There's nothing more shocking than when the hero dies …at the beginning.

Don't worry, Banes isn't dead! I'm just standing in for him this week, he will return! This is only about fictional main characters that didn't get the memo they should reserve their death ...

Photo: “Rogue and Magneto”. X-Men ‘97 by Marvel Studios. (March 2024)

Dispersed through my recommended videos Saturday morning were clips of an X-Men Universe pairing that has left me both confused about this new development and curious about exploring the Uncanny X-Men comic archives, specifically, the Savage Land saga. The ...

As a long-time reader of comics, I've known that some pages can be less clear when it comes to the reading order. In the West, we start at the top left, of course, and the expected move is to read the way we read text - left to right, and ...

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Oh baby it's cold outside… That's a tricky song, well it's not really but a few years ago the silly pop-culture warriors on Twitter started acting as if the song was all “rapey” with ...

Last time I started talking about religion as a great umbrella term for a lot of facets of worldbuilding you can take into consideration when constructing the world of your story, be it webcomic, novel, series, or anything else.

This type of worldbuilding is especially prevalent in fantasy worlds, but ...

Photo: “Complimentary Paint Chips Extracted from the Hardware Store”. Photographed by kawaiidaigakusei. (September 2023)

The fastest and easiest way to uplift a lackluster mood is to seek out the paint aisle at a local home improvement store; scan through and collect all the paint chips that appear “calming”, “vibrant”, or ...

Last time I'd written about gender toxicity and what a trap it can be for creators seeking to write powerful characters. It is not something that only plagues the “strong female character” attempt, but also the “strong male character” and definitely the “strong LGBTQ+ character”.

Too many of these ...

The debate on what constitutes a “strong female character”, whether having “strong female leads” or “feminism” is tanking “woke” films these past few years, is ongoing. There's accusations of toxicity on both sides. Misogyny, misandry, wokeness and brokeness, all of these terms and hot takes are fired and take ...

So I've finished Without Moonlight (yes I know I've shouted it from the rooftops already) and I'm starting on a new comic. And prepping WM vol. 2.

This time, as a …seasoned webcomic artist…


STOPPIT

Anyway, with the experience I've gathered, I'm actually building a ...

Conflict!

It's the essential building block of drama. You don't have a story without the basics of “someone wants something, and something's in the way of getting it.”

Screenwriting books - books I really love and have given me a lot - will often say that amping up the ...