Sal's life supreme deluxe blog

The trans men and mascs of Transexspress— or TransSexPress— Issue #1 (1996), a 90s UK trans and gender bend zine from Leeds.

autopsy of a party girl

artist statement below:

I'd like to make a comic. I've always wanted to tell stories and draw to some capacity, but recently I've been consuming a lot more media than I had before.

I spent a lot of my youth focused on schoolwork because I realized that people kind of forgot I was a "problem child" if I kept getting As, which meant that most of my energy went to focusing on every detail of my study material and putting all my effort into coursework. I missed out on a lot of what was going on in pop culture because of that and the consequent creative shifts that were going on, and that made me feel even more out of place socially.

That also really stifled my ability to create things, which really hurt since drawing was sort of my security blanket. I've been drawing ever since I could hold a marker, it was one of the few things I could really count on for emotional regulation. Even if I didn't have a friend, I could make up someone who was lonely like me and give them friends and sort of feel comforted by proxy. When my work-life balance started to fall out of place and I became increasingly more insecure around others, I lost the ability to imagine things, to create something I liked and was proud of.

Now, I'm in between jobs, technically hired but I've yet to receive the licensing required for my new job. And I can't stop myself from making things. It's really kind of gotten in the way of studying for my licensing exam, I've already had problems before with getting in the "studying mindset" when I work at home and always need to go somewhere else instead. I've patched up holes in clothes, hemmed pants, painted a shirt, and now, I'm drawing. I'm drawing so much. I've made characters I've gotten attached to, created stories I'd really like to share and finally have the ambition to work on them (sometimes, executive dysfunction is still a bitch).