Archive for the ‘Manga/Comics’ Category

Goin’ to Yaoi-Con 2011!

Friday, October 7th, 2011

October 21st through 23rd I’ll be at Yaoi-Con in San Francisco! W00t! It’s really short notice but I only found out last week that I would be able to go, then this week my mother ended up in surgery and I ended up in the emergency room for completely unrelated reasons, so things have been a little crazy. After I finish writing up this post I fully intend to stare up at my ceiling fan and listen to Enya for at least an hour.

Are any of you guys going? I’m not sure if I’ll be playing Where’s Rowan this year—Would you be interested in playing again? If so, I might also do an online version this time around where you can look for me via twitter. I’m not sure. It depends on how I feel after Enya stops playing. 😉

In celebration of my trip to Yaoi-Con 2011, I’m posting a few pics from Yaoi-Con 2010, which I never got around to posting because my SD card got corrupted and I lost most of my images. It depressed me, yada yada yada. But some good ones survived, and here are three:


1 - Ichigo and Alex

A friend and I won a bishie in an auction. Here he is in his in all his Ichigo hawtness posing with Alex Woolfson, another friend of mine and writer of a fab webcomic called Artifice.

9 - Butterfly Dances 2

I don’t know who they are, but I love the hell out of butterflies.

Cutest Frog Ever

Cutest. Frog. Ever.
In my head all I could hear was “Kero Kero Keroppi.”



So that’s three snapshots of last year’s Yaoi-Con. If you’d like to see more, check out my flikr account at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjwifMdr. Feel free to leave comments there, and let me know here if you’re going to the con!

What the Heck is Muscle Growth?

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Note: This blog was originally published on my MySpace blog, August 5, 2007.


That’s the most common question I get asked when someone stumbles across my writing. Why are you so obsessed with it? usually comes right after. Sometimes it’s honest curiosity, sometimes it’s judgment. Every once in a while, someone writes me just to say ‘ew.’

For some reason—whatever the tone—I’m always flustered when I’m asked. Is muscle growth really that bizarre? Am I a freak for writing it?

I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer is ‘no.’ I’m not a freak for writing about muscle growth. I’m a freak for so many other varied and quite shiny reasons. But back to the first question:

It’s a transformation genre like any other. Some people like werewolves (me), some people like vampires (me), some people like MG (me to the nth power). Like with most transformation stories, just about anything can spark the change. Magic, science, good old fashioned exercise, or a really, really hot round of toe curling sex might do it. Possibilities are endless. It’s just that, instead of fur or fangs, the person involved will put on muscle.

Lots and lots of subgenres in MG. Sometimes there’s a little macro involved, so the person growing thicker also gets taller. More muscle can also mean incredible strength and a higher {pauses a moment to indulge a happy smile} sex drive. Sometimes one guy is actually stealing size from another, and that’s called muscle theft. If you’ve read my story Just Wait, then you know a bit about that one already. Muscle theft is the dark side of the genre, and often one of those “hate to love it but must have it” sort of things.

Now, why do I like muscle growth? There are so many possibilities to explore with MG. I’ve often said I love the inherent change in dynamic, and I so do. Maybe the person who transformed starts to see the world differently, or maybe the people around him see him in a different light. There might be more confidence, more aggression, more (yes!) sex, or just a bucket full of trouble once things hit the fan. I like to explore that. I also like to explore issues of power, and MG totally gives me a reason to screw with the classic seme/uke relationship.

I mean, what’s sexier than a seme who can stay seme even after his uke becomes physically stronger?

If you’re wondering what the heck a seme and uke are, I promise I will get to that in a different blog. 🙂

But back to muscle growth—

Why would anyone choose to write in such an unknown genre?

Truthfully, I don’t think it is unknown. It’s just incognito. The obvious place to look for muscle growth in the media is The Incredible Hulk. I love the green guy, but there’s so much more out there.


In keeping with comic books:

Captain America—young, average soldier volunteers for an experiment and becomes a ripped superhero.

Spiderman—remember that scene in the first movie when Peter Parker is checking out his new abs? Yep, muscle growth.


Classic cartoons:

Tom & Jerry—believe it or not, there’s an episode of that toon where tiny little Jerry drinks a formula containing who-knows-what, and he gives that cat a little beat down.

He-man—yeah, Adam was fit, but that sword gave his physique a little extra something whenever he invoked it. I’m a child of the 80’s, so I’m sure this one had an impact on me. And the transformation is even more significant in the newer versions of the cartoon.


Novels:

Incarnations of Immortality—In With a Tangled Skein, the man Niobe marries has to do a bit of growing up to get a second look from her. When he takes up chopping wood without a shirt and begins to put on some muscle, Niobe takes that second look. And a third. And a fourth…

Creature—When I read it long ago, my fragile young mind was sure it had tons of growth. Some people have since told me that they disagree. It doesn’t really matter. This is one of the books that fired up my imagination, so I’m grateful to John Saul.


Others:

A lot of anime has MG in it. Especially the ones where the main character has to “power up” in order to hit their next level of strength. Many times there’s also shirt ripping. 🙂

In Heavy Metal, there are two excellent storylines containing muscle growth, but I won’t give them away here because it’s a classic piece of animation and everyone should see it at least once.

All over YouTube.


Oh, and this one’s getting me sent straight to hell:

The bible. Yes, the bible. I learned to read from this book, which mean I learned about Samson long before I’d ever heard of Hercules. And depending on which version of the bible you have, you can look up the stories of the Nephilim. Many interpretations of those guys, but the way my bible study went, they were children of the angels who grew up to be huge, “mighty” ones and ended up causing all kinds of trouble. They were also purported to have unnatural libidos. Genesis 6:1-8; Jude 6.

Hmmm, the bible should not turn me on…

Anyway, that’s a list off the top of my head. The point is, MG is pretty much everywhere. You’ve probably seen it, you may even have been turned on by it.

I write about it because it’s a theme I love, and that’s what writers do. Well, that’s what writers should do. I’m lucky because my career’s young enough that I get to sneak in under the radar where a lot of the industry’s pressures are concerned. And muscle growth isn’t the only genre I love, so it isn’t and won’t be the only thing I write. Characters that grip, stories with layers… these are the things I always strive for, no matter the genre.

Blogging about muscle growth won’t stop the questions and eyebrow raises, I’m sure. But it’s been really fun to delve into it here, and I hope I didn’t scare you away. 🙂

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Wait’s Finally Over

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Note: This blog was originally published on my MySpace blog, July 26, 2007.


My short story, Just Wait, is now on sale at Dark Eden Press! Ah, Mark and Travis. Good Twin Fun. I’ve been looking forward to this release forever, it seems. Not only did I have a blast writing it (these twins have so much fun being bad!) but it’s also my first e-book out since Twisted Shift closed. I must say, I’m a little nervous about being at a new publisher.

At Twisted, I dominated the bestseller list—I had the top three spots. But I’m the new kid on the block at DEP, and of course I’m nowhere in the rankings yet. Think you can change that for me?

Terribly shallow of me, I know. But I really, really want to be on that list.

If you get Just Wait, and you have an opinion on it, feel free to click the review button and write what you think of the story!

***

Another long-awaited story of mine, The Jascian’s Toy, has finally been updated. Jascian is the story of Blake, a human doctor who gets kidnaped to an alien world to be a toy. Lucky for him that his new ‘owner’ is painfully hot.

I posted Chapter 7 on The Evolution Forum and Nifty.org today. Both sites are free to access. The Jascian’s Toy is up at Evolution now, but it may take a little while for it to make its way through all the Nifty mirror sites, so if you read it there, be patient.

At Nifty, you can read all the installments in the Gay Male/Science Fiction and Fantasy section. Just scroll down and look for ‘jascians-toy’ and they’ll all be clustered in the same place.

Here are the links if you’d like to read the story on Evolution. Comments are enabled there, and I’m addicted, so feed my fix.

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone. It’s still raining here, so it looks like I’ll be indoors catching up on my reading, listening to music, and watching anime. Which actually sounds like fun.

For reading, I’m going for DeathNote v12, Heaven Sent: Hell, and Basilisk. In music I’ve just discovered closethuman, and I’m all about them at the moment. In anime… Bleach and Naruto, of course. And episode 3 of Yami no Matsuei.

Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good list.

If you put Just Wait on your reading list, let me know what you think!

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