I don't need a summary of what's available online, in biographies, or even in my own notes. I need to comb through and find the great details, decide what interests ME. No, it's not efficient. It's slow and painstaking. But I don't believe in efficiency as an ultimate good, especially in writing. /
Why Brainstorming With a Chatbot Will Not Actually Help All That Much:
So, I saw someone point out that when you're going for ideas, the best thing to do is to throw away the first two and the third will be the/a good one. This is not entirely wrong!
An image of a t-shirt with an inclusive pride flag on the shape of Kansas on the chest. Text reads "Support the LGBTQIA+ Community in KS. Hays Tees Pride Shop has Pride T-shirts available now! Every purchase helps fund initiatives for Transgender Kansans. Available in many colors, sizes, and styles." At the bottom of the flier is the rainbow sunflower logo of Hays Pride and the URLs https://haystees.printavo.com/merch/hayspride and https://www.hayskspride.org
Help Hays Pride (a local Western KS nonprofit) raise funds to support trans Kansans in the face of horrific anti-trans legislation. Buy a shirt, or share our shop! Open through the end of the month. haystees.printavo.com/merch/hayspr...
@tomobriencomics.bsky.social and I collaborated to launch this fundraiser for Hays Pride, a local LGBTQIA+ advocacy group in Western Kansas, in response to the disastrous anti-trans bill our state legislature recently pushed through. Buy a t-shirt, share the link, support trans Kansans.
I am shocked to learn this is actually underestimating costs, because it ignores the infrastructure costs.
This video is lowballing it.
I am going to link to organizations that I know for sure are helping trans Kansans. This thread will develop slowly as I either know people or will vet them.
At this point we have not heard from anyone being helped via relocation resources. These exist, but I assume they are overwhelmed.
Voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum.
Backing Kristi Noem’s impeachment is the bare minimum.
Holding law-breaking ICE agents legally accountable is the bare minimum.
ICE is beyond reform. Abolish it.
There is a *perfect state of being* you can reach when you are writing, where you are solving problems left and right and shit is coming together. It takes a WHILE to get there, you have to go through many drafts. But it's worth it. It feels like how I imagine being able to purr feels to a cat
![ICE OUT
Cartoonists against ICE
Calling on cartoonists and artists to tell your stories about the ICE occupation of your towns and cities!
*4-panel comics*
*3:4 Instagram format*
Use this Blue: *There is a color drop block of blue to copy *
Use these hashtags:
#iceout[your city]
#iceoutmpls
#iceoutcomics](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cb6uhto6bwvcx4anaq55konv/bafkreihsu6hpy7j7j6p7pmpqvibmllwuutrkylauwvmlnx3siswpoplyta)
ICE OUT Cartoonists against ICE Calling on cartoonists and artists to tell your stories about the ICE occupation of your towns and cities! *4-panel comics* *3:4 Instagram format* Use this Blue: *There is a color drop block of blue to copy * Use these hashtags: #iceout[your city] #iceoutmpls #iceoutcomics
Cartoonists, I’d love to hear your stories! For local resources, please check out @defend612.bsky.social
defend612.com
Just before Christmas, I got a puppy. Her name is Minerva, and we call her *Minnie. I'm still learning how to understand her. Me: Do you need to go outside? Do you need to go outside, little baby? Do you need to do a poo? Do you need to do a widdle piddle? Minnie: Arf! *I just call her "little baby" most of the time. I'm also realizing I can't turn off the baby talk now. Nobody tells you about that.
I got so lucky with my first puppy. Her wonderful foster parents had her completely house-trained by the time we adopted her, so taking her outside for potty time has been pretty easy. I've got the puppy poopy routine pretty much down, now. Me, putting on my coat: Let's see... I got the little poopy bags, puppy treats for bribes, jacket, scarf, phone… I think that's everything… Oh yes! And my passport.
I had been carrying around my passport for a while, but I knew it didn't matter. This is wrong. Nobody is required to carry around their papers. I became a US citizen when I was seven. Since I was born in a refugee camp, I was stateless. The US is the only nation where I've ever held citizenship. It's the only passport I've ever had, and it still felt important. Protective. I would hold it in my pocket like a talisman, like it might ward off ghosts or something. But I realized I was holding onto it basically out of superstition. ICE will pick up anybody. I know that. So I tucked my passport away. And I largely avoid leaving my house.
I live a few blocks just South of George Floyd Square. I was in the neighborhood for that, too. And all the neighbors came together to protect each other. We're already organized. We'll do our best to get through this. Me, to my dog: I hope I can take you for a walk someday soon. Won't that be nice, little baby?
Abolish ICE. A little journal comic from South Minneapolis.
#iceoutmpls #iceoutcomics #iceoutofmpls
I finally got around to editing the footage from this whole encounter, definitely the most beautiful moment of the year in nature for me.
Video taken across a 12 minute period, sunset lit water fans will REALLY like this one!
Uncompressed: youtu.be/VwQTwF8WlI0
🦑
This set of observations is produced by my scrolling Reddit and otherwise listening to people talk about "how to write."
A) there is no requirement that any of your characters has any sort of "arc" let alone a redemption.
B) there is also no requirement that your fiction has a plot.
As we enter the New Year remember fear of making bad art is holding you back. Fear of people not liking your work is holding you back. Rejection is holding you back
You'll make bad art, you'll have people not like your work, and you'll be rejected. Moving past it is half the job of being a creative
A character portrait of a minotaur warrior, wielding a bec de corbin that has been used to shish kebab two stirges and smash a third to pulp.
A character portrait of a dwarven magus, with a hammer and shield, vibrant red hair and beard, and orange eyes.
Haven't posted art recently! I've got updated art for Cass, my minotaur warrior, and new character art for Rukhatin, my dwarven magus. Both are Pathfinder 2E characters I've been playing this fall.
I can't make it this year, but it's a wonderful time with some of the best people. Highly recommended to any comics person.
A sample page from the webcomic At the Inn in which a panel 3 word balloon uses an inverted tail to indicate an off-panel speaker.
I use it for off-panel speakers (like in panel 3)--must have picked it up from reading other webcomics.
AI impoverishes us at every step of the process: - data centers pollute our environment - energy use drives up costs - content theft robs creators of income - the actual output is used to displace workers and depress wages - using it harms our mental health and impairs our competence - the flood of AI slop is damaging our sociopolitical landscape All in service of making a worse product - and world - to enrich a handful of already spectacularly wealthy people
While defending the luddite argument in Discord, I stumbled into this IMO succinct explanation for opposing generative AI:
At every step in the process, it impoverishes us.
A political cartoon that shows giant dominos lined up, each domino has a different label on it. The first domino is labeled "Trans Rights" and is the colored like the trans pride flag and is beginning to fall. There are people trying to stop it from falling on them and knocking over the next domino labeled "Gay Rights" and "Freedom of Expression". People behind the second domino are looking around to the first one, possibly walking over to help. The third domino is "Women's Rights" and "Free Love", the fourth is labeled "Free Speech" and "Democracy", the fifth is "Freedom of Religion" and "Modernity", the sixth is labeled "Literacy", there are at least four more dominos but their labels can't be seem and the people behind the dominos also seem to be going to help with the first or at least looking forward in concern. Below the cartoon it says "United We Stand ⭐️ Divided We Fall"
For those that need alt text
One of the grosser things about “AI“ integration in a lot of search engine results is it’s a furtherance of the hypercentralization we’re all already dealing with; another fucking speed bump to stop you from clicking through to anyone else’s websites.
One of the most common arguments you hear from fans of generative ‘AI’ is that it’s not plagiarizing people’s work, it’s just learning like a human learns. So I’m going to break down why that’s just not true, and why it can never be true, with the existing systems. 1/
Self-publishing is a power, it's a gift. You can put whatever you want into your little 'zines and minicomics, absolutely nobody can tell you no. Tell your story, don't worry if it's "good enough", make it anyway.
HARD CO-SIGN!!!
Pencil, paper, done.
Generative Al is being marketed as a tool designed to reduce or eliminate the need for developed, cognitive skillsets. It uses the work of others to simulate human output, except that it lacks grasp of nuance, contains grievous errors, and ultimately serves the goal of human beings being neurologically weaker due to the promise of the machine being better equipped than the humans using it would ever exert the effort to be. The people that use generative Al for art have no interest in being an artist; they simply want product to consume and forget about when the next piece of product goes by their eyes. The people that use generative Al to make music have no interest in being a musician; they simply want a machine to make them something to listen to until they get bored and want the machine to make some other disposable slop for them to pass the time with. The people that use generative Al to write things for them have no interest in writing. The people that use generative Al to find factoids have no interest in actual facts. The people that use generative Al to socialize have no interest in actual socialization. In every case, they've handed over the cognitive load of developing a necessary, creative human skillset to a machine that promises to ease the sweat equity cost of struggle. Using generative Al is like asking a machine to lift weights on your behalf and then calling yourself a bodybuilder when it's done with the reps. You build nothing in terms of muscle, you are not stronger, you are not faster, you are not in better shape. You're just deluding yourself while experiencing a slow decline due to self-inflicted atrophy.
re: generative AI
I have finally fully and accurately explained my problem with how it’s marketed and used.
And now, you can use it, too.
A hand holds a stack of index cards held together by a metal ring, which a tabby cat is attempting to bite. In the background is a laptop with a script document up; the beginning of a page layout has been sketched on the top index card.
Nora is being VERY helpful with the thumbnails for the next chapter of At the Inn.
I'll be there! It's probably going to be the only convention I do this year. Truly an amazing group of people!
Oh hey I guess it's #webcomicday? I draw one of those! At the Inn is a story about a wizard school drop out who finds a home of sorts working at a roadside inn. It's episodic, with an ensemble cast of coworkers, locals, and guests. I just started inking the second-to last page of this chapter!
We’re entering the last stretch of this campaign!
Help us bring a post-apocalyptic sapphic graphic novel full of lesbian love to the world?
We’re closing in on the funding goal! $2,149 USD ($2,970 CAD) left to go. We can do it✨ 💙📚🌈
Shares appreciated💖
🌺 www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...
The first time a friend of mine came out. They posted such happy photos; I was like, "oh, this is right. This is them as they should be." Rooting for their joy was the easiest thing in the world.
Before that, I was supportive in theory but not actively engaged. I had a lot to learn and unlearn.
