Hi, everybody. I’m getting the hang of inking in Manga Studio by this point - it’s hella better than Photoshop for the purpose, but it’s a whole different approach so it’s taken some getting used to. The biggest thing is line weight - I’m working at print resolutions, so when I zoom in there’s a lot of detail there, and lines that look thin and straight online will look thick and wobbly to me.

I’d just about kill for Cintiq these days - having to ink many of the lines two or even three times to get the line where I wanted it (imagine it, if you will: draw, undo, draw, undo, draw, undo, draw…move to next line) is becoming tiresome. I have much more control when inking with pen on paper.

By the way, this has been a helluva summer for movies - I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. Especially for big ol’ nerds like me. WALL*E, Hancock, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk…holy crap. And then it continues - Hellboy II didn’t disappoint, and The Dark Knight was…wow. I could have done without so much on-screen time for Christian Bale monologuing about moral purity as Batman (mainly because his “scary batman voice” + cowl covers nose = sounds goofy) but even with that bothering me…wow. By now you’ve heard that Heath Ledger nailed the Joker…which is to say, people loved his performance.

But the Joker’s a storied character with a tremendous weight of history, and Ledger’s stellar portrayal doesn’t cover all of that - it takes a narrow but important cross section, and then drives that directly into your skull like the pencil in the “pencil trick” scene (boy did that one get my attention). The script can probably be credited with a fair amount of success in that regard, but Ledger’s performance made it go.

I’ve been hearing a lot of people complaining about how they can’t expect him to appear in a sequel, despite the survival of the Joker at the end of The Dark Knight. I can agree in the sense that not seeing Ledger reprise the role is a sad thing. But that sort of complaint just underscores for me how strange and dichotomous our relationship as a public is with our celebrities and our movie stars. Here’s a young man, stone cold dead in the prime of life, and that death is doing things to drive the TDK publicity machine like nothing else could. The effects of his tragic exit from this life are complex and I can’t even begin to guess at their extent - but I must say I find the near-mythic status that he’s attained in the pop culture mind’s eye right now is…just…eerie, really.

It bothers me, and makes me sad, somehow…and I can’t quite explain why. Rest in peace, mister Ledger. I hope that those you loved in this life gain more out of it than you could…and I hope that you find some solace in that, sir. Goodnight.

-Wes