#subnormality

[character-smash-or-pass-3]

"i just think she's neat :)"

[sugaredoleander]

Claws in Your Back by Julien Baker (I change my mind. I wanted to stay) and Favor by Julien Baker (I’d have missed you more than you missed me), and Hammond B3 Organ Cistern by Gabrielle Calvocoressi (I did not want to die that day. Oh, my God. Why don’t we talk about it? How good it feels. And if you don’t know then you’re lucky but also you poor thing. Bring the band out on the stoop.) and What Resembles The Grave But Isn’t by Anne Boyer (sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!”) and Resumé by Dorothy Parker (you might as well live) and Hum, Hum by Mary Oliver (Some wounds never vanish. Yet little by little I learned to love my life.) and The Orange by Wendy Cope (I love you. I’m glad I exist.) and Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled with Shrieks by Christopher Citro (I love you. I want us both to eat well.) and Onions by William Matthews (How easily happiness begins by dicing onions.) and And When You Survive This by Peter Chiykowski (On the far shore of this calamity, you are looking back in admiration at yourself right now, muddling through with grace and grit and grim determination, and you are smiling because you know the secret of how you survive this, and one day, you will have the chance to share it.) and Hope In Every Box by Winston Rowntree (Tomorrow is another world, just a few feet away but far enough to always give you hope. I hope I'll see you there.) and Morning Love Poem by Tara Skurtu (It’s hard to say I need you enough. Today I did. Walked into your morning shower fully clothed. All the moments we stop ourselves just because we might feel embarrassed or impractical, or get wet.) and To Be Alive by Gregory Orr (That’s crudely put, but… If we’re not supposed to dance, Why all this music?) and Prayer for Werewolves by Stephanie Burt (you have friends, who are not going anywhere. Please stay here.) and On Seatbelts and Sunsets by Hanif Abdurraqib (God, I wear seatbelts and visit the graves of my friends in spring to kick away the dirt from winter. God, it is just us talking now, and I worry about everything I can’t control. God, can you tell me how much longer I’ll get to be alive and in love. God, I am sorry for the times I didn’t want to stick around. God, there is a scroll of things I have taken for granted in order to survive this long, and it is endless. And it is maybe too late to want to live forever after everything I’ve seen and done. But) and (i know we’re both just messing around pretending to be whole but look at me. if the train was coming would you move. if the ground was falling from under your feet would you even notice or would it just be another tuesday for you. if somebody stabbed you could it hurt worse than you already do. what i’m saying is that i love you but i think we both drive over the speed limit when it’s raining. what i’m saying is that i want to hold your hand and i understand about how you sometimes have to sit down in the shower. what i’m saying is that i’m here for you and if the train comes please move.) by Rowan Perez and The Letter by Linda Gregg (I’m not feeling strong yet, but I am taking good care of myself.) 

[have-you-read-this-webcomic]

[mrporg]

Subnormality

As far as I can tell, Winston Rowntree is not on Tumblr and that's a shame. I'd much rather reblog his entries than make new ones while "stealing" his art. But I still want to share because I love what he does and I want other people to have a chance to discover (or rediscover) him.

I classify his Subnormality comics in a few different categories:

Early works. These are short comics, often developing a simple idea. They are hit and miss, but there are some real gems in there. (e.g., Weird)

Posters. These are one-page pieces which are usually to the point while at the same time being very detailed. They remind me of these old children book where you would be looking all over the page, trying to discover all the small details. (e.g., The Creative Process)

Slice of (imaginary) life. In these comics, the same few characters make repeat appearances and you get to learn to love them, much like characters in your favourite long-running TV show. (e.g., Hallway)

Long form stories. These are the most unique in my opinion. They are usually very verbose and tell a story from beginning to end. I find that they capture my imagination like nothing else. (e.g., Message 652)

I'll leave you with this extract from one of his earlier comics:

[cat-mermaid]

so this comic from subnormality is one of those things that litterally shaped how i fucking view the world:

that part at the end there-

the idea that you can just keep your mouth shut and do nothing and no one will bother you

but the thing that this comic, which i read in college, clicked into my brain is the fact that

no matter what

somehow you are going to piss someone off

and i don't mean in a "everyone hates you by default the second you enter the room" kinda way, i mean in the "you can be doing the most benign thing possible and someone who is having a really bad day to going to find you" way

you can go somewhere and just innocently lean against a wall and turns out you have severely fucked things up for someone in ways you could have never anticipated

what i'm getting at is that one comic panel make me really think about how you can do everything "correctly" in society, be polite, follow the rules and be considerate of others and your surroundings...

but

just replace "man" with " random person"

its not like it happens every hour of every day and that you have to be hypervigilant about it (cos i sure as hell ain't lol) but its just a fact of life you have to accept: yer gonna piss someone off somehow, despite it all, and you gotta be ready to roll with the punches

lord knows i done somthing as simple as sitting down next to a group of people at a music festival only to soon have them all start screaming at me because one of them can't find their damn wallet

[infamousbrad]

How did nobody tell me that there IS going to be a season 3 of People Watching?

How did it take me more than three months to find out?

[thecurioustale]

You Should Read Shirley Estar Goes to Heaven!

Friends, tumblrs, countrymates, it is my rare pleasure to make a book recommendation that I've been looking forward all year to making. Winston Rowntree, of Subnormality fame, has just published his first novel—or, rather, his first conventional, text-only novel: Shirley Estar Goes to Heaven.

That link will take you to the landing page where you can learn about the book, watch the trailer, and purchase the paper and/or e-book editions. I recommend it very highly!

I realize that my excitement is not something that will automatically carry over to you, and that I have to sell it a little bit. So, in a SPOILER-FREE way, here is why I am recommending this book:

To get the selfish part out of the way first: Last winter I was fortunate enough to be a very early reader for this work, months before the main beta reading phase. A genuine delight, to put it simply. I haven't gotten my physical copy of the book yet (it just published, after all, and is in transit), so I don't know yet what changes may have resulted from my feedback; but, regardless, it's not every day that I get to have involvement with another artist's work before its publication—so I am very excited on those grounds.

More importantly, however, this book is painfully personal for me. It is a book about a person who can't. You would think they can. They are able-bodied, intelligent, and self-aware. But they can't. In cold clinical terms it is a mental impairment. Qualitatively, it is as though a watery pane of glass separates you from the rest of the world. You can see everything beyond it, but you can't go there. I have struggled with this since I was a small child, much more severely than I have ever fully explained, and I will never not struggle with it. It is the central dominating force in my life. This book is a book about that, except with dramatic elongations of the terrible shadows it casts. Anyone who has struggled with this illness or perhaps let us call it a fault is likely to be able to relate to this story in some way, and it is also a recommended read for those who don't suffer from this condition themselves but want to learn more about it. I particularly like one of the other early readers' pithy assessments: "Characters that you'll love but one of them will always do the thing you don't want her to."

Shirley Estar Goes to Heaven is a reimagining of Winston Rowntree's graphic novel from about fifteen years ago called Captain Estar Goes to Heaven, which old-timers may recall was (and is) also very dear to me. But this novel is a completely different work. It's uncanny, actually, because the characters and the flow of events are very similar, yet the story and the mood and the tonality are all different. Even the core themes have shifted somewhat. The artist has had fifteen years to grow in power and change in perspective, and the new novel makes full use of that transformation. It is a mature and intellectually challenging read. Not so much as in "the sentences are really difficult"; it's actually quite easy to read in that sense. But more like "you don't know where it's going but you're bleeding and you desperately need a band-aid so you hope really hard that there'll be a drugstore somewhere along the route." So, if you like that kind of thing, I can definitely recommend this book.

It's a sci-fi story, so if you like sci-fi then you have another reason to read it. And this book lives up to the name of "science fiction"; it's not just contemporary drama in spaaaaace! It makes creative use of the sci-fi canvas. There are some wonderful settings, futuristic conventions, and technological conceits. The sci-fi on display here is in many ways similar to and in many ways different from my own work. When I read it I saw that there are definitely similarities between Shirley Estar and my own Cherry from Galaxy Federal. But I think the most important comparison to make is that Winston Rowntree has his own pair of eyes and his own point of view, and approaches these issues in different ways and from different directions than I do. Shirley Estar Goes to Heaven says some things that I've been trying to say in my own work for ages, but it does so in ways that I never would or could.

Lastly, this book is also quite creative with its use of the medium, with decisions about the book's narrative structure and even its physical formatting serving to facilitate uncertainty and questions.

Anyway! I think I've said enough. Less is more, here. I don't want to tell you what to think about this story or even what to expect from it. But I do want to tell you what to do: Go read it!

[str8aura-no-not-that-one]

god, subnormality, what a nostalgia trip

went back and caught up and it still really does hold up

Best Character aside, when I have the time to read a strip its nearly always a hit. It has a flak online for being pseudo-intellectual talking down bullshit, but I think it has a lot of interesting things to say. That one comic where the two girls spend an entire night trying to find a good bar hit me hard the first time. its biggest problem is really that it cant be casual reading like most webcomics

[birdonic-wave]

Babe are you OK you keep talking about friendship speech from Subnormality by Winston Rowntree

[fwughox]

Sphinx of Black Quartz

[mrporg]

The written word is so important to me, that I do not exaggerate when I say that it defined an entire part of my life.

I cannot remember how early I fell in love with books and reading. Though not bookworms, my parents would read to me every evening as a toddler. In primary school, I would save my pocket money for the book fair at the end of the year and buy myself some truly amazing books. I read them so many times that most of them ended up falling apart. We had a public library in my town, and I would check out as many books as my subscription allowed every week.

I cannot begin to list everything that I like in books, that would make for a very long post, and this post is going to be very long already. But beautifully crafted sentences, captivating stories, impactful ideas, imaginary worlds and great dialogues are a few examples of things that I love.

All of that to explain that I will posting some of my favourite quotes to my blog (the keen eye will realize that I already started, see my Cthulhu quote post and my incipits series). And some of them will not be taken from books, because there are also amazing quotes to be found in songs, movies and many other places.

But enough of this self justification, let's start with the first quote:

"There were lights, and one of them blinked out, and it was gone. And we did everything we could to prevent this. We tested and redesigned this unit for years, and we exceeded all requirements. And we brought in others when our own imaginations weren't enough. And we were scrutinized. And we cleared every hurdle. And you are still gone. We worked harder than we thought possible because we had finally found a place filled with adults where things are taken seriously. And we put everything we had into it. And you have died anyway, and you are gone. And you will be buried at the side of the road. And the rest of us will continue on with the adventure. And I ask about this. And I ask myself. And they tell, and I tell myself that it is the price of creating things, because when nothing is ventured, nothing is gained. But we leave out the part where we cannot see what is being ventured."

(source: Message 652, Subnormality, Winston Rowntree)

I am not sure the quote works taken out of its context. The whole thing is much longer and it's difficult to do justice to such a great monologue when excising a tiny extract like that.

So, without spoiling too much (go read the source if you're interested), I'll try to explain why I like this quote so much. I think it is mostly because it resonates deeply with me. My passion for technology could have taken me into a very different direction. In an alternate universe, I could have been the one writing this monologue. Because technology in and out of itself is neither good nor bad, but it enables both good and bad outcomes in sometimes unforeseen ways. And how do you separate the two? You cannot, it's impossible.

So where does that leave us? Do nothing and reassure ourselves that we didn't cause any harm? Or take a chance, knowing full well that what we create/invent/discover will cause unknown damage to faceless people, all in the name of progress? When is progress desirable, and when does it cause more harm than good? Where do you put the cursor, draw the line? What criteria do you use to even begin to decide that? What about culture, history, morals, ethics, and sensibilities? How do they impact that decision?

I am not a philosopher and I don't have an answer to any of these questions, assuming definite answers even exist. But I still believe it is worth asking ourselves, because we cannot ignore the consequences of our actions and inaction.

[petite-ursus]

Subnormality is making a new season of People Watching!!!! So here are two of my favorite episodes. (They're all good. I have absolutely shared these before.)

[steal-this-idea]

Got me thinking of Subnormality with its Sphinx and PHG

A short comic I’ve done for @ibenkrutt

[queencryo]

i do definitely think Subnormality is one of the wiser webcomics

[str8aura-no-not-that-one]

quick reference securing for those unaware, the new pfp comes from one of my favorite subnormality strips because i fuckin love sphinx

[bedpolls]

The Sphynx from Subnormality webcomic.

Please reblog for a larger sample size.