a 9 panel comic. panel 1 is of an urn at a funeral. it's raining.
"My dad died a year ago this month. we never got along. he was abusive all my life, often drunk, and very hard to manage."
panel 2 is a whiskey tumbler. "everybody says he wasn't always like that, but that never really felt like it mattered because to me, he always was."
panel 3 is a man staring across a black river at night. "There's a story about my dad's family, about a father and son who lived on a farm by a river in kentucky. one night, the father drowned himself in the river, and the next day when the son saw what had happened, he followed him into the river too."
panel 4 is a river winding between mountains. "it was never officially ruled as a double suicide. That wasn't right with the lord."
panel five is a hand touching a man's forehead. "I think they were sick. I think everyone in dad's family was sick, and so was he, and that's why I have bipolar. The way he passed was ugly. death isn't like it is on tv. it's messy."
panel six is two hands holding each other. "our last moments together were..."
panel 7 is a first person pov of an arm with an IV in it. "I was hospitalized for acute stress-related acid damage to my stomach after the funeral, and returned six more times after that."
panel 8, crying in the ER. "I never told him I was gay."
panel 8, walking down the street. "The story of the father and son followed me around. it made me wonder; could that have been me? it runs in us after all. mental illness, and huge, brutal despair. I feel it all the time."
panel 1, drawing at my cintiq. "My art mutated. ive seen it in other artists who have lost important people. it changes the nature of the work. grief is in the hand. its an unintentional affection."
panel 2is two men, figures in shadow, underwater surrounded by seaweed. "what's at the bottom of the river? what came out of those rolling appalachias, where dad's story begins? who were those people who went down in the water and never came back?"
panel 3 is a house at night with only the attic light shining. "what is grief? how does it move? does it have translucence? does it follow you down dark halls at night? does it show you things that aren't there?"
panel 4, crying on the floor in the laundry room. "I feel like a haunted house."
panel 5 is a hand holding a slide. "but, there..."
panel 6 is a closeup of the slide; a father, two children, and a grandma, standing on a rock looking out over the appalachian mountains. "something so human. a spark of inspiration. art can save your life. grief is a kind of love, and in this understanding, i realized i had a story inside me about all those things."
panel 7 crosses the whole bottom of the page; looking out across water to a weeping willow growing on the far shore. "maybe this is how i can learn to forgive. forgive my dad, and my family, and that father and son beneath the river, and all the rest of it, caught up on a cool gust of wind through green leaves."
panels 1, 2, and 3, reaching into the fronds of the willow tree.
panel 4, closeup of an open palm with a willow seed in it. "maybe grief can be a seed."
panel 5: drawing at the cintique, view from behind. "I can do it. I can grow something incredible, and I can learn to look at the river and feel still inside."
panel 6 is the same view, but farther out. the window is visible and the moon is out. "I can do it. I'm still alive, are you listening? i didnt die after you, you didn't take me with you, I can do it. I am alive. I am alive."
final panel; a full-color illustration of a weeping willow blowing in the wind, it's reflection showing in the water it grows by. "are you listening?"
a comic about my comic