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Afro Punk Futurism Looks Portraits by

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ARCHIEVANGELION 1.1134244 YOU CAN (NOT) HAMBURGERS

I have been thinking about this for months

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Bell's Let's Talk

It's Bell's Let's Talk Day, so let's talk.

I don't really avoid telling people that I'm Bipolar (or, as some would more accurately say, "have Bipolar Disorder"), but I've learned that it's still going to get a lot of uncomfortable silences. I've even had someone immediately change the subject to a person they tangentially knew who was dying of cancer.

That felt great.

That was also not a great day for me.

It makes it hard to "come out" as mentally ill (again, as some would more accurately say, "having mental illness"). You might get an uncomfortable silence, or see someone's opinion of you drop in front of you. Even worse, you might get asked real, legitimate questions.

"What is being bipolar like?" "How does depression feel?" "What's (hypo)mania like?" "Do you hear voices?" "Do you see things?" "What's the 'craziest' you've gotten?" "Have you ever attempted suicide?"

It's really hard. Because as much as you get the range of responses to "coming out," the answers to these questions will define you. And they should probably be asked more often. And they should probably be answered more often and more truthfully. But it's really hard.

I could say that Bipolar disorder deals with Depression and (hypo)mania. But it's different for everyone and harder to define symptomatically for any one person. While some people feel sad and useless and <insert symptom here> with Depression, I just feel empty. Tired. There's just nothing at all there. No emotion at all.

And while some people believe that they're the Messiah when they're Manic, for the most part I'm just operating 10X as quickly, processing things and making connections that I never would be able to when I'm not Up. 

Which is really useful when you've been depressed for an entire semester and need to learn an entire course overnight. (Stress can trigger (hypo)mania -- Convenient!)

Sometimes I may think that everything and everyone is a construct of my mind, but, for me, that sort of thing is pretty rare.

And, frankly, I left the previous sentence out of the first draft of this because I know how it paints me. But we're speaking honestly here.

But then, for me, my brain starts moving too quickly for me to keep up with it (and no, I can't explain that outside of some sort of bad sci-fi "brain overload" scene) and I start crashing. Hard. I go from being able to understand everything to not being able to function and curling into a ball wishing desperately for my brain to just slow down and be quiet. And I can't accurately express how torturous that is.

But it's not just about those two states. When I'm "normal," I hold myself up to an impossible standard -- the me that exists when I'm happily hypomanic. I concretely know who the best me is. It's not like having some vague concept of what your potential might be. I know who I am at my smartest, most creative, most charismatic, with the most joie de vivre. And I can't be that guy. Not without The Crash. Not without everything attached to it. But just knowing that I can be that guy makes me feel like I should be that guy and that I'm perpetually failing myself and everyone around me.

But, when I'm "normal," I'm also terrified of The Crash. I'm terrified of everything surrounding it. Terrified of my life falling apart, or of life insurance companies being correct, or just of the anger management issues that come with this sort of thing getting out of control. There's a Hulk in there, and I know it, and I live with it. I need to keep Bruce Banner front and center.

So most of my life revolves around me being a tenth of what I am capable of or should be or being terrified of losing control.

And that's me, normal. Not even depressed. Depressed is empty. I have no concept of suicidal ideation while depressed and have to assume that those that do have very different depressive symptoms than me. For me, the (hypo)manic crashes are the danger points.

I guess that's the trade-off. Icarus and all that.

But if you ask me one of those questions, and I give one of these answers, how do you reply to that? How could you possibly reply to this thing that I've dealt with daily, with-or-without meds for 20 years?

Because, if your symptoms aren't too severe to land you in the hospital (and trust me, some people have very severe symptoms that they keep under wraps and probably would be better off being hospitalized), you learn to pass as normal. I went through high school working 30hrs/week at a job where I interacted with hundreds of people daily in a very upbeat customer service sort of way. I was dead and empty with depression during most of it, but my co-workers couldn't tell and my customers couldn't tell, and my classmates couldn't tell. Maybe some of them thought that something might have been a bit off sometimes, but who isn't a bit off now and again? Likewise with the (hypo)mania. Sure, maybe I seemed a bit more energetic than usual, but I forced myself to slow my speech and distract myself enough to function like a normal human being. To fit in. My brain might have been bouncing, but I made damn sure that my body was not.

So you tell people who you've known for a long time, and they look at you weirdly and tell you that it couldn't have been that bad if they couldn't tell. They tell you that meds are bad and only weak people use them, because really, Big Pharma. Spending more than a decade without meds, building all sorts of compensatory mechanisms that you don't know how to remove (which can make emotional attachment really tricky), is irrelevant. You are weak for finally realizing that this thing that you've dealt with forever is A Thing and going to a doctor, getting a diagnosis, and trying to straighten out your life. You get denied for life insurance because now that you have that diagnosis, the assumption is suicide.

Every day. For the most part, these things are reflex to me now. I'm generally consciously aware of them at least a few times a week but I take steps every day, out of reflex or habit, to try to maintain outward normalcy. To maintain stability.  Some of that is purely terror and pulling the reins on myself -- spinning everything as a silver lining because dark clouds have a cascading effect. Some of that is trying to drag myself to the gym or forcing myself to interact with people when I'm dead and empty for the sake of attempting a kickstart. And yes, praise Big Pharma, sometimes that's me drugging myself to sleep for a day or two to try to bypass or interrupt The Crash.

And at the end of the day, I have a voice in the back of my head that says "somebody always has it worse" and that invalidates any feelings I may have on the subject. Because, at the end of the day, I can pass as normal. I've gotten really good at it. I don't know how not to do it, honestly.

So I try to let people know that I have this thing, and it's not a huge deal but I need to take care of myself. I usually try using Diabetes as an analogy. It relaxes people. It makes it more concrete. Makes it seem more manageable.

Because someone always has it worse, and it could be the person I'm talking to. And they could be struggling to pass as normal. And they could be barely getting by with the weight they already have. And I've carried my weight for two decades. I can carry it for another day.

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My inner critic is an asshole and the longer I sit at my desk the further removed from reality the criticism becomes.

…and you are feeling nervous, inadequate, worried, and like it’s all insurmountable…

I want you to stop for a moment and really listen to this.

I don’t know a single comics creator worth a damn who never felt those things. Almost all of us STILL feel those things, either a little or a lot.

...

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Remember how we were all, “OMG Wonder Woman is getting a movie!!!”?

Well, it turns out that DC Comics and WB aren’t quite as on board as we were led to believe.

Here’s Vulture in an interview piece with the film’s director Michelle McLaren:

During a lunch last month at the Soho House...

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Tenny does great work, and I'm just happy to have had the opportunity to work with her.

I really love the sunshine mug.

disconnect dec 2014 script/lettering: Gerard Gareau

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I loved Batgirl when the daughter of the Police Commissioner decided to take her skills and her drive to protect people and her inspiration from this Batman character to start a side job as a caped crusader. I loved when she did it without being asked, and when she tried and succeeded without...

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Aspiration

We live in a world where the internet exists. In a world where some combination of a computer, a phone, a scanner, and a printer will let us create just about anything. Throw in a sewing machine and some machining tools and the sky is the limit.

Places like makerspaces and meetup groups exist in most larger cities. Community centers exist in most smaller cities and towns.

We don’t live in a world where cameras are rare or we need to rely on expensive film to get things done.  We just don’t live in that world anymore.

So stop being an “aspiring” anything. Don’t be an aspiring writer — just write. Don’t be an aspiring comic book creator — make comics.  Don’t be an aspiring filmmaker or musician. Make a movie! Record a song! Put them out into the world! Don’t be an “aspiring” anything. An aspiring anything is just someone stopping themselves from actually doing work that matters.

You don’t want to do bad work? I get that.  Good luck with that. If you want to do something at any appreciable level you will need to do it, poorly, over and over and over.  That’s fine.  Bad work can stay in a drawer or a box. It just needs to exist in the first place.

But you need to keep building.  You can’t just keep editing the same page or song or film forever. There’s a point where you can’t improve on it any more.  Or, at least, a point where improving it isn’t improving the larger project.  Either commit to it, or put it away, and get busy doing something else. A new draft. A complete and fresh restructure of a project. A “devil’s advocate”-based project that tries to be everything that the first project is not.

Just do something.

Stop aspiring.

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Here's Why I Love Disney Infinity

I was playing just almost randomly as Tinkerbell, and I suddenly had to fight a swarm of Venom Symbiotes with a lightsaber.

Come on, that’s cool.

TINK vs VENOM.

With a LIGHTSABRE.

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You read that right! We’re having a cover art contest with our friends at Red Sonja LLC. and The Art of Drawing Instagram community. 

Artists! This is your chance your chance to be seen, and possibly score a paid cover art gig! 

Post your entry to Instagram. Use the hashtag #redsonjacontest (Along with the disclaimer in the rules below) and tag @redsonjaoffical and @dynamitecomics before December 1st to enter!

We’ll pick the top four we like, then you guys get to pick the grand prize winner!

Click Below For Full Contest Rules

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first time is always awkward XD by nebezial

Gotta watch out with aliens!

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People say Colbert is a parody of O'Reilly, but he's really just Bill McNeil.

I miss Phil Hartman.

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The Story Asking For Help #classic

So here’s the long story, under a read more. It’s not that sad, but it is stressful, so signal boosts and word spreading are greatly appreciated.

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Happy Halloween from Texts From Superheroes!

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Zatanna Pencils and inks by the ever-wonderful swilliams1.

Colours by me.