Sarah Laing's Blog, page 4

Cat trouble

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Ok, here are a bunch of links for you: the cute hedgehog video, the cute cat playing piano video, and my cat ripping up my artwork.

Also, congratulations to Ailsa, who won a copy of Mansfield & Me! Thanks so much to the people who left interesting comments on my last post. It was great to learn more about you.

I decided to colour my comic this way because I saw this comic, which is cool and melancholy and scribbly. If I ever were to try and gather my comics in a book they would look very inconsistent.

 

The lolly box

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I was prompted to draw a comic about T1 diabetes after reading this one on the Nib.  I got really excited, seeing diabetes described, because it’s one of those unglamorous chronic conditions overshadowed by its cousin, T2 diabetes, that is still not really understood by the general public. It’s so nice to see something so particular to your experience articulated by someone else. I was also outraged on behalf of the American people, who are having their Affordable Care Act revoked. It seems so cruel to punish people who have have so much to deal with already. Diabetes medication is so expensive, thanks to the extensive R&D that goes into it, and the corporate stranglehold on the market. I wish there could be free healthcare for all, and it’s in people’s best interests to keep diabetics healthy because treating the complications is even more expensive. It’s heartbreaking to think that in Syria, and other places too, society has broken down so much that people can’t get basic care.

The interview I was listening to, about Crohn’s & colitis, is here. I love Nine to Noon. 

Hey, if you’ve made it past my little political rant, I have a reward for you! I have been blogging for seven whole years, which seems like a ridiculously long time. If you leave a comment telling me one or two interesting facts about you, I will put you into the draw to win a signed copy of Mansfield and Me and a bonus comic.

 

Take me on

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I have been singing this song all week. Someone please get it out of my head. Maybe if I suggest it to you my A-ha earworms will move on? The video is worth a watch – Morten Harket stretches his hand out of a comic book and pulls the reader, a lovely young woman, inside. The drawing is amazing, but apparently it’s done with a technique called rotoscoping – drawing over live-action footage, frame by frame.

Do I have any readers in Raglan? If so, come and see me not this Saturday but next, at the Word Café, talking about Mansfield and Me.

Punch your existential crisis in the face

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I just finished a draft/thumbnails for a short kids comic book last week, and I’ve been trying to muster the energy to redraw it. Part of the problem is that now I’ve already finished one graphic novel, I know how much work it is and how long it will take. I’m not sure if I want to start just yet, or if I want to do all those other things I’ve been putting off, like the garden, and the curtains that would make my bedroom so much warmer.

In the meantime I’ve read a wonderful graphic novel – My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris (see, I mustn’t spend all my time on my phone) – and also a beautiful poetry book by my friend Johanna Emeney, Family History.

If you want to see what poster I was talking about, it’s below, but unfortunately the artist didn’t sign it so I have no idea who made it! I’m hoping someone will help me solve the mystery.

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It’s pretty cool, right?

 

A tale of three cities

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Haha, yes, I have very spoilt children. The fidget spinner is strangely compulsive though. They say it’s good for people with ADHD and ASD and I am reminded of the wooden helicopter Gus used to play with as a preschooler, turning the propeller around and around… it was easier when they were younger and didn’t know about all the latest fads!

Anxiety

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Do you guys have this? An undercurrent of anxiety that seems to be impossible to shift, despite breathing exercises and walks? My anxiety is generally deadline induced, and the only way I can get rid of it is by working on the thing that is due. The only problem was that quite a few things are due right now, so whatever I’m working on isn’t going to alleviate my deadline problem completely. And as soon as I’ve ticked off a deadline, another one will appear… sometimes I think I have an anxiety quota to fill. Anyway, I’ve got this done for the week! Now onto the next thing…

Hey, if you’re in Wellington this Saturday 3 June, I’ll be at the winter zine market, selling a few comics not featured on my blog. You’ll find me between 12 and 5pm at Thistle Hall, 293 Cuba Street.

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Fishnet

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I remember going to Smith and Caughey’s in the 90s, when we had a friend who worked there in the menswear department. He took us up to the staff tea room, where everyone was chain smoking, wearing Chanel-style suits, sitting in the spots they’d occupied for decades. I got a cup of instant coffee. I feel nostalgic for the old fashioned department store – Kirks in Wellington has been bought out by David Jones, and Collinson’s and Cunningham’s in Palmerston North was taken over by Farmers when I was still a child. Still, Smith and Caughey’s sails on, a great ship full of stuff you never needed in the first place if you wanted to remain true to your punk rock heart.

Lock picking club

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I had a fantastic if somewhat overwhelming time in Auckland at the Writers Festival. This is one of the things that I did that was not part of the programme. The internet is amazing in the way that people with niche interests can find a place to converge. I never realised there were so many lock picking enthusiasts in Auckland!

The look

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One thing I find really frustrating is how I can intellectually recognise that I’m being manipulated, that what I’m worrying about doesn’t matter and is in opposition with my belief system, and yet some annoying part of my brain can’t let it go. I can also intellectually recognise that looks are important, that fashion is an art form, that we express ourselves culturally and artistically through our clothes. Our clothes, our make up, is our armour, protecting us from the world. Still, I find it crazy in this age of selfies and self-documentation that I still am surprised when I see another person’s version of myself. These days I get to control how I look – or do I? I realise that I’ve been fooling myself, that I’ve only been looking at a sliver of myself, the front-on.

NEWS! NEWS! NEWS!

If you’re in Levin, I will be talking in your town tomorrow, at 2 pm, at the Festival of Stories.

If you’re in Dunedin, I will be taking part in two panels at the Dunedin Writers Festival – one on Saturday 13 May, Picturing Words and Wording Pictures, and one on Sunday 14 May, It’s Personal.

If you’re in Auckland next week, I will be taking part in the Auckland Writers Festival – more on that later.

Thirteen Reasons Why

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First up, here is a suicide prevention line in NZ: 0800 543 354. And if you want to find out more about the show, start here.

It’s super hard, parenting in this age of media over saturation. New stuff floods in and becomes a sensation before we’ve had a chance to parse it, and everyone gets on board with their various interpretations of it. It’s bad / it’s great / it’s good entertainment / it’s dangerous and gratuitous / it should’ve come with a rating / it’s totally overwhelming.  I’m sure it’s true what the commentators said – the book was better. It was more nuanced, more subtle, less of a revenge story and more of a heartbreaking portrait of how bullying contributes towards suicide. I find the whole cloak of silence around suicide confusing though. There seems to be a belief that if we deny that it happens, then it won’t happen. Which is patently untrue, given New Zealand’s suicide rates. Whenever there’s an article about someone who has died and they don’t tell you why, I become obsessed with finding out. As a child I knew of suicides – there were kids at school whose parents had gassed themselves in their cars. There were stories I overheard my mother talking to her friends about.

I’m still unsure as to whether it was a good thing or a bad thing to watch with my son, but I feel like it’s important to acknowledge that suicide exists, and that there are things you can do – help you can get – in order to prevent it. Although if you read All My Puny Sorrows by the brilliant Miriam Toews, you may come to different conclusions.

Anyway, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and also to hear any good TV recommendations you have!