worldofshandor asked: Not really an ask, I just wanted to say your penpal series is probably the best DC/Marvel crossover I have ever read. If I ever get ridiculously rich and am able to start the gaming company pipe dream I've been derping about, I will hire you first thing. :) I love how you get characters individual voices down, and inject emotional resonance and a rich sense of grounding to the often scattered world of western comics. Thank you.
Thank you! That’s very high praise, honestly. The Penpal Adventures have been my slightly-OOC, slightly-saccharine crossover world of self-indulgence, since the whole thing has been about characters I like drawing pictures of cats and mailing them to each other. Ostensibly, it’s a pretty silly concept.
But sometimes, we need silly concepts. Platonic stories just about people helping each other feel better aren’t as celebrated as the deep, dense narratives of the bleakness of the human condition, but I’m of the belief that they’re every bit as important. We have this bias against happiness in our media. Seriously! We feel like we need to apologize or make an excuse for enjoying simple things that make us happy. If you adore Disney movies as an adult, you have to make an excuse for it—-that it’s something you were raised on, that it’s nostalgic, that you went to the theater because you had a sibling/child/cousin to entertain, so on and so forth. The simple, sweet stories are largely delegated to children. Personally, I call bullshit on that. We need happy with our grimdark. Sometimes, we really do just want to consume something that’ll make us smile. THAT is why I get cranky about the prevalence of grimdark in the media—-it devalues happiness and simplicity and uplifting emotions.
So yeah, I like to do things like the Penpal series every so often, because I have to remind myself that it’s okay to want silly, happy stories about Damian Wayne and Steve Rogers drawing each other pictures of cats. The world needs more silly, happy stories, I think. Thank you very much for reading and taking the time to leave a note!
