If you want to decent job of it, creating and using weapons in fiction can be quite tricky. There are a lot of pitfalls that newbies and even long time veterans of creating fiction fall into.

1. Number one is simply copying what others have done without understanding it yourself ...

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And ...

Two-thousand fifteen started off with Kroatz wishing everyone in the Drunk Duck forums “growth, satisfaction, and purpose, even if it comes with an almost equal amount of suffering and loss.” I do not believe any statement made in this last year comes as close to this to sum up the ...

"New in town? The women here are usually ball breakers or vampires."


Trilby is a small town girl from Iowa ready to make the big move to New York City. However, this Midwestern belle has a deadly secret of her own that may be more complicated than just Skittles and ...

-art by Gunwallace

Take a deep breath. Count to ten. Exhale.

This time of the year can be the most joyous while being the most stressful. There are less hours of work and more places to spend money. It is a time for reuniting with old relatives, eating great food ...

Last time, solo heroes, teams of two, and trios were the order of the day. Today let's talk quartets, quintets, sextets, septuplets, octets, and…uh…neuf-tets…?
More possibilities for self-contained drama/comedy/conflict exist with groups of four or five. There are several ways to begin building such a ...

My love for art - and narrative art in particular - began well before I had ever laid eyes on a comic book. As a child, my parents and my grandparents worked selling books for publishers. Every few weeks we would get a big box of sample books and it would be ...

Cast of an obscure 1970's science fiction flick. Current whereabouts unknown

One of the challenges…and maybe one of the greatest pleasures…of creating a series is populating it with a cast of heroes. I know I spend many weeks or months tinkering with characters and deciding who they ...

If you haven't noticed, 2016 is all about pitting superheroes against one another. This coming spring, we'll have Captain America facing off with Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War, and DC's two biggest heroes at odds in Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice. But forget about ...

In the movie Annie Hall, the main character writes a play and uses it to give his failed relationship a happy ending.
There are countless stories where awkward, nervous protagonists…perhaps courtesy of awkward, nervous writers…win the battle, defeat the villains and get the gorgeous girl.

An unknown number ...