Author Archives: littledragonblue

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About littledragonblue

Dreamer, Writer, Artist, Lover

The Wolf Is Not at the Door

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Seriously, though. The call…it’s coming from inside the house.

Yesterday, immediately after the confirmation of the frighteningly unqualified Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Congressman Thomas Massie introduced a bill that reads, in its entirety, “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.” Around the same time, Senator Elizabeth Warren  was told and then forced to sit down and shut up for impugning the character of the nominee for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions, a man who was rejected for federal judgement over 30 years ago because his character was widely known to be impugnable.

From where I sit, the wolf is not at the door. The wolf is in the kitchen. And the oven is already lit.

It’s Not the End of the World. Yet.

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The end of the world won’t hurt at all. The end of the world won’t feel like anything.

At the Women’s March last month, packed, unmoving in the park because 15,000 people showed up when they expected 2,000, I overheard an old leftie explaining to her companion, “Every time we won a battle, there was always another battle. There will always be another battle.” I don’t know if the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice or not, but I do know everything always changes all the time. Wheel of Fortune. Tides of history. No kingdom lasts forever, nor any joy, nor any suffering. And if the end of the world ever does come, it won’t worry anyone. If it’s really and truly over, there will be nothing to worry about, and no one left to worry.

Or, as Edgar says in King Lear,  “The worst is not/So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.'” So rejoice! You’ve lived to fight for your life another day. Rise up and give thanks for the opportunity.

It’s a testament to the power of the human ability to heal from trauma and go on going on that I drew that little corner of the Twin Towers in panel 1. The last time I referenced 9/11 in QvD, it required a screen grab cut and paste because there was no way I could bring myself to draw it.

Panel 2 is the second time I’ve referenced King Lear. King Lear never gets stale.

Life is trauma. Over and over. You just keep getting up and going on because if you don’t, you’re not alive.

Seriously, though, I’m feeling burned out already.

The Last Rainbow Mandala

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As good a place as any to pause and reflect.

About 6 or 7 years ago, long before QWERTYvsDvorak, I started this 100 mandala project and when I got to 100, I wasn’t ready to stop. Why not 1000 mandalas, I wondered? Because, as it turns out, 1000 is a LOT of mandalas. Ultimately, I drew about 130 of them, not counting a few drawn after the blog started, and this is the very last last one of the original set. It felt like I had come full circle from the first (also rainbow) mandala and perhaps going on would mean just repeating myself.

I’m not saying I’ll never draw another mandala again, but they won’t be my regular Monday feature/safety net when I forget the weekend is ending.

Ms. Kitty suggested that I replace it with some sort of Monday gratitude, which seems like a really good idea right about now. Must think of how best to execute within the framework of QvD re: art.

But speaking of gratitude and art: that Lady Gaga concert sure was something, wasn’t it? So many people were watching it that the roads were completely empty, as were all the best hiking trails. But I caught it later on the NFL Twitter page. Those NFL people really put on a good show. I seem to recall they hosted one last year for Beyoncé that just slayed.

Know Your Federally-Sanctioned Deities

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As television taught me as a child, the more you know…

I can’t take credit for “School (TM),” which is, of course, from M. T. Anderson’s dark future YA novel, Feed. At “School (TM),” the protagonist and his friends learn valuable lessons in consumerism, primarily concerning how to get the best deals online and buy more things. The phrase “make a little birdhouse in your soul” is from They Might Be Giants album, Flood.

There can be no doubt now that, with the exception of a few holdouts, the federal government’s agenda is to pillage and plunder the country, extracting non-renewable resources for personal gain while also appropriating public funds into their own coffers and charging the American people to spread their own narrow worldview. And unless you have a couple million to spare, you are going to find yourself crushed under the gouty foot of their insatiable greed. If you don’t understand, I recommend a Dr. Seuss’s seminal treatise on the results of unchecked growth in business without some sort of agency for the protection of the environment.

And speaking of money, let me do my civic duty by reminding readers that they can participate in the national past time of capitalism AND support a struggling artist by buying my book, shopping in my online store, or donating directly to my Patreon. If you enjoy my content, believe in freedom of speech, and have a job, please vote with your wallet and kick a few dollars my way. I’m not too greedy, but I could use new socks and underwear, and would like a pair of jeans with no holes.

Notes from the Age of Enlightenment

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If your official position is that your neighbor’s made a deal with the devil in order to cause your sheep to have a weird looking baby, you probably aren’t interested in reason or enlightenment.

Clearly, there’s no point in quoting John Adams: “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Or James Madison: “The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.” Or Noah Webster: “[E]very preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.” Or any one of the men who dreamed of democracy in America during the American Revolution. The people who believe that their religious prejudices should influence federal policy don’t care that imposing your religious beliefs on others is wholly unAmerican.

Yesterday, the Owl asked me to try to contact the junior senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, because she had heard that he was persuadable in the matter of Betsy DeVos’s confirmation. I had not heard that, and I could not get through to any of his offices, or even his voice mailbox, presumably because everyone else in the state was trying to beg him not to confirm her. But he did tweet “Lest there be any doubt about how I’m voting on Betsy DeVos she had me at ‘school choice’ years ago… ” The last I looked, the vote was tied 50-50, and, as you know, in the event of a tie in the Senate, the Vice President gets to cast the deciding vote. Something tells me Mike Pence will be happy to install a Secretary of Education who believes that the purpose of schools is to “advance God’s kingdom.”

Please, instead, let’s make the function of school to advance the ability of our population to think critically. Or, if you insist on a regressive government, let’s go back all the way to the best intentions of the Enlightenment, when faith was a private mystery and reason a guiding light.

All Apologies, My Bad

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This is a true story, which happened in the mid-’90s when people still wrote letters.

Nothing is funny and nothing ever will be funny again. With the announcement of Neil Gorsuch, a man who seems to believe that human beings only have value if they own large corporations, as Supreme Court nominee, a man who, as a Supreme Court judge, would likely continue his pattern giving businesses free reign to stomp on human rights in the name of profit, I just don’t see how anyone can pretend that this administration’s sole aim isn’t to screw the American people hard from behind, take the money, and run away laughing while we’re still wondering where they came from.

I don’t have compassion fatigue, or activism fatigue, or outrage fatigue. I have stupidity fatigue. I think Ani DiFranco put it best when she sang, “If you’re not angry, you’re just stupid; you don’t care.” Unless you are a large corporation, you are the one who is going to get stomped on while these thieves line their pockets with the natural resources that are your children’s inheritance. You’re the one who’s going to be paying $5 for a gallon of water that Nestlé’s pumped out of your back yard without even reimbursing you. If you don’t die of your totally treatable pre-existing condition first.

At the rate they’re dismantling democracy, I won’t be alive to see any of that, because they’re probably going to start rounding up dissenters in a year or so. Maybe I’ll care then, but it’s hard to care now. I don’t want to live anywhere but America, and I don’t want to live in this America. I love that so many people are so passionately opposing each egregious abuse, but I hate that so many people are just rolling over and taking it. Remember checks and balances? Where are the people whose jobs are to prevent the federal government from executing a coup? Everyone’s talking about the 2018 election. How do we know there’s even going to be a 2018 election? Our new corporate overlords don’t seem to respect any other aspect of American government. Why would they bother letting us vote?

Sorry. I’m just pessimistic. And I keep wondering what we could have done differently. And I really did used to make that joke about offering Trump free therapy all the time in the mid-’90s. And, in hindsight, it’s not funny at all.

Hail Hydra.

Welcome to Bizarro White House

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Don’t even get we started on we’s intention to destroy the environment and decimate civil rights.

What is going on? Why does Congress not put a stop to this? Are we waiting for a military coup or something? It’s been a week and a 1/2 of Bizarro World, where everything is opposite of the real world. The president’s job is to crush the human spirit and line his own pockets. The cabinet’s job is to dismantle the systems they oversee. Corporations have rights. People are inexpensive manufactured-in-China plastic cogs. And I’m placing my hope in John McCain. John. Freaking. McCain. Maybe he can swoop in and defeat Bizarro President. Who knows? Maybe Sarah Palin will swoop in and save Melania. The most backwardest things happen in Bizarro World.

Originally I thought to just have Bannon sort of smirking in the background, but a smart guy I know was suggesting that webcomics draw something illustrating a more direct connection and then I found the image of Bizarro Superman as a puppeteer so, you know. Layers.

Four more years of this? How?

 

Vivid Snowflake Mandala

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Crystals upon crystals

First of all, for the 17 people who insisted on informing me that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and therefore the Declaration of Independence is meaningless, great job reporting on your 4th grade social studies lesson. Yes, I am aware that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and that he could have been a more honorable and less hypocritical man by the standards of the 21st century. But it’s pretty well-documented that he was also in favor of abolishing slavery, and he did intend to say that we’re all created equal, as far as he could assert that sentiment in the 18th century.  Yes, he did many things that we can judge him for 100s of years later. Yes, he was a product of his times, and he must have been the master of cognitive dissonance, but that doesn’t make the words of the Declaration of Independence any less meaningful. “Thomas Jefferson owned slaves,” is a statement of fact, but it’s not an argument against life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. It’s definitely not an argument for racism.

Now that that’s cleared up, what the hell was this weekend? My sister, like many people, said something to the effect of what a great time to be making art. But I didn’t want to make angry-scared art about whether or not Bizarro White House is going to suspend everyone’s civil rights and impose theocracy upon the only country I want to live.

Bizarro White House. There’s a comic right there.

I wanted to write epic stories about brave protagonists fighting unspeakable evil, not live them. How great is it that I started this blog just in time to have a visible outlet to vent my impotent rage 5 days a week?

“Truth”

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In their defense, they believed they were living in the Age of Reason. How were they supposed to guess it would be followed by the Age of Willful, Deliberate, Proud Ignorance?

My characterization of America’s Founding Fathers is lifted more or less from the 1972 film version of the musical 1776, a rollicking reenactment of the events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (I have not yet seen Hamilton, but I have had parts of the score sung at me when I least expected it.) I always think of Benjamin Franklin as being the kind of guy who could really show you a good time. He’s definitely the one out of the bunch you’d want to sit down and have a beer with. He was known as something of a lady’s man, too. The phrase “obnoxious and disliked” is used in reference to John Adams over and over again. Sometimes, you have to be obnoxious and disliked to get things done.

Dragon Comics 152

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I don’t have proof that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I do know the pen is the only weapon I know how to wield proficiently.

There used to be this old joke about how writers, like squids, released vast clouds of ink when threatened, but, in the way of rotary phones and cursive handwriting, the idea that writing is linked to ink will fade from the collective conscious. Is there an animal that released warning flashes of light? Everything is pixels. Anyway, I’ve always done this, whether I felt that danger was imminent or not. Creation is a compulsion.

But I do feel threatened. The news reads like an episode of Black Mirror. And not the “San Junipero” one.

Ms. Kitty reminded me that making snarky webcomics is an action. Maybe not on the level of Nazi-punching, but better than rolling over and pulling the covers over my head. In fact, I’m not hiding anymore. By and large, I’m fully exposed. Kind of a risky strategy, but I feel like I can stick my neck out a little more if it seems to be helping others.