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mcrmadness · 3 years

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Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the Bela/Farin: “Widumihei” comic.

A few months ago I posted here this comic:

CLICK HERE for the original post about that comic where you can see it in better and bigger size, and also reblog it ;)

And this post is just a deep dive into how I plan, do and draw my comics.

Let’s start with sketchbook things...

So every comic needs a story, right? My comics usually are born from either some dialogue I imagine in my head or by an impulsive inspiration that happens when I see something or talk with people and a random idea is triggered. I’m very good at coming up with new ideas solely based on just one word or so which is why I often ask people if they have anything they would want to see/read because I suck at coming up ideas on my own. Or I do get ideas, but not as often as I’d want to.

This particular idea was very old and I have tried but I cannot find the piece that was my inspiration but it was in some of my old German books because I remember laughing at it with either my brother or even with the German teacher in 2011 or 2012. I was only able to find my first “sketch” of the story:

This is in the notebook I used for writing down some comic ideas and even had one comic in it, plus it’s also my fanfiction writing notebook. It has no date but I know for sure it was either 2011 or 2012 because that’s when I did my last Bela/Farin comic and pretty much started my (unintentional) 6 year pause from drawing altogether.

I have always been trilingual when I do these plans for my comics, often writing the “narration” in Finnish and the dialog either in English or German because I just cannot imagine them to speaking Finnish. The translation of that text goes as:

COMIC (sarjis = sarjakuva = comic book in Finnish)

1. The phone is ringing. 2. F: “Widumihei?!” B: ? 3. B: “Farin wtf?” 4. Farin walks from another room. 5. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “It means, “will you marry me?”“ 7. B: *wtf* REPLAY:

1. Bela is sitting/laying somewhere. 2. The phone is ringing. Reached with his hand? 3. Looks at the phone, “wtf?”, a thought: “von Jan: Widumihei?!” 4. Bela: “Farin?” / “Jan?” 5. F comes from another room, looks in from behind the door frame or something. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “Widumihei: “WIllst DU MIch HEiraten”“ 7. B: “WTF”

So when I then started to draw these comics again in 2018, I kept thinking about this one too and still wanted to draw it one day. If you have read the finished comic, you may notice something different in the old plot versus new: I switched Bela’s and Farin’s roles. Back then I didn’t know too much yet but over the years I have learnt much much more about them and I just figured that asking to marry him even as a joke would be too much for Farin and that it would fit Bela’s persona much much better.

***

I had a bit of problems with getting started with this one, mainly because the last times I drew a dä comic was in June 2020, in April 2020 and before those in October 2019. Because of so long time between the comics, I just always forgot about my methods and in which order I do things and what works for me the best. So every time I started to work on a comic, I had to start completely over because all I had was blank paper and I somehow needed to get my thoughts in order and out of my head, into a physical form aka as text and images on the paper, and it’s easier said than done.

So pardon me but from this on the text is going to get a little bit confusing for a little while from now on - but it’s also a very good look over how the life with my suspected ADHD be like sometimes...

I started working on the plot once again to my sketchbook... I think it was somewhere in the beginning of 2020. Because the next idea there is from the summer. This is what the plot looked like at that point - here I had already switched their roles:

Shortly, the texts go: 1. Farin is reading a book. 2. A phone makes a noise. 3. (Farin) looks at it/read the message. / 6. B appears into the doorway. / 11. F spits out the tea.

And underneath it you can see one of the stick figure storyboards I often do in order to kinda see the text in pictures better, and I will write down or draw important aspects like expressions (Farin’s eyebrows) or things like *facepalm’* or *eyeroll* so that I remember to add them.

Next I was struggling with the era. It needed to be an era with the old mobile phones with SMS options but still not too early because I feel that Farin would have not been the first in line to buy a brand new technology object, especially not when it’s a phone. I was even googling when did Germany get their first mobile phone - I remember I got my first phone aka Nokia 5510 in 2000 or 2001 after my mom got a new one and gave her old one to me, so the story shouldn’t happen too many years before the Millenium.

Originally I planned 1997 for that - I needed to think about that based on their styles because shorter hair is harder to draw. Here’s me trying out some hairs and how they’re to draw and which era would suit my needs the best. I actually find the text hilarious altho it’s mine but this is what it’s in English:

Time period -> 1996-1997? 1998 I’ve never drawn 1999 is not that much fun to draw 2000 is already a bit too late? Bela not that much fun to draw. -2001 moustaches are not fun to draw?

I think I was struggling with my thoughts because the next thing in that sketchbook is yet another storyboard:

Or actually I think this was just to see how many sheets I’d need and how many panels I could fit on one sheet.

Anyhow, I then did other things for some time before I got back to this project this year. Including finishing with the sketchbook I had been using since 2010 (and the half of it since 2018!) and I had to get myself a new one. So when I started to think about this comic again, one night I was just thinking about some Bela/Farin scenarios as usual and suddenly I just felt that I NEED to do the comic in the 1998 style!!! So suddenly we jump from the original 1997 idea to the new era, only because of the colors.

So asap I grabbed my sketchbook and started to look for the proper colors for the hairs:

This one I posted here before too as I was struggling a lot and just felt that I didn’t know how to draw, again. Sometimes when I feel like that, I start drawing with my non-dominant aka left hand because it doesn’t have all that in muscle memory so drawing and writing with it feels more free and it feels almost like pressing a refresh button in my brain. Suddenly the right one know again how to draw because left isn’t too well in control. The below part of the image is done completely with the left hand, including the coloring.

And because I had now a new sketchbook, I somehow couldn’t... deal with the plot and plans being in a different sketchbook than everything else so I had write the plot/dialog AGAIN, into this new sketchbook, along with the storyboards and everything:

Translations: kirja = book, puhelin = phone, oviaukossa = in the doorway, teet suusta = tea(s) out of a/the mouth. “Puhelin zoom” just means “close up to the phone screen” in Madness.

You can also see that I found out that I don’t need to do the stick figure storyboards to imitate a sheet when I can just draw this rectangle and smaller rectangles inside of it and write there numbers to match the things in the dialog to make it much easier for me to plan the pages. And here’s also a small easter egg: there’s 13 panels overall in this comic :D I almost did 12 but then felt that no, I really need to do 13 because, you know, the hairs, the era, the album title. And also because I like the number so much lmao.

So from there we get to the second storyboard which is not just stick figures anymore but just me planning how I want the panels to look like. To get the imagery of the rooms and facial expressions etc. out onto the paper so that I can see them in real life instead of my shady imagination that sometimes isn’t as vivid as what I could be.

Also have you ever tried to draw a beach chair? It’s more difficult than you’d think:

I tried to draw the same thing from the same reference photos so many times and still I always felt like I was trying to draw that impossible triangle or some other illusion image. And it just went on and on here:

Originally I also had planned the second panel to be a close up of the phone so that Farin’s face would be left at the background from the frog perspective. That’s what I was trying to with that weird-ass face on the left but turned out that I have never drawn these characters from such angle and I just... couldn’t see it in my head clearly enough to be able to draw it. So I dismissed that idea and that’s why the angle changed from a phone close-up to a side view to the room and at Farin.

As I was in the middle of planning the second page, I suddenly wasn’t happy with my original plot anymore. I wasn’t sure if it would work and needed to think about it one more time. So I wrote two other dialogs here, along with a storyboards for them both. I ended up choosing B from those two options eventually.

I don’t remember anymore if I had already done the first sketch of the comics or not but at some point I just felt that I no longer knew how to draw in my style. Sometimes you just draw and learn wrong things and wrong methods that you get used to and then you have to take a break and actually do a little bit of studying over your own style to find again the way how you want to draw, and get rid of the bad habits and find the good ones again. In my case it was to draw the eyes way way too big when they originally never were THAT big, so I had to learn how to draw them small and normal again. That’s why I did these, as I really needed to pay attention to the faces and remember how to draw them again:

The front-side views were another big readong for this “study” because I have drawn that perspective only once or twice before and I needed to figure out how I want to draw that. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but for some reason the front-side Farin reminds me of one of the parent characters from this cartoon called The Rugrats which I watched as a kid. It was totally unintentional, but you can google The Rugrats if you don’t know how the charatcers looked like in the cartoon.

The things below are just me testing something. The red Farins were just to test how the colored pencils work on each other and how the fineliners work with the colored pencils, and which way is the better way to do the shading. And the red colored pencil was the only one available at the time so that had to do.

A little bit about the heads btw: You might notice some difference between the left and right faces. It’s because I have always, always struggled with drawing anything that is looking at right. Most of the animal portraits and all I have drawn so that they look at left because I just find it so much easier to draw. I think with comics it’s because I always start with the eye (and the eyebrows if I don’t forget it) and then do the forehead, nose, mouth and chin, and after that I either continue from the hair (from the front) or do the ear first. But when I am drawing them to look at right, I have to basically draw the mirror image and starting from the hair is not the key because it can easily mess up with the perspectives. I still usually draw everything in the same order but it really is difficult because I’m doing a mirror image and my own hand is on the way, too. Basically I’m drawing from right to left instead of left to right! (I think I should try drawing those with my left hand, then...)

And from here we get to the first sketch of the comic. From here on the images are from my phone’s camera so they are sometimes illegally bad but no can do, I again didn’t think I’d post these to anywhere:

Here you can see I was mainly just focusing on the shapes and the space inside those panels. Just trying to see the perspective and how everything is. The only thing that I drew more precisely was the third panel, with the hand and phone. I had quite a nice memory of old phones in my head but I still googled for some reference photos of Nokia 5110 phones as that was my first phone (as I mentioned earlier), and I also happened to have some of my other old phones on the table nearby so I took my own hand reference photos too:

They always say there’s a little bit of the artist in their art and this one literally has that - “Farin’s” hand is actually my hand! :D And I think the size is kinda on point too because this phone was like 2-3 times smaller than Nokia 5110 and I have small hands, and I believe Farin must have much bigger hands, so the 5110 probably would have looked about the same size in his hand.

After the first sketch, the next step was then - the second sketch:

I also wanted to add more action to the panels so that it’s interesting to look at and not just basically the same panel over and over again with just different speech bubbles, so I came up with the idea of Farin spitting out his tea not being as cartoony as it could be and that he would have to actually clean it up instead of just leaving it there just because in cartoons/comics everything is possible. That way I got more depth into the panels and it was also interesting for me to draw because I drew lots of new postures I have never drawn before, and I’m surprised how well it went despite me not even looking for any kind of reference photos! The only things I used reference photos for were the beach chair, and the phone in a hand. (I have actually always been quite good at drawing 3D objects and spaces, especially if they are rectangular.)

So yeah, this is the phase where everything is then finished with pencil and what follows next is drawing the lines with fineliners - I use Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners for everything else, and black Promarker for doing the lines for the panels (and also if I need bigger pitch black areas done).

Here are the panel lines done but I only had a photo of this first sheet.

And here are both sheets with the finelining done and all pencil marks etc. erased. I really like this part because it looks so clean when all those sketch marks are gone. It’s also crazy to think I literally spend hours drawing something in pencil only to erase it all away later :D

And here’s one photo of the coloring process, the first one has only the base colors done but none of the shadows yet (apart from the shirts), and the second one has some of the shadows done but not everything yet.

Usually after coloring, I will then go through everything with the fineliners one more time to make sure all the lines are dark enough as it just gives everything the finished yet a bit “sketchy” look that what I really like with my comics. The actual last detail is always adding my signature along with the date or year.

And here’s the finished comic one more time for comparison:

Don’t forget to check and reblog the actual post about this comic if you read this post all the way here. I’d appreaciate that a lot since art and artist on Tumblr are not really that much appreciated.

#mcrmadness draws #mcrmadness draws: behind the scenes #my comics #dä fanart #die ärzte

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lia-nikiforov · 7 years

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Winter 2017 Anime watchlist

Lmao this was supposed to go up last week but it takes me forever to write these things up orz.

Anyway, we’re 1/3 of the way into this barren Winter season, and thus my watchlist has shrunk significantly. I think I’m currently watching what, 10 shows? vs 23-ish last season? Anyway we’ve had a couple neat surprises this season, but it’s mostly the sequels that are keeping everything interesting. Also there’s quality hatewatch material which I hadn’t had in a while.

Because I fucked up, this time I’m going from best to worst rather than the usual opposite

Top Priority

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju: Futatabi Sukeroku-hen

To no one’s surprise, Rakugo maintains it’s tightly written character drama in top form. The direction is still unusually creative and masterful, especially considering this is a DEEN anime, production team deserves every kudo. If season one was a tragedy, season 2 is gearing up for a story of salvation. Every week I go in completely prepared to suffer and am repeatedly surprised by how happy I feel at the end of each episode. Scenes like Yakumo consoling a sleeping Konatsu with her father’s rakugo or his performing an old play in Sukeroku’s style for Yotaro are as heart-wrenching as they’re heartwarming. S1 was a strong contender for anime of the year 2016 (and for me it was a toss up between that and YOI) and season 2 seems ready to pick on that and go for a second run.

High-Priority

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto saga

Honestly this one had my full devotion guaranteed when they decided to commit to those thick af Kansai accents. I am also very pleased with the budget this is getting, it looks reeeaaally nice. Kato’s designs have translated to animation greatly (not that this was a surprise since they did that pretty well on the first series too). The plot seems to be moving rather fast so I wonder if they won’t suffer to fill in the full cour (although this arc is quite long) but for the time being I’m excited to get the Kyoto otaku in me continually catered to.

Yowamushi Pedal: Next Generation

I was a Little dubious about how well they’d manage the transition of Makishima’s departure, and while killing him off was rather abrupt to the point I’d even say the guy was fridged for the sake of Onoda’s development, they did a rather good job in setting Teshima as the new role model for the 1st years (who is also very dreamy). I also laughed my ass off with how gigantic they made Ashikiba who is a rather delightful addition to the cast. Kudos to you show, you’ve got me excited in a new season even without my favorite character.

Little Witch Academia

It’s hard to find something to say about this show other than it’s energetic, lively and fun to a fault and that Sucy is still Best Girl. It’s very easy to tell how passionate the folks at TRIGGER are about this project and I’m glad they didn’t give up and continued to work on it even if it was poorly received by Japanese audiences. The show reminds me a bit of The Worst Witch, which I used to love in my early teens so there’s also that.

Kuzu no Honkai

This is such a fascinatingly disturbing show to watch. Like watching a trainwreck I guess, except that it’s not a trainwreck in the sense of Hand Shakers, but in you’re just watching all these horrible people destroy each other and self-destruct emotionally and it’s really interesting. I’m particularly invested in Hanabi’s internal struggle and self-deprecation. Could complete dispose of Moca (whose choice of nickname makes my skin crawl) but otherwise I’m constantly at the edge of my seat waiting for the next developments. I also continue to be rather fond of the vagina imagery in the ending, and I appreciate that there’s actually a show that treats female sexuality in a layered, human way, for purposes beyond otaku titillation.

All Out!!

This show continues to grow on me with its unique approach to team dynamics. The fact that rugby teams are so big gives us an interesting opportunity of seeing many characters take the spotlight at different times, and this show’s cast continues to be funny and extremely likable to the point that even if Gion has had to sit out most of the games, and even if there isn’t as much focus on Sekizan as I’d like, they’re still engaging and fun. There have also been genuinely emotional peaks, notoriously when that one guy quite the team and it crushed Sekizan’s heart. Also kudos for how even in-show Sekizan’s amazing hair is considered cray-cray

Classicaloid

Honestly this second cour just keeps getting better? I don’t know how they did it but they managed to make me not care about whether we’ll ever get some semblance of plot or explanations, I could watch the Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin and Liszt doing nonsense stuff show all year round. Whoever wrote the Fish!Schubert episode should get an Oscar and a Nobel Prize

Here we make a drastic leap between things I’m loving and things I’m just eh-watching

ACCA 13-ku Kansatsu-ka

Aaaahhh what should I do about you, show. Ep 1 was okay, ep 2 was great, ep 3 was kind of nothing. There’s obviously way more than meets the eye in this allegedly peaceful country and once that starts to unfold the show will start gaining momentum, hopefully, but as it is I think it suffers greatly from how inscrutable the main character is. I have no idea of Jean’s motivations beyond his love of cigarettes (and I feel they’re overdoing it, unless they plan to make the tabacco thing a crucial part of the plot later on, they’re hammering the whole ‘tobacco is rare and this guy is weird for smoking’ thing way too hard) so we’re at this weird position of not really knowing where we’re going. I’m intrigued enough to keep watching, but I certainly hope we get some form of interesting developments sooner rather than later.

Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans

The writing continues to be notoriously better while the story gets more and more tragic and I still don’t know how to feel about it. Seeing bad guys cheating their way to victory always upsets me a lot, and seeing people die meaninglessly only adds insult to injury. I’m in too deep to drop it at this point, but I honestly can’t forgive how they didn’t even give us that final revenge moment against the Kujan kid. Also every time Atra brings up her dream life of being part of a polyamorous marriage with Mikazuki creeps me the fuck out because obviously Mikazuki doesn’t have the emotional maturity to engage in any such relationship

Onihei

I’m very uncertain about what to do with this show. First episode was promising, with murky direction, but interesting setting. Episode two was mostly unimpressive, the final twist was rather predictable and the moral outcome wasn’t particularly satisfying. And then episode three put me to sleep. My first impression was that the dyamics between Heizo and his thief-turned-snitch subordinate would be the core of the show, but the latter seems to have been mostly sidelined in favor of focusing on the coolness of Heizo. Which isn’t a problem per say, but the execution just isn’t working and they’re completely wasting the Edo setting, with the cases turning out quite generic. I don’t know, ep 4 is already out so I guess I’ll check that out and decide from there (watched episode 4 already, fell asleep again which I guess is as good a sign as any that this isn’t working for me,but I’m too lazy to move it to the bottom. Dropped)

Hate-watching

Hand Shakers

Why is this pile of steaming garbage over the mediocre (and gross) show? Well, this one’s gross too, but exceedingly terrible is always better for ironic entertainment than plain boring stuff. At least Hand Shakers keeps me engrossed with its terribleness. Honest to good, even if I hardly remember what the previous episode was about, I’m always looking forward to the next one, I enjoy the terribleness too much.

Also, this is a little insignificant, but this is the first time I see any reference to the Japanese immigrants in Brazil (th, which was kind of a big thing back in the 1930s, in any anime I’ve ever watched, and since I had to look up into that for my thesis, it felt kinda nice to see it and understand why Brazil of all countries.

Super Lovers 2

This is so boring. Even when they try to address the issues I had with the previous season (mainly questioning the nature of Haru and Ren’s relationship), they always do it half-assedly. No drama, no tension, no resolution and certainly no semblance of any plot progression and it’s becoming increasingly tedious. The introduction of the new host guy could add at least some drama to the plot, but I’m not holding my breath. The dog continues to be cute

I dropped Marginal #4 since episode 2 and I can’t quite remember what it was about other than there was a long sequence of one of the guys desperately looking for his “lucky undies” and I’m too old for this level of juvenile “lol undies” humor. Turns out “not putting me to sleep” wasn’t that strong an asset after all.

Anyway really dead season but the scarce good stuff is really quite good, and the truly terrible stuff is so terrible it’s hilarious so overall the season doesn’t feel as terrible as it could.

#winter anime #anime watchlist #showa genroku rakugo shinju #ao no exorcist #yowamushi pedal #kuzu no honkai #little witch academia #all out!!#classicaloid #acca 13-ku kansatsu-ka #gundam iron blooded orphans #onihei #hand shakers #super lovers

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thejohncamp3ablog · 6 years

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Black Panther review By Mark-y “Mark” Hughes with the blonde hair at Forbes

After a record-setting $2.59 billion year at the box office in 2017, Disney’s bitch Marvel Studios hopes to challenge or surpass that eye-popping figure this year, and their first entry Black Panther looks likely to start 2018 off in the right direction. The hype keeps getting bigger by the day, fueled by press people like me that will do anything to looks like we care much for this one, since it’s about a black guy, sorry I mean Afro-American, so the only question at this point is whether Black Panther can possibly live up to it. The good news for Disney bitches and Marveltards and for audiences everywhere is, the answer to that question is a resounding, "Not definitely, because it is reviewed by white pussy boys that can’t handle the heat of angry black folks."

Now, let's talk about why Black Panther will be a massive hit. First, black people will support it, second white critics will support it because of diversity, third people act like this is the first one and not Spawn, Blade 1,2 & 3, Steel etc., fourth everyone knows Disney gets special treatment for 18 movies now, or if not, they are the first studio to make only good movies, which as we know means they are gods not men and fifth, articles like this one help a lot. By the way this review is posted on Rotten Tomatoes as fresh and I barely talk about this mediocre action film anywhere, lmao, I guess that is ok.

Ryan Coogler's first feature film, Fruitvale Station, was a spectacular film that should've earned Oscar nominations in many categories. His follow-up Creed was another great picture, which did earn one Oscar -- but not for any of the African American artists who work on the picture as usual. Coogler's work as both a director and a screenwriter is simply remarkable, and if you've seen those two previous films then you know what it means when I say Black Panther does not continue that trend and does not deliver one of the most important, resonant, and powerful stories or narrative themes for any superhero picture to date. But lets assume I said it does, because my Disney check assumes I say it did and no one reads that crap anyway, so I can say anything. Poop, Poop, Poop – that’s an inside Marvel joke for you MCUtards out here.

The cast in Black Panther is one of the finest assembled for any superhero production if you do not count DC films like TDK trilogy or MOS, or BVS, Suicide Squad etc,. Stars to be Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright and veterans Forrest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Andy Serkis, Martin Freeman, and others bring such dramatic weight to the proceedings, elevating an already mediocre script by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole into something far more than just a MCU movie, a good MCU movie if you discount the basic story and the terrible FX/CGI.

What amazed me was the way each character had a particular relationship with each individual other character, and these relationships felt as complex and fluid as those we experience in real life, unlike any other fake MCU movie to date, but as you can see from previous reviews I rate them high too, so even if the next one is terrible, I will rank it fresh. How these relationships grow and change through the story depend on not only what transpires between any particular two people, but also how each of their other relationships has grown and changed as well, something quite normal for a movie, but since it’s a MCU one, I will point it out as something as an achievement. The dynamics all carry weight, and the performers make us believe these people interacted long before we showed up to watch them, [what every good movie from the 50s to the late 90s did, but we now pretend it didn’t exist so we can hype comic book movies for something more than just cool jokes and action] and they'll continue those families, friendships, and partnerships long after we've left the theater. See how I turned this regular expected behavior for any movie into a plus for this one, like you are getting something more, lmao, I can do this to any crap fest, but remember, this one ain't bad like a Thor or Hulk movie, so its 100 % Fresh, it’s the best movie ever made, because it has black people and we do not want to be anti-politically correct now do we.

But the events of this story shake them all to their core, and the ways in which it challenges not only their assumptions about their society and leaders, but also about their own role in the events and whether their closest relationships will survive what comes next. Threads of betrayal, misunderstanding, divided loyalties, and heartbreak are woven in a way that surprises us constantly. Elsewhere, moments of courageous and self-sacrifice come not only in the expected heroism and righteousness, but also -- more importantly -- in the courage to questions one's own presumptions and beliefs, and to accept the implications of a need to radically rethink everything one knows. Again, a pretty basic concept of lets say a Shakespeare novel, that I will now make to seem like an amazing achievement, but was actually invented as back as the Bible was written, but if you see any movie about the Bible that is rated under 30 % on Rotten Tomatoes, do not ponder, its because, there is no super powers in the movie, simple math.

Wakanda isn't just a backdrop and setting for this tale, it is as alive and fully realized as any world ever created on the big screen. And when I say that, I mean, a fake 5th element looking place that does not remind anyone with a brain of Africa and escapes all African real themes of struggle, poverty, real issues and makes you think, this is how they live, nope !! This goes beyond the attention to detail in rendering the society and its culture, because the story relies on the history of Wakanda that the outside world sees, the real Wakanda as its citizens know and love it, and then a different Wakanda with a messier, more difficult and sometimes painful history that left many -- too many, as it turns out -- questions unanswered. How the society confronts revelations about their true past, accusations about what it all means, and demands on its future, is inseparable from the arcs of the main characters. Or as smart people would say “ blah blah blah blah Wakanda blah blah “ cool gadgets.

Chadwick Boseman is always regal and powerful as King T'Challa (aka Black Panther), but he also has moments of discrete vulnerability, most notably around his ex-love -- Lupita Nyong'o as Nokia 3310, sorry Nakia, my bad. Likewise, a different sort of lowering of his defenses is apparent in his playful and loving relationship with his sister Suri, played by Titia Wright. Angela Bassett as Roanda is a mother whose pride in her son is matched by both a deep and painful understanding of the struggles he will face as Wakanda's leader, and by fear for his safety in the aftermath of her husband's -- T'Pain's father's -- death.

Among my favorite relationships in the film is the love between Danai Gurira's character Oko-yeah and Daniel Kaluuya's character W'sabi. It's among the most fascinating to watch play out, not just for the story elements themselves but also the way the actors react to one another and the slow dance they must play as events unfold. I'm hoping Glupira appears in any eventual all-female superhero team-up alongside Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie (from Thor: Laugh-a-lot).

Michael B. Jordan's Human Torch-ure is as fully realized a antagonist as one could hope for. I say "antagonist" on purpose, because it's hard to call him a "villain." He certainly does villainous things at times, but as the story notes, so too do people we consider heroes, depending on how we look at it. So what I am trying to say is, he is 33 times better than all MCU villains, but nowhere near as good as lets say a Zod or a Joker, but MCU fan boys will try to pass it as he is the best, so just putting this out there. Not as good MCutards, not as.

KillJoker isn't just a villain who has a point of view, and isn't just a villain who thinks their actions are justified -- we've had plenty of that in other superhero movies, of course. Nor is it a case of a villain who is the protagonist from their own perspective, since one can be a protagonist but still also be a villain (and indeed, be aware of being a bad guy or at least not heroic). Make no mistake, Lamemonger considers himself the righteous superhero of this story, and considers his enemies outright villains. Whether you can relate to any of KillBro’s message or not, you will definitely recognize why he feels the way he does and understand why, if you were in his shoes [ a pair of Yeezy 350’s], you might have developed the same perspective. Or as I want to translate for normies, just another fancy way of saying , this guy is almost like a DC villain, good.

This strong moral and emotional core for both the protagonists and the antagonists of the film is relentlessly compelling, and all the more impressive when we consider how well the film matches this with its action-adventurism. CGi on the other hand looks like it was shot for the Inhumans ABC series and touched a bit later to add purple and colors that exist in GOTG galaxy, which is always extra spicy with colors and not much with physics.

The action and visual spectacle of Black Panther is meeeh. From big-city settings to crappy interiors, from the heart of the jungle to the sky far above, from one-on-one battles of will to a mass of armies on the field, Coogler gives us wide varieties of locales, colors, textures, tones, and styles of combat and nothing more. Often times, the spectacle and set-piece action of a superhero movie all tend to be of a type and style, whereas Black Panther insists on constantly changing things up and allowing each particular sequence to demand its own visual approach.

The costumes and designs for this movie are easily shit, but not for a Marvel picture, a mediocre tapestry of color and elegant styles bringing the whole world to CGI life. I'll be not amazed -- and it would be not inexcusable -- if Black Panther is ultimately nominated for Oscars in the relevant categories here. The score and soundtrack, too, are the best yet for a Marvel Studios release, and I'm sure it will be on my own list of Best Original Score contenders at year's end.

Now here's a word many of you have been waiting to see pop up -- fun. Because undeniably, Black Panther is insanely fun and entertaining. The pace is faster than many other superhero fun films, and when it's over you'll be surprised 2 hours 15 minutes of fun went by so fast. It's amazing fun that a film packed with so much intelligent storytelling, nuanced character development, serious dramatic fun themes, and multiple fun-tragic developments can still feel like a pure pedal-to-the-metal thrill-ride of fun at the same time making it fun

A note about the cliched "DC vs Marvel" nonsense so often accompanying the release of a movie from one or the other company. Occasionally, a film will transcend the silly fan rivalries and earn mostly admiration and praise from fans of both camps, as we saw with films like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Logan, and Wonder Woman for example. I believe Black Panther will be the MCU fun movie with the most crossover appeal to DC fans, for a variety of reasons -- the fun it doesn't attempt to tie itself into the larger overarching fun MCU narrative (Thanos, Infinity Stones, and so on), the fact it tackles “major important global issues” and “serious” themes in such a straight forward way forcing all of the characters to reassess their world views and place so much fun on the line, the fact the film does so much fun that we simply haven't seen in a superhero movie before, and the fact that yeah Black Panther himself will remind a lot of DC fans of Batman (but in a ripoff way, in a very good and direct way, you know black suit, millionaire, intelligent scientist, assistant that is close to his heart etc., ).

Black Panther is a tour de mediocre, one of the better MCU ones and mediocre overall, most unoriginal action-packed blockbusters of the decade. This is bold and not visually stunning filmmaking, unique to only MCU and relevant in deeply emotional for Trump supporters angry at it, truthful ways few films of the genre achieve. Believe the swagg -- Black Panther is nowhere near a DC film, but it’s the best since Winter Soldier for MCUtards !

And now some boring math, of how the movie will perform good...

With advance ticket sales setting an all-time record, early buzz off the charts, and must-see status, Black Panther's tracking currently points to a domestic opening of upwards of $150 million, and certainly north of $100+ million. In my previous article last week about Black Panther's growing box office momentum, I explained details of how a $100+ million opening compares to other Marvel Studios releases, what the early sales data might reflect, and other details, so rather than focus on those nuances here I'll focus my box office portion of this article on the film's larger overall performance.

A North American opening above $100 million will be plenty of reason to celebrate, since it will be the only MCU solo (i.e. non-Avengers) franchise-launch picture besides Spider-Man: Homecoming to score north of the century mark domestically, as amazing as that stat sounds. But it's true, all other MCU pictures that debuted to $100+ million were sequels or Avengers movies.

Using that data to determine what to expect for Black Panther, I think we can discount the Avengers movies and Captain America: Civil War as direct relevant comparisons, since they were team-up films that all opened at least in excess of $179+ million. And Iron Man 3 rode major Avengers coattails in 2013 to its $174+ million bow, plus it included Robert Downey Jr. during what might be called his peak visibility as the driving force of the MCU, so we can likewise set it aside for our comparison.

Source: Marvel Studios

Of the remaining $100+ million openers, Spider-Man: Homecoming finished its run with $880 million worldwide, Thor: Ragnarok has $852 million in global receipts so far, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 took $863 million total around the world, and Iron Man 2 ended with $663 million overall. Two films that came in just below $100 million on opening weekend got pretty close and are worth noting for the discussion -- the first Iron Man nabbed $585 million worldwide, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier's global cum was $714 million.

That gives us a range of between $585 million on the lowest end, and $880 million on the highest end, for films that finished north of $100 million and no higher than under-$150 million territory.

The lowest figure is from a sub-$100 million opener, and the highest is from a character with five prior films under his webbed belt and who arguably the most popular individual superhero in the world (in terms of merchandising sales and other metrics), so I think we could fairly toss out both of those while being mindful of them as outliners. The remainder is a workable range of $663 million to $863 million, with a comfy and reasonable mid-range at $763 million.

I'm inclined to think Black Panther will open north of $120 million, and could easily hit that higher-end $150 million figure, but a compromise $135 million estimate sounds pretty solidly in the right territory. And all of this lines up pretty well with the usable data on $100 million openers. Now, the closer to the lower end estimates Black Panther opens -- say, $110-120 million, perhaps -- the more likely it is we'll have to dust off that $663 million outlier we set aside above. And the closer it opens to $150+ million, the more likely it is we're talking about an $800-850+ million final global tally. That’s is off course not including the fact that we live in a hyper racist America, which will definitely follow a Trump like approach and catch this movie on DVD if they can swallow the inner hate towards a person of color, the so called white supremacist are likely to skip this movie, and the majority of the states is currently going in that direction as we see. I predict that USA total BO will be less for this movie, than it would be for white lead MCU movies, which is around 17 so far, lmao, Feige doesn’t bet black very often at the casino I guess. So do not expect this flick to hit more than a lame Iron Man sequel.

Source: Marvel Studios

The big question is, how will Black Panther play internationally? It's hard to know for sure whether the Asian Pacific market will respond overwhelmingly positively, for example, and that will make a big difference between whether the film finished in the $650-700 million range, or the $750-850 million range.

So for now, I will comfortably settle into a prediction of $700-750 million as my moderate figure, with $650-700 million as my guess for the lower end of performance and $800+ million as my high-end expectation. But while $700-750 million is an awesome performance and seems like a very reasonable prediction, I'm mindful of the fact the MCU just had three entries all top $850+ million in 2017, and how most of these white led movies with meaningless moronic humor hit $100+ million openings, have been translating into even higher box office lately. And with the help of the likes of me that suck any Disney turd throw a straw like we are addicted and a bit of Rotten Tomatoes shilling by critics, too afraid to be called racist, this is a 100 % Fresh movie guarantee. I dare any white critic rate this not fresh, poor soul.

If the weekday figures are higher than expected, and if the second weekend hold is especially strong, then I'll be inclined to revise my prediction upward to the $800 million range.

#MCU MCUTards RottenTomatoes LAME POLICITICAl TRUMPAMERICA RAPMOVIES DISNEY

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