It's been a while since I posted anything, since I'm concentrating on getting writing projects caught up. But I thought I should at least put something online to remind people that I am still alive. So, touching on one of my passions, here's a list of the best animated stuff I saw in 2018 in no particular order. These may not all be things that premiered in 2018, but that's when I saw them. Plus, I have't seen everything animated that came out this year (yet), like Isle of Dogs and Into the Spider-Verse, so they won't be included here.
SONG OF THE SEA This originally came out in 2014, but I only saw it this year. One of the top three truly classic animated works of the 2010s, along with contenders like the amazing COCO and WOLF CHILDREN. By the same creator and crew who made THE SECRET OF KELLS, it draws heavily on Irish Folklore and Myth to tell the tale of two contentious Irish siblings. If there is only one entry on this list that you see, it definitely has to be this one.
HILDA A cozy but super-imaginative and fun adventure series that took me completely by surprise. A brash young girl moves from the countryside to the city in a fantasy world, and finds the city offers just as much magical adventure as her former home. The best tv/streaming animated work this year.
SHE-RA Speaking of surprises, this turned out to be another very pleasant one, better in every way than the original by far. Especially solid here are all the prominent characters, the true stand-outs being protagonist Adora and her best-friend-turned-enemy Catra. They didn't shy away from the emotional turmoil caused by the fallout of Adora's decision, and even in the midst of the fighting the two girls' conflicted feelings were still very apparent and made for some compelling viewing. And screw the comicsgater haters who whined about this before seeing even a lick of footage because She-Ra didn't look like an 80s barbie doll.
CASTLEVANIA No one expects video game adaptations to be good, but this one managed to pull it off. Great characters and great plot, with one heck of a climatic battle.
THE DRAGON PRINCE From one of the writers who brought us Avatar: The Last Airbender is a great and very fun fantasy adventure set in an interesting new world. Some criticisms of its stiff animation are valid, but the solid writing, creativity, and great characters more than make up for it.
YURU CAMP Cozy, relaxing, and very funny in places, I did not expect a slice-of-life series about a group of high school girls going cold-weather camping to be as watchable as it was. It's very much like SWEETNESS AND LIGHTNING that it's one of those perfect things to watch when you want to unwind after a hard day.
STAR WARS REBELS The series wrapped up with a crackerjack collection of final episodes. The very best thing Star Wars on screen since the original trilogy.
AGGRETSUKO Funny and true-to-life office comedy that just happens to star a death-metal-loving red panda.
MY HERO ACADEMIA In its third season, still a great, solid action anime about student super heroes. Had my favorite single episode of the year, with All Might in his epic final battle against All For One. United States of Smash!
And that's it I guess. I may have missed one or two. Here's hoping 2019 produces some equally great or even better animation!
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Ending Orbital Vector
After much deliberation, I decided not to renew the Orbital Vector website I've had up for 13 years.
Most people reading this probably weren't even aware of it. I hadn't updated it in 6 years, but just couldn't bring myself to put it out of its misery until now.
Orbitalvector.com was dedicated to presenting speculative science ideas in a layman-friendly way. All in all, it eventually ended up with over 150 illustrated articles on everything from Dyson Spheres to Interstellar Drives to Plasma Guns and much more.
For most of its existence, the site's ads did cover most of its own operating costs. Unfortunately, I personally could never earn enough back to compensate for all the time spent researching, writing, coding, and uploading the articles for the website, so I eventually had to stop. And now I'm letting it go. I do think it's very unfortunate, as I considered the site very fun and educational, even if it did mostly have a niche audience.
For those of you who did peruse the site in any capacity, thanks, I appreciated having you as an audience and enjoyed creating it and its contents for you. The good news is that this will free up resources for me to put up an author's website. And who knows, some of Orbital vector's content may end up on there eventually.
Thanks again!
-- PL
Most people reading this probably weren't even aware of it. I hadn't updated it in 6 years, but just couldn't bring myself to put it out of its misery until now.
Orbitalvector.com was dedicated to presenting speculative science ideas in a layman-friendly way. All in all, it eventually ended up with over 150 illustrated articles on everything from Dyson Spheres to Interstellar Drives to Plasma Guns and much more.
For most of its existence, the site's ads did cover most of its own operating costs. Unfortunately, I personally could never earn enough back to compensate for all the time spent researching, writing, coding, and uploading the articles for the website, so I eventually had to stop. And now I'm letting it go. I do think it's very unfortunate, as I considered the site very fun and educational, even if it did mostly have a niche audience.
For those of you who did peruse the site in any capacity, thanks, I appreciated having you as an audience and enjoyed creating it and its contents for you. The good news is that this will free up resources for me to put up an author's website. And who knows, some of Orbital vector's content may end up on there eventually.
Thanks again!
-- PL
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Thoughts About My Father
About ten days ago my father died. I wanted to hold off on writing any detailed thoughts until i was on a more even emotional keel and my family was through their initial mourning. Plus this account is mostly meant to be a fun space for fans, so I don't want to be too maudlin for too long.
The particulars are in the link below. He was 83, a husband, father, and grandfather. He and I butted heads a lot during my life. But as I myself grew older, I began seeing him less as a n avatar of stubborness and more as person and where e was coming from. He grew up during the depression, served overseas, and was very uncompromising about a lot of things, for good or ill.
He loved sports, and watching them on TV. He especially liked yelling at it whenever the Bills lost, which was a lot more often than he liked. he hunted and fished and played pinnochle with the neighbors and went to church every Sunday and loved his grandsons, my nephews, more than anything.
One thing followers of me here should know is that he was also a very big scifi and fantasy fan. He gave me my love of cartoons and animation. Well into adulthood, one thing he and I could always do together is sit and watch the classic Looney Tunes cartoons and others. when he wasn't watching sports, he watched scifi and science shows, and I guess I got that part of me from him too. So whenever you see me doing nerdy stuff on here and elsewhere, my books and artwork and games and other stuff, you probably have him at least partially to thank for it.
Okay, that will be it for now. Back to my regular stupidity with the next post.
Monday, June 25, 2018
The Ultimate Team-Up: Luke Cage and Zatoichi!
Teaming up for my entertainment, any way. = P
Had a bit of creative blockage lately, so I filled my downtime watching something new (Luke Cage Season 2) and something old and familiar (the Zatoichi film series) to maybe shake myself out of it.
Briefly, I very much enjoyed LUKE CAGE SEASON 2. It had its flaws here and there--mostly it being too long by about 3 episodes and some bits and storylines being obvious filler. But there was a lot to like.
Marvel to its credit has seemed to take the criticism to heart, and has been stepping up it's villain game in both the movies and its netflix shows. Not all of them hit the mark (like Jessica's mom) but Luke Cage made Season 2 all about its villains and did a mostly outstanding job. Alfre Woodard hit it out of the park with her portrayal of twisted crime boss Mariah, and we got some surprising and entertaining depth to other villains like Shades and Bushmaster, the latter of whom was a great new addition.
Mike Colter again did a great job as the title character. Though he does have an arc, its not as well developed as the various villains' stories, but was still great in places. Plus the episode with the Iron Fist team up was great fun, and I appreciated some of the nods to the old comics (particularly "Where's my money, honey?" which made me lol for real.)
ZATOICHI is a classic Japanese film series from the 60s and early 70s, about a wandering blind swordmaster in the late Edo period (early 1800s) in japan. There were 20 odd films and a TV series. There were a few sporadic modern remakes, but my heart for this series will always lie with the original.
Although this series is usually lumped together with the samurai flicks of the same period, Ichi ('Zato' refers to his titular profession, a masseur) is yakuza in his origins, and is forever on the lowest rung of japanese society of that era. He often keeps the fact that he is a terrifyingly skillful swordsman under wraps, usually until some idiot mobsters run afoul of him and he ends up having to cut a fool or fifty.
ichi is played by the great Shintaro Katsu, who usually does a great job in balancing both the character's tragic, human side as well as his goofiness. Ichi is noble in intention but often flawed in his actions, but is also not afraid to have a laugh at his own expense.
The series does have some flaws, but as a whole it has a lot of great action, good humor, and even some occasional compelling drama. My favorites are the first two movies ("The Tale of Zatoichi" and "The Tale of Zatoichi Continues"), the seventh ("Zatoichi and the Chest Of Gold," which basically ends in a horror movie massacre in a dark mansion with Ichi as the 'monster'), and number seventeen ("Zatoichi Challenged") which probably has the very best fight of the series, a clip of which is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=_Hvc1Ae-YCU
Most of the movies can be found on youtube, plus they're also on dvd and blue ray. Well worth looking up and watching.
Had a bit of creative blockage lately, so I filled my downtime watching something new (Luke Cage Season 2) and something old and familiar (the Zatoichi film series) to maybe shake myself out of it.
Briefly, I very much enjoyed LUKE CAGE SEASON 2. It had its flaws here and there--mostly it being too long by about 3 episodes and some bits and storylines being obvious filler. But there was a lot to like.
Marvel to its credit has seemed to take the criticism to heart, and has been stepping up it's villain game in both the movies and its netflix shows. Not all of them hit the mark (like Jessica's mom) but Luke Cage made Season 2 all about its villains and did a mostly outstanding job. Alfre Woodard hit it out of the park with her portrayal of twisted crime boss Mariah, and we got some surprising and entertaining depth to other villains like Shades and Bushmaster, the latter of whom was a great new addition.
Mike Colter again did a great job as the title character. Though he does have an arc, its not as well developed as the various villains' stories, but was still great in places. Plus the episode with the Iron Fist team up was great fun, and I appreciated some of the nods to the old comics (particularly "Where's my money, honey?" which made me lol for real.)
ZATOICHI is a classic Japanese film series from the 60s and early 70s, about a wandering blind swordmaster in the late Edo period (early 1800s) in japan. There were 20 odd films and a TV series. There were a few sporadic modern remakes, but my heart for this series will always lie with the original.
Although this series is usually lumped together with the samurai flicks of the same period, Ichi ('Zato' refers to his titular profession, a masseur) is yakuza in his origins, and is forever on the lowest rung of japanese society of that era. He often keeps the fact that he is a terrifyingly skillful swordsman under wraps, usually until some idiot mobsters run afoul of him and he ends up having to cut a fool or fifty.
ichi is played by the great Shintaro Katsu, who usually does a great job in balancing both the character's tragic, human side as well as his goofiness. Ichi is noble in intention but often flawed in his actions, but is also not afraid to have a laugh at his own expense.
The series does have some flaws, but as a whole it has a lot of great action, good humor, and even some occasional compelling drama. My favorites are the first two movies ("The Tale of Zatoichi" and "The Tale of Zatoichi Continues"), the seventh ("Zatoichi and the Chest Of Gold," which basically ends in a horror movie massacre in a dark mansion with Ichi as the 'monster'), and number seventeen ("Zatoichi Challenged") which probably has the very best fight of the series, a clip of which is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=_Hvc1Ae-YCU
Most of the movies can be found on youtube, plus they're also on dvd and blue ray. Well worth looking up and watching.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Exiles, Transformations, and Sexy Monster Girls coming up!
UPCOMING PROJECTS
First up is the dark fantasy novel HIPPOCAMPUS with co-author Phillip Velasquez. Two SCUBA divers run afoul of a mysterious sea sorceress and face decades of slavery transformed into something decidedly non human. The prose for this is finished, and we're just waiting on getting the cover together for it.
Also in the works is RIVER OF DREAMS, the seventh novel in the epic FANTASY ENVOY EROTICA series. Tobias is joined in his voyage along the continent-spanning river by Drazat, a demented sot of a wizard, and Ezmi, a cynical halfling courtesan hired by Drazat as their traveling sex toy. Only things take a dire turn as old adversaries rear their ugly reptilian heads...
I've been putting together collections/bundles of books lately, with one more coming: the MONSTER GIRL EROTICA SAMPLER PACK. It will be a collection of four erotica novels to let a reader get a sampling from different such stories of mine. It will include the first HOT GOBLIN GIRLS, the first HOT DINO GIRLS, HOT MARTIAN GIRLS, and 100 POTIONS, plus a new short story, "Unicorn Glade." I published 'Unicorn Glade' online before, but the last time it was posted was over a decade ago, and this will be its first time officially 'published' in an actual book.
And I do plan on eventually collecting together all the 'exclusive' short stories from each collection in their own anthology, once enough of them accumulate to make that worthwhile.
Also coming up will be the anthologies WORLDS OF TRANSFORMATION, which will probably be two volumes. All my collaborations with Phil Velasquez started off with me doing story commissions for him, and these will collect all those shorter works.
Before the end of the year, I also want to get to HOT GOBLIN GIRLS 5 and HOT DINO GIRLS 5, but I also want to do one or two original erotica works before I dive back into those series. As things stand right now, that will either be HOT PIRATE GIRLS or PALOMA'S HOUSE, or both.
In between all that I want to finally put out paperback editions of THE SHATTERED SKY as well as all the collected books I've put out lately.
Down the line, I plan on eventually doing two sequels to ICE AGE HEAT. I had wanted to continue things with that story, but was kind of stuck past a certain point. But I worked through that now and am pretty confident I have enough for at least two more books. I plan on being a WRITING BEAST for as long as I can sustain it, so hopefully I can get to that early next year. But given reality, and especially how the real world has been fucking with me the past half year, I can't make any guarantees when any of this is going to get done, really.
First up is the dark fantasy novel HIPPOCAMPUS with co-author Phillip Velasquez. Two SCUBA divers run afoul of a mysterious sea sorceress and face decades of slavery transformed into something decidedly non human. The prose for this is finished, and we're just waiting on getting the cover together for it.
Also in the works is RIVER OF DREAMS, the seventh novel in the epic FANTASY ENVOY EROTICA series. Tobias is joined in his voyage along the continent-spanning river by Drazat, a demented sot of a wizard, and Ezmi, a cynical halfling courtesan hired by Drazat as their traveling sex toy. Only things take a dire turn as old adversaries rear their ugly reptilian heads...
I've been putting together collections/bundles of books lately, with one more coming: the MONSTER GIRL EROTICA SAMPLER PACK. It will be a collection of four erotica novels to let a reader get a sampling from different such stories of mine. It will include the first HOT GOBLIN GIRLS, the first HOT DINO GIRLS, HOT MARTIAN GIRLS, and 100 POTIONS, plus a new short story, "Unicorn Glade." I published 'Unicorn Glade' online before, but the last time it was posted was over a decade ago, and this will be its first time officially 'published' in an actual book.
And I do plan on eventually collecting together all the 'exclusive' short stories from each collection in their own anthology, once enough of them accumulate to make that worthwhile.
Also coming up will be the anthologies WORLDS OF TRANSFORMATION, which will probably be two volumes. All my collaborations with Phil Velasquez started off with me doing story commissions for him, and these will collect all those shorter works.
Before the end of the year, I also want to get to HOT GOBLIN GIRLS 5 and HOT DINO GIRLS 5, but I also want to do one or two original erotica works before I dive back into those series. As things stand right now, that will either be HOT PIRATE GIRLS or PALOMA'S HOUSE, or both.
In between all that I want to finally put out paperback editions of THE SHATTERED SKY as well as all the collected books I've put out lately.
Down the line, I plan on eventually doing two sequels to ICE AGE HEAT. I had wanted to continue things with that story, but was kind of stuck past a certain point. But I worked through that now and am pretty confident I have enough for at least two more books. I plan on being a WRITING BEAST for as long as I can sustain it, so hopefully I can get to that early next year. But given reality, and especially how the real world has been fucking with me the past half year, I can't make any guarantees when any of this is going to get done, really.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Battling Bursitis This Week
Blearg. Over the weekend, I developed some tendonitis in my right knee, which swelled up the joint. That would have been bad enough, but then I banged my swollen knee on the cane I've been using to hobble around, and bam, got hit by a bit of bursitis too. I'll recover, obviously. This isn't the first time I've been through something like this. But holey moley is this painful at times. Even worse than the chest pains I had back in December, and that was from a 'minor' heart blockage.
Obviously, this means there are going to be more delays on things, at least until the pain quiets down enough so I can properly concentrate on things again. But hopefully this clears up soon.
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
New Updates 3/18
I am currently working heavily on a bunch of book- and writing-related projects. As such, I likely won't be able to update on Patreon, DA, or other sites for the next month or so as much as I have been doing, especially artwork. However, my Patreon patrons will still be able to get a bunch of sneak peaks at ongoing manuscripts and cover art in progress, plus I will still be doing sketches for fun just to unwind.
But on the plus side, it should mean more books more quickly from me, which I assume most people are contributing to my Patreon for in the first place. First up is AQUARIUM BLUES, then THE COLLECTED HOT DRAGON GIRLS Volume 2 with an exclusive short story, then the paperback of THE COLLECTED HOT DRAGON GIRLS Volume 1, all hopefully by the end of the month.
After that will be the first WORLDS OF TRANSFORMATION anthology, THE COLLECTED HOT GOBLIN GIRLS and the HOT ORC GIRLS collection. The latter will collect my Orc-themed erotica novels, including The Virgin Orc's First Kiss, Deep Delve, and Moonfire's Busty Curse. Both volumes will also feature an exclusive original short story.
Those short stories for the collected volumes will be available only to those books AND to my patrons on Patreon!
Later in the year, expect to see paperback versions of the collected volumes, plus brand new works like WORLD OF TRANSFORMATION VOLUME 2, HOT PIRATE GIRLS, PALOMA'S HOUSE, HOT GOBLIN GIRLS 5, and RIVER OF EXILES (Fantasy Envoy Volume 7.) So stay tuned!
Plus, follow me on Twitter! Just got back into it and am trying to build up my audience there.
@plucas1000
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