September 2026 hairswaps & musings (Patreon)

When I have nothing in the tank I draw heads for some reason. Maybe on some level it's just me making note of subtle differences in expressions so I can decode them when I'm around actual people. I'm not sure. I've done it since I was old enough to draw. Before the phone took over all thought I always took a notepad with me everywhere so I could doodle as a means of curbing my anxiety. If the conversation wasn't keeping my interest it kept my mind from turning in on itself and possibly becoming unhinged over something.

People often don't recognize the characters correctly on sight, even though I've actually tried to make each of them distinct. They share some style elements but maybe I'm too subtle with the actual defining traits. It seems so obvious to me that Jo has a completely different nose than Carol and yet many people misidentify her if the image isn't in color. Alex and Carol are extremely similar but I try to make sure Alex has a different shape to her face. The hairstyle does most of the heavy lifting, but I did actually try to go that extra step of making her head different.

Today I am worn out and worried and there's just this obsessive habit left to lean on. I really need to start on the next actual comic page now, so if something happens I won't be caught out, but everything is just a mess. I can't convince myself that I'm allowed to just take a day for myself. Decades of the family mindset of always working have congealed in me to the point of it being counterproductive. The ironic thing is that I logically know what's happening. I can describe it to myself, but I can't shut it down with identification. It's just like anxiety. I know what it is, what causes it, and yet in the moment I'm still largely powerless to stop the cycle when it starts. It's like trying to untake a pill. It's already absorbed. At this point all you can do is ride it out.

Everything beyond this point really is quite a tangent and of questionable value. If you're having a nice day maybe come back to it after something goes wrong so IT doesn't spoil your day. The presence added comic pages are explained, but it's not really important. You can just enjoy them as a reminder of a funny part.

This is tangential, but it always struck me as strange that posts like this are considered a treat, or a bonus, by other creators. I've always been so open in the comic's blog that it has made the idea of keeping part of me outside of the realm of free content seem inappropriate. I guess on some level I don't really care about the thoughts of creators whose work I follow. The work is enough and also they often reveal themselves to be abhorrent in some way that spoils the enjoyment of the work. I'm not someone who would buy a DVD for the commentary. I have enjoyed some of them, but I only ever wanted the movie. It's nice to have it for later maybe, but it's not much of a selling point to me. So my own commentary also seems like it isn't a selling point. Additionally I generally don't like myself on some level and I see interactions with myself for others as a punishment. Which really makes me wonder why I'm so compelled to constantly explain myself into the ground so consistently.

The search for reasons why we have to live the way we do is something I'm always struggling with. sometimes moment to moment in a day I'm trying to find answers to existential questions just so I can convince myself to draw funny pictures for people. A lot of the time I end up at "Do you want to die right now?" and the answer is "No, not right this moment." So I push ahead because drawing funny pictures, or weird porn if I'm honest, is what holds off the decline that will lead to my eventual death. Sometimes the answer is "I feel like I'm still supposed to do something. I haven't helped the person I was meant to help yet." Or maybe I haven't helped enough people yet. I'm not sure what I would actually do if I could actually verify that I achieved the goal of helping the right person, or doing the task I was set upon the earth to accomplish. It's quite possible that I wasn't born for any reason at all and every part of this is just my brain trying to make sense of what is ultimately a chaotic system started for reasons so far beyond human understanding that there's really no point in trying to understand anything at all.

This kind of relentless internal turmoil is why I'm sitting alone, on the floor, in a house I don't own, typing to people I will likely never meet in person. How could anyone ever withstand this for long? It wears everyone down until they just give up because they can ultimately accept that the questions I'm grappling with are ultimately pointless. If I want to play Simon's Quest it won't make any more difference in the grand scheme of things than if I sat here forcing myself to do something "productive".

To tie this back to the comic, this is what it's like in Jo's head. Also Thomas. Those two characters have the most of this part of me written in to them. It's never been really expressed quite as directly as me just typing things out, but they've both had moments where I let it come to the surface. Thomas is something of a version of myself before my anxiety got out of control. Jo is more like a version from after that point. I'm going to stick the one page that I always think of when I feel bad for making Jo like myself to this post. Actually I'm gonna stick a whole section from that part in here. The actual page is 2230 when she says "Why do I have to be this way?"

For her there is a reason. It's part of how I express things through her. If you believe we're created in the image of God maybe that's why I am the way I am too. I'm part of some story too vast and complex for any of us to understand. If not there is no reason and things just happen pointlessly for all of time until they don't.

It's no wonder humanity is such a mess. We have to contend with our own understanding of existence. Anyway, I should just stop. There's no way this is going to improve anyone's day. It's just me shooting myself in the foot by actually being myself. I'm gonna put a warning on this somewhere so people will know not to read all of this mess. I'm only leaving the text so that it at least exists as proof that I tried to add value to whatever the hell it is I'm doing here. There's at least the word count to point to and say "He was trying not to phone it in at least."

How ridiculous. XD

Why do we have to be this way indeed, Jo?