Excerpt Sampler of Stories from 2022 Weekend Warrior

My exclusive Patreon content for February collects excerpts from the beginnings of five new stories.

As I do annually, during January and February, I participated in the Codex contest Weekend Warrior run by Vylar Kaftan. Participants write one piece of flash fiction each weekend.

The stories in the Example Sampler are:

“Thing about Timeline Collapse I Decided Not to Post” based on the prompt: write about someone moving who doesn’t want to.

“An Alphabetical Guide to Potential Building Materials for Aspiring Urban Planners” based on the prompt: what is your kingdom made of?

 “The Letters You Lost” based on a suggested title.

“Dear Awesomest Uncle Zarny” based on the prompt: write a letter to an imaginary relative for a special occasion.

“The Thing about Things,” theoretically based on the prompt: choose a random wikipedia page… although I ended up meandering onto an unrelated subject.

(I released the full text of my week two story, “An Alphabetical Guide to Potential Building Materials for Aspiring Urban Planners,” on my Patreon in January.)

These were a lot of fun. I seem to be playing a lot with humor right now! Maybe it’s reading all that Wodehouse and Adams.

Thanks to all my patrons. All of my Patreon content–including a substantial, patron-exclusive offering once a month of something like an original essay, poem or short story–is available to all my patrons, no matter how much or little they contribute. Every contribution is greatly appreciated and makes a big difference to supporting my writing career!

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Cartoon: The News Could Not Be Any More Objective


If you like these cartoons, please help us make more!


This cartoon was drawn by the one and only Kevin Moore!


Hello from the east coast!  When I originally wrote these words (in December 2021), I was in upstate New York (Ithaca is upstate, right?), visiting my family and basically not leaving my sister’s house at all (because plague).

The trip from Portland was okay. I’m someone who usually enjoys layovers and doesn’t mind a long trip, so I booked a flight that include two 4-5 hour layovers without giving it much thought, bringing the whole trip to about 19 hours – long even for me, but not impossibly long.

What I hadn’t considered is that, although in the past I haven’t much minded spending long trips like that, that’s because in the past I didn’t need to wear a mask the whole time. I don’t find surgical-style masks that uncomfortable – I even sometimes forget that I’m wearing a mask at all – but 19 hours is a reallllllllly long time to go masked. It made me feel very lucky to have a job that I can do unmasked from home.


From a creating-cartoons perspective, the big news about this trip – and by “big,” I mean, “it matters to me and no one else in the entire universe has any reason to care” – is that for the first time in well over a decade I’m traveling without my Windows Cintiq tablet. I recently bought a used IPad Pro I found on Craigslist, and I decided I could do with just the IPad this trip.

Pros: So lightweight! The IPad weighs much less than the Windows tablet I draw most of my comics on (which is a Wacom Mobilestudio Pro 13, for those of you wondering), plus it doesn’t require a power brick to be hauled around. With the Wacom I‘d never take it out of my bag unless I was at a table and knew I’d be planted there for at least an hour, because it was too unwieldy; with the IPad I can take it out, use it for five minutes, move on, etc., without giving it a second thought.

Cons: I actually miss Windows. Maybe it’s because I’ve been using Windows for so long, but many extremely simple tasks that seem intuitive to me on Windows – like knowing where files are saved and being able to open them easily from any compatible program – can be weirdly difficult and finicky on the IPad.

Anyway, so far, so good.


In a column about how news media frames “the homeless problem,” Adam Johnson writes:

This Sept 24 NBC4 Los Angeles segment entitled “Streets of Shame” led off with the anchor telling the viewer that, “NBC 4’s John Cádiz Klemack spoke with some homeowners who say they are looking forward to fewer tents and fewer trash.” Needless to say, no homeless people or homeless advocacy groups were quoted in the story. It’s simply taken for granted that the most important moral constituent in a story about displacing homeless people (some of whom may or may not end up in shelters, according to the report) is the “homeowner,” rather than the party clearly suffering from massive social failures of the state and housing market.

I’ve noticed and read about similar biases in how news reports on labor issues and on sex workers – the sources are almost always business owners, the chamber of commerce, police, “rescue” agencies. Labor unions and sex workers are rarely quoted, and even more rarely are their views used to frame the story, the way business owners and cops‘ views are routinely used to frame stories. And of course, fat acceptance advocates are virtually never part of any story about “the obesity crisis.”

I’ve wanted to do a strip about this for a while, but the ideas I’ve had – all focusing on the news anchors – never seemed right. The issue is fundamentally about the news, and who it leaves out – but doing a strip focused on journalists seemed to just be another example of what I’m trying to criticize. It wasn’t until I thought of focusing on the people the news usually leaves out, listening to the news, that I had a strip that I thought was worth completing.


The protest signs in panel 3 weren’t made up by me; I saw them all in photos of sex worker demonstrations. The “fuck the patriarchy but not for free” sign in particular was too great not to use.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has five panels, each of which shows a different scene.

PANEL 1

Three people sit on the ground, warming themselves around a small fire burning in a large tin can. We can see their tento behind them; from their clothes and context, we can infer that they’re homeless.  All three of them are watching the screen of a smartphone that the woman in the center is holding. A TV Anchor’s voice comes from the smartphone.

ANCHOR: Welcome to WMSM, where we bring you the objective news!

ANCHOR: Tonight’s stories begin with homelessness! Our reporter spoke with homeowners who say they want fewer tents and trash. No homeless people are interviewed.

PANEL 2

A fat man sits in a coffee shop (we can see the coffee shop’s logo on the window behind him). He’s holding an open laptop in his lap, and watching the screen. The News Anchor talks from the computer.

ANCHOR: A new report on how the obesity crisis is crushing America! We’ll interview a weight loss guru and the author of a new diet book.

ANCHOR: But no fat people, let alone fat acceptance advocates.

PANEL 3

A group of protestors, dressed in warm winter clothing, stands outside of a building, holding up protest signs. The signs say “sex work is work!,” “Outlaw poverty not prostitutes,” “rights not rescue,” “nothing about us without us,” and “fuck the patriarchy but not for free.”

In the foreground, a woman with pink hair and cat eye sunglasses is frowning at her smartphone as she watches something on it. A news anchor’s voice comes from her phone.

ANCHOR: We’ll then have a segment about prostitution, which will quote “rescue” groups and the police—

ANCHOR: But no sex workers or sex worker advocates.

PANEL 4

A waitress in a diner is about to pour coffee into a customer’s mug, but has paused and is giving major side eye to a news anchor on a small TV placed on top of a display case filled with pies. The waitress is wearing an apron over her outfit, and a name tag, and we can see a pen tucked behind her ear. This is the first time in this cartoon we’ve seen the anchor’s face, which is grinning hugely.

ANCHOR: Next, the minimum wage: Does it mean you’ll never work again? To find out, we’ll interview restaurant owners—

ANCHOR: But no workers or union organizers.

PANEL 5

This panel shows the news studio where the anchors – there are two of them, the man we saw on TV in panel 4, and a woman sitting next to him at the news desk – are speaking to a large TV camera. A bored looking cameraman stands behind the camera. Behind the anchors, we can see a backdrop showing a graphic of skyscraper silhouettes, and to the side is the backdrop for a weather report. Both anchors have huge, inane grins, and the female anchor is giving the camera the finger.

MALE ANCHOR: WMSM news — we literally could not be any more objective!

FEMALE ANCHOR: And if anyone says otherwise, you won’t see them here!


This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat, Media criticism, Sex work, porn, etc, Union Issues | 3 Comments

Cartoon: Easy Ways to be Cancelled


If you like these cartoons, please support them on Patreon! Even a little bit unlikely anyone reads this can help!


I wrote this cartoon in July of 2020, and posted a sketch on the Discord. Here’s what it looked like then:

One Discord participant, ChessyPig (hi, ChessyPig!), made a criticism that stuck with me:

I am particularly uncomfortable with the second panel because I know entirely decent people who live in fear of Twitter criticism and think that it means that they’re about to be cancelled, because the hype about cancel culture interacts badly with their anxiety.

That struck me as a very good point. There was some more discussion in the discord, and more good points were made, but I didn’t see a way to fix things that left me with a comic strip I enjoyed. So I did what I often do: I left the cartoon to sit and stew in my “unfinished” folder, either forever, or until I saw how to fix it.

Recently I reread the sketch, and noticed a few things.

* First, the original panel four – based on Alan Dershowitz, in 2018, complaining that his friends in Martha’s Vineyard don’t invite him to parties since he publicly hopped on the Trump train – was about an event that virtually no one remembers.

* Second, the “kicker” panel was the funniest part.

* Third, the “Barry as salesman” thing in panel one really wasn’t adding anything and could be replaced with something funnier.

* And finally, the Twitter panel would be easy to rewrite.

With those things in mind, I rewrote the cartoon – deleting the original panel 4 and “promoting” the kicker panel to panel 4 – and felt much better about it. I also added a new kicker panel to prebut the “what about ordinary people who have lost jobs?” criticism.

Panel two could apply to a number of anti-woke academics, but I had in mind British philosopher and transphobe Kathleen Stock, who more than once complained specifically about the terrible burden of having her views criticized within academia. For example:

[Stock] becomes visibly distressed is describing a research talk she was due to give her department in April. Some graduate students organised a rival trans solidarity event, with a guest speaker critical of Stock, and 40 of her colleagues chose that event over her talk.

This event was often included in lists claiming Stock had been “run off campus” by “cancel culture.”

The character’s appearance is loosely based on Stock’s appearance. Since it’s not important that readers recognize Stock (or even know who she is) – the character is inspired by Stock, not Stock herself – I didn’t sweat getting a perfect resemblance. I don’t think Stock wears glasses, but my character does because I thought glasses popping of her face would look funny.

In a similar fashion, the panel three character’s appearance and complaint is loosely inspired by Andrew Sullivan. (I could have just as easily used Bari Weiss, without modifying the text at all.)

In panel four, I got to draw the multiple-waving-arms effect, which is always fun. Especially drawing on a computer, since doing things like fading arms out and adding white “zip” lines on top is so easy.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, each showing a different character and scene. There’s also a tiny kicker panel, below the bottom of the cartoon.

PANEL 1

This panel shows a man with neatly-combed hair wearing a black vest over an orange long-sleeved shirt. He has an expression of intense concentration, and is clasping his hands almost as if praying. Above him, in the panel, is a lengthy caption.

CAPTION: Are you a wealthy and famous reactionary, but somehow your SJW boss hasn’t fired you? Not to worry! You can still be a martyr for free speech with these

CAPTION CONTINUES IN MUCH LARGER FONT: Easy ways to be CANCELLED!

MAN: Please please let me be a victim!

PANEL 2

A woman wearing a striped shirt, dark orange pants, and comfortable-looking boots is on a city sidewalk. She’s jumping in shock as she stares at something on her tablet screen, her eyeglasses popping off her face. Her expression is extremely alarmed.

WOMAN: Other academics are criticizing my work! That can only mean…

WOMAN (much larger font): I’ve been CANCELLED!

PANEL 3

A strong-looking bald man with a white beard and mustache sits at a desk, with a coffee cup and a laptop on his desk. He’s speaking directly to the readers, shaking his fist in the air.

MAN: My co-workers don’t like me so I’m resigning to start my own incredibly lucrative media site! In other words

MAN (much larger font) I’ve been CANCELLED!

PANEL 4

A man stands on a hillside in a park or some other fairly tame natural area. He’s pretty distant from the “camera” and is speaking (well, shouting) directly to readers. He’s waving his arms so fast and frantically that it looks like he’s got six arms.

MAN: My book got panned? CANCELLED!

MAN: My $20 million Netflix special was criticized? CANCELLED!

MAN: Mocked in a cartoon? CANCELLED!

TINY KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON

The white-bearded man from panel 3 speaks directly to the reader, while indicating himself with a thumb.

MAN: Hey! Some non-rich people have actually been fired! Which clearly validates my claim to be a victim!


This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics | 3 Comments

Cat Pictures! Pete in a Sink

drawing of a cat in a sink

This is one of the images I used in Scragamuffin, the chapbook I released as October’s exclusive Patreon reward. I thought it might be fun to release the pictures with the photos that inspired them.

When we lived in Bakersfield, our master bathroom had two sinks, which meant there was always an extra for a cat to flop in. It was probably summer when this picture was taken since Pete’s mane seems relatively short. I like the mad look in his eye.

drawing of a cat in a sink

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Cartoon: Capitalism can Innovate Around Anything!


If you like these cartoons, please support them! Each $2 pledge really helps! Do it or I’ll buy a puppy from a puppy farm instead of going to a shelter!


This cartoon was inspired by a Paul Krugman column that was published in August, “The Bad Economics of Fossil Fuel Defenders.” Krugman wrote:

…there is a remarkable inconsistency between conservatives’ expressed faith in the power of private initiative and their assertion that climate policies will paralyze the economy. Businesses, the right likes to tell us, are engines of innovation and adaptation, rising to meet any challenge. Yet somehow the same people who laud private-sector creativity insist that businesses will shrivel up and die if confronted with new regulations or emission fees.

In fact, a number of studies have shown that government projections of the effects of new environmental or safety regulations consistently overestimate their costs, precisely because businesses respond to new rules and incentives by innovating, finding ways to reduce compliance costs. And industry projections of the adverse effects of regulation are far worse, typically overstating the costs to a ludicrous degree.


I made a process illustration. I’ve done these a few times before, because I honestly love looking at other cartoonists’ process illustrations, so I figure some of you will be interested too.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus an additional tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom of the cartoon.

The cartoon shows two businessmen-types walking on a city street. One of them is wearing a red bow-tie and a sky-blue suit; the other is wearing an ordinary tie and a duller suit, with a desaturated green jacket and black pants. The bow-tie guy is totally bald – probably shaves his head – and has a van dyke beard and mustache. The regular-tie guy has blond hair and is cleanshaven, and is looking at his smart phone as he walks.

PANEL ONE

The two of them walk on the sidewalk, Blonde looking at his phone, Bowtie raising his arms enthusiastically as he talks, grinning. (Not important to the cartoon: In the background, across the street, a smiling businessman talks to a smiling man with red skin, horns, and a tail, who is holding up a clipboard. And a woman in a second story window leans out to smile at a largish bird which is hovering and looking back at her.)

BOWTIE: The most amazing thing about capitalism is the creative genius of entrepreneurs!

PANEL 2

A closeup on just Bowtie, who looks overjoyed. His eyes are drawn as stars, and the air around him is filled with stars and dollar signs.

BOWTIE: If there’s profit to be made, there’s nothing capitalism can’t do! Feed the world! Create the internet! Create modern medicine!

PANEL 3

A shot of the two of them walking. Bowtie keeps on grinning and talking, his fists pumped in front of him in a pleased sort of way. Blonde reads something from the cell phone he’s holding.

BOWTIE: There’s no problem that capitalism can’t innovate around!

BLONDE: Hey, look at this: some senators want new regulations to protect the climate.

PANEL 4

Bowtie jumps straight up into the air (cartoon code for “I am very surprised”), clutching his face in his hands, his mouth and eyes huge in an expression of enormous dismay. He is yelling. Blonde, surprised by Bowtie’s big reaction, is stumbling back from Bowtie a little.

BOWTIE: NOOOO! CAPITALISM IS DOOMED!

TINY KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE STRIP

Bowtie is speaking directly to the readers, his face still showing distress.

BOWTIE: Even if capitalism miraculously survives, some rich people will be slightly less rich! I can’t imagine a greater tragedy!


This cartoon on patreon

Posted in Capitalism, Cartooning & comics, Environmental issues | 1 Comment

Cat Pictures! Ru Mane

drawing of cat looking at camera

Cat drawing! This is Ru, the cat of my friend and administrative assistant, A Humphrey Lanham who kindly allowed me to use the photo. Full-grown here with a fabulous mane.

photo of brown tabby with pink nose and white chest looking at camera

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Cartoon: The Purple People Next Door


This cartoon is by me and Kevin Moore.

If you like these cartoons, please support them on Patreon! Each $2 pledge really helps us keep making new cartoons.


Kevin’s comments on drawing this strip:

The thing I got into was thinking about how purple people would actually look. I thought it might be funny to make them really “normal” — or “normie”, very suburban and conventional in hairstyle and clothing. You’ll notice that their clothes are not also purple, but just ordinary clothes, albeit cheery and colorful. And they’re really upbeat in demeanor, enthusiastically making a new friend with their neighbor. I could see an introvert taking a small exception to them, but they’re friendly good-hearted people. This makes their neighbor’s discomfort with his bigotry funny. You should cringe, dude.

I also made sure that their skin tones differed, much like any other skin color phenotype. And I tried to give their faces ethnic characteristics, but nothing that would be too stereotypical or too indicative of a real ethnic group. I wanted to leave that open to interpretation.


The “I don’t care if someone’s Black, white, yellow or purple” cliché is something I’ve been hearing since at least the 1980s. And it’s almost always said as a lead-in to saying something awful.

I was reminded of the cliché back in July, when Michael Harriot tweeted about it.

“I don’t care if you’re black, white, green or purple…” – People who never say stupid shit about white, green or purple people.

That made me think about the kind of person who’d say this actually meeting purple people, and that led to this cartoon.

 


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. All four panels show the same scene: A suburban-looking back yard, surrounded by a chest-high wooden fence. On one side of the fence is a dad-looking white man, wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt (blue with yellow stripes) and brown shorts.

On the other side of the fence are a woman and a man, both of whom have vividly purple skin. His skin is somewhat lighter in color, and he’s completely bald (I joked to Kevin, when I saw his sketches, that Mr. Purple probably shaves his head so people won’t know he’s going gray). He’s wearing an orange t-shirt. Mrs Purple has neatly styled neck-length purple-black hair, and is wearing a reddish orange t-shirt with a squared-off collar. Throughout this cartoon, Mr. and Mrs. Purple have big, cheerful smiles.

PANEL ONE

Polo Shirt Guy is talking on his cell phone, looking quite cheerful, as he flips a burger on his barbeque. We can see some toys and a sandbox on the ground nearby. Behind him, Mr and Mrs Purple have walked up to the fence and are talking to him, but he doesn’t see them yet.

POLO SHIRT: It’s like I always say… I don’t care if someone’s Black, white or even purple. Doesn’t matter to me!

THE PURPLES (speaking in unison): We’re so glad to hear you say that.

PANEL TWO 

Polo Shirt Guy has turned his head and seen the Purples, and he’s taken aback. Both Mr and Mrs Purple are waving their hands at Polo Shirt.

POLO SHIRT: What? Who? What? I mean… What?

MR PURPLE: We’re Sally and Drew Purple. We just moved in next door!

PANEL THREE

Polo Shirt Guy has turned to face the Purples; he’s sweating and looks utterly distresed, even though he’s trying to be polite. He waves back at them, not noticing that he’s dropped his cell phone. Behind him in the background, we can see a tree with a tire swing, and a pink tricycle.

We’re looking at the scene from behind Mr and Mrs Purple, and can’t see Mrs Purple’s expression. Mr Purple is still smiling big and seems completely unaware of Polo Shirt’s distress.

POLO SHIRT: Oh. I see. Uh… Welcome to the neighborhood.

MR PURPLE: Hey, I see you have kids! Us too – we should schedule a playdate!

PANEL FOUR

Polo Shirt turns partly away from the Purples, his fists pressed against his chin and lower lip, his eyes huge, sweat flying. He looks even more distressed than in panel 3 as he babbles.

The Purples still give no sign of showing distress, although Mr Purple looks perhaps suspiciously amused. Mrs Purple grins as she talks.

POLO SHIRT: Oh! Uh, I don’t know… Scheduling and you know, um…

MRS PURPLE: Wouldn’t it be a hoot if our kids grew up and married each other?


This cartoon on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues | 3 Comments

Haiku for February 17

background image of foggy hill with a haiku in the foreground

In early dimness,

a quiet, unmoving sky

chills, waiting for dusk.

Posted in haiku, Poetry | Comments Off on Haiku for February 17

January Fifteenth, My Forthcoming Novella, Front Cover

I’m still really excited about my upcoming novella, January Fifteenth. It’s coming out from Tor.com in just a few months.

I really like the cover:

book cover of a person walking down an alley with an umbrella and the following text: January Fifteenth, “Money Changes everything–except people.” Rachel Swirsky, “One of the best speculative writers of the last decade.” –John Scalzi

I really like the cover! It reminds me of one of my favorite paintings,”Paris Street; Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebot.

image of oil painting "Paris Street; Rainy Day" by French artist Gustave Caillebotte with several people in walking the street of 1800s Paris
January Fifteenth tracks four points of view, each in a different part of the United States of America, on the day when the government disburses Universal Basic Income. There’s a young mother in upstate New York; a freelance journalist in Chicago; a wealthy college student at a resort in Colorado; and a pregnant teenager who is part of an FLDS cult in Utah. None of them quite look like this gentleman in the rain, but he could be part of their world, a page or two away.

Posted in Fiction, January Fifteenth, My publications, Novella, Tor.com | Comments Off on January Fifteenth, My Forthcoming Novella, Front Cover

Cat Drawing! Pete in a Box

drawing of a cat laying in a box with four paws visible

This is one of the images I used in Scragamuffin, the chapbook I released as October’s exclusive Patreon reward. I thought it might be fun to release the pictures with the photos that inspired them.

I didn’t think I would be able to draw this because of the weird positions of his paws. It’s the kind of thing I’d shy away from if I were sketching freehand, but because I’m using the photographs as direct templates, I gave it a shot. “Trust the photograph,” I told myself as I made lines that seemed intuitively weird. The paws still look weird, but I think that’s at least 80% because paws look kinda weird.

photo of a cat laying in a box with four paws visible

Posted in artwork, Cats | 1 Comment