so, on the advice of one of the readers, i’m slowly posting the black and blue on ‘webtoons‘. i seem to be getting a couple new readers here and there, and that’s never bad. i’ll keep pluggin it and pushing it out to people, and with any luck, be able to do something more serious with it. it’s a slog, but the upside to you, valued reader, is if i do get more of a return as i go, you’ll get more of an investment from me, of something hopefully you’re already enjoying. win win! then again, there’s a strong possibility that i just don’t know what people want. the more i see ‘slice of life comics’, where a couple banter difficulty for 100 pages about going on a date, the more i think i might not have my finger on the pulse. but come on, robots and lasers!

with that, i’m announcing a new story arc that will reveal itself soon. alice asks virgil out for coffee, he blushes, and runs away. that’s the first book of 14. i just have to work out how robots blush……

man, i really wanted to talk about some new awesome movie, and not say something negative in this post. but i just watched the new ghost in the shell…… so, maybe i can be positive next week. i know, i said i wouldn’t watch this one, but i had it on the other night while i was drawing. which may seem like doing 2 things poorly instead of focusing, but i would argue that’s a perfect metaphor for the movie itself.

i gave the movie a fair shot, honest mister, but *spoilers* it had issues. the original movie, and comic on which it was based were complex bordering on dense plots of inter governmental agencies in cloaked conflict in a future that had accepted that cybernetic enhancement was a way of life. the american adaptation reduced the plot to a superficial ‘where did i come from’ about the major herself, and the next generation of cyborgs. i mean, the scope just got narrowed to the point where who gives a fuck, flying or otherwise?

i know how those kind of meetings go. creative story meetings where someone pulls out an idea, and it’s layered, and meaty, and then someone will say ‘well, we have scarlet attached now, so let’s get her some more screen time, and does anyone really want to watch a movie about an AI going rogue anyways? i mean, scarlett IS the movie… who was she before she got…. roboted? but let’s keep the tank thing though. oh! but the bad guy is controlling it!’

there’s the whitewashing issue as well, but, i don’t think i can say much about that that hasn’t been said already. if it’s the kind of that bugs you, it does. if it doesn’t by now, it never will. if race was an incidental factor, as i feel it is, it wouldn’t seem weird. but if someone goes out of their way to make it weird, you’ll notice it. is it in this case? let the individual decide. but, in the few years i’ve been writing these posts, and drawing this comic, i’ve figured one thing out. hollywood doesn’t owe us. we expect they do, cause they’ve always been there, and movies and entertainment are part of our shared culture, but in the end, all we can really do is not pay them to make more of what we don’t want. dollar votes. it’s how it works. speaking of which, check out my patreon! haha

so, i’d skip the ghost in the shell movie. or watch it to see what i mean. but i wouldn’t expect it to do anything more for you than look pretty, and kinda make you want to rewatch the original.