As Easter has come by to melt away the final vestiges of a long, cold winter (at least up in these parts where I live) it feels like a good time to bring up the mythology of witches. Witches have a central role in the Easter that we celebrate here ...

In the behind-the-scenes interviews about the show “Seinfeld”, Writer/Creator Larry David talks about the ending of an episode, I think it's “The Marine Biologist”.

To sum it up, the show is about fairly normal-yet-eccentric antics of the four characters, including George claiming to be a marine biologist to ...

I'm wounded but you can't see it!


A lot of stories involve a wounded and/or flawed character. It's a staple of strong storytelling; a character has some kind of pain or wound to overcome, and that's the inner journey they take along with whatever outward ...

So maybe the verb ‘hate’ is excessive, but there are some tropes that can really throw me off a story. Or perhaps, what throws me is the way they are used. I firmly believe that any trope can be part of a solid, enjoyable story, even the ones I hate ...

Welcome to my Underground Layers

-Banes, your pop culture references are as on point as ever!



I've talked about story structure here many times, normally in similar ways.
A different approach to character and story, one I haven't used much personally, is what we could call the “onion ...

While scouting in enemy territory young Haldeina ears a strange sound in the woods and rushes to investigate. What she sees astounds her! She beholds a huge and wonderous beast, part lion, part wolf… obviously mage created. It's badly wounded and near death. Although she fears it she's ...

There is a reason why in fanfiction archives there's a whole category of stories called “hurt/comfort”, where one of the main characters of a specific IP is injured, and others (usually an unlikely person or whoever the author is shipping with the injured one) have to take care ...

Iron Man and the multi film arc - revisited


There are spoilers below for the Iron Man and Avengers movies, Civil War, and Spiderman Homecoming


The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been breaking new ground in movies with their various interconnected films for about ten years.


The MCU began with Iron Man ...

The backdrop of this comic is the Marne River in France, 1918. A group of WWI soldiers hear the sounds of bombs blasting outside and prepare to enter the front lines of a battle. In an interesting team, we have Finnegan, the red-haired and bearded gentleman, and the blonde haired ...

Six weeks ago, at the end of my article titled “Psychopomps and Death Personified”, I asked the question: Can you think of any examples of the personification of Death in a comic? How about on Drunk Duck (Yes, you can plug your own comic)?

Much to my delight, fellow community ...