A Favorite Series

A sketch I made of the Nightwing empire as described from the egg hatching peak

oooh have you ever done a post about the ridiculous mandatory twist endings in old sci-fi and horror comics? Like when the guy at the end would be like "I saved the Earth from Martians because I am in fact a Vensuvian who has sworn to protect our sister planet!" with no build up whatsoever.

Yeah, that is a good question - why do some scifi twist endings fail?

As a teenager obsessed with Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone, I bought every single one of Rod Serling’s guides to writing. I wanted to know what he knew.

The reason that Rod Serling’s twist endings work is because they “answer the question” that the story raised in the first place. They are connected to the very clear reason to even tell the story at all. Rod’s story structures were all about starting off with a question, the way he did in his script for Planet of the Apes (yes, Rod Serling wrote the script for Planet of the Apes, which makes sense, since it feels like a Twilight Zone episode): “is mankind inherently violent and self-destructive?” The plot of Planet of the Apes argues the point back and forth, and finally, we get an answer to the question: the Planet of the Apes was earth, after we destroyed ourselves. The reason the ending has “oomph” is because it answers the question that the story asked. 

My friend and fellow Rod Serling fan Brian McDonald wrote an article about this where he explains everything beautifully. Check it out. His articles are all worth reading and he’s one of the most intelligent guys I’ve run into if you want to know how to be a better writer.

According to Rod Serling, every story has three parts: proposal, argument, and conclusion. Proposal is where you express the idea the story will go over, like, “are humans violent and self destructive?” Argument is where the characters go back and forth on this, and conclusion is where you answer the question the story raised in a definitive and clear fashion. 

The reason that a lot of twist endings like those of M. Night Shyamalan’s and a lot of the 1950s horror comics fail is that they’re just a thing that happens instead of being connected to the theme of the story. 

One of the most effective and memorable “final panels” in old scifi comics is EC Comics’ “Judgment Day,” where an astronaut from an enlightened earth visits a backward planet divided between orange and blue robots, where one group has more rights than the other. The point of the story is “is prejudice permanent, and will things ever get better?” And in the final panel, the astronaut from earth takes his helmet off and reveals he is a black man, answering the question the story raised. 

Man I need a project to work on that requires dragon armor.

*ignores my older abandoned animation memes*

revamp of some old Nightwing armor designs for my enchanted wof AU

Thought that was a baby dragon on its back, but no. Just a stupid human. lol great art. I agree that pose and body look great.

I like the body, I think, but I'm still not sold on the pattern, so it's about that time to redo old art!

Lineart and coloring of Coil Drake skull anatomy. Coil Drakes, belong to a group of wyvernids defined by their serpent-like bodies and mobile maxilla called Snake Wyverns. All types of snake wyverns use their mobile maxilla as a means to process food, by moving their maxilla in an up and down motion to slice and crush their food. Coil drakes are unique among snake wyverns as they possess all four of their limbs compared to Lindwyrms who only have their arms remaining and Wyrms which have lost all their limbs. These drakes get their name for their long serpentine bodies and their habit to coil their bodies upon itself when resting.

Wyvernids are diapsids like all reptiles but aren't true reptiles. Belonging to a group of stem reptiles defined by the presence of two middle ear bones instead of the one of other reptiles and the three present in mammals. Allowing them to hear higher frequencies, around 30kHz compared to the 5kHz of reptiles, 10kHz of birds, and the over 50kHz most mammals can hear. Wyvernids are also defined by goethite nanofibers in their bones, like limpet teeth, making their bones the strongest seen in nature. The last distinction between Wyvernids and other reptiles is their lack of a cloaca, instead possessing a genital slit with their anus, and excretory organs all being separate openings in the genital slit.

suck, and i cannot stress this enough, my cock to the fucking base

Hello! Anyone have any cool tribrid ideas or designs for wof?

I've actually found myself needing some inspiration as I've never made tribrids before and honestly don't know what to do.

rb if you’ve heard of/read watership down im trying to see something. it was such a big part of my childhood and still lives in my heart

Queen Snowfall: A Haiku

The queen of IceWings,

With regal scales of shining

White is Queen Snowfall.

(Image not mine, all rights go to the owners)