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Current comic: Alethia in print or on Comixology or on taobao
Completed graphic novel: 14 Nights
My other comics can be found in Beyond Anthology, Purity Anthology, Monster Anthology and Blood and Visions
SpiderForest just started a KS for our latest anthology, Creatures. I have a new Yasha Lizard in it, called Yasha Lizard Ruins the Neighborhood! Check it out!
Today is my one-year lockdowniversary. To “celebrate”, I present you with a paragraph from my journal from February 2020 in which I mention covid for the first time.
Last year I was in Changshu, China, staying at home during Spring Festival because I’d already traveled during Christmas break. Most of my friends were back in their hometowns or traveling for fun during that time, so life was mostly uneventful until I started hearing about the mysterious disease in Wuhan.
I remember using bleach to sterilize everything that entered and left my apartment, because at the time nobody knew that the virus was primarily airborn. I lived and worked on school campus, along with a few others who didn’t leave for vacation, and the administration kindly delivered bags of food each Sunday. It was very unpredictable what we got. One day we recieved two kg of fresh spinach. I had to put aside the rest of my day to wash and cook it, otherwise it would have gone off and I’d have had nothing else to eat that week.
After I started to feel like my routine was keeping me relatively safe from covid, I started to worry about being sent to Changshu #1 People’s Hospital, infamous around town for its terrible treatment, for failing the temperature check for being hot, or for being seen coughing, or something else innocuous. In hindsight, I never needed to worry because campus security used only the cheapest thermometers and they struggled to read my body temperature at all.
Then, as now, boredom and isolation was major problem. Outsiders were not permitted to visit campus, and as I mentioned, bars and restaurants were closed. After a month, many of my friends realized they wouldn’t be re-entering the country any time soon, and gave me permission to raid their kitchens for food. More than just a nice gesture, because imports weren’t arriving at that time, and many taobao shops weren’t fulfilling orders.
At the time I wrote this, I really didn’t believe the virus would leave China. Quite a few very kind people (including some of you guys!) messaged me to see if I was ok. And I will never forget that. Now I can look back and see that I had it pretty good compared to the hell that my poor home country is suffering. I hope everyone who was reading last January is still here today, and I hope will be here next January.
May we all live to experience precidented times once more.
I’ve been working on this story arc since early 2017. It’s become longer than 14 Nights, better written than 14 Nights, and better drawn. I didn’t tackle all the philosophical questions that I’d hoped to with regard to the effect that fiction has on us and my own ambivalent relationship to fiction, but I think that was an impossible goal. I’m extremely proud of this story arc, maybe the proudest I’ve ever been of anything in my life. I hope the ending will satisfy you.
