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Book (Manga): Father, I Don’t Want This Marriage by Hong Heesu, Roal, Yuri

Father, I Don’t Want This Marriage
by Hong Heesu, Roal, & Yuri
published by Tappytoon.com
2019

This is the MOST FUN manga I’ve read in AGES. I laughed out loud! I squealed! I found myself impatient for new chapters! I have screenshots of the hot dad character saved on my phone! [*squeal*]

How on earth did this romance-action-comedy win me over, when I usually like my stories packed with sci-fi vehicles and dystopian struggles?

There are several good answers. CHARM. Enthusiasm. Humor. Artists who adore the characters they are drawing! COMEDY OUTTAKES and IN-HOUSE FAN ART AT THE END OF MANY CHAPTERS! Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to shout, but those are the areas where I have the highest squealing-and-screenshot ratio.

Background: Tappytoon.com is a website for manga / comics / “webtoons” authored in Korea, which are serialized and sold in chapters. A common theme across the romance and action comics on this site is that a contemporary young person works themselves to death in the REAL world, and wakes up as a character in a favorite book or video game. Rather than being the hero/ine, they (often) find themselves in the role of a doomed villain, and (having read the book or played the game that is the secret script for this world), set out to upend the story by making very different decisions to change their fate. These are stories of redemption, heroism, second chances, and (for the romance heroines) opportunities to learn selflessness to earn the love of all around them.

This webtoon is my favorite of this model so far!

Plot: Our rich, pretty, noble-title-bearing heroine, Juvellian, wakes up in her book role, knowing that she loves a man who will betray her, she has lost the affection of her widowed father, and that she is fated to die a horrible, lonely death in a dark place. She wakes in the timeline after she is established as a villain but before things go completely rotten, and she decides that she will DO BETTER.

She starts a program of self-improvement, shedding the man she has been chasing and painstakingly redeeming her terrible reputation one person at a time. She is sincere, and wants to survive!

Comedy in the story takes many forms: the heroine is terrified of small, cute animals, but not the things/people that are life-threatening; ongoing mistaken identity situations lead the heroine astray in her conspiracy to dodge a marriage to a murderous royal; there is abundant, awkward teen romance silliness; there are constant father-daughter misunderstandings; there are masks; an overprotective and supernaturally handsome father terrorizes his daughter’s suitors; we see the stresses of small animals from their own points of view…

A misunderstanding between major characters and their intentions. From Father I Don't Want This Marriage at Tappytoon.com
I laughed out loud at this man’s fantasy of how his poorly communicated message would be received.

This is a period drama set in an imaginary version of [unspecified European place] so that everyone central to the plot can be rich, have too many fasteners on their clothing (a favorite theme of the illustrators!), live in palaces, have lots of idle time to get into trouble, AND can be at risk of execution by petulant local royals! There are politics, but also curses, vicious rumors, evil stepparents, very forbidden dungeons, poisons, neglected veterans, and rock-star-handsome knights.

The humor can be dry and very funny. Comedic, child-like (chibi) versions of the characters represent them in emotional moments. Cartoon wallpaper hovers behind them when they think they are being clever. There is overstatement, understatement, exaggeration, and so many other good humor-tools well applied.

This comic has teen-romance values: all the young ladies love the handsome knights because they are so “pure” (!?!), there is no kissing, nothing is racy, and marriages appear to be mostly made for class & political reasons. The heroine is very young, so the romance is a why-is-my-heart-racing, oh-gosh, how-did-I-never-notice-how-handsome-he-is slow path. And that’s fine! Both Juvelle and her eventual partner grow up and become better, braver, more responsible people during the events of this story.

There are giddy posts from other characters in the manga AND in our real world online about how handsome Legis Floyen (Juvellian’s father) is, and it was clear it was fun to draw him and his entourage. The artists’ giddiness is adorable (they love him in glasses, they love him at the beach, they love him with medallions…). I will show restraint, and share just one of those charming, in-house-fan-art images… with his shirt on. There are other favorite WHOLESOME images of Legis I could share, but they could hint at spoilers, and he is supposed to remain a mystery for many of the 123 chapters (!) I happily paid for. (Note that these comics are presented in English, but some fan sites used other translations, so Legis is Regis, Juvelle is Jubel, and the name of the comic itself has variations.)

Pinup Dad: Duke Legis Floyen

Any comic that keeps me reading for 123 chapters and can make me laugh out loud is a winner. This comic has so much going for it: high quality art (in color!) with lots of digital fabric textures, a brave and modern girl trying to set things right, action, curses, family secrets, monsters, garden parties, monsters at garden parties, ADORABLE characters, deathbed confessions, rivalries for the hot male lead title, excessive fasteners, and high stakes battles. It’s a winner! I love it! This team should hurry up and illustrate more stories about Legis so I can keep buying them!

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Phone Photo Blog Continues

Sky Above Tide Themed Art (21 November)
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

While I’ve fallen behind in my posts here and at my fine art photo blog, I have been posting images semi-regularly to mobilelene.blogspot.com, my smartphone photo blog.

Yes, you may question the wisdom of trying to maintain three blogs. (I mean, who does that?) Just… roll with it, please.

I’ll periodically cross-post new content from those sites here, just to add variety to my book talk.

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Writing: Fountain Pens and Journals (teal theme)

Collage of three images of a journal with a teal pen, teal ink, and teal fabric background, written and styled by A.E. Graves
A journal spread – collage of pages I wrote in January 2023.
The ink color is Diamine Steel Blue; the pen is a Pilot Metropolitan.

My elementary school encouraged and required all of us Kindergartners to keep a journal. We needed to practice writing, and having a black and white, speckled-cover composition notebook of our own was DELIGHTFUL. I filled mine with colorful-but-poorly-formed words! I wrote and illustrated stories about red-haired girls having adventures! IT WAS GREAT!

And, the habit stuck with me. By the time I was finishing college on weekends while working full time at a law firm (note: do not do this, it is exhausting), and the college offered a few units each semester for maintaining a journal, I jumped at the chance… and then startled my college advisor by filling it in the very first semester, and starting another…

I still write by hand, especially for letters to pen pals and journals. My hands get sore easily, so I can’t write with dry ball point pens for long: they involve too much pressing. It turns out that very wet gel pens are better (HELLO, Uni-ball SIGNO!), but I fly through them, and feel terrible throwing out handfuls of disposable pens each month. Refillable gel pens come and go, and are very portable, but still involve tossing significantly smaller bits of plastic and metal out almost daily. The lowest waste and lightest-ergonomic-touch pens I can use are fountain pens with “converters” that can be filled with ink directly from a bottle.

It turns out I LOVE writing with fountain pens.

I have friends who collect these, but when they spoke of it, I didn’t really grasp the point: they showed me the pens themselves, not what they were capable of, how they performed as pens. Also, they didn’t mention to me, an overzealous color fan, how many ink colors are available.

Now I know. Oh, do I ever know.

I’ve been reluctant to show off either my ink or pen collections, even though both are very modest. Despite their modesty, writing with these tools brings me disproportionately large joy. My reluctance comes from the popular ways of writing about products by presenting oneself as a semi-professional expert reviewer, who talks up the qualities of the product yet never really MAKES anything with them.

There are countless video tutorials on how to SWATCH EVERYTHING – how to provide samples of a display quality that would please a salesperson. But… why?

While this swatching approach may help me better document my watercolor paint tube collection and so prevent me from buying the same shades of celadon green accidentally, it’s awkward as one’s only shared output. (Also: one can never have too many shades of celadon.) I don’t really trust someone who has only swatched a paint to tell me whether or not it belongs in their paintbox for their actual painting practice (if they have one)… I have some credible enthusiast reviewer sources of fountain pen ink who have recommended against using inks they received for free AND who freely remark on beautiful inks that aren’t LEGIBLE for actual writing, and that is feedback I can use. But there is a lot of reviewing-popular-products-for-clicks content, and I don’t want to participate in that.

So, how will I be different? I’m going to show what I wrote with the pen and the ink for my own enjoyment. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you won’t. Perhaps styling of these images by coordinating pens, inks, and backdrops will prevent me from staring deeply into my favorite pen shop’s Instagram feed and purchasing pens I don’t need. I expect it to make my blog more visibly interesting.

Either way, now is a GREAT time to create these posts. Everyone in my mother’s family has terrible arthritis: my ability to write legibly with fancy pens won’t always be available! I’ll seize the (quiet, quaint, pen-geeky) moment.

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Book: Rag & Pulp: Creativity with Paper, edited by Correy Baldwin

Cover of Rag & Pulp book from Uppercase Publishing: one of five covers

Rag & Pulp: Creativity with Paper
By Correy Baldwin
Published by Uppercase Publishing, Inc., Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2023

Janine Vangool does many things well at Uppercase, and one of those is providing a video previewing every page of this book on here on this overview page! You know EXACTLY what you are getting before you order it! There are also non-video image spreads to show off selected contents. Go have a look.

This is a beautiful and hefty compilation of artist and manufacturer profiles relating to paper.

Paper sculptors, artists, watercolor paper manufacturers, paper cutters from multiple cultures (papel picado and Asian/international techniques), wet paper oragami artists, African paper bead makers, paper felt painters who form paper from poured colored fiber slurry… While I own multiple books about paper arts, this one has a greater breadth – famous and not famous, industrial and artisanal, Awagami Paper AND lone papermakers – and each profile is longer and more heavily illustrated than in most other such books, providing a better sense of each participant’s product range and/or creative practice. The caliber of the participants is high, and the range of content is impressive.

This is a very professionally produced collection of profiles, and I (a person who has visited paper-making museums in multiple countries!) enjoyed it very much.

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Art: Indigo Cotton Handmade Book – progress

four image spreads of an open, oversized indigo-painted book, featuring freehand illustrations in black and white acrylic ink by A.E. Graves

I addition to reading and writing books, I also DRAW in blank books.

The Topdrawer shop (topdrawershop.com), a subsidiary of Japan’s delightful Itoya brand, has been carrying these handmade, 100% cotton rag paper notebooks from Lamali for a while. They are deckle-edged (meaning you can see how the fibers filled out the frame, untrimmed) and have a nearly crispy texture. The indigo version of the book has indigo-painted pages, and there is something appealing about being able to see the brushmarks, which have a lot of character and variation.

I finally purchased an oversized notebook, and have been filling its pages with abstract acrylic ink drawings. The paper appears to be heavily sized, so my acrylic ink sits on the surface nicely without bleeding or feathering. the contrast is good. The textured surface is hard on the pen tips, but this is why I have replacement pen tips!

Any day I sit and enjoy drawing in this notebook with my markers is a good day.

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Book: Uncollected Works 2010 – 2021 by Mateusz Urbanowicz

Book: Uncollected Works 2010 – 2021
by Mateusz Urbanowicz
published by MdN corporation
2022

I’ve written enthusiastically about Urbanowicz’ Tokyo at Night book, and now I’m back for his book of drawings and paintings of Japanese scenes in different seasons and times of day.

These paintings show many types of structures, both traditional and modern, and have the same charm and attention to scale and detail that make Urbanowicz’ art so interesting. Unlike the store fronts, these are broader scenes and wider perspectives. (Yes, he works in anime also, and you can see how some of these could function as studies for both ordinary and extraordinary backgrounds for anime dramas.)

You can see scenes from the book at the artist’s website for this book:

“Okuradashi 2010-2021”「お蔵出し」 · Mateusz Urbanowicz
Home website of Mateusz Urbanowicz; artist, creator working in Japan.

I was happy to purchase this book at Kinokuniya (I can’t believe my SF store has already had a 50 year anniversary!), and appreciate Urbanowicz’ drawing styles, comments on watercolor pencils (I use them, so I laughed out loud), and the skill, sensitivity, and affection this artist has for his subjections.

If you loved Tokyo at Night, you might love this, too!

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Book (Manga): The Blood of the Butterfly by Remin

The Blood of the Butterfly
by Remin
published by Tappytoon.com
2022

In a grim future, giant alien insects invade earth and violently devastate the population. A heroine appears to fight them; after her death, through risky experiments, the government imbues a group of orphans with her powers. These young people are humanity’s only defense against body-snatching and massacres by these aliens.

One day, another child appears, and seems to also have insect-battling abilities. How is that even possible? And will his arrival turn the tide so that humanity can finally win?

This is a dark tale of a brutal future where children with differently manifesting powers fight on behalf of people who both admire and ostracize their heroes for their freakish abilities. Meanwhile, the arrival of a new child suggests the government keeps strange secrets.

It is high stakes and somewhat dark in subject matter. Kids risking their lives to fight aliens (while adults… don’t) is a grim topic, though it gives them some agency, and they fight to win.

This was my first Tappytoon comic, and I found it well-paced, well drawn, and interesting.

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Language: Still Duolingo-ing

Yes, it is outrageous. Yes, it is good practice. Yes, I’ve been at it so long that they keep updating the lessons AROUND me.

This year I spent time on Hawaiian, and then switched back to German. I miss Japanese, but fear that I forgot all the kanji already. I’m not cool enough for French and Spanish this year, though I’m happy that I found my notebook with Spanish and Japanese notes. (They… are not similar!)

Yes, I’m a paying member, so I was able to buy a “streak freeze” on the few days I couldn’t get to my lessons before midnight. But STILL. I’m… persistent! The owl (die Eule) mascot, Duo, is momentarily appeased.

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Aside: Morning Motivation

You know what helps make it easier to get out of a warm, cozy bed in the morning?

Knowing that you baked a pie the previous night.

Just knowing that there is a freshly baked pumpkin pie somewhere in the house (well, in the fridge), waiting for the right moment to join a meal or coffee, is so ENCOURAGING.

(My recipe for a high protein, vegan pumpkin pie here.)

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Book: This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Book: this Is How You Lose The Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Audiobook published by Simon & Schuster Audio
2019

I had no idea that this audiobook (from Libro.fm) would be SO ENGAGING!

Time traveling agents comb through battlefields in the aftermath of devastating wars, and gather intelligence to make adjustments in time and events so that their own side will win. But at one battlefield, there is a note. A taunting, gloating note. An invitation to the finder from a skilled strategic rival to… do what, exactly?

Whether it is a dare or a trap, communicating with the enemy is highly dangerous. And yet, elaborately coded exchanges between these professional rivals begin, woven and shaped through time, so that only a specific arch enemy will spot and interpret it.

And those communications are… thrilling.

Are communications with enemy rivals supposed to be thrilling? Are finding their cleverly devised codes supposed to make your not-necessarily-human heart race?

This is a well-acted, FUN, page-turner-if-this-had-pages story of rivalry, risk, intrigue, and mutual admiration that delighted me. I recommend it highly.

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