Seminar and semi-new comic project

So, it's been a while again. If it's any comfort I don't really have much time to update my Norwegian blogs these days. I've got so much to do, and when I'm really busy I always start wanting to do other things. So then I have to make time to do both the other things AND the things I'm supposed to do :p

Last weekend I went to that seminar for Egmont, which is probably the biggest publishing company that do comics in Norway (actually, that doesn't say much, because allthough we are rumored to be the second most comic-reading country in the world -guess who number one is- it's mostly comic strips and humor, mostly in the funny pages).

We had a course with Norways number one Donald Duck artist, Arild Midthun, who is always delightfully dedicated :D I don't agree with absolutely everything he sais, but he is remarkable, and have probably been the biggest influence on my comicing, out of the "teachers and mentors" I have had through the years.

He tought us about processes, what's important and what we shouldn't emphasize so much on (which is also a very important lesson), and he thought us about scanning. There was a lot of talk about colouring settings and things, which doesn't apply to me much, since I have no big ambitions about making comics in colour, but since I'm learning Photoshop, it was still usefull.

And then he gave us some candid inside-information about just how much controll Disney demands over absolutely every detail in the Donald Duck comics published in Norway XD

After that each of the participants had their comics thoroughly dissecated on a big screen. The people who mostly talked, ofcourse, were Alild and the editors.

Some of the critique was kind of harh, but I didn't feel hurt by any of it, actually. Allthough listening to the others I was terrified of what they would say when they got to mine.

I had brought "Skinnene Synger" (Singing Railwaytracks, ?) and a new short story I did for this months Bobla, called "Nå sees vi aldri mer" (Now we'll never meet again).

I realize I have to get less lazy with drawings. I often feel that since I make like 6-7 drawings (panels) in ONE page, each and every one of them can't be perfect, but especially with a 9-pager, why shouldn't they?

One person also told me that sometimes she didn't really know whether it was alright to laugh at my humor or not, because the rest of the content seemed so serious. I wouldn't really know what to do about that. This is the style I write, and the pieces of the story comes to me very naturally. After it's written down I choose what to cut and what to keep, ofcourse, but I don't want to make it ALL serious. They described my comics as "poetic" all the time, which makes me really really happy, but it's not what I've really tried to go for. I've just written the stories, without really categorizing. The humour is there for the people who see it (and I'm glad to see that peole who don't know me also get it), but if you don't understand when it's supposed to be funny, you can still enjoy it.

I was also told by one of the editors that the ending of Skinnene synger didn't have a strong enough point to prove why the characters acted the way they did. At first I though "Damn, he's right". I thought I'd been too into the universe of this story (talk more about it futher down) and didn't consider the reader. But thinking more about it I think he's overthinking it. The factor of the unknown (which he congratulated me on earlier in the story) challanges the reader to imagine it. Using very big words here:p

Why would people act this way just because of that poster, right?

Ok, sorry, talking a lot about a comic that I havn't translated yet.

So anyway, good advice. Some of it that I'll take, some of it that I probably won't.

It was also really nice to get to know these editors, finally! This will make it a lot easier to send them mails and stuff, and maybe harder for them to ignore us XD

I don't think they're scary anymore at all, they were really nice people!

And afterwards we went out to a pub, and got free food and drink on the companys bill :D

Got to talk alot with the other participants. I only slightly knew one of them from before, and it was surprising how much fun we had. Comicers are often quite awkward people, me included, but in a pub situation I'm not just a comicer anymore.

We were three girls, out of ten people, and only me and ONE of them made non-humours serieses. Unfortunately the two other girls were very shy. They didn't drink alcohol (not a bad thing, but you know) and they could hardly eat the food they ordered. Much less make conversation. It's too bad, 'cause I would love to have gotten to know them.

Everyone else had prepared portopholios though... All I had was some originals to Like Totally, that I'd brought in case I had time to draw :p

BUT! One of the editors was very interested in seeing the script for the stroy that I made Skinnene Synger out from, so I guess I will send it to her.

The story is about a future where musicians have gone on a strike and music has become so taboo that noone listens to it. Our main character, Kagerou, quit his band because of the "revolution", but is now completely miserable.

He discovers that a work buddy listens to music and gets really angry, but Lynx takes him to an underground live house and tries to get him back into music.

 There is a group called the Winniepeg-organisation, who made up a bunch of laws and who helps people remember why music is wrong. And then there are the people at the live house, who refuse to live without music, but who stay hidden. Kagerou is kind of in the middle.

 Lol, just getting in to Copic markers, these are still just sketches.

I'm kinda nervous about sending the script, first of all 'cause it's kind of a crazy story, but hey, it's fantasy right? Secondly, I've never written a script for anyone to see except myself. I don't like showing things to people before it's done. A comic just doesn't look very good when it's only in words and not in pictures, I don't write down all the descriptions and details that are gonna be in the pictures, so it's just actiona and dialogue. Kind of looks like really bad literature or fanfiction :p
But I am gonna send it! Can't miss up on this chance.

 Only it's not completely finished yet... I've been writing like crazy.

This is a doodle I did during the seminar. It's of two of the characters from another story I'm writing.

 Seems it's not going to be these guys who take over after Like Totally is done after all.
Here's another drawing form the story:

MUCC live in France

Friday Cat and I got up at four in the morning and walked all the way from her apartment to the buss terminal in Oslo. It's more than an hours walk. In the cold Norwegian night. We weren't alone though, because it was Friday night the streets were filled with drunk people on their way home. We even saw a dude singing loudly all by himself XD

Here we are, finally on the Rygge airport express bus, having a hot bun for breakfast. Wel, second breakfast.
Why all of this?
Because of these boys:

Ok, they're not boys anymore, they're hot old men, but they still rock like never before.
MUCC are doing a Europe tour now, and we had picked Paris to go see them.
We had also picked the cheapest possible way to travel...

We were waiting for our companions, Kimmy and Miriam, at the airport. Even though it was early I couldn't fall asleep on the table.

A sign at the toilet in the airport, this made me laugh. It also, randomly, makes me wonder how many people actually throw their tampons IN the toilet. I mean, they taught us this at school!
I remember at hight school, somebody wrapped their tampons in toilet paper and dropped them on the floor behind the toilet! I mean that's disgusting, and when you're that old, it's not emberassing to throw a tampon in the bin IN the ladies room XD
Anyway, I ramble... here's something else that's kind of disgusting.

Better than Yellow Label, but it's still Lipton. I promise myself my standard of living will improve!

Not much to say about the plane ride over, except that we still, for some reason (probably Kimmy talking like a radio), couldn't sleep.

A flower vending machine, that's got to be really french, right?

Travelig the cheapest way means you end up in the airport farthest away from Paris, so we took a bus into the city.

Yes, it was a very romantic bus.
So much we decided to put aech others underwear on our heads.

Actually it's some kind of neck warmer that Kimmy brought, this is one of the tricks it could do. It really did look like a pair of stretchy boxers though, until you looked closely.




Isn't Paris romantic on a rainy day?

At a place called LaFayette (like in True Blood!) we got our euros...

Have you ever though of how awkward it can be for a tall person to use an ATM? XDXD

Then we got on the subway to go to our hostel.

We were staying at a place called Woodstock. It was a very charming place, with friendly and helpful staff, and a cuddly cat! Forgot to take pictures of it though :(
The beds were confy too, though the room smelled like a bottle of nail polish remover, and it was so noisy!
If we were the kind who can't sleep with the sound of people partying all around us we'd be even more sleep deprived, but we were all so tired we collapsed at five and slept until two in the morning, when Cats alarm was set.
Time to go to the concert hall.
We already knew there were some peole waiting there, and when we came they seemed very friendly. They were determinded to make the whole queing thing as fair and stressless as possible, and they wrote everybodys names down on a list, and we all agreed to tell people who came where the end of the line was.




It all seemed fine until later in the day peole started arriving who apparrently were on this list, but hadn't been there in all the time since we'd arrived in the night.
I even tried talking to this one guy, and when he just said he was "with her", one of the girls we'd talked to I called her out on it and asked if they had just been lying to us with all that holy bullshit, and all she had to say was that his name was on the list before ours.
I can't say I have much of a better impression of France or Frenchemen than I did after the Kagerou concert some years ago. Anyway, that was the last thing we needed to decide we didn't have to show these people any respect and when the doors were opened we squeezed past most of them and all got a spot in the first row (except for Kimmy, who left his spot to find another one, which ofcourse made him end up with nothing. It's his first concert, but he's very tall, so he was allright).
I got to stand right in front of Yukke, which was where I wanted to be, and Cat got to be in front of Tatsurou.
There was a girl in a wheelchair in the first row, but the guards decided she got to sit on the inside of the fence. I'm really happy that they make it possible for everyone to go to a live, and I'm really happy they had a better solution for her. The pit just isn't a place for a wheelchair, people would have ended up being pushed and tripped over her.

The show was excellent! The band was so alive, and they all had a little section of trying to speak frenche. I don't know frenche at all, so I don't know how good they were, but luckily they talked english too. Well, Tatsurou did.
They mostly played songs off of Karma, which meant a lot of dance grooves and boy did I dance! On this point it's so fantastic to be out of Japan! I didn't have to care about anyone else.
Some of the songs I don't know so well yet, but I'll still say most of them are actually better live. I started crying really hard on this song called "hane", 'cause it really made me think of my feelings for Nuts, and how far away away he is and everything. But then they unexpectedly played Saishuu Ressha and it made me so incredably happy!

The thing with MUCC is that they have so many great songs that no matter what they play you will always end up missing a lot of songs. But that's just how it is.
After the final song the most incredable thing happened! Satochi was throwing out the drum...skins? (what's that called in english?XD).
I never catch ANYTHING. In my entire life I've only caught ONE pick (and I once stole a set list XD), but the last drumskin flew right at me. I grabbed it, but I only had one hand and saw all the grabby fingers reaching out everywhere, so I kind of threw myself in the direction of Cat. When she grabbed it I didn't know it was her, so we were fighting for a little while until we looked at aech other and just sandwiched the thing in between us. It must have looked really comical to the people around us XD

Yay, here it is! Singed by everyone!
Cat is the one taking it home, there's no fighting over that. It definitely means the most to her and I don'y have a place for it anyway, but I still feel like i caught something^^

When I got home I'd finally gotten a mail from Nuts. I'd found out I'd forgotten something in his adress, and had sent him a new mail while I was in France. It made me feel really good for a while. Wish he was more of a mail person.

Here's an update...

For various reasons I havn't been able to post here for waaay too long, and I'm sorry about that.
To sum up my time in Japan this far it's been a lot of fun.
When I came here I lived at my ex-boyfriend, Tomos house but luckily I got an invite from my friend Mina that I could come stay with her.
Her apartment is a lot warmer and brighter, and I feel alot easier at mind here.
Not that I don't like being with Tomo. I think I still have feelings for him, but right now I can't date him. I have to figure out what is really right for me first, because breaking up again would just be too painful.
I know he probably want wait forever, and I don't want him to, but I can't rush back into it.

My band (Salty Dog) had our first live the other day, and it was great!
It was only a school festival at my old university, but it was so much fun and everyone seemed to enjouy themselves. Can't wait for our next one in just a few days.

I've been to some concerts myself too. First I went with some of my kouhais to see Ayabie (kind of crippled by the lack of vocals, and I love Yumehito and all, but he is not really as good at singing as he is on the recording for the new song!), Megamasso and Zoro. Also playing were BORN (who I totally fell in love with), SuG (who at least had a fun show) and Lolita 23ku who I unfortunately didn't get to see all of, because my friends had to go all the way back to Togane, where they live, and that's really far!
Yesterday, the 12. of December, I went to see 12012. Really nervous about wether there would be a message that they were breaking up.
But there wasn't! I'm not really sure if there was a decicion of wether to continue either, but from what I've gathered they still havn't decided. But Wataru talked alot about looking towards the future and stuff. The concert was basically a goodbye to Yuusuke, which is really really sad, but he was so cool until the end, and he said he didn't want to see our crying faces. It really made me smile through the tears.
The only one who looked unusually serious was Tohru, like he wasn't in on this at all. I hope he's allright, I know he really really wants the band to go on. So do I. But I had sweet dreams last night.

I've been kind of dating this kind of useless gyaruo for a few weeks. My friends call him Shinjuku, because he claims to be "shinjuku-kei" and not Shibuya-kei, though nobody really seems to see any difference. I know, all the time I spend badmouthing gyaryuo, and then I go off dating one. "dating", by the way. Can't say my impression has gotten any better either :p
He's very selfish, hardly ever carrys my food tray and stuff, and he's really not the brightest guy... he didn't know the true meaning of the word "fuck"(even though he really should) and he read the kanjis for Keyo-line as Keba-line. Seriously XDXD
He's also very stingy, wchich is what surprised me the most. Except for the fact that he isnists that we're dating, ofcourse. Why is he making such an effort when I'm completely ok (actually a lot better) with just being playmates. So why do I keep him around? Hmmm, 'cause I'm stupid and he is really cute and I really want a cute guy to warm my bed^^;; God, I suck XD

I've been to a few dates with other guys, but I am just too focused on looks. And I can't seem to like anyone who's not younger than me. The exception being this dude Kaworu, who I7ve been to one date with and really had a great time. He's actually quite abit older than me but he likes visual kei and he really reminds me of Daisuke lookwise, except he has a very bright personallity.
There's only one thing, he's a host by profession (but our date wasn't work), so becoming his girlfriend is completely out of the question, and for precaution I've also decided to assume anything he sais is actually a lie, even if he sounds really senciere.
I would like to meet him again though.

So yeah... guy trouble :p
Not as much as mye friend Sayaka though, but she ended up with a guy she's liked for a long time, even if he wasn't her ideal and all. I really hope it'll turn out all right, because she really needs that now^^

Tomorrow my BFF will finally be here, and I'm looking forward to meeting her! The busy days will go on from here, with my brthday and our concert and Disney Land with a few friends and concerts with Cats favourite band, Roach (hmm, seems like there's no time to meet my host...).
I'm a bit nervous about my birthday, because I realized I've told a lot of guys that I'm 22 XD It scares me how easy I lie about my age these days and I think my plan for the new year will be not to tell so many lies.

It should be all good from here, only my other wisedomtooth has started to hurt and I'm scared I might have to have it yanked out here in Japan, by a dentist I don't know. I'm a real coward when it comes to this.
I havn't daret to tell my mom this yet, because I don't want her to worry about me. So I havn't written it in my norwegian blog. I'm still hoping it will blow over this time though, I had a lot of pains in the other one before it got really bad, but it kind of clouds my days.
I don't know anyone who knows how to set up a dentist appointment. And I don't really have time to walk around with a swollen face, not being able to eat anything but italian pizza... Can't it just hold on till I get back to Norway??
Why do I always put things off?

Anyways, sorry, no pictures in this post, I'm kind of in a hurry. Maybe I'll post some later^^

どんなあなたも愛していたい

So, maybe it's time I tell you about he bad things that happened last week.
I know i doesn't sound like a big deal to most people, but you have to promise not to laugh at me.

The thing is, Yuusuke announced he's leaving 12012 after this tour...
All of a sudden he's just out. And as much as I love Yuusuke and can't really imagine the band without him, the worst part is actally that the band "can't yet decide" wether they want to keep going without him. In other words 12012, my favourite band in the whole wide world, might very possably be breaking up.
It's ike Kagerou all over again, only it might actually be worse... Partly because Kagerou always had this very negative vibe about verything they did, like the end was always ust around the bend and partly because I've had the chance to get even deeper into 12, with understanding more of the lyrics and getting to know the better.
Nevertheless I cried for two-three days when Kagerou broke up, and even more at the last concerts.

See, a favourite band like this is more than just cool music. And to put it in a ridiculously romantic way, it's like unconditional love. Kinda like a partner who will always be there to comfort you no matter if you deserve it or not. And I swear, they have a song that goes with EVERY emotion I can recall ever having! Not just sad, angry, happy, but the kind that you need a whole sentence to describe too. And that's just the music. With visual kei, there is always even more.

How can some bands become this important to us? I don't know if most people have a band or group that means this much to them, but I know some people who do, so it's not just me.
I don't really remember when or how I got this into it.
And I don't know if or how I'll ever find another band that can take that place in my heart...

Of course I'm hoping for the best, but I can't really bring myself to believe in it.
Luckily, my wonderful ex got it together to get me a ticket for the possably last 12012 live ever, the 12.th of December this year.

♪ミチランド♪

Happy birthday, Tomoyuki!
Today is 12012s fabulous duck-faced, shoulder-showing bassists birthday!
Let's not think about how old he is now, and just celebrate!
Jack and I even had cake today, even though it's a Thursday. Yes, we're nerds.
It kinda looks like we're celebrating Nero, but Nero is actually the name of the café where we had cake.
Cat also joined in, but I suspect she's only looking for an excuse to have cake on a weekday XD

By the way, I had a wisdomtooth pulled out on Monday, and have been complaining ever since. Not that the actual process hurt so much, thanks to the shots and drugs and all, but my face have swollen up a great deal. I didn't even want to go out of the house, I was so emberassed, but I had to go to work yesterday.
Anyway, it's almost back to normal now. I'm not posting any pictures of myself with a hamster face(I didn't take any), but if you're really curious I kinda looked like Michiru XD
I couldn't really find a picture where you can actually see that his face looks exactly like a soccerball with make-up on, but I did find out he's in a new band with his old MASK-bandmates, Sana and Kazutake.
To see what I looked like, look for the white lumpy thing. To see a crime against humanity, look at the bassist....

Alot of things are wrong with this video, but what frets me the most is how they make a man like Kazutak look so... unsexy. I'm feeling the dead animal a,d maybe the indian make-up is allright, but what's with the hair and that ugly ass pirate vest!? No, my wet fantasies! And then I think "but if he's currently in a band then maybe he can be found and grouped", and then I think "Shut up!" "No YOU shut up!"
Yeah, anyway. Let's have a look at this and remember the sexy days: