Carbonara

Guest comic I did for Sarah Becan's "I Think You're Sauceome" webcomic

thisisit

He realized that he had become mostly filled with ill will and malice. He would walk home late at night stumbling slightly from the after work drinks and stop to stare at couples dining in restaurant windows.  He would stand mere inches from the glass. When they would look up at his unwavering attention he would then mouth "FUCK YOU. FUCK THIS. FUCK YOU" with more than the socially acceptable amount of direct eye contact.

Later in his apartment, surrounded by half read books, he would sit on the couch his head nested down onto his chest and glare at the radiator. This wasn't quite how he had envisioned filling his time. Occasionally he would get up, walk three times around the room stopping to open half filled notebooks before sitting back down. Eventually he slept.

rabblerabblerabble

"The Russians are coming!" I gasped "Quick we have to get to a storm drain so we can escape through the sewers and start our lives over. We will be the Resistance, we will smear our faces with refuse and laugh over burning barrels when the Red Machine thinks it has won! We will be the disease inside their body, the burr under the saddle . . ."

"Ahem" she rolled her eyes and turned towards the wall "If this is what you call dirty talk then I'm just going to sleep"

ohshitohshitohshit

the slow crackle and hum of fading radio stations breath frosting up into the sky the late night filter of wan yellow streetlights asphalt brittle and slick stumbling the taste of whiskey bitter on the tongue fingers too cold to fumblingly unbutton coats hands grasping pushing pulling saliva warm and bitter with cigarettes keys dropped and kicked off porch sudden laughter biting lips till blood comes breath harsh and insistent from the lungs

My stumptown votes 2011

Best Artist: Emily Carroll, "His Face All Red"
Best Writer: Carla Speed McNeil, "Finder: Voice"
Best Cartoonist: Sarah Glidden, "How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less"
Best Letterer: Brittney Sabo, "Francis Sharp in the Grip of the Uncanny, Vol. 1"
Best Colorist: Emily Carroll, "His Face All Red"
Best Publication Design: Zack Soto, "StudyGroup12 #4"
Best Anthology: "StudyGroup12 #4", edited by Zack Soto
Best Small Press: "The Whale" by Aidan Koch
Best New Talent: Michael DeForge
Reader's Choice: Francis Sharpe in the Grip of the Uncanny Vol. 1 by Brittney Sabo

Ihearitsawaitinggamenow

We buried him today. Does it make me a horrible person that I was bored at the funeral? There were forty-five rows of folding chairs - twenty two on the left twenty three on the right, twelve chairs in each row except for the front rows which had nine chairs on the right and six on the left. I know this because I counted them all, five times. It's not even that I was uncomfortable because it was a funeral and the body of someone they kept trying to tell us was our friend was lying in a wooden box at the front of the room, open for display like muffins or scones at a coffee shop. I just can't sit still. I kept adjusting and readjusting my tie. I know the lady next to me was watching. I imagined her naked and the two of us fucking in the bathroom for a few minutes. Then I felt bad. Not because I am a prude or anything or that a corpse could make me unable to get it up. I just knew we wouldn't be fucking in the bathroom later and that made me sad. There were forty-seven lilies in the right flower urn and I think forty-three in the left. I wish I hadn't worn a suit jacket, I felt all prickly and I wanted to get up and go to the bathroom all through the service. Now that I'm home I wish I had a sweater on but I don't want to get up off the floor. I poured out all the alcohol in the house as soon as I got home. I'm not sure if this was a reaction to the funeral or not. I think maybe I just wanted to make a statement, say something that I couldn't voice at the funeral. I don't think it was even about the beer and whiskey, I think it was the lack of something I really wanted. Like I was pantomiming not talking to him, kissing him, waking up next to him with every bottle I pour down the black yawning mouth of the drain. There were thirty four bottles in all.

Lil Comic