#captainwordsmith

[forthegothicheroine]

Dear Heroine, may I please ask if you would share your thoughts on/ideas for the Caped Crusader? (Your latest post has most definitely piqued my interest!).

So, here’s what I would do if I was given a limited-run Batman series to write:

Put it in the 30s or 40s.  Less increasingly ridiculous tech, more mobsters in pinstripe suits being a thing.

Just let him and Selina get together already.  Not right away, but let it happen and let it stick.  Gothic noir can still have its Nick and Nora Charles (or its Philip Marlowe and Vivian Rutlege.)

To hell with the Joker.  He isn’t Batman’s shadow-self.  Scarecrow is.  Make him the main villain (or one of the main villains), just as convinced as Batman that the city can be controlled through fear...but with more selfish and vindictive goals.  (And keep the tragic pining for Becky Albright, because I’m a gothy teenager at heart and I loved that story.)

(Come to think of it, you could have Harley without the Joker even being in the story.  There’s a clown master-criminal pulling lighthearted but deadly pranks, and she calls herself Harley Quinn.  She would still have the backstory that she was introduced to crime by an abusive lover, but I’d really like to see what an always-solo Harley would be like.  Anyway, I wouldn’t necessarily do this, but I think it would be interesting.)

I’d love to do a thing with Penguin where he’s in his late fifties and was the first real supervillain.  He was a gangster with a flair for the theatrical, and when people called him Penguin, he started playing with the persona as a sort of calling card.  Sure, he murdered and stole, but the penguin gimmick was all in service to his criminal ends.  These new kids, who are committing crimes in the service of their gimmicks?  That he doesn’t understand, and he wonders what kind of monster he’s created.

Play up the freaky science aspect to Poison Ivy.  Maybe she was like the scientists who became contaminated by the radiation they studied, but the plant-based substance she was contaminated with was harmless to her- just not harmless to those around her.  She would obviously still be beautiful and flirtatious, but I’d love to get some art for her in full bloom that looked like something off the cover of Weird Tales.

If nobody’s going to do anything with Mr. Freeze anymore, why not reform him?  He took his stasis-trapped wife and his equipment and set up camp in the Arctic.  But he still sends letters back to Bruce Wayne, when the latter needs to consult him for a case on a matter of science.

My new OC for this comic is Gotham City’s public defender, because I think we really need to see what their life is like.

[alphynix]

Nix, may I please ask how you would distinguish between the Machairodonts and the not-actually-cat sabertooths (like the Nimravids or the Barbourofelids) in you were ever inspired to draw them side by side? (also, may I please ask if you have ever illustrated one of the Amphicyonidae?).

I’d distinguish the “false sabertooth” nimravids and barbourofelids by making them visually less cat-like, since they’re non-felid feliforms.

Differences in nose and ear shape can go a long way in making mammals look distinct from each other, so I’d try to avoid doing the classic triangular cat nose.

Plus they both have those bony flanges on their lower jaws that machairodonts lacked.

Nimravids have slightly longer snouts and smaller nasal cavities, and being very basal feliforms I’d give them more “generic carnivoran” features based on relatives like viverrids and nandiniids.

Barbourofelids have rather deep jaws and a a sort of square-ish head shape. Their taxonomic position is a little uncertain – they’re either the sister group to felids or close relatives of nimravids –  so I could potentially push their appearance even less cat-like, too.

–––

As for bear-dogs… I did actually illustrate a couple of those for a PBS Eons episode a little while back! I’ll be showing them off here along with a few other images very soon.

[rosenroot]

May I please request a slightly older Robert Baratheon being an absolute hooligan with young Ned Stark, with Lord Jon Arryn approximately six second away from looming over the pair of them in a vision of fatherly disapproval?

Ned’s first binge and a dissapointed birb dad

[amuelia]

May I please ask how tall you imagine King Viserys I to be relative to his younger brother? (I like to imagine The King as not only wider, but taller than his baby brother - it ties into my suspicion that Aegon II/Prince Aemond are intended to serve as a dark mirror to their father & uncle; I'm especially convinced that Aemond is all Prince Daemon's youthful sins come back to haunt him ... also I just like the idea that King Viserys' hugs smother Daemon like a giant teddy bear).

I think for my drawing i had nothing particular in mind, i probably imagined him of average height... However i do love your idea, i might consider this for future drawings! I did have actor Billy Zane, who is 6 feet tall, as a visual inspiration for Viserys, so it would be fitting :)

I can’t find anything about Daemon’s height on the wiki, and i believe i heard someone say (probably in one of the Matt Smith discussions) that he also isn’t described in much detail in the books, so there’s nothing that speaks against your headcanon. Love what you said about Aemond and Aegon II, never thought about it that way!

Btw, thank you so much for your kind comments on my drawings! <3

[comickergirl]

May I please ask what sort of lightsaber you would favour if you were required to construct one? (I'm torn between a green or a blue blade - I lean Jedi Consular, which may help me decide - but am definitely in favour of a curved hilt, a la Count Dooku).

You certainly may!

So, I suppose my ‘in universe’ answer would *probably* be a green blade. As much as I personally favor all things ‘blue’ and ‘glow-y’, I too would most likely lean towards Jedi Consular. I don’t have strong preferences w/ regards to hilts, admittedly. I suppose I’d stick to something fairly basic? (But Count Dooku’s saber does rule, I must say, so. Curved hilt might just be the way to go.) 

(Buuuuut if we’re talking, like, a saber that I have ACTUALLY built and therefore, are throwing both canon and caution to the wind:

I don’t have the blade in for display purposes, but the kyber crystal is purple!) 

[tyrantisterror]

TT, if you were trying to add three members to a Villain Team comprised of homages to Universal Horror icons (currently including Dracula, Imhotep, a Wolfman and a Frankenstein) so that there is one member for each Deadly Sin, may I please ask which characters you would draw on for inspiration?

Dracula is lust, natch.

Wolf Man is gluttony, since he’s a predator that needlessly kills and devours people.

Gill Man is envy.

Frankenstein is wrath, since his debut book is basically a revenge narrative.

Imhotep is Pride, since his desire to deify himself leads to his downfall.

Invisible Man is greed, since he’s basically a selfish asshole.

And Mr. Hyde is sloth, because he was a sloppy fucker who failed to think any of his crimes through.

[mikejbecker]

May I please ask which worlds of the DC Multiverse are your own particular Favourites?

Great question! I definitely have always really enjoyed Earth 3, the evil doppelganger universe. It’s just a really simple big concept that’s fun to play around with. Earth 2 only recently has been sparking my imagination, it as this parallel history to the DCU is really interesting to me.

The rest are more story specific. Multiversity is one of my favorite comics, so that whole entire series is pretty awesome. Thunderworld is definitely a favorite there. 

Picking out highlights from the Multiversity Guidebook...Kingdom Come (Earth), The Batamn Beyond/DCAU (Earth 12), New Frontier (Earth 21) are faves.

Earths I’d like to see more from: The gender swap Earth 11, and cast from Earth 23 are cool, and the spooky world of Earth 13. And Earth 36, with the Justice 9 who are really obscure and just cool designs.

[anghraine]

captainwordsmith replied to your post: Re: Faramir’s name

So the name means something like ‘Jewel of the Shore’ if memory serves.

Yes. His mother came from the seashore and “turned her eyes ever south to the sea that she missed,” so it makes sense (eta: not that a name needs to have a direct etymological significance, but in this case it does fit the circumstance).