Comic update 01.01.2020
My goal for 2019 was to finish my comic prologue for Davidâs Gate and an Owl corps book, but I didnât meet either of these goals.
First of all I just want to talk about comics for a little bit, particularly shounen.
The shounen genre of comics had always been my favourite genre for the wacky and fun premises it managed to get me invested in when I was new to manga. Despite the fun Iâve had reading the genre, as Iâve grown, itâs become harder and harder to suspend my disbelief for crazy powers and plots that seemingly pop up without rhyme or reason.
I began to find that the shounen I stayed very fond of were those with structured spiritual systems for superpowers (Hunter x Hunter [Nen], Magi [Rukh], and even Naruto [Chakra] come to mind). I also loved having something that would let me in a little bit on how the world I was getting invested in worked, like a set of rules I would be able to go back to if things got too complicated. I still had my cravings for cool and wacky fun, but I think my value for intention, research, and writing levelled up beyond some of the initial stories that got me into the genre.
This craving for cool ideas that touched on aspects of spirituality in a way that still made coherent sense within a large ecosystem is part of what drew me into writing and creating. It gave me a goal, to fill a gap I saw in my favourite genre, with themes, powers, stories, and characters I desired to explore, knowing that they could only be taken seriously if the crazy world they were made in allowed for it.
This brings me to back my own work.
For the past few years I had been developing a structure for the powers in my setting, and it was largely based on my interests in ancient mythologies, theology, cosmogony, psychology, and general engineering, but I had no way to visualise them under one umbrella for the sake of intuitive coherence. I studied a bunch, and last year I thought I had something I could build on, but as it turns out, theory and reality are two different things. My attempts at realising these Ideas (aesthetic dreams -> intelligible representation in this case) kept resulting in dissatisfaction, failure, and a great sense of self loathing. I just found myself drowning in a sea of chaotic ideas for the larger part of 2019, it made me unable to commit to anything, in fear that I might create something that fell into that category of unstructured shounen comics I couldnât suspend disbelief for, and as a result, not fully enjoy.
I couldnât afford to stop creating however, so I shifted my focus towards Owl Corps content.Â
The Owl Corps play an important role in my setting, but at this time in my mind, it was largely a self indulgent distraction from the headache of trying to figure out the fundamental rules of my setting. Throughout the time I spent on Owl Corps content, I always called into question my purpose for this shift in focus from something so vital to my comicsâ creation, but since I kept finding myself back here, I decided I had to make sure I put in my best efforts, even if at the time the Owl Corps shouldnât have been my priority.
Donât misunderstand, I love all my Owl Corps characters, and I donât regret the time I spent working on them, as I still plan to going into 2020. I just wish I knew how to express what I was struggling with a lot better.
Thankfully for me, I had a bit of a breakthrough in my latest addition to the Owl Corps.Â
5V-Eta and Grischa the Harriot.
I had a few goals in mind that lead to Grischasâ visual design. Yes of course my self indulgence wanted it to compliment 5Vsâ big bum, but my other aim was to build her a single seater on-road vehicle with hovering capabilities for fast off-road travel. It took me 3 months of studying, and numerous online videos/lectures on engineering and electricity to finally understand how I could practically (or believably) make it work.Â
What I didnât anticipate was for the studying I did on Grischa to turn the cogs in my brain, and give me the practical insight I was missing in my struggle to unify my settingsâ cosmology. I could finally make sense of my scattered jigsaw puzzle of ideas, and it was all thanks to my devotion in creating a functional vehicle for 5Vsâ fat arse. Unbelievable. Embarrassing.
Maybe I sound a little crazy, who knows. Iâll just sum up my feelings and takeaways from recent developments.Â
My visual output in 2019 has been quite dismal, hardly inspiring for the grant I won in 2018. The grant has been invaluable, especially for the time it has given me to be able to just sit down, study, and think. I have a much stronger grasp of everything Iâm trying to make, and while my setting is a very ambitious one, I finally have the tools and knowledge to move flexibly and create intuitively within it without having to worry about breaking my own rules, because I found new understanding.
I guess the main costs throughout all this has been, a lot of time, lack of content, broken deadlines, and failed expectations. For these things Iâm truly sorry, but Iâm also happy about what I can create from here.
To those of you that reach out to me, or still secretly support me from the shadows, thank you so much. I hope you all had a good christmas, and I wish you a happy new year. My schedule is still a mess, but Iâm a mixture of anxious and excited for 2020.