A Softer World feed

My self-summary

I want to meet someone a little bit wild about motor-boating. Someone who hears the word riot and thinks “I wish someone would put his face in my boobs and just motorboat me” before they think “disaster.” Someone who is kind, too. And gentle. Self sufficient and self-confident but with room for them to rely on someone else sometimes. Someone who I could trust and who would trust me in return. Who is intelligent and good with feelings. Who believes that the world should have a little chaos in it, but enjoys the calm before the storm. Must like to be motor boated.

What I’m doing with my life

I’m a writer, and happy with my career. I am lucky to make a living doing something that is important to me. I write novels about men and women who struggle to understand their strange compulsion to go bwa-bwa-bwa-bwa-bwa in between a lady’s honkers. And an online comic.

I’m really good at

I like a challenge, and I like solving puzzles. Puzzles are the best. I like learning new things. I can pick locks. I could teach you, in exchange for letting me go on a buck wild and sloppy motor boat ride.

The six things I could never do without

chess, candy, consent, communication, queers, and two honkers.

I spend a lot of time thinking about

I love Jimmy Stewart’s character in Harvey. He’s just always so good natured. He says, - Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” - she always called me Elwood - “In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. That’s nice! Also, sometimes I think about just holding someone’s hand and going for a nice walk. Or cuddling and watching a movie. I do have a sensitive side. It’s not all about M-Jobs with me.

You should message me if

The great webcomic A Softer World posted its final strip yesterday. Joey & Emily started their comic in February 2003, just two months before I started Wondermark. When I first happened across their strip, I felt a certain kinship just because it was someone else making comics without laboriously drawing everything (like a sucker). I think too few creative people develop the discipline to end things when they’re ready to end them.

If you haven’t read A Softer World before, you have a treat waiting for you. The melancholy is greatly flavored if you picture Joey’s wolfish grin as you read.

we don’t inherent the earth from the dinosaurs, we borrow it from the post-human cockroach people.  

A Softer World has ended. I am sad to see it go but happy to see it ending on the terms Joey and Emily wanted it on. ryannorth did an amazing post about about his relationship with Joey and Emily. It is heartfelt and sweet and you should give it a read. 

Since reading that post I’ve thought about my interactions with Emily, Joey, and their comic. I would describe our relationship as good associates, the type of people who hang out at conventions, but don’t talk regularly or hold secrets about each other. They’re two people who have always made me smile when seeing them around. They’re wonderful, warm, and people I wish the best for. They also saved my life on more than one occassion. 

I’m not being hyperbolic with that last statement. Years ago, while making my way through my early 20s I was struggling with lots of issues. To me everyone else knew what they were doing, could act easily and well, and didn’t deal with some of the day to day background radiation of despair I seemingly had hanging around. I felt crippling alone with how I often processed or thought about myself or the world at large. Emily and Joey’s comic dispelled that. It was often hopeful, even when it was dark. This included the comics about suicide, which always had this note of “but don’t” that stuck with me. 

I was at complete bottom more than once, but knowing someone had thought or written something so close to how I felt made me feel like I could keep going. Even through the hurt. There will always be hurt. But there will be good days as high as the lowest bad days. A Softer World encouraged me to learn to swing.

I’m worlds beyond the person I was in my 20s, they seem so foreign to me now. That said, I wouldn’t be who I am now if I didn’t weather the worst of those days, and I have Emily and Joey to thank for helping me through it thanks to A Softer World. I may have hinted at it, but I don’t think I ever made it this clear to them. Today was the day if any though. So here it is. 

Thank you, so very much.