I read a good deal of books being an English major, but for fun I mostly read fantasy novels. My gallery currently contains tributes to Joe Abercrombie's "The First Law" and Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings" and will soon have an image of Kvothe from "The Name of the Wind". So I thought I'd go through some of the series I've read and give my two cents that probably no one cares about but what the heck imma do it anyway!
Oh by the way if you like any of these series you'll probably also enjoy Berserk. And vice versa. Just putting that out there.

George R. R. Martin- A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE: Martin's epic fantasy series is the one you hear about most these days. It's got its own HBO show (Game of Thrones) and appeals to the widest fanbase due to its complex male and female characters that are actually convincingly written. There characters are all shades of grey to the point that it's hard to figure who is supposed to be the hero. Obviously the Starks at first seem to be the protagonists and the Lannisters their opponents, but that distinction gets muddled up as the books go on. The series is heavy on the sex and violence, but starts off very light on the magic. It appears that people accepted that it did exist, but it has faded from the world. The supernatural starts coming back in a big way though and it's handled very well. The series mostly concentrates on members of nobility, so we don't see much through the eyes of the "smallfolk" and characters actions end up having kingdom-shattering effects. I highly recommend this series, although there was a huge wait for the fifth book and nobody knows how long the sixth book will take to come out. There are currently seven planned books.

Joe Abercrombie- THE FIRST LAW TRILOGY: Abercrombie is my second favorite fantasy author. His characters are all kinds of shades of grey, though they tend to be on the darker side. The best thing about Abercrombie is how he subverts the typical fantasy cliches. The wise old wizard turns out to be a bit of a conniving bastard, while the blood-thirsty barbarian turns out to be a pretty chill guy. There's also a darkly hilarious Inquisitor of His Majesty's Inquisition, who reminds me a bit of Tyrion from Game of Thrones, alongside a prissy nobleman and a vengeful woman. The story plays out as a struggle between various factions: The Union, the Northmen, and the Gurkish Empire. The story is heavy on the violence, has a moderate amount of sex, and some magic. Magic users, such as the Magus Bayaz, play a huge part in the plot of the series as he is hundreds of years old and his personal grudges form the basis for the threat the entire Union faces. The series is finished in three books, but Abercrombie has written two other books in the same world, "Best Served Cold" and "The Heroes", which in part continue the story while allowing him to integrate parts of other genres. If you like Berserk you'll definitely like what Abercrombie has to offer.

Brandon Sanderson- THE WAY OF KINGS: This is the first book in a proposed 10 that form "The Stormlight Archives", Sanderson's epic fantasy series that may become his life's work. Magic plays a big part in this series which is also heavy on the violence. Hardly any sex though. The plot revolves around a war for vengeance on a tribe that assassinated the King of Alethkar. There's also a larger plot in the background that involves one character having visions of the past, while another develops abilities not seen for hundreds of years. A young noblewoman also enters the mix, though her role in the larger plot remains the be seen. Overall it's a very enjoyable book, although it's a bit more typical than I'm used to. There appears to be a force primarily for good that will be introduced that will face off against a force that is primarily evil. I'm hoping this distinction will be subverted a bit in coming books, but even if it isn't Sanderson's writing is worth reading. Besides, the action scenes are pretty badass. Highly recommended.

Steven Erikson- MALAZAN: BOOK OF THE FALLEN: This is a difficult series to recommend. The series in complete at 10 books and I've read the first three. Erikson constructs an interesting system of magic and is very good at world building but his characters are just not up to snuff. Many characters seem to speak in exactly the same voice and have these little melodramatic monologues in their head that I suppose is supposed to add depth to their personalities, but it just comes off as annoying. The plot is really what motivates these books, as the various deities all have their own plans that they're trying to put into motion. There's some powerful images in these books, and the "Chain of Dogs" part of the second book is quite engrossing but when an important character died in book 3 and I didn't care I set the series aside. If you like world building and magic systems and epic, book-spanning plots you may enjoy the series, but I didn't find the characters interesting enough to follow.

Patrick Rothfuss- THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLES: So far there's two books in this series, "The Name of the Wind" and "The Wise Man's Fear". Both are mostly told from the first person perspective of Kvothe, who is spinning the story of how he became legendary. The series is heavy on violence, fairly heavy on sex in the second book, and heavy on magic. Much of Kvothe's time is spent at the University, a place to learn magic. The magic here is fortunately much more believable than a series like Harry Potter. Rothfuss bases his magic systems on existing scientific disciplines as well as anthropological studies of how primitive peoples thought magic worked. This leads to a series that seems well rooted in reality while still being fantastical. My only real complaint is that he sometimes gets a little overwrought with his metaphors and the prose gets a little purple. Some people have also complained the Kvothe is too good at what he does and that he's a self-insert character for Rothfuss. Personally while I think Kvothe might be aggrandizing himself a bit in telling his story he doesn't breeze through life the way a character created for the author's ego would. I'm looking forward to the third (and final?) book of this series.

Anyway that's my short overview of notable fantasy series I've read. If you want to recommend me some more I'm all ears. I might end up doing fanart for them.

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New Berserk series. Done by Studio 4C. Looks like the rumors from a year ago had some grounding.

I have been waiting for years for this. Let's hope it meets expectations!

Seems like everyone can forget about Shyamalan's trainwreck "The Last Airbender" because Nickelodeon has announced a new Avatar series: The Legend of Korra.
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Awesome.
I should probably do some Avatar fanart. Instead I'm working on yet another thing for Berserk. Oh well.

So, how bout that "The Last Airbender"? That movie really sucked, huh? It's very strange how some director who professes to be a fan of the show and has lots of experience with live action can screw up so badly. There's an entire season of source material to show you how to get it right! And yet acting, script, casting, lighting, and everything in that movie was just awful. Especially the parts in the Spirit World, which were really cool in the show.

I think I liked "The Forbidden Kingdom" way more than this movie, which is really saying something.
Yikes.

You might notice, if you're one of the few people who actually check this, that most of my recent stuff is Berserk-related. This is because I really like Berserk, and all art I do digitally these days ends up being Berserk fanart. But I might try drawing some other stuff too. Dunno, stay tuned.
Check out the artists whose work I favorite, they're all really awesome.

So I've actually been drawing a lot lately. College offers at least an hour on most days where I can do sketching, and I could probably fit in more than that if didn't waste time online. But as I haven't offered anything up to this gallery I'm sure almost no one checks it anymore. I have been favoriting a lot of pieces though for inspiration. I've also been trying to draw favorites I like, which so far is coming along well. Getting a light blue animation pencil to do the groundwork of figures has really helped my pencil lines be less messy. I'll post some stuff as soon as I get this scanner thing for my laptop figured out.

I do have one problem with deviantartists lately though, namely why the mass of great artists on my watch list all don't have monthly comics that I can buy. When I go into a comic shop I see some cool stuff, and a lot of completely uninteresting crap. Ryan Ottley is one of the only really dynamic and cool artists whose stuff is consistently on the shelves. The art for the new Deadpool series is also cool, and Lenil Yu rocks (Tony Harris too...). Okay, so there are a lot of good artists, but that still leaves a lot of space where artists who aren't that great inhabit space. Why are they still being published when there are better out on the net?

In other news, where the hell is Pantheon City? What happened to that comic ever coming out?

This is a short entry but interesting to anyone interested in Animation. Did you guys know that in 2006 there were more animated films released than ever before in history? I sure didn't. I actually thought that animation was sort of in decline. That's probably because I'm pessimistic. Anyway this is fantastic news for anyone going into animation, especially 3D animation as that's getting more and more popular (somewhat unfortunately I think. I don't care if 2D is done on a tablet into the computer, I just like the fact that humans have to draw very well to be 2D animators. Also it just LOOKS better and feels more natural.)

Now all I need is for someone to tell me that comic books are selling more than ever before and I'll have a much better outlook on the world.

So I just spent the last 3 weeks at the School of Visual Arts working on 2D Animation. It was a really cool experience and I recommend it to anyone who is not yet in their last year of High School (since it's a pre-college program). The school does offer continuing ed as well, but I can't vouch for that as I haven't done that program. Anyway after 3 weeks full of 6 hour days I managed to complete a whole 30 seconds of black and white, sort of crappy animation. Still it was a good learning experience since we had to use cells and paint on them and do all that labor intensive stuff. Unfortunately the 2D animation program at SVA seems to really favor NOT using computers to help make 2D animation look smoother and cleaner, not only in their pre-college program but also in the actual animation major (or so I gathered from talking to students). This strikes me as kind of weird because cells definitely aren't the industry standard anymore, and not having digital expertise really goes against you in today's world.

But still, for Pre-College it was really cool. I'm not sure if I can post the animation on DeviantArt because I'm not sure about the file type and all that. But if it never gets uploaded I'm sure civilization can continue to thrive.

OR CAN IT?

So I just got the next 2 DVDs for the Avatar: The Last Airbender series (containing episodes 6-15 of Book 2) and I've got to say...wow. This series is amazing. I mean, I've known that it's amazing for a while now but when you haven't watched something for a long time you tend to forget exactly how awesome is it. Even episodes like "Avatar Day" which aren't the best of the bunch still have a lot of good points and excellent artistic direction. Avatar just goes to show that when artistic quality is valued above all else how amazing the results can be. It's probably the best thing Nickelodeon has ever produced and probably will ever produce, and I'm really excited that it will conclude with this next season. Avatar is one series I don't think would benefit from going on continuously. I'm looking forward to seeing how they wrap this up and collecting the whole series on DVD. Definitely a series worth spending your money on.

In fact the only animated show that even gets close to Avatar quality would be Justice League Unlimited's Cadmus arc. However even Justice League faltered in some places and never had season finales that were as good as Avatar. Both have Adrea Ramano as voice director though, and both show that 2D animation done right is SO much better than 3D, which looks lifeless despite it's attempt to capture life.

Anyway if you're not watching Avatar you should be. Don't get turned off by the fact that it's on Nickelodeon or that it has an anime style, or that sometimes it has to do a little bit of kiddie humor to appeal to all ages. Overall it's excellent.

Hey, so did people check out their local comic book stores May 5th to get some free comics? I know I did. Free comic book day is kind of a pointless little marketing thing the comics industry has, because only actual comic fans know about it so the industry doesn't get very many "new" readers that way, but it's still a nice idea. That said, most free comics SUCK. They tend to be attempts by Marvel and DC to fill in the reader on everything that's ever happened to the particular character which the certain free comic focuses on. This year the Marvel one was at least readable. The DC one was not, because it took on the Justice League and switched artists almost every other page. And while I kind of like seeing Tony Harris take on drawing Superman...the whole thing was utterly incomprehensable. It sucked.

HOWEVER Image and Dark Horse released cool comics. Image released the first issue of Robert Kirkman's new comic "THE ASTOUNDING WOLF MAN" as a freebee, which had a cool preview for a new ongoing Brit monthly series which looks to be great. Dark Horse impressed me the most by showing a promo of a comic called "Pantheon City". There aren't many comics which can hook me on art alone, but Pantheon City's artist Clement Sauve just joined the ranks of Ryan Ottley and Ed McGuiness as guys who can sell me a comic based on art style alone. Also Pantheon City's story looks like it'll be good too, since it isn't a superhero comic and it features a cool-looking robot.

Anyway I highly recommend checking out Pantheon City when it comes out. It looks like it's gonna be awesome.

So I don't know how many people actually check this gallery, or read this journal thing, but I don't update it much and I thought I'd say a few words about a comic I've been reading called "Punisher: War Journal".

I didn't buy many Marvel comic books for a while, but Punisher is kind of outside of the normal Marvel line, and the art for this series looked interesting, so I picked up the first 6 issues. The plot's pretty good, and ties into the whole Civil War and Initiative thing Marvel has been doing lately, but I'm gonna concentrate on the art.

On the one hand it's beautiful. Faces are packed with emotion, coloring is fantastic, and it has a real "painted" style to it. On the other hand...a large part of the background seems to be slightly altered photographs which don't mesh with the drawn characters at all.
I like the book enough to buy and read 6 issues of it, and that's a good thing, but I'm worried about this whole photo background thing. Doesn't that seem kinda lazy? There's also a car chase scene where the van the Punisher is driving is either an altered photograph of a van or a 3D model of a van. I dunno, but when pictures start replacing actual drawn backgrounds, I think that's pretty weak. The colorist is already handling all of the painting duties, so can't the artist draw a little bit more than just guys with beefy arms standing around?

I hope this whole photo background thing doesn't catch on. That's almost as bad as 3D modeled comics.

Jeezus, I haven't posted here in a long time. Don't really like posting journal entries, but I thought heck might as well, if only the get that kind of Emo "not drawing comics anymore" thing out of the way.

I have been reading pleanty of comics though, and many continue to be good. Invincible is probably still my favorite. Hard to find a superhero comic that's this entertaining and easy to understand these days. Pick up a Marvel comic and you've got 50 years of backstory to catch up on. If not that, at least 50 other issues of other books to catch up on where the hell all the characters are coming from. Because main storylines don't have TIME for character development.

So yeah, go pick up Invincible.

I also just bought and read "MBQ" by Felip Smith. It's an interesting story, with some interesting art and characters. It's billed as manga, but aside from being black and white is about the farthest thing from manga I can think of. It's also sort of preachy and the first volume doesn't go that far. The entire last chapter of the first volume is the only part where you see the main character express his opinions, and they're a thinly veiled attack on the current state of the American comics industry by a disgrutled creator. Still, I've heard good things about volume 2. I might pick that up .

Also got back into Blade of the Immortal after re-reading the 4 volumes which I own. Samura has definitely got a hold on the comics form and on art. I just wish the plot would move faster.

Aside from that the only other thing I can recommend is Ex Machina. It's a political-superhero drama with art that is just freakin amazing. If you're at all interested in Politics you should pick it up. Mitchell Hundred sort of strikes me as what Jon Stewart would be if he was a politician. You can't get much better than that.

In closing, everyone should read more comics. The world would be a better place if people read more comics.

I've been drawing comics for a couple of years now, but they haven't been very good. Sure, things have improved...minorly. I published a book, which is a good thing to know how to do because it can be used to publish other, better things later on. But that's all kind of pointless if the art doesn't improve. And I don't think my art has improved enough to justify continuing comics at the moment.

I'll be working in my sketch book from here on out making things that will hopefully make my art look better. After a while I'll start doing a comics again, but my art'll need to be up to a competent level by then.

Hey look people are actually commenting nicely on my stuff! What a surprise! Unfortunatly my website, and the entire webcomics community of Drunkduck.com, have dissapeared from the face of the web since Tuesday. I wish it would come back up, but it doesn't look like that's happening. Maybe they're repairing their features or somthing...

ANYway my comics can be viewed in PDF form to download for free, or bought in printed form on [url]www.lulu.com/ccs1989[/url]