E. Catherine Tobler is an accidental a bacon saving rock star. I got a little carried away while shopping for supplies for today’s comic and I don’t think I have time to create the comic you deserve. Catherine had no idea that was the case when she sent me this fabulous watercolor painting.
Thank you Ms Tobler. When Ms Tobler isn’t painting things she is a senior editor of the luscious Shimmer Magazine, a prolific author and generally tries to make the world a better place.
You can e-mail us at [email protected](my Things e-mail is broken). If you would like to post a hard copy letter please e-mail me for details.
Dear Friends,
Hi, I’m the creator of Things Without Arms and Without Legs. I’m doing Nanowrimo this November as well as attending Orycon (come say hi!) and trying to become the best Roller Derby player I can (hi Rat City I really love being on your fresh meat program!)
Sure I want to write a 50,000 word novel in the next 25 days, but that doesn’t mean I stop bringing you the Things every second day.
I would like your help.
Please write to us, pick one or several of the characters and send them a short (or long) note/question/rant/doodle. Questions and letters inspire us, your words can become part of our adventure and it will really help keep the juices flowing.
Thankyou thankyou thankyou,
Liz
I have done NOTHING to optimize this website for search words and most of my content consists of images! People hardly ever find my website through google or similar thingies… so it’s always interesting to see what search terms do lead people to my website.
It pleases me to no end that someone found my website through the search term “smiley face big toe.” Hello whoever you are or were, I hope you enjoyed my Things Without Arms and Without Legs! I know you’re probably disappointed, I only had one image of a smiley face big toe and that was a creative commons photo you may have already found on flickr. Here’s an adventure of smiley face big toes!
I make a smiley faced toe for you on my hallux (the name given to the Great Toe when dealing with tetrapods).Second Toe is unimpressed by Great Toe shenanigans.Middle Toe is shocked by the development of smiley faces on toughened keratin that sits on top of distal phalanges.Ring Toe finds the whole situation hilarious. Ring Toe is a prankster, but we all knew that.Pinky Toe is often confused, but pretends to get the joke. Pinky Toe sometimes gets left behind (owww).
Sometimes Bunson gets scared and doesn’t want to have a bath. Lots of people like to hug and kiss him and take him on adventures, so he can get pretty grubby. Maybe he’ll be less reluctant now that he has a friend to go swimming with ^_^. Bunson could find a treasure chest full of carrots and Mayara might wrestle with some giant clams.
I drew this comic in the bath! On special waterproof paper my sweetie gave me for our anniversary.
Yes, I know I said I would give you a comic today, but I saw this beautiful drawing on my bookshelf and I knew I had to stick it to my wall of love and tell you all about it.
Nearly three months ago my sweetheart drew this for me while I was trying out for the Rat City Rollergirls Fresh Meat Program (called Rat Lab). I didn’t get in, but that didn’t stop my sweetheart from believing in me. Tryouts are coming up again and Saturday I’ll see if I’ve improved enough to get through. This will be the fourth time I try out for Rat City and I know even if I don’t get in this time either my sweetheart will keep on believing in me.
I love this drawing more than ever.
Transcript
Bunson: I believe in you Betsy
Things 1 & 2: So do we
What’s this Liz? Today is not an update day. Stephen Sheridan Boland, IV e-mailed me this adorable piece of fan art and I had to share it with you. Thanks Stephen!
Back to your regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
Transcript
Bunson: Hey, please come hop with me.
Thing 1: Sorry, we can’t hop well.
Thing 2: Yeah, you need legs for that.
Bunson: No you don’t. You just need to get creative.
Thing 1 & 2: Really?
Thing 1 & 2 develop spring bodies
Thing 1: Hoppy is fun! Thank you!
Thing 2: Getting creative is fun, too! Thank you!
Bunson: My pleasure!
I drew this in New Orleans at the Frenchman Street Market. An hour later monsoonal-style rain came and washed everything away.
I sent it to my sweetheart, I wanted him to be there so much. While I was there a man came up and photographed it to send to his wife. Sometimes it’s hard to be in a place of beauty without the one you love, but at least we can send each other messages in bottles.
Wish you were here.
Transcript
Bunson Hoppydew drawn in chalk on the sidewalk.
Wish you were here
Dear readers,
Thank you for spending a bit of your valuable time with me. When I post an update and folks come over to read the latest. When someone stumbles onto my comic, starts at page one and works their way through. It’s the most amazing feeling.
I often feel like a bumbling fool, figuring it out as she goes along and probably doing most things wrong. That I can be a bumbling fool of service makes me smile from ear to ear. Know that when a creator says every reader is important, they mean it. I certainly mean it, with all my heart. You are important, and thank you for popping by and spending a bit of time with the Things. We notice when you do (in an anonymous, website stats kind of way) and it makes us grin right down to our toes and/or ground contacting body parts.
<3 <3 <3
Liz, the Things, and friends.
Photo thanks to kiki follettosa on flickr
I showed the rough mock ups to my sweetie and we had a good discussion about layouts, margins, the foibles if printer technology and the strange land of American sizing. We come from a land of the A1, A2, A3, A4 etc system and American sized paper seems so mysterious and arbitrary. I know printers in Australia use or cut down paper within the A system, all neatly stackable. I assume places like kinkos work of American letter, but what do printers who use more than glorified photocopiers use?
Anyhow, this discussion got me thinking about different formats and sizes, which lead me to this mockup. It’s concertina shaped. No staples, less fiddly margins and allows me to add two extra comics!!!
![I thought I'd use this day to read more Martin Luther King speeches, look at some things that aren't so commonly read. Quotes are one thing, but it is nice to read the wholeness of something. The Give Us the Ballot speech has some complexities. It has an optimism towards voting rights that could be read as too optimistic, or a provide a profound reason why voter suppression is so savage and severe. To get the vote turns out to be more complex than saying folks have a thing, there's a whole lot of machinery of government and culture that can work to support or suppress true democracy. The Give Us the Ballot speech is probably not quoted as much because it has an uncomplicated anti-communism statement from someone who had a complicated relationship with the term and faced savage investigation because of the term. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute has some interesting analysis about that. This quote touches so powerfully on a need, still owing, over 50 years later. And when I read the final paragraph of this speech I am reminded about how so many Black voters in the USA are to be thanked for helping get Trump out of Office and changing the balance of power in the Senate. Martin Luther King's praise seems quite fitting when he speaks of the good that can come from Black voters: Keep moving amid every mountain of opposition. (Yes sir, Yeah) If you will do that with dignity (Say it), when the history books are written in the future, the historians will have to look back and say, “There lived a great people. (Yes sir, Yes) A people with ‘fleecy locks and black complexion,’ but a people who injected new meaning into the veins of civilization (Yes); a people which stood up with dignity and honor and saved Western civilization in her darkest hour (Yes); a people that gave new integrity and a new dimension of love to our civilization.” Transcript: [We are] pleading with the president and members of Congress to provide a strong, moral, and courageous leadership for a situation that cannot permanently be evaded.. civil rights issue is not an ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians of the status quo. -Give us the Ballot May 17 1957 Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Kate Webb, Erik Owomoyela and Sandra M. Odell.](https://www.thingswithout.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/657_MLK_lowres-1-150x150.jpg)
