Palimpsest Monotype

25 Apr

I don’t know if I’ve done this before but it’s World Penguin Day so the least I can do is post some of my comic work in this horizontal mode BlueSky is cooking. Keep in mind this is very old stuff from the very beginning:

16h

I’m really beginning to understand the function of altars. A purposefully empty space to allow in or show out ideas, as guided by ritual.

17h

Every day some new horrible thing to mute forever. What are my expectations here?

fifty nine degrees is a beautiful temperature for nighttime

By definition, it is hard to predict the things that will wreck your plans. Do not get discouraged

music.apple.comNo Bad Memories by The Avalanches on Apple MusicAlbum · 2026 · 31 Songs

A perfectly broken haunted boombox for our times

I love my art but I feel I need to take a break from my art. Something about it isn’t working, I need to get new perspectives, rather than forcing myself to do stuff that isn’t bringing me any joy. Ultimately I’m doing this all for myself, after all, if I’m not happy with it, what is the point?

12 hours of sleep but ugly dreams

I’m starting to realize that some of my struggles with making art right now stem from how I feel about the world right now. I love my stuff but the world keeps falling apart like a bonus round car in Street Fighter 2

And I’m not saying I shouldn’t but I am saying I’m struggling to make sense of my role in things. And it really sucks to say that my dream project feels wrong to spend time on but I’m having one of those moments with it right now.

When I feel good I feel very good and when I feel bad I’m really good at feeling bad, and right now I feel bad.

I say as I hide in the basement. I don’t know! I want to make good work. I want to honor my ideas by realizing them. Just so much of what put me on this path feels like a dead world. I don’t know how to resolve that feeling about things.

Doesn’t help it’s the ass end of October and it’s 74 degrees outside. There’s just so much wrong happening everywhere. I don’t know how to function in it.

I’m really scared. I know we all have reasons to be scared, and I’ve been scared for lots of good reasons but right now…I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know how not to feel that way, and I don’t want to feel like I’m even coming close to lying to myself about anything.

Palimpsest Monotype reposted

Caræsten 🇵🇸

@cara.city

I know it’s sorta cheesy but someone posted this from Paris on Reddit and I felt this immediate rush of hope

God I remember this, somehow.

Jerad Walker@jeradwalker.bsky.social

This excerpt from a 1994 Spin magazine story about Soundgarden (written by the legendary Jonathan Gold) is all you need to know about Billy Corgan. We are all Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil.

music.apple.comOcean Company by Hotel Pools, Hello Meteor & Ocean Company on Apple MusicAlbum · 2026 · 10 Songs

There’s so much I can say about this release after a week of listening to it, but ultimately it’s an extremely rewarding album that’s simultaneously poppy and understated. The sheer absence of mystique is a big misdirect, there’s a ton going on in Ocean Company you won’t find unless you get into it

Thinkin about them beans

Bran 9 From Outer Space@bransonreese.bsky.social

swanboy.com/comic/sextap...

tremendous.

Paul Tobin@paultobin.bsky.social

Not all my internet art wandering are comic book related. This one's "The Studio Wall," by Adolph von Menzel ~1872

Palimpsest Monotype reposted

Alasdair Beckett-King

@misterabk.bsky.social

Every gothic horror:

I wish I could fix the whole world.

Obviously I’m aware that’s not up to me nor can I hope to do it alone and so on and so on, but I still wish I could just go ahead and fix the whole world.

I have to trust that things can improve

Blinding ourselves with the horrors of the world will in no way make up for those that refuse to look upon them.

diagrams vs paintings

One of the biggest challenges in art, and maybe life, is misunderstanding your own skills

I just want this person to know they make really brilliant stuff.

Helvetica Blanc@helveticablanc.bsky.social

Trying Again, Again, Again — helveticablanc.com/20261020-try... — #helveticablanc #wormsong #sigil #angel #rainbow

Thinking about trying to change how I do comics, thinking about paintings versus diagrams, as a shorthand for guidance. Maybe not everything needs to be a painting.

This is helping me through a lot but also I don’t know if I would be able to explain why

Haus of Decline@hausofdecline.bsky.social

I Don't Sleep Well (Title)

I mean you know alright

Bran 9 From Outer Space@bransonreese.bsky.social

swanboy.com/comic/sextap...

music.apple.comOne Part Lullaby by The Folk Implosion on Apple MusicAlbum · 1999 · 13 Songs

I don’t really understand why but this music runs deep in my bones. It’s like a world I came from that I’ve never been to.

Okay, that’s it, thanks everyone. I’m taking a forced break from the Internet, I’m going to focus my efforts in other places, and when I prepare to come back I’m going to curate my feed as heavily as possible because I cannot handle knowing about these kinds of people

Ben Collins@bencollins.bsky.social

this got an lol outta me johnpaulbrammer.substack.com/p/the-most-u...

Life is so inexplicable

I’ve no idea what will become of ‘Summer Eternal’ but my heart and mind are currently theirs to squander if they’re unable to live up to these kinds of opening statements:

Had a very strange dream where a fictional version of a friend and I where staying somewhere with a Japanese family. I say fictional because this version of my friend spoke Japanese and I do not, in dreams or otherwise.

In spite of this being a much more rational outcome, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I had the more correct read on the situation and my friend was avoiding the conflict by keeping me in the dark about what was actually being said.

New forms of speculative social anxiety, served up fresh in the dreaming brain.

My dream friend comes back to me. I nudge him and ask, quietly, “So…what are they asking? Are we going to have to fight them?” It seemed possible.

He looks at me and says “What? No! What are thinking, they just want us to pick up after them!” And he begins gathering bits of garbage from the floor.

There was, however something, we were not the only guests, there were two others also there, and they were becoming increasingly obnoxious and disrespectful to the hosts.

At one point the head of the family gestured to my friend and she spoke with him for an extended period of time gesturing to him, me, the other two, and they way they were leaving garbage and behaving in the home. Again, I could not understand them, but I intuited we were being asked to handle them

There was something going on, a large TV screen in the home playing some kind of PlayStation 1-looking game but the screen was large enough that actually entirely separate play areas were occurring on it, lit lit areas in a darkened field. It was not co-op, or competitive.

I think the different play areas were actually entirely unrelated scenarios allowed to come and go as people picked up and put down controllers. A party of sorts, but the play experiences were all individualized. It was all very informal and it was seamless with the socialization.

music.apple.comOcean Company by Hotel Pools, Hello Meteor & Ocean Company on Apple MusicAlbum · 2026 · 10 Songs

It’s here

Nighttime. Waiting for the Ocean Company album to drop. Listening to M Sage’s ‘Chamber Music For Lawnmowers’ which is imbuing me with strong associations of gasoline, smog, and grass clippings, none of which I enjoy, but…it is strange to have those associations absent the unpleasantness of them.

I also have become dissatisfied with my conventional efforts and am finding increasing the saturation to be important, it should be bright, it should be interesting, it should radiate from the page.

It is important to not attempt a literal aim with the color choices, it’s much more important to convey the feel, the energy, the tension or action, than making sure a wall is the same color panel to panel.

I’ve been going through various fades of depression recently, which has impeded my ambitions and efforts. Many things, can’t really list. Won’t. Not here, now.

Ultimately there’s a lot of ways to color a page, and a handful of very wrong ways to go about it as well. For my own purposes I’m beginning to see little advantage in attempting consistency with my coloring. Color is just another aspect of the composition and needs to suit the page it is on.