Brace Yourself

Reblogging in honor of Marjane Satrapi, one of THE great graphic novelists. Her comic Persepolis was a crucial text for shaping my belief that comics can deeply explore identity, culture, politics, and history.

It's spring now which means the kids in my city have started drawing hopscotches on the sidewalk and as a rule I do every hopscotch I see because 1. Use it or lose it (ability to scotch) and 2. If a child got down on the hardscrabble streets of Boston Massachusetts to draw a scotch the least I can do is use it, but in doing the hopscotches, I've learned that about 50% of them are the typical 8-10 step scotch and the other 50% are. Somewhat avant-garde. And of course I'm not vetting the entire scotch before I start it so sometimes it's like haha 8 steps woo! Childlike whimsy! And sometimes they're 20 steps or 30 or they've got a section with three squares instead of two where you have to do a little Charleston to step on all three, or, memorably, FORTY one foot squares. A full BLOCK of jumping on one foot but I'm no quitter so once I've started Jigsaw Junior's fuckin hopscotch gauntlet I'm there til the end just a daily pot smoker in her thirties jumping kasa-obake style through an affluent suburb while some little proto-kennedy watches from his bedroom window rubbing his sadistic little third grade hands together and cackling. It's amazing. I love spring.