(Part 3/3)

(Part 3/3)

About the violence in Charlottesville

First things first: Yes, I am okay. I am thankfully physically unharmed and was not near the violence that was happening in my town. For those of you who are also from Charlottesville, I hope you guys are safe, too.

Anyway, if you don’t want to hear political stuff, I would advise not reading this post—I’m going to give you the ugly truth of what happened

Now for the serious talk. As many of you are aware from the news, violent riots have broken out in Charlottesville today. All of this was sparked when the town voted in April to sell a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and another of Stonewall Jackson from two local parks, as well as changing their names from Lee Park and Jackson Park to Justice Park and Emancipation Park.

There have been three rallies about this. The Alt-Right came a few months back. The Ku Klux Klan came last month. But the most violent rally happened today, when the KKK, the Alt-Right, the Neo-Nazis, and two other white supremacist groups (as redundant as that may sound) came to town to protest.

The city tried to stop them from coming or move them to a different park, but they still came. However, this time, they came early—starting to show up as early as last afternoon. Now keep in mind that a majority of these people aren’t even from Virginia. Most of them are from other states and are trying to claim that they know better what to do with Virginia than actual Virginians, who mostly supported the sale and removal of these statue. But I digress.

The first big upset happened last night, when the Nazis started protesting on the lawn of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, a big historical landmark in Charlottesville. A good number of students were not happy about their intrusion and started counter-protesting. It took a while for the police to come and break things up, but things had already started getting violent. You can practice racist values all you want, but you do not invade our university.

Today, things escalated even more when the “Unite the Right” protest, as it was called, started two hours earlier than the permit they had to “rally.” Needless to say, the counter-protesters showed up, and needless to say, it got violent. From what I heard on local news, the riots included members of the Alt-Right throwing bottles of pepper spray and hardened cement at the counter-protesters. There is also confirmed footage of them with shields and clubs.

But the worst thing happened when some maniac drove a car right into a crowd of counter-protesters. At least one of them was killed, and many more were injured. The guy was finally apprehended, and racist fanatic Richard Spencer was also arrested by police—one of my friends who was at the rally, Damani Harrison, who some of you may remember from my “I Don’t Notice” music video, posted a picture of the police arresting Spencer.

I don’t know all the current developments, as I was only in town visiting close friends for their 50th wedding anniversary—two people who are the kindest, most loving and tolerant people I have ever known—but as you are probably well aware, I am not in support of this violence and am highly against racism on any front. I will say that anyone has the right to peacefully assemble, as granted by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but what they were doing is far from peaceful. Killing innocent bystanders and hitting people with clubs is definitely not peaceful.

Moreover, I don’t like that this is happening in my town of Charlottesville. I have lived here all my life and it contains some of the nicest people. Again, these racists coming to rally were not from Charlottesville; they came from other states. The actual Virginians were the ones fighting against the Nazis, the Alt Right, and the KKK. People who are friends of mine, who went there as an attempt of getting rid of them, who went to film and document what was happening, who closed down their stores so they wouldn’t have to serve these extremists, or simply stayed hidden in their houses for fear of being lynched, a fear that shouldn’t still exist in 2017, but here we are. And C’ville in no way endorses any of what happened today.

I hope all of you, in C’ville or simply with friends in C’ville, stay safe today.

This was a submission for a group I’m in. The submission guidelines for this art challenge were “End of Summer,” so I decided to make it about Al and Sabrina having one last day at the local swimming pool. However, the increasingly nippy air temperatures have taken their toll—poor Sabrina! Oh well, there are always indoor pools.

This is one of the first times I’ve recently drawn a character in a swimsuit. Why, you may ask? Fanservice! I’m shameless. But this also took way longer than it should have, as I kept adding details in the background and then the PSD file was lost last night after becoming corrupted. Oh no! :( Luckily, I was able to salvage some of the WIPs and put this together. Hope this is satisfactory!

Characters and art © me

Note: This takes place a year or two in the future of the events of the first chapter of Eight-Layer Inferno, as Al and Sabrina already know each other by now.

Outer Grounds Studios Podcast: In a Heartbeat is awesome! King of the Hill is coming back! And Fat Albert

This week, we talk about why The Nut Job 2 failed! Why In a Heartbeat was awesome! And why King of the Hill is back!!

(Part 2/3)

Off for a night on the town!