cathyboy:

I’m very excited and honored to finally announce this collaboration:

“He fought like a little tiger in a trap,” by Kevin Czapiewski and Cathy G. Johnson, debuting at TCAF 2013!

11” by 17” newsprint comic, 8 pages in graphite.

This piece is a collaborative comic between me and Kevin about identity and social space, prompted by Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. I’m excited for folks to finally read it, I’m very proud of the work we’ve done together.

(Kevin is here: http://kevinczap.tumblr.com)

TCAF is May 11- 12 in Toronto!

  9:43 am  |   April 30 2013   |  55 notes  

Some more idiot bugs, bumping around like dummies.

~Ayo

  8:09 am  |   April 30 2013   |  1 note  

buzz buzz. Look it’s a fly, wandering around in the dumb air, looking for some dumb garbage to eat.

-Ayo

  8:03 am  |   April 30 2013   |  1 note  

lostcitycomics:

I just saw a conversation about whether or not white privilege exists in Japan (or anywhere outside the parts of the world where white people are the majority), and Tumblr being what it is, it’s too difficult to repost it so I will simply dive in without context.

Let me cut to the chase and say…

  7:40 am  |   April 30 2013   |  16 notes  

thedanmorris asked: Flash Light, great party song or great party song?

Must have missed that one. Whoops.

  10:35 pm  |   April 29 2013   |  2 notes  

Fuck Austin English and half of you motherfuckers as well.

  10:02 pm  |   April 29 2013   |  6 notes  

squarecomix asked: To follow up, being white in Asia is this: poor countries treat you nice because you look like money. Rich places think you a novelty, or look down on you. And neither wants you to integrate. They consider you the other. Even being of the ethnic group but being born elsewhere makes you 'less.' The desire to treat minorities as equals and integrate them as much as possible is a new Western thing. I guess it's because Canada and America aren't so much about ethnic heritage. Wish I could write m~

Again, sorry.

I don’t really know anything about racial dynamics in Asia. I have nothing worth adding to a discussion on how privilege works in Asian-dominated societies. But thanks for providing me (and anyone looking on) with this perspective.

  8:00 am  |   April 29 2013   |  3 notes  

Here goes Austin English, telling me what-for on twitter dot com. His argument (as it always is) is that artists are never responsible for the choices that they make and that it is somehow the audience’s fault for reading a comic about two men isolating and assaulting two women as a bad thing.

This is anti-critical thinking.

Instead of actively engaging with the material and admitting that hey, the cartoonist put out some harmful ideas that made a lot of people feel uncomfortable and alienated (even if we allow that as inadvertent)… instead of that, Austin English would have people blaming themselves for “not getting it.”

This is what I wake up to. This is why I’m so negative about comics criticism. Because even the folks who fancy themselves as the most knowledgable and the most progressive are unwilling to engage with the work as it is, and how it makes people feel.

Comics can do better.

-Darryl

  6:38 am  |   April 29 2013   |  6 notes  

seanvscomics asked: Darryl, Ive appreciated your comments and criticism on comics. It's an often unheard voice and you're just so darn eloquent. Thanks!

Thank you.

I’m not where I want to be yet, in terms of “talking about comics.” These situations that stem from reacting to current discussions are interesting but I feel that there is a risk of becoming the sleeping dragon that only comes out when angered. I might try to get back into writing on a regular basis. Unprompted by controversy, I mean. 

What makes it tough is that a harsh word goes a long way in the comics community. And disapproval hangs in the air like an unventilated room. So when writing about comics, I’m always hoping for a balance that will let me look in the mirror and still not get run out of comics-town on a rail. It’s tricky.

-Darryl

  12:18 am  |   April 29 2013   |  10 notes  

squarecomix asked: Honest question. I'm a white guy living in Japan. Companies will usually only hire for one year contracts. Rental companies won't trust you without a Japanese guarantor. Lots of people won't talk to you because they assume you can't. Co-workers often don't bother greeting you. Can I say I'm not generally living with white privilege in your opinion? For the record, I enjoyed becoming a minority. Ten years now. New perspective on life.

That’s a good question and coincidentally, one that my friends had been talking about just yesterday. I personally haven’t read too much about this particular aspect of privilege (ie, how racial privilege changes from community-to-community) so I don’t have a legitimate or serious answer to the question.

Due to the way racial/ethnic/cultural currency covers the world, there is an argument that white privilege exists in even non-white-dominated societies due to Western Europe and the United States’ cultural dominance of the world. This would extend back to the imperialism eras and continue up to the proliferation of American cultural institutions growing roots in many countries.

On the other hand, when you’ve got a dominant population (such as the Japanese in Japan), there’s clearly going to be a cultural dominance in that respect. 

But as I said, this particular aspect of the way privilege works is outside of my reading and outside of my experience as well. My answer here is just a speculative answer and I wouldn’t give much weight to it if I were you.

-Darryl

  10:48 pm  |   April 28 2013   |  3 notes