So this weekend I bid goodbye to another Sac-Con. Le sigh, if only it was more than a one day con... Wait, what did you say? It's GONNA BE!?? That's frikkin' right! From now on, Sac Con (henceforth to be referred to as SUPER Sac-Con) is gonna be a weekend long event! Boy howdy! I guess the reality of WonderCon never returning to the bay is finally sinking in, and a lot of the smaller cons are revving up their game, trying to be the next big contender. Just a week prior to Fanime was a lil' show called Big Wow Con, which if you're native to the bay area, you might remember as formerly being referred to as Super Con.
Back in the day, Super Con used to be a pretty big show, but for some reason they had to take a year off, and then they changed the name to Big Wow (for ridiculous legal reasons).
The con suffered from the Albertson's effect. That first year after the name change, almost NO-ONE was there! Despite the fact it was the exact same con, being put on by the exact same people, the name change totally destroyed its reputation. Seemed like no one even knew it was happening!
That was three years ago. Just a few weeks ago it happened again, and it has blossomed exponentially. It can barely fit into the little corner of McHenry that its usually held in anymore. Soon it might be a contender for Fanime, and (I'm hoping) will replace WonderCon as the big comic convention in the bay area. Then I'll have a nice pre-summer trifecta every year. Big Wow, Fanime, Sac-Con! Then Sac-Anime happening within the next few months at the end of August and then Hyper Con (presumably) at the beginning of September.
Then the long haul waiting for A.P.E. in October.
I do love convention season.
So it occurs to me that I haven't spent tons of time in the past couple weeks talking about what I'm uploading, or what I'm working on. It's just been cons cons cons~
That could be especially confusing to newcomers to the site, who might be seeing these vague panels of cityscapes, birds and lizards and wondering "what kinda high concept bullshit is this?"
Well, this IS Brilliant Black Starres, or at least it's prologue. A version of this appears in the BAAU book, but I'm sorta re-re doing it (in ink this time) to be more palatable to a website. This is of course my girl power story, the one that I'm gonna wind up changing the world with, you know the one. A girl super hero story treated with tact and respect. You know, like we don't have in the year 2013 :P
That's not fair, I'm sure stories and characters like this must exist somewhere. You just don't really get to see them in mainstream comics. I know by no stretch of the imagination is my shit ever to be considered mainstream, but I am doing my best to work my way there. And when I get there, I want these awesome ladies at the forefront, changing the world, like I said before ;-)
The bird and the lizard is merely a lead up, and yes it IS pretty high concept, I admit, but bear with me as this is, like I said, only a second draft. The super hero shit and the lazers and the monsters are all on their way. I swear!
You know, as much as I spit game about changing the world with this, Brilliant Black Starres, I've come to discover, are merely the beginning of my much wider plans for world domination through cartoons.
I complain a lot about how there's no real positive role models for women in comics, but that's just hyperbole. There ARE good ones, but they often get co-opted once in awhile by shitty writers and stereotypical artists.
you know what we really and truly do NOT have at all?
Good Trans comic characters.
DC is actually backpedaling from their fuck up in the 52's, and is adding a trans character to the Batgirl series, but they're just Batgirl's roommate. Not a main character. I haven't read the new Batgirl stories so I'm not even sure how active a role they play in the story. I don't know what gender they're even identifying as, to be honest. Point is, it's not Batgirl who's trans, it's this peripheral character, and regardless of how big a role they might play, it's not really a comic about them.
Alongside Brilliant Black Starres, I've been re-writing and revamping a story I'd been working on privately over the past couple years. I've made vague mention of it in the past on this site, and you might know it as Cat Man. A semi biographical, yet heavily exaggerated journal comic about myself and my own ridiculously wacky superhero alter ego. I kinda use this comic as a diary and never really intended for it to be published, as it might have been too personal, despite how silly it appears on the page.
However, I've been gaining a lot of confidence about it over the past several weeks. The redone pages have been received very well by the few privileged enough to see them, and I think it's about time we saw the comic pages telling a super hero story with a main character who struggles with their gender identity, and then, through it all, becomes empowered by it... while fighting goofy villains the whole time.
I would have called it "Empowered" but that name is taken by a much better comic :P
More on this as it develops.
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