Tag Archives: comic

Understanding

4 Replies
bonnie jo_edited-2

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.

Dragon Comics 136

Leave a reply
dragon comics 136_edited-1.png

There’s no such thing as bad publicity. 

I’ve written about it before: you know you’re doing well when people start talking smack, because if you weren’t making an impact, the haters wouldn’t even have the chance to see your work let alone pass judgment on it.

Sold more copies of my book today and got a new backer on Patreon, and yesterday’s comic got over 1000 hits in 24 hours. Some people hated it, and told me so in the most condescending possible ways on Reddit, and that’s awesome. You see, I’m niche and you’re mainstream and you don’t understand my work and never can, and you’re not my audience and aren’t even qualified to offer a cogent critique, so it would be impossible to take your uninformed opinion about my potential seriously. But you are helping me reach my audience. I’ve written about this before, too. Google doesn’t care whether or not people like your work. It only cares that people engage with your work. Pissing people off is a great way to increase your web presence.

Good art elicits a response.

For so many years, my inability to draw as well as I wrote enraged me, but as soon as gave myself license to expose my flaws and deficiencies, when I got past the false idol of perfection and let function triumph over form, the path seemed clearer and clearer. You can tell a story, arouse an emotion, elicit a response with a stick figure, if you know what you’re doing. You can do it with a scribble. And you know what, writers of base insults? I know what I’m doing.

So, buy my book, support my Patreon, order my merch, if you get it, and you want to live in a world where different types of expression are encouraged to flourish. Or, tell everyone how terrible I am, so the people who get it can find me.

Dragon Comics 135

Leave a reply
dragon comics 135_edited-1.png

That and some spare change will get you a cup of coffee. Good thing I don’t drink coffee.

I’ll be getting public assistance for the first time in my life, I guess. I’m losing my pretty-good insurance at the end of the month, and even the lowest rate on the exchange would be a hardship for a dragon who makes $27 a month. The Man went down to DES for me because he knows government offices make me go crazy and bite people, and he texted that he learned we really were probably eligible for $5 a week in food aid. And also that I still need to go to DES anyway to be fingerprinted, in case I am an imposter who doesn’t actually deserve medical care. Because heaven knows the world would screech to a halt if the wrong people got to see doctors.

I also did make about $27 last week, mostly from sales of my novel, along with a couple of stickers, but my margin on stickers is laughably low. So, 7 copies sold. Now, I just need to sell 865 more in the next 51 weeks, give or take, in order to reach my goal of becoming a professional member of the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Today, the Owl was saying on Twitter that some writers find self-promotion gauche. I was always taught not to ask for things, but in a world where it’s totally normal for people to set up IndieGoGos and GoFundMes so they can take dream vacations, there can’t possibly be anything untoward about an artist saying, “I’m not famous but I am worthwhile, and you can acknowledge that worth and help me become self-sufficient by paying money for my art.”

So, buy my book, support my Patreon, order my stickers, because otherwise your tax dollars will pay for my medical insurance.

In the Court of Public Opinion

Leave a reply
public opinion_edited-1.png

Next on the docket: the case of Kindle versus some talentless  hack self-published novelist.

This one pretty much speaks for itself. Although maybe I should have called it “You Can All Go #@$* Yourselves!” Usually I like to think that I can be just as funny without swearing, but The Man suggested I go with the grawlix, which I’ve never done before, but is a time-honored comic trope. Because, seriously, in this situation, what else would you say?

Indifferential Equations

1 Reply
indifferential-1_edited-1

Him: We blinked at the same time! It’s definitely a signal that I should kiss her. Her: I wonder how many giant nuclear powered robots I would need to take over North America.

Three things: First, a few people indicated in a Facebook thread that they would enjoy being depicted in a QvD comic, so here’s the first one. You may recognize Laura from that one time she modeled my merchandise. Actually, she’s been featured in this blog twice, but the first time she was wearing a welding mask over her face, because she’s that kind of person, so you probably wouldn’t recognize her from that.

Second, I was thinking about gender, because that is something I think about. All. The. Time. Specifically, I was thinking about the interaction between heteronormative men and every kind of woman, and the Rabbit’s running commentary about the men who force her to interact with them on the Bart and the Oakland/San Francisco ferry, and about some of these dudes on Reddit who seem to willfully not to get it. So let me lay it out slowly: the odds that a woman with whom you briefly exchanged glances on public transit is very excited to meet you are low. Extremely low. This situation that I’ve drawn is a no-brainer. Note the woman’s posture: she is turned away from you AND leaning away from you AND she has her legs crossed away from you AND she has her arm protectively around her leg AND she clutching her purse on her lap AND she’s reading a book. She is doing this because she wants to reduce the number of times in a given day random strangers hit on her.

Your interest in her is not special;  more interesting men than you express interest in her. All. The. Time. She is overtly demonstrating her lack of interest in you, and her desire to maintain her perimeter. There is a 100% chance that if you try to talk to a woman with this posture, you are annoying her. There is a 50% chance that she finds you actually threatening. I don’t care that you’re a “nice guy.” If you can’t understand this, you’re not a nice guy. Like I tell my stepkids, just wanting something doesn’t mean you get it. No matter what you think, she is not playing hard to get or sending you magical brain signals about how much she wants you. This human being is interested in reading her book without being disturbed for her entire commute.

Which leads me to the third thing, which is that although Laura does some modeling work and often looks like a model when she’s dressed up, Laura is not a model. Laura’s profession is actually metallurgist. She has a degree, I think, in materials engineering. This is the thing that drives me crazy about men who address random strangers with the idea that if a girl is attractive to you, she must be interested in you: they almost never approach you with the idea that you might be smarter than them, and if they do, they usually don’t have any way to use that knowledge except as a compliment. So if random sweatsuit wearing subway guy plunks down next to lovely bookworm girl and asks about her book, he’s going to be way out of his league if she actually starts discussing differential equations.

I should point out that I know nothing about differential equations, having barely passed my requisite math classes in high school. I copied this one from the internet because I liked its shape and its name: it’s the Anger Equation, and I carry a lot of anger. But I don’t enjoy talking with human beings in general, so I rarely start conversations with strangers in public and will not likely be embarrassed because someone wants to talk about differential equations.

I should also point out that this comic must have been in some way inspired by the classic Gary Larson strip, Same planet, different worlds.

Also, I hope Laura has a good sense of humor about me putting her head on someone else’s body to make a point about not objectifying attractive women. At least I’m not a random stranger.

 

 

My Senior Moments

Leave a reply
alzheimers_edited-1.png

Actually, I’d rather forget about the diagnoses I already have. 

It’s late; I’m tired. Also, I have depression and chronic pain. And insomnia. But not, I’ve been reassured, early onset Alzheimer’s, although my grandmother and 2 of my aunts both died from it, so it could still happen. Until then, the only option is to soldier through the cyclical feeling that I’m down 2 or 3 standard deviations on the bell curve, intelligence-wise. Then I just remind myself of this classic scene from The Simpsons. Losing my perspicacity, indeed.

There would have been more to this blog post but it’s late, I’m tired, and I have depression, chronic pain, and insomnia. Oh! Here’s a good one; I also forgot to eat dinner. All in all, things have not been optimal.

ETA 10/8/22: I don’t usually update old blog posts but fun fact, it turned out to not be chronic pain and depression causing this issue, but in fact it was the benzodiazapines I was taking to treat the chronic pain and depression that were causing memory loss. I went cold turkey when I figured it out. That stuff will mess you up, kids.

Popcorn!

Leave a reply

popcorn_edited-1

I’m all about needless complication, especially when it comes to my snack food.

This is the real way to make popcorn in my book. You take a pot with a lid, add a generous dollop of oil, drop in one kernel, close the lid, and turn the burner onto high. Then you wait. When the first kernel pops, you open the lid, dump in the rest of the popcorn, close the lid, and shake the pot vigorously until it all pops. You can’t let it sit on the heat once the popping stops or it will burn, but 100% of the time, some kernels don’t pop until you open the lid.

That’s my story for today, as the Rabbit says.

The Life Cycle

Leave a reply

pupae_edited-1.png

In the next chapter, we will discuss the organism’s mating strategies, which vary depending upon which university it attends and whether or not it decides to rush.

For a very long time, I’ve suspected that butterflies have the right idea. Their larva are grubby but not without their charm, often visually pleasing, even if they are prickly and disgusting to touch. Their final form is, of course, stunning. And while they’re stuck in that transitional phase, which is almost certainly disgusting beyond measure, they get to do it in peace and quiet. They go into a room as a baby and come out as a lovely adult.

Humans, on the other hand, suffer the animal kingdom’s most distressing adolescence. Everyone can see them struggling along awkwardly, not babies, but not grown up, either. Awash with terrifying chemicals, all their body parts are growing at different rates, bizarre and unpleasant changes are taking place inside and out, and they’re constantly being forced to compare their development to those around them.

I posit that the human way to go through adolescence would be with an option, around the 11th birthday, to lock oneself away from the world and stay in hiding until age 15 or so, at which point you emerge, gorgeous and confident and ready to take the driver’s exam and make out with other recently reintroduced teenagers. How much less psychological distress would we have to overcome if we could spin cocoons?

There are 2 adolescent humans in this house, although we count ourselves pretty lucky that they have not yet shown any signs of hormone poisoning. There’s no arguing or sullen silence or anything like that. Just a fairly constant direct connection to screens. But, MAN, when I was 12, I would have given almost anything for the privilege of going into my room and not coming out until at least my junior year of high school.

Dr. Morimoto Has to Try

1 Reply

time travel 4_edited-1.png

I’m just going to leave this prophylactic inside the screen door in case you decide to do the right thing for humanity.

I try not to get too political only because I’m non-confrontational, and when you publish anything vaguely political in a public forum, people see that as an invitation to publicly attack you. But when a comic comes to me, I draw it. For later in the week I have some really great stuff about puberty and also one about popcorn, but today it’s the Republican nominee.

Let me say that I don’t believe he is the antichrist or the next Hitler. I do believe he is a racist rabble rouser who couldn’t define the word diplomacy if his life depended on it and who certainly cannot be trusted with the military capabilities of the United States, and that it would be better for political discourse and the fate of mankind if he had never been born.

Originally, I envisioned Fred as more receptive to Dr. Morimoto’s message, but I do research this stuff (note my sketchy interpretation of a Tudor revival home) and I guess the Donald learned hatred at home. Fred Trump was sued for refusing to rent his low-income housing to black people, a policy that continued years after the courts ordered him to cut that out. According to the Justice Department, “racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents has occurred with such frequency that it has created a substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity.”

In this comic, Fred uses the phrase “colored folks,” which was a polite term at the time, but I’m guessing in reality he would have used the word that I only say out loud if I’m discussing Huck Finn and hip hop lyrics, or possibly the German equivalent (his parents were German immigrants), which I’m guessing is quite similar to the Yiddish one my grandmother used.

Speaking of immigrants, Fred’s wife, Mary Anne, was one of those destitute human beings who came to America to escape poverty and take crappy jobs that natural-born Americans don’t want. She was Scottish, which I tried to impart via dialog. The line “What’s for ye’ll not go by ye,” is a Scottish saying that means, “If it’s meant to happen, it will.” But who knows. Maybe Donald thought his mom was a parasite, too.

It also occurred to me, while writing, that in 1945, a Japanese woman shouting on someone’s lawn would be subject to racist interpretation. Japanese American internment camps weren’t closed until 1946, although the majority of mainland Japanese Americans lived on the west coast in the ’40s. When I first created this character, I just wanted to pick a name that was fun to say and sounded like it could belong to a postmodern superhero/scientists. I didn’t even think about the fact that, traveling through time, she might lose credibility with some targets due to her ethnicity.

Another fun fact I learned in the course of writing this comic: Fred Trump died of Alzheimer’s. So it’s entirely possible that all this unfiltered hatred coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth is early stage senile dementia, in which case, his nomination makes perfect sense, because the Republicans have been looking for the next Ronald Reagan for a long time.

Kid Logic III or Seriously, When Does School Start?

Leave a reply

kid logic 3_edited-1

In the next panel, the kid puts on winter pajamas, wraps herself in a quilt, and goes to sit in the stuffiest room in the house, and we’re back to the situation in Wednesday’s comic. It’s a vicious cycle. 

Whew! Better late than never. Part III in the continuing saga of children in the summertime. The temperature actually dropped almost 20 degrees since I had the idea for this comic, and it’s only in the 90s, but it’s getting humid. Soon the monsoon rains will come.

I wanted to draw and post this comic last night but it was really kind of a delirious day and I didn’t get to the computer until after 11, at which point I couldn’t focus on drawing, so I put it off and put it off. I wanted to have it up by 2 pm today, at least, but then the Fox wanted to buy us chicken and waffles and then go swimming and hang out and The Man wanted to talk and my parents called, la la la.  I’m supposed to be at the Misseses Kitty’s house in 4 minutes, which obviously isn’t happening either.

There are highs and lows, but ultimately, I have to admit that my life is pretty blessed. In terms of privilege, I’m probably in at least the top 10%. Things are going to be OK.