Banal Hemorrhage

One time, after a long presentation I gave at work, a coworker took me aside and told me that she loved how simple my mind was. One ex-girlfriend once told me that I was a great boyfriend because finally she wasn't punching up in the looks department. Last weekend someone congratulated me for wearing a mask at a concert, even though they were "useless". Keeping in mind the infrequent compliments I get, it is quite striking the high proportion of them that are poorly disguised insults.  How about you, dear reader, do you have any notable examples of this? Sound off in the comments, lest I am left with the feeling that I'm the only human subjected to this tribute torture.

When I thought of this comic, I thought this song was created and performed by a Michael Bolton type. In a petty predictable turn of events, the original creator and composer was an African American.  And his version is perfect from the get go. 

When I was doing research on lizard-men, this picture of a human performance artist always came up. He lives in Austin. In one of those late night deep dives I went to his webpage and discovered two things. One, he’s a Philosophy graduate. Two, if I would’ve had to guess what his major was, I would have guessed Philosophy.  Thelizardman.com At one point in my life, I would have scoffed at this guy. ‘What a waste of a life’ I would’ve said, while sitting in my recliner watching superhero movies and being super basic. As I’ve grown, him and others like him are what makes life interesting. You think you’ve met all possible combinations of bipedal, primate prancers, and then this guy slinks by; making you change the size and shape of all your conceptual containers.  It’s a wonderful life if you’re willing to let it be.  He seems like a cool guy but I decided to go with a less earthly version. A combination of aliens and dinosaurs was my final design note, hastily written on an iPhone note

One of these languishing months I set myself down in bed fully awake. Anxious and worried about everything, my mind was in quick despair.  Doomscrolling was part of this process. In between these hazardous thoughts, the idea for this comic series was sprung.  So, enjoy the fruits of my warped brain, and let me know in the comments if you like this! I have character arcs and many episodes lined up already from that one feverish night.  

I'm not what most humans between the age of 18-75 would call "handy." Sure, I've fixed my dishwasher and my laundry washer a few times; but only because I really, really need those things to work. And I muttered ‘righty, tighty lefty, loosy’ the whole time. And there's always extra pieces when I'm done, which I contribute to the special drawer we all have but don't talk about. I have severe drill anxiety (Freud just raised a very judgmental spectral eyebrow). I mean, if you somehow screw up the location of your drilling, those holes aren't going to un-drill themselves are they? And what do you fill those holes with if you mess it up? Elmer's glue? Coconut Oil? Nobody taught me these things. My dad taught me how to program in Basic and my Mom taught me unconditional love. None of those things prepared me for this whole growing up scam.  I do have to give it up for YouTube though. I'd have negative handiness if it weren't for those how-to vid

I know. Another comic about our stupid dogs. Well it’s been a little bit over a year since we’ve gotten them so let me obsess about them before we return them to the pound. Just kidding, no pound will ever take these bastards. Conan, the male chihuahua depicted here, is an absolute dick to me. He pees on my shoes, he ignores me if Roxanne is around, bites me if I touch Roxanne in front of him and overall acts like a tiny Danny Trejo bodyguarding his favorite female.  And yet, here I am. On my vacation in Hawaii, drawing him and missing him like hell. Like most con artists, he knows how far he can push me and what to do to get me back. In his case, all he has to do is roll over in his back and look like this. He’s an absolute genius.  (Credit for the Barkbarian pun goes to John, thanks man!) Extra Panel: His sister is my little girl though. Love her to pieces, too. 

Our dogs ain’t right. We love them, they have managed to enrich our lives in new wonderful ways and we would take *tiny* bullets for them. However…  If there’s peace to be disrupted, they’ll be there. They start their walks with excited barking, which grow into curious barking and evolve into a zen-like frolicky barking. They bark at other dogs, pedestrians, bicycles, squirrels, things that look like squirrels, and their own barks.  They posture and tense their leashes with murder in their eyes. We found out that if we unleash them, their bravado goes from 11 to 1. So at least we now know they’re only acting as annoying, aggressive assholes. “Just an act” we tell our neighbors, which doesn’t seem to help any. I know we are those people now. I’ve never been those people before.  The only thing they do better than publicly shaming us is their snuggling. These are world class snugglers. Like thousands-of-years-of-developing-physical-bonds-as-a-survival-instinct world class. Everything f