let me see.
Figuring this out has been amazing because I can do so much while still in bed, and that’s just the dream ain’t it? And It’s an iPad mini too, so I’m not even on a full IPAD screen yet! Imagine? Hmmmmm
THE SHOP
As always, this thing is sucking the life out of me. I always remember the Will Ferrel version of LAND OF THE LOST and when he has that giant mosquito on him
Yeah, the business is the mosquito I swear.
The comic shop is chugging along and has my daily and weekly duties down, but at all times I have to move fast because sometimes something gets hot and you have to be on it. Plus customers are an odd bunch, to say the least, there is a reason I refer to them as the short bus. Interesting but not bad people but many are just socially challenged in the most annoying ways.
(Sidenote: Had anybody ever made a comic shop/thrift shop called Land of the Lost?!? That would be amazing)
ME TIME
Face it when you are in a creative field, you just don’t have the luxury sometimes of going to the movies. Creating is more fun. It’s the constant struggle of showing you all the awesome stuff in my head.
That said Finally Watched THOR: Love and Thunder. Now, before I say anything, I did like it. It was okay. I was a huge fan of RAGNAROK, and consider it my personal favorite of the MCU. It encompassed all the qualities I love about a story, humor, heart, struggle, real shit, and great fun. Plus the Soundtrack was just fucking great.
LOVE AND THUNDER were too much of all of it. It was like eating something you like and they doubled all the ingredients because’ hey if you dig this, then let’s set it to 11 and give you more, that’s better right?” WRONG. There was a chance for a great story, and it ended up just a kidnapping letter from a movie. Nothing was allowed to breathe, nothing seemed developed, they said GO! And that was it. It was a little disappointing because I thought they could sort of double down on the heart of what they were trying to do and give something more, but it becomes a chaotic paint-by-numbers sort of movie, and in the end, didn’t deliver. I was underwhelmed. Did I enjoy it? Sure. But man it would have been so much more.
I dig humor in things sure, and even sort of lean to it a lot in my work, but after a while, you have to get your foot off the glass and contend that everything must serve the story and this, this wasn’t that. This brings me to Marvel and MCU overall: CUT IT OUT.
And this is coming from a fan.
I dig almost all of the MCU and Endgame was a mountain we all climbed together ever since Iron Man and that was amazing work on the part of Feige and company, but now I feel they are either so ironic with themselves or maybe huffing their farts that the humor and ridiculousness if leaving the MCU to be a packaged shitty deal. Sometimes it is what it is like in the case of She-Hulk which in the case of all the shows is actually PRETTY DAMN CLOSE TO THE COMICS and all the neckbeard hate out there can say otherwise. The problem is that you are now making something that feels like it’s shitting on the stories you are trying to present and if you are going to take some weird hipster ironic twist with EVERY SINGLE property you do, where the hell do we get inspired? Some, like Ms. Marvel, had an amazing end and good heart but the beginning was a train wreck to watch and turned me off as it was more like High School the Musical or Wizard of Waverly Faggots or whatever than an actual story we could enjoy. Stop using the same spice and remember the dish.
That being said, if I was DC entertainment or Warner Bros or whatever, I would take the chance to bring something with real gusto and inspiration, serious tales with a season of humor here and there but take the wind out of Marvel’s sails and work towards your Endgame and for that, you need real visionaries. I think, and this is my sneaking suspicions, that Warner Bros and DC have shit leadership/management on hand and have probably pissed off so many creatives that they are radioactive to a degree. Nobody wants to with your toys because you probably tell them how to play or take the toys when it gets good. Learn to play to make and lead things like a real creative team with the business synergy and you will be able to have something going there Warner Bros… At&T or whoever!
See I would love to see a real creative Cold War come from both DC and Marvel to me that would be a huge time of innovation for both and we as the consumers would benefit. Something we could sink our teeth intoned be wowed if either side can take their head out their ass and listen and see what they are doing.
The same goes for comics on both ends. Right now we have to rumble on both DC and Marvel and the comics industry in general. Shake-ups and such that just reflective of the economy and what’s going on overall, but that doesn’t mean we can’t put together something better. That comes from Editorial on the comics side. Real vision and leadership not quipping writers trying to become film writers and tv writers or vice versa but having people who give a shit about comics and getting that into the forefront. That to me would be an amazing thing to watch.
So that was a bit hard. Because I’m the end I do love the comic movies, the 12 year old Juan in me loves them and it’s fun and it’s cool and what the hell. But the old who is now is shaking his cane and screaming at the clouds.
Alright to get at it. This week is starting and have lots I want to get done. Soon you will the power of this FULL OPERATIONAL BATTLE STATION!
FWACATA! 
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