I’ve been writing every free moment I have.  I managed to kick out a rather lackluster first draft on Episode Three.  I might actually pass over it again this week and see what I can flesh out before I officially call it a ‘finished’ first-draft.  Episode Two’s first draft still needs a revision, and Episode One is about ready for a real editor. I think I managed to find one for a reasonable rate, so I hope it pans out.

I have noticed that the more eps I write, the larger my series bible gets.  Wow…

I’m not even going to talk about Laura’s Roulette Kickstarter project.  Honestly, I am deeply thankful for all the wonderful people who pledged and spread the word—you guys are the tops, but you know this!  As for the thousand+ pilot-fish that registered on all of Laura’s free fan art accounts…you guys suck.  You know who you are—oh beggars for more free porn.  If all of you registered followers of her pronz had just donated $5, she’d have made her goal.  >_<  I’m getting nasty, that’s not good.

May 28^th is when Games with Me goes to the printers.  I’m a little excited, because it’s been quite a while since I’ve had a chance to get into that story.  I have noticed that sales at Amazon have just stopped for Games with Me Volume One.  I’m wondering if there’s an issue with the format.  I’ve never had sales for a title go to complete ZERO.  I’ve not yet optimized the book for KINDLE Fire because that’s going to be app of the Omnibus, but Volume 2 will release to Amazon Kindle and eManga, as soon as I get around to making the files.  ^_^  You will see the digital formats released before the end of June, I’m not that cruel.

Speaking of June, I have some health issues I need to take care of, and so I’ll be out of the bank for two weeks and likely off the nets for about the same.  I still check email, so if you need me—email me.

Going by the last page of Wonder Woman #8, I can assume that since Zola is the last person Wonder Woman looked at, after being shot with the Guns of Eros – then Zola is the one that Wonder Woman is in love with?

I know not all my friends partake in the reading of western superhero comics, but I do.  I’ve been an on again off again fan of Wonder Woman over the years (my recent faves were The Circle); but I opted out in the last run before the New 52, mainly because I was disgruntled about some of the changes taking place with her origin story.  I could care less about her outfit, the only thing that ever bothered me about it was the high heels and low cut bustier. I don’t mind pants, but they aren’t here so, relax. ^_-

When I heard Brian Azzarello was writing the 52 Launch of Wonder Woman, I had to read it.   I’m a fan of his work, I just can’t help it.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

I’m Apollo, and I’m a dick.

So in a nutshell, Zeus is missing – he’s gone, no one knows where.  The series starts with Apollo collecting three girls (unaware of their precognitive nature) and taking to his penthouse in Singapore – there he charges them with his juice (that’s right, I said it) and they deliver onto him an oracle: Whoever takes Zeus’ place ruling over Olympus (which Apollo desperately wants to do) will be killed by Zeus’s new son.  Apollo wants to know who the boy is, but the oracles tell him that the boy hasn’t been born yet. This doesn’t bode well for Apollo, because he wants to rule Olympus, so he hatches a plan to talk his bro Ares into it, so that when Zeus Jr shows up, he’s the one that takes that fall.  See, Apollo’s a dick.

Meanwhile, in bumblefuck America, Hera has appeared and has slaughtered two horses in a barn, and has turned them into centaur-assassins.  Same time, we meet trailer-trash Barbie AKA, a sweet girl named Zola.  She’s wielding a gun and threatening the thing that’s just broken into her house, the thing that claims he’s trying to protect her.  It’s Hermes.  (I love this character BTW, and so will you).  Long story short, Hermes gives her a key that sends her to Wonder Woman’s London apartment, and Wonder Woman ends up being shifted back to Zola’s farm where she saves injured Hermes from the centaurs.  Hermes tells Wonder Woman that Zola is pregnant with Zeus unborn child.

I Like Zola, I like Hermes More!

Issues 2, 3, and 4, move pretty quickly.  We are introduced to Strife (Ares sister) who’s needling Hera about Zeus’s latest seedling.  Hera kills children sired by Zeus, since she can’t kill Zeus. (Nice) Wonder Woman takes Hermes and Zola to Paradise Island and Azzarello has changed things a bit. Gone are Phillipus and Artemis (but its forgivable) mainly because Cliff Chiang’s artwork is some of the most NON-SEXIST stuff I’ve seen in a while. (Thank you, Cliff).

This weeks episode of Wonder Woman will feature Brian Azzarello, in the role of Ares.

Hippolyta has a secret, which has her on edge since Wonder Woman has brought a girl carrying Zeus’s child to her island.  When Strife shows up and starts shooting her mouth off about knowing most of Zeus’s secrets, Hippolyta feels she must come clean.  The big secret is—Hippolyta rode the Zeus wave herself and BING out came Diana.  She lied to Diana and the other Amazons about her conception because she knew of Hera’s therapeutic habit of killing Zeus’s kiddos.  Diana is rightly pissed; after all, she’s put up with being called ‘Clay’ most of her childhood.  Diana chooses to leave the island in a huff and takes Hermes, Zola and Strife, with her.  After they’re gone, Hera arrives, naturally overhearing Strife’s visit and Hippolyta’s confession.  The Amazon’s worshipped Hera, she was their main deity, so Hera takes it a bit more to heart when it’s Hippolyta that’s fucked her husband, instead of some nameless nobody.   Unable to kill her, Hera turns her into stone, and the rest of the Amazon’s into snakes. (Aw, someone boned up on their Athena studies!)  Diana returns home, realizing she’s been a complete ass, only to find mom is stone and her sisters are snakes.  Diana’s very pissed at Hera ATM, it’s easier than being pissed at herself for storming off like a brat.

Issue 5 and 6, sadly, are not illustrated by Cliff Chiang, even though he did do the covers.  The art and coloring are painful at times, but the writing saves it—as it should.  In London, Diana, Hermes, and Zola cross paths with Lennox (another child of Zeus sired during WW2) and together with Hermes they hatch up a plan to ‘blind hera’, a plan that involves bringing together Poseidon and Hades.  I like the conceptual designs for both Hades and Poseidon (not everyone has to be human, you know).  Hades is particularly creepy—they promise a plan in which Poseidon will rule Olympus by day and Hades by night, and they would share Hera as their queen.  Hera is naturally outraged, but Lennox makes his move now that she’s there and tosses Diana a candle from Hades head and with it, she blinds Hera, and with Hermes staff, takes her ass back to Olympus and leaves her there.  Zola, sadly, is enticed away from the group by Hades pretending to be her dead mother, and when she approaches her, snags her and drags her to hell.

Issue 7 brings back Cliff Chiang as artist (thank the lord) and we’re introduced to Eros.  BL fans will like him, no really—trust me, you will.  Eros has guns instead of arrows, and hangs out with is mother’s monstrous (cosmetic only) husband, Hephaestus. Wonder Woman, Hermes, and Lennox are there because they want weapons from Hephaestus, in order to raid hell and get Zola back. Now this is the issue that SPARKED RAGE in many female readers who were fans of DC Amazons, mainly because Azzarello had the nerve to tap into the actual mythology surrounding Amazon birth ritual.  They raid ships, they mate, they kill the men when finished, and return home to have their children; girl babies are kept, and the boy babies get tossed.  That’s the mythology that surrounds the origin of the Gargareans, an all-male tribe that lived in Amazon territories.  Hephaestus made a deal with the Amazons, he’d give them weapons if they gave him the boys they didn’t want.  Wonder Woman sees this as bargaining for slave labor, and without thinking it through, she tries to free Hephaestus’s forge workers (her brothers) by tying up Hephaestus while he sleeps.

Dear Diana, you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion, please stop. Love, your brothers – Edigio, Manuel, Rafe, Antonio, Gregor, Timeous, Cimon, and Biff.

Her brothers beg her to let him go, they love Hephaestus, he’s their leader, and with him they have a life.  Wonder Woman is mortified that she read into all wrong, and Hephaestus explains to her that he knows what it’s like to be cast out (as he was from the heavens at birth) and couldn’t bear to know of their fate, so traded for them.

In Issue 8 Wonder Woman goes to hell, with her new weapons and armor (which Hephaestus thinks are old-school), and the guns of Eros.  Hermes explains to her that Hell resembles an empty London, because it’s whatever Hades wants it to be, at any given time.  Everything around them is made of souls—the trees, the sky, the roads, everything.  After being attacked, Wonder Woman and Hermes find a darker replica of Zola’s cabin, and she opens the door (now very much more pregnant then before) and is elated to see them.  Hades arrives and tricks Diana into giving him the Guns of Eros, for Zola’s freedom.  Remember, Hades still wants a queen, and if he can’t have Hera…  Diana gives them to him, but he then shoots at her, and Diana raises her arms to deflect the shot, but takes one right in the heart…

NOW the title of my entry today comes into play… if Zola was the first person she saw after being shot, does that not mean that Diana is in love with her now?

Someone did add a metric fuck-ton of BL that skirted the line between ridiculous and substantial. What was missing?  Actual comics that featured GLBT stories aimed at GLBT readers.  So I destroyed the group– and built a new one:

• Gay Comics and Manga @ Goodreads

I do not care what your thoughts on my are, as the group is NOT ME.  If you’re that petty, my heart goes out.  If you love the genre and want to promote books on the new shelf there, or want to talk about your own work or the works of a creator you enjoy, please go for it – but read the rules.

On that note, GGY Meta is also closed.  Took it down today.  You’ll have to get your bara and yaoi-fanthro info somewhere else.  I am semi-retired from the genre thanks to some works that have been very slow to produce, and while I love Games with Me and Roulette, and will stand behind them promoting and selling with all my heart, I am no longer writing new gloBl material.  0_0

To slip into my old-school Crat persona: If you’re not interested in me or my work, get off my street.  Want to learn about bara and BL – then get to googlin;.  I want to enjoy the genre again, as a fan – not as a creator trying to shlep her work.

Time for Lunch.

So uh… if I were going to buy a Ken doll to satisfy my American-fetish-for-a-foreign-culture (because obviously, these dolls are not made for the countries they represent), here’s what I want in a KEN DOLL OF JAPAN:

• Salary Man Ken: accessories include a diarama izakaya–for a night of beer, sashimi, and some serious nomunication!

• Hikikomori Ken: He doesn’t talk to his family or friends about his problems, will not seek professional help.  Accessories include empty bedroom, with hotplate and laptop. Hoarded items to junk up room, sold separately!

• Herbivorous Ken:  If you know anything about me or my comics work– I need not explain this one.

• Yakuza Ken comes with 5 lackeys (you name them!) to make a SixPack Set!  Draw your own tats and wash off with warm water!  Kids, get parents permission before drawing…

I think you get the picture… I won’t even go into ‘Host Ken’ or ‘Otaku Ken’, because it’s just too easy.  I will, however, make a request, should Mattel ever get around to making Japanese Ken dolls that fit how we American cultural-fetishists actually see Japanese men, then I want to make a request:

I WANT A YASUNORI KATO KEN!

With Imperial Japanese Army costume and a readable copy of a Senji Ryakketsu!

Very disappointed in how some bloggers ignored Laura when she asked for help.  A few I understand completely, after all—we’re not the best of friends by a long shot—but others, that I’ve been friendly with and are still friendly with me?  Wow.  What the hell did her or I do to get that sort of cold-shoulder?  Ah well, if by some miracle Laura can make her money back, and score funds for a toner, then Roulette will release much faster.  If not…it releases when the artwork is finished, and when I have the time and cash to prep the files and aps—so there’s no clear date on that, with no money in place to pay anyone. The middle of May is when Games with Me is set to hit the printers, and I was seriously reconsidering putting out V2 in digital format, but I must, because readers of V1 shouldn’t be cheated just because I’m feeling lazy.  After Roulette though, honestly—no more fucking comics work.  >_<

My son has delegated himself to Saturday school in order to catch up on his failing semester grades.  Sadly, in a small class on his own, he does great.  I’ll be dropping him off on Saturday’s before I go to work; the spouse will pick him up at noon.  My transition to PT begins this week, so from now on my blogging, comics, and writing days will be on Wednesday and Sunday, with work at the bank in between.

I did manage to revise a 1/3 of Chilling Fields, that’s not saying much considering how much more of it there is.  >_< I have found that during the modification process, I’ve been forced to go back to edit the bible to the series.   Simple edits for the most part, but it feels like a productivity-killer, when in essence, it’s not.

I was contacted by an Amazon imprint recently (as Tina Kolesnik), strongly recommending I submit my next title through them, I’m certain this is just a sales pitch of sorts, but either way, my fiction is in no condition to even consider submitting to anyone, at this time.  If anyone else has been contacted and gone through the process of publication with them, shoot me an email and let me know what your thoughts were.  Thanks!

On a completely inappropriate note: I got laid this morning.  FooFah!