Art by Law Chang
The idea of the magic card "Swords to plowshares" is essentially that target creature rejects the way of the sword and becomes a farmer instead, hence you lose them as a combatant but gain the health from their farming.
This is really fuckin funny in conjunction with a lot of potential targets for that card. Can you just imagine you're an average farmer in an MTG plane, have a normal-ass day, and all of a sudden you look to the east, and stretching up past the clouds you see Ulamog, the despoiler, one of the infamous eldrazi titans, a creature that corrupts all that is good by its mere presence. And all the enormous bastard is doing is using their massive fuckin tendrils to plow the land and plant potatos, and tend to their flocks of eldrazi spawn, and then it turns its eyeless head thats the size of several cities at you and tips its wide brimmed straw hat at you and continues going about its work.
oh you're in a horror film/book and your phone died/has no bars? how boring. I think phones in horror SHOULD work. they should ding only to have the protagonist check and find nothing. they should get calls from somebody you don't know but is still somehow in your contacts. google maps should lead you to one place, no matter what address you type in.
phones are such a big part of our daily lives, removing them from horror removes the horror from our experience. what if the horror felt like it could happen to you, right here, right now? what if it felt like it was already happening?
call 911 and something that is definitely not a person picks up.
call 911 and get an operator only for the call to become increasingly weirder and more sinister until you realize that whatever picked up is not there to help.
text messages from someone who's dead. voicemails that sound like dead air until you turn the volume all the way up.
emergency alerts for weather that doesn't happen on earth.
Your phone rings - but it's your phone number on the screen. You answer it, but all you hear is heavy, laboured breathing. You go to say something, only to hear your voice on the other end tell you "It's too late," and hang up.
You get a message from a number you don't recognise. It's a picture of you from behind. You turn and see there's nobody there. When you look back at your phone, you see the sender has sent another text - "Sorry, wrong number."
Your phone rings - it's a private number. You answer it, only to feel the sensation of something licking your ear.
You wake up to find a voicemail. You play it back, only to hear an autotuned version of your own voice reciting a Bible passage - 1 Peter 2: 18-20.
You get an emergency alert. It says "I'm sorry."
every time you try to call anyone, the version of you that didn't get trapped in the hell maze picks up instead, and she's getting increasingly scared and angry to hear from you
honestly even the more mundane versions could be terrifying.
you call 999 and the operator says they send someone as soon as they can but it's a 80 minute wait for an ambulance and a 90 minute wait for police. you try and emphasise that you're in immediate danger. it's not even that the operator doesn't believe you, it's just that budget cuts mean they have no-one to send. you're left with the acute knowledge that by the time help comes, it will probably be too late.
An oldie but a goodie.
"2D side scrolling horror kids who deserved better" is a long ass name for a club, huh?
An oldie but a goodie.
"2D side scrolling horror kids who deserved better" is a long ass name for a club, huh?
After having the conversation multiple times about how many people (myself included) had stopped writing for years until the Sandman on Netflix came along and grabbed us by the neck.
And after watching the screaming reactions to Good Omens season 2, (and all the meta and analysis and thoughts about plot structure, and suggestions for what makes sense for season 3.)
I have decided that Neil Gaiman's secret agenda is not the screaming or the angst.
I think his secret agenda is to make us all WRITE.
Made these while taking a break and I thought I'd share!! I'm working on a short animation atm so I'm experimenting with this style. My usual style is a bit more complicated but I figured it'd be easier to animate using this one!! How does it look?
The first two ones are quotes from @incorrect-nightmares, i love that blog. Literal free serotonin fr.
Bonus:
Rip doc
Oh yeah, should probably post my "biggest tweet of all time" right now too, huh?
I asked for requests on Instagram.
They were all fun to draw!
I said this many times before but I will say it again:
I find the conflict between Six and the Lady to be so much more interesting when viewed through the lens of them not being the same person, but rather being a metaphor for each other -- someone who is like the person you used to be vs the threat of the person you could become.
Them having a similar past and reacting to it in completely different ways makes the dynamic incredibly interesting. The reason why I am so deeply attached to the theory that the Lady is the girl in the paintings who wears a yellow raincoat is because, narratively, it would make her the perfect foe to Six.
The coat itself is not really important: what matters is what it signifies. It means freedom, hope, light, but most importantly it means not losing yourself. When Six finds the coat, she finds herself. She finds her True Colors, as the OST itself will tell you.
And Six sticks to it.
In spite of everything pointing her to the Maw, Six categorically refuses to go there. Shadow Six points her to it, but the comics let us know that Six did not go to the Maw as she was pushed to do: the Ferryman had to drag her on it. He had to tie her up to take her there -- which, when considering the Ferryman's usual methods, really points just how hard Six fought to avoid the Maw.
Six does not want to be on the Maw. She rebukes it. Exactly the opposite of the Lady, who instead sticks in it for dear life.
The Lady is a deeply fascinating villain through many lens, but what makes her the most interesting to me is the fact that, when picking her arguments apart barebones, she reasons exactly like the children of the Maw do. In the Refugee Boy's story, it is explained why he prefers being on the Maw rather than being left to the outside world.
Safety.
With this in mind, here is an extract from the Lady's official character description:
"Amidst the chaos of the world outside, The Maw is the only place that makes sense. (...) The guests must eat. The Maw must survive."
The Lady sticks to the Maw because it's beneficial to her. Because it is the only place whose (horrific) structure she can comprehend. The world outside is chaos, we have seen it ourselves. The Maw, as terrible as it is, has a clear routine that repeats every year. It has dangers that can be avoided as they become more and more known.
The children would rather stay here, rather than face the unknown outside. And the Lady would rather uphold a system that kills and takes advantage of innocents if it means she can live in peace and safely just one more day.
The Maw is the lesser evil. And the Lady lost herself to it. Or rather, it would be more correct to say that whoever she used to be when she got on the Maw is gone... and all the Lady is, is nothing if not the Lady of the Maw.
((Which is why she can't bear to look in the mirror. Would you stare in it, knowing that the person starring back is someone you don't know?))
But Six is not like the Lady. Six is Six.
She does not want to be safe, she wants to leave. The institution of the Maw means nothing to her, no matter how many outside factors push her towards it. Even if strategically speaking staying the Maw would be the safe option, by leaving, Six chooses her true self. It's an act of defiance to a generational cycle that has been upheld for who knows how long by simply taking a leap of faith.
One stayed. The other left.
Ironically, the two of them are not a mirror of each other, like the Thin Man and Mono are. They instead walk on two parallel lines.
The Lady turns right, and Six turns left. The Lady turns down the stairs that lead back inside the Maw. She lets the raincoat fall off her shoulders. Six turns up the stairs, outside of the submarine. She clings to her raincoat as hard as she can.
They are two strangers who happen to be just a little similar, but so incredibly different that they end up going different places. And that's what gives them nuance.
"Paper planes" by @claire-pouette. I asked Claire on Instagram for permission to make this dub of her comic and she said yes. Her art is absolutely stunning, and I love this comic of hers.
I voiced Mono and Six myself (except for their voice clips at the end and Six's gasps). I'm British but I tried to imitate an American accent for their dialogue since I'm sure that people are more used to them having American accents in comic dubs, I hope my voice for them sounds okay... 👉👈
This is my very first comic dub. I'm not sure if I'll make more comic dubs, but I prefer to have an artist's permission when dubbing a comic they've made.
Music: 'So long' - Toy Story 3 soundtrack - Randy Newman (but edited to be shorter to fit this comic's length)
I was heavily inspired my the_nerdy_pencil’s (aka ooCatoo) post on Instagram of the two children’s first of school, and also high school days!
