​Here's  anupdate on where we're at with Glow.

It's with a mix of pride and a tinge of sadness that we are announcing that as of Issue #5, artists Anny Maulina and Dia Ja have both officially moved on from Glow. 

It's definitely a little bittersweet, but we knew this day would eventually come. We're happy to have been a small part of their journeys and this is not goodbye forever! We're still in touch with both of them and plan on collaborating on different projects on the future - in fact, we're already working on one of those behind the scenes now. Hopefully we can announce that one soon! 
​

Vinsensius Suriantoo previously helped us develop our upcoming dog fairy tale Sansha and Blanco. He's a monster of perspective and warm expressions. We're honored to have him work on Glow.

Zie Fauzi is a man with many talents, one of which is toy design! In fact, he actually designed the chibi vinyls above. We saw a lot of potential in Zie's portfolio and so far through about twenty pages of sequentials he's just gotten better and better. ​

We're  also super excited to introduce concept artist Arief Russanto to the team! 

Arief has been helping us flesh out maps of the world and Arkadis, the next major location of the story. He's a talented sequential artist in his own right and will for sure be contributing on that end for Glow in the future. For now, check out his sweet maps which are currently being colored! 

So here's where we're at with the next few issues:

• Issue #5 is completely inked, ready to be colored.
• Issue #6 has one last sequence to be inked, about 6 pages
• Issue #7 is completely written with the first 4 pages being worked on this month.
• Issue #8 is still being drafted, about 60% done with the first draft. 

Our plan going forward with Glow is to release a campaign every two issues instead of every issue going forward. My personal goal is to have up to issue #12 written by the end of the year. Two months to go - we'll see what happens! 

For the Glow: Book 1 Kickstarter, we are still tentatively planning on launching sometime in November, but our timeframe is narrowly shrinking. An opportunity to publish another project, The Wildsea, came up in September, and was time-sensitive. I've been building out both Kickstarters including the campaign design, merch, and production for both, but honestly I don't know if I'm going to make it. It's a lot of work and I'm grinding everyday but there's still so many things that have to be done. 

If, for any reason, Glow Book 1 is delayed, we'll probably launch the campaign in January of the new year. We'll still be continuing the work behind the scenes with manufacturing and merch, so it's sort of a matter of how much of the public facing stuff we want done before launching. Gut says more rather than less. 

​Finally, I want to let everyone know that Vince is currently taking a sabbatical from the company due to his health. He's burned out and his well-being is suffering as a result. He's going to take at least the rest of the year on the sidelines of Mythopoeia to get better. Please, if you can, send good vibes his way. 

2020 has been really hard. Hopefully the worst is behind us. Fingers crossed. 
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- Ray ​

Hello Mythopoeians! 

Today I turn 32 feeling like I'm on the precipice of my future. Not quite there, but with the glimmer of possibility ahead along a razor's edge of perils and folly. May fortune be on my side and persistence carry me through the difficulties to come.

Today I'd like to talk a little bit about the creative career path. Since I was the age of 17 I've dedicated my life to the arts, forging a path that I was warned would hold no guarantees and plenty of risks. Like many young artists, I felt myself the exception to the rule that would defy the statistical impossibility of success that such a career holds and demands. 

For certain I was wrong. After I graduated film school in 2010, I was left largely adrift in the vast and uncaring jungle of New York City, scraping by as a mover of furniture and sweeper of menial tasks. The collapsed job market meant that I was taking gigs for less than minimum wage, oftentimes making $75 a day from alumni who should've known better but could not resist the lure of young foolish labor trying to make their way through a cutthroat and elite commercial environment sustained by corporate commercials and cobblestone connections. 

Eventually I found myself back home where many of the same practices existed in the more glamorous and plastique perfect skyline of Hollywood. There, I worked for bad people who felt at ease worming  their way into the toxic dog eat dog environment of entertainment, exploited again for less than minimum wage and told to do tasks that far exceeded the scopes of my tasks. Asians, it is assumed, are good with computers, which in my case was true. Networking - the computer type, not the person to person type -  has somehow always become my purview at ever career stop I've had along the way. 

During these times I didn't have a clue of what to do or where to go. It was period of exploration with the crushing wave of melancholy punctuated by moments of euphoria delivered through new experiences forged from youthful exuberance and escapism. The Graduate is one of my favorite films of all time. 

I kept going on my creative endeavors largely because of my friendship with Vince, who had chosen to remain in New York to stay out his visa. We corresponded on scripts and ideas, including a reality show called The Warrior Within. 

It was the first time we created anything together. I felt proud of the idea and knew for certain it could succeed if only, just only, someone would give us a chance. 

My fugue state continued through as I shuttled from one job to the next until eventually it was suggested by parents that I should return to my ancestral homeland: Taiwan. There, my eyes were open yet again, this time to my inherited culture long dismissed under a deluge of comic books, games, and cartoons that made up my very American childhood. 

It's been a long and hot summer. 

This weekend is another scorcher. Funny thing, the weather. It's something you can always talk about no matter the circumstances. And so it goes for how we observe and learn ever and ever...

Platforms. Markets. Places where people congregate and advocate. Hubs of places real and imagined. Virtual and living. Lingua franca annalusa.  Call it culture? Build it by being better.  

New platforms, new markets. The opportunity exists everywhere within a cycle. 

What does it mean to visit similar themes all your life? To observe the changes by gazing the navel? 

So long as happiness exists sadness is real. 

Human after all //

Ray 

Happy August Mythopoeians! 

First, we have a major announcement! Websites are important for those, right? In any case, we are launching our next Kickstarter for Skies of Fire #7 tomorrow, August 4th, 2020 @ 8:00 AM PST.

This is our largest issue yet and what we've been building up to for some time. It's a doozie you don't want to miss.


Okay, onwards to other topics! What should we talk about today? How about... culture?
​

This is another conversation sparked by the excellent Glendale Story Games Meetup, of which I've been a regular part of since the beginning of the year, but is a topic I've thought about often in the past. 

Why are some schools good at certain activities, like football or Speech and Debate? Why are some companies known for certain characteristics, like Amazon with logistics or Apple and design? How much of these aspects are inherent as a result of talent, and how much is transferred via culture?

The above definition implies a tangible quality to culture - things of permanence that can be viewed, transcribed, consumed, and experienced. Certainly these aspects are a major part of what culture is as a whole; I personally think of art, music, and food (in that order) when I think about the word. But what about the intangible? Can you learn a culture just by consuming?