Please Reblog If:

at what point do american children realise it’s weird for them to pledge allegiance to their flag and country every day at school and that not all countries do that and how long after that discovery do they realise how creepy it is

why is this something no one talks about because it concerns me on a very deep level

I love you. If all else whispers back into the tide, know this for fact. By grace given me by the Goddess Arashu, I bid her divine protection to you, my warrior-angel, my Siha, to succeed in your destiny. To light your path through the coming darkness. To give you hope, when all seems lost.

I will await you across the sea.

Infographic: Legally Married and Legally Fired, Center for American Progress

Making Comics Master Link List!

Hey guys, I’m getting a lot of asks about the same things, mostly questions about how to make comics, how to “break into comics” (haha, oh dear), working with publishers, that kind of thing. I’ve done some blogging on many of the subjects, so instead of repeatedly replying in private with links to those posts, I’m going to do a master post thingie with links to all my blogging about how I work. Hopefully some of you will find some helpful nuggets in there! I remember when I first started trying to transition into making comics for a living, and there wasn’t much information about that online. I spent a lot of time wailing about it on a locked livejournal. XD But anyway, I hope my blogs help a wee bit.

Disclaimer: these blog posts are all based on my own personal experiences as a cartoonist, and the advice therein might not work for everyone. The most awesome thing about comics is that there is no one way to make them, nor is there one direct route into becoming a full-time cartoonist. The more pro cartoonists I meet, the more it drives home how different our methods and origin stories are. 

Anyway, here you are! (With all of these, scroll past the placeholder image at the top of the post.)

1) How I make my comics, start to finish (traditional penciling)

1A) How I make my comics start to finish, now with digital penciling!

2) Finding the art tools that are right for you.

3) Working with collaborators.

4) Acting in comics. 

5) The financial reality of a full time cartoonist. 

6) Making a successful graphic novel pitch. 

7) Adapting a prose novel to comics, part 1.

8) Adapting a prose novel to comics, part 2.

9) Very simple tips for drawing a comic that will be published.

10) Working with editors from a cartoonist’s perspective.

10) b) Working with editors from an editor’s perspective (by my First Second editor, Calista Brill).

11) On “Drawing Styles.”

12) Dealing with discouragement (this is probably the most popular thing I’ve ever written XD).

13) On Comic Conventions. 

14) On Being a Pro and Finishing that Comic When You Don’t Want To

15) How I Write My Comics

Okay, I think that’s it! Whew! The remainder of the Friends With Boys blogging archive is here. It has some other bloggings that aren’t advice-related (mostly ramblings about comics I like), if you’re interested. If you have any other comic-related subjects you’d like me to blog about, feel free to drop a suggestion in the ask box.

I hope this was helpful. Share and enjoy! 

Updated 08/12/15

Cop Worship & the Criminalization of Blackness. In this hierarchy of violence a cop’s life matters infinitely more than a black person’s life, and Americans… are expected to demonstrate sympathy with the lives of police officers. By contrast, Americans are encouraged to scrutinize and question the humanity of black and brown people murdered by police before questioning the lethal force used in otherwise non-lethal situations. This social reality illustrates how power is coordinated and wielded unilaterally, directed against the masses by a specialized minority within the population. Police repression is framed in the mainstream media in such a way that when police commit violence against black and brown communities, it appears to white Americans as if they simply are protecting white communities from black criminality. This is the active dissemination of white supremacy. From it police accrue social capital and power within a conception of black bodies that perpetuates their dehumanization and murder. Completing the cycle, racist white Americans, after participating in the process of dehumanizing black people slain by police, then offer their sympathy, material support, and privilege to killer cops. …Ultimately, cops are praised because they enforce violence on behalf of the moneyed class. They protect existing power, wealth, and the right to exploit for profit, while simultaneously appearing to exist primarily for public safety. Straddling this paradoxical position, cops are worshiped because they are explicitly and implicitly attached to the rewards of privilege under capitalism.

Gangs of the State: Police & the Hierarchy of Violence (via america-wakiewakie)

Hi! Do you have any tips on drawing body figures? Especially the length of the legs? And do you have tips on drawing hands? Thanks!

Only way to learn figures is to look at them and draw them.  I’ve taken figure drawing and anatomy for artist classes in addition to drawing a lot.  Take them if you can!  And I fuck up legs more than anything because I don’t draw them enough.  Easy springboard though is searching for Andrew Loomis books.

Same with hands, though there are some fairly easy to describe formulas for hands so I drew up a couple rq

First of all, for probably 90% of the hand poses you’re gonna draw, think fingers like the petals on a pinwheel.  They all curve the same degree, in relation to the previous.  

This is an important message!

Do you pronounce anon as: 1) ah-non 2) uh-non 3) other (say how you say it)

And era as: 1) air-uh 2) eh-ruh 3) ee-ruh 4) other (say how you say it)

Reblog this with how you say these words! My friends and I were talking about this today and I’m really curious as to how the majority of people say these phrases!

Okay message over