31 Days of Halloween (2022)

Here's a drawing I made years ago. Look, I never claimed to be good. It was a hobby!





Here's what I got when I tried to describe the scene to the Copilot AI.



Not gonna lie, I think the AI kicked my ass!

Yours looks like something out of the Diablo video game franchise.

Your depiction of yesteryear bleeds honest effort and spirit. It is worth its weight in miracles compared to the eyes empty of true personality.

Fero McPigletron said:

Oooooh that's interesting. One shots or minis? Bloodstorm was in Mutant X and I recall Jubilee turning into a vampire recently.

Click to expand...

Caldwin said:

I honestly don't know. My coworker says they're supposed to be ongoing. But I'd have to hear official word. It seems awesome for a mini series, but an odd wwy to go for an ongoing.

Click to expand...

Yeah, they're ongoings. It's basically Marvel's new attempt at a side-universe. Like DC's Absolute line, or Marvel's own newer Ultimate line.

And, yeah, this does seem like a weird thing to attempt to make into a ongoing thing. But...I guess Hickman got another idea for a new universe, so Marvel just went with it? I mean, I guess horror in general is getting a bit of a resurgence nowadays. So, maybe that's the reason? But, it does feel like something that would be a series of mini-series, at best.

I'm honestly not sure if I'm expecting these to last more than a year or so? I don't know if I have any confidence that Marvel won't just close up shop once Hickman gets bored and leaves again. Just like with the new Ultimate Universe. We'll see. Maybe this has better legs than I would expect, though?

Fero McPigletron said:

Your depiction of yesteryear bleeds honest effort and spirit. It is worth its weight in miracles compared to the eyes empty of true personality.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I will take the simplest of scribbles over AI slop any day. Heck, I'd even prefer lazy abstract art that is just a few dots/lines and somehow sells for a lot of money, as much as irritates me.

Thanks guys. You're too kind.

I will never criticize anyone's art. Partially because I respect the effort, mostly because while my own doesn't use Artificial Intelligence, it also doesn't use basic photographic competency, artistic merit, or good taste. I still have no idea why the background faded out in Panel 2. And I actually was TRYING on this one...

I love the process of making something with my own hands, whether for yourself or others. I like trying to come up with ideas, work on something, and see how it turns out. Sometimes I fail, or am unsatisfied, and that's ok. I can always learn for next time. This applies for art, cooking, crafts, etc.
There's a world of difference b/t that and throwing words at a program that blends words in with stolen art and pukes out a result. There is no love or suffering there.

Strangely, one of the best honors I ever got was back in the Prize Inside Shapeways days when I admitted to Trent Troop I was blatantly misusing his models, and he said he noticed, and asked to copy some of my dumb pictures for his product shots.

I still have this handle extender...



And you never know when you'll need nauseated lawn gnomes, so I will never get rid of these guys either.

MEDdMI said:

I love the process of making something with my own hands, whether for yourself or others. I like trying to come up with ideas, work on something, and see how it turns out. Sometimes I fail, or am unsatisfied, and that's ok. I can always learn for next time. This applies for art, cooking, crafts, etc.
There's a world of difference b/t that and throwing words at a program that blends words in with stolen art and pukes out a result. There is no love or suffering there.

Click to expand...

As a former Nightcafe user, I'm somewhat agreeing?

I mean, other people on there definitely feel love towards the pieces they show.
As for me, I was mostly testing the ability to create photos-that-weren't (usually black-and white or vintage early colour), and then using the results to inspire a story. I probably could have told that story without the props, but it helped to put a face to certain characters.

.... and then Muse came along.

While Google Imagen or Nano Banana probably wouldn't pass professional photographic analysis but looks fine on a screen, Muse looks too damn good. And I can't help but think that every photo uploaded to Insta or The Book of Faces was probably tossed into the training pool to make that happen.

Granted one has to pay to use Muse on Nightcafe, but I'm currently taking a break from even the free stuff....

The Predaking said:

This year we wanted to watch some scary movies with our oldest. So, we started to watch a KPOP zombie limited series on Netflix called "Happiness". It's a 12-episode limited series with each episode being over an hour long. The basic plot is that a high school baseball star injuries his knee during his senior year, and a girl befriends him in an unusual way. Flash forward five to ten years where the guy is now a cop in their midsize Korean town and she is in a military counter terrorist unit. A new drug called 'Next' causes what is called Mad Human Disease, where they basically turn into blood thirsty zombies for about 15 minutes or so. Anyone that survives the attack is also infected if they get scratched or bit. It's a very slow-pace show, and the stakes are low and local instead of it being a global crisis. We still have 4 more episodes to go, but I can say that I am really enjoying it and would recommend it.

Click to expand...

We finally finished the series this weekend. It was good. I really enjoyed it and liked seeing how the virus changed and how certain people reacted to it. Again, I liked how it was a low-stakes situation instead of a global outbreak. It had some great twists in it, and the ending was awesome. It really felt like a great mix of a Kpop show and a Zombie survival series. I won't spoil it any of it here, but I would highly recommend this to anyone to watch during the spooky season, especially if you like Kpop shows.

After that we watched some werewolf movies, 2011's Red Riding Hood and the 2010 Wolfman remake, as my oldest loves to be scared of werewolves. I suggested American Werewolf in Paris, but it has a bit too much sexual stuff in it for the kids.

Ohh boy, the discussions are already flying over whether capitalizing on a breakout horror hit was a good idea or not for Epic Games....

I had one group all night. One group...two kids total. TWO!

I got a big bag of 200 pieces of candy...which, as being pre-diabetic, I probably shouldn't go through so much as a fourth of that bag over the next several months. I'll be taking a LOT of it to work. But man. Two freaking kids!

And it was good candy too. You know, not the generic peanut butter stuff that rips out your dental work or the cheap stuff. I'm talkiing M&M's, Snickers, Twix.

TWO...FREAKING...KIDS!

I almost feel like I should've saved my money on candy!

I can't even open my bag of candy. This is the most insanely durable packaging I've ever seen. It has to be a factory lemon because why would they do this?

Nobody this year either. According to a friend who came over, there were TONS of Trick or Treaters out. They just don't come down my side street for some reason.

We spent the night doing our Halloween stream. This year's theme was GHOSTS.

We began with Scooby Doo Witch's Ghost for the Scooby Movie. Because come on.

Then we watched The Curse of Bridge Hallow, which was decent fun. Great family Halloween movie.

Next up was High Spirits. It's very much okay. Worth checking out if you think the synopsis sounds interesting. Basically it's a great idea, but JUST misses the execution. I didn't mind watching it, but I can absolutely see why this isn't considered a classic.

Then we watched something called Double Walker. I was busy doing something during this movie so missed most of it, and I'll be honest what I saw did NOT look entertaining.

We then watched the Fatal Frame movie. Apparently it's based off a side story novel that I'm assuming only came out in Japan. The Camera Obscura is barely shown, and it's basically just this generic ghost story at an all girl's school. Not terrible, but hardly worthy of the Fatal Frame name.

Then we watched a movie called Ghost Train. It's an anthology where this girl goes to speak to the 'Station Master' of a train station that apparently overlapped with part of some cult's temple at some point and so spooky things happen. You get a few stories about what happened at this station. Some are decent creepy, some are meh. The movie is rather meh all over if you ask me.

Then we ended with 1408. Which I still feel is excellent. My DVD copy has the theatrical ending. Which is my preferred ending for the movie.

I didn't watch any movies this year. I feel like I've completely forgotten how to relax.

I listened to spooky music all night though.

Our street has a good turnout. TMM and I had our yearly tradition of camping out on the driveway with a fire pit and handing out candy. We had about 88 full size candy bars and completely ran out in about 4hrs. Granted, we were handing them out to adults who wanted them too.


Roasted cheese hotdogs and had apple juice with a cinnamon stick in the kettle. We had ingredients for Smores and campfire orange brownies, but oddly enough didn't feel like making them. The temp of the cider was soooo good, but I spilled some at the end.

Aw man, that sounds comfy. It rained here the whole time, so no cookouts for us.

We hadn't got many trick or treaters in my neighborhood either. For the last few years, they have gone to the newer larger neighborhoods that they are building. This year, our neighbors brought our girls some candy, as we are the main group that goes in our area. We ran out of time this year and just decided to skip our own streets because of this.

After getting my middle child ready, which took two hours of prep time to get her hair extensions and make up done, we took off to our local retro gaming store, as they were giving away candy and Pokémon cards to the kids. From there we drove to the smaller of the two new neighborhoods that really get into trick or treating. The other one is always too packed for us to enjoy so we don't go there. This year, I had hurt my back and was walking with a cane, as I was bound and determine to not let me bring down my kids fun night. We walked about two miles, and my wife had to swap shoes with my oldest as her sandals that she wore were hurting her feet, and by the time we got back to the van, they were killing my wife's feet. While I mentioned I had a cane, but the family wasn't waiting for me to keep up. So at one point my wife stops to mess with her uncomfortable shoes, I catchup and just keep going thinking that they will catch back up to me. However, while she is stopped in someone's driveway, with her big bag of candy that the kids have been dumping their Jacko lantern buckets into, some group of kids think that she lives there and just grabs a punch of candy and Pokémon cards out of her bag! My wife is too nice to stop them, and doesn't tell them to stop. Oh well, at least maybe the kids will appreciate the cards. After we got back to the van, we drove over to the last block of the neighborhood and told our kids to go to the first four houses on the block, and the we would go down the street in the van. They were to stay together and listen to their oldest sister. Those kids went to every house on the street, both sides! After 7 minutes, my wife had to go looking for them and found them coming back at the end of the street. They blamed the 6 year-old, saying she just kept running off to the next house. After that we went back home, picked up some dairy queen for dinner, and crashed at the house.

Movie wise, we watched the Minions and Monsters movie as it just came on Peacock streaming. The kids loved it and actually watched it all the way through. After that, I saw that they had the classic Universal monster films, so I put on the Creature from the Black Lagoon! The older two loved this movie, which made me happy as it was always one of my favorites. Then they watched Train to Busan. I say they watched it, as I refuse to watch that film after the hours of 3 pm.