Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

Going to write something smaller this week.  Started working on a script for a comic, which required a bit of research on a variety of things.  The inspiration for it is Stranger Things, Gravity Falls, and Hellboy .  Something magical, cosmic horror and weird. Like going home.  So, let me ramble on something I've been thinking about.  Something about the nature of things like Stranger Things or the Dresden Files .  That Urban Fantasy pastiche. Where Do the Monsters Live? There is this idea in Urban Fantasy stories.   That they have to explain why monsters or fantastical elements remain hidden.  How have monsters or magic not become observed by the modern world?  Each story does its own take on this.  Superhero stories use it as the basis for some heroes.  Some stories have clandestine wizards and vampires living secret society lives.  Others are dark things that have long slumbered that now have awakened.  ...

Nadia's head was in her red leather spellbook again. The wizard had sat down after their fight with the goblins in the cave.  She had started to pen quick notes.  Her inkwell was out and she laid flat on her stomach, writing a tiny script in the blue book. The rest of the party down looked at the purple-robed wizard, waiting. "You done yet?"  Bellum, the paladin asked.  Their impatient tone didn't seem to register with Nadia at all. "Have to add a note or three,"  Nadia replied as she noted down observations from the last spell she'd cast in combat.  "My last casting of Magic Missile was different than previous.  And I might've perfected the force application equation.  At least the light refraction seemed to bear that out." "What does that mean?" "Her magic was greener than it's been before,"  Hensam added.  She took the moment of quiet to shine her daggers. Bellum shot her a glare.  Nadia beamed.  We...

There is a thing that happens with history, where it becomes mythologized.  I have my own framing for it when historical figures go from being human to being part of some story.  They become the Gods, Heroes or Monsters.  We don't often think of them as people anymore.  Instead, we identify them in less specific ways, some of which might not be true.  Or worse, might be half-true. The Field of Blood The recent book in my craw is The Field of Blood by Joanne B. Freeman.  It covers a part of the Antebellum period of the US, the decades before the Civil War.  Its focus is on violence in Congress.  This is something you might've thought happened only once or twice in US history before the Civil War.  Most likely you'd be thinking of the Caning of Charles Sumner, but The Field of Blood reveals much more tarnish view. It strings together a history of duels, intimidation and open brawls on the floor of Congress.  Key is the word 'Stri...

Golga hid in the darkest corner she could find.  The little girl squeezed into the furthest, hardest to reach a corner of the pantry.  The raiders couldn't find her here.  She hoped they couldn't.  Golga shivered; her cotton shift had turned red from the all the blood.  It was cold.  She was cold. "Don't find me.  Don't find me.  Don't find me."  She chanted to herself, over and over.  Golga had seen what they'd done.  They'd be gone.  Soon.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Or they would kill her. A voice in the dark startled her.  It was soothing.  It reminded her of her mother, but after she had caught Golga doing something she wasn't supposed to it.  Anger vibrated in it. "What if you found them first?" "What?"  Golga replied.  "They'll kill me." "Not if you kill them first."  A face seemed to melt out of the darkest before her.  Eyeless, it still looked at her.  "Anger....

Bit of short fiction this week.  A tale from the Secret Histories, the Historica Arcanum, as written and forgotten both long ago and tomorrow.  A tale about Delphi, her many lives and about how a few choices echo through more than one century. You are born in water.  You die made of water.  Water sees you come, and water sees you go.  It is in your eyes, your blood, your soul.  Does it bind you, free you or is it a chain?  If you enjoy this tale, leave a comment and more like it might come this way. 1836 CE The wolf-masked stranger so frightened them, they tied a noose about his neck.  They shoved him off the port bow, letting him drag behind their swift sloop.  Slaves below deck heard their laughter.  The devils riding among the slavers giggled. Then there was a splash from the sea.  Saltwater elongated in a tentacle.  The wolf-masked man rose upon that wave, beside a woman in a blue-gray cloak.  Dolphins of blue,...

I haven't written here in a while. The last two posts were an attempt to get back in the habit again.  I fell off the "creative" horse.  While the idea for a post looking back came to me, I avoided it as being too easy a subject to dwell on.  But, before we get deep into 2019, I guess I should gaze a bit backward. 2018, 2018, 2018 One of the recurring things I heard of 2018 had been that people tended to feel like the year could not yet end.  I never experienced that particular feeling.  2018 felt like 2017, to me, a dark despair sort of lingering, waiting to hit the wall still.  When the dark comes, sometimes you drown in it and can't tell how much time has passed. I fell off of some of my larger creative efforts.  Although friends and Inktober definitely reignited my own efforts.  I felt like 2018 was less productive. than prior years for my art and stories.  Almost all Inktober 2018 of mine was a comic.  This marked the first ...

Winter is cold and dark.  The winds howl.  It is the end of time.  The old tales tell that one gives offerings and performs the rites to ask for aid to survive the dark until spring.  Are these tales true or are they demons scratching at the edge of the mind?  Is magic real? Or is it a part of fairy tales meant to pass the cold night along? The Bear and the Nightingale  is an entrancing 2017 novel by Katherine Arden.  The tale starts with a fairy tale told during a cold winter night to pass the time.  That is where it begins.  It sits at a series of crossroads, a historical fiction, yet a fantasy novel.  It is a coming of age story.  Yet it is also a tale about the conflict between Christianity and Russian pagan beliefs. Two Roads Yet One Even the heroine, Vasya , often is a being between so many things that could otherwise define her.  She keeps the monsters at bay and is the wild maiden of her village.   She a...

Sometimes one finds something that clicks.  It finds the empty notch in your skull and completes the circuit.  The circle closes.  The sequence aligns.  You uncover the clue that makes the code make sense.  You decipher something strange, even though the world around you doesn't notice it. I found Gravity Falls .  Well, my younger sister did and thrust it into my orbit.  I didn't know what to expect, and at first sort of it didn't quite click.  But then it did, as many solid animation does, and it sank its roots deep. Gravity Falls , for the uninitiated, is a Disney animated series that ran from 2012 to 2016.  The series is about the summer the 12-year-old Pine fraternal twins spend with their great uncle Stan.  The twins have the usual animated hijinx.  But a serious underlying mythos undergirds the series, starting with hints.  Then it takes over the story with tons of secrets, ciphers and clues the series drops every s...