Shadowrun today…always a joy. I got to carve up a giant lamprey-worm on a dock in an underground cavern. This would have been more enjoyable if my samurai did not have a crippling fear of deep water, and so was attempting to dodge the giant phlegm balls the thing was spitting without coming anywhere near the water’s edge–not really an easy task, particularly when it’s first move was to phlegm up the escape route. Meanwhile, her buddies were waiting about a quarter mile away, since being the thug, she was supposed to go make sure there were no enemies, so one bad roll, and it was a watery (or possibly wormy) grave. However, being the homicidal death machine that she is, she rapidly dispatched the thirty-foot horror, (“Hey, that’s only ten meters!”) whereupon her comrades threw her into the inflatable zodiac we’re using to get around, and she spent the rest of the day curled in fetal position vomiting while they poled around on the lake. She’s a fun character that way.

Finished up page 4 of “Digger”–I’ll probably post it once I’ve got five pages together, maybe a few more. I dunno, I’m still consciously trying to sort the style out. The black and white is going better than before, since I finally learned to leave more white space than I had been doing, and I keep reminding myself not to obsess over detail. That was a hard lesson to learn, going from painting to comics–that people really don’t CARE about having every single bit of every single panel rendered obsessively. Some panels, yes, should be impressive scene setters, and then go all out, but otherwise, if a detail doesn’t serve to move the story along at a reasonable clip, or provide some vital point or something then dispense with it–it’s better to be simple and striking than have lines everywhere. This is not some kind of contest where you prove that yes, Virginia, you can TOO draw. Damnit.

Reading “Demonic Males” still. Just read how Margaret Mead was a lying bastard, which I already knew, but not quite to what extent. Her “exhaustive research” consisted of a week spent with a Samoan family, whereupon she went back to a Western-style home because she couldn’t stand sleeping in a hut with a dozen people and random pigs. Wimp. She interviewed 25 girls for three months, and then claimed to have a definitive insight into the entire culture, both male and female, complete with appropriately bohemian sexuality and peace-loving natives, nevermind that the murder and rape rates in Samoa were half again that of L.A. and that virginity was highly prized, so that a young woman gettin’ free and easy would get the crap beat out of her by her male siblings. Coming of Age in Samoa, my ass.

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