RPG and progress

Welcome back. Well, I've got a little bit of news here. The Third Accelerator comic is coming along awesomely. It's pretty much turning out better than I was worried about it turning out. It had been so long since I did a regular comic page, I admit I was a bit hesitant when it came to the pages, I was a little scared to get started. But it pulled through I think. Here's the first page to the comic, sans dialogue of course. I just want to show y'all what we're in for, and I hope you like it.

So about that RPG system I mentioned last time? Well, my good friend, Andrea “Tink” Mullen devised up a system for us to work with. There's a lot of serious potential here and I'm thinking I'd be kind of a fool to pass this up. I'll be posting the stats definition next time for us. But for now, I just wanted to show you guys what it kinda looks like at the moment. Bear in mind, these are not the finals. There's still a lot more work that needs to go into these. Artwise for example, the Rebecca picture is kinda dated, and I'll need to use the more updated designs that will reflect her appearances in the planned story after Third Accelerator. Maybe the same with Max Pneumatic. But Dr. Spear pretty much is accurate. I also need to flesh out the graphics for the page there, to come up with something that'll look good and be clean to read. Right now, these are just a bit boring, but I wanted to show you guys something's been done here. Also, I'm sure there's more than a couple of typos in there. :P

Gee, she looks familiar.

Fly to the moon.

Little bit of aging perspective for all of us out there who's feeling the years creep up on them. We get older and we start wondering if it's too late to do something with our lives... Esepcially people who's around my age, in their late 30s, and it hits you at night wondering if you've wasted your time. Well, the average age of the men who walked on the moon was 39, with the oldest being John Young at 41. These were a bunch of math nerds (and understand, they were indeed math nerds!) who flew 238,900 miles in a cramped capsule, for a two to three week voyage.

There's no goddamned reason you can't get to the moon. (The moon is a metaphor for your dreams or goals.) Maybe you don't have a lot of support on the homefront. You think those 24 people who flew the Apollo missions were totally supported by everyone? Hell, no. They had an entire half a nation of people who basically expected them to die on the way there. (And a few of them almost did.) But they stuck it out. And with a little ingenuity and duct tape (seriously, duct tape), they pulled it off.

Your moon is probably a little more obtainable than the actual moon. Maybe you want to find that right job, or maybe you want to create that right business. Perhaps you want to write or draw that new story or you want to produce that new television show. Maybe you just want to meet that right someone or maybe you want to lose that weight...

Do it. Fly to the goddamned moon.

You're going to crash a few times and perhaps you already have. Well, you pick yourself back up and fly again. You're going to have people telling you that you're wasting your time and that you should spend it doing something more productive. The moon is so far away and it doesn't really serve any purpose. So you're wasting your time, because getting to the moon does no one any good... Especially you. Sometimes these people are going to be friends and even loved ones who's opinions you respect. Sometimes they're going to be the masses who's world is so small, they quite frankly cannot imagine, something beyond text messages, tweets and whoever Taylor Swift is doing. Or worse yet, they can't imagine themselves doing it so they can't believe you can either... Well, unless you have a really powerful thrust on your engine (once again, metaphor) you might want to consider changing them or start hanging around new people. Because in aeronautics, they're what is considered drag. (As in they drag you down.) And sometimes that drag is yourself.

If you know how to get to the moon, and you may indeed know how to do it... Then do it. Because guess what? You're not going to get to Mars until you get to the cheese in the night sky. (Yes, Mars is yet, another metaphor for what comes after the moon.)

Fly. The moon's not coming to you. You gotta go to it. Otherwise, you'll have to settle for watching other people land there from your television set instead.

Apparently, girls only like crossbows, staffs and blades. Who knew?

So I've been giving thoughts to the idea of "toys for boys and girls" for a few weeks ago. Today I picked up the Transformer Airachnid and something struck me then. Ever notice that toy action figures of females always have them come with bows or staffs or some kind of close arms combat thing, or if they came with a firearm, it was always like a small pistol or something "their delicate hands can handle". Never bazookas or machine guns or whatever? I get it for toys "meant for girls" like My Little Pony (sorry Bronies) isn't going to have Fluttershy come with Anthrax Grenade Launchers. (Though that WOULD be awesome!) But like even G.I.Joe does this too. Lady Jaye came with a javelin launcher, Scarlett with a crossbow, Jinx had swords and a staff, Zarana had some saw blade thingie, Cover Girl didn't even COME with a weapon. And these women are military! The Baroness came with a rifle, but you know... She's a terrorist. When they do come with actual firearms, it's usually pistols or something small, but never anything impressive, like something you'd see Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell hauling around. (Which sadly, GitS isn't a toy, because it would have been a freakin' amazing toy line.)

Even Transformers weren't immune to this. If they came with weapons at all, they were usually one of the above types. (crossbows, spears, bladed weapons, ect.) Blackarachnia came with crossbows and blades (or projectiles that looked like crossbows) and the same goes for Arcee... With the one exception of the recent Prime toy who came with a giant ass cannon. But that's one out of several toys of her. (Seriously, they're alien robots that can traverse the galaxy, and they're still using crossbows?) Override had a double barreled blaster, but she was originally a "he" in Japan. Thunderblast had a missile launcher, and Strika that, while she comes with a set of shoulder cannons... Once again... They're evil bad girls.

Same for Superheroes. The warrior women, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl gets a sword, lasso and/or mace, while peaceful Superman, who's more powerful than any weapon, gets an atmosphere destroying missile launcher. I've lost track of how many Batmans, who HATES firearms, came with some type of projectile weapon. Harley Quinn gets a comically giant ass gun, but we all know there's just a flag in there that says bang. (And then shoots the flag like an arrow. Another goddamned arrow launcher.) Poison Ivy got a crossbow too. (Though she had one in the show, so I'll let that slide.) Teela and Cheetara got staffs, while Man-At-Arms and Panthro gets to drive around in tanks and shoot heavy blasters. Black Widow gets wrist stingers and a pair of .45s as opposed to something more powerful. (Unlike the Punisher, who gets an entire arsenal.) Jill Valentine, fighting zombies, usually gets some sort of small sub-machine gun and knife. All the Princess Leia toys came with some tiny ass blaster, with exception of the Slave Leia one, where she came with some giant ass Skiff Guard staff. (ANOTHER staff.) April O'Neil get's a camera. Hell, Venus the Ninja Turtle didn't even get a sword or staff. She got a fucking fan.

It's understandable if it's a universe like Xena or Zelda where more powerful weaponry isn't the norm. But this is kinda silly. So what? Girls don't like to see shit blow shit up like guys do?

Yeah... I know way too many of you to know that ain't true.

More 3A Cast Model Sheets

So, I thought y'all might like to meet some more main cast member from the Third Accelerator.

Like I said last time, it's coming along pretty good For those curious about the Sourcebook entries I also mentioned last time... I'm working on it. I just gotta figure out a good format for it.

Anyway, I hope you like it and more soon. :)

State of the Confusion address

So I've been bit quiet on my end, and there's been plenty of reasons for it. The big one is that the schooling stuff and just life in general is about to become radically different for me in about a half a year or so, as I'll be extending my search for employment outside the state of Michigan. Certain issues came up that will expedite my initial plans. This is not a bad thing at all, since, y'know... The Wolverine State kinda blows. And really, I've been wanting to get back out on my own for a while now, and now that I know Dad will be okay. So really, it works out okay. (I hope.) But, this brings me to the Third Accelerator comic: It's in production. No conceptualizing, not character sketches, not first drafts... Actual friggin' production. It's being drawn right now. (Okay, not RIGHT now. Right now, I'm tying on the computer drinking a Shamrock Shake.) This is a big deal, because since Shadowgirls ended, this is the farthest I've gotten. I've always had a creative hang-up or two get in the way. (Yeah, there's the whole leaving Michigan thing that's kinda going to stumble things up a little bit, but at the most, that's a month and it's not a creative hang-up.) But yeah. The final first issue script is finished and I'm workin' away on the comic. (You can see a picture of the script up top. Not worried about spoilers... It's just the first page.)

So how and when am I planning on releasing this? Well, first it'll be released as a webcomic, with a three times a week update schedule. Then upon completion, it'll be offered in a collection with extra material. (No Kickstarters needed for that one. I'm just going right to Amazon's CreateSpace. I'm rather happy of the quality and price of the product.) When will this happen? Normally, I'd say when it's done, but if I can get a regular enough momentum going here, where I can plan ahead and now how long it'll take and everything... It'll go live as soon as I know that I will not catch up to myself. Since I'm only just drawing age one right now, it'll be a little bit. If I didn't have my head up my ass for a while there, it'd probably be done by now.

'Mona' from the Third Accelerator.

In the meanwhile, while I'm drawing this comic, I can't really be sitting here constantly telling you “It's coming soon, this time for sure!” I've been talking to a friend and one thing that might be kinda neat is a sort of unofficial exploration of this universe. Almost like a RPG-stats sort of things, but minus the numbers. I'll be honest, I've never been all that big of a role-playing geek. I have tons of friends that are, but it's just never been my cup of tea. Though I cannot lie how much I always loved looking through the sourcebooks, reading the write-ups and bios of the various characters and creatures. It's kind of like reading the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, or Dreamwave's Transformers 'More than Meets the Eye' sourcebooks, which were at times, better than some of the comics they produced. I always liked reading bios and various designs for characters in a universe. And I'm thinking while I'm drawing this, why don't I do that? It's quite literally a “conceptual sketchbook” so anything goes. Characters from aborted story ideas, characters from Shadowgirls, just plain neat ideas that got drawn with not much story behind them. Revolver Devil, the Phenomenauts, Ultimate Suit of Armor, fanmade characters, unofficial characters, imported characters, whatever. It's just for fun. Yeah, it may or may not be all that interesting to a lot of people, but I remember there was a pretty neat fan-ran forum role playing game that went on during Shadowgirls and if they're still out and about, they might be interested. Or it might just be neat for other people just to see the ideas I have in mind that may or may not get made into a comic some day. (But anyone from the Third Accelerator or a planned comic I have called Firecracker won't be in this things.)

It's just for fun, just for us. I'll do these up in-between pages and commissions every now and then, so there's no set schedule. It's nothing official. The important stuff comes first.

And because I'm a dork, I'll have to come up with an official name for this universe.