Happy Mother’s Day

You can look around the Internet and find all sorts of cool information on the radical roots of Mother’s Day. I am also content to just hang out with my mom, with whom I disagree on almost everything, but who I resemble intensely in personality and love dearly. She also thinks it’s funny when I sketch our family as the Addams Family for her Mother’s Day card, which is a unique attribute. One of these days I’ll draw my family in actual proportion, so you know, my dog isn’t bigger than my 14 year old sister.

jb

Back from Epic Travels!

If you haven’t been watching, Curmudgeon has been updating its own damn self, while I eat donuts in Seattle with my sweetie.

Also, my review of the book Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant is up at The New Inquiry.

Happy fucking New Year!
JB

Hilarity ensues.

From the weekly Shareable e-newsletter:

True story.

–jb

Updates!

–Sassyfrass Circus is in a pop-up library at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago as part of a show called “Underground” until August 18th. The other folks in the show are fucking great so you should go check it out, Midwestern types.

–A review I wrote of American Pietas by Ruby C. Tapia is up on the New Inquiry! I wrote it before the verdict in the Casey Anthony case but I think it’s all still pretty applicable.

–This weekend is Clitfest! I am doing a workshop/discussion on Saturday, July 9th called “Do-It-Yourself Expression: Utilizing Zines and Blogs for the Creation and Distribution of Independent Media”. Hopefully it will not be too ridiculous. It’s from 1:45 – 3:15 at St. Stephen’s Church. Come tell me I’m wrong about things!

–Not only is Curmudgeon alive (and updating on Fridays!) we are also doing a donations drive, so that we can pay for things like hosting. No host, no Curmudgeon, sad face. Click on the “tip jar” to check out our cool thank you presents!

–In case you miss my random senseless fashion blogging:

fartorialist in park slope.

<3 jb

My desk

I almost never work at my desk (I draw sitting on my bed and use my desk chair as a computer stand) but I do use it to keep things on, like collages I’m working on, mail I’m sending, adhesives, inks, white out, random tools and apparently shoe polish. If anyone wants to get me one of those fancy tabletop drafting things so my neck stops being destroyed, I am not opposed. Also, I am not posting this to distract you from a lack of new comics.

New work is coming, stay tuned you rabid fans!

<3 jb

Anxiety Comics: Grad School Edition

I continue to be waitlisted at one school, so there is that, also.

<3 jb

The best laid plans (Or, why editing a compilation zine sucks right now)

If you read this blog on the regular, you will know that I have pushed back the submissions deadline for Femme a Barbe 3 multiple times. I have also posted calls for submissions on multiple blogs and distro sites, made a Facebook invite, bugged my friends and gotten many promises of submissions. However, my last deadline has come and gone, and still have received only one submission. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great piece, but…

What is an editor to do? I have done community organizing and D.I.Y. projects for long enough to know that when people are busy, the work that nets the least personal gain is usually the first to go. I am aware that most zine people are notoriously flaky. I am notoriously flaky.

I wonder if I am not receiving submissions because Femme a Barbe as a project has reached its natural end–people are done with this venue of talking about gender and facial hair–and I should just lay it to rest and move on.

But if this is not the case, if people want to continue the conversations taking place in the pages of Femme a Barbe, then please submit. At least comment or send me a message to let me know that you’re planning to submit (or if you think I should give up). I started making zines because I was tired of one-sided conversations. Don’t leave me out in the cold here people.

–jb

Femme a Barbe seeks to promote discussions of identity and desire (and other themes!) through that stuff that grows (or doesn’t grow) on our faces. Whether you love it, hate it, want it, like people who have it, got rid of it or are trying to grow it….Issue 3 has a particular focus on relationships, romance, and attraction, but go ahead, deviate from that and see if i care.

From Issue 1: “To the Secret Freaks: Come with me! Dare to imagine a world full of women with beards and other gender outlaws, to imagine the possibilities of a feminist cultural politic that rejects the bullshit concern that feminism appear normal, a queer cultural politic that rejects the mainstream gay desire to assimilate and consume. Make a spectacle of yourself. Join the Femme a Barbe insurgency!”

All submissions must be:
5×8, Black and White or Grayscale
Images must be at least 350 dpi and JPEG
please send submissions to sassyfrasscircus [at] gmail [dot] com.

Sometimes you have to scrap the whole thing and start over.

This comic could go in about a million directions…it’s still a choose your own adventure at this point. In other news, Thursday night I will be your popcorn wench at the first official D.C. Zinefest fundraiser at Video Americain. It’s free (zinesters suck at fundraising) so you should probably come. This Saturday I will be reppin’ at the Wingnut in Richmond. Also my friend Mal started a weird ass blog that I am somehow involved in.

<3 jb

The Legend of Sassyfrass Circus

I just found possibly the only remaining copy of Sassyfrass Circus #1 (I’m going to make more copies maybe), which I don’t really distro. I decided to scan a couple of pages (clearly when I made this I hadn’t met Jami “Mind Your Margins” Sailor) because the Legend of Sassyfrass Circus is hilarious.

<3 jb

Art therapy/ Fuck no February

It’s actually kind of helpful to draw the cynical, stupid voices in my head making all kinds of unhelpful, sarcastic, or hopeless observations. Which does not make this an accurate reflection of reality, whatever that is.

Back to our regularly scheduled program,
jb.