Collaboration and Abundance (Comic #784)
Posted on May 2, 2025 by liz

I have “Collaboration and Abundance, not Competition and Hierarchy” written on a post-it in my office. I wrote that when I was thinking about how the nonprofit principles I adore and were raised in align with open-source principles.

It got me thinking about how scarcity can produce challenges and tightness. And how folks cultivate abundance in other ways… like maybe money might be tight, but they are abundant in their ability to listen, make music, ask questions, have bold dreams or a kind word here and there.

It made me think of all the amazing people I’ve known who have created abundance wherever they go. How their abundance can be contagious. It can be hard sometimes, I’m such a role model of the good that can come when you don’t mask a lot…. And also why people mask as much as they do. And when I get frazzled, it’s nice to have things like this to return to. A constancy and a hug from a little pink bunny who likes dancing, friendship and cake.

Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Kate Webb, Erik Owomoyela, Stuart Barrow, Jesse the K, Brian Fies, Tracey Radford, and Jay Hedtke.

Liz

Collaboration and Abundance Comic Transcript

Little Liz looks down.

Little Liz: It can be hard when the world gets tight.

Little Liz looks up and smiles.

Little Liz: But collaboration and abundance,

Little Liz looks out at us and looks serious and sad.

Little Liz: Not competition and hierarchy.

Bunson Hoppydew leaps to Little Liz, Little Liz smiles and is ready to receive the hug.

Little Liz: And always, always bunnies.

Nice smile

Posted on May 19, 2014 by liz
I’ve been at the Nebula Awards this weekend. I try to sketch people during panels. Sketching people can make me very uncomfortable (we know the human face so well that we can easily tell when minute proportions are off) especially when it’s people I admire. Regardless of how unhappy I am with the sketches I feel like time spent drawing 3-d humans is never time wasted. It helps me develop my craft and it helps me pay attention to the panel. I really wanted to capture Chip/Samuel R. Delany’s wonderful smile. His smile has a way of lighting up a room. I’m moderately pleased with this 5 minute sketch. I almost showed it to him, but I chickened out. 20140519-113857.jpg

Dear Readers

Posted on March 9, 2014 by liz
Thank you for being here. It makes me smile. Most of us want to live a life of meaning and knowing I can make people smile or make their day a little better or share a moment is very special to me. It’s really cool you dropped by. Thanks and love. L

Second mini!

Posted on February 10, 2014 by liz
A second mini comic has been created! It will have its debut at Boskone (on Friday I posted some to a friend to distribute there) and other locales TBA. Please let me know if you would like to be a fabulous Things distributor at a convention near you (with enough time to send media mail, phew first class mail gets spendy!) There will be a third mini-comic available this year as well, if you want to get your hands on that one you’ll have to ask Ye Olde Dragon’s Hoard Games and Collectibles…. But not just yet. I still have to finalize a few bits and draw the cover! Exciting in print times for the Things ^_^

Would you like to be a super Things volunteer?

Posted on January 21, 2014 by liz
There’s lots of stuff that needs to be done when it comes to having a webcomic. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming as a one woman operation. One thing that is a simple job and I should just be able to do is to write transcripts for each of the comics. That makes the comic more accessible for anyone vision impaired, has English as a language they struggle with or doesn’t like reading my handwriting. It should also create more written content that might help the Things show up on search engines. For some reason trying to do transcripts is really distracting in a way that makes it hard for me to draw comics! I would love a volunteer to write them up (the first 20 or so comics have transcripts if you want to see samples). You can either write it up in plain text and I’ll add or enter it straight into WordPress. Let me know if that tickles your fancy, as either a big one off project or a little bit here and there as you can manage it. For this you will get my love and appreciation, I’ll post you Things mini-comics (and possibly shrinky-dinks if I can make something pretty enough) and other yay you are a life saver stuff (TBA). If you want to commit to it on a regular basis I’ll create a special support staff page so we can appreciate your awesomeness sufficiently. If this interests you please email [email protected] and we can chat. Thank you!

Sketches

Posted on January 20, 2014 by liz
These are the kinds of things I draw when I’m trying to come up with an idea and I liked some of the expressions so much I wanted to share them with you.

Comic in Progress

Posted on November 22, 2013 by liz
20131122-115145.jpg 20131122-115200.jpg 20131122-115210.jpg 20131122-115220.jpg 20131122-115519.jpg Mixed media with 3Doodler. Box of mystery, what will you hold!!! Letters to boot during the time of Nanowrimo has been an interesting adventure, if only because I’m spending more time in dangerous art supply stores. I don’t think of myself as a particularly crafty person (she says peeling glue off her fingers), I’m not tidy enough and I’m very absent minded, but this is quite satisfying. FYI, with multi-panel pages like this you will find the next button at the top of the comic instead of the bottom.