Jessica Schultz

Women in Greek Tragedy

BI / PAN PRIDE and VISIBILITY not ERASURE!!!

I despise doing posts where I ask for help, but here we are.

About two years ago I started a new creator owned project.  It began as a spin-off of Princeless, but the reality is this - Raven The Pirate Princess is its own thing altogether.  I knew this from the first issue and if you’ve been reading, so have you.

Sure, the first few issues of Raven: Pirate Princess had that heroic lady feminist banter for which Princeless has become known both among its fans and detractors.  I mean, Raven had this scene:

and issue 1 had this scene:

But perhaps much more importantly, the first issue of Raven had this:

but that wasn’t where that ended.  This is a book about a community of diverse queer women actively claiming their place in the world and taking what’s theirs.  It’s about Raven, who is desperately in love with her childhood best friend Ximena

It’s about Ximena, a girl who was held captive for years by a pirate king who pretended to be her liberator.  Who fell in love with the pirate’s daughter, only to be left behind by that father when she outlived her value.

About Sunshine, the thief that chose the wrong target and ended up falling in love with a woman already hopelessly in love with somebody else.

It’s about Katie, the bisexual second in command who’s motivated by honor…and occasionally beating the snot out of a dude or two

Oh and in case I forgot to mention, Katie is also incredibly muscular:

And Jayla, the asexual science genius who’s tired of being treated like a little sister

and Cid, the deaf engineer who quietly keeps the ship running

and of course, these two:

The socially awkward poet and the angry sword fighter who couldn’t stand her who have somehow become these two:

But here’s the thing: this comic is failing.  It has a very dedicated and exuberant but at this point SMALL fanbase.  Today I had a hard conversation with Action Lab about the reality of the numbers on this book versus what it costs to produce this book and, suffice it to say, Action Lab isn’t ready to cancel the book, but they aren’t ready to greenlight year 3 either.  After Year 2 #13, Raven is set to go on the shelf until numbers can support continuing it.

This is where I need your help

If you care about this book full of queer pirate ladies and you want it to continue, we need to find a way to spread the word about it.  We don’t need to sell single issues (it would be nice) but ultimately we need the trades sales that back up the continuation of this big YA Pirate/Revenge/Adventure/Romance thing.

Digital copies can be bought instantly right on Comixology: https://www.comixology.com/Princeless-Raven-The-Pirate-Princess/comics-series/46971

You can buy the physical volumes on amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B01BF7U91Q

In fact, if you’ve already purchased volumes 1-4, volume 5 is available for preorder there right now! 

Maybe you’ve bought all the issues already.  Thank you!  If you still want to support Raven, you can review the books on Amazon or other retailers, you can share, reblog or retweet this post.  You can tell a friend about the book! 

If you haven’t, you should go pick it up.

If you have read it, please tell ALL your friends and leave some reviews.

Elysian Fantasy Artistry on Etsy and Instagram

See our ‘festival fashion’ tag

I get asked often about textures and brush settings- As per request, here are some of my regular faves. These are four I made by scanning in all kinds of pencil and pen marks, then just doing a lot of fussing with settings and numbers until I got something good ahaha. There’s really no secret to making brushes, it’s just a lot of experimentation; but it ends up really worth it, and you learn a lot about what you want 🙌  

You can download them from -> this google drive folder of mine!

“On the 12th day of Christmas the pine trees gave to me, 12 hidden hours, a secret third half to each day as the sun ringed the horizon, when we could finally admit what’s in our hearts because not a word of it would be remembered

11 daytime stars, dark points in a bright sky, a constellation pointing me to the lands I imagined were there as a child, making it impossible to ignore them again

10 ancient poisons, each dose just barely strong enough to kill a moment’s worth of doubt, brewed from indigo flowers that were harvested to extinction during an age that was starved for heroes

9 words of warning, whispered within the songs of crickets and scrawled in my own handwriting between the stars: “The sea will be your only refuge from them”

8 caves of silver, carved by miners who left behind the precious metal either because something all the more seductive was calling to them from below, or because they were only seeking to hide from something calling to them from above

7 amber statues, depicting those who would be my enemies in the years to come, so that by contemplating their sad smiles I could be ready for them, forgive them before we even met, and perhaps, understand why one of them was me

6 guardian snowmen, absolutely still and forever unblinking, their eyes locked on the sky, ready to cry out at the sight of an approaching figure from the void, so that I can finally rest from my vigil

5 GOLD RINGS

4 wooden coins, the currency of the seasons, just enough to pay for a single summer to turn to autumn, to wrap the world in darkling sweetness as the storms and frost drown out the sun

3 bone pins, carved from the skeletons of long-extinct creatures, which would ward against misfortune, having already been tempered with all the bad luck they could endure

2 loyal dogs, skyhounds who will never stop seeking out crashed starships and time travelers, eager as they are to take me away from this planet and show me the silent wonders of their playground universe

And a wooden crown beset with lake stones, a priceless heirloom of the Forest King himself, given as a test of my humility, to see if I would cast it aside and accept my place among the quiet pine trees”

-QuietPineTrees

25 Days of Prints w/ INPRNT: TILLIE WALDEN.

This month on Supersonic Art I’m showcasing a new print artist everyday from INPRNT.  Today’s selection is artist Tillie Walden whose lovely illustrations are fascinating dreamscapes, all of which are available in her INPRNT Shop.

Check out all the prior selections below: