#Lavender Jack

[neoyi]

So, my personal niche leans into gilded age-era pulp adventure stories starring Lovable Rogues and their sometimes comical, sometimes romantic, but always epic stories of derring-dos and questionable methods that often lead to the greater good. Think The Rocketeer, The Mummy, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. But also stuff like Skies of Arcadia and Pirates of the Caribbean tends to poke a hole an adjacent hole in my interest bubble.

I lament its niche because I don't see enough of it on the greater internet nowadays. So, whenever I do and it specifically hits my button, I latch onto it like a Garfield suction cup plushie on a car window.

Enter Lavender Jack.

Dear LORD, if this comic doesn't hit all my buttons. Handsomely charismatic rich man who dons a snazzy 1900-era costume to fight evil, early 20th century setting, dirigibles and dynamites, cop-and-vigilante cat and mouse games, queer as fuck characters, and all served with elegant writing (I would KILL to script dialogues the way creator, Dan Schkade, pulls from old-timey phrases and slang) and glorious, epic adventures filled with clever mysteries and plot twists afoot.

Like, if anyone is interested in what I just described, I wholeheartedly recommend it; Lavender Jack is the rare webcomic in that it is completed, so there is a finite at the end.

Go read it ⭐ here. ⭐

Go read it. Go read it.

I hope some publishing company (be it indie or otherwise) considers a full ass physical comic of this. I will buy it in a heartbeat.

(Look, what I am saying is, for those who follow me, this has Propeller Knight energy, okay?)

#lavender jack #webcomic #comic #neoyi talks #I gotta actually thank the current obscure webcomic tournament for this #that's how I found the comic

[john-bracket]

Okay a more serious post, my blog’s visibility issues have been fixed, and so now we can run the final Jack Off prelims! Thanks so much to everyone for your patience.

To make sure everyone is aware, the prelim match-ups will be listed below the cut, and their fandoms tagged. I plan to run ~half the prelims on Wednesday, May 10 and the other half on Friday, May 12.

So instead of combining these Jacks like I did with the Johns, I thought it would be more fun to have some similar Jacks and the multiple Jacks from the same media fight to see who will be the representing champion!

Bout A: Jack Harkness (Doctor Who/Torchwood) vs Original Jack Harkness (Torchwood)

Bout B: Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean) vs Jack the Monkey (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Bout C: Our Boy Jack/Mad Jack Spratt (The Mechanisms) vs One-Eyed Jack (The Mechanisms)

Bout D: Jack Rackham (Black Sails) vs Calico Jack (Our Flag Means Death)

Bout E: Jack Skellington (The Nightmare Before Christmas) vs Jack Pumpkinhead (Return to Oz)

Bout F: Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians) vs Jack Frost (Jack Frost 1998)

“But op, how will you fill the remaining slots?” Well, patient name enjoyers, I’ve selected ten Jacks who had good but not good enough votes in their prelims to come and fight one on one for the remaining slots (There are only five slots here because the 1998 Jack Frost didn’t win his prelim but I really wanna see them duke it out, it’s gonna be so funny.)

The ten lucky contenders are as follows:

Bout G: Jack Starbright (Alex Rider) vs Lavender Jack (Lavender Jack)

Bout H: Spring-Heeled Jack (Folklore) vs Jack Howl (Twisted Wonderland)

Bout I: Jack Larson (Malevolent) vs Jack Bauer (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

Bout J: Jack/Narrator (Fight Club) vs Jack (Mass Effect)

Bout K: Jack Hodgins (Bones) vs Jack Carter (Eureka)

#doctor who #torchwood #pirates of the caribbean #the mechanisms #black sails #our flag means death #the nightmare before christmas #return to oz #rise of the guardians #jack frost 1998 #alex rider #lavender jack #folk tales #twisted wonderland #malevolent #it’s always sunny in philadelphia #fight club #mass effect #bones #eureka

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

Lucy Marlowe introduction

Johnny Summer introduction

How the round robin group stage works

#never satisfied #lucy marlowe #lavender jack #johnny summer #group stage group B

[recursive-occlusion]

Ducky fashions from Lavender Jack season 3

#lavender jack #webcomics #aesthetic not costume #dan schkade #ducky #maureen DeCecco #comics

[krinsbez]

Pulptober 2023 Themes Elaborated, Part One

A reminder that everyday of Pulptober has two prompts; a specific character, and a theme that that character is an example of. This is the first in a series of posts elaborating on what the themes are, and giving 2-3 alternate examples; I will try not to use multiple alts for different days, but may periodically use someone who has their own day.

Thanks to @maxwell-grant who once again helped me with assembling the lists of alternate examples. Characters who have a plus sign (+) next to their names were suggested by him. Characters with an asterisk (*) are ones where I have not consumed any source material (note that I'm including tie-in or revival media as source material).

1-The Shadow/Master of the Mind: This one is fairly straightforward; a LOT of Pulp Heroes have some form of psychic or mesmeric powers. This day is for them. Alternates: Brain Boy, Fascinax*+

2-Doc Savage/Famous Name: While many Pulp Heroes have aliases, many will just use their real name which, with frequency, comes with a surname (or occasionally a given name) that is an actual word or the name of notable historical or mythological figure, that suggests some form of badassery. unsurprisingly, a lot of them are expies of today's primary but far from all...Alternates: Professor Challenger+, Jon Valor*, Athena Voltaire

3-The Green Hornet/A Rainbow of Justice: Another name based one; like their superhero descendants, a significant number of Pulp Heroes use aliases that prominently feature a color. This day is for them. Alternates: Lavender Jack+*, Blue Demon, Red Sonja

4-The Avenger/With A Little Help From My Friends. Most Pulp Heroes have a supporting cast of some sort, but these guys take it a few steps further, working with a team of loyal, capable assistants, with whom they frequently share the spotlight. Alternates: Adventureman, Lobster Johnson

5-John Carter/All For Love: These heroes may or may not have higher motives, but what really pushes them forward is that someone they love is in danger, they intend to save them, and no one and nothing will stand in their way. Alternates: Flash Gordon+, Rick O'Connell

#Pulp Heroes #Pulptober #Pultober 2023 #Inktober #Inktobers #Inktober 2023 #The Shadow #Brain Boy #Fascinax #Professor Challenger #George Edward Challenger #Jon Valor #The Black Pirate #Athena Voltaire #Doc Savage #Green Hornet #The Green Hornet #Lavender Jack #Blue Demon #Demonio Azul #Black Bat #Red Sonja #Adventureman #The Lobster #Lobster Johnson #Flash Gordon #Rick O'Connell

[foxholemonster]

If you, to any extent, look into the webcomic Lavender Jack and think the premise sounds fun or the art catches your eye!

Please, please give it a read. It is so good, it's had my brain in a vice grip for years. Dan Schkade is a master with script and artistry, and the finale just went up today. And it blew my fuckin socks off.

I'm genuinely devastated I will never get another adventure with this ragtag group, but I'm also elated that it ended so perfectly that it left me wanting even more. I'll miss Lavender Jack being part of my weekly schedule, I'll miss the mystery and intrigue and a main cast full of amazingly varied characters. If a comic about superhero mystery solving and international intrigue involving secret cults sounds AT ALL like something you could dig into, do yourself a favor. Take some time to read the full 3 act plot. You'll have a wildly beautiful time.

#lavender jack #im just #sitting in my feelings about the finale and about it being over

[coconut530]

Vengeance, as it were

#Lavender Jack #Lavender Jack Webtoon #Webtoon #AFWP version got me going again #IT’S SO PRETTY #Literally I was Ascending (TM) like you do for the beginning of it and then this image popped into my head #I just felt like using the Lord Huron emerald bc the LJ one is like a puny circle or oval #Need that intricate shape #Niche lyric choice too but I like it #Fits with Mimley’s attitude #Anyway I’m just like rambling but uhh yeah art like it #Oh wait #Lord Huron #6 #ok we’re done

[browsethestacks]

Lavender Jack

Art by Dan Schkade

#Comics #Webcomics #Lavender Jack #Dan Schkade #Art #Pulp #Pulp Art #Pulp Illustration

[maxwell-grant]

Soooooooooooooo, Lavender Jack Season 3, and overall thoughts on the series proper?

Anonymous asked: So... end of Lavender Jack... what did you think of it and more generally of the season 3 ?

(spoilers)

Gonna do this by bullet points to cover Season 3 specifically, because if you follow me I really do not have to tell you that Lavender Jack is an all-timer comic that fulfills everything it set out to do and then so much more and that it's one of my favorite things ever and an endless source of joy and inspiration to me, and that I am being perfectly normal right now about the fact that it's ended for good. I think Season 3 is as much of a seismic jump in quality from Season 2 as Season 2 was to Season 1, and I was singing this thing’s praises to high heaven off Season 1 alone.

So here goes:

Of all characters that I expected to come back I actually did not think Lord Hawthorne would be one of them, I really did think he was gone completely. Instead, he jumped from Tarzan to Frankenstein-Bane to achieve his final form as Lavender Jack’s twisted opposite and the ultimate brick wall for Mimley to crash against, the fighter that Mimley cannot defeat but needs to try anyway, and all of this is framed as an unspeakable violation of what little personhood he even had left by church, state and capitalism combined, a physical embodiment of institutional violence that co-opts heroic imagery and nobility and turns lonely and broken men into robotic instruments of slaughter.

Hawthorne is the story’s Ultimate Monster once again, more terrifying and violent and destructive than ever, and he once again he winds up being one of it’s biggest victims too. From one of my favorite takes on Tarzan, he became one of my favorite takes on Frankenstein’s Monster, which is a MUCH higher competition.

I truly adored that he was allowed a redemptive finale, and that the bulk of his and Mimley’s end conflict hinged not on Mimley being finally able to defeat him, but Mimley’s attempts to save him, to make up to him for his death, to be the only man in all of existence who looked at this horrible wild man with kindness and the insistence that someone should try to save him, finally reaching out to him in some form, and that leading to Hawthorne finally, at long last, using all of his potential for something more than just “another laborious climb to a locked-room murder” at the orders of someone else.

I loved that his finale was him adorned with that classic Frankenstein imagery of the lonely Creature in a cloak atop the alps, but here, the sun shines warmly in the background as Hawthorne at last is given a moment of peace. I’m gonna be thinking about Hawthorne quite a while.

Worst Face 2022

I KNEW IT I KNEW THAT THE BLACK NOTE WAS ALIVE SOMEHOW, I was very glad to have him come back for the finale and especially as an ally, he’s such a delightfully weird creature

“I took many other names in the course of my duties...and many more during my tutelage under the Five-Shadowed Man” YesHaHaYesSicko.png

I was definitely not expecting Cragen to make out of this alive but, a second death would have been reduntant. His final fate is one I find incredibly interesting, delightfully twisted in a way that only fits him too well. The bulk of his arc this season was inspired by him escaping from death only to realize that all of his efforts as a masked villain did nothing but embolden his father’s tyranny and the growing rot within Gallery he strove so hard to destroy, and so he assisted his once mortal enemies in finishing off said threat once for all and, given another chance at life and a final mask to put on, he will be using said chance to effect lasting political change as Gallery’s mayor, not as himself but pretending to be the monstrous tyrant he threw his life away to destroy.

I find it such an interesting note to leave out the character on, a supervillain vigilante realizing that all of his incredible talents and efforts put into masked terrorism only ever emboldened the systems he wished to destroy, finding out his explosive revolutionary anarchy only filled in craters and vacuums to be filled and exploited by fascist war dogs and capitalist puppetmasters, and in response he does the one thing you never expect supervillain vigilantes to do: He changes, he makes amends with the heroes, and he reshapes himself to affect change through the “boring” systemic route, putting his supervillain persona behind him to prove that he’s actually serious about his desire for political change.

It’s a change that you just wouldn’t see in a long-form superhero comic book that would inevitably require the character to be brought back again, but it being placed here at the end of the story means The Black Note gets to actually put his money where his mouth is and do what none of the Magnetos and Ra’s al Ghuls and Doctors Doom can do without that being inevitably averted.

I dearly, dearly adored all the additions to the supporting cast and they are a major factor why I’ve adored this season so much, easily the saddest thing about Lavender Jack ending is that I would have liked to see all of these characters and more show up more often. Sister Rex was a delightfully excessive cartoon with some really wonderful expressions, I loved seeing how the Princess of Pilaf concept set up way back in Season 1 played out. I really liked Uncle Salazar and his chapters, loved his dynamic with Ducky and what an excellent wild card he turned out to be in the finale. And GOD the Captain Berrada chapters, I could have read those forever, truly wonderful.

You can’t just make up all these interesting and wonderful new characters and make this world so much more vibrant and lively when we’re hitting the home stretch of never seeing them again, that shouldn’t be legal.

Johnny Summer is the coolest character and I really wish he’d appeared more, the chapters he shared with Mimley were some of my favorites and I was rooting for them so much, I really don’t wanna say goodbye to him.

“Mine’s for cutting the checks, I suppose” I DID NOT THINK THAT WAS GONNA HAVE THE PAYOFF IT DID

I loved the progression of how things escalated, with Mimley and the League escalating in members and tactics as the villains and exes all join forces. I loved the inclusion of new members like Sergeant Bethke and Miss Crow and Vassar as one-off agents as everyone, all the characters, all come back or debut as the fate of everyone hangs in the balance. It’s the kind of thing you really have to reserve for a no-holds-barred finale

I really do wanna dedicate a post specifically to Honoria Crabb, I was waiting for the series to end to talk about her arc in full but I will say: I utterly loved her growing role and particularly that moment where Ducky tells her that she is the reason why there is a Lavender League in the first place, that she turned this mutually-shared mask of revenge into a mission statement and force of good.

So much of the plan the villains had for the finale hinged on the war, a thing that so many pulp-inspired heroes inevitably deal with in some form or capacity, but that it all came down specifically to a scheme for money, Lady Hawthorne puppeteering war mongers and capitalists alike in a scheme to bleed Gallery dry to start over elsewhere, that the looming war was only part of the greater problem at hand. That Lady Hawthorne’s final plan was merely a long-winded and petty ploy at weaponizing bloodsucking capitalism for the sake of her all-consuming revenge, one that ends with her fleeing without putting up a fight and simply letting others to take the fall

Honestly, if anyone was gonna get shanked to death in this comic, it had to be Giddy and Marco.

Lady Hawthorne’s plan foiled by the Lavender League coming together stronger than ever and turning her own tactics against her, really there was no way this could end but with a pointed statement of Lavender Jack as the titular “Villains”, who win by being better villains than everyone else.

Whether it was Ducky at last cracking Lady Hawthorne’s cool (As your sister in kind, you...you embarass me), Cragen cracking open Endo Gall’s mask to reveal the sheer animal viciousness he hid until his dying breath, only to then steal it, Ferrier solving mankind’s ultimate crimes by turning the tables on those who control the systems allowing for said crimes to go unchecked, and Mimley saving the day by extending softness and understanding to his personal boogeyman and giving his life for a chance to save the Ultimate Monster, and have that favor repaid in turn, every character had the perfect ending. It works very hard to make it’s overally happy ending feel incredibly earned.

The ending does leave open the possibility of these characters returning in some form, but it really is a farewell and it’s the best farewell it could have gotten.

I still stand by an earlier assertion that Lavender Jack is a seismic cracking of the code in regards not just to adapting or approaching pulp heroes, but superhero fiction as well. It breaks them down and rebuilds them in the most wonderfully fascinating ways, it remains one of the most enjoyable and fascinating things I’ve ever read and will be reading again very soon.

#replies tag #lavender jack #dan schkade #webtoon #pulp heroes #superheroes #comics

[trucksquared]

Tmw you're trying to come out as trans to the guy you're flirting with but he misunderstands you and now thinks you're a supervillain

#lavender jack #haven't finished season 2 yet so this post is either gonna age like wine or milk #johnny summer #webtoon

[firstname-tournaments]

(sorry for blurry)

On your left, Ducky de Cecco-Bastrop and Mimley Bastrop, from Lavender Jack

But who are they?

Working together, the pair combined their talents to create the costumed vigilante - Lavender Jack. Over the course of the story, they face off scheming millionaires, corrupt police, and unhinged terrorists.

On your right, Li and Noah Collins, from Rebirth

But who are they?

When Li was a kid, she was taken in by the Blanche family, who train like. Bodyguards I think. Maybe other stuff too. One day, when Noah was visiting (his father wanted him to pick someone to be his bodyguard), he was kidnapped, and Li got kidnapped too, so she could protect him. Long story short, after they were back, Noah picked Li (who was kinda maybe kicked out anyway for defending her friend and fellow student) to be his bodyguard, but not in the traditional sense, as she was also his personal maid. Li is probably one of Noah's closest friends (he had lived the last seven (I think) years in a zombie apocalypse, before he was transported back in time just before it occured-- she died the first time), and he still considers her as such, not once doubting her loyalty, even though his wife and son betrayed him originally. Li awakened her ice manipulation powers when she was trying to help Noah fight, and often feels like she's not doing enough (Noah can manipulate his own blood, which he is quite good at, understandably. Not the best power for him, though, considering he has a heart condition). Noah is just happy she's there, I think. She's also one of the few who knows one of his secrets (his body resets to its previous state at midnight), although he (literally) can't tell her any others. Anyway it's stayed platonic for now BUT I wouldn't be completely surprised if it changed to romantic, although I think that's a long way in the future

So...

#webtoon rebirth #lavender jack #tournament poll

[ksantillus]

"You were safe when you stuck to the rules, but you're beyond that protection now."

#lavender jack #lady sarah hawthorne #webcomics #villains month #villains month 2022 #art #fanart #procreate

[john-bracket]

#jack starbright #jack zimmerman #jack jackson #jack wright #lavender jack #jack hart #jack of hearts #jack drake #alex rider #check please #kingsbridge #namesake #marvel #dc #polls

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

Character Introduction: Johnny Summer (he/him), from Lavender Jack

"Johnny Summer starts as a relatively minor character in Lavender Jack--owner of a champagne lounge, flirting with the eccentric engineer Sir Mimley Bastrop. But his secrets get in the way of their blossoming relationship. Not the gender one, that's not a huge deal when it comes up. It's the whole complicated relationship he has with the villain known as the Black Note. After all, Sir Mimley is also the masked vigilante called Lavender Jack. Will Johnny's secrets get in the way of his future with Mimley?"

Trans webcomic character tournament master post.

If this comic should come with any significant content warnings, please let me know.

#character introductions #johnny summer #lavender jack

[recursive-occlusion]

Endo Gall's increasingly elaborate uniforms in Lavender Jack season 3

#lavender jack #aesthetic not costume #endo gall #dan schkade #webcomics #comics

[dear-kumari]

The aesthetic weak point of Batman is that he doesn’t have an iconic anti-gun gadget like Lavender Jack’s microwave array, whereas the thematic weak point of Lavender Jack is that he doesn’t have an iconic anti-gun backstory like Bruce Wayne’s slain parents.  Clearly, the only recourse is to combine their strengths to create the perfect composite superhero, Lavender Bat

#Kumari comments #Lavender Jack #Batman #Sir Mimley Bastrop #Bruce Wayne #Webtoon #posts with a target audience of two (2) #(optimistically) #(I choose to believe that a Lavender Jack fandom outside of Webtoon exists)