Official Scarbrough Redbubble Shop Closed

After about as much debate as I had in my initial consideration of opening such in the first place, I have finally decided to formally close the Official Scarbrough Redbubble Shop after nearly two years of this failed business venture.

It wasn't even just the lack of sales that drove me into making this decision, although that has been a major contributing factor. After all, some fans expressed interest in buying Steve D'Monster merchandise, and since many Content Creators out there sell merch on the side, it seemed like this could be an opportunity for a small, struggling Content Creator such as myself to finally make a little extra money off of the content I create, and services like Redbubble provide such Content Creators with a vehicle by means of doing so. Or so I thought.

Redbubble offered an extensive line of products for Content Creators to apply their artwork and designs to what they could sell: t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, tanktops, throw pillows, notebooks, journal covers, wall posters, buttons, stickers, coffee mugs, among many, many other products. There was plenty to meet the interests of fans and consumers, so I tried to take advantage of as much as I could with not just Steve D'Monster merch, but also Vampire Girl (especially during the Halloween season) and other Scarbrough IPs. T-shirts and buttons seem to be incredible popular right now, so those were a common item I made available, but I also looked into other products that seemed to be good fits for Scarbrough properties - I even made a Steve D'Monster throw pillow available; a poetic little homage to the fact that the very first Steve D'Monster puppet in 2004 was originally made from an old shaggy purple throw pillow.  Fans could even offer suggestions of what sort of products they would like to see and buy; I took such suggestions and made such products available for them for purchase, so additional Vampire Girl items like coffee mugs and posters were made available.

Again, this sounds like a great tool for small-time Content Creators to make a little extra money on the side, and it would have been if Redbubble didn't make sweeping changes to their services. In the nearly two years that the Scarbrough Redbubble Shop has been open, it has only seen one sale, but I never saw one red cent from that sale because I didn't meet Redbubble's payment threshold to actually make any money from the sale. Used to, if you didn't meet the monthly payment threshold, Redbubble would basically keep a running tab of how much (or, more accurately, how little) you earn from your sales, then pay you that total amount after the end of the year . . . not anymore. Now, you have to meet the monthly payment threshold, or you will not be paid anything, even if you do actually sell merchandise. But more than that, Redbubble has decided to downgrade mine from a premium tier account to a standard tier, which not only limits the tools and resources I can use to boost my merchandise, but it now also means even if I were still able to sell any merchandise, I would now have to pay an additional fee to them for each sale. The bottom line is what started out as a side hustle to try to make a little extra money on my content is actually causing me to lose money. It was these reasons and more that I finally decided to close the Official Scarbrough Redbubble Shop.

Is this what prompted Redbubble to downgrade my account? Actually . . . not quite. According to the email I received, Redbubble evidently looked into the artwork and designs I submitted to sell on various and sundry products, and decided that the quality of my designs were allegedly not up to their standards, citing that they were of poor quality, too simplistic, and not visually interesting enough to justify the continuation of mine being a premium tier account. Honestly, I am getting pretty sick and tired of being told this by those who host my content. This is exactly what the so-called "experts" at YouTube keep telling me: that my content isn't up to their standards, that my content "isn't done right," which is why my content struggles to build and maintain an audience. I have been on YouTube longer than any of these so-called "experts" have been; longer than there even was any sort of "standard" to have to measure up to. I get that none of the content I create is professional-quality, and maybe the best tools at my disposal are only prosumer/entry level, but here's the thing: I put far more effort into the content I create than most of thebig and noteworthy "Content Creators" out there who basically just steal content from across the web and compile them into review/reaction videos, or just sit in front of their cameras and record themselves talking about subjects they hold no expertise in. My Redbubble designs were no exception to this: I spent a lot of time and effort designing the kind of products I figured fans would be interested in buying, and I even promoted my Redbubble shop whenever I could (especially when Redbubble had site-wide sales) to drum up business - something that I never do, because I've learned the hard way from past experiences that advertising and promoting does more harm than good. Maybe if I had better tools and resources at my disposal, or actual opportunities were available, I might could actually create and produce professional-level content that could actually measure up to whatever standards the hands that feed us set for us. Even so, I don't create content to measure up to any sort of standards, or to appease the very people who continually stunt my creative growth; I create content to satisfy my own artistic passions first and foremore, and to entertain other people second. I don't have the biggest numbers, but there have been plenty of folks who have genuinely enjoyed the content I've created over the years regardless of the quality of said content. Heck, even in my earliest years on YouTube, the quality of my content was pure crap due to the poor tools I had at the time, and yet, people loved Steve D'Monster's antics, and he garnered a small, yet dedicated following - all before the corporate takeover that rendered YouTube into a sea of droll talking heads and vapid vloggers.

So like I say, I debated even selling merchandise in the first place, because I figured I wouldn't be able to sell anything, and since I did indeed fail in that objective, and it's actually causing me to lose money when I intended to make a little extra money, I have finally decided to shut down the Official Scarbrough Redbubble Shop.

Vampire Girl Merchandise and More Now Available

 Now that the spooky season is upon us, this seems as good a time as ever to promote and exploit The Joseph Scarbrough Universe's resident spook with a new collection of VAMPIRE GIRL merchandise on our new Redbubble store!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jscarbrough/shop?artistUserName=JScarbrough&collections=3727996&iaCode=all-departments&sortOrder=relevant

At the moment, we have t-shirts, wall posters, notebooks, pins, and even coffee mugs available for purchase, but Redbubble has a number of other products and items to choose from, so if there may be other pieces of VAMPIRE GIRL merchandise you might like to see or may be interested in, you can make a special request!

Of course, there's also still plenty of Steve D'Monster merchandise available as well, get yours today!

http://jscarbrough.redbubble.com

In addition to this new collection of Redbubble VAMPIRE GIRL merchandise, I have also come to a rather tough and difficult decision to part with the artwork from the original VAMPIRE GIRL Production Bible - this includes all of the original penciled and inked pages that made up the 17 strips from 2011 and 2012, as well as all of the individual panels that were drawn for the additional 35 strips of the second season from 2022 and 2023; other official VAMPIRE GIRL artwork is also being offered for sale as well.

 

 

These are being offered directly from me, and you have a few different options to choose from; if you are interested in owning a piece of official original VAMPIRE GIRL artwork, you can reach out and contact me.

Levana in Analysis

Have you ever taken the time to read up on literal character studies? To see how a fictional character is dissected and given a psychological examination just to see what's beneath their surface and makes them tick? They can often be quite a fascinating look into deeper depths of the character that we may otherwise not give much thought to within the context or even subtext of the character that the character is featured in . . . and as it turns out, Levana has just been put through the wringer of such analysis.

Drunk Duck/The Duck Webcomics contributor, Tantz_Aerine, has a semi-regular feature in which she takes a character from a comic hosted on their site, and puts that character through an analysis that consists of four basic examinations: one based on the character's overall design, one that evaluates whether or not the character has any sort of mental and/or emotional issues, how dimensional the character is, and how the character's environment has any sort of effect on their overall personality. Imagine my delight when I saw on Drunk Duck's homepage that Levana had been featured in the spotlight of such an analysis! Tantz has done a thorough job in dissecting and analysizing Levana's character, and from many different angles, ranging from behavioral to psychological, and from comedic to dramatic perspectives . . . and I was very much impressed with her studies of Levana character, and what she had to write about in terms of Levana as a character, and the journey that she has gone through over the course of the VAMPIRE GIRL comic (most during its inaugural run from 2011 to 2012) - she very much managed to figure Levana out to a tee, and it offered me so much joy and satisfaction to see a work of mine written about like this. Of course, as always, I also have to give credit where credit is due, because Levana's journey would not have been what it is had it not been for contributions and input from Marie Kerns throughout the creative process; Tantz mentions throughout her analysis that VAMPIRE GIRL as a whole balances both comedic and dramatic tones throughout, and while the comedic tone was mostly me, it was definitely Marie who added the dash of drama to the story and Levana's overall journey, and I can't thank her enough because of that.

You can read Tantz's analysis and studies of Levana, her character, and even what sort of afflictions she could be diagnosed with because of her unique set of problems for yourself:
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/26/character-analysis-levana-from-vampire-girl/

VAMPIRE GIRL: The Second Season Begins October 19

 

Some of you may be able to remember back when I had written about the 10th anniversary of my webcomic miniseries VAMPIRE GIRL that although I had wrapped up Levana's story and arc in those initial seventeen strips, that I did have an idea for a continuation of a second season of sorts, but I had never bothered following through with it for a couple of different reasons, one of which was because it didn't seem necessary to follow up on after happily ever after . . . that, and because when VAMPIRE GIRL was in its original run on Smack Jeeves in 2011 and 2012, nobody read it - and that in and of itself was due to a couple of different reasons, but now is not the time to discuss this.

Now is the time for the announcement that since January 2021, I have finally been working on the second season of VAMPIRE GIRL, which will begin next week, October 19, and run weekly on The Duck Webcomics . . . unfortunately, it was going to be hosted by the premiere site for webcomics, ComicFury, but that fell apart, and I lost that deal (so please disregard the references to ComicFury in the cover art).

Why finally work on this project now after all these years later? Well, for one thing, the idea continued to rattle around in the back of my mind all these years, and never necessarily left me . . . plus, for whatever reason, there seems to have been something of a renewed interest in Levana and VAMPIRE GIRL in the last couple of years or so, even I'm not sure why. Taking this into consideration, now seemed like a good time to revisit the idea of the second season, and just do it! It's been a long and somewhat tiring process (as opposed to the first season, which was clearly a rush job), but I have a little bit of confidence that the second season will actually do relatively well - especially since the reruns of the first season having been on The Duck (and briefly on ComicFury before I got banned) have gotten much more attention and retention than the original run of the comic ever did on Smack Jeeves!

In closing, if you are interested in seeing more of Levana and some of her friends, like Laura, Dr. Charmin, and the Wizard, or are curious to see if being mortal lives up to her expectations, or even what sort of consequences becoming mortal may have on her life, then be sure to read VAMPIRE GIRL: The Second Season, every Wednesday on The Duck!

www.theduckwebcomics.com/Vampire_Girl

Summer of Scarbrough: Vampire Girl

 This week's episode of SUMMER OF SCARBROUGH looks back on what was perhaps the strangest Scarbrough creation, the short-lived webcomic miniseries, VAMPIRE GIRL.

Also a special shout-out to my amazingly talented artist pal, Dave Hulteen, Jr. for the beautiful job he did on coloring my pencil sketch of Levana for the YouTube thumbnail!

VAMPIRE GIRL: The 10th Anniversary

Here it is, ten years after the fact. VAMPIRE GIRL was certainly one of my more peculiar and often overlooked (more on that later) creations, and the story of how it came to be is also a rather peculiar one . . . it all started with a song from one of rock-and-roll's quirkiest and most eccentric artists, that eventually lead to a web comic mini-series that really had hardly anything to do with the actual song itself, other than bearing the same name.

The Inspiration
It was October 2011, and Comcast's (now xfinity) Sounds of the Season Music Choice channel featured a playlist of Halloween music - just right for the occasion. In all honesty, I had never really heard much Halloween music before, and while there were a few songs featured in the playlist I had certainly heard before under other circumstances ("Witch Doctor" by David Seville, "Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley, "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr., "Headless Horseman" by Bing Crosby, "Tain't No Sin," "Devil Went Down to Georgia," just to name a few), there were a lot of songs that were completely new to my ears, and have since become just as much of a tradition to listen to every October as, well, Christmas music every December.

You ever get a song so stuck in your head, that it's almost impossible to get it out? That's what happened to me during this particular time (and it wasn't just Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" or "Here Comes the Bride (of Frankenstein)" by Elvira and The B-52s): a really catchy, toe-tapping, almost rockabilly-esque song by Modern Lovers' Jonathan Richman.

Needless to say, this song wasn't just stuck in my head - it was practically etched and seared into my brain like no other song had been before . . . I had to do something about it!

The Development

Levana's evolution
during development,
from something of a
chibi-esque little girl to
an older twenty-
something-esque young
woman.

The strange thing is VAMPIRE GIRL didn't originate as a web comic; given how catchy and fun the song is, my thinking was it needed to be set to some kind of production number . . . in fact, I'll even go as far as to say it seemed like it would have made for a great number on THE MUPPET SHOW, that's how much I felt like the song was so fun. With that in mind, I envisioned such a production number with Steve D'Monster and Bethany Crystal, with Bethany in the part of the titular Vampire Girl, and Steve as the de-facto admirer of said Vampire Girl. However, at the time, I had other projects with Steve in the works (including planning a multi-part Christmas Eve special that never got made), so I considered that option off the table.

Still, I really needed to find some kind of a creative outlet for my own cathartic purposes from having this song stuck in my head so badly, and eventually, I began doodling vampire girls. After a few doodles and sketches, I eventually settled on a design that I liked particularly well, and decided that this design needed to be turned into an actual character . . . first thing's first, she needed a name, but I couldn't think of one. Ordinarily, I like to give my characters names that either fit their appearance or personality, or names that you don't hear very often (especially for fictional characters). A few different suggestions were pitched to me, including one from an artist friend of mine, Kimmi Guerrero, that just felt right: Levana. In Hebrew, "Levana" means "moon." In Latin, "Levana" means "to lift," or "raise up." In Roman mythology, "Levana" is a fertility goddess who protects newborns. In this case, "Levana" just seemed like a perfect name for a vampire! Now, I just needed to actually do something with her.

I came out of "Cartoon
Retirement" to tell Levana's
story.

Given that Levana was a cartoon character, doing a comic strip about her seemed like the most logical thing to do. Once upon a time, I dabbled in cartoons, comics, and even a little bit of animation, as it was always something I enjoyed doing, and seemed like something I would like to do as a career . . . but I had been doing such almost non-stop from 1999 into 2007 . . . quite frankly, I was getting very tired of it, and ended up suffering from burn-out . . . I didn't want to do it anymore, because puppetry had taken over as my one true passion, and that was what I wanted to focus more of my energy on. But for Levana, I was willing to come out of my "Cartoon Retirement" and do a comic about her: even if it was a short subject, like a mini-series or something that wouldn't run for too long . . . all I needed to do was figure out a story for her. Even though such characters always appeal to me, I was especially interested in developing somewhat subversive characters at the time, such as Ella the Elf, who was conceived shortly after Levana was (unlike traditional Christmas elves who are cheerful, jolly, and sugary sweet, Ella is snarky, cynical, and cold . . . no pun intended), so the idea came to me that Levana was a vampire . . . who didn't want to be a vampire. The life of a vampire had so many limitations, as so many things ordinary people take for granted can kill her: she can only travel by night to avoid sunlight, her diet is extremely limited to avoid things like garlic, and even she is disgusted by her thirst for blood. This is what lead to the comic's tagline: "She lives a life of irony."

Just your friendly, neighborhood
vampire hunters.

That became the main plot line of the story: Levana's journey to finding a way to make her a mortal girl. But, there still needed to be more to it than that; like every story, there needed to be conflict. This is where the comic's antagonists came in: upon learning about her mere existence, a pair of modern-day vampire hunters (named simply Vampire Hunter and Goofy Idiot Sidekick) attempt to hunt her down and destroy her.

Get high with a little help
from your friends.

There were still other details that needed to be filled in as well, and (dark) fantasy was a genre I had never really worked with before - but another artist friend of mine, Marie Kerns, was totally into that world; so after consulting with her, and bouncing around other ideas, all of the other little voids were filled in, such as Levana having befriended a hospital employee (CNA Laura) who would sneak her some human blood whenever she has urges from withdrawals or relapses, and figuring out how, exactly, she would eventually get to become mortal (with the aid of a cranky old wizard, and a very handsome doctor), the whole story was set into place.

For nearly an entire month, I worked almost non-stop (things slowed down because of Thanksgiving, obviously) putting the comic together, until it was finally completed and ready to be published.

The Inaugural Run

Original Smack Jeeves
cover art

On Thursday, December 8, 2011, VAMPIRE GIRL debuted. Originally hosted on Smack Jeeves, the comic ran weekly until March 29, 2012 for a total of seventeen strips (I had originally planned it for about thirteen, but the story ended up running a little longer than I thought it would) . . . and nobody read it.

There were certainly a number of factors at play as to why the comic went virtually unnoticed during its initial run: I think the biggest problem was it was a couple of months too late . . . granted, the comic wasn't necessarily Halloween-themed, but vampires are traditionally associated with Halloween, so the timing was way off.

Another factor was probably due to the fact that the whole mainstream vampire craze - while still very popular at the time - was kind of fizzling out and losing quite a bit of steam just the same . . . so again, with that in mind, VAMPIRE GIRL kind of felt like it missed the bandwagon and ended up tailing way far behind.

But as it turned out, one major factor was VAMPIRE GIRL, evidently, did not fall into the zeitgeist. During its initial run each week, I would take a peak at whatever the most popular web comics were that were generating a lot of traffic, and I came to notice that there were three particular categories of comics that seemed to dominate Smack Jeeves (and I presume other hosts at the time): Westernized Manga, stolen video game sprites, and LGBT. Not a lot of room for originality it seems, but then again, so is the internet (YouTube has been having similar problems ever since Google bought it out).

As a stunt one week, I took a particularly suggestive verse from Jonathan Richman's song and used it to advertise the comic in an attempt to lure in visitors and readers: "Is she in Heaven? Is she in Hell? Is she a sex industry professional?" Obviously, it didn't work . . . but, in a way, it was a fun little tribute to Jim Henson trying to get THE MUPPET SHOW sold under the title SEX AND VIOLENCE. Still, VAMPIRE GIRL ran for seventeen weeks, and aside from a few friends following it (out of politeness, I'm sure), nary a soul gave it a glance.

The Scrapped Second Season

"Vampress" Concept Art

Even though Levana's character and story arc were completely wrapped up in those seventeen strips, I played with the idea of a continuation of her story into something of a second season . . . something that not only would have shown how much she was embracing her new life as a mortal, but also showing what kind of consequences she may have faced for forsaking her vampish lifestyle. The idea I had was that Levana was now working at the same hospital as Laura and Dr. Charmin, where she was something of an orderly, mainly taking care of children (I guess they put in a good word for her and used her babysitting experience to help her get the job), little knowing that somewhere out there, an evil vampire empress (a "vampress" if you will), had discovered that one of her own has basically thrown away her birthright, and must be punished severely for it. Clearly, this would have been a lot darker and more along the lines of an actual horror-comedy than the initial comic was.

Incomplete rough draft of a
Season 2 strip, showing Levana's
new position as a hospital
orderly, reading to a sick kid.

I got as far doing some design work for such a second season, and even started making plans on how this continuation of the story could play out, but ultimately, I decided against it, for two main reasons: 1) As I said previously, Levana's arc was already wrapped up in those initial seventeen strips, and although it's a trend that Disney's been real hot about in the past couple of decades, I wasn't sure if we really needed to explore what happens after "happily ever after." 2) Again, nobody even read the comic during its original run, and the archive saw very, very little activity in the years afterward, so why continue another season of strips of a comic that nobody was even reading to begin with? In the end, I just left it as it was, and never pressed forward with any continuation of the story - I will admit, I sometimes still feel curious about how, exactly, such a continuation could possibly play out.


Other Random Thoughts
I never really had intentions of wanting to see VAMPIRE GIRL adapted into animation, however, every now and then, what few people have looked at it (mostly friends) have asked me who would I consider providing the voices of the characters . . . I do think about that from time to time, and I do believe I have in mind what my ideal voice cast would be:

Nika Futterman as Levana

Kat Cressida as Laura

Michael Dorn as Vampire Hunter

Rob Paulsen as Goofy Idiot Sidekick

John Byner as The Wizard

Tom Kane as Dr. Charmin

(Although Tom Kane has since endured a stroke and unable to do voice work anymore)

That being said, I have had thoughts about it being adapted into a live action short - maybe even with Steve D'Monster serving as the storyteller . . . although I have absolutely no idea who would be ideal to play each of the characters, the app Artbreeder has actually given me a pretty interesting idea of what a live action Levana could possibly look like, which blows me away.

Last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic was really peaking during its first wave, particularly in the U.S. where it was treated more like a political opinion than an actual threat to people's health and safety, I ended up utilizing the cast of characters in a couple of P.S.A. comics as it were, and although I had no intentions of actually rebooting the comic as a whole, I did have a few other brief little set-ups, gags, and jokes pop into my mind at the time as well, which resulted in these few little random strips I did, samples of which you can see here:

COVID Comic A

COVID Comic B

The Crossover That Nobody Asked For

Positive Negative

It's All About the Vitamins

Hang in There, Baby

So, there you have it: the story behind VAMPIRE GIRL on this day of its 10th anniversary. I would welcome you to browse the archive of the comic, but you can't do that anymore: As of late 2019,  Smack Jeeves has been bought out by another company, and basically, their entire server has been completely overhauled and redesigned, which has effectively killed the web comics that were being hosted on their server, including VAMPIRE GIRL, so I decided to just completely delete the comic altogether, so it's no longer online or available for viewing.

Behind-the-scenes

The Crossover That Nobody Asked For

The last thing a girl who doesn't want to be a vampire needs is to spend time with a girl who does want to be a vampire.

Another Covid Comic

When people's lives are a stake, you can deal with the minor annoyance and inconvenience of having to wear a mask in public.

Just to set the record straight, I am not rebooting the comic, it's just occurred to me that this particular cast of characters are quite well-suited to offer up social commentary on our current Corona-virus pandemic.

COVID Comic

Whether this current virus situation does or doesn't have any affect on you or your loved ones . . . just show a little kindness, a little caring, and a little compassion for everyone.

Oh, the Rage of the Upper Class. . . . **UPDATE**

This is something of a follow up to my previous post, because something similar is happening again, and as a result, much of the internet is all abuzz . . . again.

So, again, these huge YouTube channels whine and belly-ache about how YouTube keeps screwing them over and how they're losing subscribers . . . even though they have millions and millions of subscribers (which, for them, is hardly a dent), and it sets off a wave of reaction across the internet. So how come whenever I try to speak out about the real struggles of smaller channels, like mine, who have been screwed over by YouTube for years (at least since 2013 for some of us), I get attacked for it? It's bad enough that YouTube has been screwing over the smaller channels, but why must we also be shunned by much of the rest of the internet for it? For these idiots, their response is always the same: if your channel is small, it's automatically because "you suck," but what they don't realize is that our channels are small because YouTube isn't doing anything to help the smaller channels grow, because they keep posturing and pandering to the huge channels with millions of subscribers, like Casey Neistat, or PewDiePie. YouTube has restricted a number of basic features (namely tags) from small channels, and will only unlock these features unless you reach a certain number of subscribers (in some cases, the minimum requirement is 100,000). Case in point: now that I've recently passed 100 subscribers (wow, that only took five years), I'm now able to add watermarks to my content without having to add my own when editing prior to upload.

But again, it's so pathetic and cringeworthy that huge channels with millions of subscribers whine about losing views, losing subscribers, and losing traffic, when their losses are insignificant compared to smaller channels: from my own experiences, I went from getting about or over a hundred views and up to ten or so comments within the first twenty-four hours of uploading a new video, to barely up to twenty views and maybe a couple of generic comments within the first week of a new upload since about 2013 or so. Much like if the wealthy lose a little money, they still have a considerable amount to certainly keep them afloat, but when working class loses a little money, that puts a real cramp on their very livelihoods. So really, there's no reason for big channels to make such a spectable about their losses when there's smaller channels out there that are truly struggling.

I was recently rewatching James Rolfe's CINEMASSACRE 200 documentary, in which although he's been filmmaking since he was a kid, he had very little options of having his work be seen until he started sharing on the internet; in his own words, he says, "I proved that the internet is the best place to get stuff seen, and is the ultimate form of exposure." Well, that may have been true during the infancy of CineMassacre, and other similar channels and companies like Channel Awesome (both of which actually put work and effort into their content, and therefore, rightly deserve their millions of subscribers), but this isn't the case anymore for much of the internet. The internet seems to be very picky-choosy about what can be accepted and successful, and in the current state of YouTube, it's become clear that the only kinds of videos that are considered worthy of attention are trend videos - this is what YouTube has pretty much been reduced to: various challenges, vlogs, reviews, top 10s, trivia, etc. There's virtually no more room for originality on YouTube, or the internet in general  . . . I can certainly remember VAMPIRE GIRL going ignored during its initial run on SmackJeeves, because readers of SmackJeeves webcomics are apparently only interested in Westernized Manga, stolen video game sprites, and LGBT comics. If James wasn't already a major internet celebrity by way of Angry Video Game Nerd, do you think any of his horror-comedy films and shorts would merit any kind of reaction on the internet today if he were entirely an unknown newcomer? I don't think so.

(Watch CINEMASSACRE 200 - much of what James did to make his earliest films is basically what I had to do in my own early days.)

I know I'm paraphasing much of what I'm saying in my previous post, but this issue really needs more addressing, and more eyes should be open to the smaller channels out there, and all of this should be able to be addressed without being attacked for it. Let's see some sympathy and some support for the smaller channels who are really struggling for a change.

UPDATE December 19, 2016
So, here it is a week and a half after the fact, and PewDiePie has pretty much admitted that deleting his channel (or, evidently, one of his channels, which I'll get to in a bit) was all just a big publicity stunt, but he adds that, "that was the whole joke." I'm sorry, but, how, exactly, is this even a joke? I honestly can't comprehend this . . . it does not compute. He went on record saying, "if your channel is dying, just pull a P.R. stunt."

First of all, how is a channel with millions and millions of subscribers a dying channel? How? As someone with a struggling small channel, I honestly cannot comprehend, compute, nor fathom how a channel that already had roughly 40,000,000+ subscribers - with millions and millions of views and likes per video, is a dying channel. It makes absolutely no sense or logic whatsoever.

Secondly, it turns out that he did not delete his main channel, but apparently a second channel that he had (and evidently, a "less popular" one at that), which begs the question why does he need more than one channel? Come to think of it, why do any of these YouTube celebrities even need more than one channel anyway? Shane Dawson has like three different channels . . . why? I don't even really see why Adam the Woo (who I did, actually, used to be a fan of) needs two different channels, either - can't he post his daily vlogs on the same channel as he posts his other videos? I don't need another channel to upload non-puppetry related videos, nor do I need a separate channel just for Steve D'Monster . . . so, what do these people need multiple channels for anyway?

Thirdly . . . I'm sorry, you're calling this a "P.R. stunt"? Uh-huh. Well, here's the thing. Smaller channels are dying, they really are, you know why? Because we can't get millions and millions of subscribers like these people have . . . I really don't have to go into details again like I have already, do I? About how YouTube has been screwing over smaller channels for years, and just continues to do so more and more with each passing year? Yeah, I already covered that; no need to go over it again. But here's the thing: if smaller channels try something like this, the reaction is accusations of shamelessly and desperately crying for attention, and that just makes matters worse.

With all that being said, I can see that reaction from people regarding PewDiePie's so-called publicity stunt is mostly negative, and most people are annoyed and ticked off by it, so I guess that says something. But still, when you have millions and millions of subscribers, views, and likes, you are not a "dying" channel. If your viewcount goes from a hundred or so views within the first twenty-four hours of a new upload to up to twenty views within the first week of a new upload, then you're a dying channel.

Birthday Tribute to Marie Kerns

Happy Birthday, Marie Kerns!

Today is my good friend Marie Kerns's birthday, and in honor of the occasion, I really wanted to take a moment and act like I'm pretending to be her publicist or something, because I really think she deserves to have a little extra spotlight shed on her and her continued efforts to bring her art and creativity to the world.

 

There's a number of words that could be used to describe who Marie is, but I believe the best word that could be used is "dedicated," because dedication is perhaps the most prominent quality about her - so much so that I really admire her for it.

 

Upon graduating her digital animation course

I've known Marie for a number of years, and in all the years I've known her, she has consistently remained hard at work in her artistic endeavors; as multi-talented as she is, digital animation is certainly her calling card. I can still remember way back when, when she had graduated from a digital animation course in her native Vancouver (so being Canadian makes her even more awesome). In the years that followed, and up until today, she has been working almost non-stop on creating an animated fantasy series entitled TALES OF MYTHERWREL, and sharing that series with the rest of the world . . . and when I say non-stop, I mean that: I've seen the evolution of the production of this series, from the initial character designs and conceptual artwork, to pieces of test animation in various stages of rendering, to even seeing other talented people who are involved in the project as well. Marie has also certainly been putting herself out there too, attending conventions and other gatherings, to spread her work to the public, and stir up interest and support in further making MYTHERWREL a reality. And did I mention she's been working on this labo(u)r of love for years? That is dedication. And as I said, I really admire her dedication.

 

Marie collaborated with me on VAMPIRE GIRL

As I also mentioned, Marie is an incredibly multi-talented artist; in addition to being an animator and character designer, she's also experienced in both traditional and digital art, 3D modeling, writing/storytelling, and she can even make crafts, such as dreamcatchers and smudging feathers. She's also a nice collaborator as well - she helped with the creation of VAMPIRE GIRL in terms of character (she essentially developed Laura, Levana's nursing assistant friend) and story input.

 

But you know, I could go on and on babbling about Marie's creativity, but you really have to see it for yourself to get an idea of just what an amazing artist she really is, so here's some links you can follow to take a look at what she has accomplished over the years, including:

 

 Her demo reel:

 

TALES OF MYTHERWREL pitch video:

 

 

And, of course, these other links you should check out:

Official TALES OF MYTHERWREL Site

Marie's Official Site and Portfolio

Marie's deviantART Page

Marie's YouTube Channel

 

Once again, happy birthday, Marie! Thank you for your creativity, friendship, and of course, dedication!

Top 5 Failed and Unrealized Projects

I'm sure a lot of creators will tell you they have a number of different projects that they were unable to get off the ground for one reason or another. With myself on the other hand, it honestly seems like virtually every other project that I come up with seem to never come to fruition - either that, or I only get so far, and some kind of complications arise, resulting in the project ultimately being shelved. I can't even begin to tell you the frustrations and the headaches that come with trying hard to create something, put it out there, and then it turns out it was all for naught, but it's even more aggrivating when it seems like it just keeps happening over and over again in some kind of a vicious cycle; and it has happened all throughout my so-called career.

This post is a countdown of five of what are, arguably, some of my more ambitious and elaborate projects - or projects that have had some significance to my creative streak - but were not meant to be.

#5. BUN: DEFENDER OF THE BUNNY PEOPLE

 

Title card for BUN: DEFENDER OF THE BUNNY PEOPLE

Scene from BUN: DEFENDER OF THE BUNNY PEOPLE

 

During my high school years, one of the electives that I chose was Flash animation (back in the Macromedia days, before the Adobe buy-out/takeover, when Flash wasn't the norm in the animation industry), mainly because I've always loved to draw, and I've had a history of doing comics and cartoons all throughout my childhood; Flash animation sounded like a great elective to take. I had two years of Flash: my sophomore year, and my senior year - my first year of Flash really only covered the basics, but I really took to it quickly (for the record, that year, I did three little mini ED, EDD N EDDY animations). My second year of Flash was a lot more involved, as we really delved deeper into creative processes for cartoons, including storyboards, character designs, script writing, etc. For my animation project, I decided to revive a concept I had since middle school: a humorous little sci-fi short about a planet of super evolved space bunnies.

 

Storyboard page from BUN: DEFENDER OF THE BUNNY PEOPLE

Storyboard page from BUN: DEFENDER OF THE BUNNY PEOPLE

 

To backtrack, Video Production was an elective I took in middle school, and we worked on a variety of different projects, ranging from just basic slideshows, to taping and editing the footage in iMovie, and claymation; following NICK & ZUSE [sic] (a claymation short I helped a classmate with), I decided I wanted to do a claymation short of my own, and this was the idea I came up with. I don't quite remember why it never happened (it may have been lack of supplies available, I'm not entirely sure), but during my second year of Flash, I resurrected the idea and ran with it.



 

This was my class project for that year, and I did end up working on the short for just about the entire school year, but something happened: burn out. At the time, I was also still doing my own comic strips on a regular basis, between that and the grind of working on this animated short (and a bout of depression, anxiety, and paranoia brought on by governmental acne medication - another story for another day), I had it. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to stop. I got as far as I did with BUN for the school year (and I did get graded for it), but after graduation, I swore off cartoons forever (VAMPIRE GIRL is a special case of an exception): I just didn't have the patience for it.

The reason why this is at the bottom of the list is because, all things considered, it is mostly finished, just not completely; in fact, you can view what has been completed of the short on YouTube:

 

#4. ANYWHERE YOU LIVE IS HOME

 

 

This is actually a film project that I just shelved a few months ago. So, what is this all about, then? Well, those of you who know me know that I've moved a lot growing up, and for some reason, I had this wild idea of doing a "road movie" where I drive around town, and document all the different places I've lived over the years. Why I thought this was such a great idea, I have no idea, and looking back on it in retrospect, it really doesn't even make any sense to me why.

The reasons why this project ended up getting shelved are... well, pretty ridiculous: the weather would not cooperate with me. There, I said it; the weather would not cooperate with me. In my opening introduction (which is among the only footage I actually got filmed), I say that I took a day for myself to do this... however, realistically, it would have taken more than one day to film all that I had to. I wanted cloudy weather. Not rain, not thunderstorms, just cloud cover. There's two reasons why: 1) For my own personal preference; I actually like cloudy days, I find them to be soothing and relaxing, and I'm not particularly a fan of driving, so if the weather is cloudy, that would certainly help keep my nerves calm; 2) With the camera I use, sunny conditions would not be ideal: driving around, sun shining through the windshield would certainly cause unwanted glare, and depending on the angle, the sunlight would wash out the picture. So basically for two months, the weather was either completely sunny, or completely rainy (and the few just plain ol' cloudy days there were were on days when I was busy with other things to do). Finally, I was fed up, and scrapped the idea.

 

Notes and outline for ANYWHERE YOU LIVE IS HOME. The road movie was to also include musical time lapse sequences for lengthy drives throughout the communities of Knoxville.

 

This is also further down on my list, mainly because, as I say, I honestly don't even know why I thought this was a good idea. Nobody would want to watch this anyway.

#3. Untitled Ella the Elf Christmas special

You know what recently occured to me? Ella the Elf is a lot like Corporal Klinger in a way: on M*A*S*H, Klinger was intended to be a one-shot character, yet became part of the show's regular cast for all eleven seasons. It's kind of the same with Ella: she was only intended to be a one-shot character for STEVE'S INEFFICIENT CHRISTMAS (itself would probably fit on this list, but it doesn't need to be, you are familiar with it by now), then a year later, she suddenly popped up again in the entry, "Jingle Jangle All the Way," in which her jet pack conks out at Steve's place, and needs to fix it to continue on her flight route.

 

So, what's the deal with this special, then? Well, I was once in discussions about bringing STEVE D'MONSTER & COMPANY to television, and during those discussions, the offer was presented that I could also do holiday specials, if I wanted to. I toyed with the idea, and thought perhaps Ella could carry a special of her own - since she's already been established as Santa's Head Elf In Charge Of Stuff, I thought the basic plot would involve how she actually got the job in the first place (long story short, the previous Head Elf In Charge Of Stuff retired, and Santa hired Ella for her efficiency, work ethic, determination, and seriousness).

 

Other elves conceived for the special, each the head of their own separate departments at Santa's Headquarters

The biggest problem, however, was no matter how much I worked on the story, the whole thing just screamed trite and cliched: Ella gets the job, she lets her new position go to her head, she has a little power trip that causes the other elves to walk out on her, she has to learn her lesson about teamwork, and they all must work it out before Santa has to leave for his Christmas Eve flight. As quick as the idea sprang up, that's how quick I decided this special really didn't need to happen, so it never saw the light of day.

#2. Untitled Steve D'Monster anniversary special.

Yep. Here it is, 2014, it's Steve D'Monster's tenth anniversary, as you may have already heard. Wouldn't it be great if there was a special we could exploit from all of this? My thinking was to have a mock celebrity roast special, with Bethany Crystal as the Mistress of Ceremony (or, would that be Monstress of Ceremony?), and a retrospect, ranging from clips of Steve's early days at ETPBS, to fan-favorites of Steve's YouTube series (including specific clip selections from MONSTROCITY NEWS entries and Steve's 2012 presidential campaign), and, of course, Steve's hosting duties for PUPPET POWER. Maybe even have Steve do a couple of show-stopping numbers. Wouldn't that have been an awesome special? But, alas, twas not meant to be.

#1. Anything. You name it.