THE SIMPSONS NEWS

No word on what’s going on with the show. This is my second week off the show. One week left to go. Seems like time is passing by fast.

MY WEB COMIC

Below is the rough of the page above:

This next page is the under drawing for the page that I inked. I increased the levels of the line work because it was drawn very lightly:

I forgot to put the under drawing of page 2 last week so I’m doing it here.  I was half way through the inking process when I scanned this, so it’s not JUST the under drawing:

VIDEOS

I had heard a lot about this documentary but I had never seen it.  I was made aware of it through the Man Vs. Art Facebook page. Raul Aguirre Jr. posted the link there. Now I’m posting it here as well. I recommend you take a look. It’s a documentary called IN SEARCH OF STEVE DITKO.  It’s the fascinating story of mysterious comic artist Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-man. It’s very cool:

WEBSITE

I’m not going to steal anyone’s blog content here but I would really like to encourage any artist to go over to this Live journal post: http://sirspamdalot.livejournal.com/81283.html.

It’s about how Alex Toth, one of my favorite artists, learned.  It’s something I myself have discovered from experience but I think it’s very good information to know if you don’t know about it.

Here’s the quote that ends the article. It’s great:

“It was great fun, to learn anew. You think you know enough, but you don’t. You must open up; let it in. …be receptive, admit what you don’t know, which few are willing to do. Start from square one. Again!” ~Alex Toth

WRITING

I was finally able to work out the new versions of Scene 6 and Scene 8.  It was by far, one the more difficult things I had to do to date. The reason was because I had to really pin down how the magick would work in my “universe”. I knew it was blood magick, and I new it has to do with binding one’s self with a demon. I also came up with a way to make the blood rituals “practical”, but I STILL didn’t know what magick was actually going to be used against Rob.

In order to figure this out, I thought I should give each Sorcerer a “theme” or “skill”  of magick they were best at. I just didn’t know what they were going to be.  In order to get ideas flowing in my head, I decided to go to  my bookshelf and take three Role Playing game books down.  These were CONAN: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME, MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS RPG, and MAGE: THE ASCENSION.

The Conan book helped quite a bit.  It’s basically a book of the Conan universe. The chapter on Sorcery in the Conan universe was very helpful since I’m basically taking that type of magick and having it play out a in a modern setting. What I got most from it was the idea that not all a Sorcerer’s magick is done on the spot, some of it is “prepackaged” and ready to use ahead of time, in the form on alchemical items that they carry around.  That would help. Only I thought that in MY universe, these items had to be “activated” with a chant and some of the Sorcerer’s blood sprinkled on it.  The book also gave me good examples of spells and themed magick that I might be able to use. For example, the “serpent” themed mind control magick in the book was perfect for my Lead Sorcerer. The section on magick poisons, also got me thinking as did the section on necromancy. Unfortunately it didn’t help much more beyond that.  At least it gave me a flavor of what I was looking for.

The MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS book is a book like a catalog or buffet of superpowers which you can mix, match, and modify to your heart’s content in order to come up  unique powers for a superhero character.  I was looking through it so that I could better theme my Sorcerers’ powers. I was hoping to come across a power that would get me thinking. Unfortunately, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Somehow the powers where a tad too overpowered and if they weren’t, they were too subtle or generic for me to want to use any.

By this point, after thinking about it for a day or so, I knew I wanted the Other Male Sorcerer to have have Necrotic like powers.  But I didn’t want him raising skeletons or anything like that. I wanted him to be more of a destroyer of life.  When I opened my MAGE: THE ASCENSION book, I looked specifically into the section on Mages who could control Entropy.   Though the description and the powers weren’t exactly what I had in mind, they did give me a jumping off point for my character’s magick.

As I looked at all these books, I would write down things I thought I wanted and began making a small list of key words. This is what I wrote down:

• Summoning
• Kothic Demon fire
• Necromancy
• Entropy (Focus?)
• Beast Claws
• Poisons
• Hypnosis (Serpent)
  
• Domination (Serpent)
• Alchemy
• Acid?
• Knives
• Wall of Blades
• Dancing Blades
• Flying Blades

The terms in bold I had circled,  meaning I was definitely going to use them, while the other things I was trying to fit together and make something I liked with them.

I the end, this is what I concluded:

1. The Lead Sorcerer would have domination powers and would use mind control and hypnosis as his main form of Magick. He could also summon the giant serpent creature, but only if he sacrificed a live serpent and mingled his blood with it and chanted the correct incantation.
2. The Other Male Sorcerer would have power of entropy.  He would throw “Entropy Orbs” which he activates with his blood and an incantation.   These Orbs cause whatever they crash into to prematurely age thousands of years in an instant. He also has claws in his hands which can rot whatever they touch. He uses them in conjunction with an alchemical mist, which he hides in to reach his target.  He can summon a Winged Ape by infusing some of his own blood into the ripped out heart of a gorilla and saying the correct incantation. The resulting Winged Ape would look a little zombie like.
3. The Female Sorcerer’s magick consists of her control over blades she throws. Due to the nature of these blade, they tend to disintegrate once used.  Her main form of attack would be poison tipped blades which she controls by sprinkling them with her own blood and throwing them with an incantation.  She can also control larger blade with she can send spinning or dancing, anyway she wishes, as long as he concentrates. They must first be sprinkled with her blood.  She also has a blinding powder she uses, when she needs to buy time for her magick to get going.  Just like The Other Male Sorcerer, she can also summon a Winged Ape by infusing some of her own blood into the ripped out heart of a gorilla and saying the correct incantation.The resulting Winged Ape is silver and has sharp metal claws.

Once I had these details worked out, it was much easier to come up with the modification to Scene 6 and Scene 8.  Scene 6 I finished first. I changed the focus of the fight so that it was more about destroying the hot dog than killing Rob.  I’m not sure how well that will flow but I guess I’ll find out once I have the first visual pass of it done.

Scene 8 was much tougher.  The hard part was coming up with the “super attack” the Sorcerers hit Rob with, by combining their powers together.  I settled with some spinning blades keeping Rob in place while the Lead Sorcerer combines his mind power with the Other Male Sorcerer to try to disintegrate Rob. The rest is similar to what I had originally written, only with the new powers.

I’m a lot happier with this version.

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