I heard your work's informed by queens; hey, so is mine

[reflectedeve]

Do you know what I love, flist? I love fancomics so, so much. Any number of fabulous artists who I adore (and some of you know who you are) have done lovely and often hilarious oneshots, but there are a couple of longer, continuing ones that fill my heart with glee.

The first silly serialized fancomic that I ever read was, of course, Battle On! a silly and long-running comic strip about Xena: Warrior Princess (and occasionally its fans or actors). Oldschool! Long since ended, but deserves a mention. (Unfortunately, it seems to have lost its drop-down menu, so you have to read the whole thing backwards. /o\ Well, I'm glad it's still online, at least.) I loved it so much that when I was sixteen I started planning out a Labyrinth comic along the same lines, but given my Sueish tendencies (and highly manga-influenced style) at the time, we can all be glad that didn't happen.

Then you get hilarity like the fantastic Pika la Cynique's Girls Next Door, in which Sarah (from Labyrinth) and Christine (of The Phantom of the Opera) room together and suffer the continuing attentions of their respective male leads. (It's a rather superior spin-off of another comic strip involving Jareth & Erik as roomies--as well as Javert & John Norrington--by another fanartist.) I love Pika's style to death; she is hands-down my favorite Labyrinth fanartist of all time. (I still haven't ever seen Phantom, but it works fine without that.)

rufftoon does a lot of adorable one-shot Avatar comic strips (found at her deviantArt account), and she's also well-known for her ongoing Water Tribe!Zhao AU comic, which I sadly haven't read yet. (I believe that's posted in her journal.) However, I adore her (rather serious, and a bit sad) Alternate History, a comic in which Aang emerged from the iceberg a few critical years later than he did in canon. Unfinished at 48 pages, and I really hope she goes back to it, because it's amazing.

Lastly, of course, I finally went and read blondiusmaximus's Adventures of Gerard : the Boy Princess of the Ocean and Frank : the Italian Gentleman's Son Who Loved Him. I was honestly not sure if I'd like it (seriously random cracked-out AU premise), but oh, I do. ♥ I could gush forever about her awesome simplified cartoon style (it works so well for making the characters recognizable, particularly Gerard), and also her zany comic timing. Plus, there are a few moments in this thing that are just deeply adorable (the bathtub OMG). Five parts finished, and apparently just the one to go. Can totally be enjoyed even if you know nothing about bandom, btw. :D

I love that, once again, I am in a fandom with some seriously outstanding fanartists. (Something I didn't expect, in an RPF fandom! Shame on me.) It makes me such a happy fangirl.

Ugh, I should probably get dressed, huh? I was up seriously late working on an original piece (I was just so happy to have the opportunity and the inspiration all at once).

Comments

[firstfaerie.livejournal.com]

I had... completely forgotten about "Battle On!". Wow. Wow. Swept up by nostalgia (and of course going to read all those other recs ^^)

[reflectedeve.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Aw, yeah. (You know, I realized that I've more or less been "in" fandom for about a decade now; this Fall will be my tenth anniversary of internet access, and thus, um, Sailormoon. Etc. That's very strange to contemplate.)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Heh. ::does math for own history:: I got into fandom the summer after "Restless" aired (community discussion anyway... can't date when after that I got into the fic part of fandom). Now I feel like I should have a party on the 10th anniversary of "Restless" first airing (which is a good excuse for a party, anyway) ... even though that's two years away.