Over at the site Royal Road, which also hosts Jake and the Dynamo, we have a poll up where you can select Best Girl from amongst the magical girls in the story (or ship Jake, if you’re so inclined).
See it here. Be sure to leave a comment defending your choice, and your choice’s honor.
The cluster of twenty girls, like some kind of giant amoeba with T.B. as its nucleus, oozed through the front door of the arcade. Leaning on his counter, Tim blanched. The girls hadn’t bothered him when they had remained out under the awning, but now he apparently didn’t know what to do once they’d invaded the male-dominated space of the arcade’s interior.
There was an unspoken rule at the arcade: girls, if they came in significant numbers, were to remain near the front end where the merchandisers and ice cream were. Girls were not to enter the arcade’s inner sanctum except singularly, and preferably in male company. Cavalierly violating this unspoken rule, T.B.’s band of jabbering females now threatened the purity of this haven for luckless and socially awkward boys. Continue reading “JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 21”
Featured image: title and artist unknown.
Editing the twenty-first chapter of Jake and the Dynamo took me longer than I expected, so it doesn’t look like I’ll get another post up today …
… but I’m gonna go ahead and post the chapter early. Expect it in thirty minutes!
Featured Image: “Magical Girl Marisa (Miss America)” by PencilTales.
Crazy week for me. Sorry for the absence.
Chapter 21 of Jake and the Dynamo is almost ready to go. Dana and Chelsea finally square off in Magical Girl Rumble, and the winner in the contest will get a kiss from T.B., the effete yet rakish idol of Juban High!
If Dana wins, will her short-lived magical girl career end in unrelieved pining? After all, they say a lot of girls are wasting away because of T.B. And what of Chelsea? Will this destroy her relationship with Jake? They say once you’ve had T.B., you never really get over it.
Y’know, I don’t think I realized when I started writing this that Dana was going to pick a fight with everyone she met. Jake really can’t take her anywhere.
Looks like Pretty Dynamo needs some down time after all that monster fighting … but I’m sure she’ll be back in action after a nap and a juice box.
Read anything you’ve missed here.
It’s the near future, and most of the universe has decided that humanity needs to die! But fortunately for us, the forces of goodness have given us a small advantage in the war for our existence … by transforming random children into magical girls!
When the nefarious Dark Queen sends yet another of her weekly monstrosities to wreak havoc on the city of Urbanopolis, it’s up to magical girls Card Collector Kasumi, Grease Pencil Marionette, and Tuneless Ramona to stop the marauding mutant! Will they save the day, or are they destined to become pink and sparkly casualties?
Find out in Jake and the Dynamo Chapter 1, now with one hundred percent less eyestrain!
Big thanks to Unclever Hans, who put this together for me. I’m just glad somebody else is reading this. My written vocabulary is significantly larger than my spoken vocabulary. If I were reading this myself, I’d not only drone like a college professor, but mispronounce words right and left.
Five blocks north of Jake’s house, the residences of Juban gave way to shops and strip malls. The shopping district was a tidy, modern section of town with wide sidewalks and glassed-in storefronts, and it even boasted several parking lots, since an unusually large number of Juban’s residents owned cars. At nine forty-five on Saturday morning, Jake walked up the street and, with his hands in the pockets of a blue windbreaker, loitered on a corner. He had a few loose coins in his pocket, the only money left after the night before.
He knew he was in trouble. Continue reading “JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 20”
“It is friendship that unites us, friendship that defines us, friendship for which we fight. But the time will come when every magical girl must face her final boss—and that, she must face alone.”
—Grease Pencil Marionette
I’m reasonably pleased with the current state of the draft of chapter 20 of Jake and the Dynamo, which for some reason is longer than any of the other chapters thus far. I’ll be passing it on to my writer’s group shortly.
In this long-awaited chapter, Jake’s girlfriend Chelsea finally makes her appearance. No guarantees that the following passage will actually be in the final draft of the chapter, or whether it will be in this form, but anyway, here we go.
I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but I think Chelsea’s hilarious. Continue reading “Previews!”
The giant bat flapped his wings as he circled overhead. Lightning cracked, so for a moment he appeared as an ominous silhouette against a sky full of white fire. “We have you right where we want you, Barfing Boy,” he cried in a squeaky voice, “and your magical girlfriend can’t save you!” He laughed. “Where is your Princess now?”
The bystanders in the street cowered. An elderly lady lifted her umbrella cane and pointed it at Jake with a shaky hand. “Look! It is him! It’s Barfing Boy!”
Next to the old woman stood a young man with a big potbelly hanging over his sweatpants. Under his chin, his upper neck was hairy, as if he’d forgotten to shave that part. His T-shirt was too small to cover the last few inches of his enormous stomach, and in pink letters it proclaimed, “Magical girls do it in fancy outfits on live TV.”
“And look!” he cried as he pointed at Dana. “Barfing Boy is two-timing Pretty Dynamo! Woo-hoo!”
The onlookers gasped. Jake slapped a hand to his forehead. Continue reading “JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 19”
Featured image: “Star Guardian Lux and Magical Girl Quinn” by Hichiyan.
… and I’ll see if I can get chapter 20 of Jake and the Dynamo out the week after that.
This thing’s been on hiatus because everything’s hit me at once over here. Life intervened, etc., etc. But I’m going to push to get chapter 19 shipshape by Monday one way or the other.
My editor, who’s been very enthusiastic about the project, was “meh” about the rough of chapter 19, which is why I wanted to put it away for a while and then come at it fresh. But I think it’s been long enough. He was also initially kind of “meh” about Chai Square, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I, at least, am happy about how that part ultimately turned out.
Brace yourselves.
