Good things are happening right along. I got the job as a substitute teacher. The IRS investigation turned in my favor. I got money back from them because they charged me penalties I didn’t actually owe. It was THEIR fault that they didn’t register my previous $400.00 check. I dutifully made demanded payments during the 90-day investigation. Even though it hurt economically. And, miraculously, they admitted the mistake was theirs. I have been able to write more fluidly and well than I have in a long time.
You can see that I have had some success making illustrations for the next AeroQuest re-write book in spite of arthritis in my hands.
But everything has a price. I have had to scramble to do the online testing for qualifying to be a substitute teacher while the internet access in our house has been going in and out of order. I called the provider and scheduled a technician’s visit. But the thing fixed itself mysteriously before the date of the work arrived. I finished my testing even before I called Spectrum to cancel my appointment.
I ended up having to split the refund check with my wife. The bank would not let me put the check entirely in my personal account unless she was there in person to okay it. So, even though the penalty payment came 100% from my account, I had to give her 40% of the money because her bank will let her do what my bank would not. It’s not like that was a major fight between us, or anything. But she had originally agreed to sign the check over to me 100%, and then bank rules fudged up that agreement for me.
And this morning, the Princess had a nosebleed on the way to school. I was picturing a major emergency-room expense wiping out everything. There were, after all gushers of blood enough to soak five paper towels before the bleeding stopped. She made it to school on time in spite of the necessary clean-up-and-stop-bleeding time we had to put in.
So, I am not cursed with only the blackest of bad luck. But I am not blessed with purest white of the good luck either. And for those of you who will remind me, “Mickey, you don’t believe in luck!” I will remind you that, “Yes, I don’t, but you have to explain these bizarre random rewards and punishments somehow.”
Japanese Manga is a complicated and difficult-to-understand thing. Of course, it is also a very beautiful art form when done well. There are many features of Japanese culture that play a prominent part in the comic book genre known as manga.
It is a strange fusion of the art of Meiji culture in Pre-War Japan and the Western influence of the U.S. Occupation forces after WWII. You read the comic from right to left, opposite to American comics, and the dialogue in speech balloons go from top to bottom rather than horizontally.
A manga by Akamatsu
I first discovered Ken Akamatsu’s manga brilliance in 2004 through Half-Price Books copies of his manga series Negima! I was reading the last two Harry Potter novels at that time and the Harry Potter-ness of the main character, Negi Springfield is what attracted me. He is a ten-year-old boy who is secretly a wizard. He is also so accelerated in school that they make him an English teacher in a Middle School where they give him an all-girl class. Of course, Negi is definitely NOT like Harry Potter. I learned that after three books worth of Negi’s magic sneeze that blows girl’s dresses off and all the other accidentally-seeing-middle-school-girls-naked jokes. Gushering nose-bleeds and the most-important girl character, Asuna, constantly ending up standing in front of the older instructor she has a crush on stark naked soon convinced me that Japanese humor and sense of adventure are very different from their American counterparts.
Negi Springfield is the little guy in the middle… Of course he’s the teacher.
The students in this ten-year-old teacher’s class are a diverse group of girls. One is a deadly ninja. Another is a dead-shot gunslinger. A third is an expert swordswoman who fights with a katana in each hand. Several of them wield magic like their teacher.
The adventures in this multi-book story are filled to the brim with magical battles, martial arts, demon summoning, Japanese festivals, and the many ups and downs of young love.
There are lots of instances of girls losing their clothing. Some of it happens in Japanese outdoor baths and spas. Some happens by magic. And some happens completely by accident.
Though, the writer seems to focus on it an awful lot.
Ken Akamatsu has been at the business of creating very similar manga stories for many years. He started in 1994 with A.I. Love You.
He has written three series since.
Love Hina came before Negima!
UQ Holder! is his current manga series.
So, I love the artwork of Ken Akamatsu. And it isn’t necessarily the story that makes it so good. The stories are chaotic and full of things that make very little sense to American sensibilities. And I do like artfully done naked girls. But the real attraction for me is something that I can’t quite name.
I just know it is there. Ken Akamatsu definitely has it. Whatever it is. (Maybe it IS naked girls?)
The city of Kiro, Gaijin was a
heavily populated place. The city was
full of high-rise pagoda towers and Kyoto-style castles. Dominating the skyline was the huge obsidian
sculpture of a Black Cat atop the Temple of the Four Pillars of the Secret
Way. Naylund Smith explained it all to
Ged Aero as they made their way through the ornate city.
Ged and Dr. Smith
were accompanied by the two children and Xavier Tkriashav. Tkriashav’s young nephew, Friashqaztl,
trailed behind the group, timid and shy.
All the newcomers were overwhelmed by what they saw.
“This place is
more beautiful than anything I ever saw in my visions,” said Tkriashav.
“Do I understand
correctly that you are the Master Telepath and Psion?” asked Naylund Smith.
“Yes. I am a powerful telepath, teleport, and
clairvoyant. I am not the most powerful
of my people, however.”
“Perhaps,” said
Dr. Smith, “but you figure prominently in the Prophecy of Shan.”
“If that is a book,
I’d like to see it,” said Tkriashav.
“In time. It is a holy book to these people.”
All around the
small group, silk-robed people had been gathering to watch as if the six people
from the space ship were a circus parade.
Many shouted “White Spider!” as if prayers had been at long last
answered.
“Can you tell me
why I am supposed to be this White Spider?” asked Ged as he took long strides
to hurry past lemon-yellow-skinned admirers.
“It is
destiny.” Naylund smiled and nodded his
head indulgently. “The web of outer
space has brought you to us to pick up the threads woven by the last White Spider. The last spider wove this world and its
society. You have come to link it to
other webs and expand this world’s reach back into the stars.”
“You talk a lot of
poetic nonsense.” Ged looked away at the
sky.
“Poetic nonsense
is also sometimes Truth,” said Dr. Smith.
“I will help you to learn that in time.”
Finally, they
came to a beautiful castle made of white stone and Gaijinese Teak wood, inlaid
with bright blue sapphires. It appeared
to have been their destination all along.
“This,” said Dr.
Smith, “is the Palace of a Thousand Years.
It is your new home.”
“We will live
here?” asked Junior.
Dr. Smith looked
at the blue boy. “It is the palace
belonging to Shen Ming. It is the
traditional home of the White Spider. It
is the place where the last White Spider, Shan Sasaki once lived and worked.”
“Do you expect me
to give up space travel?” asked Ged.
“It’s the only life I’ve ever really known.”
“It will be part
of the life you will lead as the White Spider.
It is the work you are expected to do for us.”
“Hmm.” Ged stared up at the curved roofs of the
Palace of One Thousand Years.
Naylund Smith led
the way into the palace through a large wooden gate. Inside they came into a courtyard that
bustled with activity as if it were a small town all by itself. The courtyard had an ornate Torii arch that
marked the center of the great building.
There were practice yards there where groups of children under the care
of a schoolmaster were learning martial arts, probably karate. There was a large oriental garden for quiet contemplation
inside the palace, as well as the entrance into a riding stable filled with
two-legged llama-like mammals called kians.
Naylund pointed out
the two master towers where the instructors lived. There was a massive central building which
Naylund called the Akito House. It
contained the vast White Spider library, a place that had almost as many bound
volumes of books as books on computer memory crystals. Finally, he pointed out Shen Ming’s Hall,
which, he informed them, was the White Spider’s official residence.
They entered Shen
Ming’s Hall through a double door that proved to lead to a huge indoor bathing pool. Naked yellow men, women, and numerous
children were all bathing there. Junior
Aero would’ve blushed if his skin hadn’t been blue. Ged’s skin turned crimson.
Up a marble
stair, they came into the Administrator’s Hall, and a large, stately office. Behind the desk was Shen Ming himself, looking
spry for a man of nine hundred years. He
was bald as a cue ball except for a single top knot at the apex of his head, and
he looked like a wrinkled Alfred E. Newman.
“Honored
Shen-sensei,” began Dr. Smith. “I bring
before you Ged Aero. He is…”
“I know, Naylund-sama,
I know. He is the new White Spider. I would know him anywhere! He is just as Shan-dono described him in the
Prophecy.”
The silk-clad
ancient moved swiftly out from behind the desk and took Ged’s hand. He placed it on his own hairless head. His ridiculous lop-sided smile made new
wrinkles blossom across his wizened face.
“I pledge to you all that I have, White Spider,” Shen Ming said in tones of awe. “I will serve you all of my remaining days.” Ged couldn’t begin to speak. The place and the situation filled him up. Tears welled up in his eyes
There is a need for fantasy in those critical times when reality is stressing us to the limit. And fantasy can turn our imaginations upward and outward instead of inward when we are in need of new Star Trek and Flash Gordon solutions to Koch-Brothers and Trumpy problems. Think of how the world turned to space fantasy during the depression and World War II. We got Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and Daffy Duck making fun of Buck Rogers. And the civil-rights battles of the 60’s brought us Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura having an interracial kiss on TV, forced by villains though it was.
Yes, space-explorer stories and Star Wars movies help us face the challenges of living on a dying planet that the fossil-fuel industry is gleefully killing with the help of a baby-man king-president right out of a Judge Dread movie.
Young Buster Crabbe
I am not suggesting that some alien being is going to make contact with us and miraculously help us save our planet. They already tried that, and we didn’t listen. I am suggesting that the planet-saving ideas are going to come from today’s crop of Science-Fiction dreamers and people who grew up on ideas from outside the box… in fact, outside the very atmosphere of this planet. The space-fantasy solutions of the near future may well be the only hope we have left.
Time is running out. We need to find the Flash-Gordon-like hero who will step up to the planet Mongo’s evil and save the Universe and get the girl. Except, one that fits into the 21st Century instead of the 1930’s.
Today’s Art-Day Saturday post is about the pictures I have drawn to establish in my mind the characters that make up the fictional world of Norwall, Iowa. Specifically, the kids in my YA novels.
Milt Morgan, wizard of the Norwall Pirates
I do manage character development and detailed descriptions by creating early on a picture of what the character looks like for me.
Sherry Cobble, nudist, twin sister of Shelly, also a nudist
Mike Murphy and his girlfriend, Blueberry BatesEdward-Andrew Campbell
Brent Clarke, first leader of the Norwall Pirates
Dilsey Murphy, everybody’s big sister
Torrie Brownfield, the Baby Werewolf
Grandma Gretel Stein, Todd Niland, Sherry Cobble, Sandy WickhamFrancois Martin, the Sad Clown who Sings
Anita Jones, the girlfriend of Superchicken
Valerie Clarke, the most beautiful girl ever born in Norwall
When you are small, there is something intimidating about a man in strange clothes and a garish pattern of white and red and blue all over his face. What is he hiding? What does he want? Why does he squeeze off a blast from that ridiculous little horn with the big red squeeze bulb right in your little-boy face? His big floppy shoes suggest monstrous feet. Why does he have such a big mouth with red paint all around it? “The better to eat you with, my dear!”
But clowns have a purpose for those of us who are no longer frightened little boys. They parody our actions and exaggerate everything. They look like us, sound like us, and behave like us if only we are able to look at ourselves times twelve or thirteen. They are essential to our lives and our happiness. Why, you ask? Because, my friend…
This is my latest clown picture, inspired by my newest fascination with Puddles’ Pity Party on YouTube. Like all my clown pictures, I am fairly sure that my number one son will tell me it’s a creepy clown. He has never liked clowns. When he was still small we took him to the pre-show at Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus which at that time was Meet the Clowns. We met the men… and women… and dwarves… in the face paint with the loud personalities and huge red smiles. I was charmed, as always, but number one son spent most of the time behind my pantleg, peering around for sneak peaks at the clowns. He was actually shivering most of the time.
But me, I love clowns. Always have. Especially the sad clowns. The hobo clowns. Red Skelton playing Freddy the Freeloader, Charlie Chaplin as the Little…
Well, the plumbing leaks a little bit, but it hasn’t exploded and gushed water all over the bathroom in over a week.
The Cardinals are leading their division by three games in the final weeks of the season. True, the Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers are both close on their heels and both having winning streaks that prove they are capable of overtaking the Cards. The division is within reach, but not yet won.
I have been invited to substitute teacher orientation next month, so the possibility of returning to classrooms is also within reach for me. That will solve some money troubles and give me a chance to do something I love once again.
Nothing is ever guaranteed in life. Not working plumbing. Not having a winning team to root for. Not being well enough to earn money for the thing I was born to do.
But bad things are not the only things that happen in life. Sometimes you get a chance to cheer. A chance to celebrate. Sometimes life is good. So, we keep living and hoping, and enjoying what we can when we can… sometimes with a can of Gatorade.
Yep, I have now finished writing and publishing twelve books. I have reached a dozen. And the fascinating thing to me about my stories is that, even though they are pure fiction, they are about my life, especially my inner creative life.
All of the books have a connection to my home town. Rowan, Iowa, is portrayed in the books as Norwall (Rowan with the letters remixed and two L’s added for Love and Laughter). The two science fiction books are connected not so much by place as by characters. Stardusters and Space Lizards begins with aliens and humans fleeing the failed invasion of Earth from the site of the defeat with Norwall residents now a part of the alien space-ship crew. AeroQuest 1 has an ancestral connection through Orben Wallace, The Bicycle-Wheel Genius. His descendant is Googol Marou, the story-teller of the AeroQuest saga.
So, here’s a picture of the 12 books in time order (more or less).
And just to make matters a bit clearer, here’s the time-ordered books with approximate times indicated;
I do have more novels to write if I am given enough time and life to do them, but they will be fit into this timeline after 1974 C.E. and before 5541 C.E. That’s only a space of about 3,400 years to fill, so I will have to work hard to squeeze it all in.
Catch a Falling Star 