vaguesteph newsletter: birds smiley face sky
“3 sequences”
i’ve been thinking a lot about this conversation in the new inquiry on alt lit and how abuse/ grooming was always part of and deeply worked into the language of those writers: https://thenewinquiry.com/grooming-style/ .
“Alt Lit’s men long for the physiological authenticity of pubescence, for an authentic form of desire, imagined as lost, and it turns out that this isn’t separable from longing for the girls themselves.” writes one of the people in the conversation. i wonder if that is true about certain aesthetics in comics, too… i mean i can think of some!
a friend frequently reminds me how weird it is that narratives about adolescent identity crisis (e.g. in anime) are seen as “universal” and relatable to adults. and i think about how Gretchen Felker-Martin tweets about adults’ relationships to kids’ media.
what to do about this obsession with youth? i mean, from an aesthetic standpoint i can diagnose it in myself, too, because i obviously enjoy drawing these symbols of “young” anime style faces very much.
i guess i just wish that the genre of confessional writing/ comics wasn’t so full of garbage???
anyways… i’m going to a comics festival soon, not tabling but just hanging out. i’m feeling nervous because i have so much work to do, but i took a two hour long nap in the middle of the day today. here’s an image that i thought about while drawing the comic above:
(found by google searching “birds smiley face sky”. i’ve seen it several times on instagram and tumblr… it’s a good image.)
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