I took almost a full year break from writing, and about an 8 month break from 2D art.

I had to.

Now I can look at all my work and decide what direction to go.

Visually, I will barely do anything. Photography sometimes, of cities, buildings, nature, and people, as a hobby.

I can stop trying to pretend that I want to draw human cartoons, though. There will be more of those symbolic monsters that I rarely, rarely post online. I will never be Adrian Tomine, and I have to realize that. I can be my own version of Thomas Herpich, though, and I will be, if I ever cartoon again.

Most of my time is focused on writing, though, and most of my writing time is focused on personal diary entries and shareable nonfiction, specifically about science and technology and its relation to society.



Phew.

Oh, also, you can read my main "creative" output at [link] , my fun science blog.

Hey, everyone, I decided I was too lazy, so I started to force myself to do creative things on a schedule. So now I am making a 16-page quarter-page-sized-minicomic every two weeks. First issue goes out the first Friday of Sep.

It is almost all comics. Some pages are all-text, but not in a "aaagh reading my brain" way, in a bumper sticker way. I promise: no fiction, prose, reviews, journalism, or essays. Mostly black and white drawings. It is decent quality humor. It is

FREE!

If it sucks, add it to your minicomix collection as an example of crap, or put it in the recycling bin with last week's NY Times. If it's funny, you'll enjoy it. I promise.

Anyway, you don't even have to pay shipping, because I am bored, and amused by that 'zine' thing they used to do in the 90's. I know The Internet is where comix is at now, but I like using real-life paper as a marketing/artistic tool, as well. Shits n giggles and all that.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE:


You get it for free because I already know you, if you are reading this. I will be charging money for it after this initial offer ($10 for 10 issues,) so you have to act soon before I send everything out on Friday.

Reply on this thread with your mailing address (if it's something not scary like a PO box) or just email me your mailing address at sylkates at the yahoo' shiggity dot coms.You will then get the first issue and subsequent issues forever and ever and ever, for no monies. First one going out on Friday the 6th.

Even if I see you in real life often, I want to do this through the mail, since it's simplest.

Thanks, and have a genuinely good day,

Rev. Baz Otherwise AKA Sylvia
Zinestress, SakCoPaperworks
Editor-in-Chief GONEON! Paperzine

See, I absolutely want to go to SPX in 2008. Before I do that, I have to have some really impressive comix to pass out.

I will print another few copies of Comix Current, maybe. But really, I need to have this 28-page story done and completed. It's about a political activist and i am using a tablet .

This project will take fucktons of work. And when I am done, I will do a simply drawn 2-pager about music for a music anthology. And when I am done, I will upload it all to the internet, to a website that does not yet exist. I will also upload my really big 2 page rapidographed Estate Sale comic I made in high school, that hasn't been scanned yet.

And when I am done with this project, the site that will host it, and the zine print outs of it, I will start a weekly web/newspaper comic, linked to from my professional style and stop doing other extracurriculars for school to focus on this. I will probably start the webcomic right before SPX.

This means no more photography, even though I love it so. No more fiction/poetry submission attempts (after this one ONE story I am trying to get through this summer.) This has to be my focus, and I am bad at keeping focused. So here is where you come in.

You have to bitch at me and say I am not working enough on my SPX-ready projects. You have to! And remind me of its upcoming date in November, and be mean and impatient and rude about it.

Remind me! Poke me with a sharp stick and be obnoxious!


I perform best under pressure, so thank you in advance.

Where I will go to Cleveland Etc and be happy and meet folks I love once again.

I will write and draw and read a lot. This is a very, very good thing.

Time to move on.

And also, some of you may like this thing I found:
[link]

Emotionally: I really dislike, maybe even hate a guy named Alex Thompson. (There are a million people of that name out there, so it is useless to say I am libeling him etc.)

Yeh, he may not have "meant" to do this or that, but they happened, and whether or not he was fully cognizant of everything, it's his (coincidental? Pssh!) fault.

I won't hate him forever. It'll take a few years to get over it all, though.


Who's to take the blame for bad things that happen? They only happen because of a combination of many people's small actions that lead up to a whole big awful thing. So blame just one person for it all?

Not logically, not in the halls of justice, but emotionally, see who handled it the worst, see who caused the majority of it, and blame them, yes. That's also why I say it's not permanent.


And I am not going to take his advice, because look at where it got him. Also because I have different desires than him- success is definitely a strong desire in me. Or maybe I am wiser.

He thinks he can win against The System that he knows is evil, to simplify it (he wouldn't call it 'evil' of course, far too solid and simple a word.)
I know that The System is evil, too, but I am not an idiot enough to think that things like college education REALLY don't matter. Or that things like family ties, or the expectations that all cards will be on the table when romantic behavior starts happening, are ignorable.

He is smarmy. He thinks he can talk his way out of everything, he thinks that the connections he gathers by living in this fantasy world of high-faluting magical beatnik hippie Subgenius Shag conferences is important, and makes up for any times he does something wrong against someone else.

He is humble at the same time as being cocky (as me) and he is a navel-gazer, too, he honestly wants the right things to happen to people, most of the time, but fuck it if his clumsy feet didn't knock some awfully beautiful, fragile vases over. And I will dislike him for it for a long time.

He is human and flawed. And I am human and flawed too, and allowed to be angry, and allowed to recch in my throat when, as often happens, something cool reminds me of the melodrama that we once shared.

He doesn't want to hear this, he can't hear this as I say this, he did some very wrong things. Don't fit into his personal view as a man who can walk on the ground without leaving footprints, as someone only capable of psychedelic, omnifractal love. But fuck it he fucked up and I am allowed to be mad and I am.

I have been simmering and not letting myself be angry but visiting my dad's house again this weekend reminded me. I have to let this out. I am containing my anger by not doing things like hitting him when we are in the same room or spreading rumors or something dumbass and vindictive like that. But I have to admit to the world that this is how I feel. Call it a blogger's instinct, if you want to, but I have to let it out.