A Week in Writing #536 - Under the Weather

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

This was a slower than expected week for me. Wednesday night into Thursday I came down with a cold or something similar. I'm guessing I caught it from one of the half-dozen workmen we had in the house. While I won't go into details, part of our house is 75 years-old and with it comes 75 year-old-wiring, which turns out to be woefully dangerous. It really wasn't until today before I felt whole again, as they say.

I did manage to work on both The Hound Dogs' Howl newsletter, as well as finish the reviews as I was working on: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1974), which came out as this past Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked, and Three Godfathers (1936), which will be coming out in December as part of our salute to Christmas. If you've been reading Trophy Unlocked, and you should be, you might remember a few years ago, we did a salute to A Christmas Carol, reviewing several different versions from a silent retelling A Christmas Carol (1910), starring Marc McDermott, to a more modern one, A Christmas Carol (1984), starring George C. Scott with several stops inbetween.

This Christmas we're doing the same with movies made based on the novel The Three Godfathers by Peter B. Kyne (New York, 1913) but you'll have to stay tuned to see which films I mean and in which order they will appear.

And mine wasn't the only review on Trophy Unlocked this week. Trevor's review of the video game Please, Touch The Artwork 2 on what I like to call Game Day on the blog.

I had hoped to do some more on Skylar this week, but I really didn't have the energy.

Even though I was not feeling great, I still managed to do the Powers Squared podcast on Friday night. It was our November 2024 team meeting and while we talked about the comic book, we also talked about moving to Bluesky, which prompted a discussion about AI. It was a good conversation and you can listen to it now here, or watch it when it comes out on YouTube on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST, here.

As far as Bluesky goes, you can follow me @lionsroar91406.bsky.social or you can follow Powers Sqaured @powerssquaredcomic.bsky.social. lt would help as we're starting over, so to speak.

Next week starts the holiday season, so you'll have to forgive me if my input drops after Wednesday. Lots of driving, food and shopping to be done. Hope everyone has a Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #535 - Deleting Twitter and Not Looking Back

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

This week, not only had I moved our accounts to BlueSky, but we also deleted our Twitter account. Again, concerns over AI is the main reason. It's slow going rebuilding a following on a new platform, but it's a decision we made and I'll stand by going forward. If you're interested in following me, on BlueSky, I'm @lionsroar91406.bsky.social and Powers Squared is now @powerssquaredcomic.bsky.social.

On the subject of Powers Squared, I'm happy to report that our new artist, Jen Moreno, turned in 8 really good looking pages for Issue #28. I hope we're in good hands going forward.

Our two former artists, Julia Canon and Rachel Wells, joined Trevor, Paul and myself for our 16th Comic Book Club, wherein we discussed Happy Kanako's Killer Life, Volume 1 by Toshiya Wakabayashi. After that we recorded, for the future, a preview of Issue #23, "Family Affair, Part 2". That podcast will come out on Black Friday, and the new issue will be released on Wednesday, Dec. 4. You'll have to wait to see that one, but you can listen to the Book Club here or watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PST here.

While I enjoy doing podcasts with the creative team, I'm at least twice as old as any of them and sometimes feel like Roy from the old The Mickey Mouse Club, which was before my time. All the young mouseketters would introduce themselves, then this older man would come out; Roy. You know he had less than nothing in common with Annette Funicello. Again, this was all before my time, but I've seen videos from that era. I don't have the same points of references the others have and they, for the most part, don't have mine either. And, to be honest, no one tries to make me feel that way, it's just how I feel sometimes.

I finished going through my rewrites on Skylar, so now it's down to the denouement, which I started to work on too late to make any real progress on it. I know how the book will end, but it's the getting there that I'm working on.

On to the subject of Trophy Unlocked. My review of Bombshell (1933) was the Saturday Morning Review. I picked that one to go up because last week was the anniversary of the release of Jean Harlow's first big starring role, Hell's Angels (1930) and she was on my mind. I'm still amazed about the impression she made in such a short time. Earlier in the week, Trevor's review of Sheepy: A Short Adventure went up on Wednesday, what I like to hashtag as GameDay.

I'm currently working on a review of Blade, which we watched on Friday night. I won't give anything away, but I drew the short straw.

I've already started working on the next newsletter, as it's due the Sunday we get back from the Thanksgiving holiday, but more on that next week. So, I'll be working on that some more next week and finishing up Blade and hopefully the second draft of Skylar. There's also some finishing touches to be put on the next release, like loading it on a couple of platforms.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #534 - WonderCon and BlueSky

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

Big things are afoot for Powers Squared. The biggest news is that we will be tabling at WonderCon in 2025 (March 28-30). This is a big step for us, but I think we're up for it, especially after tabling at LA Comic Con. I've already added it to Events on our webpage. Much more to come in later posts.

Secondly, Powers Squared and I are both leaving Twitter (X). It's not so much what happened Tuesday, though that does contribute, but it's their AI policy. I don't want to post images that will train AI. If you're following me, it's @lionsroar91406.bsky.social and if you've been following Powers Squared  @MartyandEli, it's going to be Powers Squared at @powerssquaredcomic.bsky.social. I hope you'll follow both of this on this new platform.

On the subject of Powers Squared, Paul and I discussed issue #23, only as it relates to unboxing proofs of issues #23. A couple of weeks ago, I found a mistake that probably should have been caught earlier. A glass that was supposed to be refilled, was full. I know it's minor, but you want it to be right. As it turns out, both proofs, one for Ka-Blam and the other Artithmeric, each arrived a day or so apart, and we didn't have a guest lined up, so it seemed like something new we could do. This issue comes out on December 4 and will be available in post physical and digital and links will be available in The Campus Store on our website. If you're curious to hear our latest podcast, OAPS #269, here or watch it on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PST here.

The peek-of-the-week, and yes, we do it weekly on the website, is a pencil of the cover. You can look at it here.

Yesterday was the first Neurodiversity Comic Con. I heard it went well. I've added some photos on our website on the Events page; to see them scroll down below WonderCon. Powers Squared was one of the sponsors.

Finished two reviews this week: one for The Thirteenth Chair (1929) and the other for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving; the latter should be up on or before the upcoming holiday. No new review this week, as we rewatched Chicken Run this weekend. As I write that, I realize we've never reviewed that title before, hmm.

My review of The Cat's Meow (2002) was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked this past week. But that wasn't the only review on the blog; Trevor's review of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed was the Wednesday Game Day review.

Did some work on Skylar and actually wrote some on it, but it is far from finished.

While I haven't launched query season, I did sign up to get a link to a video seminar about query letters. If and when I look at it, I'll let you know what I learn.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #533 - Busy Week but Fall Back Looms

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

I'm sort of happy to have last week behind me. Congrats to the Dodgers, but those games pushed everything back in my house. And then there was Halloween, which, while fun, was also a bit of disruption as well. And, of course, looming ahead this week is the great fall back, which means it'll get dark earlier and that could affect me, since it has in the past. But that'll be next week's post.

On to this week and let's start with Powers Squared. At the moment, we have two artists, Julia Canon and Jen Moreno, working on separate issues. While I thought that would be a good idea to get more work done, it also means they'll both want to be paid, and deservedly so, for their work. Julia is finishing her work on issue #27, which is a standalone Billy and Raven story, and Jen is working on issue #28, which is the first of a two-parter that we're aiming for 2026. After a slow start, Jen has shown some real talent for sequential storytelling and we're very hopeful going forward.

So during the week, there was a lot of reviewing of pages from both with comments and some revisions, so good for the future of Powers Squared.

This week was capped by our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which we send out once a month. I'll put in my plea here for readers to subscribe. It's easy, free, and can be done here. (You get a free digital copy of Issue #1, an added inducement.) We covered the usual topics, including our tabling at LA Comic Con, our bookshelf debut and our support of the Neurodiversity Comic Con, which is happening next week. We also do a salute to twins, this month being  animators Tom and Tony Bancroft, whom we met at Lightbox and much more. Info on subscribing (enrolling at San Romero Community College) can be found here.

Our Friday podcast was a salute to 40 years of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You can watch it here on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST or listen to it now on our website or one of the other platforms you'll find there as well.

Still working on my review for Elektra, which I need to finish. And I might be reviewing The Thirteenth Chair (1929). That said, my review of The Man with Two Faces (1934) was the Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked. However, it was far from the only review that week on the blog. Paul continued his tribute to Resident Evil games with a second look at Resident Evil Village for the PS5, and on Halloween his review of Silent Hill 2 (2024) went up.

And let's not forget Skylar, I managed to work on that novel for a couple of nights. Some rewrites, but mostly updating per my own edits. I am finding that my chapter numbering in the first draft was pretty inconsistent; I think I had three chapters with Chapter Twenty-Nine as the header. More to come on that.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.