masks for me and you

😷😷😷Here's a list of businesses that require staff and customers to wear masks. Please add more in the comments and I'll vet and add them. 

Also looking for places in DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Boston, Cape Cod and LA. 😷😷😷

So far it's mostly bookstores, but is that really a surprise?
Vulnerable people should have friendly, rational places to go!
 

NY:
Manhattan:
Anthology Film Archives--the best movie theater? 2nd st & 2nd Ave.
Bluestockings Cooperative-- new books, zines, beverages and more, 16 Suffolk Street, 10002

Brooklyn: 

Bicycle Habitat- Bicycle repair store, 560 Vanderbit Ave. location
Brooklyn General Store--knitting supplies, fabric, sewing supplies, local goods, 128 Union St.
Community Bookstore--new books with a large children's section, 147 7th Ave, 11215
Greenlight Bookstore--new book stores, 686 Fulton Street 11217 & 632 Flatbush Ave 11225
Park Slope Food Coop--members-only cooperative food store, 782 Union Street, 11215
Unnameable Books-- my favorite used bookstore with some new titles, 615 Vanderbilt. Ave

Cold Spring:
Split Rock Books--bookstore, 97 Main Street 10516

PA:
Philadelphia:
The Spiral Bookcase--mostly new book store with gifts, currently a six (6) person limit in the shop, 4257 Main St. 19127 

The Wooden Shoe-- Anarchist bookstore on 704 South Street, 19147. Call for hours ((215) 413-0999)

Canopy by Karine Bernadou

On a recent long night I decided that big eyes of the main character of Canopy had been staring out from my to-read pile for too long. A wordless comic is a tough sell to me, especially in these times of constant background anxiety, but Karine Bernadou's tale of the loneliness and violence within intimate relationships is a stellar example of the genre. The fact that this is a "translated" work only underlines the how powerfully Bernadou's images communicate--no words needed.

Have you ever searched family photos for clues about how it all went wrong? Canopy opens with a family portrait, a mother, a father and a darling stout red baby, putting us instantly on alert, pinging something that knows that portraits' posed unity rarely lasts. The next spread covers the red girl's childhood and adolescence, economically showing the ways a parent can fuck us up. From there we head out into a hostile world, where the possibility of change occasionally appears in the form of a sex partner and, well, we all know how that goes. There's a bit with sirens and a being looking to get lured away that I really liked; self-destructive partners are often their own siren song for the hurting. Each time the red woman seems to find a bit of peace, her desire to find/replace her absent father pulls her into another nasty situation. By the end of the book she's figured out a few things but the conclusion isn't sweet or even saccharine. If anything there's a melancholy to the character going on to her next adventure with wariness and more baggage than she started with.

Using only red for color, Canopy still manages to evoke a lush, if hostile, world, a forest place filled with biting animals and sentient plants. Bernadou's cute characterizations add a disquieting edge to the surreal and bloody situations she finds herself in, as do the prevalence of human features where one wouldn't expect to find them. I liked how the book played with time, especially through dream sequences. Each is like a mini battle for the main character and she usually doesn't win. Bernadou's pacing creating the sense of a long story being told in a short book and definitely rewards rereading.

CHOICES: A Pro-Choice Benefit Comic

A recent visit to Philly to wade through dead people's stuff unearthed a book that I've written about before as a memory: CHOICES: A Pro-Choice Benefit Comic. From the sticker on the front, this book was processed in 1996 and I picked it up soon after. I was in high school, doing my recently-mandated 50 hours of community service at Philly Thrift for AIDS, working on my favorite job. At the time, the store was in a huge space on South Street with a large dark basement where they kept the donated books and magazines on unruly shelves. I was down there doing my thing and something about this book grabbed my attention.

The first things that struck me were the number of male artists in the book and seeing names I had read in the Sunday funnies (Garry Trudeau and Cathy Guiswite). I remember especially Michael Jay Goldberg's tender and matter-of-fact "One Cold Night in December," an autobio piece about his friend's abortion. Howard Cruse also has a piece in the book, "Some Words From the Guys in Charge," that places the reader prone, looking up into white, male faces that represent those of absurd and punitive lawmaker. From Alison Bechdel and Leslie Ewing come lesbian perspectives on supporting abortion rights despite some perceived conflicts which feel politically outdated in some ways, but extremely relevant in others--especially balancing personal needs (i.e. "self care") with the larger fight for rights. In retrospect the book is glaringly white on both the creator and character sides; how racism plays into the abortion "debate"is only addressed as a sideline in a couple of pieces.

Diane Noomin's story of her abortion and subsequent infertility also stuck with me. "Looking back, I'm grateful to that 22 year-old for her strength. I owe my life to her choice." I couldn't imagine that future life at the time, but reading this book again in my mid-30s, with several reproductive choices in my history, I understand that reckoning with the past in a way I couldn't at 15. Noomin's comic points out how just because a choice is painful or difficult, doesn't mean a person needs to be saved from it, especially not by the government or any other big Daddy.

White supremacism, economic injustice, incest, suicide, and religious persecution all make appearances in CHOICES. Re-reading this book has been an unpleasantly surreal experience. 27 years have gone by since its publication and women are still fighting to be seen as human beings. It's frightening to see how fragile the gains made are.  As a personal touchstone, the book reminds me of the special power of comics to convey complicated stories in an accessible way. As an artifact, CHOICES is a stark reminder to take nothing for granted.

Behold my CAB haul:
My Pretty Vampire 1 and 2 by Katie Skelly
Laid Waste by Julia Gfrörer
Enter, Holy Pilgrim by Laila Milevski (part of my Ley Lines sub)
Cyanide Milkshake 8 by Liz Suburbia
Impatience by Inés Estrada
The End of Summer by Tillie Walden
No Exit by Annie Mok
Maleficium #5 by Sabin Calvert
What is a Witch by Pam Grossman and Tin Can Forest
I Thought You Hated Me by Marinaomi (part of my Retrofit/Big Planet sub)
Lovers in the Garden by Anya Davidson (part of my Retrofit/Big Planet sub)
Lizzie's Tale by Darryl Ayo (purple page version)
Ugly by Chloe Perkis
Big Sister by Natalie Andrewson
Annotated 19 by Aaron Cockle

sometimes being left in a backpack leads to having a special, separate photo shoot

This year's CAB was difficult and lovely. Difficult because I've been so depressed that leaving the house to go be around people seemed impossible and lovely because I did it and then was able to talk with a bunch of people I like. I noticed a lot of apparel this year and wished I brought more money to get all the t shirts and sweatshirts I desire.

Creators: like another link to your work better? let me know!

Oh lovelies,

Reading has been tough. My mind is currently focused on bringing up all the pain of the past 20+ years and parading it around, making focus difficult and spare time unpleasurable. Today is the third (is that possible?) anniversary of my father's death. He had terrible dyslexia; he was so proud that I enjoyed reading, even though it made us further apart. This year reading has not been the refuge I crave. What interests grief hasn't flattened, depression has steamrolled.

I'm still in The Crystal Eaters, still hoping the end supports everything I love about story developed so far. Shane Jones definitely has a razor insight into the thoughts and compulsions of children, especially traumatized children. It's so difficult to get that right. Place that precision in a book also dealing with complex family sadnesses, and dang, you've just created a book I am deeply into and can barely bear to read! He also captures what pain drugs can take away while also showing what pain they can give subtly and without moralizing.

I've been reading everything from my comics subscriptions (Ley Lines from Grindstone Comics/Czap Books, Kus, Retrofit/Big Planet and Frontier from Youth In Decline), but at a leisurely pace and without the calming effect of falling into a novel. CAB was fun and I'll dive in to my haul, mostly longer works, as soon as seems wise.

What have you been reading?

Your friend,
Carrie

Libby's Dad by Eleanor Davis

Recently I've had a lot of chances to experience shitty cable. Between traveling and "getting away" and tagging along, I've been watching a lot of Forensic Files. Overall this hasn't been so great for my peace of mind, but it has been a deep dive into the terrible things people do to one another, especially the terrible things men do to women. I've been marinating in not only death, but in should-have-knowns and we-never-thoughts, and it was in this state of mind I picked up Libby's Dad.

Libby's Dad is set at a slumber party at the titular characters home. Snatches of the young party-goers conversation drive the story, as well as the thoughts of Alex, a big-eyed, pig-tailed girl, the youngest invited to the birthday. This framing is what makes Libby's Dad so powerful and chilling.

The girls discuss Libby's parents' divorce, trying to come to grips with what they've overheard about violence in the relationship in the face of the fun slumber party stuff they are experiencing in the moment. Weaving in anecdotes of seeing Libby's mom around town being sad about the end of a relationship and other life stuff,  half-heard parental judgement, and an unquestioned belief in the justice system, the girls reassure one another that they are safe and that Libby's dad is no monster. The girls think what is easiest to think, that Libby's mom is crazy, rather than that her dad is dangerous. The child's POV shows plainly and with force that the simple story is usually the reasoning of a child. We know what nasties go on in adult relationships. We know that a person can be "like, super nice" to children and terrible to their partners. We know victims are often doubly victimized by having their behavior and life picked over in public. We know that adulthood offers may opportunities to cry in public, whether you're "crazy" or not.

We know.

We know, so we should know better. We know, and there is heartbreak in knowing that likely each  of those girls will know too, more sooner than later.

And, of course, it's beautiful. I've always loved Davis's botanicals and they, as well as her boisterous color sense, are out in full force in Libby's Dad. Her use of colored pencil is perfect here, and makes the whole story a little more sinister for me. Pick it up now.

Nicolas by Pascal Girard, translated by Helge Dascher

Missing my brother today & thinking of all the pasts I've had.
From Pascal Girard's Nicolas: pic.twitter.com/Of9c4sr1nF

— Carrie (@carrietryharder) July 11, 2016

After years of cramming books in wherever they fit, I finally decided to redo my bookshelves. This has led to some intense re-reading, and in some cases, reading that had been left undone. Nicolas is one of those books I couldn't not buy, but also couldn't read the past several years.

 Nicolas is an autobiographical comic about the author's brother dying when they were both children. Told in flashes, almost like scrolling through the lowlights reel of grief, this short book cut right to what the legacy of a loss does to a person and their relationships. Girard's style is like a looser, sketchier Jeffrey Brown with some John Porcellino thrown in, which works well to express extreme feelings with humor.

Despite feeling incredible familiarity with the trials of Pascal, Girard's work is refreshing. It shows so simply how the absurdity of such a loss makes you weird (and in what ways). I love how Girard gets into how the fear it instills is not easily navigated, and how it changes as you get older, with emphasis on being a jerk in bars and hurting the people who love you romantically because you know that "it" doesn't only happen to other people. The tension between trying to remember your lost sibling and living your own life is also explored here, most especially on the page where a young Pascal asks his mother if he can sled at a friend's and his mother responds, in what I can only imagine is a distant voice: "Did you realize that Nicolas would have been eight years old today?" That sense of being snapped out of the present over and over is so particular and peculiar--glad that Girard included it.

my breath caught

After reading Nicolas, I felt less alone, which is perhaps the highest compliment possible. If you have someone in your life that's lost a sibling, get this book. I hope it helps you understand them better.

Link to the new expanded hardcover here.

MoCCA 2016

MoCCA in a Hell's Kitchen that looks different than it used to: A New Yorker's lament. 

Well, not really. While I miss my neighborhood as it was, I liked the new venue for MoCCA. Not only does the neighborhood still offer abundant cheap food, but the venue itself, which I used to walk by during late night strolls to the river, is bright, spacious without the high-ceiling anxiety of the armory and has almost enough elevators.The security was overzealous, something I got to experience twice as a perpetual late-o, but not as bad as at last year's Chelsea location.

I spent nowhere enough time on the floor and saw no panels, despite being somewhat interested in two of them. I'm never interested enough though. I did manage to say hi to a few of my far-away faves like Summer Pierre, Greg Means and L. Nichols. I missed more people than I saw, sadly, but that is the way it goes most years.

upstairs snack area

Jennifer Hayden, Summer Pierre and Glynnis Fawkes , buddies and excellent storytellers

Sara Edward-Corbett, with her beautiful rat creations

The fabulous Whit Taylor making a sale, Katie Fricas, who I met at Paper Jam, and Kriota Willberg, who cares about your health

Loved the bit of Travelogue by Aatmaja Pandya I read online, had to get the book!

Loved Gina Wynbrandt's mini, Big Pussy, had to get the book!

Rumi Hara's minis grab me with their covers, and I always enjoy the fantasies she creates.

I was excited for a few books not mentioned above and was happy to grab Dream Tube by Rebekka Dunlap from Youth in Decline, Bad Boyfriends, edited by Laura Lannes, as well as What's Your Sign, Girl?, edited by Rob Kirby. The two anthologies are stuffed with work from artists I need more of--you hear that big publishing?

I'm still working through my pile of MoCCA comics and will report back on what's grabbing me.

My Haul

Paper Jam 2016

Crowd shot

After the master hyping of Paper Jam by Darryl Ayo on twitter, I decided to drag my dusty carcass to Silent Barn in Bushwick for the small comics/zine fest. I am a big fan of the space with its cheap drinks and big outdoor space and really wanted to see what a comics show there would look like.

The show itself took place in  the performance space in the front of the building. I got there around 3:45, a little more than halfway through the day and the place was crammed with 20-something creators and fans and a smattering of us older types.

Though I mostly picked up comics by folks I'd never met before, the fest turned out to be an exercise in saying hi to the faces of internet faves including Sabin Calvert, Jude Killory, and "comics mom" Kevin Czapiewski. Ley Lines #6 author and buddy Aaron Cockle gave me a little zine featuring some risograph experimentation and we spoke briefly of chili and work.

After several trips around the crowded room, the consumption of a delicious ginger beer, and more hellos, I decided that I had spent enough money and felt low on energy so decided to head out. I was a bit disappointed in my own stamina that day, but sometimes you must bow to your body's boring needs. I missed the bus, managed to walk about a quarter of the way to where I was going before my hip started to kill and the rest doesn't matter.

The verdict? Would return to Paper Jam with walking shoes on.

Book and pamphlet haul

Prints and calendar from Courtney Menard

Walk away moon

2015 finally dies!

Despite this being a horrible life year, it was a very wonderful reading year. Not included in my tally are the many books I started or collections I picked through over 2015, many of which were also good but not for me, not right now.

This has been the first full year I've lived without my father after two years of his frightening and terrible decline. I was deeply involved with my father's end of life and death, the details of which I am still reckoning with and will be for quite some time. Being faced with admin tasks that are not only relentless and boring, but suffused with such powerful hurt has been exhausting and lonely. Luckily for me, cartoonist Roz Chast went through some similar things and decided to write a funny, informative and just SO TRUE book about it called Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? This book was loaned to me by a great friend. When I read it I cried, but with relief.

Too fucking real: pic.twitter.com/Fa70oYefnU

— Carrie (@carrietryharder) March 21, 2015

There are books that take you away and books that make you stay and the three novels in The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer accomplish both. The first, Annihilation, is a missive from an inhospitable land, filled with beautiful natural details and almost unbearably tantalizing mystery. The second, Authority, is about juggling identities and becoming oneself, and while the main character wasn't all that interesting to me there were enough other things going on in the story to carry me though. The final volume, Acceptance, follows a character present in the previous two and brings many of the mysteries of the Southern Reach to a satisfying close, without solving a single thing. Vandermeer created a world with endless frightening possibilities and endless frightening beauty that I still think about; this trilogy is an excellent reminder that life is complex and not simply a trial, no matter how much horror gets served up.

I finished THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE on the plane ride back and, though I've read it a few times before, wow. Just wow.

— Carrie (@carrietryharder) September 23, 2015

Speaking of horror, I returned to an old favorite this year The Haunting of Hill House, after recommending it to a friend. Turns out that Jackson's sure voice and teasing plotting were exactly what I craved at the moment, and it is always worth taking another look at what the desire for acceptance will do to a person. Plus, Theo, always Theo.

To balance the many terrible surprises of the year, the mail at least was peppered with some lovely ones care of my subscriptions to four comics presses: Ley Lines from Grindstone Comics/Czap Books, Kus, Retrofit/Big Planet and Frontier from Youth In Decline. I wrote about some here on try harder, some I just sucked in. Two stand outs I didn't write about, both from Retrofit/Big Planet were Ikebana by Yumi Sakugawa and Sea Urchin by Laura Knetzger. I loved Sakugawa's quiet story about stopping giving any fucks and creating oneself. Sakugawa's work always speaks to me, but this one came at exactly the right time. I've been following Knetzger for awhile, and just got her all ages tome Bug Boys from Czap Books. Sea Urchin is decidedly adult autobio about depression and what we think about when no one is watching.

I listened to many fewer SFFH podcasts the second half of the year than I usually do, mostly because I fell victim to Fallout 4's immersive charms. However the casts from The District of Wonders, Escape Artists, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Uncanny and Apex, continue to expose me to exciting short story writers and take me places I never could have imagined.

And no 2015 survey would be complete without talking about twitter. Besides the usual dog jokes, book news, essay recommendations and author process notes that twitter always provides, this year the service was one of the only and best ways I could connect with my own grief. That meant posting photos and thoughts, as well as meeting (or further developing relationships) with others that have been through similar stuff or are just empathetic souls. Invaluable stuff.

I know I'll be thinking about the stuff I read in 2015 for many years to come. What about you?

Frontier #9: Becca Tobin

The story of a musician is a story that I'm inclined to dislike. However, the excellent thing about reading about creative frustration is that you don't have to hear the products of the struggle. Though, in the case of Frontier 9's spaced out music scene, where synthesizers are created by shaping globs of goo into instruments, I might not object to a listen.

Becca Tobin's gloppy fantasy follows Butter, the synth lead of the wildly popular band Eurobe as she struggles to create an instrument that will bring her one-album wonder band to the next level. What follows is both a meditation on the perils of fame, the fraught consequences of wish fulfillment and a creepy vampire golem story. It is funny, too.

This short story seemed luxuriously long, in part because Tobin conveys the band's back story and current circumstances with super sharp description and, later, dialog, that distills both the characters and quickly builds the world they live in.

I loved Tobin's use of color. Generally I'm overwhelmed by too broad of a color pallet, but the full-crayon-box colors and watercolor-y tones of her art drew me in instead of making me want to take to my bed. The pages seem to pulse with the energy of her lines. The details, like the cat shirt Butter wakes up in the morning after the creation of her synth, make re-reading rewarding--a rare treat.

Simply, I can't wait to read more by Becca Tobin.

The Oven by Sophie Goldstein

I must admit that I am a sucker for a scrappy utopia. I love hope expressed through investing in the land, having children and forming community around shared humanity. In Sophie Goldstein's The Oven, "the city" has become entirely removed from the land and in order to have children one must be deemed perfect and issued a permit.

Young 20-something main characters Syd and Eric run away from the city to have a child and, perhaps, to become adults. The Oven seems to offer a few options for that future. They begin with the exhilaration of the young and despite Syd's initial fear that they made a mistake, they are taken under the wing of a farmer couple with several children and settle into a physically strenuous life of growing their own food, sewing their own clothes and living without the UV-ray protection of a dome.

But the saying, uttered often around the camp, "It's a free country," has a dark side of course. Goldstein is sparing in showing us the full extent of life  in The Oven, but the glimpses of the less savory side of being outside the law are interesting. Especially effective are the panels showing the effects of a local drug made from bugs.

While I enjoyed The Oven, I felt as though the decline of Syd and Eric's relationship happened too quickly. I would have appreciated more scenes of them growing apart, their shared dream unraveling, so that when Eric leaves we feel more profoundly what Syd has lost and gain more insight into her final decision to stay in the colony. I also think this would have provided more opportunities to explore the world that Goldstein built.

Update: The Oven is a 2015 Ignatz nominee for Outstanding Graphic Novel.

Ley Lines: Thank God, I Am in Love by Cathy G. Johnson

Grindstone Comics and Czap Books' Ley Lines series collects work from exciting cartoonists about art. Sometimes the comics are about influences, sometimes about the art world, but Thank God, I Am in Love gets at the primal, wrenching feeling of finding work that speaks to your soul.

The brown pallette of the pages seems an odd choice for a book about love, but the plainness of the images lets Cathy G. Johnson's words take center stage.  "I don't need portraits or actors pretending to be him. I don't need the mythology. I have the swirls of ecstasy, the impasto, I have his presence his presence his presence" Johnson recreates those swirls of ecstasy for each panel of the comic. I could recognize some of them from my very limited knowledge of Van Gogh's work; I wonder if a more versed reader would gain extra insight.

Though descriptions of the physical sensations that art love cause dominate the text the (not unrelated) line that most stuck with me was: "His work alleviates my loneliness." That is the most precious gift of falling in love, that melding, that recognition, and Johnson truly captures it in this book.

I was deeply into Golden Smoke by Warren Craghead and Unholy Shapes by Annie Mok, and I can't wait for the next issue of Ley Lines. If you did not subscribe, well, now's your chance.

weird fucks in Portland

I went to Powell's and, a surprise to no one, the small press section got me.

It started with the irresistible Weird Fucks by Lynne Tillman. A few of the stories in Fast Machine were in the Before You She Was a Pit Bull zine, published by Future Tense Books. I really enjoyed those stories so more stories seemed like a good idea. Toilet Bowl, published by Guillotine Press, couldn't be more in my wheelhouse. I've been wanting to read Chelsea Martin for a long while.

My picks from the other sections of the store: A bad Philadelphian, I've never read any Delany and short stories seemed a good place to start.  And North American Lake Monsters and Super Mutant Magic Academy were simply must-haves.

What are you reading these days?

lettermo update

Unsurprisingly I did not make 28 letters in February. I couldn't focus each day on a person, I took a trip, the winter, the winter, the winter, etc. I managed to make 17 pieces of mail, mostly postcards, some of which haven't even arrived at their destination yet!

llllllll

Here is a comic about why a relationship with the post office can be very, very fulfilling if approached properly: Why I Live At The P.O. by Summer Pierre.

I must check my PO box. If you've sent me anything and it got sent back, I apologize. Now that there is the promise of a thaw I plan on going there more often.

MICE 2014

The haul

In Boston, one must choose one's adventures wisely. This time around I only needed one great distraction: FREE COMIC CONVENTION.

MICE tries very hard to be kid friendly, with half of the special guests kid-comic professionals. The Saturday I attended I saw very few children, but it was late in the day and perhaps they'd all gone home. With panels like Doodle! Scribble! Draw! and Letters from the Editor, Marketing for Self-Publishing and Micro-Presses, the programming was also geared toward kids and, a bit confusingly, comic-makers, leaving very little reason for the enthusiast attendee to stick around after browsing the tables. This led to the question of how exhibitors were supposed to attend the talks except to leave their tables and put some sales at risk?

I noticed a ton of CCS folks (past and present) at the show and other student-y/young creator types which brings a nice energy to the always-fluorescent (why why why?) con proceedings.

These are some of the artists I threw my money and face at:

Wyeth Yates

A nice young person who sold me some of Eleri Mai Harris' comics

B.M. Prager

Hazel Newlevant

The crowd

Alison Wilgus

Amelia Onorato

More crowd

Nick Pappas

Renata Davis moved the rat mask just for me

Patt Kelley

The one and only Kenan Rubenstein

Cathy G. Johnson and Sophie Yanow

Poetry comics purveyor Franklin Einspruch

Buddy Evan Dahm

L. B. Lee

Thanks to the quick and kind thinking of Boston-area saviors Kelly and Bill, I also snagged a tote bag to commemorate the entire affair. Then we got a beer.

Recent good things

This Rumpus essay on poetry, presentation and (not just) pie by Kate Lebo is tops.  It made me think about Sylvia Plath, who I've sort of skipped over when looking for idols. Seeing her words interspersed with Lebo's made me want to seek Ariel.

Great interview with Karen Joy Fowler by Carmen Maria Machado: "But mostly I believe that we shouldn’t do things we are unable to look at."

The David Brothers interviews at Inkstuds. There are some audio quality issues with some of these, but, as you know, here at try harder, content is queen.

And, of course, this comic from Anne Emond pretty much sums up this whole season.

Winter pallor and complaint: Photo by Pete

Hey, been tryin to meet you: The Fire To Say

A long week and I had to change my face a little to separate from all those tense days. So I slathered on some pink lips and paid a taxi to get me to Chelsea and The Fire to Say. The lovely Aaron Cockle got me excited about it, thank goodness. When my cab pulled up, all the handsome friends were outside smoking. I took this as a good sign and hunched inside, back to the tiny room curated by Franklin Einspruch.

Normally, I am a needful for narrative, but I loved seeing these poems and pictures. Each sheet could be looked at as a moment fixed which was a good thing for such a little room. Original work is exciting because you can see the process, all the creases, the thickness of paint and ink and the little smudges. Julie Delporte's work was the most surprising. In her case, the larger images are made of smaller drawings raggedly collaged which I wouldn't have guessed.

Photo by Warren Craghead

Sometimes you have to leave the house and put your face close to the faces of others. I forget that, but meeting super tweet buddy Warren Craghead in person reminded me. Derik A. Badman, Franklin Einspruch and Paul K. Tunis were additional delights.

Aaron and I walked down through the streets to trains and laziness. Along the way I had to stop at a chi chi restaurant to pee. I snuck in with some highly ladyfied ladies and thought about my lips. Inside the toilet, a remix of The Pixies' Hey was playing and that was stupid but also just right.

Some people in comics [in the world] live under rocks and should stay there. However, it is important that their ways are brought to the harsh light. That way no one can say they didn't know, that that is the reason that they don't believe us.

Read MariNaomi's account of being harassed at a comics' convention by another panelist. Then read Rachel Edidin's examination of the pathetic apology by the perpetrator. 

Then never wonder why we are full of rage, but never surprise.

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I imagined my cool green cards appearing in the mailboxes of my friends and becoming a kind of signature. Whereas my old picture postcards were about the ephemeral land of dreams and potential, these new postcards were about the vulnerable space of now.

This love letter to postcards by Jamey Hatley is the perfect thing to read on a lonely day. She goes down so many trails in this short piece, that it left me wandering in the forest long after I finished it. The power of affordable art, the need for images of our idols, the desire for a connection: All these are combined in the simple postcard. I think about mail more than your average human, and wonder why I persist in the sometimes arduous task of making space for my friends in my mind, trying to tell a little story just for them, without the instant gratification of a response.

heart, broken

Tom Hart's site about his daughter Rosalie blows me away with its open-heartedness. He posts snapshots of his work on both his book about his late daughter and his own journey through grief. It is basically an incredible interpretation of the "process blog," and one that is more helpful to me than I expected.

-----

As a kid I was possessed of the idea that life, the life I was living, couldn't possibly be the right one. My brother and I joked that we were aliens in disguise, just waiting for the mothership. To be transported, I read. When I was a teenager, I got in to all those books that old dudes read for the thrills but can still be called literature, including Philip K. Dick, in order to shift into another life where I could have fun and be taken seriously. Dick's kind of weird was always a little too man-centered for me, but I understood the humor, paranoia and hope. A Scanner Darkly and Ubik are my favorites. "Bummed Out and Ugly" by Alice Sola Kim is a skillful essay about finding one's own teleporter:
 "I read about anywhere but here. I read about space shit. No one wants to be that predictable and psychologically obvious, but sometimes things are exactly the way you expect them to be."