Late-night Dailies! (Patreon)

They're helping.

(Also it didn't work, it's still on my floor. They appreciate it.)

I feel like I slept through January, so fool's-spring cleaning is feeling really cathartic right now. (And actually, my crocuses aren't up yet, but my daffodils are being VERY optimistic.)

Took him out of my will immediately after this conversation.

GUYS. I'm gonna get on my Bug Girl Soap Box right now.

I spent all morning reading about the "invasive" species of Asian lady beetles before I finished the last row of this comic. 

If you do a quick image search for the Asian lady beetle, you get this:

A bunch of uninformed anti-lady beetle propaganda! 

Here's what I learned about them: they like to congregate indoors over the winter (just like stink bugs, just like human beings). They will bite you IF YOU FUCK WITH THEM (as they SHOULD!! Don't fuck with them). There was ONE CASE of a dog who ate a ton of these beetles and then DIED. This dog also had a history of eating EVERYTHING. They are not going to kill your dogs. They are just gonna eat the fuck out of aphids and other crop-killing bugs (which, let's be honest, are also just trying to live in this world and eat good food). It was suspected that they'd displaced the native ladybug population, but there's no conclusive evidence of this. Most native ladybugs apparently prefer to live in forests, so we don't see them as often.

Asian lady beetles are as beneficial to us plant-eating humans as native ladybugs, and just as cute. Don't listen to the dramatic hype. Don't kill them! And don't pet them, they hate that.

Here's more Danielle is a Hippie Plant Person content for you:

I felt like such a monster ORDERING sun-loving plants and requesting that they be SHOVED IN A DARK BOX for DAYS, and then they got LOST IN THE MAIL?! I'm the WORST adoptive parent!!

Ten minutes after I finished this comic, I walked to the post office and, HOSANNAH, they hath arrived. They're just fine. They're very cute. They do not call me mama.

WARNING: this next one will make your knees creak.

Jamie would be such a silver fox of a 40-something, wouldn't she? (I think she would have gotten a bunch of tattoos by now, too, but didn't want to spend all morning overthinking what she would get tattoos of.)

Girls With Slingshots turns 20 in October!! I'm thinking about doing a 20th anniversary signing tour. I'll be asking where y'all want me to travel to soon. :)

Btw, this is a good time to tell you that the GWS site got a subtle makeover, specifically for mobile! So if you wanna read it on your phone, the website should be a little easier to use there now. And the comment section is still just as active as it was years ago. It's a great little community over there. <3

This next one may be a little tricky to follow, as is the nature of an overly-ambitious composition for a daily comic that's drawn on the fly!

This is the kind of comic that solicits commentary and advice and personal anecdotes, and I warmly welcome that kind of response here, so have at it. (Did anyone else need a visual depiction of the time you had remaining to complete a task? My first grade teacher came up with this solution for me. I STILL need it!)

Have a nice little weekend, my nice little Patreon pals!