Compilation

Feel the breeze this summer.

everytime I remember that lesbian couple that have a marble statue of the two of them embracing and sleeping on a bed together over where their graves will be because the artists didn’t believe they would be able to be married before they died, so what they couldn’t have in life they could have in death, I fucking breakdown

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

Ornate wheel-lock hand mortar/grenade launcher, Europe, 17th century

from Rock Island Auctions

oooh have you ever done a post about the ridiculous mandatory twist endings in old sci-fi and horror comics? Like when the guy at the end would be like "I saved the Earth from Martians because I am in fact a Vensuvian who has sworn to protect our sister planet!" with no build up whatsoever.

Yeah, that is a good question - why do some scifi twist endings fail?

As a teenager obsessed with Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone, I bought every single one of Rod Serling’s guides to writing. I wanted to know what he knew.

The reason that Rod Serling’s twist endings work is because they “answer the question” that the story raised in the first place. They are connected to the very clear reason to even tell the story at all. Rod’s story structures were all about starting off with a question, the way he did in his script for Planet of the Apes (yes, Rod Serling wrote the script for Planet of the Apes, which makes sense, since it feels like a Twilight Zone episode): “is mankind inherently violent and self-destructive?” The plot of Planet of the Apes argues the point back and forth, and finally, we get an answer to the question: the Planet of the Apes was earth, after we destroyed ourselves. The reason the ending has “oomph” is because it answers the question that the story asked. 

My friend and fellow Rod Serling fan Brian McDonald wrote an article about this where he explains everything beautifully. Check it out. His articles are all worth reading and he’s one of the most intelligent guys I’ve run into if you want to know how to be a better writer.

According to Rod Serling, every story has three parts: proposal, argument, and conclusion. Proposal is where you express the idea the story will go over, like, “are humans violent and self destructive?” Argument is where the characters go back and forth on this, and conclusion is where you answer the question the story raised in a definitive and clear fashion. 

The reason that a lot of twist endings like those of M. Night Shyamalan’s and a lot of the 1950s horror comics fail is that they’re just a thing that happens instead of being connected to the theme of the story. 

One of the most effective and memorable “final panels” in old scifi comics is EC Comics’ “Judgment Day,” where an astronaut from an enlightened earth visits a backward planet divided between orange and blue robots, where one group has more rights than the other. The point of the story is “is prejudice permanent, and will things ever get better?” And in the final panel, the astronaut from earth takes his helmet off and reveals he is a black man, answering the question the story raised. 

Fun fact of the day

Every few years I remember that the Alternative Limb Project exists and get blown away once more by their work.

This one is half hyper-realistic, and half swapable sections based on the woman's personality, moods, and spirituality.

This one comes with a DRONE and has control panels in the wrist and forearm, as well as a flashlight and laser pointer.

This one is older, from 2012, but I still love it. Shiny shiny.

This one has a WORKING CUCKOO CLOCK IN THE KNEE. A WORKING. CUCKOO CLOCK.

Another older one, this one with realistic snake.

This is a two part one, dedicated to railway workers/builders/passengers who lost limbs. The limbs can be hooked together to allow the little train to travel between them.

This one is a literal swiss army knife arm, full of survival supplies.

Just. GAH. They are all so neat.

The project was started by Sophie de Oliveira Barata and you really have to check out her work: https://thealternativelimbproject.com/