My favorite memory of growing up in New Orleans, LA is when I walk to and from school. Between my home and school was Archie Comic Studio. And it get ever better, my middle and high school was call Riverdale, the same school in Archie Comics. So of course, I read Archie comics. And it was easy available for me because they sold the comics in my groceries store next to my house.
I talk with people today and many people did not know that comics was sold in grocery stores. Today is sound like everyone think comic store is the only place to sell comics if it is not a comic con or anime con. In the past, comic was in book store, grocery store, and convention store.
So if you are looking for a good comedy and high school life comic, Archie is a good one to read. Today you still get buy comics such as Archie, you just have to buy them online.
Betty and Veronica are romance rivals for Archie. Archie like Veronica because of her money while Betty like Archie. However, Archie sometimes gives into Betty.
Archie have did series such as Betty and Veronica friends which is focus on the romance rivals relationship of Betty and Veronica for they both like Archie.
In the same world that was created call Archie, there was other fun stories such as Josie and the Pussycats. They was a high school rock band. You may have heard of the movie, well this is where the movie came from.
So if you would looking for comics that have more romances, comedy, and good old fun times than Archie is a good one to read. And who all cannot forget Jughead, the one kid who only thing on his mind is food. Judhead will do anything for a burger.
This week is one of those week when things such does not go as plan. I had some personal life stuff happen this week that have made it hard to stay focus on create new content. Mostly it is people that got in the way. This had happen to me a few time that I know it is the price for trying something new. Any time when you are trying to start your own business or working on a new project at work, there will be a few that just does not want to see you be successful at it.
When this happen, I allow myself to be flexible and broken my own rules. Just like I say that I would have new design for my sale by Monday, I just decide to delay it a little bit. It is not like I am a large company or have a large follower base right now so I could get away with that kind of stuff. Plus I did not give myself time off in between working on my part time job and working on my business which I am bad at.
Angie School life Art by Maria Hargis
However, I did get an awesome artwork of Angie, my main character from my comic series Angie’s Adventures, done. It is a picture of her if she were in school. I believe this picture will give you a little look into what kind of personally she will have.
If you would like to support me, you can like or subscribe to my blog for more post such as this one. And if you would like support my art, you can visit my website: http://www.mariahargis.com for T-shirts, mugs, and prints of art for sale.
The video is a update on my business. I have been working a couple of part time job to make up for the missing income and for better camera equipment for more videos. I will be making video for online courses. However, right now I am looking for better video editor software. The current software program I have is not able to do what I want it to do. I want to be able to make fast speed video of me painting on canvas. I want to be able to show you my progress. It have been a learning progress figure out how to make that happen.
Also in the video I take about how I was inspired to make more traditional art from my comics series Angie’s Adventures. I feel like I have a lot of ideas for new painting ever since I starting working on comics.
So today I got some good news. President Trump have put in place a tariff on China products. Of course the large retail stores are not happy with it. Because it mean they will have to raise their prices on their product or change over to made in USA products.
This is good news for me because my products on my website, http://www.mariahargis.com are made in USA. My vendors get their product from American manufacturing companies so my prices will not be affected by this. It have been a challenge to compete with large retails stores such as Walmart. For example a mug at Walmart is price at $4.99 with little stuff in them. However, I could never price mugs at that price for good are listen higher at low quality under 50 items. One mug from the vendor is like $11.00. If you would wondering my mugs are price at $15.00 and this is normal with fellow vendors at anime and comic con.
Which I think is better for everyone, this means that the playing field will be level out so that small entrepreneur can compete with large retail stores. In fact, I have decide that I am going to have a sale for 4th of July to celebrate this change. I will be running a 20% off sale from today til July 7th, 2019 on all items except prints. I will be working on 3 new designs for 4th of July and will be release them on my product page on Monday June 17th, 2019. Use the code: MADEINUSA4
Many people say that they wish to support artist, the biggest way I feel like you could support us is to buy our art and products. We enjoy creating and wish to be able to create more. I get a lot of prices that my art is wonder but that alone does not confirmed that you like my art. When people really do appreciate something, they will show it with their wallets.
Sorry if this post turn into a sale pitch, I used to work in sales so it is a habit when I am talking about products. Feel free to tell me what you think of the tariff on China goods. Is this a bad thing or good thing for USA?
You know I enjoy hanging out and talking with my older neighbors. Many of them are veterans like me. They have cool first hand stories from World War II, working on a Navy ship, when they talk about their college days, and more. Many of them have stories that they cannot say in public because they would have the military show up on their door step when they do public their story. However, I believe their is a way to tell their story in a way that it would not be giving names, detail in the story that would give them away.
The answer is telling a fantasy fiction story. You can tell many stories with fiction characters who are not human. You can change the problem in the story to something else. This is another way that fiction story can be used to help these who felt like they cannot tell their story without being stop by someone else. I would not be surprise that many people who creator manhua in China would be telling their own story in fiction stories. Manhua is the Chinese word for comic. Manhua are simply to manga which is comic in Japanese.
There are many cool manhua and manga that include worker class that tells the story from one individual that may cover fantasy, romantics, comedy, and etc. And it is not all written to kids, a good part are made for full adults who have real problems in the modem world today. The reason why I bring this as an example is because in the US we have many people who feel like they could not write, draw, or create anything cool. My point is that everyone have a story to tell and someone may love to hear your story. There is growing love for Japanese and Chinese culture in the US. I would not be surprise that many countries would like to heard individual stories from the US about US culture.
To concussion about my neighbor who have a cool story to tell, he will be talking to me for advise on how to change his story to fiction story that will not give away important detail that will get him in trouble with the military. It is not the military fault, it is just that their are jobs that are dangerous and the military does not want to scary off people from joining. We are in a society today who don’t understand that there are certain jobs in the military that key to our country safety.
I would love to heard your thought on this subject. If you have friends and family who keep talking about really cool stories they live though, encourage them to write and if they don’t want people to learn who they are. They can create a pin name and change the character to non-humans, change the environment such as outer space, or different time periods such as a the stone age.
As promise, I am doing another comparison of DuckDuckGo vs Google. This time I am looking at when you search for the word comics. Now the biggest different I found between the two search engine, is one use your location in your search and the other does not. Could you guess which one use your location? Of course you can, we are know that Google use your location for advertisement. Which can get in the way, if you are using search engine to learn about something. We all hear the phase, if you don’t know something, Google it. I guess you could say the best place to learn what a comics is by going to a comic book store. However, comic book store are usually Marvel and DC which mean, if you are not into heroes stories, than it just does not appear to you. Now there are some comic stores that have other publisher and self-publish comics, but it is best to call first before going to found out if they carry them.
DuckDuckGo does not used your location in the search for comics. Now DuckDuckGo will recommended places to buy comics but it is online . So on their first page, you have more link to other website. Google take up most of the first page for map of local comics store, alternate search topics, and topic stories about the topic of comics.
Google provide more source for comics about pop culture that is controversial. Such as one of the Top Stories is Dark Phoenix from a opinion digital news source that is very extreme left. Also, it provide more news blogs that are on the left when it comes to the political side such as the Washington Post.
If you click on a few of the links that Google found on the front page, they will take you to lots of comics that was at one point in newspapers that are call comic strips. At least four of them: Comic A-Z List GoComics, Free Comics – Comic Strips, Comics – The Washington Post, and Comics/ArcaMax Publishing. Now I don’t believe this is all Google fault for thinking that comics are all comics strips and Marvel and DC. There have been some debate in the comic industry that many who work in Marvel and DC have out right say that graphic novel is not comics. So this have rewrite in some people what comics is, because their are graphic novels that starting up popular shows such as Scooby-Doo. I have talk with people older than me ( I am 36) who are in their 40s and 50s, and back then their was no difference between what a graphic novel and comic was. They was the same thing and still is, it is just a few people in the comic industry will not recognize that is the case.
DuckDuckGo have one Ad post at the top. It have 13 links other than the Ad link. It give you more sources for you to look at on it first page. Now DuckDuckGo does have Washington Post listen twice, however, one of the post from Washington Post have describe of example of what comics title are. DuckDuckGo is playing it safer by having only links in their search, it is design different from Google. Google search engine have example of all their features on the first page. DuckDuckGo does have images and map features, you just have to click the tab on the top of the page to look at images and map.
However, I do found a few things great about DuckDuckGo. First their Ad link, Renta! Online – Manga Store, is manga which Google did not ever think was comics. Manga is the Japanese word for comics. Many people in the comics industry does not think of manga as comics;however, manga is growing more popular every day. Which means that DuckDuckGo is keeping up with the trends of comics fans. The second ad is to My Comic Shop which gives you a range of class comics such as Godzilla, The Walking Dead, DCeased (a DC comic), and Captain Marvel (a Marvel comic).
In the search with DuckDuckGo above, I look at around 5 pages under image to see how it look vision when you do the search. In the search, you get a good look at what comics have been over the years. Many of the comics that are not heroes, are pretty well know that I grew up with such as Archie, The Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny, Heathcliff, Futurama, Garfield, and more. These are great example of comics that are not subject around a hero and villain story. If you asked most youth today about these comics, but most likely they would not know they had a comic. The youth today in the US does not know that Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Spider-man came from a comic. When I say youth, I am talking about high school, middle school, and elem school children, the ones that comics was written in the first place for because they did not like reading without pictures.
In the gallery above is Google search in image. The first thing I notices there are a lot of memes mix in the search. Also there is a lot of comic strips as well. The search I did was the word “comics” not memes or comic strips. The second thing is most of the memes and comic strip are one side point of view from the left political party in the US. There are more political comics than anything in the search, many from left wing digital news media. The third thing is Marvel and Dc take up the spots that are not so political and Marvel and DC have political memes as well. I will say that they do have a little bit of non hero story comic in the search but you do not found any until the third page such as Archie. However, the number of non heroes stories are way less. You have to really scroll to found them and this is a problem for anyone who don’t have very good internet. Internet is becoming more expense and many families in low income housing usually depend on their government smart phone or have a low data base plan for their smart phone. My point is most people will go with the first two page in the search because if it become hard or take too long to load, people will go with what they can learn in the moment.
Now you can do the search on your own and see what you get when you search the word comics on both DuckDuckGo and Google. However, from a teacher point of view, I like DuckDuckGo better. It did put some comic strips and meme in the search but not to the point that Google did. DuckDuckGo put mostly titles of comics series in their image search.
I believe DuckDuckGo is a good alternate to Google as far as answering the question for what I am searching for. I hope that this was helpful to you and I would like love to hear your feedback on what I wrote.
The way the internet is today, it is hard for small entrepreneur and it is no different for artist. If you are a traditional artist who paint acrylic, oil, watercolor, or mix media; if you do not have money you cannot get into an Art Gallery. Gallery around the USA are high class clubs who draw sunflowers.
If you are comic book writer and you want Diamond Comic Distribution to publish your work in stores, then Diamond will only pay you $0.25 per comic sold which does not faction your print cost. No one want to work for pennies that is not fair.
And it is very hard selling your original work at comic con and anime con because people at these event want to buy fan art. Many artist get stuck spending so much time and money on created fan art that they cannot do the kind of work they would like to do. Art is a way of expressing one point of view so when an artist is stuck at creating work that they don’t want to create, than it turn into any other job and not working for what you love. And this is not just small artist, there are artist who work for Marvel that are stuck drawing heroes when they would like to explore other subject matter.
We need a new way of marketing artist, so I will invited Artist to reach out to me so I can promote them on my blog. This will provide more support and more people will be able to found them. Zazu Zine + Comix publishing is also will be promoting location artist to Virginia with video interview. The video below is an interview of two Artist from Galaxy Con 2019 in Richmond, VA. Zazu is focus on Virginia because Zazu is location in Richmond, VA.
However, for these who are not location, you can contact me on this blog and we can work out a digital interview and promote your art on this blog. The reason why I am doing this is because we need more artist awareness. There are many people who would like to know about new artist and new content.
I have created a new blog on WordPress to reach more people on a different platform. It have been hard to get the work out about my website and my blog on here. So I thought I would start to build my name on other platform until I have a large follower base on there so I could direct them to website.
Before it or not but I am reaching more people on WordPress than Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It took forever to get people to reach to my post on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. And I found out why that was the case, Google and Facebook both have been painting my name is a bad light. Facebook have classification me as a public figure and have post my followers count on the search engine Google and got the count wrong. And they did not stop there, Facebook post another link to my Facebook page with the follower count lower than the one before. Here is a snapshot of it.
I have wrote about this on my blog so if you would like the whole story, than check it out: DuckDuckGo vs Google, Part I.
I have not giving up on this blog instead I will be updating a lot of the post on here with videos to go with them. And I will posting more video content on here. I will used this place as a center place for all my platforms I am on. Because of the environmental of the internet, I will be branching out to more platform to get my message out there.
I do two new social media platforms I am on:
VERO as my self Maria Hargis
MINDS as sakiLeo
If you was wondering about the username Saki Leo that I use a lot for that. I used to play a lot of dating sims on my phone and I like using the name Saki Tanaka as my character name. So I adopt the Saki from that and the Leo is because I am Leo, born in August.
You know I have been told that I am too kind for my own good. However, the reason why making comics and create art is so important to me because I had time in my life that was so rough, breathing was hard. It seem like no matter what I did, my situation was not going to get better. However, anime was my saving grace and one anime stand out above the rest. That anime was Fairy Tail, created by Hiro Mashima. Fairy Tail is story of a world full of wizard and magic. It is name Fairy Tail after a wizard guild call Fairy Tail. The story is full of challenge the members of Fairy Tail goes thought and many time they was situation when they was fighting for their lives. However, no matter how hard the situation was they never give up. Some how they would make it tho and gain strength from it. I did not have friends or family members to help me in this dark time of my life. At the same time I was persecuted due to me liking anime. I don’t think I would have gotta so interest in anime like I am now if I was accepting for what I like.
The dark part of my life that I am talking about is right after I graduated from NC A&T State Univ with a BS degree in Biological Engineering with honors. I had trouble found work in my field and I was pressure at the time by my husband who later become my ex-husband. At the time, I did not realized that I was in a deep depression. I did not realized that I was suffering from depression and anxiety until shit hit the fan. I found my self in Duke Hospital over night for suicide attempt, put in by my husband at the time. At the time I was not suicide, but I have many time before than months ago that I have thought about it when fights got so bad between my husband and me. We did not have health relationship and I had no one to talk about the problems I was facing with him. I felt so trap back than. I did have the courage back than to talk to my husband about doing karate for my kids because I was worry for my kids more than my own self. I remember I was a mess many time during karate practices and it was working to help me to deal with the many deep emotions I had bottle up.
Title: Crying Snake, media is acrylic. When you feel so different and people treat you like a monster, it looks like this. You feel trap in a world of death. However, you can made a decide to related on your strength and craw out of it.
However, I did not know at the time, my ex-husband was planning a divorce. At first he play like it was all about getting me help. He was talking with my dad and the rest of my family behind my back. He convinced them that I had schizophrenia for my mom had it. He used to court system to keep me from my children. Also, two day after I got out of the hospital, he met me in a library and had me sign separation pages. I knew what separation pages was and asked nervous, I was not a state to think logical at that time, “what are you wanting a divorce?”
He say,”No, no, no. I just think this would be for the best. You are sick and need help. This is only temporary until you get better.”
At the time I was living in hotel room with little money my ex-husband give me and force to communicate thought my sister indirectly. I was treating like I was some kind of monster. Also, being over night in the hospital was scary. I was surround by crazy people and the bathroom was gross. The doctors was asked me when you watch anime, do you see things between the lines. My answer was I enjoy anime because it express emotions more in the stories. They say they was told to say this to me by my ex-husband and dad. My dad lie to me this day and say that he never talk with the doctors when I was over night. I don’t have a relationship with my dad or other family member, that is a story for another time.
All the people I thought I could turn to during this time, abandon me for they was mutual friends thought both my ex-husband and me. They was church members of the church I went with my ex-husband who was in school to become a pastor at Duke University.
I remember the most important thing, “Don’t Give Up NO MATTER HOW HARD THINGS ARE.” I used the separation time as a way of getting my life back the way I want. I was free to think for myself. I went hiking in the many state parks of NC. I painting beautiful landscape scenery from my hiking. I got a counselor and she encourage to keep hiking and painting. My counselor had a background in child development, I learn thought her about my speech impairment. Speech impairments are a type of communication disorder where normal speech is disrupted.
Til this day, I still consider myself as a traditional artist. When I started to feel really emotions and I cannot focus on my work. I take some time to paint and have anime play in the background of my living room. This is what have work for me.
Now I am happy as I could me for my situation. It have been five years since I seen my children and I miss them greatly. However, I am moving forward toward my goals and dreams. I have not giving up. Right now I may not have a lot of followers on social media but I have a roof over my head, food, and water. I have the things to live and have fun. So I am not living a bored life which is great.
This last Christmas, I got to hang out with friends for the first time since my divorce, I was not alone during the holidays. And I made Natsu cookies and give them to my friends as Christmas gifts.
I don’t feel like I have to be mean or mad to get people attention. I feel the opposite, that if I take a lead and show people that there is a way to have fun in this world. I think more people would prefer to have a good time instead of being upset. So when I created comics, I want to make people laugh and have a good time. I want it to be something they will enjoy. I also feel like I would have a stronger connection with them if I could reach them thought their emotions. That is how it when I read Fairy Tail manga or when I watch Fairy Tail anime. I feel connected to the characters in the story and make me want more. I am now reading Hiro Mashima next manga Edens Zero. I have become loyal fan of his. I would like to have the same connections with my own fans of my comic series.
I can openly talk about my past now and hope that this could help someone else who maybe having a hard time. If this is too kind, than I never want to change. This world need more kindness not less.
Normally I am not a tech writer. However, this was bugging me. I will start off my telling you how I came to doing this. I was trying to log in to YouTube using my Chrome like I normally do. However, I kept getting error message and YouTube have a big message something went wrong come back. I try login on another browser Internet Explorer and I had no problem. This is the first time ever that Chrome was doing this to me. I have used it for years and never had a problem. So I don’t know what may have change that, only that I wrote about Google in another post. I decide to try using something else behind Google search from now on.
Someone told me about a new search engine DuckDuckGo and I decide to give a try. The layout is very simple and I prefer DuckDuckGo mainly because of how the search did on my business Maria Hargis Art. It look like it understand that my search is a business so it priority the search base off a customer would want to buy art. The order:
My website
About page on my website
My Etsy shop
So from the image above, you can see from the first page, that I have wrote a comic series Nocturnal Orphan. A little about me where it tell you have a Facebook group for my fans: Maria Hargis Art Fan Group and it tell you my Twitter username is @hargis_maria. Than it tell you that I am an artist that love acrylic as a media, what subject matter I paint, and it tell you a little what I like such as “I am a nerd and proud of it.” From this first page, it have described me in a nut shell.
Google have change my search so many time in the past when it come to searching Maria Hargis Art. This time I did the search Maria Hargis Art, my website comes up with the a different layout. Because Google like to keep changing how my search are done when I check up on them. I decide to look what it would be on my phone. Than you have to scroll down a little bit and the order after my website is:
VA Comic Con, Dec 8, 2018 Comicon in Richmond &Fairfax! Virginia Comic Con with a picture of Angie and the blue dragons painting I did.
Facebook, Maria Hargis Art page with 58 like, and not update. It is 59 likes.
Instagram, Maria Hargis Art with followers of 184 which again not up to date. I have a 194 followers.
This is another version on my computer using FireFox (because I don’t true Chrome). After it shows my website and image here is what it look like when you scroll down:
Va Comicon (same as what the phone found)
Facebook: Maria Hargis Art and again got my likes wrong and say I am a Pubic Figure???
Facebook: Maria Hargis Art and this time the same page but it change my like to 57!!!!! And still have been as a Public Figure???
Facebook: Maria Hargis Art and it is title about but does not show any about information and again say I am a Public Figure??
Instagram: Maria Hargis Art (Instagram is own by Facebook) and my followers are wrong again saying I have 184 followers when my followers count is 194.
You know at first I was going to just review DuckDuckGo vs Google but now it is looking more and more that Google is being dishonor about it search. They have been trying to get me to used there Google Ads but I would not want to use them when I see things like this. The fact that it show Facebook on the whole first page of the search, it is using my name to direct people to Facebook. This does make sense with what I have been reading for instant the Justice Department (DOJ) is preparing a potential antitrust investigation involving Google.
I may not have a large followers base like a public figure would have; however, it is not a good idea to do this kind misleading information that is not true. Because it may just spark to me to write about it and for other to do the same. The numbers of followers I have may not matter to Google but it does matter to me. This search make it look like I am losing followers which is the opposite.
If you would like to follow me on Twitter, @hargis_maria (follower count 46); Facebook Business page: Maria Hargis Art(follower count 59); Facebook community page; Maria Hargis (follower count 109); Instagram: @mariahargisart (follower count 194). I will update the count on the next blog to document my information.
I am also two other smaller platform: Vero as Maria Hargis, and Minds as sakiLeo.
I was going to cover DuckDuckGo vs Google when search Comics, but I will do that as part II. Oh, and don’t worry I have capture the image I need for this one too. So if Google decide to change their search, I will capture that too.
Little Elf in big Pond of Drama, The Comic Industry USA 