If you will forgive me for quoting The Secret Garden, I'm too common and I talk too much. Jason Levian conducted an extensive interview with me which has just been published at The Comics Journal.

Also appearing in my email via Google Alerts this morning is "Breaking into the Boys Club: The New Crop of Female Comics Creators." Hey Pepe, I heard you pull your pants down all the way to go pee.

Occasionally my stepmom has a couple of glasses of white wine and starts asking me why I don't get into modeling, because she thinks I would be great at it. And one of the reasons is that I find my worth evaluated by my looks more than I like from day to day and have no wish to legitimize the trend in my professional life, but as the blog post above indicates, it's not always avoidable.

Have you heard about Lisa Hanawalt? Have you seen her work? She mentioned me on her blog the other day, and I want to return the favor because I think that she is great.

Pleasantly obsessive thoughts of Dracula and The Assignation pervade, with what in this medium might best be termed fanart to follow. Observe:

She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said:—“Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry or you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!”
There was something diabolically sweet in her tones—something of the tingling of glass when struck-which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms.

Sparknotes elucidates:

In this passage from Chapter XVI, we see one of Dracula’s earlier threats made good. Earlier in the novel, the count warns his pursuers that he will defeat them by first seducing their wives and fiancées: “Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine.” This threat becomes reality here, as Lucy, now a blood- and sex-starved vampire, does her best to lure her fiancé, Holmwood, into eternal damnation. Like the “weird sisters” who attempt to seduce Harker, Lucy exudes sexual energy, and her words to Arthur ring out like a plea for and promise of sexual gratification. The promise proves more than Arthur can bear—“he seemed to move under a spell”—and threatens to have the same disastrous effect on the entire group, ringing through the minds “even of us who heard the words addressed to another.” Their collective weakness in fending off the sexual advances of such a temptress leaves the men vulnerable—ready to sacrifice their reason, their control, and even their lives. Given the possibility of such losses, which would overturn the world that these men dominate, it is little wonder that they choose to solve the problem by destroying its source—the monstrously oversexed woman.

And let us consider, additionally, "The Monstrous Feminine in Candyman." I begin to suspect that in mainstream fiction fear and dread are the only contexts within which womanhood can be openly discussed.

I have a tumblr, too, by the way.

We discovered this week that Matt Furie's Boy's Club is a 4chan meme. This is amazing.



Feels good man.

Three books I'm reading at the same time: The Hound of the Baskervilles (out loud, to Franklin before bed), Dracula, and The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, which was a birthday gift from Brodie. My mind is on fire, inspiration on every page. I started working on a new book in earnest this week. Horror is the antidote to everything, everything.

You can buy the new Ariadne auf Naxos on Etsy and the theme of it is "Beast."

Every time I try to write this blog entry I get really sad.

Pony Club didn't hang my piece in their Satanic show. Later they said it had gotten wrinkled so they couldn't accept it. I ended up drinking too much at First Thursday and wandering the Goldsmith Building with strangers.

I didn't win the Ignatz, which is fine, really. I think I can write a better book, and I'd rather get an award for that one, when it happens.

Today is my birthday. My friends have all gone home, my apartment is a mess, my husband is in a suit on the carpet snoring. I had wonderful day, but I don't know how to insulate myself from birthday evening melancholy. The night of my 24th birthday I left the smeared prints of my poor lacerated arms all over the floor of my room. I doubt it will ever get that bad again but the shade of that overpowering gloom still visits me every year. I would go to bed and evade it, but I'm not a bit sleepy.

I could watch a movie but all my favorite movies are sad ones. Even the porn I like is sad porn.

Oh, why don't you go read the blog of somebody with some real problems.