XTIN: The Dragon's Dreamworld (comic)

[Jack the R]

[Goog]

Absolutely love it. Thank you very much for sharing this.

[Jack the R]

The emergency with PayPal has passed. Surprisingly, my account was fully restored the next day. Back to business then.

Epic Rap Battles of History

Hitler vs Vader is best. Or Seuss vs Shakespeare. Or Mr. T vs Mr. Rogers. Most of the season 2 battles are crazy good.

Goog - Thanks, no problem.

[Velocity Kendall]

Jesus JtR, hard sci fi, ultrasleek BW art, its just class in a glass.

[Jack the R]

LOL I don't have enough degrees for hard sci-fi. I don't have any degrees . . . I'm more like L. Ron Hubbard except I don't have the charismatic evil to get anywhere with my made up religion. But my religion is better than his, and that'll keep me warm at night

[Jack the R]

[Jack the R]

[Jack the R]

Anybody think bass fishing is a sport that should be taught in high school? I hear my old school is looking to hire a bass fishing coach. It blows my mind that an underperforming school in a rural conservative area will take taxpayer money, from people who don't make a lot of money and largely go without health benefits, and pay a guy to go fishing. Being a government job, I assume this position does come with good healh insurance and other benefits.

It's bad enough that they have a guy teaching how to shoot the bow and arrow - but maybe that helps kids color the dot they intend to on their multiple choice tests. Fishing though, for fuck's sake - why don't we just call it the Public Hobby Time System instead of the Public Education system? Immigrants educated at the expense of a foreign country will be doing all of America's science and engineering jobs anyway. Parents are clearly demanding hobbies instead of education, so let's drop the pretense and make it official.

[Jack the R]

No Doubt takes down a cowboys-and-Indians themed video - http://tinyurl.com/azp6yls

The video used to play on HuffPo, but it looks to be fully censored everywhere now.

I've said before that the idea of "cultural appropriation" is one of the most dangerous things I've seen for the arts, and free speech in general. Add onto that the "right to not be offended." I can't imagine being able to create under a regime of thought that says you may only work with the ideas from your own culture, or you must get permission to use ideas, and only use them in the way permitted; and you mustn't offend anyone. I simply couldn't do XTIN under that regime. Everything created would read like North Korean propaganda. It would be impossible to create basically everything that I love - Star Wars, Dune, Final Fantasy, Evangelion. Nearly all of the music. The result would be a horrible, sterile, strange authoritarian dreamland. Tiny inbred communities of ignorance scared to communicate with each other, for fear they might pick up a tune and sing it.

As far as I know, I'm only a few documents away from being able to join the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, where one of my great-grandmothers came from. My grandfather was thinking of moving back to the reservation at one point, who knows, maybe I could too. Ultimately he chose not to, and I'm told my great grandmother left the reservation of her own free will. None of the traditions or religion were passed down. This, too, is Native American history. I'm interested in knowing what my tribal history is (how I found out about the O'keepa), and I might reenact parts of it to keep the history alive, but I have no interest in seriously adopting a Native religion. Traditional native clothing is not more significant to me than the habit of a Nun or the robes of a Priest, either of which I would dance around in if I felt like doing so. I couldn't care less if Gwen Stefani wears a feathered head dress and pretends to be an Indian. She wasn't expressing hate, that's all I'm concerned about.

It's 2012. The America that warred on the tribes and held slaves, became a place where a black man can be a two term President. The CNO became a place where the black right to vote was taken away by the tribe, and restored by the Federal government of the USA. Guess which one I'm happier with?

[Jack the R]

Here's a song that sums up the irony of the "cultural appropriation" argument being made by some Native Americans. John Trudell's "Baby Boom Che" -

http://youtu.be/dLaxhRmq1wQ

According to his Wikipedia article, John Trudell was chairman of the American Indian Movement through the 70's, and the spokesperson for the Native attempt at reclaiming Alcatraz in '69. So you could say he's a fairly important figure in recent Native history.

On "Baby Boom Che," he praises the great "cultural appropriator" Elvis Presley, whose music was so black people thought he was black when he first broke out. Trudell praises the cultural impact of Elvis's culturally appropriated music on tight-assed white society.

"Baby Boom Che," like the rest of the album it came from (aka Graffiti Man), isn't traditional Native music. His sound is "culturally appropriated" from the same source as Elvis's - America's black community. He didn't take from the dominant white culture, which could be argued as an acceptable practice, but from the not-very-dominant black culture struggling under Jim Crow.

John Trudell is far from alone in adopting non-Native musical styles which originated in the black community. There are many like him. I'm not arguing that they did wrong - I'm arguing the opposite - he was right, and the people pushing the "cultural appropriation" meme are the ones who are wrong, or who haven't thought through their ideas well enough. I wonder if any of them are creative people. I'd like to ask them what new musical innovations have come from the Native American community. Black people, plenty poor and oppressed, produced seven I can name off the top of my head - the negro spiritual, blues, jazz, rock, funk, rap, beat box. Soul might be 8 - I'm getting out of my depth though, don't know much about Soul.

I watched the evolution of rap as it came out of Brooklyn, and spread out across the globe, being "culturally appropriated" by increasingly diverse communities. Wouldn't have happened if everyone who wanted to rap had to fly to Brooklyn and get permission from the first rappers, learn the traditional rap songs and the right way to perform them. Taboo, of the Black Eyed Peas, half Shoshone, probably wouldn't be a rich, famous rap star; if he had to play by the rules the Natives pushing "cultural appropriation" want everyone to play by. There probably wouldn't be any rap, or other modern musical form. We'd all be singing thousand year old songs, as close as possible to the way they were sung a thousand years ago. Who wants that?

[Jack the R]

[Jack the R]

[Jack the R]

I've got three more pages to illustrate in Chapter 5, and then this comic is finished. I had planned for an epilogue, but I'll put that material in a sequel, provided there is enough interest in a sequel (If you want to see the kinder, gentler sequel, SPEAK UP. If you don't, do nothing). Because of the Native American groups pushing the "cultural appropriation" meme, I'm going to take down TDDW after letting it run to the end of the story. If you've been following it, you'll get the ending, but a week or so after it's done I'm taking it down. For the tiny amount of interest XTIN: TDDW generated, there's no point in having it out there.

[Jack the R]

[Jack the R]

[/QUOTE]

[Jack the R]

One of the saddest things about growing up is, you want to get to the point where you can stand on your own and thrive, but by the time you get there, everyone you looked up to as a kid is dying or falling apart.

This is amazing - http://youtu.be/AewcA_IINiA

It's hard to believe what a low budget production Monsters is. It's almost a one man show.

[FourTonMantis]

I remember when you were doing all the panels digitally...so glad to see you on here again, though I'm late. I'm going to read through this whole thing, it always really piqued my interest.

[Jack the R]

It's still all digital. All GIMP with a bit of Blender.

I finished a new epilogue last night. Now it is pretty much the way it was supposed to be. I'm working on putting up a .pdf for sell but I've got to figure out how I'm going to serve up a 100 meg file.

[Velocity Kendall]

Monsters is a stunning achievement. As is DDW.
Check out Primer its another searingly excellent one man production.

[Jack the R]

I read the Wikipedia entery on Primer - sounds like Stein's Gate borrowed from it more than a little.

[Jack the R]

The short, super dark ending has been chucked and replaced with the longer, slightly-hinting-at-optimism, ending that had always been the plan.

I've begun working on animating XTIN (again). I'm planning to do a handful of simple 3D shots, then put together a reel with the comic pages and make a Kickstarter pitch video.

I would like to at least get the first page of TDDW animated. I'm dubious about doing the whole thing. It's got its advantages - the costumes are simple (or non-existant), there aren't many sets, the environments are easy (i.e. no rainforests). There are few characters, the story is worked out, the design work is well along. But - I've only been able to build a tiny audience for TDDW, and the story draws so much negativity. It would be better to do the sequel, but the sequel is going to be much more difficult and expensive. I'd rather not see the sequel done as animation.

Well, I may not get to the point where I have to make that decision, so why worry about it now? I'll focus on getting the pitch reel done and see if there's enough support to get the first page of TDDW animated. No reason to think beyond that at this point in time.

[Jack the R]

I'm making progress with the 3D. Who wants to go here?



This is brilliant -

NCTC Gets Vast Powers To Spy On U.S. Citizens

"interval1066 writes "In a breathtaking new move by (another) little-known national security agency, the personal information of all U.S. citizens will be available for casual perusal. The 'National Counterterrorism Center' (I've never heard of this org) may now 'examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them.' This is different from past bureaucratic practice (never mind due process) in that a government agency not in the list of agencies approved to to certain things without due process may completely bypass due process and store (for up to 5 years) these records, the organization doesn't need a warrant, or have any kind of oversight of any kind. They will be sifting through these records looking for 'counter-insurgency activity,' supposedly with an eye to prevention. If this doesn't wake you up and chill you to your very bone, not too sure there is anything that will anyway."

http://tinyurl.com/cgzll4y

Are you ready to "Outrace the Robots" for a job?- http://tinyurl.com/bg5lsnl

[Jack the R]

I bet you haven't seen that before. I told you I had an awesome idea for Rau's dick.

[steveOBHave]

Fella, your mind is way out there Amazing work although not really my kettle. Your drawing style is properly cool.

[keremcantarhan]

That comic is really really good. Original style and white-black contrast makes it look really dark.

[Jack the R]

Fella, your mind is way out there Amazing work although not really my kettle. Your drawing style is properly cool.

Not as much as you'd think, reading the whole comic at once. I don't randomly think up stuff like this, one thing leads to another and the mythology builds up over time. Rau's design comes from his symbol, which came long before his character was invented. I think it's a regurgitation of a B5 shadow cruiser. Anyhow, Rau began as a person, than he got a dragon form. I tried a few conventional shapes, but they were boring. I tried using Alchemy to boost the brainstorming process, but that didn't help either. So I mixed the symbol with an earlier dragon design that had a gun turret where Rau's dick is.

For most of the comic Rau's dick was just a dick that spewed fire. The design wasn't very interesting, so around chapter 5 I decided to redesign it. I'd been reading about the S&M flip, about how a submissive can manipulate a dominant into a more agressive posture than they'd normally take, and the relationship between Tao and Rau was becoming less clear cut. I wanted to work that into the design, by creating confusion in their sexual identities. Rau's design still features a big giant dick, but Taonui is his dick. That's not the end of it either.

I might be able to sit down and come up with this kind of thing in one night, but in reality the way it happened was, a little at a time over years.

keremcantarhan - Thanks, it's always good to see positive comments. It's bizarre how popular things like Saw or the Alien franchise are, and yet I can't gain any ground with XTIN. I must need a bunch of spunky people who can defeat the bad guys with silly human tricks (as J. Michael Straczynski once put it, talking about lame Star Trek writing).

[steveOBHave]

I'll be honest - you might spin it like it's pretty straight forward logical creation but going from there to creating what you have is a whole other thing that is quite beyond me. Extremely cool artistic and creative ability you have there. Kudos.

[Jack the R]

I'll be honest - you might spin it like it's pretty straight forward logical creation but going from there to creating what you have is a whole other thing that is quite beyond me. Extremely cool artistic and creative ability you have there. Kudos.

Well thanks, but really the ideas shaped up over years. After a while the mythology gets developed enough that it creates itself. I regret that TDDW didn't do better, but I feel like it was valuable for the mythology that came out of it, which will inform the next book.

[Jack the R]

[Jack the R]

For fuck's sake how is it that this comic lined up with Christmas? Well I'm not putting up a filler strip, you're getting a real page, even if it has to be this one.