Avengers! Avengers! AVENGERS!

IT WAS AWESOME.

I really liked it. It was a nice fast-paced, hilarious movie, with good characters and good effects. it's the type of movie that would have been impossible to make without all the so-so prequels they had for all the characters. I think it worked well also because they had Joss Wedon write it. What made the Avengers awesome was the interactions between the characters. And Joss Wedon is pretty good at that sort of thing. He thrives on the funny and subtle interactions and witty dialogue. He also made Black Widow less "I'm the hot chick" then in Iron Man two, which is awesome. So, long story short, if you like superheroes, do see the avengers. Worth it.

Also, everyone has amazing butts. Seriously. So much spandex made me realise that everyone has a flawless ass.

I wish my ass was that flawless. 

I've been drawing really crappily these past few days. Might be time for another doodle break. 

Tomorrow, i'm off to the Cirque Du Soleil. They have a permanent show every year in Montréal. I think they test their new shows here or something. But it's my first time seeing them. Should be fun. 

I drew the twins from Namesake. I love drawing those two. Book 2 is almost completed on Namesake. That's pretty much 300 pages. I can't believe I drew 300 pages of this comic. Time sure flies.



I also sketched tiny sailors. I want to draw cute Sailor Moon fanart again. :D



Oh, and I got my artbook from Brave. It's awful pretty! It does reveal almost all of the story though, so fans beware!

- Isa
Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

I guess I kinda wanted to draw something with a mother character of mine. But I don't really have many (that are still alive?) But I do have a lot of "motherly figures". In Namesake, Emma is basically a mother figure to Elaine. So it seemed like a good idea to post this. It's a drawing I doodled for the new Namesake banner. I gave up trying to fit all the characters in it, so I tried to design a banner with just Emma. But then Elaine just appeared. And it made me realize that the story is really all about them and what is between them. Elaine is the writer, Emma is the traveler.

Today is a day to celebrate all moms, biological, adoptive, figurative and, most importantly, loving. 

Way to go, mommies. 

- Isa




Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

I call this comic “how I got an Appa plush yesterday” or “How my boyfriend is the best boyfriend I think I might wed that son of a gun he gave me a plush of a mythological animal featured in a kid’s cartoon I love you dammit”. 




He gave me my present way in advance because it's hard to hide a giant box in our apartment. Also, I always collect the mail.

Now i'm off to clean my kitchen because it smells like nuclear toxic waste and it might generate super heroes. Like the Mighty Banana.

Many thanks to yukinoomoni for linking me to "Of Monsters and Men" that Icelandic music is awesome, I am seriously a fan. 

Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth. Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

So, i'm back from TCAF. Annual existential crisis aside, IT WAS AMAZIIIING!!!!

I like Toronto for the food. So much good food. I went to Toronto with my friends Fanie, dqbunny and ickaimp .

Fanie and ickaimp got to move quite freely, enjoying the whole "being a tourist" deal. Me and Megan worked the Namesake table. The weekend was profitable, we met a couple of fans and sold a lot of Namesakes. Last year, people had no idea who we were. This year, people had this "oh yeah, I meant to read this / saw it around" towards Namesake. Yes. It's evolving. Perhaps next year, we will have reached a "known" status. Mwahahahahaha.

I bought something like sixty comics. Met a bunch of artists I adore. TCAF has truly the most huggable people.

On Friday, me and Fanie arrived from Montréal on a plane, and then took a ferry to get to the city. Megan and Icka joined us. We checked into the hotel and wandered the city a bit. We stepped into a comic store that could not have been more stereotypical, full of very geeky dudes talking about the Avengers. The staff was a bit odd. The usual "awkward and not used to ladies" I guess? we also got Hero burgers. Best burgers of all time.



On Saturday, it was nothing but TCAF. Don't let the lack of people on the photo fool you, this was taken way early. TCAF was beyond full most of the time. On the first day, Megan stayed at the table the most while I wandered, chatted with people and bought books. I also got to meet the creator of Chi's sweet home and see a panel about creating and selling youth comics. The panel made me want to do comics for kids more then ever. Saturday night, we had a mini party in the hotel room. It was awesome!



On Sunday, I tried to stay at the table as much as possible. I still escaped a couple of times to talk to Boum, Adriana, Emily Carroll, Chrystal Yates and Christina Strain. While I was at the table, I was thinking about how the whole weekend started - visiting the boyiest boyish comic store ever - to being in a place where pretty much most of the creators were ladies.



Monday, we had to rush back a little due to some confusion about our plane tickets (boarding time was an hour before the flight time?). The check-in lady was an adventure time fan, which was funny!



It then took me like two days to bounce back from being at TCAF, most likely because I had work on Tuesday. But now i'm back, drawing, pedal to the metal! I can't wait to draw more and read all my books. I kinda want to list all the projects I am currently plotting... And design temporary covers as motivation.

Next post, I should write about the books I got for you guys... I just need to read them first!

Also - for those wondering, the Namesake books turned out beautifully. We only had 60 (we are still waiting for the rest. The first 60 were sent express style to make sure we had them for TCAF). Soon we shall have them and they will be gorgeous.

- Isa


Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

Leaving tomorrow, bright and early, for Toronto. I'm going to be at the TCAF (Toronto Comic arts festival) all weekend. Here's the floorplan if anybody is seeking me out :



In the most predictable of twists, I have developed a huge, evil zit on the side of my nose. Of course. Right before a date with comics. Nevermind that I never usually get zits. *laughs*

I'm going to buy so many comics. Oh my god.

I'm a bit sad i'll miss this week's Korra episode. So I drew some art to tide me over.





I ship Makorrasamiolinscarfy.

So does Pabu.

So should you.

Sorry this post is kinda short, I can't think of anything to say because my brain is already in Toronto. It's waiting for my body at the airport.

- Isa
Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

I've been wanted to draw this for a while. It's a comic about the different types of attraction one might feel. I saw these floating around on tumblr. These were originally taken from a website about asexuality. Although, I think people who are not asexual feel these regularly too. There’s all kinds of attractions for all kinds of people.  I always felt that sexuality and love were far from being black and white, but that a lot of people weren't really informed about these types of things. Maybe one day i,ll make a great big comic to educate teenagers or something. 

This is also my first "viral" comic, since it got something like 27 000 hits on tumblr (last time I checked). My first viral. Mama's so proud.

I had the Flim and Flam song from My Little Pony  : Friendship is magic stuck in my head all day. It's a good song. Less good after 6 hours.

Oh god, it's TCAF this weekend, and my brain is already there. Leaving the rest of me feeling a bit idle and not knowing what to do with myself.

- Isa
Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

No joke, today was one of those "I have a million things to draw so i'm staying at home and wearing stinky pajamas" day and my hair was FABULOUS.

- Isa
Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

Welp, I haven't drawn much outside of Namesake pages since I need to do something like two week's worth of updates before I leave for Toronto. 

BUT I do have something really important I want to post. A friend of mine, called Samantha, or "Boum" has a hilarious webcomic. I love it. I love the artstyle. I love the jokes. I love Boum herself. So honestly, i'm going to use this post to tell everyone to go read this. This comic needs more love. It needs to be huge.



BEHOLD IT HERE!

Aside from that, I can't stop sleeping. And i'm still reading Inuyasha. Good god, so many sword upgrades. On a more positive note, I started reading another series by Rumiko Takahashi, Rin-ne. I didn't want to read it at first because... She uses a lot of archetypes and I was a bit tired of them when the series first came out. But it's... it's actually really good? I'm impressed. It's still in the world of Yokais and ghosts too, which makes me really happy. 

Yup, back to pages.

- Isa

Unpleasant surprise this morning : there was some dudes fixing the apartment's outer wall. Right outside my bedroom window. Where I sleep. With very little clothing. I had to develop a ninja strategy to roll in a blanket and close the drapes without flashing anyone. It worked. But yeah. That was unpleasant. 

In other news, still reading Inuyasha. I was kinda surprised at first. The first couple of books are actually quite good. The story is well paced, the characters are fun. The stakes are high. But now I just entered the part where the series got really popular and the artist is stretchignt he crap out of it. Aka, the boring part of Inuyasha. Aka, book 18. Aka, that part where the same stuff happens over and over. Sesshoumarou whines. Kikkyo plots. Naraku is more slippery then a toad covered in Vaseline. Inuyasha learns that his sword has superpowers by doing the most contrived stuff ever.Yep. I'm hoping things get exciting soon again. The only really interesting stuff at this point is Kagome and her identity crisis.

Bring the plot back, books. C'mon. 

I'm also a bit disappointed by the French translation that is honestly... weird. A lot of the sentences don't make sense, and all of the honorific were translated literally. Meaning that you see stuff like Kagome calling Sango "little sango" or "cute sango" all the time. I get the feeling they just got someone to translate, but then they took it as is. Usually, you need someone to translate, and then someone to adapt. 

Anywho...

I kinda wish I could be somewhere warm and sunny right now. The weather here can't decide if it's spring or not.



- Isa
Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.

On Sunday night and for most of Monday, the whole staff at the bookstore has been doing the thing all library folks dread - INVENTORY *crash of thunder*. It was long and hard work (hahaha), but everyone was diligent and awesome, so it went well. We all got divided in teams of two and got stuff done. Booyah. 

I felt a bit heartbroken because a lot of the books that have been around for a while are rather damaged. The book displays we have aren't too great for large-format comics. See, European mainstream comics kinda come in  3 sizes. The displays were designed for the smaller one, that was originally the most common size (aka TinTin size). The bigger format is now the norm, so the books are always criss-crossing and hitting each other. And now we also have graphic novels and other random sizes, so sometimes, placing books can feel like a Tetris game. 

In other news, i'm really getting into Yokais (aka Japanese folkloric monsters/ghosts/WTFness). I wrote an article for the bookstores (French) blog about them. I got some really cool reference books to write said article, and got back into reading a lot of manga series featuring Yokais, including the infamous Inu Yasha. I never finished reading it because it was long as hell. Now I can read them quietly for free in book format. I'm not gonna lie, borrowing books is definitely the biggest perk of this job. In any case, I love me that folklore. I kinda like this. I love diving back in fairy tales and stuff like that. Brings the flame of love I have for these tales back to burning hot.

Drew some more Korra. The premiere was this weekend. Apparently, Canadians can watch Korra off Nickelodeon's website if they don't mind waiting a day or two. HOT DAMN. I'm happy about that. They probably won't stay long, but long enough to be viewed, and that's good enough for me.



Drawing from to this sorta spoiler-ish and vulgar comic. Be warned. 

- Isa

Posted to both Lj and Dreamwidth.