Asta Team

Josephine Baker: A Hero of History

Heroes of History! Josephine Baker is most known for being a glamorous showgirl who wore her famous banana skirt in 1920s and ’30s. But she was so much more! She won the Croix de Guerre for her part in the French resistance during WWII and was the only female speaker at the March on Washington in 1963. Josephine was an entertainer, civil rights activist, war hero and mother who never lost her courage or sense of humor.

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News

Custom Toys! From comics to amigurumi (Petit Cochon Noir)

Custom made crochet toys!
Djé is a talented artist and comic book creator. His main title is called “Petit Cochon Noir.” A good friend of his had a great gift idea – make a custom toy based on his character. How cool is that? But he had no idea how to do that. By luck, he saw some of my work and asked if I could could create something based on Djé’s drawings. I was thrilled to take on the challenge.

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Commissions, News

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep24 with Miguel & Suzy

Alexandre Dumas was a Black French author, born in 1802. He wrote over 600 pieces and more than 200 novels, including “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo” (inspired by his father). With all that being said, let’s dive deeper into his past like growing up in poverty during an increasingly racist period in French history. His real-life adventures included smuggling guns into Italy to aid his friend Guiseppi Garabaldi and the fight for an independent Italian state.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep23 with Miguel & Suzy

Josephine Baker is most known for being a glamorous showgirl who wore her famous banana skirt in 1920s and ’30s.But she was so much more! As a child she survived the Red Summer and the East St. Louis Massacre in 1917 and poverty to dazzle audience from NYC to Paris. During WWII, she was a spy, a volunteer nurse and a pilot for the Red Cross, reached the level of lieutenant and won the Croix de Guerre for her part in the French resistance. She worked tirelessly for civil rights and was the only female speaker at the March on Washington in 1963. Josephine was an entertainer, civil rights activist, war hero and mother who never lost her courage or sense of humor.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep22 with Miguel & Suzy

Today we will release the Kraken! 

We decided to unleash Miguel Guerra’s stupendous skill for tangents. We’ll be doing some comparative mythology and we’ll see how far Miguel will push our discussion. We’re also giving you a challenge. See how many tangents you can count and let us know in the comments. Then, come back next week and we’ll reveal the true number and read your comments on the show.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast: Ep21 with Miguel & Suzy

Copyright Basics for Artists & Writers.
So you want to create a comic, write a book or a song, or maybe create a Star Base that can destroy planets. Great, let’s do it!
But wait…how do you begin? To copyright or not to copyright? Here’s some real, hands on, practical information that we hope provides you with a good start.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast: Ep20 with Miguel & Suzy

The great EurAsian Jam Session! We’re all neighbors…we just happen to live a little further east or west down the silk road. Let’s start with one obvious and overlooked fact – Europe and Asia are the same continent. We’ve been trading, marrying and inspiring each other for many millennia. The East is not exotic and strange, it’s familiar and part of our shared history.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep19 with Miguel & Suzy

Artists often feel anxious when starting something new or changing their routine. To do this, we’ll examine one of Miguel’s longstanding fears and how he overcame it. What was his fear? ANIMATION! Visions of golden age Disney artists drowning in hundreds of pages and Katsuhiro Otomo’s storyboards for his masterpiece, “Akira”, made his blood run cold.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep18 with Miguel & Suzy

Punch Creative Block in the Face!
Learn about 8 types of creative block and how to punch them in the face! Your art is what communicates your feelings and emotions. So much of art has been commercialized that this simple fact gets lost. We’ll discuss problems that we face with creative or writer’s block and how we dig our way out and continue working. So, grab your favorite drink, sit back and relax. Hopefully, you’ll learn a few ways to sumo smash creative block!

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep17 with Miguel & Suzy

Medusa Mythologically Misunderstood! Ovid’s Metamorphoses provides a comprehensive account of Medusa, where she starts life as a priestess of Athena. She was very well known for her stunning beauty until one fateful day when Poseidon rapes her…or not (it’s a bit ambiguous). Medusa is then unjustly and cruelly cursed by Athena. She is must live as a gorgon on an isolated island with her two sisters until she’s eventually beheaded by Perseus. Although she didn’t kill anyone while alive, Perseus uses her severed head as a potent weapon to kill many, before gifting it to Athena who uses Medusa’s head on her breast plate as a powerful aegis (magical protective object).

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep16 with Miguel & Suzy

How a Dahomey Amazon helped lead the First Successful Slave Revolution. Abdaraya Toya, or Victoria Montou (c. 1739-1805) was an elite warrior in the Kingdom of Dahomey (modern Benin). When her country was colonized by the French, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Caribbean island of Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti), under brutally harsh chattel slavery. But Abdaraya Toya’s had other plans. Although in her 60s, she fought as a soldier and commanded fellow freedom fights in the Haitian War of Independence. It is one of the only slave rebellions in human history which led to the founding of a free Republic.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Crochet Guli Guli Lamb by Suzy Dias

Super Cute Guli Guli Lamb
My daughter showed me a trendy little sheep that was so cute, I had to try to make it. She was delighted with the results…and truth be told, so was I. It’s a straight forward pattern, but it takes a bit of patience to make all of those curls. So, if you pop on your favorite TV series, anime or movie, you’ll have your own adorable little lamb before you know it.

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Crochet

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep15 with Miguel & Suzy

Joseph Bologne or the Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) was a real life hero of epic proportions! If you mix Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee with the world’s most celebrated musical genius, you’ll start to get a good idea. The next time you think of the great composers of classical music, remember the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. He earned his place in history and came BEFORE Mozart!

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep14 with Miguel & Suzy

You may have heard of Alexandre Dumas, author of beloved books like “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo”. We’re going to focus on his father – Thomas Alexandre (Alex) Dumas (1762–1806). His extraordinary life saw him go from the son of enslaved woman in Haiti to a 4-star general in the French Revolution (equal to Napoleon Bonaparte). He is a shining example of the first true age of emancipation.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep13 with Miguel & Suzy

Whitewash part 2: The Dark Side of the Enlightenment.
The foundational contributions of Origen and Augustin, two African intellectual giants that helped form the early Christian church, African Empires that flourished before colonization, including King Mansa Musa the richest man who ever lived, and how the Enlightenment brought scientific racism to the modern world. Yes, that includes David Hume and Thomas Jefferson.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep12 with Miguel & Suzy

Whitewash (part 1) From the Trojan War to King Arthur. Erasing Black People from our shared history.
We’re here to set the record straight! We’ll cover King Memnon in the Trojan War, Andromeda and Perseus, the Queen of Sheba and Solomon, and Parzival and his brother Feirefiz from the King Arthur legends.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep11 with Miguel & Suzy

How two African Americans changed comics forever! 
George Herriman and Matt Baker. Herriman created Krazy Kat (1913-1944), the most revered strip ever made. Baker has the creative talent behind many firsts. The first ‘good girl’ style, the first black superhero with ‘Voodah’ in 1945 and the first graphic novel ever made.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep10 with Miguel & Suzy

Allow us to paraphrase The Big Lebowski: Research is the rug that ties the room together. What do you research? How do you start? What’s your damn process?!? In our humble opinion, it all starts with an IDEA. Ideas lead to research and research leads to more ideas. “When you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” – Wilson Mizner

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep9 with Miguel & Suzy

Developing writing skills, creating worlds and not breaking the rules you establish. Miguel will have his favorite book recommends for writing scripts and developing your ideas and characters. We’ll dissect famous movie sequels in Star Wars and The Matrix to illustrate where the creators broke the rules, which always leads to bad results with your audience.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep7 with Miguel & Suzy

Christmas ghosts and Monsters! In Victorian England, Christmas had a lot more in common with Halloween than Ho Ho Ho or baby Jesus. Scaring the crap out of your guests was an integral part of Christmas Eve festivities in Victorian England. What’s Christmas without murder, sadistic torture by a horned demon, or being cooked and eaten by an Icelandic ogress? Well, today we’ll list our top 10 favorite Christmas monsters from around the world and discuss a few classic Victorian ghost stories. If this all sounds new to you, stay tuned. It gets even more bizarre.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep3 with Miguel & Suzy

Who are these fools?
We’ve had a few inquisitive listeners ask us to provide more information about ourselves. So, we thought we’d interview each other (in our own way). Let the hilarity begin! We talk about where we’re from, living in NYC, and our biggest influences for art and writing. Check the “Episode Links” section at the bottom of the page for more info. We also talk about Miguel’s imaginary youth, being raised by wolves and living on the moon. Things get strange.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, News, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep2 with Miguel & Suzy

Kick ass Asian-American TV with soul! There are two kick ass action packed American-Asian shows that that slap the whitewash off of racial stereotypes. They are Bruce Lee’s “Warrior” from Cinemax and “Wu Assassins” from Netflix. There are no lazy stereotypes or offensive caricatures to be found anywhere. Hallelujah! Scroll down for a whack of links on the heroic fight for Asian-American equal rights. You don’t know the half of it.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, Music / Movies, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast Ep1 with Miguel & Suzy

Today’s discussion is about…social horror. We’re going to compare two TV shows that kept us on the edge of our seats – Lovecraft Country from HBO and Ares from Netflix. The story and performances provided a complexity that we find outstanding. Which is our favorite? That’s really hard to say. Which tied each episode into a brilliant ending? Well, you’ll have to listen to find out.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, Music / Movies, Podcast

Fantastically Terrible Podcast with Miguel & Suzy: Pilot episode

We’ll introduce ourselves and give you an idea of what to expect. Working in comics (and the arts) is the most fantastically terrible career you can have. We’ve been independent comic creators for many years and know how to run a small business…while working “regular” jobs and raising kids. We love music, history, mythology, comics, weird science, art, movies and TV, and more. We always give our take.

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Fantastically Terrible Podcast Episodes, Podcast, Uncategorized

免费钩针基础玩偶图案

免费基础身体模板 将这只小玩偶作为创作基础。通过调整颜色和面部细节,你可以塑造出孩童、成人、动物、怪物等任何形象。其小巧尺寸既可作为钥匙扣,亦可当作挂饰,创作可能性无穷无尽。期待看到你的创意作品,请随时与我分享。 Pattern also in English Free Basic Body Pattern For anyone looking for the FREE English version of this

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Crochet, News

Our first comic was published by Antarctic Press

Our first comic was published by Antarctic Press

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Miguel and I were thinking about the first time we published a comic. It was a thrill to say the least! We started a long time ago and we still love making comics. We didn’t get paid anything (seriously), but regardless of the cheap ass exploitation, it was a good moment. So, who published a couple of kids who with no experience and only a few embers of talent?

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Comics, Commissions, News, Published Work
Ghost Metal on WEBTOON: The Prophet's Curse part 6 + trailer

Ghost Metal’s Latest Series: “A Prophet’s Curse” (S1E6) FREE on Webtoon

Ghost Metal’s Latest Series: “A Prophet’s Curse” (S1E6) FREE on Webtoon.

This is the final episode of our debut short story on WEBTOON! We’re so excited to share this with you! Get ready to enter a mysterious and horrifying world. Where a man obsessed with greed and power chooses to pursue his worst instincts with devastating consequences. 

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Ghost Metal, Ghost Metal Webtoon Episodes, News, Webtoon
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