Technique Tuesday: It's Valentine's Day! Let's KISS!

Let's Kiss, With howtodraw.com, DragoArt and Mark Crilley!

Valentines' Day Double Feature Revue: Sunstone

And For Our Second Act, preeeeeesenting,

A Love Story With A Twist...Or Should We Say, A Kink?

Two people meet through their hobbies, fall in love, move in together, get married. A nice old fashioned love story.
Heh heh heh wellllllllll......if the hobby is bondage games, and if the two people are girls, and if....nope. This is a NEW fashioned love story. And it's a tickler.

The creation of Stjepan Sejic, Sunstone can be found here and bought here

This story revolves around two women, Ally and Lisa, and how they fall in love. They get into it, like we readers do (be honest, come on) for the sex, but we all stay in for the love. And trust me, the love story is worth it.

Before I tell you this, let me tell you a small personal detail.  When I was six years old, I was bitten several times by a black widow and badly poisoned. The pain was bad enough, but what I remember most vividly is the feeling of the poison spreading, enervating my muscles until I was unable to move. I was utterly helpless; couldn't even scream. At one point, I could barely breathe, and had to be intevated. I'll never forget lying there in the hospital, pain coming and going, a machine breathing for me, my body trapped, absolutely unable to move. Around me the world moved and acted on me, and I had no power over it whatsoever. I'll never forget that terror. To this day, I cannot STAND feeling trapped or weak. Even an enclosing corridor or someone backing me into the corner of the elevator all unawares will send a momentary flash of panic through me. My fiancee' once backed me up against a wall during an early date while kissing me, and I nearly ran. So the idea of sex games....never really appealed.  I remember real helplessness too well. I wish I didn't.

So with that in mind, you'll understand the significance when I say that Sunstone made me understand the attraction of bondage play. The character of Lisa, a subordinate, explains it so beautifully when she speaks of relinquishing control and thought to someone you trust in order to stop thinking and simply feel the moment. Sejic's writing and his characters make this sexual hobby not only understandable, but real and emotionally satisfying. And he does it by writing real people and a real romance. And when I say real, I mean REAL. For example, let me show you the first in-person meeting the girls had.

Now THAT is a real world, and a real, honest relationship. No crazy setups, no otherworldly power of attraction on the part of one or the other, no forced interaction. No drugs or mind control, as the writer states it. Just two real people who share a passion, and connect to each other through it.

The Rating

An almost perfect score for Sunstone. And it definitely wasn't the story that got it dinged!

The Raves

Sooooo you can probably tell already that I thoroughly enjoy Sunstone from the intro. And I'll say honestly that the more mature scenes were a definite draw. Sex sells, and I'm as hot blooded as the next young thing.
But anyone who's ever watched Animal Planet or bad porn can tell you that sex, by itself, is really not all that exciting at all but a lizard-brain level of our reactions. As a friend once put it, 'you can have a boner and still be bored.'

The real fascination of this story is the skill with which it takes a mysterious, ominous lifestyle that at once attracts and repels the mainstream and makes it into a simple passion, a hobby, one facet of the lives of people with lives; careers, other hobbies, intelligent minds and normal, well adjusted personalities. It takes something that, in our prudish American and European minds, is dark and twisted, and shows us that it's just another way to enjoy yourself. And then it asks us, why not? What's your problem, exactly?
The characters in this story are the perfect people to get yourself to ask that question too. Lisa is quick, wry, witty, and a wonderfully playful personality.

And Ally is the clever coding chick who's into video games, likes to read obsessively, wears glasses and is always thinking about something, which is sometimes an issue.

The side characters are just as well rounded, as full of life, wit and personality as the main characters, and between them they make one of the most honest love stories I've ever read. The process of letting someone close enough to you to become a friend and a lover is terrifying, complicated, messy, and uncomfortable, even when it's worth it. Sunstone doesn't flinch from exploring every facet of that, including the awkward and uncomfortable moments. There's the deeply emotional things this couple deals with in learning that they love eachother; insecurity, fear, old scars, new jealousies and doubts, including self doubt.And then there's the very human awkwardness of having to tell your girlfriend that your sexy weekend's shot because you just got your period. In Sunstone, all these situations are explored with equal wit, candor, wonderful snark, and compassion.

There is this in the story

But there's also this

and this

And that's what makes Sunstone a great love story.

And then of course, you may have noticed THE ART!!!!! The piece gracefully dances between styles, and it never ceases to be gorgeous, skillful, and well-done. The body language is extremely strong, the anatomy IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, and you never question the artist's skill. SUNSTONE IS GORGEOUS. It's made these characters live for me, and it's made me actually consider some things I'd rarely even considered, and then only with horror, as things of beauty and...well, arousal. Enough said.

The Razzes

So what's there to razz?
The typos. OH YE GODS BRIGHT AND DARK, THE TYPOS! Stjepan, PLEASE, please learn to proof read your work, I'm begging you. Work THIS GOOD does not deserve to be marred by stupid, irritatingly blatant typos that would have taken two seconds and the stroke of the space bar or the changing of one letter to fix. Sunstone would be ABSOLUTE PERFECTION but for the glaring typos on every other page. Also, occasional spelling mistakes distracted and annoyed me. A proofreader might be in order. But to give you your just deserts, they'll have to sit in a cold bath while working! 

Someday I'll have to buy the print books, because my one other complaint is the irritation of trying to click through Deviantart's wonky system to read each page where it's hosted. It really makes me miss more traditional webcomic sites, but I understand that Deviantart is the best site for something of this nature....still, as a comic host, it has a lot of drawbacks, and it distracts slightly from a story that otherwise flows seamlessly.

The Revue

Sunstone lives up to its name: it is a gem. Please read it. And then go burn a copy of 50 Shades Of Gray in its honor.

Valentines Day Double Feature Revue: Harlequin Valentine

Annnnnnd Now, For Your Viewing Pleasure!
A Valentines' Day Double Feature!

For Our First Act, We Present to You:

Harlequin Valentine!!!

"It's Perfect, Magnificent, Marvelous and Magical.

It's Valentine's Day, isn't it?
Who could be cold upon Valentine's Day?"

-Neil Gamian, Harlequin Valentine

What happens when you give your heart to another? What happens when you give your heart away?

In the surreal tale of Harlequin Valentine, that question is answered,  rather literally in fact.

A surreal, dreamy dance through city streets on a cold February holiday, Harlequin Valentine is a tale for the dreamers, the wistful ones, and the people who see through tawdry decorations to savor the message of St. Valentine in all its strange and lovely moods.

In these pages you'll meet Harlequin, who has pinned his heart to the door of his Columbine Valentine of the day.  He is truly the spirit of infatuation; by turns syrupy sweet, capricious, cruel, careless and kind as the mood takes him. He is the lusty fascination that sweeps you off your feet, and the melancholy mood that engulfs you when you sit at home alone on Valentines' Day. He's infatuation; its joys and its pains, all in one package.
But this time he's set his heart at the feet of a woman named Missy, and she may just be more than he expected.

Written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by John Bolton, the book can be found through Amazon or here at TFAW comics.

The Rating 

Take a bow, Harlequin. With one or two faults, your performance was most excellent.

The Raves

Told in lyrical prose and with surreal, half-photographic art that captures odd poses and altered states of consciousness,  the short story Harlequin Valentine is an updated retelling of the commedia dell'arte tale of Harlequin and Columbine, which the authors discuss in their 'notes' in the back of the book. For once, the authors' notes are as fascinating as the actual story, and  their deep, cynical and oddly moving riff on the original tale really hit a sweet spot with me. Between the art and the writing, I was transported into a waking dream where love is a dancing, cavorting animal leaving chaos in his wake.

In this world, dead men speak on their autopsy tables, girls can be transformed by being wrapped in ribbon, and the right woman can change the world. I won't tell you the ending, for that would break the spell and spoil the magic, but I will tell you that it's a must read. 

This is not a long book. At 32 pages, it's shorter than some single issue comics I've read. But packed into it is a heady and somewhat disturbing exploration of this saint's day. Gaiman and Bolton remind us that love isn't always kind. In fact, they murmur in your ear, quite often it's cruel, caring nothing or who it harms. Despite his light-hearted cavorting and syrup-sweet pining for the 'Columbine' he's chosen in honor of the day, you realize very quickly that Harlequin, spirit of Valentines', is as self-centered as a gyroscope. He isn't in love with MISSY, his professed beloved; rather he's in love with the idea of BEING IN LOVE. The way in which this story explores the ideas we hold on falling in love and pokes holes in them are fascinating. The story at once discomforted me and pulled me in deeper page by page by its weird and wonderful juxtaposition of real and false in both the writing and the art.

The Razzes

So, I'm a young woman in my twenties....and I had to hold this book up and squint in order to read the text. Admittedly the font is a lovely thing, but someone along the line should have mentioned that it should be lovely and LEGIBLE. Most of the time the art is gorgeous, but at certain points its mixed media approach is more jarring than interesting, and distracts from the story. But hey, what performer doesn't have a missed step somewhere in his routine?

The Revue

The perfect read when you need an antidote to overdone 'romance genre' stories.

Monthly Matinee: The Art of Making Love....Stories ;)

Roll up, Roll Up Folks! Come See The Matinee!

This month: The Art Of Making Love (wink) Stories

Aah the month of February. Valentines' Day season. Cards, flowers, chocolates, romance. How....nice.

So why do so many of us detest it?

Simple: Valentines' day, like any badly crafted romance, is forced.  People are going through the motions not because they necessarily feel the emotions they're showing, but because they have to. And we can tell the difference. False emotion leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
So if it's true in life, why not in art?

It's a special challenge to tell the story of a romance in the pictures and dialogue of a comic or graphic novel. Internal dialogue is less common and weaknesses show up quickly on the sparse frame of a comic. But we comic connoisseurs and creators also get a special set of gifts; we get to play with body language, expression, the movements of hands and eyes and shoulders, in a way that prose authors would kill for. Comic authors get to quite literally follow the precept 'show, don't tell'.
The trick is showing it in the right way. So, how is that done?
There's no magic formula for a good romantic story, but there are a few signs of a good romance.

• There's More To Characters Than Plot Points

In good stories, the characters are people too. They live, they breathe, they feed the cat and have hobbies. There is NOTHING worse in comic storytelling than the Damsel Objective Syndrome. Characters afflicted with Damsel Objective Syndrome have no real personality. They are simply there to be won when the hero has become impressive/strong/confident enough, rescued from tall towers, villains and calamities. 

 Unfortunately, this is especially prevalent in comics and comic-derived works. Want to show that the superhero's life is getting better? Have him get the girl he's lusted after from afar. Never mind who the girl is, he got her, that's the point.
And that's not romance. That's lazy writing. 

That's not to say that winning somebody isn't important, but it needs to be done well. There needs to be something more to the attraction than adolescent mooning. A lot of great romances start that way, but very, very few continue in that way for very long. Good writers show us WHY this person is worth loving beyond their physical attraction. Are they clever? Are they witty? Are they tough guys/gals with a heart of gold? Good writers give us a reason to fall in love with the protagonist. Even better, they give us TWO protagonists, not one protagonist and one love interest.

Here's a good example of the contrast: 

GOOD / BAD

Hawkeye and Black Widow are two soldiers in a dark war, two people with a LOT of history. They banter, talk, commiserate, yell at each other and support one another. They're fine apart, but they're even better together.

Thor, on the other hand, gives a very clear sense that 'oh, I should probably have a love interest in here somewhere, shouldn't I? To complete, you know, my heroism' His love interest is so forgettable that I had to look up her name. That's not a satisfying romance. That's just an excuse to rescue somebody. I'm not impressed.

• There's More to Chemistry Than Lust

This is a failing particularly strong in the YA area, but it's universal enough to make me mention it here. Thinking a guy is cute and that you'd like to kiss him isn't love, it's atavistic hormonal reactions. Good writers know the difference between having the hots and falling in love.

This is best examplified in the gorgeous comic Habibi, where pretty much every stage of falling in love is shown as the story progresses. At the beginning of the story, the characters are very young. As the story progresses, the young man wants to have sex mostly because he's a teenager.

But as the story progresses and the characters themselves become more complex, he falls truly in love with his beloved, connected to her by shared suffering and shared experiences.

That love abides. Lust does not. Good writers step beyond infatuation and into love.

• There's More To Challenges Than Angst

To put this another way, give your characters something to DO while falling in love. Love is fascinating, frightening and bewildering, when you're feeling it. But it's a little like running a marathon. From the outside, it's not too interesting to watch. Good writers have to give us a reason to care.

 Some writers duck this by throwing people into dangerous situations and having their protagonists agonize about it. "GASP, my beloved is in danger, I MUST RESCUE!"

Prince Valiant

Everybody writes those scenes, and once in a while they're a lot of fun. But that kind of love is easy. You're not challenged to love a person. You're just rescuing 'the beloved.' Emotionally, that's easy. And it also gets ridiculous really fast. The situations that this kind of writer create in order for characters to 'prove their love' can wring so false that you can't help but groan, even when you like the story itself. 



It's also emotionally easy to obsess about your feelings for another person, and you see a lot of this in certain genres.

HANA-KUN TO KOISURU WATASHI

But really, that's not love. They aren't thinking about the other person as A PERSON. Only as an objective.

Good writing avoids both these pitfalls by giving their characters real, solid challenges to overcome. Now, real challenges can be internal, and in fact some of the best romance challenges are; overcoming personal history, parents who aren't supporting the character's life choices or insecurity are all valid challenges in the right writer's hands. The trick is to make them real. Challenges should be more than excuses for the characters to 'prove their love'.

• There's More To Love Than Romance

And finally, love should DO something for the characters and the plot.  The romance should change them as people. The best romances make the characters grow into stronger people. Having a good partner allows them the confidence to overcome a weakness.

Three great examples show up in the comics Girls With Slingshots, Questionable Content, and Tripping Over You. In each case, the characters are well rounded people before they ever find a love interest, but that love interest allows them to strengthen a weak aspect of their characters; to stop being self conscious,

Get past family problems, or realize what you truly want in life.

Love isn't about desperate passion. It's about knowing someone loves you, feeling the deep contentment of being truly sure of something in your life, and of feeling truly safe. That internal security can give a character a strength that allows them to do amazing things. That is the real strength of love.