Wednesday 14 March 2007

Pic of the day: Instead of an entry today, I'll show you this picture I made for two of my favorite amateur comics on the Net. Superhero comics, of course, as you can see from the picture. The costumes have been based on the comic book designs as far as the game allowed, which was pretty far.

Superhero fan art

Both of them are poorly drawn, although Mindmistress has improved greatly since its humble start. Both of them have quite serious storylines that can at least rival many of the series from Marvel or DC. It is a shame that they can't be professionally drawn, but it would have been even much more of a shame if they had never been made in the first place.

MindMistress is a comic by Al Schroeder, who used to write an online journal much like this one until making comics took over his life. In fact, few journals have ever been as similar to mine as his, although his real life was more interesting. Also, he was before me, although I did develop my style largely before I found his. He is a few years older than I and an openminded Christian as well. His comic is however based on ancient Greek mythology, and not preachy at all... although like classical superhero comics, Good always wins in the end.

Intriguingly, the author of LightBringer is also a Christian, despite the name of the comic. (Lightbringer is the English translation of Lucifer.) I suspect that, like Schroeder, he is American. Over there it is more normal to be Christian than not, and by a wide margin. But I am not sure this extends to artists. Again, the comic is mostly not preachy. It has values, but they are pretty generic conservative. It's not like LightBringer chases down abortionist doctors or break up anti-war rallies or anything like that. It's the usual fighting villains with twisted morals who insist that evil is necessary for a good cause. In fact, all of the villains are like that. Still, the storylines are different enough that I don't mind.

I wish the both of them the best of luck, and many new readers. And who knows, perhaps one day we'll get to see them both together? Though it will probably be some years until they are drawn as pretty as this... Not that I could have done it half as well without the game engine to draw for me. Makes me wonder if there is some genetic basis that makes tolerant and broadminded Christians suck at drawing... (Actually that's not as crazy as it sounds, since artistic skill is widely believed to be located in the right brain hemisphere, while logic and reason is in the left. Hmm.)