Linzero

I did it! I may have failed to keep perfectly to the schedule, but I've finished another one! We're over halfway through now. ^_^

So what's next? "Obviously Issue 4," you say? Ummmmmm......maybe not yet? Let me explain.

Last year was a <i>bad</i> year. It threw off a lot of stuff, with the comic and my other artistic endeavours suffering the most in my schedule. So while I have managed to get Issue 3 finished (2 months late, but finished is finished) I am not at all ready to start on Issue 4.

Yes, this is going to sound familiar - while Issue 4 has an overview, I have yet to finish storyboarding the pages. (And believe you me, that is absolutely necessary. With the pages in Issue 3 that were outlined badly, or had to change, was sometimes the worst thing holding me up.) Just like last time, the comic is going to have to go on hiatus so I can get that done first.

So the plan right now is: take the time "off" and storyboard both Issues 4 and 5 so no more giant pauses after this one. (That are in my control.) But while the comic is on hiatus, instead of posting nothing, I'm going to take Issue 2 and colourize it so the whole thing will look consistent. (With the same old crappy markers/pencil crayons. Buying new good fancy markers so I can make it all look shinier is just not feasible in the economy right now. One day, I hope. Probably awhile after it's all done, though.) I'll post a few pages every month and all going well once we've reached the end of them, I'll be ready to start posting Issue 4, and we'll get to go forward from there as normal.

Not perfect, and not what I wanted to happen. But it's the only way forward, even if it's at a crawl. I <i>will</i> get all 5 Issues done, and finally have what I imagined the episode would have been like out in the world. Lots of work, lots of fun, and lots of time to do it, which I will do my best to make as short as possible.

Once more into the breach! It's the: Anime North 2023 Con Report!

FRIDAY

I had a meeting Thursday night, so I had to drive into TO on Friday morning again. Luckily the drive was uneventful, if not just more traffic than I expected at the time. Got to J's, we unpack the car, chat a bit then repack and head out.

Took the longer route because the construction was still on the shorter route, but aside from rush hour starting earlier than I would have thought, we did pretty good. Got a decent parking spot too. We head in, and get our passes in like, 5 minutes (BIG improvement over last year) and head in.

We toured the Dealer's room right away, trying to get a lay of the land. Found the big manga booth super early, but because we didn't want to have to carry the heavy books around for long and didn't want to do an immediate run back to the car with them either, we didn't go in.

But we get a good look and figure out what we might want to come back to later, and then head to the Nominoichi, which was horrible packed and hot and stinky as usual.

But, very unusual was that I found things to buy there instead of J. The Dealer's room had been very devoid of Heaven Official's Blessing and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation merchandise so I was ecstatic to find someone hawking a lot of merch at one of the booths. Because I wanted something. I'm really becoming a fan of these books and others like them, and I wanted to show that. So I bought two little punch out plastic figures of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangi to stand at my desk. Also saw at another booth something that I wondered was an artbook, but because it was still in a fairly plain sealed brown box and the seller didn't bother to label what it actually was, only slapped on a price tag of $150.

And that was a problem around the Nominoichi - people were pricing stuff waaaaay to high. This is supposed to be an Anime garage sale people; no one is coming in with the big bucks for used stuff. If you want to sell things for hundreds and hundreds of dollars (like a few of the figures J found in there) put them on Ebay. This is more for an "everything must go!" opportunity.

And then I found some French manga of an anime I like (the manga was never translated to English, at least not legally) and I picked it up, because even though I will only be able to ready a titch of it, I can still enjoy the art.

This is the first time in a long time I've bought stuff at the Nomi. And poor J didn't find anything.

But then we went back to the Dealer's Room and hit up the giant manga booth. Didn't quite find everything I was looking for, but I got the lion's share, which is nice to have taken care of early and not have to carry around for most the con. Also picked up some Flash TV series posters, because now that the show is over, I decided I'd better get them now if I ever want any. (Can't hardly find the season 1 of Legends of Tomorrow Posters anymore, I started looking for them too late.) Also saw a Book of Boba Fett poster that I should have bought but didn't and then forgot about until it was too late.

Didn't do any of the late night stuff on Friday. After we finished shopping, we got ice cream and then went back to J's to get ready for Saturday. It was late enough when we got back (taking the long route because the shorter one is still full of construction and we learned our lesson last year) that we just got ready for bed; no anime watching for us. (Damn, I miss the day when J lived, like, 20 minutes from the con. Those were the days.)

SATURDAY

Saturday got us off to a later start than I would have liked. Not as bad as last year, but I honestly thought we'd get going a little faster. But, Saturday is J's day to sleep and recover from the week (and the last few weeks have been awful) so I can't blame her for being naturally sluggish. And it's not like we were going to get there so early that we could to do the early morning stuff anyways.

So we get our asses to the con finally and are absolutely fucking horrified to find that there is NO parking. None at all.

This has never been a thing before. I mean, last year we got there LATE and there was parking. Shitty parking, but still parking. I slowly circle the lot with a hundred other cars looking for anywhere to park. There are tons of terribly parked cars that you wish had done better; several more cars could have been squeezed in if they hadn't given themselves so much room.

In desperation, we're all going up and down the lanes, hoping for miracles, only to find some assholes have parked in the ends of the lanes, so you can't easily exit, you just have to do very delicate 3 point turns to escape.

And I was in the middle of one such maneuver when lady luck smiled so hard down upon us that I think I found religion in the convention parking lot. A group of people walked past us and I started praying that they were in our aisle and leaving for lunch. Instead, they walked over to a car that was wonkily parked (in the middle of two lanes, making it so that no one could park in the spot in front of them) in the aisle over. If they just would back up a foot or two, another car could park in the lane. So I slowed down and got ready to scream/beg out the window, but J actually hopped out of the car and ran over to them to ask.

And oh, they backed up and I was able to pull in and it was a miracle. I had to climb out through the passenger side door to get out, but I would have crawled through the trunk if it meant having a parking spot. Because I hadn't known what I was going to do. I'm not familiar enough with the area to drive us to a paid lot or a nearby shopping market to have us walk back down. (And if the convention is full, all the hotel lots will be long full.) I would have just had to drive us right back to J's, (not a short journey) and we'd have to come back on Sunday. (Using a lot more gas than I'd planned to this weekend.)

So filled with a newfound gratitude of the parking gods, I immediately try to pay it forward - another car that looks stuck doing a 3 point turn - I go over to offer to be spotter to help them get back and forth safely. Sadly, they're not stuck, stuck - they've hit another car and are trying to figure out what to do. Best I can offer is a pencil and paper to leave their information, so didn't quite even out karma there.

So we hit up the Artist Alley, and I finally start to find a bit more GMoDC and HOB stuff. (Bought a cute HOB postcard and admired some body pillow covers, but I often hate body pillows themselves, so I don't buy any.) And then we hit up the Momiji Gallery, even though we honestly don't plan to attend Sunday and therefore can't bid on anything. We're just going to admire.

And fuck do we find stuff to admire. I first found some prints of GMoDC and HOB that I admired. And then! Oh, and then. Found PILLOWS of the chibis of GMoDC and HOB that I just fucking adored. To my intense joy, the creator left a map to where their booth was in the artist alley and I drive J crazy for the next 30 minutes trying to find it. We pause in my quest to go watch the Taiko Drumming concert, and while that goes on, J does some internet research and manages to figure out a bit better where we should be looking.

We did finally found the booth, but sadly, the creator wasn't selling any of the pillows. (And as a bonus, the creator of the prints I liked was sharing the same booth, so we got to see even more of their artwork.) I took both business cards and bought a tote bag with a similar picture of two of the pillows. I'm hoping once they've replenished stock from conventions, I can order the pillows from them.

After another boo around the Dealer's Room, we took a break to go watch some of the AMV contest winners, and when that was done, took stuff to the car and had a quick food break. We decide to give a Yaoi North panel a try, and so take a walk down the hotel. A little disappointed with it. It was supposed to be about Yaoi art, and while it was great drawing advice, there really was no Yaoi to it.

We walk back, get more ice cream and decide that we're ready to be done for the day/weekend.

Back at J's we Uber Eats up some great Hamburgers and decide to watch Glass Onion. Halfway through, J passes out so solidly, I have to shake her to get her to go to bed, and thus, ended Saturday.

SUNDAY

Woke up late and lazed around, watching Heaven Official's Blessing until it was time for me to head out. Made decent time getting home, and then I had to hit the ground running to unpack, and get all my shit ready for work the next day.

So parking situation on Saturday aside, it was a pretty great weekend. Will have to make some changes when we go next year, but we will still be going. Haven't hit the point where con-going will stop entirely yet, which is good. And will maybe have more company at it next year, according to some friends that are expressing renewed interest, which will be even better.

Swag List:

• No Money Manga (en francais) vols 1-6

• Wei Wuxian Chibi plastic standee

• Lan Wanji Chibi plastic standee

• Princess Mononoke Kodama figure

• 2 Flash Season 1 posters

• Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji bunnies tote bag

• My Love Story!! Complete Series Blu-Ray

• My Hero Academia vol. 34

• My Hero Academia Vigilantes vol. 14

• My Hero Academia Team up! vol. 3

• The Titan's Bride vol. 3

• Scattering his Virgin Bloom vol. 2

• The Ancient Magus' Bride vol. 17

• Postcard of Xie Lan and San Lang on Hay Cart

The End.

The Flash has come to a close, and with it, the Arrowverse. This is a sad day.

Oh, I knew the shows weren't going to go on forever. But I hoped the universe might. They had created such a rich tapestry of Earth Prime, and the surrounding multiverse that they could have made all kinds of shows and just given us the odd hope of a cameo with the originals when the actors felt like it.

But I guess it's good that they all ended before DC just cast it all into flames. I mean, they haven't exactly brought a full season of A-game episodes, so you can see the smoke, but there was some good stuff.

The Red Death arc ended badly, but the premise (and most of the build up) was pretty decent. And I thought it was cool that they did it with Batwoman. (Fuck, as great as it was to see Javicia Leslie again, it's too bad they couldn't have worked in that this was how Kate Kane disappeared. I mean, I know that fucks up all of Batwoman's continuity, but it would have made more sense to me than what actually happened.) Also too bad that Red Death's speed was artificial, instead of working in a Jesse Quick cameo. That would have been a nice way to bring her back. Though I suppose it would have spoiled the multiverse reveal earlier than they wanted.

The filler episodes were all disappointing crap. As bitchy as I sound, I didn't have any fucks to give about Chellegra, Khione was not a great replacement character for Caitlin and Frost (And why the fuck was no one sad that Caitlin "died"? Frost gets a funeral and Caitlin gets a "meh"? Not cool.) and Joe leaving the city with Jenna in tow, but with Cecile staying behind (without this being a serious divorce/custody thing) makes no sense to me at all. Oh, and I have no respect for Mark. At all. Honestly it would have redeemed his character to have him die saving Barry at the end of the Red Death arc.

But the last crossover episode with Oliver coming back? For the most part, it was solid gold from start to finish. (Where the hell was this great writing for the first 8 episodes?) Furthermore, why not have a few more cameos of the greats from the first 2 seasons? I loved seeing Hartley and Bivolo again. While the Dreamer episode didn't hi perfect, I still liked seeing Nia Nall one last time. I wasn't as pumped for Goldface and Lady Luck. And the time thief? Fuck that. They could have dredged up almost anyone else and it would have been better. (And yes, that's still me wishing we'd gotten Captain Cold one last time. I am a broken record and am proud of it.)

And then the grand finale.

Damn that they couldn't get Carlos Valdez back for the finale. I mean, I know the man had a good reason with his current job, but still, it would have really meant a lot to have Team Flash whole for its end.

And I'm really glad that when Khione ascended, she left Caitlin behind. I'm sure this ending is why the characters never bothered to mourn Caitlin, but it would have made more sense if Khione had said/known from the start that she was a Goddess and would only be around temporarily. Hell, for a second, after watching her revive Mark last episode, I wondered if both Caitlin and Frost would be standing there when the lightshow was done.

I did like how Nora defeated Savitar. And watching Cecile fight Godspeed was almost worth how overused Cecile is. (God, that fight must have eaten up so much of the budget. They couldn't have eased up on it a bit to make some of the shitty episodes a little better?) And....why are we surprised Chester is a Meta? I thought we already knew this, you know, him surviving the black hole and all.

And most of all, I did like that Barry didn't kill Eddie, that he reminded him of the hero he was and talked him down into being a benign avatar, if not a friend again. I mean, I feel bad for Eddie, since his life has become so fucked up, and I don't know what kind of future he's going to have, but at least the poor bastard didn't have to die again.

And Nora being born....meh. I mean, we all knew she was coming, I guess it just didn't have the right impact. And then Joe proposing to Cecile....after they've started living separately.....okay?

Last shot with Barry choosing more Speedsters? Now that I liked, because it left the ending feeling open, like if there was ever a miracle, the show would somehow be able to come back. I have to admit, I'm familiar with none of the characters at all, but I would so watch a show of Barry mentoring them, and hope that they would tie off other loose ends, and bring back more of the Arrowverse possibilities.

I do wish they'd ended with his monologue on the line, "I am Barry Allen and I am the fastest man alive" only changed it to "one of the fastest people alive" and hinted more towards a future that we wouldn't see. But it was still really good.

God, I'm going to miss these shows. I can't imagine the Flash movie even coming within shouting distance of how good these were sometimes. I'm going to be spending a lot of time crossing my fingers that in five, ten years a reunion crossover (even as a movie) get's green lit because all the garbage that DC is dreaming up now craps out, and all the actors are rejuvenated enough from the break to come back.

Sweet Dreams, Arrowverse. You are finished, but are not forgotten.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I was so excited to see this trailer (teaser trailer?) drop. The first look at the "Live Action" Optimus Primal had me bouncing off the fucking walls. It's good. I mean, it's not like the cartoon where they look full animal and then full robot in the different forms. It's obviously a robot gorilla, but it looks good. And the brief shots we got of Airazor, Cheetor and Rhinox have me excited too.

Haven't heard anything about Predacons in the movie though, and I hope that's still a surprise to come. I mean, it feels like if we have one faction, we need the other. Or, if the Maximals are the only ones we get this movie, I need a post-credits scene teasing their own movie with a Predacon appearance. Gotta do this right.

(Yes this is a little bit just about getting us Dinobot, but we deserve the best the Beast Wars had to offer, don't you think?)

Also saw the GotG vol. 3 trailer, which lead to more excitement, and I was happy to even watch the new Indiana Jones trailer, just to see Mads Mikkelsen. The summer is really shaping up to be bountiful, movie-wise.

Saw Glass Onion in theatres last week and was super fucking impressed. They managed to make a sequel that was just as good as the first movie and yet not make it a carbon copy of the first movie. (Which is so rare.) They kept the level of wackyness consistant, and put it to a whole new story, but remembered how to use the twists that made the first movie so good. (I know that's not a clear explanation, but I don't want to give any spoilers.) Needless to say, the second the movie drops on Netflix later this month, I will in front of my TV watching it again. Can't recommend it enough.

(Speaking of Netflix, the new series about Wednesday Adams is a lot of fun. I hope it's one of their series that gets the DVD treatment, and definitely hope it gets a few more seasons.)

Looking forwards to watching Avatar 2 in a few weeks. It looks good, but I think it's going to be a crapshoot whether it makes enough money to be worth it's cost or it's 13 year wait. I mean, I liked the first Avatar, but when the second one finally dropped a trailer it was like......"what was that about again?"

Oh well. I'm sure it will be good. I just don't know that it will be able to live up to the first one, because it won't be all new and mind blowing anymore. I'll cross my fingers for it though.

Happy 10 year Anniversary Arrowverse! I'm so sorry that you're on the cusp of death at the same time.

I know we still get one more season of the Flash sometime next year, but with every announcement that comes out about DC and the CW and all the disasters that seem to be happening at Warner Bros, it makes me worry more and more that the bottom will just fall out of everything and we will get nothing to commemorate the end of our Superhero era.

The adage of how everything must come to an end aside, I'm really going to miss this universe. I'm sad I came into it late, and it feels like its ending too early. Legends had another season in it to go. Batwoman probably could have gone to at least 5 seasons if they'd let it. Flash maybe could have taken the time to wrap itself up over the course of 2 more seasons instead of 1 and maybe Superman and Lois would have stayed and continued things. I'd feel more receptive to it if it was.

And all the things we never got; I would have loved a Green Arrow and the Canaries show. (I feel like Bart and Nora would have popped up a lot in it too, future kiddies team unite!) I wanted to see Diggle as the Green Lantern. A live action Vixen show would have been cool, as well as one for The Ray. And who amoung us wouldn't have liked another Beebo Christmas Special? (Seriously, that's gotta go on DVD soon, right? I'll never be able to upgrade my PVR if it doesn't.)

I hope we can get an Arrowverse convention one day in the future where we can have giant reunions of casts and hear all about behind the scenes of the show, and what was always planned that didn't get to be. We haven't gotten a lot of the different casts of the different shows at the few conventions down my way so it would be nice if there was just one event to go to that it could be guaranteed to see a lot more of the people I'd want to see. (And not have a giant rush of people that are there to see other things.) If there can be dedicated Supernatural cons, and Transformers cons and even Once Upon a Time cons, surely we could do an Arrowverse con at least once. That I'd be willing to travel for.

So Kudos to 10 years of of our Heroes and Heroines. They have entertained and inspired us actively for a decade, and the memory of them will probably continue to do so for many more. And if any of the shows ever get the chance to do some kind of continuation or reboot (note: reboot must contain at the bare minimum multiple cameos from the stars), I'm sure we'll all line right back up for it.