Spiders!

Here is a picture of a beautiful writing spider. The mister took it outside of our basement door the other day.

Writing Spider

I thought I would share it. I think writing spiders are beautiful. I watched them make webs in my grandfather's tobacco barn when I was a kid.

Here is his Snake Eyes costume from DragonCon:


Disco Snake Eyes:

Even More Art!

My friend Sara (rabbit-of-earth on deviantArt and retro-takeout on ComicBloc) has done two really nice pieces for my stories. I thought I would share them here and in my fanfiction.net profile. I just love them.

Here is an illustration of Gar and Raven's date in "Deeper". So sweet!

The Date


And here is one from "Nadir". This is Superboy holding Gar back from beating the crap out of Wally. Boy, is he ticked off!

Very Angry Beast Boy


I think she captured the spirit of the scenes quite well. Her style is awesome, so check out the rest of her gallery while you are there. I hope you enjoy them, too.

Stair Luge Samurai Art!

Hello all,

Angel-gidget on deviantArt has just created some art for my short story "Stair Luge Samurai". It is absolutely adorable. I love Bart's expression especially.

Stair Luge Samurai

I'll be adding the link to this to the other story art in my fanfiction.net profile. I enjoy and appreciate every piece of art that someone creates based on my stories. All of them are great, and I look at them over and over again and just enjoy the fun that people are getting out of the stories. I hope you enjoy the art as well.

KTH

More DragonCon Photos

The gentlemen that I met at DragonCon (including Beast Boy) have now posted their DragonCon photos on the net for all to see. I thought y'all would like to see them.

Frank Hui's DragonCon Photos

The DragonCon photos are in the link sections at the bottom. There is a picture of myself with Beast Boy on the first page of the third section. There are a lot of great photos here. These guys had lots of great costumes for the Con.

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It's such a beautiful night here in Chattanooga. It's just a little cool. The stars are out. The mister and I just sat down in the driveway and stared at the constellations for a bit whilst the cat circled us. She was wondering why we were in her usual napping spot. The breeze was delicious but not quite chilly. It's refreshing to have some cooler temperatures after the summer heat. I haven't gone out to look at the stars in quite some time. I'm glad I did. There's something so peaceful about sitting on my porch and then gazing at the night sky before retiring for the night. Fall is my favorite time of year, and I think for us it has come early.

I say early, because this part of Tennessee usually stays pretty warm until October. I saw a joke on the internet once that described our seasons here: Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas. We're almost ready to leap into Still Summer, I guess. But I'm excited. I love October. I love turning leaves and fresh apples from the Orchard up on Signal Mountain -- all the Galas, Fujis and Arkansas Blacks that I can eat. Mmmmm... a good crisp apple and a wedge of Brie is just heaven on a plate. Now I'm making myself hungry, so I'd better stop.

Good night, friends. Take a moment to enjoy the stars. Pax.

Next Year?

I'm already thinking about a costume for next year. I do plan to re-use the Raven costume. I'd just like to have different costumes for different days. I was thinking about going as Speedy (Mia Dearden). I like the simplicity of her outfit, and I've always like archers. Plus, I didn't see any Speedy's at the Con, and I'd like to have a costume that's fairly unique at the con. I've found a website that talks one through making a bodysuit patten. I would definitely need to make my own -- nobody makes a pattern that fits me exactly, no matter what the style of clothing. I have a good pattern for her short cloak that I think will work. This ought to be fun.

DragonCon pictures

I am back home! I am exhausted, but I had a blast. I even met Beast Boy and Nightwing, two very nice gentlemen, in the Hyatt lobby. They got some pictures of me, and we took pictures of them, for our respective web sites. BB's costume was very well made. After the time it took just to make my cloak, I can appreciate the kind of work that he put into it. I hope I run into him again next year.



There were a wide variety of costumes at the Con this year. There were more superheroes than last year. Most of the ones I saw were X-Men, although I did see several Nightwings and a Batman or two. I saw a well-done Wonder Woman and at least one Hawkman. There were lots of elves and hobbits. Star Wars was well-represented by a veritable army of Jedi and clone troopers.

Here are some more pictures:

A Colonial Warrior from the original Battlestar Galactica series:


And a Cylon:



The Hulk:




And, wouldn't you know it, a plethora of Ghostbusters. They were very popular this year.


A very nicely done Moon Knight:



Shaun of the Dead:




And more Leia's in metal bikinis than you could say grace over:

Ready for Teen Titans #38...

(*tap tap tap*) I'm trying to keep myself busy until Wednesday. I really need to be packing for DragonCon. I'm spending most of my time prepping for the writer's workhop on Thursday and Friday. I'm really looking forward to the workshop.

As a child of the 70s/80s, I found this blog entry rather amusing. Even those of you who have not read comics from this era might find it humorous. This post is from Comic Book Resources.

What We Can Learn and Questions That Are Raised by Early 1970s Comic Books

Most of the images and disucssions are from old Marvel comics. I did read more Marvel back in the day since I was a big X-Men fan (who could forget the Brood? The best Alien wannabes around!). I also enjoyed ROM, any story with Ben Grimm, and What If?

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Since I posted the link to Tony Daniel's Wizard interview a while ago, I thought I would post his latest Newsarama interview. Go Tony!

Tony Daniel Interview with Newsarama

I was sad to hear that we won't see his pencils in #38, but I am curious about his fill-in artist. We shall see on Wednesday.

The Costume!

I'm still tweaking the bird's beak on the hood, but the body of the costume is done, thanks to the big, big help of my wonderful husband.

The shirt is actually 2 layers: one long-sleeved shirt with a zippered neck covered by a sleeveless spandex workout top. I embroidered the raven crest on there. We have yet to see consistent pictures of Raven's costume, so I just created an "idealized" version of the breastplate. I created a paper template and transferred it to the spandex top with tailor's chalk. And that was harder than it sounds! Then I embroidered it with a simple backstitch in a metallic thread. Again, spandex and metallic thread are very difficult to work together!


Here's a back view.





And a front view (ignore my hair, it was being naughty).






And a view of the hood, the beak is folded under because it, too, was being naughty.


A closeup of the embroidery

DragonCon Costume Almost Finished!

Hooray! The cloak is almost done. All I need to do is shape the hood and do a little tacking of the liner to the main cloak body, and I'll be done. WHEW! The hubby and I have worked on it very hard for the past few weeks. I'll post pictures when the hood is totally done, hopefully this week.

Now I've got to get some sleep before I slog back to the salt mines tomorrow. This weekend was far too short.

Boots!

I'm about to laugh myself silly.

You know how I spent that time and sweat looking for the pixie boots for my Raven costume?

I went to Payless last night. New Fall shoes are out. I found: suede, no-heeled boots.

The only difference is, my boots are ankle boots, and these are knee length. And mine were cheaper to boot! (Pun intended. (Groan))

I just thought that was supremely ironic. I thought I'd never see boots like that again. Maybe they'll make the ankle-length ones again, too.

And I may have to buy some knee length ones purely on principle.

I Need a Titans Fix... help!

(*sigh*) I'm still trying to be patient, waiting for the next issue of Teen Titans...

The cloak is almost done. We really tried to finish it, but we ran out of steam. However, we do have time to get it finished; but we are both ready for this little project to be finished! We attached the hood. The lining is attached on the sides. We just have to trim and hem the bottom of it so I don't drag the floor. The cloak is taller than I am! I was standing on a stool, letting my husband mark the hem, when I felt like Fezzig in "Princess Bride" -- I was wearing a holocaust cloak! I started to say "I am the Dwed Piwate Woberts", and without skipping a beat, my husband said, "Dere will be no survivors!" He knew EXACTLY what I meant. We think so much alike.

I had to make a large cloak to accomodate my slightly rotund torso. Unfortuntely, most clothing and pattern manufacturers assume that if you are large around that you are also tall. I am living proof that this is not necessarily true. We have to cut 9 inches off the back of this cloak just so I can walk in it! I'll have to watch out for escalators at the con, too. And there are bunches of them at DragonCon. Safety first!

I did not get any writing done this weekend. However, I did give my truck the first bath she's had in a while. BITT (Basham Industries 2000, KITT's cousin, she's a truck) is much happier now. It finally cooled off enough to where I could stand to be outside for more than a few minutes. Praise the Lord and pass the cold front!

Tony Daniel Interview on Wizard

It's the weekend! Hooray! Well, almost. Four more hours, and I'm on my way to the old homestead. I think I can hang on that long.

Wizard has conducted an interview with Tony Daniel on his latest run of Titans, including a few tiny hints about the future:

Tony Daniel Interview

It's a good read, and I hope you enjoy it.

I'm really, really going to try to finish my cloak this weekend.

Have a good one, guys!

Patiently Waiting for August 23rd...

... and working on the prewrite for "Dawn Child". I took a lot of notes for it last night, and it's coming along nicely.

I did work on my cloak this weekend, but only on the hood. Maybe I'll get it finished this weekend.

Feeling kind of blah tonight, but the hubby and I made some popcorn chicken and tater tots for dinner, and I feel a little better. It's like magic comfort food; no matter how lousy I feel or how un-hungry I am (and I'm hypoglycemic and I have to eat) I can always eat that.

Wizard World Chicago This Weekend...

... and I'm not going. Mainly because DragonCon is just around the corner, and I need my $$ for that. There are some neat things going on there, though, and I enjoy reading about them on the Newsarama and Wizard websites.

Here's a good article on a writing class conducting at WWC:

Paul Jenkins: Writing Soup to Nuts

I'll post other articles that pique my interest -- maybe you'll like them too.

The Raven costume for DragonCon is coming along nicely. I got my boots in the mail this week. My wonderful, lovely, 1980s black suede pixie boots. I wore these little cuffed boots in high school, and I wonder why they ever went out of style. They are the most comfortable shoe ever made. (Here's a real head-scratcher -- they brought back JELLY SHOES, for crying out loud, but not pixie boots.) But I think these little boots are perfect for the OYL Raven costume. I hope to get my cloak finished this weekend as well. Just a few more weeks to go!

I got "52" #13 this week. Creeepy. I really feel for Ralph. The poor guy has been driven over the edge. I really want to see how this all turns out for him; we are only 1/4 of the way through their year, and I know we have more twists and turns going. Was that really Sue's spirit talking to him? Was it a trick of the Cult of Conner? Was it just wishful thinking that was so strong that he made himself see it? I don't think anyone else saw it, did they? Brrrrrr.

I loved the "Outsiders". What a great view into the Brain/Mallah relationship. They are becoming some of my favorite villains (although non-psycho Slade will always be my true fave). It really made me see why these two would have that kind of relationship -- they can talk about deep subjects on the same level. No matter who is involved in the relationship, that's something you've got to have, I think, in order to keep a good relationship going: the ability to really communicate and talk to each other. These two seem to have what a lot of good guys seem to lack in their own relationships. Scary.

Great Titans News

Some great Titans news came out of ComicCon this weekend:

- Mr. Johns says that Raven is returning to Teen Titans! Yayness! Now we just need to see when and how and what's going on with her now.

- DC is getting into Direct-to-Video animated movies, and one of them will be "The Judas Contract" arc from the Wolfman-Perez era. Both Wolfman and Perez will have a hand in the project, so I'm sure it will turn out well. Looking forward to this.

- A Terra mini is in the works. I'd really like to know what is going on with the connection (if any) between Terra I and Terra II.

The Raven costume for DragonCon is coming along nicely. The mister helped me piece the main body of it together this weekend. (I'm terrified of the sewing machine.) Now I need to work on the hood, which will be a real challenge. The pattern I bought has just a normal hood, and I have to adapt it to get the bird's beak. This oughtta be fun. I also did the accessories (the jewels for the belt, cloak clasp and gloves). I used a plain gold-toned chain-link belt (Target, $12) and used glittered red felt as the jewels. Each link is a large oval, and I just cut out matching felt ovals and hot-glued them in. I hope they stick -- the metal is not liking the glue very much. I think the glue gun will go with me to the Con! For the jewels, I bought some small wooden disks that were intended to be used as plates in a dollhouse. I painted them with some gold paint. Then I used my trusty glue-gun to glue flat glass beads to them. I just hope the glue holds.

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Here's the link to a more detailed report on the ComicCon panel with Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra on "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes":

Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes

Gearing Up For DragonCon

I'm reading a lot of the articles on Newsarama and Wizard about the current ComicCon in San Diego, and they've got me all excited about DragonCon next month. I'm working on my Raven costume now (OYL version), and I'm very happy with the way it is turning out now.

I'll be attending the writing workshop that happens just before the Con opens, so that ought to be helpful in polishing up my stories. I'm looking over the website for the Con as well to try and plan all of the tracks that I'd like to attend. I definitely want to see the 'BattleStar Galactica' panels again. Richard Hatch moderated one last year, and it was a great presentation. He's a very inspriational speaker. He's at ComicCon this year; here's an article on his panel:

Richard Hatch at ComicCon

For you Deepak Chopra fans: Dr. Chopra showed up at ComicCon on a panel with Grant Morrison to talk about "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes". As a practioner of yoga and a comics fan, this really piqued my interest:

Dr. Chopra at ComicCon

This is an overview of the panel. The article promises a full transcript next week. I'll keep an eye out for that one as well.

I really enjoyed TT #37. Steve Dayton grew a spine and took Dr. Caulder down a deserved peg or two. However, I would have liked to have seen how he got to that point from his state in the previous issue, where he had a somewhat tenuous grip on reality. That would be an interesting story in itself (not to mention the story of how he got his body back in the first place, maybe in a "Secret Files and Origins" or something like that).

I'm very sad that Gar is not going back with the Titans, but I think we'll see him again. Change is a constant, and he's been off the team before. He's a wonderful character that has really grown up over the years, and I really want to see that character continue to grow. I'm glad to see he has his family back. Maybe now that Rita is with Steve, Steve will stay more stable and they can develop a good relationship. I can understand his desire to stay, in that light. I'm hoping the DP will have lots of guest shots in the Titans.

I really like Kid Devil and Rose as members of the team. Blue Devil's treatment of Eddie is heartbreaking... he should have come when he said he was going to, and if he didn't intend to come, he should not have gotten his hopes up. Poor kid. I like the friendship between him and Rose, even if it doesn't develop into anything romantic. She is very protective of him, like a big sister.

I loved the Raven panel at the end. Sooooo, maybe they didn't break up. At least not the way Robin presented it. Robin wasn't lying -- it's what she wanted people to think. Now, we have to find out what the 'something strange' is. I'm definitely hooked and look forward to seeing how things play out.

Overall, I liked the issue, but I felt that it was rushed in parts. The BoE fight was kind of short, and a lot was packed into it. I don't mind a lot being packed into it, but darn it, some months 22 pages just ain't enough.

SQUEE! There's talk of a Doom Patrol movie! No mention of Garfield Logan on the team, but I think the movie is a cool concept anyway. I'm definitely in line to see that one. If the movie is successful, maybe they'll get lined up for a new series that will actually stick around for a while.

Happy Independence Day!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Fourth of July! It's hot and muggy here. We may get some storms later. I do hope we get to see the fireworks -- the mister is so looking forward to them.

Only a couple of days until the next issue of Teen Titans! I'm so excited! I've seen the previews of some panels on Tony Daniel's blog over the past few months, and I'm ready to read it. I hope we get some clues on what happened between BB and Raven over the OYL. I'm ready for some kind of indication of... anything!

This week's pull list:

Detective Comics #821
Secret Six #2 (this is a really interesting team)
Supergirl #7 and #8 (two on one day? that's weird)
52 #9 (Please let Kori live!)
and of course... TT #37

I think the mister has some Marvel comics coming this week as well. He's collecting the "Civil War" crossover event. I really need to read it. I've been reading some of his "Captain America" comics to tide me over until we get some TT action again...

New Tomb in Egypt

Today I heard that a friend of mine was involved in the study of the new tombs that were discovered in Egypt last year. The team has put together a web page of photos of the site. Here is the link if you would like to see them:

Tomb KV-63

"Coyote" Commission Completed

Hiding-Daisy on deviantArt has just completed my commmission for "Coyote", chapter 20. I must say that it is beautiful. This is the chapter where Raven meets Thunder Horse in his "soulscape". The image was too large to fit the entire picture on the scanner, but here is the heart of the picture:

Thunder Horse

"Nadir" Has Been Posted

I'm dancing. I just posted my latest story in the "Twilight Child" story arc: "Nadir". Here is a link to it:

Nadir

If you haven't read any of the other stories in the arc, I suggest you start with "Twilight Child" and read the stories in order. The stories are listed in order with their links in my "Links" area on the right side of this web page.

Let me know what you think! If you cannot leave a review on fanfiction.net because you don't have an account there, feel free to leave a comment on this blog. I look forward to hearing from everybody.