▲ You Have the Freedom to Change ▲
A year ago this month, I was lying on my back on an apartment floor in freezing-cold Philadelphia. I had just strained a muscle trying to carry a sofa up a flight of stairs and it hurt too much do anything but lie prone on the carpet. I held my arms up straight, bringing my phone screen over my face and clicking one button over and over: Reload, reload, reload. I was looking at the satellite map of the Thomas Fire. Across the country, in California, a ring of digital flames encircled my hometown, moving closer with every click. The flame icons spread down the mountainside, then perched at the end of my parents’ street. Was everything gone? Had it all burned down? My throat was tight and tears rolled down my cheeks, forming small wet spots on the carpet underneath my head.
I remember Ben asking, “Is there anything I can do to help?” and me just saying, “No, no, there’s nothing we can do at all.” Then I’d hit reload again, desperate to see the flames disappear. I felt a million miles away from everything I cared about most.
Luckily, my parent’s house didn’t burn down. And a year later, Ben and I went hiking through the hills that the fire had charred black. The trail was hard to follow because the wayfinding signs are now charcoal. The path is lined with black, leafless trees and the dirt is chalky with ash. But bright against the dark landscape, there were tendrils of emerald green. Verdant new vines wound up the tree trunks. Grass, herbs, and flowers blanketed the ground left empty by fire. Poking out of the ash were scrawny baby oak trees, growing up from the roots the burned trees kept safe under the soil.
It’s nice to be out there on a trail where the trees are older than me, where the rocks are older than humans. They’ve evolved to withstand fire—they’re stronger because of change.
This Week’s Comic
Stuff I Made
Oh man, I’ve edited so many excellent comics that have come out in the last month. Editing is often invisible work. Editors come up with ideas, find the artists and writers to make the ideas real, coach the writers through the process, and get their work published… but then the editor’s name isn’t on the piece at the end. That’s just the way it is. As an editor, you have to be extremely not-precious about the work. It’s not yours, it’s a collaboration. I feel honored to be able to help people publish stories that are important to them. Here are four comics I edited this month, all of which I think came out great:
Real Stories from Life Inside the Migrant Caravan by Gerardo Alba and Alice Driver (seen above)
Harriet Tubman’s Daring Civil War Raid by Tristan J. Tarwater and Chelsea Saunders
Why Is Public Transit Infrastructure Crumbling? by Josh Kramer and Dan Nott
The Taste of Home: Four Cartoonists on Family Recipes and Memory by The Response
I also wrote one comic for The Nib’s print issue, based on interviews with four people:
The First Time I Saw a Dead Body
Stuff I Love
Morbid Children - The kids on my street painted several rocks with inspirational phrases… including the one above.
Green Box Shop - For 2019, I’m slowly replacing my entire wardrobe with shirts that say aggressively political things.
Muji Office Supplies - The week between Christmas and New Years is all about organizing my office supplies and scheming creative plans for the next year. I love the potential held within accordion file folders and fresh notebooks.
Mokuyobi Iron-On Patches - Made in LA, these patches are all cuuuuuute.
Carrying a Headlamp at All Times - I used to make fun of my dad for sitting on the couch reading at night while wearing a headlamp. As karmic punishment, I have come to believe that headlamps are super useful and never travel without one. Mostly, I carry them when walking or biking on dark streets so no one runs me over.
Public Displays of Mental Health - These amazing Los Angeles bus stops and billboards designed by one of my favorite artists, Ashley Lukashensky, are part of a festival centered around youth mental health.
Someone to Know: Miami Book Fair Edition
On a November night, I yanked off my shirt and shorts and plunged into the icy-cold pool. When I surfaced a moment later, yelping, I pulled myself out and scampered over to the hot tub. A steaming-hot waterfall cascaded into the pool and, above us, the silver moon rose over the Miami skyline, its reflecting flickering on the bay.
“Guys,” said Ryan, looking around in astonishment. “Can you believe comics got us here?” Drawing and writing comics had snagged Ryan, me, and six other cartoonists invitations to speak at the Miami Book Fair. Cartoonists are used to being dirtbags. We draw and painstakingly print books that we sell for $5. At conventions, “taking a lunch break” means crawling underneath your table to eat a burrito. We’re the weirdos who keep drawing and keep publishing even though it never seems to make any money. We’re used to the conversation where people ask, “Is that a real job?” But being invited to the Miami Book Fair made it very real. Nothing says “successful” like sitting in your underwear in a hot tub, surrounded by a gaggle of new friends, everyone drinking complimentary cocktails. All because we’d drawn comics.
I loved the cartoonist crew I met at the Miami Book Fair, so I’m sharing the work of everyone I met there for the first time:
Ryan Maniulit - Ryan is a hilarious queer dude who lives in Seattle and draws sexy, sexy comics, mostly about hunky men in compromising situations.
Maggie Thrash - Maggie is a whirlwind of big feelings and good times. She wrote the memoir Honor Girl, about queerness and summer camp, and is the only person in the world who makes living in Delaware seem cool.
Jess Fink - I’ve read Jess’s work for years, so it was a big deal to meet her IRL. She draws funny sci-fi takes on sexuality and relationships, along with many other things. I loved her book We Can Fix it.
Erin Nations - Somehow there's a Portland cartoonist I had never met?! Erin Nations' new memoir Gumballs talks about coming out as transgender, growing up as a triplet, and dealing with loneliness.
Eddie Monotone - All the way from New Zealand, Eddie is someone I’d describe as a stand-up guy. He just seems like the person you’d want at your side during the apocalypse, like he could keep a cool enough head to talk through the ethics of cannibalism. Also he draws pornographic comics.
Geoff Moore - Geoff seems to be a nerd about… everything. He knows about bikes, cars, history, Star Wars canon - everything! He wrote the historical revisionist comic Son of Hitler.
Something to Do
Write a List of Books You Read This Year. Help support authors you love by writing up your own 2018 best-of list. Old books or new, it doesn’t matter! I always want to know what my friends are reading - share what you like and help boost the profile of authors who don’t make the New York Times bestseller list. One of my favorite reads this year was Exit West, above.
I’ll write a year end wrap-up next week! In the meantime, keep in touch on Instagram and Twitter, okay? If this is your first time seeing this newsletter, you can subscribe here.