Arsenic Lullaby- Harely Quinn rant and another FIRST LOOK and new project

I'm gonna warn you right now...the winter's getting to me. If someone wants a commission, preferably about subject matter different from what I'm currently struggling with ( monsters) that's be really great, but if you do want a monster, I'll probably do it anyway. There's no way it'll be the same monster.

My winter loneliness is only being compounded by the masses exposing opinions that baffle me to the point that I feel like an alien that was dropped here just to be confused.

DC has premiered it's latest effort to not sh*t the bed called "Birds of Prey". Apparently people hate it, because the plot was absurd, the writing didn't make any sense and it seemed thrown together with little to no thought. My question is- how the fuq is that any different than 90 percent of the rest of the comic book movies that the same people love? They're not great. Some are entertaining, but...you could hang those complaints on pretty much any of them.

You don't like Birds of Prey because the plot was weak...but you liked Joker? Let me just point something out here that I missed when I made an ass out of myself bitching about Joker last time. Joker had delusional psychosis, that much was made very clear. He finds out later in the film that his mother also has Delusional psychosis. Well...that adds up. I'm not being sarcastic, this is a mental illness that is nature and not nurture, by most understanding of it. Except...she ADOPTED him. That's a pretty damn rare condition. That would be like David Bowie randomly adopting a child, sight unseen, and that child turning out to also have two different colored eyes.

But...as I think about it, the reason people don't like Birds of Prey...even though it's no more or less idiotic than most other comic book movies, is obvious. Often, life is about expectations. Look at the source material. In the comics Harley Quinn is whacking material. Every cover she is on is basically soft core porn. You take a character who is bending over holding some phallic symbol in 75% of the panels she's in...and stick her into some attempt at a "girl power" movie and yeah...no sh*t people hated it.

Harley Quinn isn't about girl power. She's about bending over and getting squirted in the face by the Joker's novelty squirting flower. My grandma could figure out the purpose this character serves. This is like taking the cast of Jackass and putting them in a drama about social injustice in the 60's. The two do not and should not have anything to do with each other.

Wonder Woman...that's your girl power character. That's the vibe they wanted, that was the character suited for it, and it turned out to be a fine movie.

Harley Quinn is a 2 dimensional hot mess in a f*cked unhealthy relationship that she refuses to stay out of, and anything that takes her out of that is like making a movie about Batman where his parents were never shot.

She's not a hero...she's not even really an anti hero. She's over-sexualized chaos for fan boys ( or fangirls depending on their disposition) and everybody knows it. And everybody's pretty much okay with it, since she's 2 dimensionally, cartoonishly, absurd. In fact, I would argue that giving any depth to this character, whilst keeping all of the rest of the trappings is about as bad a road to go down as I can think of, as far as what kind of message you want to put out there...but I don't wanna get into some whole philisophical discussion...I mean...it's Harley Quinn...

On an unrelated note (cough), I'd like to point out something to Hollywood...seriously now...can we see some boobs once in awhile? Back in MY day if a movie was rated R and had a bunch of hot women in it, you know when you paid for the ticket you were going to see some gratuitous nudity. That was the implied social contract. This isn't a #metoo issue. We're talking grown consenting adults...all the way around. I assure you that any bi or lesbian movie goers are just as disappointing when this by gone social contract is ignored. BOOBS...people. ffs

Given the character, NOT having her expose herself at any point is unrealistic. You want us to accept that a 90 pound woman can wade through professional criminals like they are made of glass...that's one thing. But to expect us to accept that this alpha/uber hot mess of all hot messes would not expose herself in public during any of these scenes for laughs, distraction or just the sheer hot mess-ness of it, flies in the face of the reality we all live in.

So it certainly would not harm the integrity of the story. AND better movies than this with more prestigious actresses have shown some nudity. Does Margot Robbie think she's better than Mia Farrow? ffs? We all remember that scene in China Town were she pulled up her shirt as a final convincer to lull Nicholson into taking on her case. It was unnessicary and gratuitous but she won an academy award for that movie. Hell, Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar for the The Philadelphia Story and she was stark naked for the entire scene when Jimmy Stewart accidentally walked in on her and Cary Grant.

...yeah...I made all that up. Except I'm pretty sure Hepburn won an Oscar for that movie. It was good.

What the f*ck was I talking about? I don't remember. Some movie I didn't even see.

"YOU DIDN'T EVEN SEE THE MOVIE?"

F*ck no...why would I go see a entire movie about Harley Quinn? If it was a 30 minute t.v show, sure but...90 minutes, I just...nah.

"then how the fuq do you have so much to say about it?"

I saw other peoples opinions and extrapolated my own reality based on them...it's 2020, it's the law. Besides, after botching the whole Joker movie thing, I've pretty much given up having a legitimate opinion for awhile.

anyways.

Here's what I've been working on...page 6 of the first chapter of a new story/character. For now it's just called Harrod Howard and it'll be seen first in installments in Comic Cultura in Greece. Why there first? I have my reasons...among them is me hedging my bets against an coming comic book crash, which I do not believe will impact Europe nearly as much as the U.S. because they have not tied the medium to one specific genre - super heroes-

anyways...this mess here, which is all for one single page, in this one instance is not "illustrator madness"

It's a new character, new story and that means new...sets. I gotta lock in what his world looks like, what he looks like, what other characters look like, what his mansion looks like, what different rooms look like. Page six has a lot of shots with a decent amount of background, so taking extra swings at different panels from different camera angles is actually more pragmatic than me just roughing stuff out in some sketchbook. Some of the panels that I decide not to use might be a good shot for something later on.

I mentioned figuring out what he looks like. That's a hard concept to explain. See, you have the character in your head...but that's fluid, like trying to remember a dream. It's not lines in your head, it's more of...well, a person. Getting the personality to transfer onto the paper takes a bit of f*kcing about until you realize one of the sketches has a character looking back at you and that character is the one that was in your head.

Often...it's not even visually accurate, but something about it conveys the charm/personality and that's enough for you to understand how to draw him out. For instance this in one of the early drawings of Voodoo Joe...

It's not well drawn...just something about it felt like the character and it all clicked from then on. In this case of the current project, this is the scribble where is said "THAT'S HIM!"

Anyways...I could use a break from this for a bit as I am teetering close to that overthinking spiral. Someone gimmie a commission, yeah?

message me at douglaspasz at gmail.com and PLEASE PUT ---COMMISSION-- in the subject ( be getting a crapload of spam in there this month)

Later!

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