Saturday, March 26, 2016

Batman: Decadence - Masque Chapter IV


The fourth chapter of my elegant gothic lolita-inspired Batman fancomic is here.

The beginning of the story is here.

The cover image was colored by Anna.

I hope no one will take it as irreverent my posting this during the Triduum. I think that on the contrary, it is appropriate. Every fictional hero should be a Christ figure in one way or another, just as we real folks are all called to imitate Christ, and superheroes are particularly suited to be, as it is their premise to be one ready at all times to sacrifice himself for others.

As always, this comic is violent, so not for young children. The full content advisory is here

I stayed up the night between Holy Thursday and Good Friday, something I'd always wanted to do, working on the chapter and listening to Ann Barnhardt's Sorrowful Mysteries against the Heresy of Modernism. I also found this schedule diagram in an old missal I was looking at, that was wonderful to have by whilst keeping vigil on that night.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Aitkin Age column: Keeping our independence

My latest column for the Aitkin Independent Age:

Do you know where the “Independent” in the name of this newspaper comes from? In the late 1800s, there were three newspapers in Aitkin: the Aitkin Age, the Aitkin Independent, and the Aitkin Republican. Eventually the Independent and the Age combined into the Independent Age. So the “Independent” was there originally to distinguish the paper’s political position from that of the Republican.

At that time, news media made no pretext of “journalistic objectivity,” but openly wrote their stories from a certain stated standpoint. Readers could thus compare different papers’ takes on events or stick with the one with which they agreed. Later, the concept of journalistic objectivity, reporting the facts without opinion, became standard practice, and that is what we try for now at the Independent Age. While we do print releases from political offices, the policy is not to include any editorializing outside direct quotations. For example, in an article announcing Stewart Mills’ second run for Congress, we changed the sentence, “[Mills] understands that Minnesota cannot continue with the current representation …” to “[Mills] believes that Minnesota cannot continue …” We may not always catch every instance of subjectivity but that is the goal.

The exception, of course, is opinion page columns like this one, where writers are speaking just for themselves, not the paper, allowing all kinds of ideas to be argued for. Opinionated discourse is a good thing, allowing debate to forge a path toward, hopefully, the truth; as long as it’s clear it’s coming from a certain viewpoint and there’s not one-sided censorship.
These two problems, however, are prevalent in much of public discourse.
 Read the rest here.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Ink and fairydust!

The online magazine for Christian young ladies with literary interests, Ink and Fairydust, has just come out with its March/April issue, which you can read at the link. Its theme is children's books.

I haven't had time to contribute for quite a while, sadly, but you can see some of my work in the Inspiration-themed January/February issue, illustrating an article about Rivershore books, an independent publisher.

I hope to get back into the swing of more things and start contributing again, especially because the next issue is planned to have a theme I really like... (but I can't tell you what it is now!)

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Sacred and Immaculate Hearts coloring pages colored



Pages from the Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book colored by my sister Anna.

These images are available as prints here (Sacred) and here (Immaculate) in my Society6 shop, which Anna and I are considering making a shared shop.