The First MURDERLANDS HISTORY LESSON!!!!  https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/703776?updated=1513677373

SO MUCH WORK TO DO SO LITTLE TIME MY ADOBE LICENSE EXPIRES ON THE 19TH SOMEONE DO ME A SOLID AND BUY ME ANOTHER MONTH, LOL PLEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASE

So for those of you who don't already know, for the last two years I've been (intermittently) making a Nintendo 3DS and 2DS exclusive game called MurderLands. Check out the rough work on the intro cinematic so far. https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/b3ea79e900501ff4f47d0ca4851d44f8

https://soundcloud.com/user-470349283/sets/declention-ep

LISTEN FOO

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/663578

WATCH

... has been marked "ANNUL" due to my having lost the pens for both my Bamboo Fun (the very same Tom sent me) and my Intuos. If anyone can send me a functional replacement the said samaritan would be most fabulously rewarded... WITH GIFT ART. Your choice; pick music, an illustration or an animated gif, all designed and produced according to your specification.

In other news , I've submitted a few pieces of music, and I have six albums for sale on BandCamp: https://nicolasdevlinvalentine.bandcamp.com/

Also, check me out on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/ryan-carell

That is all for now.

Thank You.

So it has been nearly a year since Tom, that nice fellow, sent me a shiny new tablet. Yet, I've nothing more than some meagre doodlings in the Art Portal to show for it.

This isn't to say, however, that I haven't been using the fucker like there's no tomorrow. So many ideas, so many, many frames, have passed beneath its gentle caress.

Finally, this Thursday, I shall have something to show for it. No, it is not something large, or even particularly exciting. I won't spoil it though, because it will be a lot of fun, I think.

But if this little Thursday treat isn't huge, where DID the last year go, and why isn't THAT what you'll all be seeing?

Well let me say this. Somewhere, hidden in the terrible depths of my older days as an animator on this account, you'll find my original attempt at producing the pilot episode for a very personal, very large, and very ambitious animated series exclusively for NewGrounds entitled Spider. I had abadonned the whole project quite quickly when I realized I just wasn't that good.

It's been consistently creeping its wee way into my brain this past year, and in the process has received a massive overhaul in terms of plot, tone, and central themes. It has also received a wonderful face lift. I find I can actually draw now. Not well, but I can do it.

Still, the new Spider remains in the very early developmental stages. Have there been test animations? Certainly, and some even turned out well. Have some scripts been written? Well, yes, some have. Heck, there's even some of the original score finding its way on to a staff. But it's all me fiddling at this point. I've promised myself I'm not going to leap into this one blindfolded and then complain when the pool's filled with piranahs.

So there it is, for the 2 of you who will read this. Hopefully a little interest has been perked, and hopefully I'll not be so scorned about the lack of content I've produced. Things ARE coming, but boy can it be a slow process when you care just a little too much about the quality of your work.

The Art Portal is, in my opinion, one of the finest additions to NG in ages. It has become one of the most concentrated centrals of great artwork I've found on the web. Yes, there is shit. There will ALWAYS be shit. However, there is far less shit in the Art Portal than we've had in the Flash Portal recently. I'm finding my time is often spent perusing various artists illustrations, rather than watching any cartoons. These days I'm only watching the toons I get linked to or the ones by authors I know I like. It's terrible, because I'm likely missing some wonderful things, but I just can't stand to watch another godawful attempt to parody Twilight by having Edward fart. I'll snap and murder the people I love.

I want to see an overhaul of the Flash Portal involving a much more intense pass-or-fail system to weed out the trash. I know people love some of the work I hate, but there is so much more to offer out there than simply rehashing the old ideas that were once funny, and I think if the sysem by which we judge the submissions was forced into a more rigorous format, we'd all take a much closer look at what we're watching and begin to notice everything in new ways that could cause, not a revolution, but certainly a more vibrant and varied body of work to be displayed here.

I'm not asking for parodies, sprite movies and all the other things I hate to be cast away. I couldn't expect it to happen; they're integral to NewGrounds' identity and existence and to cut them out would be to sever the legs upon which NG stands. I do think we can reduce the amount of second-rate and half-hearted attempts to cash in on those forms' popularity, though. This isn't a proposition to change what NewGrounds is, it's not my place to ask for something like that. This is merely a request for a more analytical set of standers whereby work submitted will ultimately be required to be just a little more thoughtful, a little more carefully crafted, and hopefully a little more appealing to everyone, regardless of their tastes in conetent.

I know this sounds like some sort of pretentious attempt to tell people how to tell stories, but I don't mean it to be. What I simply want is for authors to try and think and feel their way through a narrative, to be concerned with storytelling more than story, and to present ideas that are worth something to people, not a fanbase.

Please ignore this if you're of the mind that I'm a dying breed personified. I grew up in the world of cartoons and movies in a way many people did not, and experience them differently than most. My feelings are not those of the mass, and I know this.

Allright, so here's something for the collab!

---

A Stain Against the Sky
By
Ryan Carell

At first, I thought it was a trick of my eyes. Against the sky loomed a smog-grey shadow cast by nothing I could see; a blossoming stain reaching its black tendril fingers outwards to grasp at the nearby clouds. A part of me wanted to dismiss it as an illusion; a part of me wanted to run far, far away, until my legs cramped and I could run no more. Fighting fiercely against those parts, though, was a third, infinitely larger part; a part that couldn't even bear to look away.
An hour had passed, and still I stood there gazing. I should say I'd have been a queer sight to a passer-by, but strange in its own right, there'd been none that whole hour. Though I'd been merely awed at first, towards the end of the hour a malicious unease had begun to seep ice into my veins. Demonic questions crept about inside my skull. Just what, exactly, was this dark blemish floating in the heavens? How did it come to be there? Was this some hellish omen from a world beyond my own? With each new thought came another twang of terror. I was now convinced that my doom was certain and imminent.
With a sudden start, I realised the horrible origins of the mark, and I flushed bone white. In my loins I could feel the thunderous hammering of my heart. Still, with my terrible new knowledge, I remained paralyzed as though my feet were encased within the very concrete upon which they rested.
As I stood there, frozen with eyes wide, the stain ripped wide and out poured my most horrifying nightmares. Echoed in the sounds of my very own ragged breaths could be heard the cackling laughter of the Devil himself. Monstrous black talons shot forward to grab at me, crimson drops of innocent blood dripping from their tips. I opened my gullet wide to scream, but loosed only a hoarse whisper.
There was an earth-quaking rumble within myself and I could feel the horrors forcing themselves into my throat. Each fraction of a second was an eternity of torture as the walls of my throat were torn into fleshy ribbons. At once, the pressure became too great and the cartilage exploded. I could see, soaring through the air, shards of myself. Splattering to the ground below; the squelching was a sound so absolutely terrifying that my bowels moved. The pain was such that I collapsed, convulsing.
As I lay there, raped by fears so terrible and true that only my own fragile mind could have conjured them up, I wondered at the power wielded so casually by the mortal intellect. Had I slept perhaps a few nights -- laid my cerebral kingdom to rest and let loose upon the imaginary denizens of my psychic realm the demons that now walked my true world -- I am certain my psyche would not have shattered open and summoned forth such a fate as this.

Oh yes, projected against the sky I had glimpsed the worst fiend of all.

butterscotch mancakes