I felt like sharing some of the Pokémon-related artwork that I've commissioned over the years (now updated to include some Pokémon Sword and Shield artwork I've commissioned as well):

Pokémon Trainer
Artwork by
Artwork by

Female Volchick Partner Evolutionary Line
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Gym Challenger
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Artwork by

Male Greedent Partner
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Pokémon Breeder
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Artwork by
Artwork by

Poké Fan
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Veteran
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Unova Cap Shiny Female Pikachu Partner
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Scientist
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At first watch, I thought the movie was just OK. But the more I thought about it, the more I hated it for several reasons. To keep it brief, I'll summarize them as succinctly as I can:

1) It didn't feel a Joker movie. It felt like this was originally going to be a remake of either The King of Comedy or Taxi Driver, but then later was going to be a homage hodgepodge of those two movies, but then later it was decided that slapping the Joker name onto the project would make it more successful. Arthur Fleck bares very little resemblance to the Joker other than the clown make up and gaudy suit. Arthur is just a mentally ill guy who kills people who he feels have wronged him or who were awful people. And though the Joker is crazy, his motivation has never been about just killing people who are bad people or who have done something bad to him.

2) The movie is supposed to make you feel sympathetic to Arthur, but I felt it failed to do so for me. Usually these kinds of movies portray the antagonists as being terrible people who either tried to kill the main character, or who killed (or did something terrible) to someone close to them. But all the people that Joker killed did not feel like they deserved it. The three Wall Street guys on the train? They were douchebags, but they weren't trying to kill anyone. They didn't have any weapons. It seemed like just a regular beatdown like the kids in the beginning. The mother? She was kind to Arthur as far as we the audience have seen, and we know that she herself had mental illness. The former co-worker? He tried to help Arthur by giving him a gun to protect himself, but then he tried to cover his own tracks when Arthur was dumb enough to bring the gun to a kids party. Sure, it sucked that he threw Arthur under the bus but at the same time it was understandable. The talk show host? Yeah, it was kind of mean that he was making fun of Arthur on his show, but he's a late night comedian, that's what he does. It was Arthur's own delusions that propped Murray up as this great father figure while watching his shows. He did not deserve to get shot in the head for that. Even the two police officers who were trying to arrest him get put in the hospital after being beaten up by the people on the train after shooting someone on the train, which only happened because they were trying to do their job by pursuing a wanted murderer (Arthur).

3) The movie expects you to have sympathy for people with mental illness, but that apparently doesn't extend to the mother. We learn that she herself suffered from delusions, and had an abusive boyfriend who abused Arthur. It frames it as if she let it happen, but she was a mentally ill woman with a violent boyfriend. Either he was likely abusing her too, or even if she hadn't she was probably afraid of him and wouldn't have been able to stop him. She was mentally ill, working class, and lost her job due to her delusions. But Arthur shows no sympathy for her and kills her because she lied to him and because he feels that he let her boyfriend beat him. So all this talk about having sympathy for mentally ill people and not treating them awfully comes of as hypocritical when Arthur, in a later scene, says he feels good about killing his mother (when his two former co-workers come to give their condolences about his mother's death).

4) There are no negative consequences to Joker's actions, and a lot of the bad stuff was his own fault. He kills the three Wall Street guys in the beginning, but he gets away with it for most of the movie, and his actions seem to ignite a revolution in the city with the common people supporting it. His mother has a stroke because the cops questioned her, which I thought was going to lead to grief for Arthur and him blaming himself, but soon after he learns the truth about his mother and seemingly hates her enough to kill her, so he likely would have killed her even if she didn't have the stroke. At the end of the movie, he's freed from police custody and is being celebrated for his actions by the rioters. But, maybe that was just a delusion, but even if it was as we next see that he's in a mental hospital. But even that isn't so bad, because he said earlier in the movie that he preferred being in the hospital when asked by his social worker how he felt about their sessions.

5) The "twist" ending wasn't a twist and was pointless. If the movie portrayed Joker as the chaotic supervillain mastermind from the comics, and then the ending showed that all that was just a delusion and that he was just a mentally ill simpleton named Arthur Fleck who dreamed of being like that, that would have been a twist. If it were the opposite, that the movie portrayed him as being a sympathetic simpleton but that was just a delusion and he really was just a chaotic, cold-hearted clown prince of crime, that would have been a twist too. But the delusion Arthur and the "real" Arthur at the end are the same person in the same situation: a mentally ill guy in a mental hospital having sessions where he talks to a social worker (both of which look similar). So there's no real twist.

6) I simply don't agree with the theme that all the people deserve what they got, and this idea that it's society's fault. I feel that that is just entitlement and wish fulfillment. It's a hard truth, but none of us are born deserving love and kindness from anyone outside of perhaps our family. The idea that people are entitled to have everyone just accept all their weird quirks is just not realistic. Society is about having to subdue certain parts of yourself to function and get along. "Be yourself" is fine with family and close friends, but we can't accept every single person we come across to just like and accept your true self. And going back to a previous point, most people in the movie didn't seem that bad to Arthur. His coworkers thought he was weird, but none of them seemed to treat him horribly. The boss also seems exasperated with him, but he didn't fire him because of his weirdness, he fired him because he brought a gun to children's party. Thomas Wayne is portrayed as being a jerk to Arthur, but it seemed rightfully so since Arthur was the son of a mentally ill former employee that believed him to be his father, came to his home, stuck his fingers in his son's mouth, strangled his butler, and then stalked him to the movie theater and confronted him in a bathroom. The mother was shown as being kind and understanding to Arthur, even afraid of him when he became angry after finding her letter to Thomas Wayne. The talk show host was himself a comedian, and just doing his job as a late night talk show host, satirizing and making fun of things in the media and in the city. He didn't seem to hold any personal ill will towards Arthur and was kind to him backstage.

7) The movie seems to have the idea that everyone was wrong to treat Arthur the way they did, but the movie ends up proving them right. He was weird and strange and not the kind of guy you'd want to get to know. He's the kind of guy that you'd meet and think "This guy ain't right" and you know what? You were right. He has potential killer written all over him.

There were probably other reasons, but those are the main ones that come to mind as of right now.

I love watching superhero films, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. So I'd like to highlight the creation and history of one of my own superhero characters.

A couple of years ago I purchased a nude character design from :



I asked for her to be drawn dressed in a standard, classic superhero costume. You know, domino mask, cape, tights, utility belt, underwear on the outside of the tights, chest insignia, and all that jazz. And with red as the primary color of the costume since red is such a strong and heroic color. Well, this was the result:

Mature Content

Last year, I commissioned  to draw the character in her civilian clothes, which was meant to look like the kind of outfit a twenty-something millennial hipster who is active in social justice might wear, and this is how she came out:



Then later that same year, I commissioned once more to draw her in her superhero uniform and makeup again, this time in a superhero-style action pose, like she's ready for a fight. And here she is:



I was really pleased with how these all came out, as I feel like - a fellow superhero comic book fan - was really able to capture the essence of the kind of hero I've had in mind.

It bothers me that I so often see journals of people with sick or injured pets, scrambling to try to gather enough money for some kind of life-saving surgery or some other procedure.

Many people seem to think owning a pet just means feeding them and walking them every day. But it's not. Animals get injured and sick very suddenly. If one owns a pet, they should consider getting pet insurance, or at the least always save away a certain percentage of whatever money they earn to go towards future pet emergencies.

Simply put, people should not wait until their beloved pet is already in trouble to realize they don't have enough money to save them. If you have a pet, always assume that someday your pet may need sudden and unexpected veterinary care, and take steps to making sure you will be prepared for that day.

If you have a pet, stop wasting all your disposable income on things like adoptables and commissions. Think ahead and save some of that money for when your pet will need it.

 Incoming rant due to all the hate I'm already reading in comments about this new style for the Thundercats. It's just been announced and already I'm seeing a lot of hate in the comments of articles and videos about this, and it's all the same thing about how stuff like "Teen Titans GO!" is ruining good stuff. But I just don't get it.

A lot of these 30 and 40-something year olds who are complaining forget that they were kids when they watched the original Thundercats. It was a kid show made for kids. Adults at that time were not crowding around their television sets every afternoon to watch it. No, it like many shows of its time were just kids entertainment as well as a 22-minute commercial to sell toys and merchandise. If I had watched the original Thundercats or He-Man or any of those other shows for the first time when I was the age that I am now, without any childhood nostalgia filter I probably would have found them to be dumb and just cash grabs to sell toys. Most of those series were not very deep, didn't really have story arcs other than occasionally introducing new characters (and thus new toys).

And just like the original, this new Thundercats show is aimed at children, not 30 and 40 something year olds. And this isn't the 80s anymore where action team shows were the main sellers: Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, Bionic Six, Centurions, Go-Bots, C.O.P.S., Defenders of Earth, Dino-Riders, Dinosaucers, G.I. Joe, He-Man, Inhumanoids, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, M.A.S.K., Rambo, Silverhawks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Voltron, etc. Now it seems like surreal comedies like Spongebob Squarepants, The Amazing World of Gumball, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, etc. are more popular with kids.

Besides, they already tried reviving Thundercats as a badass action show just like the original some years ago. And even if older fans liked it, kids likely did not which is why it got canceled, that or it was just too expensive to make versus how much was being made off of it. Shows made to sell action figures aren't doing as well anymore either since kids don't play with toys as much or as for as long as kids back in the 80s do. Kids grow up "faster" nowadays and graduate to digital stuff like video games, smartphones, tablets, apps, etc. rather than playing with action figures. In any event, kids today seem to like different cartoons than we who grew up in the 80s did, and adults need to understand that they are not the primary target demographic for these kid shows anymore.

There's a reason why they have blocks like Adult Swim. Not all cartoons are made for 30 and 40 year olds.

And I don't care what anyone says: Teen Titans Go! is hillarious. I can't believe how many adults are so hung up that there's a new incaranation of the show that isn't as "badass" as the last one. They also forget that when the previous Teen Titans cartoon first came out, a lot of fans of the original comics complained just as much about the anime-ish style and the increased comedy.

It's like Batman. He's usually cast in a serious light, but other times there are shows or movies that have the more comedic and light-hearted side of Batman (such as the 60s Adam West Batman, or "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" cartoon, or the "Lego Batman" movie). I don't get why people can't accept the simple idea that every single incarnation of a character does not have to be a copy and paste of the previous version. Things change with the times.