#boat stuff

I recently learned an old French euphemism for bisexuality. It means to be powered "by sail and steam," and it absolutely comes from a specific flavor of 19th-century ship.

HMS Terror and Erebus were bisexual, you heard it here first.

As some of you might recall from this essay, I spent the latter half of 2025 working on a comic for the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum in Savannah, Georgia. Tania Sammons, a curator at the museum who had previously licensed my guide to sailors’ tattoos for a show, wrote to me with an irresistible pitch: four cartoonists would be hired, assigned a vessel from the museum's extensive collection of models, then given six months to produce a short comic for publication in an anthology alongside an accompanying museum display.

How could I say no?

My original brief was to research the Anne, the ship that brought the first colonists to Georgia, but in the aftermath of my dad's death the story took off in directions I couldn't have foreseen.

I'm releasing the whole comic online to coincide with the opening of Drawn to the Sea, the exhibition in Savannah. If you're in the area this week (or anytime over the next nine months!) you can stop in and see all the amazing work that came from myself and fellow artists Avery Hick, Rich King, and Sharon Norwood. Details about the museum show are here.

In the meantime, here's a very personal comic.

Content Warning: this piece deals with suicide and parental mortality. Readers with trypophobia may want to skip pages 14 and 15.

9/11 & 9/13

What's the coolest ship? (I mean as in boat type of ship) And did you ever go to the ocean? (not in a boat way, but if you did, that's very cool)

Thanks!

I personally like traditional gaff riged and topsail schooners the best. They're usually small (compared to other tall ships) and fast and easy to maneuver. I'll be working on a wooden hauled topsail schooner that's a replica of one that was employed by the British navy in the 1700s.

This isn't the one I'll be working on but it's got a similar sail configuration and is probably similar in size. (Although mine is a little shorter and stouter I think. I'm not sure of the specs of this one)