Lennan's Journal and Sketchblog

I’m just really, really behind.

Let’s call this my official “return to the internet” journal. So, what have I been doing all this time? For the past few months, I’ve been finishing a draft of an outline for a story. Beginning this year, I wanted to have something complete enough to lie fallow a few months before starting to script and thumbnail. I was planning to be done by the end of February.

Needless to say, that, uh, didn’t happen. Then I tried for end of March. Well, that didn’t happen either (yes, there is a trend happening here). So I did not finish until last weekend. I’m sure this says nothing good about me and deadlines. From the end of February, I started to limit my internet usage so I have more time to work on my story. By March, I was completely disconnected from the internet (figuratively). Honestly, outside of the few times I’ve responded to comments randomly, I’ve been on the internet only to check my bank account or my library account. I did not log on twitter or tumblr and I completely signed out of chat. My intent wasn’t avoiding people of shunning the internet in a fit of pique, but at the end of February I realized that if I felt like wanting to cry frustrated tears because I felt like I wasn’t doing anything then it was probably a good sign I needed to focus on my work.

I’m sorry that I just disappeared without so much as a word but I thought it best to just plunge in. I honestly I would be done by the end of March. How wrong I was. But here I am with an outline more or less finished, I am happy to say. Not quite where I want it because some plot threads are giving me trouble, but these are things I think will be better dealt with when I get some distance and perspective on the current outline.

I am here to stay, unless paying for internet and phone services bankrupts me or my computer dies, which is actually is something I might want to worry about soon, considering the sounds it was making last night. Sounds that do not bode well for my hard drive. I’ll hopefully catch up soon. I still kind of feel like last year is chasing after me with so many things I wanted to do but didn’t get done. It’s a strange thing being on the internet after so long.

I hope you enjoy what I have to share. Thank you so much for sticking with me.

I get really annoyed when I post some art and it gets no response and then I get all depressed. I'm not annoyed by the lack of response, since really it's telling me that I'm doing things wrong or not appealing to an audience. Or it was a flop. What I get annoyed by is the resulting depression, or more like down-heartedness. The reason being, it usually ends up translating into self-berating and self-criticism along the "You're just not good enough" line. Which may be true. But still, I don't need myself to discourage myself from continuing on with what I like to do. I hate how my thinking is always torn between figuring out how to reach the widest audience possible and just doing what I really want with my ideas without giving a damn. It doesn't help at all that there's a lot of things I need to work on, like composition and the like. Or maybe, I really should just give up. >_> Note that I won't because I'm obstinate.

But by far, the biggest reason why I hate feeling like this is because it makes me feel like a petulant spoilt brat.

( Other things: Race and Science Fiction, Light Novels Brought Overseas )

Also, random Kubo tweet from about 4 hours ago: そういえば晩メシのあと実家に電話したら、親に｢時々ツイッター見てるよ｣って言われた。ひいっ…！
(Speaking of which, when I called home after dinner, I was told by my parents "Sometimes we look at your twitter". Yikes!)

The terror of artists everywhere, the 'rents reading their blogs/twitter, etc and knowing what kind of things their kids have been up to. XD

So, I saw this movie Sunday since I was kicked out of the house for 3 hours while people looked at it (yeah, I'm being deliberately coy in case people who “shouldn't be reading this” are reading it). So with this unprecedented amount of free time, I went to the movies, which I haven't done...in a very long time. I think the last time I went to the theaters was in the UK to watch Narnia? Or the last LOTR movie? Has is seriously been that long? But anyways.

( Where I write lots of spoilers about James Cameron's Avatar )

Originally, I was simply going to write about Otomen, particularly in light of a review that I had read, but when I found this in Slate the other day, I felt I had to mention it. The two subjects are in a way related.

( Cut for length )

I have a subscription to Bessatsu Hana to Yume magazine. I finally broke down when I got sick of waiting a year or more for tankoban of Boku wo Tsutsumu Tsuki no Hikari to come out. I did however make certain that it was worth the relatively hefty sum to get this shipped to me. So I think this would make me ahead of most reviewers and certainly of the review that I'm going to talk about.

Otomen, which is published by Viz over here was reviewed in a negatively positive way, it's not exactly the review I read...I read it in a different location but the content is the same. I recognized the parts that really struck me.

This review made me wonder if we weren't just missing the forest for the trees, since we (Westerners) are programmed by feminism to look at the extremes of gender stereotypes and critique them, especially if they disadvantage women. I'm also wondering at the accuracy of the reviewer's statement that this manga may be implying that only a man can make a perfect woman. If you look at Ryou in that light, then it can equally be interpreted that only a woman can be the perfect man. Isn't that equally offensive to men? Both characters give off the impression that they are the "perfect man/woman", but inside their "perfection" is set in the body of the opposite gender. But I think even from the start, it's clear that while Asuka is girly inside, Ryou is manly inside. The real critique should be like Oyceter's review, where she wishes there was more Ryou screen time (and more other non-traditional women). So maybe the real point is that men and women as a whole both exhibit masculine and feminine stereotypical traits, unless you're the extreme example of Asuka and Ryou, and the old manga stand-by of "be true to yourself". I have a hard time believing that Asuka and Ryou are more than fantastical constructs and the vehicle for the romance, the minor and background characters are more interesting gender role meta than the main characters, if you're really looking for that.

( Cut for length and spoilers. )

Well, since I've been trying out the new Dreamwidth website (my DM account is here for blogging and the like, I've taken the time to decide how I'm going to be using my journals, both LJ and DM. From this point forward, I've decided that all of my posts before this one, save a feedback post will be friends locked (obviously, this will not affect anyone on my friend's list). This is because I'm not very comfortable having personal aspects of my life out for all and sundry to see. My opinions on books and art are an entirely different matter.

I've decided that from here on out, most of what I post will be art related and literature related in the form of impressions of that which I've read and various other things. Personal posts (whatever they may be, considering that I've not been inclined to post really personal posts in latter years) and things pertaining to my never-ending story in my stupid world, that I don't want completely public, will be friends-locked. My goal is to try to post more to write about books I've read. I want to get back into the groove of being able to write like that seeing how I miss analyzing texts. Other things I would like to post here are art dumps, making this a sort of sketch/criticism blog. Hopefully, I'll be better about posting since I have a stated goal about it rather than a hotch-potch of various things that float into my mind.

All of my posts will be cross-posted to Livejournal.

After spending a long day reading about Yeats and realizing that I won't be able to use most of my books because they'd be useful for the next Yeats essay, I wasted some time in Painter trying to paint a background which ended up irritating me so I decided to can it and plan to do it in PS. Then I drew this in Open Canvas. . which is much easier to draw in than either PS or Painter. I wanted to take some good advice so I colored it; the "foreground" of said picture drawn in OC, in massive wrist killing detail cel-style I guess.

It will be posted with the background when I get the background done.
The question that arises from this: Will I be masochistic enough to actually color a whole comic like this?