This comic was inspired by seeing Hannah Gadsby’s latest show, Douglas (live tour right now, and a fantastic thing) on Saturday, and then finally seeing Nanette on Sunday. Gadsby is hilarious, poignant, just my kind of comedy. Some day I hope she and Eddie Izzard get to compete against each other in the Great British Bake Off. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at a comedy show. Maybe I never have. And I had to bite my lip not to yell out my love for Gadsby’s gorgeous faced dog, Doug. I’m glad I watched Nanette knowing Gadsby would go on to create another show, keep on keeping on. How lovely to see a master of the craft bring joy and seeing and dialogue that is important to the stage. She tells humanizing narratives, and I hope folks have the vocabulary to see and feel more after they watch her shows.  As you can see from this comic, she also writes about pain, creates space for that to be seen… and had me thinking of Boot saying this. And maybe a little Kate Bush stuck in my head. Boot: Some people are expected to be resilient. To be rubber band elastic entities. And some people see that resilience and think how much I can stretch that band? Some people see rubber bands growing weary, getting worn or have weaknes and think, how much more would it take to break that band? For some, the pain of others is a game. What a waste of time. What a numbing of humanity.   Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Mike Decuir, Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.

Narrator: Would you like some hot sauce. Bunson: That sounds amazing! Bunson looks at the fridge. Bunson: It’s so hot it has to be kept in the fridge? Bunson looks at the hot sauce bottle. Bunson looks at the hot sauce bottle some more, dun dun dun!!!! What will happen next? … and yeah, we keep our hot sauce in the fridge, because although the PH says it’s probably fine, we make our own and better safe than sorry. Yesterday my sweetie smoked jalapenos and I tasted a tiny bit of home made chipotle. AND EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE, and it is very good. Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Mike Decuir, Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.

A lot of different body types can benefit from Aikido and find balance. Stiff bodies may need to find flow. Wobbly bodies may need to find strength. Light bodies find grounded movements. Heavy bodies find movements that can make them fly. For Mayara, one of her challenges is what to do with her tail during warm ups. (Mayara does an Aikido breathing warmup exercise, her tail twirls around and is then tied in a knot!)   Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.

Mayara tries meditation. She does standing meditation. She does seated mediation. She does seated meditation with one eye open. She vibrates and frowns in seated meditation. Mayara: I meditated FOREVER Narrator: It was 2 minute! Mayara: 2 whole minutes! Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.

Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.

Mayara is a delightful tamarin the size of a tamarind seed. She’s often not drawn to scale and although her face is inspired by Emperor and Golden Tamarins, her body and bearing isn’t much like a tamarin  at all. I adore her and have often felt like I’ve under-used her, but I’ve comforted myself knowing she was a busy monkey and if I gave her enough encouragement and time, something would emerge. I don’t like to force things on my characters and sometimes it takes a while to get to know my characters. Sometimes they are busy, sometimes they are private about things and think they’re none of my business. I’m not a creator who has to know every detail of a character, sometimes that can feel rude and imposing! And thinking you know everything about anyone can get in the way of properly listening to them. I need to respect my characters and give them space to bring their whole selves forward. Creating can be more like bird watching than agriculture for me… a metaphor system I might unpack some other time. In the meantime, I’m excited and a little intimidated about connecting Mayara’s world with mine and seeing how she enjoys a martial art I am very fond of. Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.

Kids are amazing creatures, very much themselves, very much impressionable, and give them good attention and they can blossom like flowers. Seeing the world with such newness is such an interesting and challenging thing. So many experiences you’ve never had or never had many times, so you don’t even know what weathering things is. I remember the first time I got a stitch. I was so scared! There’d been an informational thing on TV about heart attacks recently and we’d just moved to Australia from China. I’d been running up and down the hills on our new-ish farm and suddenly got stabbed by this terrible pain. I gasped over to my mum, scared I was having a heart attack or was allergic to Australia or come down with some terrible disease.  Mum explained stitches as a sort of cramp you got from exercising sometimes. I asked why I’d never got a stitch before. I think she gave some combination of maybe I was running about more or maybe getting older. And I was scared that I’d get this terrifying pain every time, and mum said I might get it sometimes, but if I exercised more it would be less likely to happen. I think I was 6 or 7 and I remember feeling so sad that I was old and unfit now, I got a stitch just from running up and down a hill.  But anyway, it was a scary pain, and I thought I might die, but I didn’t. Which has turned out to be all the scary pains of my life (and I am prone to cramping pretty badly!). So hooray for that and hooray to you. Transcript: Bunson Hoppydew: I had a big feeling I never had before. I had no idea if I would survive it… Boot: And did you? Bunson: YES! Bunson spoings away, Boot smiles. Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.

Today’s illustration is inspired by Kate W who is taking a plushie Bunson she sewed on an adventure around the world! And recent merfolk making the news about enjoying breaking gender norms and challenging toxic masculinity with their own wonderful merfolky approaches to masculinity. Thanks to all my patrons and a special big extra thanks to Lisa Jenkins, Kate Webb, Matthew Noe, and Erik Owomoyela.