dylanndr

[dylanndr]

Hi, remember this comic? I don’t blame you if not, I haven’t been able to work on it for awhile. The last time I penciled a page was in January 2022, and chapter 13 of Valley of the Silk Sky has sat at 75% penciled ever since.

In the intervening time I spent 6 months in physical therapy (two rounds, somewhat different issues, the bulk of it focused on getting my drawing arm in working order again). And so VotSS has sat on my cork board, those penciled pages staring at me every day, waiting for the will to work on it to return.

Well, it didn’t return, so I did what you sometimes have to do as a creative professional, and decided to pencil the next page anyway. I can’t make any promises as to when I will actually publish chapter 13. But I do still very much intend to finish this book, and I’m hoping knocking the rust off will help me get it running again. Onward!

#valley of the silk sky #queer comics #queer ya science fiction webcomic #queer sff #queer fantasy #queer scifi #perhaps I shall try reblogging to the correct account this time

[dylanndr]

Gender Queer is the most challenged book in the United States for the third year in a row, according to the American Library Association's new report.

Here's a 2 page PDF of info graphics on 2023 challenge trends.

Actions you can take to counter book bans and challenges.

#book bans #maia kobabe #censorship #library week #book challenges

[dylanndr]

A customer contacted our team with questions, and then finished their email with: "I am daunted by the complexities and unknowns." I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

[dylanndr]

accurate

[dylanndr]

OUT FRONT Magazine - March 2024 - Homo Sweet Homo

New issue of OUT FRONT Magazine, new comic from me! This one is a queer take on housing, so peep the digital edition of the mag on the OUT FRONT Magazine site and choose your domicile! You’ll find the full comic on page 6.

#OUT FRONT Magazine #homo sweet homo #queer comics #lgbtq comics #housing

[dylanndr]

Denver Small Press Fest

I'll be tabling at Denver Small Press Fest on March 30, 11AM - 4PM, at the Globeville Center, 4496 Grant Street. You can find me at table 49.

Because Denver Small Press Fest is focused primarily on printed works, I'll mostly be showcasing stickers and zines. But I'll have a few other art pieces as well!

If you're in the Denver area, be sure to hit up this show! And if you're not in the Denver area, you can find my stuff on Etsy.

#zines #feeping creatures #Denver Small Press Fest #stickers #cute little weirdos

[dylanndr]

Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you. 

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Here are the important details:

We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner. 

We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.

To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option. 

For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc. 

Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.

If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.

[dylanndr]

I have an endtable that is an antique of unknown vintage (my great-grandparents bought it used in 1902, so "19th century sometime" is all I got).

It is, other than its age, completely unremarkable. There's a big split in the wood of the tabletop. The drawer had a lock, but the key is long since gone and the latch sawn out. The original drawer knob was presumably lost at some point replaced with a knob that doesn't match the aesthetic of the piece.

It is sturdy as fuck and older than any person I've ever known. The best of both worlds: a solidly-made piece of furniture with well over a century of wear and tear, untold stories (what was in the drawer that was important enough to cut the lock? what did the key look like, and how did it get lost?), and no obligation whatsoever to keep it looking "nice."

so i complain a lot about low build quality of modern durable goods, but i do think there's a lot of freedom in having durable goods that (while they meet or exceed a minimum level of functionality) you aren't tempted to Keep Nice.

i don't care if my cat sharpens her claws on the couch because it's an ikea couch i got for free off a friend who was moving away. i don't care if my car gets scratched because it's already dinged up and it doesn't make it any less drivable. i don't care if my desk chair upholstery gets stained; it was cheap and who gives a shit if my chair is grungy. in many cases i actively disprefer the Nice version of the thing (like, say, a fancy expensive car) because it's emotionally a lot harder to blow off incidental damage.

this is also a thing that's really nice about DIYing/thrift flipping furniture and shit: i don't care that much if i scratch up the finish on my desk because -- well, it's a desk. who cares if a desk is scratched?? but also, i built the damn thing, so i can just sand it and refinish it with the exact same varnish. i could reupholster the various cat-scratched furniture, if for some reason i wanted to do that. i CAN, in fact, Fix Him.

i grew up in a house with a bunch of Nice Furniture, including (most frustratingly) antiques where you absolutely could not leave anything wet on them ever. a couple times, in the course of lighting birthday candles, the kitchen table accidentally got match-scorched, and my mom STILL tisks over those burn marks every time she remembers they exist. and i have to say, constantly Being Careful of the Furniture did and still does drive me up the wall. it's exhausting. like -- you don't have to spend mental energy on that!! you can refinish the dang table! you can, idk, lasercut some clear acrylic sheets to put on top of the antique dresser set! you can also decide to just not care about your stuff displaying the ordinary signs of wear and tear from being lived with, instead of trying to make a home a furniture showplace. every time i look at the scorch marks on my parents' kitchen table, i remember eating birthday cake.

[dylanndr]

Pedantically speaking, since "fairy" is undefined here, it could refer to therians (of which I know at least one fairy), or effeminate gay men (of which I know several). The only shocker would be that they didn't text first.

A walrus on the front range, though? Are you kidding? That's just absurd.

I've asked this question before and been surprised by the results, now I have access to more weirdos it's your problem:

It is the middle of a Sunday afternoon. You have nothing on, and aren't expecting visitors, deliveries or post.

Unexpectedly, there is a knock at the door.

[dylanndr]

OUT FRONT Magazine - February 2024 issue - Bad At Flirting [Excerpt]

So yeah, I made a comic about trying to parse flirting when you're autistic! I've excerpted two panels here. You can find the whole comic in the February 2024 issue of OUT FRONT Magazine (I'm on page 6).

This is a complex topic that was difficult to distill into a half-page comic, for sure. An unintentional meta-joke is that this comic kinda sorta metastasized into an infographic with flow charts, but really, that's what my brain is doing when I'm trying to figure out: Flirt or Not Flirt?

It's not that I can't see that a specific behavior COULD be interpreted as flirting, it's that I can come up with five other equally plausible explanations for that behavior that are all Not Flirt. Autistic people are already punished regularly for unintentional social misfires. Flirting makes things even more complicated, because even allistic people mask their behavior when it comes to flirting, so the autist is given even less concrete information to work with. Assuming someone was flirting when they weren't is a great way to get yourself ostracized, so in general, most autistic folks I know err on the side of assuming Not Flirt in most situations.

I will add that, for queer and trans autistic folks there's an added layer of uncertainty to the proceedings. For better or worse, cishet people have a script that says Woman Coyly Flirts, Man Approaches. There are a lot of things awry with that model, but it DOES offer a framework that doesn't really exist for queer people, so that's even more guesswork to wade through.

None of this is to say that no autistic people anywhere grok flirting, or are incapable of flirting themselves. YMMV! I merely speak to my own experience, and that which I have heard expressed by autistic friends.

Finally, the corollary to my comic: Trying to Flirt While Autistic

#autism #autistic flirting #neurodivergent #queer comics #neurodivergence #neurodiversity #out front magazine #lgbtq comics #autobio comics #non fiction comics

[dylanndr]

I LOVE this so much, holy crap. The very clear Giger influence, the trans masc vibes, plus the callback to medieval demon illustration:

Ben Conallin

[dylanndr]

It's true

@dylanndr I saw this and knew you needed to know about it immediately.

[dylanndr]

OUT FRONT Magazine – January 2024 issue – Healthcare

MY comic for this month’s issue of OFM takes a look at how easy and fun it is to access healthcare when you’re trans. A total snap! No problems involved ever! They’re just GIVING trans healthcare away! HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Anyway, yes, these are all 100% true stories of roadblocks I’ve encountered over the years, with some dramatization for comics. (What the therapist from panel 1 actually said was, “Can you maybe turn the volume down?” when I said, “I think I’m trans, and it’s like this noise that’s buzzing in my head all the time.” But he did sit like that, curled up in a ball as he told me to maybe just try not being trans. The doctor from panel 2, meanwhile, said more or less those very words verbatim, at least as far as I can remember many years later.)

You can read the whole comic in the digital edition of OFM, where you will find me on page 6.

#trans men #transgender rights #trans comics #autobio comics #transgender health #out front magazine #queer comics #lgbtq comics

[dylanndr]

#my dad was in a band and would have rehearsals in the afternoon #during the summer when my brother and I were out of school he'd take us to the bar and let us run around while they practiced #I have a weird affection for the smell of carpet soaked with stale beer and cigarette smoke

[dylanndr]

Telling people their identity "doesn't count" is a great way to shut down introspection. Let alloaro cishet man in, and given space and acceptance, he may well in a year or two come out as bisexual or agender or start doing drag or whatever. Or maybe he stays alloaro cishet forever, but he still winds up with a much deeper understanding of the range of possibility and will be a better ally to other gender and sexual minorities down the road. Create an open space to explore and see what happens.

“what if a heterosexual cisgender man said he was aro just to get access to the queer community” what if

you just made up a guy to get mad at. i get it you hate alloaros and think theyre weird and are using the word “man” to get everyone to think some outside force is invading your pure lgbt community but like. really. if some mlw aromantic man wants to share his community with me then great whatever i dont care.

#aromantic #alloaro #pointless gatekeeping #I thought I was cishet once too and look how THAT turned out

[dylanndr]

This was my last artistic endeavor for 2023. I’d scribbled the idea on a sticky note MONTHS ago, but , irony of ironies, couldn’t settle on how to actually execute it.

On New Year’s Eve, I decided to hell with it, I am NOT dragging that damn sticky note into 2024. So I went with a rough pencil sketch, trying to erase as little as possible. And then I threw the sticky note away. Cheers!

#overthinking #self portrait #pencil sketch #trans artists #queer artist

[dylanndr]

void okay fuckit

reblog so more people see it yadayada im curious now

#not only taught it - cursive was obligatory after a certain grade #I want to say maybe 4th grade but I don't recall now #after elementary school it was no longer required but I still write in a cursive/block hybrid #none of my niblings were even taught it so this probably just means I'm real old