Haters Gonna Hate

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If you can’t join ’em, verbally abuse ’em.

On my Facebook feed, the haters seem to be in the minority, while the majority are excited to do doing something that provides more joy than they’ve felt in a long. But everyone knows these people, the ones who are too cool for everything, who feel that showing enthusiasm for the wrong things is a weakness. The Australian musician who made fun of me in 1997 for going to all the major museums in London, because in his book, the only interesting places to go were bars and clubs. The grad school colleagues too terrified to express their love of genre fiction, because there was only one kind of acceptable lit-er-a-ture and it didn’t have dragons in it. The people who go to parties and refuse to dance (OK, some of you have social anxiety, but isn’t it because you’re afraid these guys will make fun of you for enjoying it?) or watch anime or wear funny hats in photo booths.

They don’t understand how anyone can retain their childlike sense of wonder, and so they seek to crush it out of others because they don’t understand it, or they’re afraid to cultivate it in themselves. Because someone like them might come along and shame them for it.

Never feel ashamed about having a good time. And if you can’t tolerate watching others have a good time, close your window and go back to watching depressing stuff like Dexter, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead on Netflix. (Disclaimer: I haven’t really watched any of these shows, because I know that what you put into your brain has a real bearing on what comes out of your brain.)

Don’t be a hater. Buy my book, support my Patreon, order my merch.

Zentangles: Silver

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The bronze marker gave up the ghost and the gold one had rolled under my desk.

My wrist is killing me and my mind is blank. Can’t think of anything but jokes about tall towers of pancakes, and they’re not that funny. These zentangles are from last week; the red, black, and silver one came out especially nice. Zentangles are freeform, but they seem to end up more striking if you give them a little structure.

The Rabbit and the Owl seem to be planning a trip to visit the ghost towns of southeastern Arizona after I posted this link, but there’s no way that’s the definitive map of Arizona ghost towns. I’m sure there’s one I’ve passed a couple times north of Tucson. But this sounds like a fun weekend. Hopefully I can participate. Right now, the only fun I can afford is Pokemon Go, free samples at Costco and Trader Joe’s, and swimming.

In case you think a person who makes art 25-30 hours a week should in some way receive financial remuneration for their work, you can buy my book, support my Patreon, order my merch. Please. I make good stuff. You’ll like it if you try it.

Maybe tomorrow my hand will not hurt and my brain will not be empty and I will draw Dragon Comics about ghost towns.

Busking

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I’m going to start the bidding at $5 per foot away from you you want us to move. 

Wasn’t going to draw a comic tonight, but this just fell out of the Wacom tablet. I’m still not exactly at performance level on the ukulele, although I enjoy playing it and have 5 songs memorized. The Man plays all the brass instruments, and has for decades. He plays the sousaphone in a klezmer band. He’s not the least bit Jewish, but with that beard, wearing the right hat, he’s the most Jewish-looking guy in the group. He’s also played trombone and euphonium in the band, but he really wanted a tuba, and he picked the sousaphone up on the cheap, on account of it being crushed, tarnished, and in multiple pieces when he got it. And he fixed it up and put it back together himself, which is pretty cool.

There are more ridiculous sounding instruments than the sousaphone, but for my money, it’s certainly among the most ridiculous looking instruments. And, uh, I like the way it sounds. Parts of me really like how it sounds.

Obviously, ukuleles are ridiculous through and through. That’s what makes them so wonderful.

I think some percentage of the world would appreciate the ukulele-sousaphone orchestra. Approximately the same percentage that appreciate my blog.

Pokemon, Go Outside!

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OK, truth be told, I do understand some things. For example, I know you’re totally jealous that I got that Eevee.

After yesterday’s sea anchor of a comic, it seemed like something lighter was in order. My friend who does stand up comedy spent the entire day making jokes on Facebook about Pokemon Go, and when the kids and I came back from the park (where I got that Eevee, yessir), she was in my dining room, still making jokes about the game. She didn’t actually know anything about the game, although neither did I 2 days ago. So this is what I have to say about that. I haven’t really played video games in years, not since the ’80s, and I never played this game in any of its 42 previous iterations. But this one looked like fun.

For those of my readers who are my father, or as plugged in to popular culture as my father, Pokemon Go is an “augmented reality” game. That is to say, it’s played in the real world, using your phone’s GPS to map the game elements over actual parts of your city, and thus forcing your children to go outside and take long rambling walks if they wish to play. It’s actually reasonably exciting, or would be if they had anything near the server power required to handle the huge number of users interested in being the best that ever was and catching them all. There were probably thousands of people milling around the park playing this game, all of us getting continually booted off the server.

And I know the next thing those of my readers who are my father will say, but you’re wrong: my stepkids were among the youngest of people participating. Most of the players were in their 20s and 30s. It’s really not a kids’ game. Or not just a kids’ game, considering that people with the ability to drive to particular locations and the stamina to walk long distances have a distinct advantage in gameplay, and also that you need a smartphone to play. In addition, I note that a bunch of the game locations in my neighborhood are in bars (although my friend in Peoria said they were all churches where she lives, and also the library where she works).

Another feature is that it tracks how far you walk in the game, so it’s like a Fitbit that lets you fight monsters on your phone if you go to certain places. And somehow, it seems to have brought people together and inspired them to be friendly to each other in real life. It’s like the opposite of the internet.

I’m not going to go crazy with it like some people, though. Every time I opened the app, it insisted there were Pokemon behind the nursing home across the street from my house, so I finally went over there and just as I arrived they moved to the next block over. I declined to climb the 6-foot cinderblock wall and skulk around in someone’s back yard in order to keep playing. I am probably not going to be the best that ever was. But maybe I’m going to spend more time walking outside.

The Weight of the World

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There’s no second punchline, because there is no first punchline. It’s not funny.

Sometimes, words just form in your head and you don’t have any choice but to write them down. I’ve gotten whole phaetons this way, whole pages at times, without any conscious thought. The other day, contemplating the violence, hatred, and pain that seems so prevalent in the 24-hours news cycle, these words fell out of my pen. Well, you can’t make a comic about that, says I, but in my experience, people love depressing comic. And this is the most depressing one I’ve ever written. So it should have at least as much staying power as the one about my post-traumatic stress disorder.

I don’t want to be the person whose privilege is to look away, but the subject matter of this comic was hard to draw. The trash picking kids in India for the first panel were the worst. After I drew it, I went back and erased about 10 pixels around each of them, because I couldn’t stand to have the drawing of trash touching these cartoon kids. The dead African men were a little easier, because they were already dead at least, and not likely to suffer anymore. And then the Syrian refugees…all those Syrian refugees. So many homeless babies. What right do I have to live in a house and eat food, let alone draw comics and write speculative fiction novels, when people are in so much pain all the time?

Meanwhile, so many people around me are going through personal turmoil, or working hard for causes like trans rights and Black Lives Matter, or just trying to overcome heartbreak or pay their bills or not be hurt by strangers on the internet or toxic family or bad relationships.

But that’s the thing about myself I’ve known for a long time. At heart, I am a cynic, full of darkness and nihilism, but I found long ago that the only way for me to exist was to wear a cloak of optimism, to cover myself in rainbows and announce that everything was going to be all right. I wouldn’t be here now, writing this blog, if I hadn’t done this. People freak the hell out if ever they see what’s under the cloak. They don’t like to hear me tell the truth.

This is a true story: in 1997, I was driving from Yellow Springs, Ohio, to Deerfield, Illinois. I had lived in Yellow Springs off and on for 5 years, and had just left behind me 2 of my best friends, the guy depicted as the Bear in Dragon Comics, and another guy who’s too complex to be summed up as 1 single animal, but I think he would be happy if I called him the Faun. They hugged me goodbye as I hopped into my moving van, and as soon as I pulled out of sight, I burst into tears. I was driving toward something good, but I felt such grief over what I was leaving behind.

The road merged onto the highway, Interstate 94, a road I knew well and had driven many times, a road that would take me right to my parents’ house. I looked up and saw the sky above the tree line, and a brilliant circumhorizontal arc splayed out across the clouds. This awakened in me the memory of a dream I had had about 15 years earlier, as a very little girl, about a goddess appearing to a group of children in a rainbow made of clouds, and instantly, I stopped crying. It was as if the universe had opened up to me, or at least one single page of it. This sign was telling me my purpose in life, why I had been left on this planet that always seemed so alien and hostile to me. I was here to serve as an avatar of Aphrodite: the acolyte of love and beauty.

This answered a lot of questions for me, specifically about why I was so unhappy all the time. Depression: anger turned inward. Because I was here with a very specific job to do, but it seemed as if the legions working against my cause were so much more numerous. Serving love and beauty is easy in paradise, but it’s a great and terrible work in a world where so many serve hatred and ugliness. I was angry because the opposition was so great, and I had no choice in my work.

Anyway, the world is terrible. And I keep drawing comics.

Dragon Comics 137

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Because I’m in a hot air balloon! Also, I’m not sorry. 

Turn everything on its side.

Let’s just say that Dragon cannot let anything bring Dragon down. Dragon needs to rise about the trolls. Dragon has buoyancy, and will continue to rise. Today I sold some more copies of my book, just a handful, and also some merchandise in my shop. I made $16, give or take, on my art. If I could do that every day, it would make a huge difference in my lifestyle.

Also, some self-styled art critics on Reddit told me my  book cover sucked, but, based on their non-critical criticism, I doubted they had any idea what they were talking about, and sure enough, today, an experience writer who has published MANY books and does not know me personally or have any reason to offer me false compliments, said my cover was great. So I think I will believe the non-anonymous, non-rude, successful person with visible credentials in the field versus the trolls hiding behind their troll mantles.

That’s why Dragon’s smiling in panel 4. Dragon can’t hear your negativity.

I’m OK with the Events That Are Unfolding Currently

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This is not me and this is not my problem. Because I’m smart. I took all the batteries out. 

Smoke detectors save lives. But also, I have never had my life saved by a smoke detector and have never set one off doing anything other than ordinary cooking, and eggplant seems to be the worst culprit. For a long time, I only fried in olive oil, which has a low smoke point and is not recommended for frying, but it still happens with coconut oil. And if there’s one thing you want to do while you’re frying massive quantities of food at high temperatures, it’s walk away from the stove and spend 5 minutes trying to shut off a wailing alarm hung several feet above your head.

We had a super-hilarious experience last spring at my brother’s for Passover. My sister-in-law is a nurse who works 12-hour overnight shifts 3 days a week, so her sleeping schedule is both wonky and important. Preparing for the holiday, my mom was frying eggplant one morning, several hours after my sister-in-law had returned from work and finally gotten to sleep around 9 a.m or something. Of course, the smoke alarm goes off. And then a second. And then a third. My sister-in-law is a really sound sleeper, but the ceilings in that place are wonderfully high, and we could find no ladders. Standing on a chair, The Man could not reach the ceiling to silence any of the devices. We opened all the doors and windows but all 3 of these things were wailing for what felt like 30 minutes. I didn’t time it. But it was a while. My sister-in-law was very confused when she finally woke up.

But, safety first, kids!

I like the look of dawning realization on the girl’s face in panel 3. And I think I got mild confusion down pretty well in panel 2. I can be taught.

Habitats for Humanity

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Theirs is a simple species.

This comic belongs to The Man, as in, it’s his concept. I wrote the words and drew the picture, but the particular gag is his idea. Go, The Man! Just because I’m the funny one in the relationship doesn’t mean that he can’t be funny some of the time.

The alien zoo, of course, is not The Man’s, or mine. I think everyone with a tick of imagination has thought about the alien zoo hypothesis. I’m sure I fantasized about what that would be like long before I ever read Slaughterhouse Five. My conception, of course, never involved handheld electronics.

Obviously, we don’t wear clothes in alien zoo.

As for the aliens, I don’t know if I succeeded or not. The Man’s pitch included the phrase “Gary Larson-esque” and I could have drawn stereotypical aliens, grays, or blobs with one one eyeball on a stalk sticking out of their head or something like that, but I’ve always felt that if we meet aliens, we won’t necessarily recognize them as such right away. They might not have bilateral symmetry, or eyes, or limbs. The problem there, I saw right away, is that without SOME human feature, we don’t recognize them as alive. So I had to give them eyes and appendages, at least. Then, because they’re at the zoo, I gave 1 kid a giant stupid cup of the alien equivalent of sugar water, that it’s sucking on instead of looking at the animals, and then I gave another kid a cute human T-shirt, because obviously humans are going to have some fans, even if they’re not pandas or elephants. And then the third kid would have a balloon, but since it’s an alien kid, it’s got a lightning bolt on a string.

The alien parent is fortunate: it possesses sufficient arms to protect all its young at once.

 

Understanding

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My mom would definitely categorize “blow job” as a dirty word.

I asked Bonnie Jo if it was OK for me to share this anecdote, which I can do because she was my master’s thesis advisor 12 years ago and she still answers my text messages. I offered to change her identity, and she said, “Don’t you dare.” She also insisted that I name her mother, Susanna Campbell, and suggested that I give the donkey’s name, which was “either Jack or Don Quixote,” but it didn’t really fit in the panel.

Bonnie Jo was also the person who told me about the sitcom moment of the day, which is her idea that in every day something extraordinarily funny happens, and you just have to look for it to keep your spirits up. Pretty often, the sitcom moment of the day informs my comics. This situation with the author’s mother standing always strikes me as an ultimate example of a sitcom moment. If you’ve never read Bonnie Jo Campbell, I highly recommend her work, which is often about the salt of the earth people of the American midwest, but also about other things, and always fresh and unusual and provocative. In addition to the above link to my interview with her (long story), you can also read my reviews of all 5 of her books, or purchase them from Amazon.

The text for this comic practically wrote itself, except for the last panel, which took an extra day. The images of Bonnie Jo were easy; she’s all over the internet and I think I captured her likeness. I’ve met her mom once or twice, plus I knew how to find a reference picture of her. No idea what her uncle looks like, though. I Googled “redneck reading” to find a source image. Please let that be OK.  The donkey might be overly complex; whenever possible, I like to use my own photographs, and I always found that image funny, but it’s so close up that it required a lot more details than the others. The final panel also took me a while; originally it was going to be someone crying, but this is better.

My mom loves me, but she doesn’t understand my work. That’s OK. I’m a niche experience. Not everyone can get into me.

Soft Forest Mandala

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Just a little skewed.

Whew! I’m trying to pace myself this weekend. Happy 4th of July, American readers! I’ve been working on a fun comic for Tuesday but not today, because everyone is in party mode and this is the first moment I’ve even gotten to sit down at the computer and it’s 1 a.m. We had to drive out to the desert and go hiking to water and then get in the water and then dry off and then have a picnic and then hike out and then have more snacks and then swim in a pool and then shower and then go out to a party and dance and dance and dance. And here I am, with half a comic and very little to say.

Oh, yeah, buy my book, support my Patreon, order my merch.