Hello, folks!

You can tell I need a manager because I forgot for a hot second I had a newsletter where I needed to tell people updates…oops. Too bad I don’t have the money for it. But we move on!

This is meant to be a quick update letting you all know that I’m “exhibiting” at TCAF’s digital marketplace! From May 3rd to the 24th!

If you’ve gotten my comics from my itchio store, then at least half of it won’t be of interest to you (though the ones on TCAF are updated and will replace the ones in the itchio store once The Digital Marketplace ends) but there’s three that should interest you! Including a NEW COMIC???1111??///``

Here’s the synopsis that I tried my best to write: Sara Ashton falls from the world of Pleroma and into the world of Slumberland. How different is this dream world from the other?

Hard to write because unfortunately this is a new short comic for a story, DEMIURGE, that…isn’t up anywhere. I’ve posted art and a snippet for it long ago on my deviantArt, but haven’t done much with it due to general lack of interest (I know, shocking). Heck, some of the stuff on devianArt is outdated (especially Sara’s design).

Technically too, calling it a new comic is “wrong.” I explained it a bit in the inside front page (and will add more pages going in-depth for the post-TCAF version, I ran out of time) but I actually started this comic for an art theory class in grad school back in (checks calendar) 2017. I had no problems with making a 12 page comic for a class, and it would be interesting to make a color comic for the first time. Some of the theories discussed had to do with dreams, so I decided to use DEMIURGE as a basis, and then brought Winsor McCay’s Nemo in Slumberland as the setting. I was always going to make mention/reference of it in the original DEMIURGE story, but I felt this was an opportunity to give writing that mix a whirl.

Then the Universe did its usual anti-NAAN agenda and said “lol no.” First, the tablet I’ve had since high school stopped working—really, it was something with the cable that seems fixable, I just haven’t done anything to fix it. But grad school don’t care about time, so I had to dole out money to replace the tablet and I had to work on the comic while getting accustomed to a new tablet, on top of reading too many articles assigned to the same class per week lol. In the end, I only barely managed to finish the inks for all 12 pages, which was extremely disappointing to myself as a comicker and as a student, because I’ve never turned in incomplete work…but based on my grades afterwards, apparently either just having it and presenting it well enough (?) or having done it at all with a clear concept and thought in mind was enough? I DON’T KNOW, TIS A MYSTERY.

Anyway, I’ve tried to work on it after graduating but as it turns out, there’s one reason why I never made color comics: trying to finish one page took me almost a year XD I’ve basically come back to it to try to fix some inks or colors every 6 months or something (to put a number on it), until I applied for TCAF and asked to at least have one new comic for it. I figured, well, I have an unfinished comic sitting there. So I’ll finish it! Despite working on it months before TCAF asked for the files, I still…had to rush this out and put it up, and ended up hurting my knuckles again. I unfortunately am still in a position where I can’t go anywhere (~COVID isn’t over~) so I can’t make a medical appointment but for the past two years, my hands start hurting after about two hours of art or comics. It’s weird because I was never the artist who spent every waking moment drawing per se (so many comickers my age have carpal tunnel), and it’s not like I changed anything from my workflow. Either it’s age which, well, I’ll live with it, or something else. But it’s bad imo because at a certain rate, I’ll literally would have to do a page every so often before I won’t be able to do comics again???!!! (Hyperbolic but also a real worry.)

Anyway, yeah, I always knew I would never do color comics but this certainly proved it. I still really like the story, years later, and I did try to make sure that it could be read stand-alone, so if you don’t know about DEMIURGE or Nemo, you can still follow along. Will it work? I don’t know, that would require a random reader to email me in the first place!

Fuu Hououji is web-surfing at a local internet café when she suddenly sees a strange website encouraging her to play their game. As she sees more and more of the game, she's compelled to help--especially when on the other side of the window, Yui Kasuga is doing her best to combat a particularly nasty computer virus! How will this bode for both girls?!

Crossover fancomic between the series Corrector Yui and Magic Knight Rayearth.

This one is FREE, because any fanbook of mine is free. (Physical copies if they ever happen, I don’t know, but digital, always free.) I am deeply uncomfortable with charging for fanart, and am growing way more uncomfortable with it the older I get and the more I see how folks treat it online—fanart means something else to me, so my fanbooks function the same way.

This is a comic I did for a charity zine called Heal Up!, and similar to DEMIURGE above, I had trouble with it in terms of physical activity. I forgot what year this was made already, but I generally also was not having a good time in general, so I struggled with finishing this one. Unfortunately, while I asked about the moiré issues and got assured there wouldn’t be (the tones ended up looking great in print!), turns out some of my pages were a little cut out and one even had the trim line present. Kinda wish I was told about the error or that it was looked over so I could fix it before print. By the time I finally opened my package to read it, uh, about three years had passed, so I couldn’t really say anything either…(Yes I have had a strange relationship with opening my mail on time since 2020, sue me.) So I’ll chalk that up to making sure to open everything immediately next time.

The story for this was to try to do something involving healing and that was hard, because my first thought was to do something with Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, but there were already a couple of pieces with that. I decided instead to bring in Fuu, since she has semi-healing powers and use Yui as a way to bring in Ririka—since Ririka SOS deals with vaccines and Yui, having the ability to access different abilities (and outfits), has to battle computer viruses…you get the picture, hopefully. The PDF has a the quick design I did for Yui’s Ririka outfit on the inside front page!

LEGENDARY BEINGS ARA & CELI - TCAF EDITION

(I’d posted the cover but it had been loading for ages for the upload…)

This one is really simple—it’s just the three chapters in one go, with a few pages from Chapter 4 as a preview AND a short story I did for ARADIA BEAT. Since we can now show off everything we did for that magazine, I used the opportunity to have the short story’s second appearance be in this edition. You’ll only get this PDF at TCAF (hence, you know, “TCAF Edition”) with the short story coming much later as a separate PDF.

Iiiiiii think that’s all the pertinent stuff I should mention for TCAF! Like I said, it’s until the 24th, so it’s my fault for remembering to send this on the (checks calendar) 17th, so uh. Sorry. Uh. Thanks for the fish?