Episode 4.14
– Thanks for reading the new episode of Ghost Kiss! I hope you enjoyed it. This issue introduces an old acquaintance and a new love interest, both of whom we’ll be seeing more of in the future. Volcana’s design was meant to look more like a paramilitary terrorist with super powers than a traditional super villain. Volcana and Mya apparently went through the government’s super power training camp at the same time, and thats a story we’ll see later this season I think. Detective Nina Dorsey is a cop in a town where giant robots sometimes attack, so she’s used to dealing with trouble. Her white hair is a result of shock from a previous encounter with a super villain. Maybe I’ll get around to that story too!
I’m enjoying working on Ghost Kiss a lot and I wish I could get new chapters out more often. I know a lot of you have been reading since day one and I appreciate your patience. I envision Ghost Kiss as a fairly long series, but I’m hoping to have chapters out more frequently than twice a year! If you’re enjoying the series please share it with your friends or reblog it on social media. I appreciate your help finding an audience for this comic.
– Did you know that Ghost Kiss appears in every issue of the sci-fi comic magazine Combine? Combine is a large format full color 80+ page magazine featuring 4 ongoing science fiction comics, including Ghost Kiss! You can subscribe to Combine for just $10/issue (or $5 for digital subscriptions). The newest issue of Combine launches this weekend, so subscribe now to have it delivered to your home or inbox!
Marvelous story and ending!! Ghost Kiss may have wimpy powers, but she does the job!
Thanks Carl!
Newspaper photo kinda diminishes the “you’ll never remember me” thing, doesn’t it?
The point was to take away her specific memories of the event and the emotions connected to them. Volcana (or the Crabs, or the Eel) are always going to be able to find out who apprehended them. They’ll go to trial after all. But they may be less furious and less likely to seek revenge if they don’t actually remember the person who took them down or exactly how it happened. Mya’s theory is that it’s hard to hate someone you don’t know. Of course we’ll see if this holds up at all in the future. It may backfire.
Also, from practical viewpoint, they wouldn’t know HOW they were defeated and might make same mistake next time – or FEAR that they make the same mistake next time.
Right!
I have to say, I am so happy that Ghost Kiss has a female love interest. Like one can always imagine or it can be implied but yeah, not exactly implied here. It honestly makes me so happy as a bisexual woman. Thank you, Jake. For writing an amazing series in the first place, but also this.
I’m glad your happy. Mya was originally conceived as a bisexual character, but it’s taken me a few episodes to get around to actually showing that.
What a sweet ending to this one. Also, Maya’s new love interest is adorable!
Glad you liked it!
You know one thing has been bothering me since the first issue and Mia’s one-night Stand:
How does her lovelife work without good old Lips-on-Lips kissing?
I guess her inability to kiss (and keep her identitiy a secret) kind of does expain why she used to have only flings.
Uh huh. Thats something I thought about early on that will be addressed fairly soon. Her tendency to have flings instead of relationships is more complicated than it looks.
Although Detective Dorsey is awful cute, I’m still hoping for that MM crossover in which Mya and Jake go out on at least a blind date or something. Maybe in a dating mishap flashback montage, at least?
May happen at some point. Who knows?
This was a wonderful story arc for Ghost Kiss’s character and I frankly loved the local heroes all coming together. 🙂
Thanks!
I’m glad I read the comments. Reading that Mya was conceived as a bisexual character showed me that her surprise bisexuality wasn’t just virtual signaling. I say this because I want to get something off my chest that’s bugged me for a long time, but I want to make it clear that I’m not accusing Jake or his comic of this kind of audience manipulation.
I’ve never understood why everyone calls it “brave” or “daring” to include a gay or otherwise non-straight character in their stories. The creator of the story will automatically get showered with praise for literally no other reason than including a non-straight character, and anyone who has any criticism of the character for any reason will automatically be vilified, attacked, and often censored because of the nature of our hyper politically correct society. Including a non-straight character in a story isn’t “brave” when people have no socially acceptable choice but to praise it. It’s actually become a tactic for people to ensure that their work won’t receive any negative press because anyone who doesn’t love it for the sole reason that it has a minority character will be branded a bigot and dismissed, while the creator of the story will earn oppression points.
It’s like how J.K. Rowling arbitrarily made Dubmbledore gay. I personally have no issue with the character being gay, but at least make that part of his character at least one point any of the books. There was no indication throughout any of the books that he was gay, she only made him gay after the fact so that she could garner p.r. points for herself and pretend she’s some kind of daring hero when the fact of the matter is that people had no choice but to celebrate posthumous homosexuality. It’s a lazy way to get positive publicity and manipulate your audience.
Rant over. None of that was directed at Jake, for the record. It’s just a trend I’ve been noticing a lot lately in entertainment and it makes me role my eyes.
I agree that just including LGBT characters isn’t brave and isn’t something that anyone particularly needs to be congratulated on. I do think it is often noteworthy though, since LGBT characters are so rare in comics, and of course for people who are looking for more LGBT characters it may be reason to be excited. I get excited when I see cool Latinx and Native American characters in comics, so representation is something I really understand. But it’s not brave. No one needs a pat on the back. It SHOULD be the norm. It should be unremarkable.
I really like the “hero shot” to conclude this episode, as it does a nice job highlighting the team effort that goes into many memorable situations in our lives, even though I have posted critical remarks on previous pages regarding technical storytelling issues. I think that, overall, the concept is good and I’ve enjoyed reading it for the most part (some bits are disturbing, which has already acknowledged by the author as necessary, and unlike parts of the “Game of Thrones” TV show, which are entirely gratuitous, they do seem warranted), but it seems like it could be improved with more time invested in plotting the details that support the story. I’m not sure what the production time is for each episode, but as a reader of numerous online comics & graphic novels, I know that I don’t mind if the creators take extra time working on the script (or art) so that the result of their labors is the best it can be. Ultimately my opinion doesn’t matter and it’s up to the creator to judge what is a reasonable amount of time to spend on a project, especially when most of them have many irons in the fire and/or day jobs.
Looking forward to reading the next episode. 🙂