Ruby Nation 4-A: A Thistle By Any Other Name

Here Be Flowers

Now that Chapter 4's complete, here's another series of textual material to round it out as I get Chapter 5 together. This takes place between the INSOMNIA INTERLUDE and CHAPTER 4, presumably while Ruby wasn't getting any sleep.

The flower shown here is a milk thistle, also indigenous to the Santa Barbara Channel Islands (the general area where the fictional military base that shelters Ruby and her friends resides).

...Things Are Coming, I Promise

...perhaps I spoke rashly with this blog endeavor, since I haven't been able to keep the vaunted daily schedule at all. My apologies. I won't have a new blog every day, but I will make sure there are more updates, including stuff that isn't just self-promotion.

Ruby Nation 4-14: Sit, Boy

http://www.therubynation.com/comics/1700184/sit-boy/

New comic! Chapter 4 complete! Full Chapter notes soon.

The Poet Kitties are Back!

A few months back I did a series of comics that paired drawings of cats with quotes from dead famous people. Eventually other things in life took hold of my time and I stopped. I've started again, and will do new comics every weekend. Go here if interested.

It Are Serious Business.

Comics Quote of the Week from Batman #18

"Just to make it clear...I have NO INTEREST in knowing whoever's under that mask. I don't want you to be a PERSON. People have never done anything but disappoint me. You're not supposed to be a person. You're supposed to be an IDEA. But you can't be that if you're DEAD." --Batman fangirl Harper Row, to Batman himself, Batman #18 (by Scott Snyder, Andy Kubert, and Alex Maleev

The Other Greatest Superhero Costume of All Time...

...is this John Romita Jr. Colossus design from the mid 1980's X-Men.

Colossus is my favorite character in the franchise, and while he seems like a bland hero, his simplicity is part of his charm-- he doesn't speak much, but when he speaks or acts, it's either profound, awesome, or a combination of the two. Some of my favorite scenes in X-Men history starred Peter Rasputin acting uncharacteristically, showing just how serious the situation had become-- for example, nobody would've cared if Wolverine broke a Marauder's neck in the Mutant Massacre, and they'd only raise an eyebrow slightly if Storm or Rogue had killed one of those barbaric mutants, but to see Colossus do it with a single flick of the wrist drove home that things were so horrible even the team's gentle giant was seeking vengeance.

This costume works along similar principles; it's straight red fabric, covering the hands, feet, and torso. The arms and legs are bare, to show off enough of his armored skin without making him look like a male stripper (as the "classic" Colossus costume does, robbing Peter of his dignity in a fashion usually reserved for female character designs). The monotony is broken up by the small straps on the wrist and legs, the big black belt, and the single white stripe across the left side of his chest alludes to Russian military uniforms, a nice homage to his cultural background. It's definitely a superhero outfit, but Colossus' real "costume" is the fact that he's a big Russian guy who turns into metal. Whatever he wears should simply augment that fact, and not draw attention away from it.

As you can tell, I absolutely love superhero costuming, and since I'm doing a daily blog now, this topic might come up frequently as I work through my own characters and their outfits.

The Greatest Superhero Costume Ever...

....remains the Ultimate Iron Man design by Bryan Hitch. (At least in my opinion.)

The Ultimates by Hitch and writer Mark Millar did many things different from the original Avengers, most notably by amping the negative traits of the original heroes up to 11 and making them Bush administration toadies (except for Thor, who was a tree-hugging New Age wackjob). But where other reboots kept to the core of the character, the Ultimates stripped down every piece of its source materials and kept only the basic aspects intact while opening everything else up to contemporary reinterpretation. A great example of this, and why the Ultimates remains one of my favorite comics of all time, is the Ultimate Iron Man design.

Where traditional Iron Man designs had been more streamlined, to the point where the suit was basically a shiny wetsuit with a robot mask, Hitch's version went the opposite direction, to make Tony Stark's signature creation feel more plausible. While the capabilities of Iron Man were still light years ahead of any current technology, Hitch put so much thought into the design that it felt plausible. Ultimate Iron Man was effectively a wearable fighter jet, wrapping around a human figure and falling just short of obscuring the shape of the man inside. Big grey and silver segments wrapped around Tony's form, while his signature repulsor rays and boot jets went from being small discs on the hands and feet (respectively) to pronounced wrist cannons and big triangular apparatuses. The helmet was similarly retooled, with an alien shape that completely obscured any human expression. When the suit was active, the eye pieces and the chest-mounted unibeam took a blue glow, giving the suit accents of all three primary colors tactically distributed across the gray frame. Even the Ultimate Iron Man suit's disassembly showed remarkable attention to detail, as the assembly and disassembly of the suit was an elaborate operation that required everything from neural ports on Tony's own bare arms to a green fluid inside the armor (that presumably protected Tony from being cooked alive by the powered-up suit).

It's very likely that Bryan Hitch's design helped inspire Adi Granov's version for the Iron Man movie, which kept the "wearable fighter jet" aesthetic but used the scalding red and gold color scheme of the classic Iron Man suits. Unfortunately the Ultimates eventually retired Hitch's design in favor of the movie suit; understandable due to the iconic power of the Marvel movies, but a less interesting visual.

So What Would Make You Read This Blog?

Since I'm starting a new blog, I'm also starting it with the intention of getting people to read it. Getting people to read my comics is, and always has been, a much harder prospect, given the cognitive investment the narrative requires. Though I'm always eager to hear suggestions on how to make the comic better, I realize that the kind of readers I want most are the devoted, thoughtful kind that are inherently rare, so if only a few people go from reading the blog to reading the comic, I'll be content.

That said, I still want people to read what I write, so any suggestions? The default, of course, is pictures of my cat Allie cuddling with my various action figures, such as Solid Snake (the young version from MGS1) above.

Ruby Nation 4-13: The Assimilation Plan

Go here for more

After over one year of this comic (four years if you count Ruby's World ), the villains' plan is finally revealed. In part. Sort of.....

Welcome To The Ruby Nation

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."--Isaac Newton

This marks the first of many posts on the Ruby Nation Manifesto, a daily blog from the strip's author; me, Neil Kapit. That's right, daily. I'm using this as a podium for anything and everything related to the "Ruby Gang", as well as my own interests and influences. The latter of which will be a particular focus, because there have been so many great works that influenced me, and discussing and analyzing what makes a comic/movie/book/game/etc. great is good for the creative process.