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Let the story of Oscar Wilde inspire you to learn more about abolition.

Let the story of Victoria Arellano inspire you to call a congressperson about abolishing ICE

Let the story of Holly Woodlawn inspire you to hire queer people and pay them well.

Let the story of Dwayne Jones inspire you to donate to the first human rights organization in the history of Jamaica to serve the needs of LGBT peoples.

Let the story of Lou Sullivan inspire you to question and challenge the continued transphobia in our medical systems.

Let the story of Frieda Belinfante inspire you to fundraise for Rainbow Railroad.

Let the story of Marsha P. Johnson inspire you to support Black trans people now.

Let the story of Claude Cahun inspire you to make and distribute anti-fascist zines in your area.

Let the story of Amrita Sher-Gil inspire you to support safe and legal abortions in your country.

Let the story of Magnus Hirschfeld inspire you to do queer work in your field of interest.

Let the story of Rita Hester inspire you to attend the nearest TDOR event.

Queer history isn't just about learning, sometimes, it's a call to action. A reminder that no matter the time period, solidarity, community, and creation are the ways progress happens. Queer history is intersectional, inspirational, and integral to our continued existence. Learn it, and let it move you.

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magicians brainrot setting in

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Somewhere Outside

patreon / youtube / twitter / instagram / website

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The Rosetta Stone on the Deep Space Nine Promenade, written in English, Klingon, Vulcan, Ferengi, Bajoran and Cardassian

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Acting like the issues we have in the USA with police violence, homelessness, indigenous sovereignty & land back, environmental destruction, pollution & poisoning by corporate dumping aren't related to what is happening in Palestine and in other parts of the world is extremely naive. The USA is a global power with enormous military and monetary influence. To see the connection all you need to do is look at the facts of where the money and research goes, where it comes from and what it is used for.

Caring about genocide overseas, especially when your government & institutions fund it and develop weapons and train domestic police forces around it, makes sense if you are looking big picture.

If you live in the USA, you live in an ongoing settler colonialist project. The settler projects in other countries almost always have historic ties to where you are now. You have historic ties to the resistance and perpetuation of it, and you have a choice to make about it.

If you could stop weapons support to the IDF, there's hope to do the same with militarized police forces in your own town that are literally beating protestors.

If the USA works towards land back for Palestinians, it follows that the same thing could happen here for reparations and land back for Black Americans and indigenous peoples in North America.

There is so much we can accomplish by keeping the eye on the prize, liberation for all people. Prizing life and dignity over the rights of the few to profit, private property and owning land for extraction of its resources.

centrist guy in 1970 seeing university anti-vietnam war protests in the news

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Church of Whale Fall

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So you want to print and distribute a free zine...

I wanted to throw together a short tutorial on how I print zines using this excellent COVID safety zine by @newlevant as an example.

Printing

First make sure you are clicking on the printable file. When you open it, it should look slightly jumbled. I always look for seeing the front cover and the back cover on the same page.

Then click "print" (usually a printer icon) and open "more settings".

The key things people tend to get wrong when they try printing zines is they forget to make sure that it is double sided and flips on the short edge. If you tried printing one and it came out looking wonky, make sure to check this.

Also, it will make your life infinitely easier if you use the collate option should you have it available to you.

Fit to printable area is a helpful setting to have on if you're printing zines who use a different paper standard than you. This zine didn't for me but I leave this on out of habit.

When you've got this all set up - print as many copies as you want to assemble.

Assembling

When you get them out of the printer they'll look like this. Just a big old stack. I highly recommend parsing out each individual copy before you try assembling any. I have made that mistake before.

This is how I stack mine.

I like to leave the cover side up as it makes for a clearer division as I'm assembling.

As you're flipping through these to parse and stack them, check them over for any issues with printing. I ran out of printer toner on the first three so I'm glad I checked.

Imperfections are fine but you're looking for anything that makes critical information unreadable.

To assemble a copy, get them lined up by tapping them on the table along a short and a long edge.

Both hands is a lot easier but I was trying to take a picture lol

Then fold them hamburger style and smooth down the spine as best you can. If you have a bone folder or similar use that.

Again, let go of perfection. We are looking for good enough here. Minor errors here should not make info unreadable so don't sweat the small stuff.

I recommend doing all your folding in one go to prevent errors. Or at least it really helps me.

Now it's time to staple. You will see my fancy stapler in the background - you do not require it and I would not recommend it. Unhinging a normal stapler is way easier to use in my opinion and this one gets jammed fairly easy. Use what you've got.

If you don't have staples, but you do have sewing supplies - check out this tutorial for a way to bind it with thread.

If you have no staples and no thread, you don't have to staple every zine. Smaller ones (~5 pages or less) do fine with no staple. They can be a little tougher for some people to use and don't hold up as well being taken in and out of places so I would consider that when thinking of where to leave them. They're still well worth printing and putting out.

This zine is small enough that one staple in the center should be enough to keep it together.

I opted to staple in two places - one about an inch in from either edge - mostly out of habit. It does add a little stability and will make them a little better for putting in Little Free Libraries and other places where they'll be removed and placed back.

Here is my partner looking over the zines to make sure my stapling didn't cut off any important information in each copy. It's a little tedious but it's pretty important. A quick flip through can mean the difference between someone getting the info you want them to have or not.

And here's the finished product

I made 15. I'm pretty privileged and have been making zines for over a decade now so it's almost like knitting or crochet for me. Feel free to make fewer copies or just one for yourself. It still counts.

I will stick some in each car and my bag. I have some medical appointments coming up so I will for sure be leaving some of these in the waiting room.

I'm also going to keep an eye out for Little Free Libraries and other place where people are looking for something to read. I might also toss some on the tables of a coffee shop I pop into sometimes (masked, take out only) and the library to pick up books (also masked).

I tend not to give them to specific people, even people I know, because people are way more open to information they've picked up themself than something it feels like someone is pressuring them to read. But if people bring it up in conversation, I'll be sure to offer a copy to anyone who is interested.

Hope this is helpful!

Go out there and print!

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New zine that's free for anyone to print and distribute! Read the whole thing at newlevant.com/COVIDzine or in the rest of this post.

UPDATE 4/11/2023:

I swapped out the colloidal silver nasal spray info for xylitol nasal spray info. I originally included colloidal silver spray because of the linked study and recommendation from RTHM, but I don't want to be pointing people toward something with notable health risks. Xylitol spray (Xlear) is also cheaper and more widely available!

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by @mandyland_viz

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How do you determine the size of the canvas before you begin?

hello

i usually go somewhere between 100x100 and 200x200 depending on the content and level of detail that i want. for portraits i stick closer to 100

but most of the canvas sizing happens after i start drawing. i sometimes find i need a bigger canvas to represent what i feel are important details, and i will change the canvas size around that

as an example this wip is closer to 200x300, and that’s because i wanted to be able to represent an expression with the eyes that would not be possible at a smaller resolution

so what i am trying to say is that intent determines your canvas size most of all, and i just try stuff until i get what i want

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

[poweredbylemonx]

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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i am exactly 3,527 days late with this meme

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‘We hid our stock in case we were raided’: Scotland’s pioneering LGBTQ+ bookshop

Opened two years after the country legalised ‘homosexual acts’, Lavender Menace made a huge impact. Now it has opened a public queer books archive

by Katie Goh

It was the early 80s, and on an autumn day in Edinburgh’s New Town, a young man appeared at the top of the steep stairs that led down to the city’s gay bookshop, Lavender Menace. He had just been made redundant and wanted to donate part of his severance pay to the shop. “He gave us £50,” remembers Sigrid Nielsen, who ran the bookshop with her business partner Bob Orr. “I still wonder who he was.”

Lavender Menace bookshop was founded in 1982, two years after homosexuality between men over the age of 21 was legalised in Scotland. Although its physical presence on Forth Street only lasted for five years, the bookshop made a lasting impact on Scotland’s LGBTQ+ population. During its operation in the 1980s, Lavender Menace was one of two gay bookshops in the UK; the other was London’s Gay’s the Word. Orr and Nielsen opened Lavender Menace after Orr found success selling literature from a bookstall in the cloakroom of the gay club Fire Island, and then later from a glass cabinet in Edinburgh’s Gay Centre. “We were scattered and underground,” says Orr about Edinburgh’s LGBTQ+ community in the 1970s and 80s. “None of us came out at work. We didn’t get on with our parents. By the time the bookshop opened in 82, we knew we were taking a risk, not just financially, but socially as well, whether the neighbourhood would put up with it or not.”

Lavender Menace operated as a bookshop and a mail order service that sold LGBTQ+ literature across Scotland. Orr and Nielsen took advantage of the flourishing gay and lesbian publishing industry in North America and imported new books for UK readers. But, like Gay’s the Word, they faced trouble from customs. “We lost several thousands of stock at Glasgow’s docks that we had to pay for,” says Orr. “We would hide our stock in the shop in case we were raided like Gay’s the Word.”

READ MORE

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one thing i've always understood as Akira Toriyama's influence on manga, even if just assumption on my part, was how his cartooning came to bear when he started writing pure action manga. when I think of his contemporaries I think of overblown special moves like Saint Seiya or the gory fist clusters of FotNS

to me it seemed what Toriyama brought to the table was the satisfaction of clarity in martial arts

when you read his fight scenes, which may have become notorious when animated for dragging on, there's no question about what's happening in the action

a clear kick to the jaw

a clean line of action on Yajirobe's slice

I first noticed this clarity pretty quickly early on in the General Tao fights during the red ribbon arc, where entire fight scenes playing out with these clear motions on the pages

Even as it got more detailed later on, the clarity stayed

clear hits on clear fight scenes

and dirtier but still completely legible lines of action

And when he started introducing the big over the top special moves we got the same thing quite often in DB: that simple visual clarity amplifying the excitement

i'm not super coherent on it right now, i'm not the biggest shonen action fan all the time and maybe Toriyama didn't introduce the world to visually clear and interesting fights in manga.

but when I see any action manga showing off clean fight choreography or sick ass lazer beams that show off clear shockwaves of destruction, i'll always be thinking of the GOAT

RIP Akira Toriyama