15: Time Keeps On...
Keeping right along, I guess.
Greetings, o’ alert ones! It’s been over a month since last I alerted you, and the reason I know that is because a lot has happened between now and then!
First, 6 more episodes of Skullgirls and MoonRise have dropped. Skullgirls released episodes 11 through 16, and is now on another brief hiatus, and MoonRise released 6 through 11, which had some massive revelations for our main character, Kam, in the last two episodes.
What kind of revelations? Well if you read episode 10 and 11 then you already know! But for those of you who haven’t yet, what I will say is that episodes 10 and 11 are equally huge, actually, each part of a two-part tale that redefine Kam’s journey to reunite with his people as well as his role as their potential savior.
And while I’m very excited about that, it sure did come crashing suddenly in on us, didn’t it? MoonRise has been releasing on a weekly basis for 11 straight Thursdays now, without fail, and the series is steadily creeping up on 50k subscribers!
Now, those aren’t numbers that vie with the biggest series that Webtoon has to offer, not by a long shot, but it’s easily the biggest readership your humble author has ever had for one of his creator-owned series. By comparison, Adamant, which is also available on Webtoon in its entirety, has around 1300 total subscribers. Not that that’s anything to scoff at! And also doesn’t technically encompass all of Adamant’s reader-base since at one time Adamant had its own website and was represented on Comixology as well (when that was still a thing), but still! I don’t think Adamant ever sniffed 50k dedicated readers at any point during its run.
Not to say I’m not proud of the work that was done on Adamant and how it progressed as a series over the years. But one of the absolute best aspects of having both MoonRise and Skullgirls as Originals (Webtoon-endorsed, paid) on Webtoon, as opposed to Adamant which was Canvas (Webtoon-hosted, not paid) has been the engagement. Each episode draws a bevy of comments from readers examining what happened, pondering character actions or motivations and speculating about what’s to come.
Sometimes the speculation is even impressively on target, although other times it, uh… really isn’t. But it’s always entertaining as well as gratifying to know that there are people out there that care enough about what you’re doing to like it, subscribe to it, rate it and talk about it.
Speaking of talking about it, the Skullgirls team and I talked things over and decided another hiatus was necessary so that when we come back we can compete the first season without further interruption. So Skullgirls will be on hold for the second time this season until April 14th.
Suzi and Black have done some incredible work thus far stepping in for Alexis and Leigha. It could not have been easy for either of them to follow the original artists on the series, but I genuinely think they not only pulled it off, they’ve also made the series very much their own. Black also put together the cool graphic above to, hopefully, sate readers somewhat as they await new episodes.
Skullgirls currently has over 144k subscribers and has been viewed nearly 2 million times! That kind of attention, for both Skullgirls and MoonRise, has also sparked some additional content that I think is pretty cool.
First up, the initial 3 episodes of MoonRise were reviewed by YouTube reviewer and content creator DazzlingKate22 for her series of webtoon review videos titled 5 Minutes or Less!
And easily just as cool, the first 2 episodes of Skullgirls were transformed into dubbed motion comics by YouTube channel Anime Star Productions!
So now you really have no excuse whatsoever not to check out Skullgirls, because even if you don’t read comics, you can watch and listen to ‘em instead! Well, two of them, at least.
Quickies
Webtoon Rec. As time has gone on I’ve discovered plenty of other quality webtoons that I read as they release on a weekly basis. But there’s also webtoons that have a significant backlog, and so I’ll often need to devour episodes semi-regularly to catch up to their current release schedule after I discover them. One such webtoon is:
One of the things I like best about Re-Possessed is the title logo. Rarely do title logos inform the thing you’re about to read so well. As you may guess, Re-Possessed is a story about people who re-obtain objects that have been possessed by evil spirits.
Delving deeper than that, it’s about flawed people, the protagonist, NAME, in particular, who aren’t sure of their place in life who find purpose and camaraderie working in a
Socials. If you follow me on twitter or instagram you know I post a peek at a panel from the latest episode of MoonRise and Skullgirls when they drop each week. I then sit back and see which one gets the most likes like a judgmental parent comparing their children. Skullgirls always wins, of course, having an established fanbase and all, but MoonRise occasionally holds their own kinda sorta!
I say all that to say this. You can follow me on twitter or instagram at any time to see the battle of the Exner-written webtoons for yourself! I’ll also post about stuff I like or want to share from time to time. Mostly comics and pro wrestling-related stuff, if you’re into that at all.
MoonRise also has a Patreon! Now… anyone who joins at any tier becomes a member of our pack, and not only gets their name emblazoned on the MoonRise Website, but will get a howl out (our version of a shout out) on the MoonRise webtoon itself during our postseason Q&A episodes.
But that’s not it! I post scripts for MoonRise each week as the episodes come out, artist Cem Iroz does a weekly digital, downloadable head sketch along with a process video, we have behind-the-scenes posts, and all kinds of other cool content. We currently have one patron who gets all our content all to themselves, but there’s always room for more! If you like MoonRise, you’ll love what we’re offering on the patreon.
Consumption. As in, what I’ve been consuming lately. Watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Enjoyed it a good bit. Really liked the take on Namor (although the pronunciation of his name thing was just… odd). Was moved by the heartfelt goodbye to Chadwick/T’Challa. Appreciated the progression of Shuri’s character from overconfident to overwhelmed to vengeful to accepting. Everybody did a good job. But beyond the Namor pronunciation thing, did anybody else find it weird that they spent all that time and effort making sure Shuri was acknowledged as the legitimate Black Panther and then sort of undercut it not much later during the after-credits scene? Not to say I didn’t like the scene, or even the idea of it, but why rush it? Interestingly, I do think the quality of the Marvel movies has dropped a bit, but don’t feel it has anything to do with “woke-ness” as a lot of people are saying, but despite that dip I find myself eagerly anticipating the next one coming down the pipe, in this case Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. Looking forward to the new Shazam (just let him be Captain Marvel), Flash (although torn on that one due to how problematic the lead is) and Blue Beetle too!
Actually, I guess I’ve been on a bit of a superhero consumption kick lately, because I recently polished off the 2nd season of Superman & Lois (decent, and the effects are quite solid), got back to watching the CW’s Flash (a few episodes into season 7) and am even watching the old ‘90s Wild C.A.T.s animated series on YouTube (love that theme song!). What’s wrong with me???
Weight. 261.0! I’d actually gotten under 255 at one point in March, but lately I’ve backslid a little bit. I also got Covid and then as soon as I recovered from that got sick with a cold, so I haven’t been able to exercise whatsoever. That’s just about run its course now so I should be exercising regularly here shortly. The goal with that, beyond losing weight and getting into better shape, is that I also have to get my blood pressure under control.
It also doesn’t help that I read an article (or was it a tweet? I’m sure it was peer-reviewed, okay!) that says one after effect of Covid can susceptibility to strokes. And I had Covid around the end of last year, then had a stroke. And now I’ve had Covid again! So, y’know, based on that undeniably accurate medical advice, time to take care of the ol’ health issues before things get worse, wouldn’t you say?