(I'm digging out posts that have been languishing in my drafts and finally finishing them up. This was a post written on March 21, 2020, and finished today.)

Some of you are perhaps aware of my recent feelings about the Blue Bird Site: that the environment it encourages is now more like a glasshouse with the flimsiness of cling wrap; the archival of information is non-existent (RIP to all of the useful threads I can never find again); and the changing social norms of Internet 2.0 that place unhealthy emotional value on the production of a "relatable" "self" "brand" "content" for an "audience". All of this nonsense is why I keep a blog now - I've, sadly, outgrown the type of internet that Twitter represents.

After watching Abigail Thorn's video essay on Artists and Fandoms, which btw compliments another video by Lindsay Ellis on Manufacturing Authenticity, I felt like playing with one particular idea that connects these disparate feelings I mentioned above together, especially in the context of myself as a creator. It's an idea that explains why I've moved away from Twitter threads to focus more on blog posts, and why I no longer wish to contribute frequently and reactively to The Discourse. It's also, like too many things, a consequence of late-stage capitalism orbiting around grand notions of hyperproductivity, hyperspecificity and hyperoptimisation.

Thoughts on the world's first website.

With the impending degradation of Web 2.0 the past few months, I have been accelerating my quest to archive everything I have (almost) ever posted on social media (Twitter, Tumblr, DA... there's not much on IG or FB) and other places (Flickr, Neopets, Google, and Photobucket). Rants, text, threads, doodles, art - anything from my 16 years of being online is being taken out and given their rightful place on my website.

If you recall, I have spoken several times in this blog about my past life in academia, the quarter-life crisis that resulted from it (not the full story), and the occasional spasm of desiring institutional recognition.

I am willingly! voluntarily! going back through the gates of the ivory tower.

A small little romp on creative rest.

Since the All the Things That Mean Nothing post, I witnessed some more toxification at the peripheries of the digital spaces I am bound to, further shaking everyone else's faith in the constancy of platforms. (For context, I'm talking about the schrodinger blockification of Kickstarter, the fence-dancing of Patreon, and the farcical PR meltdown of Gumroad) More and more I'm thinking, boy, how far into the nuclear fallout of Web 2.0 will I tolerate until I say, eff it and bunker underground?

On death and workaholicism and how being an artist of intention requires time not creating.

Last weekend I received feedback from my editor, A, finally completing the second of a two part alpha reading stage- allowing me now the comfort to feel I've reached far along enough that I can start talking about the thing. The writing thing.

I wasn't sure how to document the Writing Stage of Alexander Comic (or my graphic novels in general). It's not as instant, fast or natural as the rest of the graphic novel making process, when it's just me reading or sketching or drawing, and I can just post a screenshot/photo accompanied with a quip. You can't really show much with writing; only the end result. Additionally, I have this superstitious belief that the period of making a story come to life should be treated as sacred, private, personal. Talking too much about the writing while you're supposed to be doing the work is an invitation for a jinx, or at least... it invites said jinx to me.

Double feature

The unofficial start of the residency (at home).