Star Wars Union.... the comic you should not die before reading.

I am your basic, avid, robot drooling fanboy of Star Wars. That said, its been several years since I accidentally burned out my retinas by reading this comic, Star Wars Union. I was only seventeen at the time, so I can be forgiven... but the writers can not!

Sorry, I sound harsh, but this mediocre play at Star Wars role playing is SO Mary Sue that I couldn't believe it was supposed to be canon.

Of course, its entertaining. If you can put down the stuff that rises from the back of your throat while reading this mess you start to enjoy it for its own weirdness. Luke is in love with Mara Jade and they are getting married. Bad 'Imperials' try to stop the wedding. They don't. Theres the plot.

The more interesting things are found while reading the book.. scenes where Luke is hugging Mara from behind look more like Luke is attacking a poor female in the woods while she gazes off into nothingness... while a tiny bird is perched on her fingers like a real Mary Poppins.

Really... this is pretty corny.

I like corny... when its actually Mary Poppins. Not when its the hand of the freaking Emperor!!

I don't want to come down like a ton of bricks on the guys who wrote this. I respect them for their awesomeness and I appreciate the amount of work that went into this book.

But I just can't get over the idea that Mara Jade would cry while she picks out her wedding dress with Leia... Mara Jade would get married while killing rogue Storm Troopers in the middle of a fire fight while carrying limp Luke over her shoulder and dragging the minister with her free leg!!

So please... lets have a do over... lets do this wedding right, hmmm?

Fan Art

Although I am a graphic artist and really am working on my own first book for publication I don't feel like putting my own characters up on this blog. I've seen a lot of people who use blogs to show off their own art and its a great idea but I'm thinking more along the lines of fan art.

Yes, I do that. Fan art is a wonderful way to stretch your drawing muscles without cramping up on your own characters. I feel that sketch dumps (the name used to refer to 'dumping' sketches of the day) can lead to people hating their own designs. For example, you show a picture of your upcoming Lara Croft-esque character that you've been working on for six months. You have her character down and show off a rather tumbled but awesome sketch of her in a costume you hardly thought about. Your followers LOVE her and devote time and attention to her outfit, her braids, her shoes, her face.... all the while you're thinking it doesn't look at all like you were thinking. Now you're caught into either using the sketch as your final design or disappointing your own fans.

Not a happy choice.

For me, then, the answer is obvious.

Don't put up original arts.

Instead, I'll use this blog to show off my skills by way of fan arts.

Problem solved.

Time flows like a Chocolate River

So I look at myself in the mirror this weekend and find something interesting to relate.

Grey hairs.

On the top of me head.

Screaming at me.

I'm sure other people of my generation (born in the 1980's still a kid in the 1990's) will be suffering from this same predicament either soon or have already started noticing the debilitating signs of aging thus far. For some reason my head has decided to become as lazy as the rest of me is in style. The very pigment of my hair color has gotten too lazy to continue living!

A laughable moment, yes. A strangely sobering moment, yes. But also a moment of reflection and a tug at my chest as I realize that I'm only 27 years old and grey hair shouldn't be popping out of my thick dark, dark, almost black, brown hair. Not yet.

Am I right?

Probably more people will be agreeing with me my while rubbing their long, pigment endowed locks than not, but what bothers me the most is how much I'm not concerned by this.

What?! Not Concerned? You're complaining and yet you say you're not concerned?!

Thats right.

For some reason I find myself musing at the idea of age with a resigned and complacent attitude. This is stranger to me than the idea that I'll probably be fully grey before I'm 35. Why aren't I bothered? Lets face it, I thought I would be married by the age of eighteen! Not because I was in love but because Princess Jasmine was married at sixteen and I could afford to wait a few years. A few grey hairs now and a full grey head soon isn't the pendulum of doom.

A few years ago I went through a pre-mid life crisis.

In other words, I hit age 22.

Like most kids from the era of Michael Jackson and Furby dolls I thought I would have lived a full life of Panda Saving Heroics in China and Orca rescuing romps in California way before I reached the old old age of 21.

Ah yes. The Pandas!

And the Orcas.

When I hit 22 I realized I had failed all my worthy youth inspired dreams and to top it off, I wasn't rich and didn't own a car.

Its hard to face facts. When I hit age 24 I got it especially bad and even thought I had failed at life when I hadn't published a book or written a hit song or become an international personage of Mystery and Awesomeness!

But instead of falling into a pit of miserable despair something happened when I hit the old age 27. I stopped worrying.

I stopped worrying about the high expectations of the world and the one in ten million Miley Cyrus idea that if you don't make it when you're very young you should just give up. I stopped trying to hurry up and make something of myself. My parents love me the way I am right now because they know I'm trying as hard as I can to be someone they can be proud of. And even if I never become that person I hope to become they'll still love me.

And the world can suck it.

So I'm back to looking at the mirror at my grey hairs and thinking about the fact I've already passed the quarter century block and not yet found my magic carpet and you know what?

I'm going to be just fine.

And so are you, cowboys.

-Mar