I've been off FB for a month or something now, and I did not miss it one second, until today. Today I wanted to commiserate about our Ontario election last night, and couldn't. That's a specifically emotional groupspace, and I missed the comics, one-liners and articles that would have let me feel my people feeling what I felt. I missed that. Facebook is good at that.
And how do I feel? I know that you, missing my wit and insight, have travelled over here to my house to find out. I feel the way I do when something bad that happens a lot happens again. Sort of shocked, but not. I thank Donald Trump, that wizard, for over-preparing me for this. I can't really worry about a looting thug with sociopathic tendencies who DOESN'T have nuclear weapons. What's he gonna do? Wreck schools? Hospitals? Seen it. Fuck over the poor? What else has ever happened? Doug Ford is going to loot, in that way that rich people loot, by selling everything to their friends, cheap. Doug Ford is gonna get you a Deal.
I AM disappointed. I took some hope from the idea of an NDP groundswell. I imagined that Ontarians were clever enough to smell which way the wind blows. I prepared my heart for the shock of EITHER outcome. It could have been nice ... [sigh] ... but also: I think I'm sort of OVER it. I have read and heard so many ideas that are bigger and smarter than this silly cycle of corrupt Liberals and sociopathic Conservatives, that I can't believe that an NDP win would have changed the world much. 5% Better, maybe. I'm really feeling a couple of things:
1. The revolution, if it is real and a thing we're considering, can only be spiritual and cultural. I'm not interested in indulging my fantasies (suddenly kill everyone who has a billion dollars and then just act like it didn't happen) because I know what fantasies are..
2. There are thinking people and non-thinking people. However lovingly I think we should behave towards the Junior Adults among us - VERY - who vote on single issues and consider only what is in eyesight, I'm not pretending to be equal anymore. I'm not discussing social issues with someone who can't see one move ahead, who can't imagine a second perspective. I'm not going to berate them, either. I'm just not going to engage.
3. I want to shut up. I want to immerse myself in the ideas of other (thinking) people, to swim in conversation without being active. I'll hold my shit for places like this, where hundreds of people from Facebook flock to read my words because no one else can do it quite like me.
Enough Politics, We Remember Your Trump Comics
I've finished making two little books - the 8th issue of the true adventures of jepcomix (yes I regret choosing that long name), which contains the story of the time M and I lived with a crazy dying cloud lawyer; and Squarehead, a 32 page comic about my 7th grade exchange trip to Trois Rivieres, Quebec (sucked!).
I'm going to print them nicely, for the first time, in a 6x9 format, nice covers, good paper. This is the first time I've felt like the work deserved more than the Photocopy Treatment - and the first time I've thought, I should do something to promote them. That's interesting to me - i've been actively at it for about 14 years, so it's a milestone. I think I'll try to get into a couple of festivals, maybe. Marjan will dig that, cuz ... more travelling.
(Sir Duke is playing right now. I had to stop and enjoy.)
SCHEMES
Here's my dopey plan: jepcomix 8 has a really colourful cover, which might make people notice it. Inside, not a bad story, and an advert for Squarehead. I release that soon (that involves giving it away to about 9 people around the world, maybe to sell, maybe to review). THEN, a few months later, take Squarehead over to The Beguiling and see if, maybe, all this work means they don't chuck it into the Zine pile.
Then: apply to TCAF, and maybe fly to Chicago (where I will go in and offer to buy everyone at Quimby's and Chicago Comics a beer, because of their generous openness to Zines and minis of all kinds) for one of their conferences.
I thought about re-engaging the Religion theme again for an ongoing strip like That's Me in the Corner or Fights, but couldn't muster the energy. All this meditation is sort of sucking my Rage Mojo, sort of cooling my Hate Engine. I guess I'm glad, but ... I don't want to write about meditating.
I think, rather, that I will pour some energy into the comic I imagine when I'm paddling out around the Leslie Spit, about a mouse and a ball who become friends and try to understand their huge world, together. I've got so many silly ideas about this story, and writing it won't interfere with this Retiring, Uninterested, or Above-It monk thing I'm trying to cultivate: all pictures and nature and imagination.
The first story I wrote about them - the fraught project that took YEARS too long Because:Assholes - won't have much to do with the newer idea, but that's good. That's honest. I spent many years on projects that weren't worth the time. I want, as the man said, to live deliberately. Apparently this involves some pretty silly stuff. You know, for kids.
Anyway, shut the fuck up already Jeff. I saw Solo, it was fun. I saw Deadpool 2, and it was very funny. I read that Chinese sci-fi book the Three Body Problem - very cool. I am right this second listening to that first Darkness single (I Believe in a Fing Called Love), which still does the trick for me. Oh - song's over: next is Jay Z and Alicia K singing about
New York. I love this song. Toronto will never make a song like this until Toronto says Suck a Dick to the provincial rest of this province. Suck a dick, Ontario. Doug Ford, I'll fight you anytime, you Good Ol Boy, you fraudulent piece of shit, you shitty older brother. Call me.
Love,
Santa