Coverstuff

Most likely this fall will see first issue of ongoing series of Koneballeriina ( Machineballerine in english, though that direct translation is less cool than in finnish)
the cover and art supplied by talented Katja Louhio.



It has a brave heroine, zombie chimpanzees and some thing fierce and terrifying.

Let's talk about sex...

I have talked about violence in comics a lot and written comics that have violence but let's say something about the fun stuff, right?

for some reason we have one or the other, either no sex at all or just sex and no story.

I am not a hypocrite, no I am a healthy straight man. I have read x-rated comics a-bundle, far less than non-sex comics as I prefer a plot.


No, really. No.


"Isn't it hot in here?" isn't a plot.


I have actually think about sex in comics and the divide. Either there is no sex at all or it goes full-on porn(unfortunately mostly badly drawn and worse written trite bad porn. Yes, there are qualities that too)


It must be the subject matter itself. Most past-adolescent people have experiences in sexual activities.

Sadly not all have any other living humans present...but it explains a lot about many artsy autobiographical comics.

You see most comics are about what their creators know about / are interested of.


And while few of us(thankfully) have first-hand experience about violence, about fights, muggings not to mention war or turning into werewolf while trying to stop advancement of oncoming zombiehorde.


You have to use your imagination, even if the situation is something you wouldn't really want to experience yourself in real life.


And then there are things we think about quite often.

Those are things we would like to experience, yes please thank you very much.

As with violence sex is often just something used instead of actual story. And used solely because of itself.

Another reason is that sex is something very personal, scary and dangerous.

But it is dangerous in whole different way than say fist- or firefights. And while some of us know about the battles that molded the shape of history there is no doubt in my mind that whole another sets of curves have shaped history at least as much.

In the quiet moments, before, during or after.

You see sexuality has it's primal side but it's tender side too. It's a mess of emotions mixed with coarse lust and sensitivity. Not an easy act to convey well.

And for many the chase is better than the catch. Same is seen in many forms of fiction, the stories end when they get each other or end up separated. The end.
So easy compared to real life.

There have been tries, besides Alan Moore's and Melinda Gibbes's Lost Girls , but very few and too seldom. (oh Cthulhu, I sound like the nitwits: "they mix adult with sex and violence, so childish" when that is not the case. Adult is adult, boring is boring.)

Just wondering why it is. I never have seen relationships boring, but 95% of all comics and 99% of "serious" comics about it are utter waste. They have the emotional scale of a soapopera. With worse acting. And the biggest problem I have with the "serious" comics is that especially in those 99% the soapopera is all you get, there is nothing more.

the basis for the rant is that I try to give characters that I have some sort of personal life and therefore have to think about sexual side too. I live with a smart beautiful woman whose mind intrigues me and whose body I lust. That tells something about me.

Mainly that I am luckier than I should be.

But I never have went for the easy way out. I want comics to be rich in the same way life is.



And that requires to deal with these matters too.

And what an intriguing thing it is. Have you guys read classical lit? Homer's Odyssey? All the monsters there in and loads of good old love and lust. Sirens, Circe, Calypso and of course the suitors of Penelope.

And remember this was after the trojan war, the ten year war mostly attributed to elopment of Paris and Helen, mainly to Helen.


Which is a bit unfair, after all it all began because Zeus just couldn't stay faithful and had flings.
He just had better PR.



My main gripe is that like Clemenceau said: war is too serious a matter to be left to the military, sex is important to be left for pornographers.

(thou having done research on the subject that world is quite interesting one. As in filled with stories way interesting)

So it's a warning. I need to add sex and romance in my scripts.

And hell yes this post gave me ample excuse to post sweet pics.


Deal with it.

Marvel's new clothes:Moon knight

I read a lot of comics, european , asian and american ones and so far in this socialmedia construct called blog I have mainly talked about my own stuff.

Marvel comics is biggest comics publisher in US. In order to keep it's lead it tries to keep up with times and hire best possible talent.

that is the theory anyways.

The problem is that big comics is same as big music.

At some point you also reach a point where the guys handling the money come and try to reign in too much creativity in order to keep as many buying customers as possible.

Yes, comics is an art.

But everyone needs to eat and there are no fairies that feed you since what you do is art and should be just accepted in all it's incomprehensibility.

All art has also commercial side. As does 98% of all life.
The payment just isn't always monetary, to some it's acceptance, belonging, achiement etc.

Now Marvel has decided to try once more to relaunch some of it's material with trusted artists.

Like Moon Knight:

Those unaware who (or what) Moon Knight is a short introduction:

Marc Spector was a mercenary that died in the hands of his companions while looting ancient egyptian tomb.

While dead the Egyptian God of vengeance, Khonsu, made a pact to him: Marc spector lives and serves as avatar of Khonsu on earth.

Many people often discredit Moon knight as merely Marvel's rip-off of Batman.

I have no idea what issues of Batman they have read since while Batman obviously has issues he never believed to be the undead fist of dead god.

And actually, that is maybe the sanest way to descibe Moon knight.

Quite unsurprisingly Moon Knight is quite a lunatic. In every incarnation Moon knight has had several personalities and even in tight-wearing crew he is considered to be more than a couple of cards short of a full deck. Not that it has ever stopped him playing. The others just hope that they get at some point what is the game he is playing.

In the seventies Marvel brought the ticket of blaxploitation, kung-fu-madness, street level crime and supernatural horror. Moon Knight falls to most categories , even blaxploitation.

But after his seminal run from Werewolf-by-night's opponent to a anti-hero in his own right something happened. As previous writers quit there still was this very unstable and strange character they had, but no-one seemed to know what to do with him.

And so it went for a LOOOOOONG time.

He was resurrected to former glory by Charlie Huston's and David Finch s Moon Knight comic.

And it still worked.

So after they saw there is life in the old warhorse white-clad streetwarrior got again top level writers and artists.

The latest is Brian Michael Bendis's & Alex Maleev's on-going Moon knight.

This duo had a tredemendous run with Daredevil, bringing the noir essentials that Frank Miller had introduced to that series back. They knew their stuff.

They still do.

And in the first issue they showed that this gamble was golden for Marvel. While they have decided to play down the supernatural horror in this Moon knight dont let spandex fool you.

We are deep in horrortown. But this time they are playing it subtle. Marc Spector is movie/tv-producer, done more credibly than Bruce Wayne ever was.

But the way comic is written you realize it's not a facade of secret identity. Marc Spector is charming, like that nice Patrick Bateman. Or that quiant and polite Norman Bates.

And once he wears the mask you almost await the Rorshachblotches to crawl on to the mask.

Nope, he is not ok. Not in any planet in any universe.

Maleev's art has suitably edgy and angry tone to it. It's not as vibrantly brash and violent as TEX's art was in 90's Ghost rider comics, but it has tension. Every damn frame is loaded. Coiled like a compressed spring-baton, just waiting any excuse to leap in brutality.

Should have known that Maleev's vision of California isn't sunny with chance of beachbunnies. It's sharp and creepy, a bit like when you are half-awake half-asleep. It's real but with hints of unstability.

I for one hope that the team can keep to momentum and promise given by issue 1.

Cause then boys and girls it's gonna be a wild ride. Are you mad enough for it? Well?

ARE YOU?

The house that violence built

Today I met one of young upcoming comic artists of Finland today and we had a long discussion(ok, ok: rambling) about comics overall.
About forum's and scene and all that funky stuff.
In a way I admire his lean towards artsy and personal.
And humor.
And the fact that both of us are solely interested doing comics we would ourselves want to read.

I enjoy horror, scifi, crime, adventure basicly all of those "escapists" stories. If you want to tell me about relationships or how lonely you are I see no reason not to tell it through some hard-assed kick-your-face-in-if-you-look-at-sideways kinda way.

And now after that comment all those with only two live brain cells have stopped reading after categorizing and judging me on their own preconceptions and stereotypes as semi-fascistic violencemonger.
Good riddance to them.

You see I enjoy stuff like The Walking Dead and Locke&Key.
Both are horror, both are gruesome, neither are cheap or pandering. They dont glorify violence.
And while I like old-school adventure films(even though I know the truth about people such as "heroic" Errol Flynn) many of them or the current Disney's violence flicks are way more harmful than the R-rated movies.
Best example is Pirates of the Caribbean. It does good things too, I mean it has introduced zombies to loads of kiddies, but c'mon it has the bloodless swordfights where folks are whacked repeatedly with blades WITHOUT A SINGLE CUT.

That is dangerous.
As our western culture grows more estranged from actual life we also grow ever more unaware what violence is. the repercussions, reasons, repeats...the whole shebang.

Where I live(Finland) local comics are mainly newspaper strips aimed solely to funnybone or artistic "slice of life" comics.
We practically don't have any adventure or crime comics. Take Petri Hiltunen, P.A.Manninen, Anssi Rauhala and Jussi Piironen out of equation and then the realistical, straight-played comics are not even once in a blue moon.
And that is a very sad thing indeed.

You see if you don't talk about something or just refuse to acknowledge it...it still does not go away.
I have heard it a million times: "portrayal of violence just de-sensitizes to it and increases aggression"
Right. Sure.
there is some truth there, I admit. there is also a chance of similar truth that I am reborn god of wine too.

It's a matter of talent.
Yes, it can be violence for violences sake, utterly empty, dehumanizing trite.
If you forget it is about humans.
And it is exactly the reason I grow so bored to most slice of life stories, because they should also be about people, about humans.
because you just dont care a bit about any of them.
You should care about the characters, they should be as real as your friends, as real as you.
Or more so.

But while most of us have more in common with getting bills and going to shop etc we are pulled to acts of mayhem and murder.
Why?



because it is exeptional, vibrant, scary.
And it shows some part of people's true character.
Real self.

Yes, the same abilities come out whenever someone does something altruistic, aiding to fellow man unrequired, without any overt or covert plans of their own.
And lookee how often that happens, huh?

And there are also aestehtics.
There is something very wrong in the beauty of bloodshed, war and death.
But while many can accept grace, awe and purpose in predatory animals, eagles, lions, crocodiles, wolves we find it disturbing to see the same in men.
We know it but still we want and need to watch and not just for our curiosity.


It is a heinous thing to say there is something alluring in death and suffering, but we are social creatures.
We know that while we want to get along with everyone we cant. not with everyone and honestly, we don't want to either.
Frank Miller has lately been put down,his latest batman work was way beyond uneven and there was a movie called Spirit too, but weirdly beneath hookers with hearts of gold, hitmen, ninjas, nazis and gangsters Frank Miller has produced lasting works in comicdom.

His Daredevil, Ronin, Give me Liberty, The Dark Knight Returns are but mere pinnacle.
And his Sin city series nigh singlehandedly brought back crime and noir comics.
Without those David Lapham's Stray bullets or Brian Azzarello's and Eduardo Risso's 100 Bullets would have had no chances.
Or Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera.
Even Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips owes a debt to that direction.


See crime and horror went away, lurking into dark recesses of comicdom and were almost forgotten. Our fears were packed into spandex dreams and european BD comics or worse: something veiled under funny or "not dangerous".
The comics code sought to protect the kids but in my opinion it did anything but.

Being a male of species I have had my share of scrapes. I know firsthand how it feels to be threatened with violence, to be beaten and kicked and been shot at not to mention blunt trauma or stabs and slices.

There is no glory, just hurt, pain and fear.
None of it made me a better person.
but none of it made me worse either.

And all I have ever seen shows me that most of all that is caused two groups:by those people most loudly judging such behavior and those with low self-esteem.
the other group has "moral high ground" therefore has god-given right to opinion and forcing it to others at any point in their own mind.
And the other group is alienated already and has far more limited means to affect the world around them.
Having money and opportunities is power but as long as you dont have a pool of sharks, pet a white persian and have flunkies and henchmen no one views themselves as an aggressor.



Because violence defines us.
some of us worship it and some demonize it.
If we disavow it we are in effect making a choice between violence and non-violence thus accepting it's importance.

Tales of violence are tales of life and death.
They define also the choices we make, what respect we give to life.
They remind us of our mortality.

And as I work in construction I feel the need to add some of mine to the lot. A few more houses to be built.

Apples & Oranges

At first I thought to talk a bit about comicbook movie Thor but my sweet Wempress already did that in her blog
I quite liked it too even though I expect more from Captain America The First Avenger.
I am not too big on gods, Crom and Cthulhu being exeptations to that rule.

As I am now delving deep into aliens, weapons systems and all other sorts of fun in name of research. Reality always baffles me.
It goes so much further into utter impropability than fiction.

At work today we had a tank. Unarmed but a tank anyways. Just after I had decided to include these armored beasts into several of my storylines.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something (besides the usual "Shut the **** UP!")

I found myself being even more intrigued by the machine(the tank).
it must be a male thing, or something on those vague and flimsy lines of thought.

you see I have an accuintance. The sole man in a riding club. Smart guy. I mean in a hobby surrounded by 20 women.
The tanks are continuation of cavalry, but where the ladies find beauty and grace in horses, a touch back to more romantic naturelike days most men I know are equally infatuated by machinery.
Or maybe I just know too many builders.
The builders are an odd, smug group. ever so happy with their machines



But there is a difference. While both, the animal(horse) and the machine(tank) do same functions and have needs(grooming/maintenance) they convey totally different messages.

And that is why I wait Captain America more than I did Thor. It is the same reason why I like Batman more than Superman.
Captain America and Batman are men, humans.
No godlike powers given by lineage.
In several senses they are more abnormal than Thor or Superman. The other is your norse god and other is a typical kryptonian.

The horses are alive and un-domesticated horses run, gallop etc alike. Slabs of metal dont move on their own volition.
They take effort to do so.
They need to have a driving force in them, an ideal, engine, vengeance.

for me that is infinitely more interesting.
More identifiable.(no, I do NOT wear a flag or a batcostume)

soon I will have a word about tough guys, horrors appeal, curvy women and the huge pile of comics my LCS sent over.
Till then:

Man the guns!

After april madness I got back to some of my earlier creations with my co-conspirators.

This here gent is Viapori, the answer to superhuman, alien and paranormal warfare according to the Finnish Defence Force.
Well actually more of a re-envisioning of this comicbook character.

Art and design is by Marko Keränen. Knowing his penchant for perfection and my endless fidgeting with the creations there will be developments.

One of my interests is military history and technology. Viapori gives me all the chances to mix up stuff I am interested in: science fiction, alien invasions, military hardware.

I view Viapori as my baby even though originally he was just a dude in flying armor in a prelude to a giant robot story I wrote. I asked the guys who the flying armored guy is.
They did not know, they just wanted to draw that kind of dude.
So I thought up his identity, backstory, motivation, organization behind the suit, codename etc.

You see while I like Iron man (comics and the movies) I didn't want to copy him or Warmachine.
Why bother? Marvel does those already.
My pitch was :" Armored soldier in MOAT ops in world with paranormal threats. Think Stargate SG-1 meets Mythbusters with Aliens like attitude"

And man was I lucky to have a great artist for the story.

But to those who ask has the ADHD wannabe-writer forgotten the other stuff? The fools april projects?
Nope.

Remember the pitch about World war 2 in the russo-finnish front?
Take real history and all the grit. Add dieselpunk and mad science.
Shake and stir.
And press the pedal all the way down.


Now I have to find artist who is a)talented b)interested in ww2 and c) loves weird tech.
As the story has lots in common with this second pic....

MAYhem DAY!

Had a weird weekend.
As I am very easily slipping to my normal state (=surly, vicious, anti-social and eagerly confrontational)I've experienced quite a season of joy and calm.
Greatest thanks to this are my my sweet offspring of a son and beloved dark queen of hearts and arts.

Me and my son watched X-men, X-men 2 and X-men3:the last stand and had adventures in the nearby woods, cemetaries and shopping malls.
And did brainstorming.

He had some mighty wild ideas that gave inspiration to my fertile mind.
He was also concerned I steal his ideas.
Ok so that is what dads do (and take the credit, too. It's the perk parents get for upkeeping the solemn duty of embarassing you in front of..well anyone, really)

Seriously though his creations got the ball rolling.


Sorry to say it might mean some "concept art" by yours truly, akin to skull there.