a pleasant gentleman in no immediate distress

is… is this supposed to be the plot?  “universal basic income is bad”? what?

Super Human. A short superhero comic about depression or something. Art by Stephen Morrow. Written by Johnathon O. Lyon. Lettering by boy Roland.

If you’d like to buy a hard copy of this comic, or just want to talk to John about literally whatever because he’s super down for that, hit him up at [email protected].

“ In August, 1968, the country was still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King four months earlier, and the race riots that followed on its heels. Nightly news showed burning cities, white flight, radicals and reactionaries snarling at each other across the cultural divide.

“A brand new children’s show out of Pittsburgh, which had gone national the previous year, took a different approach. Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood introduced Officer Clemmons, a black police officer who was a kindly, responsible authority figure, kept his neighborhood safe, and was Mr. Roger’s equal, colleague and neighbor.

“Around the first anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death, Mr. Rogers invited Officer Clemmons to join him in soaking their tired feet in a plastic wading pool. And there they were, brown feet and pasty white feet, side by side in the water. Silently, contemplatively, without comment.

“25 years later, when the actor playing Officer Clemmons retired, his last scene on the show revisited that same wading pool, this time reminiscing. Officer Clemmons asked Mr. Rogers what he’d been thinking during their silent interlude a quarter century before. Fred Rogers’ answer was that he’d been thinking of the many ways people say “I love you.”

It’s not a fuck-you.  Mr. Rogers didn’t do fuck-yous.  But it was a clear, decisive, pointed statement.  It was more than just showing inclusion; it was a deliberate response to what was going on in the world.  This was him saying “you can do better.  We can all do better.  What you are doing is wrong.”  This was a sweet, simple, and relatable thing to show little kids, to give them a view of a black man as kind and professional and a trusted adult – but also a lovely and strong statement to their parents and to the world.

It could have lost him his show, or at least his national distribution.  It could have gotten him attacked both in the news and personally in person, but he did it anyway.  I wish I knew if he ever talked about this, and how aware he and the show producers were of the statement this made.

Friends.

It’s been a slow work month, and I need your help. I’m short on rent, and the clock is ticking. So for the first time EVER. I’m opening up commissions!

Send any and all requests to [email protected]!

Hey, so I’ve mentioned previously that I’m on the hunt for work, but that was mainly of the artistic variety. I wanted to add on to that and state that I’m also looking for more general non-art-related work as well! WFH if at all possible, or commutable from the Petaluma area if not. I’ve got over four years of fast-paced production-heavy downtown office experience, with many years of general freelance experience on top of that! Data entry, quality assurance, image processing, fiddling with Microsoft Office suite applications, customer-facing file delivery and communication, small article-writing, proofreading, the works!

I developed a reputation at my old office job as being The Meticulous One. I had one of the lowest error rates of the whole floor staff, to the point that whenever I was out sick or on vacation my team’s accuracy & quality levels would take a noticeable dip. A reputation for being a quick learner and a quick worker on top of that, which doesn’t hurt. I’ve got a darn sharp eye for detail, whether it’s proofreading or checking image quality, and a pretty decent command of the english language!

It Tries The Door

by William Manning

In the daylight, the cabin was exactly what Meghan was looking for; a quiet, remote, rustic little place where she could get away from it all. It was at the end of a grass covered path just large enough for her small car to creep down. Behind it ran a narrow river that rushed and battered itself against the rocks as it squeezed through the bottom of a hill, overlooked by the cabin’s back porch. The trees were thick and tall. The neighbors were few and far away. When the sun was shining it was a tiny little paradise. At night it became something very different.

If Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, and you can’t see yourself voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, then don’t. Vote third party.

Consider the Libertarian or Green Party.

Voting third party in America throws your vote directly into the garbage. Our system does not work like Australia’s. You don’t get a second or third choice, and candidates who win aren’t going to look at the numbers and say “I see 25% of Americans voted Green, I should implement Green policies.” That’s not how it works. Conservative voters overwhelmingly back a single party, the GOP, while non-conservative voters are the ones that scatter across multiple, weak fronts when faced with an unappealing Democratic party nominee. Think about it like this:

The majority of Republican voters support Trump and are not changing their vote even though party leaders and figureheads are universally decrying him. They’ve been groomed for decades by the GOP to be this way, and now party leaders have lost control of the impressionable voter base they created for themselves. There’s nothing they can do about it at this point. While a small number of Republicans can and are switching parties, it’s not very much. Meanwhile, Democrats are floundering, trying to decide which front to unite under. Some of them go to the Green party or Libertarians, sure; the rest stay with the Democratic party in the hopes that even with people leaving, they will have enough to block Trump. But Trump doesn’t need a majority of total Americans to vote for him; he only needs more than the other candidates have. Do you understand what I’m saying? Trump could get 10% of the vote, but as long as no other party has more than 10%, he still wins. The second you split the left and middle across three or four fronts, the right seizes control. This is how it goes down every single fucking time we go through this.

Please- if you know or have any influence over young artists in your life, tell them that pain does not automatically mean growth. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned working in animation is that suffering does not equal good art. There is this weird idea that in order to create something, or learn or get better, that it should be painful. That you should hate yourself and torture yourself, even when you’re losing sleep and doing everything you can to become better at your craft.

CreepyPodsta: The Creepypasta Podcast re-welcomes Candle Cove author and Broodhollow creator Kris Straub! I’m a true Kris Straub fanboy, but surprisingly I was able to overcome my starstruckness to conduct two great episodes. His visit concludes with another outer space story!

This episode’s story was The Darkness of Farside

P̸̢̕͢h̵́͠i̛͢͞ĺ̷̶̵’s Twitter is @SoraAgrees and his website it thegospelofmark.info

Kris is on Twitter as @krisstraub and all of his work can be found at chainsawsuit.com

Here’s some profiles for the Rose of Winter characters that have been announced so far! There are still two more Princes left to be revealed over the next week or so, so watch this space for more info. :] The art in these profiles were done by Aatmaja and Victoria, the artists for the game! 

Big news on this week’s episode of CreepyPodsta: The Creepypasta Podcast! We’ve got a great guest: Candle Cove author and Broodhollow creator Kris Straub! I’ve been a big fan of Kris’s work for a long time, so having him on the show was a true honor. We chat about an outer space story!

This episode’s story was Captain’s Log

P̸̢̕͢h̵́͠i̛͢͞ĺ̷̶̵’s Twitter is @SoraAgrees and his website it thegospelofmark.info

Kris is on Twitter as @krisstraub and all of his work can be found at chainsawsuit.com

pauvre Cadavre.

TokyoPop is scum. Avoid working for them at all costs. TokyoPop is the worst of the worst of the worst. They will take advantage of you. Don’t believe their lies.

TokyoPop is notorious for the worst contracts in the industry. They pay little more than exposure. They have you sign away your trademarks, copyrights, moral rights*, and right to litigation. They will not make you famous. They are not more legitimate nor are they more effective than doing your own webcomic for free or selling photocopied zines directly to comic shops.

TokyoPop is so bad that SCAD banned TokyoPop editors from coming to their school to recruit. TokyoPop is so bad I can post on Tumblr publicly slamming them without worrying about damaging my career in the comics industry in any way.

Don’t just blindly believe me. Google “TokyoPop contracts” and see for yourself.