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.

A Brief Treatise on Nazi Punching

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I’m not saying that anyone deserves to be punched, but you have to admit, with all that hatred hanging out right where everyone can see, they’re kind of asking for it.

Sorry. I’m an angry person. I’ve always been an angry person. Since I was socialized female, I got to suppress my rage instead of learning to express it in healthy ways. And I do believe in non-violence , but I learned in yoga teacher training that non-violence includes non-violence to the self, which means that sometimes you have to defend yourself rather than acquiescing to immediate threats. And sometimes, the best defense is a good offense.

The Rabbit says, “People tell you who they are.” If someone tells you that they share Adolf Hitler’s beliefs, you should believe them and act accordingly. For example, you could take action to prevent them from annexing Sudetenland and committing genocide. And no, punching Richard Spencer in the face is not the only solution, but you can’t deny that it is an action, or that it makes an impact.

Your Picture in the Paper

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In case you’re wondering, my performance at the Dan Quayle rally did not go over well among his supporters. I’m lucky I’m cute, or I’d probably get beaten up a lot more often.

To be fair, the TV station must have figured out their mistake because they appear to have added 2 women talking to the clip and cut out 2/3 of my friend’s interview by the time I wrote this comic. But we had a good laugh about it Saturday night, my friend being the first to point out the irony/institutionalized sexism. Also to be fair, my friend is a very cool white guy, and very well-spoken. But there were a LOT of other voices KGUN9 might have chosen to air.

A lot of people’s favorite sign on the internet seemed to be the one that read, “So bad even introverts are here,” and that really resonated with me. I have strong beliefs, but I find social action terrifying. Even calling my representatives fills me with dread, but the last few weeks have inspired me to take more a participatory approach. I did call my senators, and emailed them, and had a letter I wrote (printed on paper and signed) hand-delivered to my congressperson. And I forced myself to get up and march, even though contemplating the act was nerve wracking and anxiety provoking. And I ended up having what I’d consider, under any other circumstance, a really unflattering, and somewhat misleading picture of myself circulated to 10s of 1000s of people because for a split second I looked the part, even if, for 25 years, I haven’t really acted it. I mean, I write, I talk, I educate individual people here and there who seem receptive to opening their minds, but there are so many folks who have consistently done so much more. I admire them, but I don’t know how to force myself to act like them.

I am a lot more comfortable behind my keyboard. Today I was invited to this National Write Out action, with the theme “What’s worth fighting for is worth writing for.” But, of course, that’s all backward. Writing is easy. Going out and making noise is hard. Still, if someone wants me to hashtag something for the good of humanity, it’s almost the least I can do.

Sunstone Mosaic Mandala

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It’s big and orange and pointy.

Wow, my head hurts. And this giant bright mandala isn’t really helping. Although it’s a pretty joyful image.

Must report that this weekend was more uplifting than I’d imagined. Miraculously, and for the first time in years, I was able to wake up without assistance in the morning, so I was one of 15,000 people in the Tucson Women’s March, which turned out to be a beautiful and encouraging experience that vastly reduced my overall level of fear. My city, at least, is a safe place.

That night I attended a fun party full of happy, upbeat people, and when I got home I had messages from 4 different friends alerting me of the fact that an image of me looking like a total badass made the paper. It’s true that I looked very fierce, but actually, I was singing along to “The Greatest Love of All,” my leather jacket was pleather and from Hot Topic, and my fingerless gloves were Yelp swag. But people seemed to appreciate that I looked like an angry, roaring woman, and now there’s a picture of me with crazy hair and my mouth wide open being seen by 1000s of people on the internet.

Today I did a photo shoot for my next big project, but I was supposed to do 2 photo shoots and somehow got my wires crossed and missed the first. Frustrating. Hope to rectify as soon as possible.

Dragon Comics 151

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Disclaimer: the baseball bat is for self-defense. Dragons are an endangered species.

I think we’re all gonna need to put some hot sauce in our bag, swag. This is not my typical M.O., being more of a hide-beneath-the-covers and hope-it-all-goes away type. That Desmond Tutu book has, unfortunately not granted me as much serenity as I’d hoped. But maybe this prayer/affirmation will guide me through whatever monstrosities rear their heads in the near future.

Anyway, even if I can’t move into the paradigm shift into insanity known as America, 2017 powered by a fighting spirit, at least my alter-ego can bust some windows. Metaphorically speaking. Dragon does not advocate destruction of property. Although the people of Prague figured out a more humiliating window-based protest, which is to throw people out of them: defenestration. Isn’t that both terribly and poetic?

Any measure of serenity, courage, and wisdom that can be summoned should be summoned. Let’s get in formation.

The Right Two Bear Arms

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You think Sarah Palin had to put up with this sort of thing as governor of Alaska?

Education is at the heart of this; when fully funded schools are considered luxuries reserved for certain classes, education becomes devalued. When education is no longer a priority, the most vulnerable populations suffer. And when people are miserable, they are easily led by liars and demagogues and charlatans with the agenda of using people’s own lack of understanding against them.

I cannot get past this woman and her refusal to answer basic yes/no questions, her utter lack of understanding of what students of all socioeconomic classes need to succeed. Or perhaps she does understand, and she’s deliberately advocating to leave huge swaths of American children behind, because that is the result of her love affair with charter and religious schools, which are not required to retain students who lower the curve. She wants to set up a tiered system wherein kids who aren’t at the top of their game receive fewer resources, where public schools become corrals for children marked for failure.

If bears are a huge threat to America’s schools, I hope the Department of Natural Resources will involve themselves in the crisis. Public schools already have enough on their hands without requiring faculty and staff to prepare themselves for bear hunts on campus. Think of how many pencils you could buy for the cost of a single bear-shooting weapon. Of course, I’m not a fan of shooting bears to begin with.

Bears are fun to draw, though.

Betsy DeVos should not be confirmed for anything except a plane ticket home.

Comic Book Villains

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And allow me to add that, if my demands are not met in 3 days, I will release this paralyzing neurotoxin into Gotham City’s water supply. Bwoo-ha-ha-ha.

Adequate funding and educational success rates correlate pretty strongly in any type of school, but this genius, Betsy DeVos, parochial school cheerleader, believes the solution to failing schools is to cut funding. To punish them, you know, until they behave. Like strangling your child when they melt down in the grocery story until they learn their lesson. Or stop breathing. Whichever happens first. But really, she just wants to abolish the public school system and force all children to receive Christian “education.” Like if the First Amendment didn’t exist and we lived in country where separation of church and state wasn’t specifically guaranteed.

I had another insomnia night last night, totaling 0 minutes of sleep over the last 36 hours, but I couldn’t think of an Insomnia Comic. All I could think about was this woman’s terrifying smile, which, to me, says, “I know I’m a fraud but I really think I’m getting away with it.” It’s the smile of a missionary promising eternal happiness in the next life, in exchange for your embrace of physical and mental servitude in this one. The longer I’m awake, the more the incoming administration remind me of Batman villains. Their plots are so insane as to strain credulity. I don’t think I’m the first to make the Dolores Umbridge connection, either. Betsy DeVos creeps me out. I wouldn’t want her around my kids. I believe children should receive straight answers. Especially where it concerns education.

Maybe tomorrow I should do Trump as the Penguin.

Sorry I’m not terribly funny right now.

Bwoo-ha-ha-ha, indeed.

Alice in Blunderland

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“But I don’t want to go among selfish, greedy people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you ca’n’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all selfish and greedy here. I’m selfish and greedy. You’re selfish and greedy.”

Today, in a thread about ACA and profit in healthcare I questioned the foundational American belief in the nature of capitalism and decided not to respond to a comment about the futility of trying to “escape the trap of money” in a “ridiculously hedonistic, unhealthy narcissistic society” written by a woman who listed her current occupation as “artist” (she apparently worked in gems and precious metals) and her previous occupations as a manager of a Lexus dealership and “private jet broker.”

Private. Jet. Broker.

This is why some people don’t think there’s any room at the table. Because someone took up all the space with a private jet.

The woman in question seemed to consider herself fairly liberal, politically speaking. I didn’t know her, except I felt like I did, because I grew up in  place where money–not just enough money, or a comfortable amount of money, but ALL the money, as much money as a person could get, and then more money on top of that–was considered paramount. Not that they were bad people. The rich people I grew up around gave lavishly to charity and voted in favor of social services. But they lived in another world, and their children didn’t understand how ridiculously much more they had than everyone else. They knew they were rich. They just didn’t understand how poor so many people were.

This weekend I had a couple comic ideas around the theme of people debating whether or not the president-elect is fascist, whether the people who support him are nazis, and my thought that this kind of labeling/identity politics/name-calling is pointless. I don’t care whether or not a regime’s qualities align 100% with those of the 3rd Reich. I do care whether or not their actions result in .01% of the atrocities of World War II. So I’m trying to stay focused on a discussion of what people do, whether it is kind and helpful or selfish and greedy.

I maintain that 1) money is only one possible way of dividing resources, not a necessary evil, but a cultural system that exists because enough people want it to exist, and 2) that there are sufficient resources on planet Earth that everyone could have everything they needed if we all chose a more equitable way of distributing good and services while communicating the value of community and meaningfully contributing to society, but that 3) the reason we don’t usher in a true utopian era is because most people are greedy and selfish.

We’re almost all at least a little greedy and selfish. Even if we love our fellow human and wouldn’t personally wrong them, we accept a system in which some people can be a lot greedy and a lot selfish and love their fellow human not at all, and have no compunction about personally wronging them if it could be done for profit and power. We say it’s OK for one person to earn a private jet while many more people cannot earn homes for their family and food for their children even though they work 40, 60, 80 hours a week. We don’t have to accept this system as the only possibility, but the vast majority of us do. We could change that. For sure we could work out a system where everyone receives healthcare.

I’m afraid my Alice looks too much like Janet Jackson. I was going for Latinx. But you know I made the Hatter’s hands small on purpose. That’s not like calling someone a fascist. That’s comedy. The Putin-Hare kind of creeps me out. Also, I did this Tenniel drawing before, in a Dragon Comic. I already had the “Alice in Wonderland” tag.