Banal Hemorrhage

Are awful families a thing of modern times? I know the answer is no before I asked. History is full of families who for instance, revered Mussolini, Hitler or Hugo Chavez! That one family that fostered rats during the Black Plague. The Trumps. I’m sure there were families who idolized Genghis Khan as his forces tore through everything around them. Humans have the free will to love the worst things for them and their neighbors, and they exercise that free will often. So, I present to you some nice gift ideas, some stocking stuffers and such for that family in your neighborhood. That way, you can feel like a good person while bringing a little misery to miserable people. Because, at the end of the day, it’s the season to show people what you think of them.* * On behalf of Banal Hemorrhage and its subsidiaries, don’t do any of this. We are not responsible for any of this. It’s just a bit of fun. Just ignore the bad people.  

Dear readers, this is not a joke. For at least a decade, I enjoyed the fruits of my immigration status. Every awkward, weird, strange, outlandish and cringeworthy thing I did was blamed by yours truly on the fact that I was from another country.  'In my home country we used salt instead of sugar,' I'd say after messing up a recipe. 'In my home country it's normal to be barefoot outside.' 'In my home country, it's customary to get blackout drunk on Mondays.' ' In my country we say grace AFTER eating the turkey. ' Do I feel bad about it? In my home country we don't feel bad about things. But, honestly, it was great. After a lifetime of being weird and an outcast in my own country, I got to flip the script a bit and make it exotic in a new one. It didn't last long. People caught on at around year 3. And then, in year 7 I became a citizen of the United States of America. I entered a period of diminishing results. And now, I'm back to ...

  Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a Trumpian? To start your support simply because you are a closeted xenophobe, but then being carried through a river of cruelty, white supremacy and ignorance? All of a sudden, you are following Marjorie Taylor Greene, you think Big Bird is a Marxist and you prepare a borax bath just in case you are forcefully vaccinated by the man. I mean, if their support wasn’t absolutely destructive to the immigrant community, you’d almost feel sorry for them. Sadly, if you take the xenophobia away, what IS the credo of a Trumpian? They don’t believe in small government, they want a government that focuses on women’s uteri, makes education nationalistic, and has a say on election results. True conservatives scoff at their degradation of the flag and their deification of petty men over country. Nope, their minds are networked through the simple concept of fear. I am yet to be convinced otherwise, but if you have a pro-Trump argument that is not n...

This comic started when I saw the reviews to a fancy tapas restaurant in Miami. They were what you would expect. "This item had the most pleasant flavor I've put inside my mouth since I was a child in Kentucky trying chicken fried chicken for the first time, but the portion size was so small! 1/5 stars." People sometimes conflate value with money and size, and it's clear that in the United States, that is absolutely true for dining out. Buffet culture is crazy up in here. It's like a competition! And of course, I as a traveler have tried to adopt the culture of the place I'm in. But honestly, I've never been to a buffet I didn't regret.  Portion sizes in the US will have to change. The downsides are too much: Obesity, supply chain constraints and a constant glorification of the big and cheap. How do we make this change? Do we make McDonalds 1/4 pounder (the gold standard in food prices) a 1/5 pounder? Do we make it more expensive? I don't trust hum...

I’ve written and talked about impostor syndrome at length. Here is one early sample , and another . I’m still plagued by these feelings every once in a while, that I’m just acting like I know things instead of actually knowing things. I’ve heard a few of my coworkers express that feeling as well. I think in part it is because I work in healthcare, but I’m not in the front lines. The front line is where the magic happens (you can’t fake setting up an IV), we are all there just for support, and it is often hard to find the value we provide from the sidelines. All I can do some days is cheer like a paraplegic behind the marathon finish line. And then, there are those that should be feeling a bit like impostors but have no sign of self awareness. Do they wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night and wonder… perhaps I should come clean to my West Virginia constituents and tell them that I’m actually a Republican in disguise? But seriously, the syndrome is real and it is very common...

This comic is made all the better when you learn that HP Lovecraft, the father of the Cthulhu mythos, was a raving racist. Here's a blog from an author awakening to this reality . And here's a quiz to determine if an excerpt was written by him or Hitler. So, making a woke Cthulhu is very cathartic to me!

One time, after a long presentation I gave at work, a coworker took me aside and told me that she loved how simple my mind was. One ex-girlfriend once told me that I was a great boyfriend because finally she wasn't punching up in the looks department. Last weekend someone congratulated me for wearing a mask at a concert, even though they were "useless". Keeping in mind the infrequent compliments I get, it is quite striking the high proportion of them that are poorly disguised insults.  How about you, dear reader, do you have any notable examples of this? Sound off in the comments, lest I am left with the feeling that I'm the only human subjected to this tribute torture.

When I thought of this comic, I thought this song was created and performed by a Michael Bolton type. In a petty predictable turn of events, the original creator and composer was an African American.  And his version is perfect from the get go. 

When I was doing research on lizard-men, this picture of a human performance artist always came up. He lives in Austin. In one of those late night deep dives I went to his webpage and discovered two things. One, he’s a Philosophy graduate. Two, if I would’ve had to guess what his major was, I would have guessed Philosophy.  Thelizardman.com At one point in my life, I would have scoffed at this guy. ‘What a waste of a life’ I would’ve said, while sitting in my recliner watching superhero movies and being super basic. As I’ve grown, him and others like him are what makes life interesting. You think you’ve met all possible combinations of bipedal, primate prancers, and then this guy slinks by; making you change the size and shape of all your conceptual containers.  It’s a wonderful life if you’re willing to let it be.  He seems like a cool guy but I decided to go with a less earthly version. A combination of aliens and dinosaurs was my final design note, hastily written on ...

One of these languishing months I set myself down in bed fully awake. Anxious and worried about everything, my mind was in quick despair.  Doomscrolling was part of this process. In between these hazardous thoughts, the idea for this comic series was sprung.  So, enjoy the fruits of my warped brain, and let me know in the comments if you like this! I have character arcs and many episodes lined up already from that one feverish night.  

I'm not what most humans between the age of 18-75 would call "handy." Sure, I've fixed my dishwasher and my laundry washer a few times; but only because I really, really need those things to work. And I muttered ‘righty, tighty lefty, loosy’ the whole time. And there's always extra pieces when I'm done, which I contribute to the special drawer we all have but don't talk about. I have severe drill anxiety (Freud just raised a very judgmental spectral eyebrow). I mean, if you somehow screw up the location of your drilling, those holes aren't going to un-drill themselves are they? And what do you fill those holes with if you mess it up? Elmer's glue? Coconut Oil? Nobody taught me these things. My dad taught me how to program in Basic and my Mom taught me unconditional love. None of those things prepared me for this whole growing up scam.  I do have to give it up for YouTube though. I'd have negative handiness if it weren't for those how-to vid...

I know. Another comic about our stupid dogs. Well it’s been a little bit over a year since we’ve gotten them so let me obsess about them before we return them to the pound. Just kidding, no pound will ever take these bastards. Conan, the male chihuahua depicted here, is an absolute dick to me. He pees on my shoes, he ignores me if Roxanne is around, bites me if I touch Roxanne in front of him and overall acts like a tiny Danny Trejo bodyguarding his favorite female.  And yet, here I am. On my vacation in Hawaii, drawing him and missing him like hell. Like most con artists, he knows how far he can push me and what to do to get me back. In his case, all he has to do is roll over in his back and look like this. He’s an absolute genius.  (Credit for the Barkbarian pun goes to John, thanks man!) Extra Panel: His sister is my little girl though. Love her to pieces, too. 

Our dogs ain’t right. We love them, they have managed to enrich our lives in new wonderful ways and we would take *tiny* bullets for them. However…  If there’s peace to be disrupted, they’ll be there. They start their walks with excited barking, which grow into curious barking and evolve into a zen-like frolicky barking. They bark at other dogs, pedestrians, bicycles, squirrels, things that look like squirrels, and their own barks.  They posture and tense their leashes with murder in their eyes. We found out that if we unleash them, their bravado goes from 11 to 1. So at least we now know they’re only acting as annoying, aggressive assholes. “Just an act” we tell our neighbors, which doesn’t seem to help any. I know we are those people now. I’ve never been those people before.  The only thing they do better than publicly shaming us is their snuggling. These are world class snugglers. Like thousands-of-years-of-developing-physical-bonds-as-a-survival-instinct world class...

When I lived in Venezuela, we used to say that United States citizens “Lived to Work instead of Working to Live.” After almost 20 years here in the USA, that stereotype rings true; specially for boomers. Labor is Jesus for so many of the people in this country. It seems that no matter if your job is actually saving people in the emergency room  or selling subscriptions for the National Enquirer, people in the United States give their all to their job. They spend their earnings on pools they don’t have time to swim in and call it good with a one week curated vacation a year. It’s always resorts and cruises with these folks, a formulaic approach to life. Hard work plus cruise = live, laugh, love. For the last few months I’ve been running a COVID vaccine clinic. 11 hours a day 5 days a week, with the occasional weekend. This is the main reason why I haven’t been able to draw and write. It’s the most I’ve ever worked in my life for such as sustained time. It’s easy, though, when you be...

Greetings, readers! It is 2021. We have evicted the worst tenant of the White House, we are vaccinating millions of people a week and everything is getting better! Except me. I’m still a lousy husband.  I’ve been a bit worse, since I’ve been working on a vaccination clinic in my town. It’s the hardest, most stressful task I’ve ever done. And I can’t have enough of it. Unlike many of my previous roles, what I am accomplishing is immediately observable: Shots in Arms. It’s way better than my typical reward of “someone may eventually use this knowledge to on occasion do something potentially useful.”  This makes me understand doctors and nurses a bit more. It’s hard to not be a workaholic when what you do is help people stay healthy. It also makes me understand burnout more. I’ve worked 3 weeks with two and a half days off. And I’m itching to go back tomorrow. This is unsustainable, and it will change soon, but I can see why it’s hard to stop. As for my marriage, it will be fine....

Bathrooms are the Water Temple of social anxiety. That’s a Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (1998) reference and trust me it’s very, very funny. On point though, public bathrooms, locker rooms, and other  loci of excreta have always been challenging locations when my social anxiety is at its highest. I don’t want to learn about others in these quarters, I feel no need to reach out to anything but my self. One time, as a new employee, I went to the bathroom adjacent to where I was being onboarded. The CEO came bounding in, loudly announcing himself and patting other urinators on the back. He then proceeded to let go of his liquid waste hands-free while holding a power pose and whistling. It dawned on me that that’s probably why he was the CEO. He had conquered the bathroom. Surely the people who hired him could tell this is a person who can pee while loudly talking about the weather! “He’s going places”, they must've said to themselves!  Extra panel:  Listen, I know it...

I have often been scolded for recycling sweet nothings on others. And yet, I have the slimmest of hopes that I’m not alone here. A hope that maybe there’s other male idiots (even female idiots!) out there who make this vapid generalization error. And we can laugh together. Otherwise this comic will simply hammer down the fact that I’m a subhuman absent-minded foolboy. Of course there is only one true love in my life! But there’s so many cute things things around me that it’s hard to reserve terms. All I can say is that my wife is the only cute Roxanne that I have in my periphery, so I’ll never use her sweet nothings on another Roxanne! This I can almost swear. Rox: I love you mi bebecita linda! Extra Panel: So, the elephant in the room is a PS5 (get it? because it’s large). The reason I haven’t been drawing as frequently as before is not anxiety. It’s not increased booze intake. Sure, both of those things are around, but the main culprit is that I am loving my time with my PS5. I playe...