Blackbird Explains: LA Protests

I literally did not think I'd reuse this format so fast, but I'm kinda tired of hearing about the LA Protests being presented as uprisings and lawlessness as opposed to an uprising against fascists stealing our damn neighbors.

If you weren't sure if I like ICE or not, I don't. Fuck all of them. Never make friends with them. Never date them. These people are totally cool with sowing human misery just to make up for the fact that they're losers with the driest, most untouchable penises. The one group of people they're not trying to kidnap is gangsters. Most ICE agents are looking for easy wins. They don't seem too keen on rolling up in South Central to take on heavily armed gang members. Those guys will shoot back. People working in Home Depot, Restaurants and Grocery stores can't fight back for themselves.

This cartoon explains things in simple fashion. Fuck Ice. Protest them. The First Pride was a riot anyway. It's in the spirit of the season!

Blackbird Explains: Men's Loneliness

If the last comic was a “high budget” comic, this was a low budget comic.

It was Sunday night. I ran out of time to come up with anything new, but I had this one little idea from the shower earlier that could’ve become a finished strip quickly. I have a day job and a big, personal, animation project to think about. Love, Joolz is meant to be cranked out quickly.

But I like how this came out. It works. Blackbird gently and kindly educates the men in our community about what’s really holding them back. And surprise! It’s just capitalism. Capitalism ruins everything. Do you have questions? Please ask questions. Blackbird is happy to explain forever.

Also, I’m pleased with how much mileage I got out of rainbow gradients with this one. Look! I can make rainbow gradients not look like garbage. Happy Pride Month to me.

Graffiti Towers

I picked a great time to pay tribute to my adopted city in the West.

Honestly, I’ve been trying to get this strip done for four months and every time I’ve attempted it, all those building lines would make me go “Nahhhhhh.” And it still took a couple hours on those lines. I kept the photo references from the actual towers in the artwork filtered to high hell (which I never do) because I didn’t have the time to paint all that. This is what we call a “High Budget” strip.

And now DTLA is protesting the shit out of ICE because they tried to raid a Home Depot like a bunch of clownbaby losers. I love my city.

Surfriday: Good at Surfing

Here on the Joolz blog, we’re gonna start doing Surfridays on Fridays. Here we always reserve a spot either for a new or classic Joolz surfer comic. Why? We should all be thinking about surfing on a Friday this summer.

(Especially since I’ll be the jerk trying to surf on a Tuesday.)

This was brought to you by a conversation I had at the Dog Beach. Some fascinated young man had a lot of questions for me as to when I started surfing, what I did to get started, what equipment to buy, etc. But make no mistake. I’m not a very good surfer. At all. I’m still struggling. So when I got “good” at surfing remains to be seen. At best I know how not to drown while surfing, and a few basic surf moves.

But any day now I’ll get good.. My training pays off all the time. :P

-Love, Joolz

Dog Party Wave

I can’t tell you what day this happened. It happened years ago when I was still going through some stuff. I didn’t think to write it down that day. But this moment has been burned into my memories forever.

I’m literally the writer and artist of a nature comic, so it goes without saying I love animals. But bonding with an animal while surfing was special. The dog saw me on my wave and came chasing for me. All I remember seeing was a happy collection of spots, eyes, and teeth running next to me and my board. It was just a moment before I crashed into the water myself. But wow, what a moment.

This is why I tell these stories These are the surf stories that matter the most. Big waves? Sounds fun. Competitions? Neat. Olympics? All righty. Party wave with a dog? Now that’s truly a miracle.

-Love, Joolz

Gay-Jacent

I’ve always struggled with the question “Am I gay enough to be considered queer?”

See, in all my years of being a freely divorced woman, I never dated people of different genders. I…had done some noteworthy things, but I never felt “gay” enough to commit to the whole queer label. And this is me exploring that in a comic.

Sexual orientation is a spectrum, not a binary thing. I’ve had my share of queer feelings. I’ve consumed plenty of queer media. I just wasn’t sure if I was on the team or just an ally. Recently, I feel like I’ve gotten clearer with myself on my queerness and queer identity. Do I even have a queer identity? I don’t know. I’ve always just called myself a “tom boy” without thinking too much deeper on what that could mean.

Also, I thought everyone had a crush on Christina Hendricks in the 2010’s.

Anyway, I’m probably gonna use this month to make more queer-questioning comics like this. I have thoughts. I must spin them into pixels for great funnies.

-Love, Joolz