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.

The Shakers are my spiritual brethren, and also like them I love to work, and toiling in the zine mines has chewed my shit up, brothers, sisters, I am so tired, my feet ache to the hips, and still I am craving to put my hands to work. Like I'm in bed with the lights out, it's after midnight, my body parts are throbbing and my thoughts are warping like records in a hot car, and I'm considering writing some professional emails: reality, insanity, police brutality.

If you visited my table and I was rude to you, I'm sorry. Especially you, Noah Van Sciver, I'm sorry I said I would kill you. You seem like a nice guy.

Let's attack some official business. I'm in "Curiosity Cabinet" at Pony Club this month (I drew some moldy strawberries), "Satanic Panic" at the same gallery next month, and "Bound and Gagged" at Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles also next month. And new products are in my Etsy store. Official business is concluded.

Possibly the only thing remaining for me in this day is to look up schmaltz online until it obscures how sore I am, how lazy and inadequate, how poor and how many things I have left undone. Romantic love was invented to manipulate women. Let's do this thing.

I made an Etsy listing for illustration commissions and this was my first one, inspired by this quote from Brother Sun, Sister Moon:

"Otto of Brunswick, let the birds nest in your crown. Let the winds of heaven blow through your empty palaces. What good is your life to you, if your riches bring you no peace of mind and all your people starve?"

Also: I got nominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic. Holy fuck!

Sir Lancelot lieth in the lone green-wood,
Sir Lancelot wrestleth in the tall grass-spears:
Fain would he think upon the Holy Rood,
And Christ's red cup, and sweet Saint Mary's tears;
But then come memories of the balmy lips
And the soft eyelids that are Guinevere's--
He dreams, and as he dreams, wild apple dips
Her brooding boughs, and flowers of milk and blood
Between his strong convulsèd heart and God.
from "Pastoral of Lancelot" by Elinor Sweetman

This passage is so perfectly euphonious it will always be tucked into my brain, no doubt cuddled among all the TV show theme songs.

My comic was reviewed by Tom Spurgeon on The Comics Reporter. Dylan and Tim both said, "If you read that guy's other reviews, that was actually a really good review." I thought so anyway. Tom said:

It's rare comic book when the demons are both terrifying and a sort of comic relief. This is a rare comic book in more ways than one.

Lately I spend a ton of time around Cameron Hawkeye, now a work friend as well as a real friend, and that guy draws constantly, like a maniac. I'm beginning to notice that my draftsmanship has gotten genuinely poor, which is scary, because if I'm not good at drawing, what am I good at? So I'm doing more observational sketches, which is good, and feeling bad about myself, which is bad, but useful too.

Every night Brodie and I work on our new books for the Zine Symposium and they are going to be so awesome.