Derik Badman's Journal

It's like a zero sum game: making comics takes away from this journal as I end up (at least during the week) doing them the same time of day. Slowly working out how to do stuff in Krita, slowly working out some methods new and old for making comics.

Six or seven chapters into The Long Ships and I don't know if I'm enthused enough to finish it. The story really reminds me of Prince Valiant in many ways but without all the lush art to look at. Which then has me thinking, I could just go reread the dozen or so volumes of that I have on the shelf.

Been reading Taiyo Matsumoto's Ping Pong which I probably would not stick with if I didn't know it was just two volumes (or at least 2 volumes in this edition), as, in knowing there is an imminent end makes me feel like it's not going to end up as a long winded race to the top sports manga, and my understanding is it turns against those tropes at some point. Matsumoto has a great line to his drawings, not quite unvarying but not dynamic either, it's hard and sharp and works really great for the action sequences. It also makes everything look a little alien and grotesque, especially the characters when they are showing emotion. You almost expect some kind of horrific monster to emerge from one of their mouths.

Watched most of (I fast forwarded through some scenes) La Ronde from 1964. It is the type of movie you watch for some of the leads (Anna Karina, Francine Berge, Jane Fonda) and then realize that there's not much else to it. It was a lot of bright colors and fancy costumes and a kind of wink wink sexuality. Not much to recommend it.