Life in Secrecy
Another black-and-white portrait I did, though this one came out much more comic book in style. Probably because I didn't work on it very long, only about an hour and 45 minutes from start to finish. Just a sketch!
This is Lumia, the jealous queen who Rune serves, who gave him his first alias. She is leader of the Underlings, and rumored by them to be immortal, as she has ruled them for more than one hundred years, all without aging a day.
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I don't collect many comics myself, I don't return to them often. I only have this omnibus and a signed copy of a Nightwing: One Year Later comic that was actually illustrated by a friend of mine from school.
Marvel use to be super clumsy and very depressing. DC use to be fun to read, but since Dark Knight and it's grim dark undertones became popular, the DC has gotten darker and darker, and now it's becoming unbearable to read cause it's all crossover story lines, crises back to back, and no one marries, not gay couples, no fun times... Heck, they managed to totally decimate the Green LAnern IP to the point where the Green Lantern title is about Hal Jordan pretending to be a renegade and fighting with a prototype green lantern gauntlet cause if anyone uses their rings, it slowly destroys the universe by depleting its emotional energy. That was an OK storyline till they didn't take the chance to fix it when they could have :/ *is still bitter*
I'm collecting Grayson (Nightwing's title right now) mostly cause it doesn't cross over with any other titles, but it's abotu to rejoin as Nightwing again, so I'm not sure if I'll drop it again if it crosses over with other Batfam titles. I'm not into that shit. Batman has a HUGE set of titles. I was collecting all the GL titles for years to get full stories. I'm so done. Comics are expensive in my country.
Sorry- I'm ranting. DC is frustrating me a lot right now. They're about to reboot so I'm hoping they'll restart Kyle Rayner into a New Guardians title again, but the amount of respect DC have for GLs that aren't Hal Jordan is so minimal that I keep thinking they'll axe his titles when they "pretend kill" him... which they've done 3 times in as many years :/ I'm tired of the emotional ride. I want DC to make their characters happy again.
Congrads on your friend doing the art for Nightwing though! Nightwing is one of my fav DC characters :3
In truth I spent a lot more time watching the ooooold comic series cartoons as a kid than reading comic books, but that's mostly because I grew up in the middle of nowhere and there was nowhere to even GET comics. The deer butcher shop would get a copy of like Sonic the Hedgehog or Turok or something unexpected like that once in a blue moon, and that was it.
I've heard from a lot of people that DC has taken a turn for the meh though and that makes me sad, especially when they shaped so much of the comics industry.
My friend has actually worked for both Marvel and DC, as well as a few other comics imprints. For DC he did some Nightwing (Who is my favorite DC character too~) and for Marvel he did some of the Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Human Torch comics. Now he's a toy designer for Hasbro, though, doing a bunch of designs for their super hero action figure lines. Talk about a dream job, right?
No, I get that. In New Zealand, comics are still pretty underground. They're getting better with the movies coming out, but comics cost about $8 each here, so it's an expensive niche. Not many people here know my fav characters in comics.
DC has taken a turn. I think they're going grim dark cause they think it sells and aren't doing anything happy any more. The Green Lantern title use to trigger me big time when I was having anxiety issues cause they kept pretend killing my fav character. They did that THREE TIMES in 2 years. For a character that I swear DC would kill off cause I don't know how popular his is? I take it seriously. I ended up stopping collecting all the titles though cause they'er all like that. They're doing a "reboot" in June, but I'm not sure if I'll renew my titles. I 'll think about it if Kyle gets his own title again :/ I'm sick of titles crossing over constantly too. Weekly titles to get the whole story is exhausting. Let them have social lives on their own and some privacy, damn it. T.T
Which Nightwing stuff did they do? I'm a big Dick Grayson fangirl too
Of course, that won't help much if you aren't happy with the direction the comics are going. :\ I feel like EVERYTHING is going grim dark these days and it bothers me, mostly because I have too much anxiety to deal with distressing stuff in the things I turn to for relaxation. I can understand some characters lending themselves to the theme really well, but it just doesn't fit so many. It makes me think of what Greg Rucka said when Man of Steel came out: that if you make a Superman movie you can't take kids to, you've done something wrong. There's so much more to storytelling than the gritty. And the crossovers... Ugh. I guess that's one unfortunate side effect of the growing popularity. They think that if you're interested in one comic, you'll want them all. Then again, it could also be a money grab to prevent you from subscribing to just one title. e_e
Anyway ^^;; I'm not positive how many Nightwing issues my friend did, maybe only a few, but I know he did #118 and #119 for sure because #119 is the one I snuck into class with me to have him sign. The way he lit up when I pulled it out of my bag was awesome. I think he was as happy to sign it as I was to have him sign it! I keep meaning to frame the issue and hang it in my hallway or something.
With man of steel being not ok for kids- DC has been going that way since Nolan started doing Batman movies. All their stuff since has been dark, and they don't belive that happy sells anymore. They think their market are 20 something year old white men and that's it. They're wrong, but we can't fix that without not giving them money :/
Is your friend Joe Dodd?
It DOES sound cool that you get that kind of technology and stuff there. But I know our infrastructure on everything is so miserably outdated that I'm not surprised ^^;; We do have paywave but most places don't have the equipment to support it yet, really only in the big cities. And I mean REALLY big cities, because I'm the largest city in my state (650,000ish people) and we don't have crap. They're opening an IKEA here in the fall and the entire state is losing its mind, like that signifies the city finally moving into the 21st century or something. XD
And yes! Joe is my friend. I've been trying so hard to remember more stuff he told me that he did, because I specifically remember him telling me about some uncredited stuff that was pretty cool, but after 3 years of sleep deprivation my memory is shot. He's a great guy, though, and really talented. We took Art 1 and 2 together and I honestly think I learned more from him than from the teacher... he was only there because the comic companies were pulling crap on him because he wasn't a "real" artist. He had no degree, since he'd gone straight from high school to work with the big comics companies. Because obviously you can't be a skilled artist without a degree, right? >_>
That's pretty hilarious. A town in NZ is considered populated when it gets a Subway here but everyone has eftpos and VISA in NZ- even the small towns. We're pretty modern. Small towns just have less of the big stores and more random gems, a fish and chips store that sell massive icecreams, and a beach or whatever XD Doing a "Tiki Tour" (just driving around NZ without a destination) in NZ is very popular, so small towns get a lot of activity from travellers visiting their towns for unique stores that couldn't exist in big towns, so it's very unusual for them to not have Eftpos machines- I see paywave everywhere here. I dont' use it cause I don't trust it, but it's in a lot of places to the point that a lot of stores advertise that they DON'T have it. NZ is small though- it takes 8 hours to scale the north island, so it usually doesn't take long to drive to a smaller town or a beach town.
Ah- it's cool having famous art friends :3 I have a few too, and it's great to art talk with them, and giggle about the struggles, rant about the frustrations. It's cause of them that I know professional art isn't for me XD That's pretty stink that lack of paper qualifications means companies do that. I'm a firm believer that you can learn art without a school if you're a self driven person. I was told once about a martial artist that applied martial arts to learning art and went from nothing to OMFG SO PRO in 1 year. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year is over 2000 hours of art, without homework. If you can do that, and learn correct lessons, you're gonna get good- school or no school.
See, I grew up in the middle of nowhere here so I understand stuff like Subway being a big deal too. Except the region I was in was so small it was considered impressive if a town had its own gas station, so it's been really weird to me to move to a city and then realize that despite everything we have here, it's all outdated and still pretty lacking compared to other areas. And it's kind of weird, especially since we get a lot of tourism here too. I mean, surely not as much as NZ XD I'd love to go someplace like that myself, but we do have a steady flow of tour traffic, who all get to ride the trolleys that are so old they randomly burst into flames. *shrug* Strange to see the priorities different places have, I guess.
I don't really know many art people in general; I think meeting him was kind of a fluke, haha. Most of the people in my art class were only there because it was a requirement for some other degree--like fashion--so they didn't stick around long. My Art 2 class was like four people including myself and the only reason it didn't get dropped was because the teacher was able to hold it at the same time as Art 1. I agree that you can surely teach yourself, though. I'm grateful for the time I spent in the classroom, even though I didn't actually learn anything from the classes. I was already a bit too advanced for them, but what I learned was that the career path I had picked out wasn't what I really wanted to do, and the things that mattered most to me were things a degree wouldn't help with. So I've just carried on teaching myself things. Since I didn't pick up anything from my classes, I still consider myself self-taught, but I'm sure there are a few people who would disagree with that assessment.
I know a lot cause I use to go to conventions, collect cards and follow everyone in NZ. I got pretty well known for being friends with everyone, and I now run the Auckland branch of an art community. It upsets me when I hear that people feel alone in art IRL cause there's usually so many people with similar interests to you- you just need to find them. I wish I could show you some! There is online though atleast
It's always been tough for me to meet people with similar interests. When I was young it was because we moved a lot due to my dad's job, then when we finally did settle, it was in a very rural area where people who were creative were ~weird~ and not well thought of. My parents always encouraged me to be artistic and stuff, but then my mom didn't want me to TELL people I was because she didn't want the awful people there to think ill of our family because I was one of those ARTSY people. Which I think is dumb as crap, but whatever. e_e I met a few people after moving here because I got a job at an art supply store, but the unfortunate part of being adults is that they've now all moved away and now that I'm a stay-at-home mama, the internet is really the only way I have to meet new people ^^;; Though we have a pretty rockin' anime convention here, and I'm hoping to make some more friends there this summer! If I can get over being so shy. *crosses fingers*
Very nice!
Hm... Going 100 years without aging sounds to me like closer to proof-positive of immortality than a "rumor," although whether it's inherent or magically enforced and whether immortal=invulnerable may be up for question...