Banal Hemorrhage

Perhaps this will surprise you, gentle readers, but the creator of this sophomoric webcomic is not particularly adept at domestic duties. It is with that in mind that I share with you my laundry process, so others may learn from it. It is not a practical method, but it does end up with clean laundry at the end. In the frames you can find Khaleesi, the brown, young cat. She is cute, dynamic, and the devil's armpit sometimes. She is the one that eats all my cables. I don't want to hear what you've tried... I tried vinegar water, lemon water and other internet-provided ideas. The only thing that works is reverting to an amish lifestyle with no cables. We are fine now, and getting good with the churning of the butter and stuff. The white haired cat is Eris, and she is wonderful, adorable and hairy AF. She definitely was abused as a child, because she is ambivalent about being petted. She likes it, but she hates it and moves away from you at the same time. Twinkle ...

Dear readers, my wife and I don't watch sports. We have similar political views. We even prefer the same Mystery Science Theater 3000 host. This is big. This is the biggest rift we've had in anything and I love it. My wife is not crazy, she is not maladjusted, she is not pro-incest. My dear readers, she is pro Cersei because she is pro woman. I know there are other women on this show, but my wife partly loves the idea of this powerful, rich woman being in power in this depressing world of Westeros at the end of this season. Here are her thoughts on the matter: So, why after 8 years, as everyone’s beloved show comes to a close, do I find myself feeling that an apt ending for GoT could be with Cersei remaining firmly seated upon the Iron Throne? For one thing, it would just be good, unexpected story telling. I can hear twitter crashing with the sheer outrage of it. She has been there (on the throne) an awfully long time now in the life of the series. She’s arise...

Sometimes the wife and I are so disconnected with the world of scheduled holidays that we forget some important things. Since we don't have kids, Spring Break means nothing to us. Since we don't believe in zombies with great abs, we don't celebrate Easter. However, we did celebrate, unknowingly, by eating a lot of sugar and overindulging as always. Perhaps I don't care about religion, but I do care about you all, so I hope you had a good Easter! Or if not your cup of tea, I hope you had a great anniversary of Apollo 16 landing on the moon! Or whatever floats your fancy on April 21st.

 A few years ago, I was in an improvement kick. I wanted to become a leader at work and be fit as a fiddle and aggressively meditate and all kinds of things. At one point I bit off more than I could chew and decided to slow down due to the anxiety it was generating. Improvement is great, but you have to make sure you are heading towards the things you want, not what society wants of you. Some of the things I was pursuing were not me. I find that what motivates me the most is looking into the rear-view mirror. It's not imagining a future that I don't know I will like. It's seeing how much you've changed in your journey. It's trends and bumps, not goal lines. The cool thing about this hobby is that I can see the absolute entirety of my progress. And I love all of my pieces (even if the world doesn't). For some reason I have no feelings of regret or shame when looking back; like some artists have expressed. I think these pieces are all an accurate representat...

Again, my two systems fighting against each other.  It is extremely fun to say yes to everything! And yet, it is the cause of many breakdowns and anxious moments in my life. Saying no is very powerful and it may be the most honest thing you can say sometimes. I've always respected people who know their limits and walk away from the cliff. My only advice is to listen to that voice that knows all the things you are working on. That voice is wise and can put things in perspective. I'm pretty sure in your deathbed you won't remember all the things you said yes to, but I'm sure you'll remember all the times you bit off more than you could chew!

This is a true story. Some events may have been exaggerated for comedic purposes (maybe). I have always loved Children's Museums. We had an incredible one in Caracas, Venezuela . We didn't deserve how awesome it was. The architecture , the artistic design, everything was above and beyond children's museums that existed and have existed since. I went there well into my teens and early twenties. The art director was Jorge Blanco , who made a popular comic strip at the time . He often broke the 4th "panel" and he influenced me a lot (even if it took 40 years to make it's way to my fingers). Those characters in the walls were burned into my memory. It is probably in incredible disrepair and I purposefully have not looked into it's current state. Like many things from my childhood it is probably better left in my hippocampus. It is with those memories that I asked Roxanne if we could stop by the Children's Museum in Chicago. It w...

In my lifetime I have been told that I look exactly like some people that I would consider to be not perfect replicas of me. Maybe I have a better self esteem than I project, but I feel like I don’t look like “ The Critic ”; as was earnestly expressed by a girl on a (first and only) date. Other twinsies I’ve been professed to have: Steven Wright Tony Hale Stephen Miller (Aaaaargh) Dr. Katz I don’t know. Maybe I’m vain, but I always pictured me as more of a Luke-Perry-with-a-really-bad-hair-day type. It’s funny how I have a pretty sturdy love and acceptance of my own physique, and yet my self esteem about other things (like being a functional adult in this crazy world) is pretty dismal.

As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, millennials get blamed for everything these days. Has it happened like this before? When we were young everyone blamed the older folks, but for some reason now everything is the younger folk’s fault. Personally I agree with the murder of many of these things. I’ve never understood the fascination with golf or college football. I don’t understand how they are still a thing, and a huge thing at that! Unless they change the rules to allow robots or mutants, I don’t see myself getting into them. Napkins are just useless in a world that contains paper towels. Debate me on this. I sincerely don’t understand why we must have both, so I’m OK with their demise. Diamonds are forever stupid. When did we decide that they were symbols of love and wealth? They have felt unnecessary and gaudy to me all my life. What an unnecessary reason to pillage the earth and the workers who unearth them. Chain restaurants and malls had their time in the sun....

#1 and #2 are based (loosely) on Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". In it he describes (in a purely heuristic way) two ways our brains work. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and frequently wrong. System 2 is slower, more deliberate and logical. A good way to think about it is this: When you think of 2+2=4, you are using System 1. You already learned the concept and the operation to derive 2+2=4 years ago, by now it is automatic. When tasked with 56x33=X, you have to engage System 2. In my real job, I have to teach people how to use System 2, because System 1 is often wrong when making assumptions, summaries or reflections. However, in my personal life I fall to the siren song of System 1 constantly. I like to see, hear and feel things all the time, which makes it hard to concentrate or remember things. The homunculi in my head are taking their shapes! And yes, I am terrible at names and this at least makes me feel like I have an excuse. Chart by...

I don't know if you, dear readers, do this. I do, and it's a terrible habit. I do it with book series, movie shows and video games. I wonder if it is part of a bigger tendency, of people waiting until best possible moment that never arrives. How many bottles of perfectly aged wine remain unopened at the end of one's life? Some of my unfinished projects as of this writing: Red Dead Redemption 2 Mad Men Malazan Books Dragon Quest XI Firefly (I have one episode left, it hurts too much) Community It hurts even to write these. I will update this list if I get to them! My fatal disease of Scrotal Malware was chosen by our friend Hayley. Thanks for giving me an agonizing death! 

This one is about the bad decisions we make during conversations. I wish the paths were as clearly labelled, but honestly by now they should seem more obvious to me! The words “I’m Sorry” mean nothing without what comes next. Choose wisely! The more I draw homunculi in my head the more options I see for describing the flaws we all make in reasoning. This is a good avenue for me to join my Psychology background with my absent-minded moron background with my new faux-artistic background. These ideas have been germinating in me since the beggining. My 11th comic introduced little people in my head.  Dear reader, if you made it this far into the verbiage of this post please help me with this: What is a good name for a made up fatal disease that would afflict an older version of an absent-minded moron? It’s for my next comic. Let’s make it interactive.

Bonus Last Panel: I have been interested in representing my (deeply flawed) internal processes as homunculi for quite a bit. It has shown in my previous work. I will keep developing these ideas, but I kind of like these current, ethereal versions. Lastly, am I reading a book about learning to write comics as an idiot creator or am I learning how to write comics for idiot readers? Only time will tell, my dear readers.

Based on a conversation about titmouse birds. But the birds are real! Learn about them here: Masked Booby Siamese Fireback Cock of the rock Letting your imagination run wild is not as wonderful as you might want. I spent all week imagining what a cock-on-the-rock would look like. This, my dear readers, is the more sanitized version.

One of my favorite things about my life is that I found someone with whom I can unmask with. I've always had a hard time with wearing masks, but we must when we chance upon adulthood. We all would rather be home cuddling, or playing video games or playing with your pets than the myriad activities we must endure as an adult. It feels good to have someone who knows your every inch. Even better when that someone doesn't run away when they get to know all of you. Love you all, have a great weekend!

Note: Trying out a minimalist art style for quick ones. This is an exaggeration of true events. Although HIPAA  does protect your personal information in many ways, the logistics of Healthcare make it nigh impossible to completely be private. When I got my vasectomy, we had to drop some semen samples afterwards to make double sure we got snipped correctly. Well you have to go from ,erm, production of the sample to testing within 30 minutes. I live 10 minutes away from work, thankfully. I can't imagine how people who live further away do it? Well I can, but I don't want to. When I got to the line for the lab, the nurse was like... any semen samples??? And 4 of us had to be like... yes. 2 of them I recognized from work. So it is what is. I don't care that much, but complying with it is a logistical problem more often than not.

Because you know there's probably already talks about doing a reality TV show with these two. Is it me or is everything that happens in the present state of United States politics making us dumber? It feels like we are constantly redefining rock bottom. We know that the religious right is a hypocritical bunch, gung-ho about abortion but silent about asylum and immigration. What I thought was the  dumbest thing about the United States, the guns, is like #12  since 2016. It has been extremely weird, but at the very least it has made people more active politically, which can only mean good things.

This one has 100% less anuses references! I did this one mostly to appease my mother, who was horrified by the previous one! I chose cats. That means no leather furniture. I’ve known some people who got rid of cats because of their ruined furniture. To me these are the lowest of the low. I don’t have kids because I would be a terrible parent. But I know I can and will take care of cats very well until they die, even if they die through peeing on everything I own. It’s for life, yo!

Some of my comics are well thought of and have a clever or emotional subtext. This one is also a comic.

This has happened to me countless times. Even Goodwill and Salvation Army have been like “ya got any new colors my man?” Moving in with Roxanne and my new limited space for clothing hopefully helps.

Dear Diary, today I screwed up. I wanted to surprise my patient wife with a home cooked meal. This comic is a reenactment for artistic purposes. In reality what happened was that I used an old Blue Apron recipe card and I failed to remember that the squash came pre-cut. My wife actually came to the kitchen and when she saw the squash in the pan could not contain her laughter. I did receive a pat in the head for trying. 

This weekend my brethren were literally in the dark. It’s hard being here and speaking for the ones that are left behind, but this is what it feels when people tell me Venezuela should fend for itself. Inspired by a talk with my friend Raquel. English Version:

Goka gotha n'ghft. Nog ron Cthulhunyth Throd mnahn uh'e llll vulgtm. The Masked Singer meets HPL .

I know I’m a broken, pleasure seeking being. And I made my peace with that. Speaking of pieces, I love the me-themed meeple!

They get blamed for everything these days. This article from the Atlantic discusses the lack of sex thing. Some other things the Millennials are said to be murdering with their fair judgement and lack of disposable cash.

Since writing this comic I saw a documentary about flat earthers. It was mildly sympathetic to the flat earthers so I feel kind of bad about this one. I still believe that the main problem is that they have too much certainty compared to the assumptions they are making. Intelligent people will always doubt themselves and unintelligent people will always be full of certainty. It’s the way it has always been. You have to wait until a certain percentage of the population is ready to receive your knowledge and them spray it all over their faces. But then, even when something has been established, you may get flat earthers and anti-vac people. We just have too many of us in the planet. I wonder what the red hat is all about?

I bet I'm not the only cat household who has had this dream. This is inspired by Khaleesi, of whom I made one of my first comics.

I make no apologies for the sock on sock action.

Alternate, Lynchian ending:

The game is Red Dead Redemption 2. It's the funnest game I'll never finish. Update: Still haven't finished it (2/21/19) Update: Finished it! (12/1/2020)

Roxanne did the lettering!

This experience makes me think twice about giving my opinions about countries I have no part of. Sorry Britain, for calling you an imbecile for Brexit! Sorry Spain for saying the Catalan exit was misguided and ridiculous. Sorry Saudi Arabia for saying you were a backwards country whose stranglehold on women's rights is such that we were forced to celebrate the small win of letting women drive! Ok maybe I'm not so sorry. But I promise to research more and more when I cross international lines.

Overthinking is my superpower! Also, I prefer simpler solutions! I think those two statements contradict each other! No they don't! Maybe... Still, I stand by both!

His last tweets are like some mad scramble to hold his base.

If you had already demonized the Covington kids before reading. If you laugh at "we need us some climate change up in here".  If your feeds include the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report. You may be addicted! Some tips: -Every once in a while, read an article from a smart person you don't agree with (Yes, they exist). -Don't read articles whose title are meant to excite you: "Trump is a conman" "Climate Change Scientist admits he's wrong" -Look at the sources when broad claims are made. Don't assume they are right just because you agree with them. We've all screwed up in this world of information overload. Be aware of what you do when you repost, or even click on an article. May we be cleansed! Bonus: Look how this post in reddit created a massive backlash!

I truly know I'm in denial about aging, yet some days I look at the mirror and don't understand some of my new "features".

Lady parts do seem to make everything harder. I am more and more aware of this and I'm so sorry.

This happens to me an inordinate amount of times. I'm stuck on an airport so I was able to vent with a toon.

We are leaving all kinds of different traces nowadays!

You know they are coming for dinner one day! The first thing they'll let you know is that it's actually called entomophagy. This article is worth a read ... "My first meal taught me that crickets taste like dirt." "I woke up feeling depressed."But then I threw it up and continued to cry." Just the kind of reactions I fear!

My money is on her in this twitterfight!