Art

Featured image: Unknown title and artist, originally found on Loveydoveship.

Have yourself some Shugo Chara! fan art. Alas, this image has been shared so much across the interwebs that I have failed to trace it to its source. It’s a depiction of the protagonist Amu in her four magical forms. In any case, if you are interested in the title, don’t miss my review.

Art

Featured image: The White Devil by DreamEater Merry.

Art by Damian DarkBane

Featured image: “Nanoha” by DamianDarkbane

And you have no idea what I went through to find wholesome Nanoha fan art. Seriously. I think this is a great image, but it’s also the one I’ve chosen to post because it’s just about the only one that’s safe for work.

I’m still making my way through StrikerS. I’m watching it slowly because, well, I’m kind of busy. I hope to have a review up this weekend.

Walpurgisnacht 2018

Featured image swiped from the Suushuu image board.

I’m now in the final home stretch on finishing my degree, so one of my goals is to be posting more regularly from now on.

Anyway, it is the Feast of Walpurgisnacht again already, historically believed to be the night of a witches’ sabbath and still celebrated tongue-in-cheek in parts of Europe. Here at deus ex magical girl, it is a time of year to celebrate cute witches. This year, it also marks the date when there is one month left until the official release date of Jake and the Dynamo.

This year, we’re going to display some crossover fan art, which I ripped off from the image board linked above. I’m a bit embarrassed that I can’t instantly identify all of the characters in these.

Art

Featured Image: “Phantom Thief Jeanne” by AkiraDBios.

I’m just about finished with the Phantom Thief Jeanne manga, also known as Kamikaze Kaitō Jeanne, by Arina Tanemura, which, conveniently, saw a republication from Viz Media in 2014, making it an unusually easy-to-acquire older title. The anime from Toei Animation has, as far as I know, never seen a commercial release in English, so our discussion will be of the manga.

I was hoping to have more of Saint Tail under my belt before I talked about Jeanne, but that one, which I believe was only published in English in a flopped edition from the now-largely-defunct Tokyopop, is hard to acquire, and I have only ever found its anime adaptation being sold at outrageous collectors’ prices bigger than my budget. Nonetheless, I think I’ve seen enough of it that we can make some meaningful comparisons with Jeanne, which clearly draws on it, even if I can’t justifiably give it a full review.

Anyway, we previously had some Saint Tail fan art, so now have some Phantom Thief Jeanne fan art.

Team Pizza! (and a J&tD update)

Art by Roffles Lowell

My schedule is still fairly harsh through this coming week, but after Saint Paddy’s Day, things will slow down a bit for me. I hope to be posting more regularly.

Things are coming along smoothly so far on the publication process of the first volume of JAKE AND THE DYNAMO, which is currently under the working title of Down and Out in Fifth Grade. There’s no projected publication date yet, but some of the earliest preliminary work is done. I’m working on the bonus content: I had originally produced an extra chapter, but now I’m unhappy with it, and I’m considering instead including a novelette featuring Rifle Maiden’s misadventures while babysitting the Bubble Princesses.

I believe I’ve chosen a studio for cover art, and I don’t think he’ll mind if I say that I’m talking to Roffles Lowell about the possibility of doing interior illustrations. No commitments have been made, so this post isn’t an attempt to pressure him or anything. But I really enjoy the YA look of his style, and I appreciate that it differs from the standard style of Japanese light novels or Japanese-influenced work. This is obviously a weeb novel, so I like the idea of the art being non-weeb.

In the midst of our conversation, Roffles sent me the above picture of Team Pizza to show me what his work looks like in black and white, and he told me to do with the image as I wish. So this is me doing that. Featured up there, of course, are Pizza Margherita, her faithful dog Pepper, and Crazy Annie Shové, all riding comfortably on the Pie in the Sky.

Jake and the Dynamo Fan Art #3

Featured image: “Jake and Dana” by Roffles Lowell.

I asked Roffles if he’d be willing to draw Jake and Dana together, and he came through. Looks like Jake finally got Dana that juice box he owes her, though from the design on the box, it looks like he didn’t find strawberry milk. That’s probably why she’s pouting. Of course, she’d pout anyway. I like the big brother/little sister vibe he’s captured in this drawing. Three different artists have produced interpretations of the characters now, but I believe this is our first picture of Dana in her non-magical form.

Roffles doesn’t like the way I dress Dana and has told me so, so he went his own route with her clothes. But the joke’s on him: she’d probably be perfectly comfortable in ripped jeans and sneakers.

For the record, Dana’s canonical couture is based on Jake and the Dynamo‘s inspiration. Before I went to bed and had the dream about Jake and Dana that eventually became the serial novel, I was watching the anime adaptation of Shugo Chara, an influential and successful magical girl title from the beginning of this millennium, created by the two-woman manga-ka team Peach-Pit (who are probably best known, at least in the U.S., for Rozen Maiden, which has a substantial internet cult following).

Anyway, the protagonist of Shugo Chara is a fifth-grader whose mode of dress is described in-universe as “Goth-punk.” I attempted to mimic the look, more or less, with Dana’s wardrobe.

Jake and the Dynamo Fan Art

In this image by Roffles Lowell, Magical Girl Pretty Dynamo broods as she flies high over the city she is doomed to protect. She contemplates the implacable foes bent on humanity’s destruction. She contemplates what nefarious mastermind may be behind the latest wave of monster attacks. She contemplates how she’s pretty sure she saw Jake making eyes at Sword Seamstress, so she is really going to give him what-for when she gets home. Just see if she doesn’t. Jake is such a big jerk. Boys really suck. Totally.