Aeternum Tenebrous

i can recognize white people as a whole have systemically oppressed POC in america, which is where i live 

most people when they make white people jokes only mean the shitty white people and i am not a shitty white person 

Edit: OK I’M CHANGING THE GODDAMN DATE TO MAY 3RD BECAUSE I CANNOT DRAW 5,000 PEOPLE.

YOU HAVE UNTIL MAY 3RD THIS WAS A BAD IDEA

Tagged by leibutt! *smooch*

I am apeshit about that very specific shade of red. It’s embarrassing. I never use it on toons because I’ll be too distracted by the colour to tank/heal/etc. Not joking. Q_Q;

I was tagged by Easorian~

And thusly I tag shadetoshade, sparkwithinme yunisverse notacentaur gendou-main

Unless y’all have already done the thing, in which case

On Marvel’s Hip Hop Variant Covers, Me, and Bigger Things

Is there anything more exhilarating/terrifying than waking up to a bunch of Twitter notifications? My mentions have been lit up like a Christmas tree all week with people alerting me to Marvel’s newest line of variant covers: Get this, it’s superheroes meets classic hip hop album art. Definitely relevant to my interests.

In fact it’s so relevant to my interests that I actually drew this very thing over 5 years ago. Let’s go back, way back, back into time…

It was early 2010. We’d just had a baby so I was spending a lot of time at home not sleeping. One night, when I probably should have been sleeping, I decided to bust out the Wacom and draw a picture of Thor. As one does. The drawing, which I was trying to do in a traditional superhero pin-up style for reasons I can’t recall, wasn’t coming together. I was mad at my Wacom, mad at myself, and mad at Thor. With his dumb looking, hard to draw helmet wearing ass. Meanwhile, NWA “Straight Outta Compton” was playing on my iTunes. Except in my head it sounded like, “Straight Outta Asgard”.

This is what Oprah would call an Aha! Moment™. I deleted all the artwork. I resized the canvas. I giggled madly as I re-envisioned Thor, Loki, and The Warriors 3 as NWA (Norse With Attitude). Sparks were flying out of my head and shit while I drew, fam. I had achieved The Glow.  By the time the Thor piece was done I’d already conceptualized the next 5. Within a week, I had drawn like a dozen of these damn things. Couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop.

I wasn’t even thinking about what do do with them. I definitely wasn’t thinking of ways to monetize them. It was a true homage to my favorite mediums: It was music, it was comics, it was comedy. It was one of the purest expressions of self I’d ever achieved with the pen. It was me.

But it turned out it wasn’t just me. A music blog took notice (Shout out to Music Nerdery!). And then another, and another, and next thing I knew these mash-ups were on Okayplayer, Ego Trip, Smoking Section, Hip Hop is Read, Complex, a couple of French ones autocorrect isn’t letting me spell out, and more. ?uestlove retweeted them shits, yo. Combat Jack called me. The Comic Rap Nerd Bat-Signal had been lit. Eventually comic sites like Comics Alliance jumped on board, too. Here I was, no web presence, no PR connects, just a dude drawing inside jokes to himself and posting them on the internet. And they were blowing up. To this day I love seeing people bug out when they discover these things. It’s like magic. Without these drawings there would be no Rhyme Travelers. I wouldn’t be in MAD Magazine. I might not be art directing and illustrating a bunch of dope projects with Big Boi right now. I would definitely have never gotten onstage at Comic Con and talked to Del the Funky Homosapien about the Ninja Turtles. I wouldn’t have made a ton of cool new friends. So, all in all? Not bad for some jpegs.

The reason for this long ass preamble is to illustrate 2 points:

Number 1:  Even though Marvel did me dirty, I still got a lot out of this whole experience. I’m still proud of the work I did, and I’m proud of what these images sparked in both myself and in pop culture. Some things are cooler than corporate comics money. You can’t always pay your rent with them, but still. I’m grateful.

Number 2: I just want to emphasize how profoundly weird it is to see these variant covers through my eyes. Those mash-ups I did were so deeply personal for me and spread all over the world in such a thoughtful and organic way. Now, 5 years later, Marvel finally recognizes the creative and commercial merit in the idea – And despite having a pretty good roadmap, they still managed to execute it a) without me and b) in a way that could be charitably described as inorganic.

My creative career is at a place right now where some really exciting doors are starting to open, but I still find the decision makers inside are somewhat perplexed by me and my ideas. That sort of thing can either shake or boost your confidence, and I try to lean towards the second option: I keep doing what I’m doing, and eventually I’ll get there. In this case, I didn’t get there, but my ideas did. An occupational hazard of doing dope shit, I suppose.

But yeah, they could’ve called your boy. It would’ve granted them a more thorough (and ethical) access to my 5 year old ideas, as well as my *right now* ideas which are even better.

They could’ve called a lot of other people, too. Because the bigger issue here isn’t even about me and my shit. (It’s not strictly limited to comics either, but let’s try and hold these goalposts still for a moment.)

There’s the respect issue: You don’t homage something by turning its most face-value components into a commodity. That’s not respect. That’s not understanding. Marvel claims to be having this “ongoing dialogue” with hip hop, but they might want to check their voice mail because hip hop’s been leaving them messages for a long, long time. Messages about art, about fashion, about politics, about race, about values, about narrative… Very, very little of which I’ve seen them absorb in any kind of meaningful way.

And then there’s the representation issue: Look, hip hop culture and African American culture might not be one and the same, but the two are still inextricably linked. To put so much hip hop on their covers, and so few black voices in their pages/payroll, is about as disingenuous as it gets. There’s a huge conversation right now in publishing and media about diversity. Marvel is aware of the demand for different types of stories, voices, characters, and perspectives in their books. Are these variant covers their way of addressing that? I have trouble processing the stupidity and contempt of such a gesture.

All that being said… While cultural appropriation sucks, cultural segregation isn’t much better. So on some level I’m always going to be glad when a Big 2 publisher inches a little bit closer towards connecting the dots. I’m not going to be walking up in the comic shop kicking over spinner racks and shit. These variants are a gimmick, but as far as gimmicks go it’s kind of a cool one. I just wish I could look at them without hearing Pat Boone’s “Tutti Frutti” playing in my head.

In closing, let me just say this: Fuck what you heard from Mitt Romney, corporations aren’t people. And so I don’t hold them to the same standards as I do people. I know how to distinguish between a huge, soulless money making machine and the flawed and beautiful human beings who work for one. So I harbor no ill will towards the artists, editors, and decision makers who set this whole thing up. I bet for some of them it was a genuine thrill, and for those people I am truly happy. I hope this experiment gives them more leverage to bring about positive and lasting growth to their little corner of this thing we call comics. And for those who didn’t quite understand the assignment, I hope they listen to the criticism with open minds and hearts, and use that information to do better in the future. Keep the movement moving.

Love,

so I’ve been in a relationship for 5 years now. And I see a lot of posts about how people think relationships mean having butterflies forever, your heart beating faster when they walk into a room, about cuddling together every night, legs intertwined, that you’d be so happy to live together you’d sleep on a double bed with each other every night.

And its not really like that, at least not to me.

You stop getting the butterflies when you live together. Your heart no longer speeds up when you see them, but instead, everything calms down. When youre in the room with them, you feel calm, and secure. When you cuddle them you feel your heart beat slow, and the sound of their breathing carry you towards comfort. It doesnt feel like a roller coaster anymore, it feels like home.

You don’t sleep curled up with each other every night, legs twisted between theirs so tight its hard to tell where yours begin and theirs end.

Instead, you sleep comfortably, side by side, sometimes facing different directions. But every night, you find yourself scooting backwards on the bed so you bump into them. You snuggle against their arm, or stroke their hair as they fall asleep. There are nights when my boyfriend, in his sleep, reaches around me and pulls me to him, like a child with his teddybear, like I am his comfort.

 In the wee hours of the morning before the dawn breaks, when the world is blue and you see through cracked eyes, you curl into their chest and inhale their scent before drifting back to sleep. 

Kisses aren’t always romantic and firey anymore. But there are so much more of them now. There are cold kisses when you’re eating ice cream in the summer, and sticky kisses over breakfast pancakes. There’s “im leaving now” kisses, and “one more kiss before you go” kisses. There’s sleepy morning kisses before work, when you don’t remember the alarm going off but instead the press of their lips against yours is what brings you into the day.

There’s kisses before sleep, and, you are so sweet with the things you do kisses. There’s kisses because you treat animals so tenderly, and I’m so glad i’m with you and not someone else kisses. There’s quick kisses in the aisles of the grocery store, when its loud and you gravitate together, when instead of having your own personal space and their own personal space, its both of yours together, and you step into their chest to take up less area together. 

You don’t always text each other with confessions of love and care like you used to, because that’s a given now, and you’ve moved on to quirky inside jokes about the life youve built together. You share looks of exasperation and amusement in public, your own little world against the outside one. 

Relationships aren’t always a fairy tale. They’re not always fireworks and sparks, at least, after the start.

But they are a quiet rhythm and hum of love and care. It’s not a fire in your soul, but one in your hearth, keeping you warm and comfortable, comforting you as you drowsily drift into sleep.

Squad Goals: Meet the Team in Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort’s ‘Ultimates’

Of all the books announced by Marvel during this week’s big All-New, All-Different unveiling, one of the surprise titles that generated the most buzz was Ultimates, by Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort. Though the name echoes back to the Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, this is a very different team, comprised of some of the Marvel Universe’s major powerhouses and most brilliant minds as they tackle cosmic threats on the scale of… well, Galactus.

ComicsAlliance spoke to Ewing to learn about the big idea behind this big team and the sort of threats they’ll be facing, and to discover what drew him to put characters like Black Panther, Captain Marvel and America Chavez on one team — besides the fact that they’re all obviously the best characters.+

Like : Tweet : Pin : Blog

A long time ago I promised you more .gifs from Black Panther’s appearance in Marvel Disk Wars. Here they come!

Like : Tweet : Pin : Blog

The Ultimate Anime Space Opera Is Finally Getting A Western Release

There are a few series that have always been thought impossible when it came to a Western release, either due to their complexity, obscurity or sheer size. In the case of ‘Legend of the Galactic Heroes’ all three of those applied but Sentai Filmworks have recently announced that they will bring the series Westward in the near future.+

Like : Tweet : Pin : Blog

ULTIMATES

COMING THIS OCTOBER

Writer: Al Ewing / Artist: Kenneth Rocafort 

Like : Tweet : Pin : Blog