Happy Sunday
I'm trying to get back in the newsletter habit while we figure some things out.
Hey, what’s up? Kelly Sue again.
Robson Rocha, my friend and collaborator for most of my Aquaman run (and partner on an unannounced project as well) is hospitalized in Brazil in serious condition with COVID. His family was asking for blood donations last week, and my understanding is that a whole bunch of people showed for Robson. But the blood bank situation in Brazil is pretty dire, so if you’re close enough to help, here are two links with information: here and here.
My mom’s having surgery tomorrow and we’re all pretty tense about it. Not sure exactly why I’m sharing this with you; I’m not really a “keep us in your prayers,” person. I’m not against prayers or anything, I’m just more of a “what will be will be, and we’ll deal with it” person. But I guess I’m also a scream-into-the-ether person. Humans are complicated, yo.
What’s up the ocean is on fire and there are radioactive hybrid terror pigs, I guess? So screaming into the ether is gonna happen. We can also pet some dogs.
That Literary Tarot Kickstarter we talked about last time HELLA funded. Dani Hedlund wrote to say, “I can’t even begin to say how much this means to the charity. Given the fact that we can run an entire prison course for less than 10k, let’s just say with 400k…well, we’re going to be able to make a serious impact in the lives of people who need it most.” So see? I guess it’s not all burning oceans and radioactive pigs.
Here’s another thing that made me smile: Jordan Clark was sporting a The Linda Lindas tshirt up on his Instagram and I think we should all get the same shirt and then maybe all wear them on the same day or something.
To help keep us in this good place, here’s the Big Life Journal’s 21 Day Family Gratitude Challenge. (Designed for families with kids, but who’s gonna know?)
An article I read this week: “‘Lesbian Love,’ though long since largely forgotten, might be the first ethnography of lesbians in America.” - From Rediscovering Eve Adams, the Radical Lesbian Activist by Jim Downs in The Atlantic
Couple of comics related things I enjoyed this week: Comics Scrapbook Offers a Window into Depression-era Kansas and The Mother Jones Podcast: Garry Trudeau on Lampooning Trump and Other Lessons from 5 Decades of Doonesbury.
Phil Jimenez teased a little bit of Hera from our Historia collaboration! I think this might be the first time any of the Romulo Fajardo Jr. colors have been teased? This book, y’all… I can’t even. I’m prone to hyperbole I know, but you’ll see. You’ll see. (Sooooooooon.)
If you haven’t seen Shannon Lee’s response to Tarantino’s weird obsession with tearing down Bruce Lee, you can check it out here. If you don’t want to give THR the traffic, the gist is “keep my dad’s name out your mouth,” and I am, as the kids say, here for it.
I want to make this salad real bad. It seems like summer in a bowl somehow. I keep looking at the pictures. I’m not even sure I want to eat it? I might just want to make it and smell it. I don’t know.
Oh, so, here’s a thing: I was diagnosed with ADHD during the pandemic. At age 50. It’s been… a thing? Yes, yes. A Thing. I can’t say I experienced the huge sigh of relief that most people apparently experience, but a good deal of my history does make much more sense in this context. I don’t know that I really want to talk about it much, but it started to feel like A Secret, so there. Not a Secret Now. I mention this as I’m also about to drop a link to a 3-Week Design Your Wardrobe Workshop on Seamwork that I absolutely do not have time for and can almost 100% guarantee I will drop out of in Week One. ::Fart Noises::
Hey, you made it to the end! Thank you. Here is a thread of HIDDEN VOICES Portraits that our company, Good Trouble Productions commissioned and art directed for the NYCDOE and Civics for All. Lauren Sankovitch and Turner Lobey did most of the heavy lifting on this and they are TREASURES. Click through to see the rest! I think there are 15 or so in all?? (Oh, and we used MariNoami’s Queer Cartoonists Database and a list of recs from Laurenn McCubbin to source our artists, so huge praise MariNaomi and Cubby as well. (It’s Cubby’s birthday today. I WISH WE WERE IN PARIS GOING TO MUSEUMS AND LISTENING TO LECTURES ON ANCIENT GREECE, BOO!)
Mom made it through her surgery better than predicted! Thanks, everyone
Don’t feel too weird about the diagnosis, Mama Shark. My therapist is working with me on an Autism/ADHD diagnosis at 31 and I’m trying to convince my 52 year old mom into looking into an ADHD diagnosis for herself.