#now i don't know where to share it uncensored as I don't have twitter (which is run by an even bigger idiot)

[lightsofatlantis]

✨Staci gets special training✨

[r8kirani]

qamar's comic recs: an unsorted list of a few comics I've read this year that I'd like to share my thoughts on (midlate 2023)

Insomniacs after School

A slice-of-life manga that centers around two highschoolers with insomnia, Ganta and Magari, and their relationships with each other, the people around them, and the way they navigate through life. In order to preserve the shared space they take naps in during school hours, they refound the astronomy club.

Slice-of-lifes aren't usually my first go-to, but this caught my eye purely through being related to space. While it isn't that focused on the actual science of stars and such my autistic ass would love, they still center plenty on the art of astrophotography. The way the story balances this and the interpersonal drama of the characters is absolutely great, and what I found in this series was a genuinely very smartly written and heartfelt story. I can't understate how easily loveable Ganta and Magari are, and how invested in them I have gotten. The manga is finished now, so if you're looking for a binge, here ya go!

The Sculptor

Scott McCloud may or may not be a name that stands out to you. As the creator of a trilogy of books that center all around the art of comics (the likes of which I also highly recommend lol), I'd hope that an actual story by him would cement the idea that the man absolutely knew what he was talking about, and boy was I blown away.

The Sculptor is about a man who makes a deal with Death, gaining the power to sculpt anything he desires by the whims of his bare hands, in exchange that he dies in 200 days. It is a love story, in more ways than just one. I sort of hate to give anything more about it away no matter how much I'd like to sell you on it, so if this premise interests you in any way, please give it a try.

The Eltingville Club

Do you want to read a comic about some guys who just really fucking suck? If you're on Twitter you might've seen these guys flying around from a clip of the pilot that was pitched to Adult Swim (but never picked up). That's certainly where I discovered them from.

The Eltingville Club is a scathing examination and satire of the real nasty side of fandom culture, and while is concerned with an older era, still connects very well with the culture of today. It honestly kind of gutpunched me in a way that I never expected, having figured that such a topic wouldn't be something I'd find myself very emotionally responsive to, but it found a way.

This comic really isn't for everybody. Being about the topic that it's about, there is a lot of uncensored bigotry (misogyny and fatphobia being big ones) and generally vile behaviour on display. It's also just sometimes disgusting. People throw up and jack off in it. I also don't think it's that perfect in of itself and has its >_> moments. If that doesn't shy you away from it, then by all means, try it out and see what you think.

Ducks

If you've seen that one Edgar Allen Poe reaction pic, or the strip it's from, you are already familiar with Kate Beaton. Ducks is an autobiographical comic by her, recounting the part of her life spent working in the oil sands of Alberta in order to pay off school fees.

It is an extremely harrowing and uncomfortable read, marked by the desolating effects of the oil sands on Kate, the people around her, as well as the larger world. It delves deep into the misogyny and sexual violence she'd encountered in such an isolating setting, as well as the bombardment of complicated feelings and thoughts she'd come to have from these experiences, from the destructive oil sands themselves. It is not light. It does not resolve itself on an uplifting note. I don't know if I'll ever read it again, but I feel like it was worth it to have read it at least the one time.

Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise

Whether you love, hate, or have no opinions on Marvel, it doesn't matter. This is a damn good comic. And you don't need to know anything about Dr. Strange to read it; I don't! I don't even like the guy!

This 4-issue series works as a completely stand-alone story with its own world-lore and characters. It is a colourful and psychedelic feast for the eyes, and is drop-dead gorgeous. The story matches this too, toying with concepts like identity, physicality, and more. In combination, this makes for an extremely experimental and mind-churning fuckery of the comics medium.

It's not the most easily followable narrative in the world, but that's not necessarily a negative to me. Even if you're not all that into thinking hard about its existential poetry like I am, it still works as a great read when tuning your mind out to its ebb and flow.

Krazy Kat

Not exactly something that's wholly contained in a compressed comic series but I thought I'd include it nonetheless. Krazy Kat is a comic strip from the 1920s that centers around the eponymous Kat and the love of his life, Ignatz the mouse, as they both live out their lives in a fictional rendition of Coconino County, Arizona. Ignatz likes throwing bricks at her head. Kat thinks of them as love letters. Maybe you'd think this to be a bit unconventional, but I think it's very sweet and funny.

Something that you might find notable about it is that it's about a relationship that is seemingly homosexual/LGBT in nature. When asked about Kat's gender, Herriman remarked that he was something of a sprite, a spirit that's free to butt into anything, neither male not female, paralleling Herriman's own feelings about being a biracial man.

The strip itself is really lovely, with panels that are very pleasant to look at and that are laid out in very interesting ways. The flow of action and linework is very beautiful and lends to the humour very well. You can read Krazy Kat on the web through archival efforts, or through book collections.

Until I Love Myself: The Journey of a Nonbinary Manga Artist

It's a travesty I haven't really read more memories from nonbinary people, so I think this was a great gateway into that. Until I Love Myself is about what it says on the tin, Pesuyama's journey of unravelling their internal strife with gender at different stages of their life, and the complications that misogyny and sexualization, and their combined trauma, brings to that. It's somewhat of a metacomic, being concerned with the comic's own creation itself and the discussions Pesuyama has with their editor, and thoughts on what to include within it.

I think I'm both relieved and saddened to know how intimately someone who lives several hundred kilometers away from me could feel the same ways that I've felt throughout my life. It really helped me feel more at peace with myself, even when upsetting. Being a person who is alive is very messy and full of regrets and mistakes, and Pesuyama is very familiar with that. It deals with some really heavy things at certain points, such as pedophilia, so I would highly recommend steeling yourself before going into it.

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Ok that's my list thank you so much for reading and if you'd ever like to talk to me about what you thought of these comics or comics in general or if you'd like a recommendation specific to you you can always shoot me an ask or DM me bye bye

[runawaybouqet]

// vent || grooming mention || s/h mention || MAJOR nsfw mention || other generally bad stuff.

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sorry for posting this on my main but like, i feel like i need to address this.

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recently i broke off a friendship with a really good "friend" of mine. i've talked about them on my main before and if you're on wii deleted you twitter you might be familiar with them or have at least seen them around/heard of them.

they basically crossed a lot of my boundaries by showing me [and others] nsfw uncensored [that i felt kinda forced into], posting s/h uncensored in my discord server [not even in a vent chat, but a PUBLIC CHANNEL, that EVERYONE could see.] fetishizing the concept of psychopathy/other mental illnesses and trauma, normalizing s--cidal thoughts and to an extent, romanticizing it and overall just a lot of manipulation, victimizing, attention-seeking and begging.

they also straight up broke my trust in them by lying about their mental state which pissed me off a ton. bc they knew i was mentally unwell and i get worried SICK about people. i really like being in friendships where both parties can be honest with each other. and they basically just kept telling me everything was fine. then they join my discord server and trauma dump and i was. so fucking upset, and sad and everything. bc i trusted them. and they broke that trust. and it made me think about if they were possibly lying to me about anything else too, which, turns out, they were.

last year i had feelings for them and in early december we were in a platonic relationship that we broke off a week later [that was completely my fault. i dont hold them accountable for that. for context, they were 2-4 years older than me, and they were,,,, 16.]

and now i'm starting to realize that they probably borderline groomed me. they always wanted my attention and constantly begged for me to send them nsfw that i didnt feel comfortable with sharing with them. they were really demanding with me and if i didn't do what they wanted, they'd start manipulating me and victimizing themselves and at some point said "if you don't send me nsfw, i will make your life a living hell". and they constantly forced me to draw for them. sometimes even making threats if i didn't finish something on time.

it's also entirely possible that they did this with other people. a lot of their audience is MUCH younger than them. they're 16 and the average age in their follower base is 13-15. as far as i know some of their youngest active followers are between 10-13 years old. they'd post nsfw and retweet nsfw for all of them to see and it was disgusting. it was one of the first reasons i started disconnecting with them. bc i was so tired of seeing straight up mii porn in my timeline every goddamn second.

overall they weren't good for me. and i'm still trying to recover from the whole ordeal last night. i didn't hit me hard until earlier this morning.

i'm not going to name them or anyone else involved publicly. but i will give a vague thank you to the people who helped me through realizing they were a bad person.