this is what a Bodhisattva is

@badscooter

Tales From The Crypt - "Easel Kill Ya" - (1991)

I done did it, y'all. You can procure either my AstroMagia 2021 featured lecture, Haunted Houses: Ancestral Gifts & Curses in the Nativity, or my AstroMagia 2022 closing keynote lecture, The Shining Ones: Folklore’s Spirits & Fixed Stars, now! You can even treat yourself to both at the same time for a cute lil’ discount.

Yesterday evening I spotted this beautiful wolf at a magical forest light show ‘De Grote Schijn’ (“The Great Shine”) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. 

A howling wolf projected on the dancing leafs of swaying trees in the wind.

forbidden knowledge

Can we see this frame by frame? Please and thank you.

Yes Here Are All The Frames

THAT IS NOT WHAT WAS ASKED FOR

Saint Christopher

A good and holy boy

Walk into your kitchen at 3am and this wizard is waiting for you, having drunk your beer and sampled, but disliked, your potato chips, hasn’t done the dishes, and he isn’t happy

What do you do?

“Really, Carl? Really? Christ, I knew the breakup with Cindy was bad-but not THIS bad! How’d you even get in my house? Why are the Utz all over the floor? Wh- how did you get in my house!?”

“Damn your fool’s mind, Randy, the mists of dream still you know my Amulet of Saros allows me passage through all portals, physical and arcane. I came here as this apartment provides protection from the mental ravaging of that dark sorceress, Cindy, gods blast her name! Your fermented beverages are all that have kept me from darkness this night, Randy, would you turn me away in this hour of terror?”

I’ll take 5000

them: are u ok u seem kind of down?

me: no I’m fine I just have

them: oh so u learned how to be a pretentious nerd in german too?

me:

this sums up the last few weeks.

Here’s an easy guide to remember some dog names.

#wagglydoofus

So About That Whole Thing

LONG COMIC BOOK RANT INCOMING:

Okay some things need to be said:

1. If you’re going to write a smug thunk-piece about the “failure” of “diversity” in comics, maybe don’t use the cover image of a book that’s had 4 collections on the NYT graphic books bestseller list, won a Hugo and cleaned up at Angouleme. Just because you HOPE it’s on the chopping block, oh Riders of the Brohirrim, doesn’t mean it is.

2. I will tell you exactly why Ms Marvel works: it didn’t set out to be Ms Marvel. We were originally going to pitch it as a 10 issue limited series. I had a 3 issue exit strategy because I assumed we were going to get canned. There was no “diversity initiative” anywhere–getting that thing made at all was a struggle. It was a given that any character without AT LEAST a 20-year history would tank. Everybody, myself included, assumed this series was going to work out the same way.

3. That freed us–by “us” I mean the whole creative team–to tell exactly the story we wanted to tell. We had nothing to lose, nothing to overcome but low expectations. That gave us room to break a lot of rules.

STUFF THAT IS DIFFICULT TO REPLICATE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAN:

1. Unexpected audiences. We are at a point in history when the role of religion is at a tremendous inflection point. What I didn’t realize was that the anxieties felt by young Muslims are also felt by young Mormons, evangelicals, orthodox Jews, and others. A h-u-g-e reason Ms Marvel has struck the chord it has is because it deals with the role of traditionalist faith in the context of social justice, and there was–apparently–an untapped audience of people from a wide variety of faith backgrounds who were eager for a story like this. Nobody could have predicted or planned for that. That’s being in the right place at the right time with the right story burning a hole in your pocket. Plenty of other stuff I’ve written and liked has fallen with a huge thud. That’s the norm. Exceptions are great when they happen, but hard to plan.

2. The paradox of low expectations. The bar was set pretty low for Ms Marvel, but because of Ms Marvel’s success, that bar got set much higher for similar books that came later.

STUFF THAT IS ENTIRELY AVOIDABLE:

1. This is a personal opinion, but IMO launching a legacy character by killing off or humiliating the original character sets the legacy character up for failure. Who wants a legacy if the legacy is shitty?

2. Diversity as a form of performative guilt doesn’t work. Let’s scrap the word diversity entirely and replace it with authenticity and realism. This is not a new world. This is *the world.*

3. Never try to be the next whoever. Be the first and only you. People smell BS a mile away.

4. The direct market and the book market have diverged. Never the twain shall meet. We need to accept this and move on, and market accordingly.

5. Not for nothing, but there is a direct correlation between the quote unquote “diverse” Big 2 properties that have done well (Luke Cage, Black Panther, Ms Marvel, Batgirl) and properties that have A STRONG SENSE OF PLACE. It’s not “diversity” that draws those elusive untapped audiences, it’s *particularity.* This is a vital distinction nobody seems to make. This goes back to authenticity and realism.

AND FINALLY

On a practical level, this is not really a story about “diversity” at all. It’s a story about the rise of YA comics. If you look at it that way, the things that sell and don’t sell (AND THE MARKETS THEY SELL IN VS THE MARKETS THEY DON’T SELL IN) start to make a different kind of sense.

This thread is amazing.

For the past couple months my little sister and I have taken photos like this and put them on Twitter and not a single person has noticed.

@tatiannathompson I MISS YOU D: D: D: D: D: 

Just in case you needed a reminder of how big wolves actually are… because sometimes when there’s no context for size, I tend to think of them as a lot smaller than they really are.

“...and the American way”

This piece by Harebrained Schemes art director Mike McCain is so gorgeous and I love it and if you want a print of it, you can buy it here. 

100% of proceeds go to the ACLU.

*slams reblog so fast*