April 17, 2025

Starter Pack

 

A black and white illustration approximating a packaging containing Clairikine as an action figure and various accessories, against a background depicting a forest above a mountain range and a lake. Clairikine is depicted as a thin white person with short blonde hair and glasses, wearing a flannel shirt over a black T-shirt, skinny jeans and black Chucks, and they are floating against a background of stars, gazing up and off to the left of the packaging. Accessories are divided up into small containers and include: noise-canceling headphones, an iPhone, earbuds, a German travel pass; an easy chair covered in stacks of books and a mug with a hot beverage; a set square, a sketchbook covered in stars, two mechanical pencils, one container of blue pencil lead and one container of HB pencil lead, a PITT artist pen with the letters S and F next to it, a black fountain pen, a smaller rectangular sketchbook, a mechanical eraser, two more artist pens; a black notebook with a thought bubble coming out of it, a composition notebook with three exclamation points in a speech bubble coming out of it, a heart in a speech bubble coming out of both, and three ballpoint pens; a 9kg weighted blanket; an old-fashioned analog TV set with rabbit ear-style antenna and the word "Blorbos" written on it; an anatomical heart sitting in blood; a church with a Bible hovering next to it; a group of people smiling, with a few hearts; a brain making a screaming face with three exclamation points coming out of it; and the Berlin TV tower with a speech bubble containing a heart.

There are and have always been emotionally fulfilling ways to visually describe your unique personhood and connect with other people through the expression of self that don’t involve pillaging the planet’s natural resources and the work of artists who need money to live, don’t let yourself be told otherwise by the tech oligarchs who aspire to normalize discounting what makes us whole human beings and render us all as severed from ourselves and dead inside as they are while they scramble to strip everything good for parts in an attempt to insulate themselves and their wealth from climate collapse. Also tbqh I'd love it if I could keep getting paid gigs instead of everyone assuming they can just use ChatGPT et al., which is already what happened to a vast chunk of translation work and is clearly going to happen to every industry I freelance in because people keep unquestioningly using this shit

[  Thrice - Lost Continent ]

November 19, 2024

We Interrupt This Broadcast

A four-panel comic in black and white. In the first one, Clairikine is sitting at their desk, wearing a plaid shirt and short hair, and drawing in a notebook next to a mug of coffee while their phone says "We'll be back after a short break!" In the second panel, Clairikine jumps in surprise as the phone is suddenly shouting (in German): "Hello, German-language advertising here, are you perhaps interested in our online sales platform". The mug also jumps in the air, spilling coffee. In the third panel, the phone continues yelling in German: "for some inexplicable reason I sound like an ad for a dating webs-" and suddenly crackles and is silent as Clairikine raises their glasses to blast it with pink lasers from their eyes. In the fourth panel, Clairikine resumes drawing, smiling, while the phone says "and we're back!"

Lokalisierte Podcast-Werbung was a mistake, make it stop.

***

Ganz ehrlich ich weiß ich sollte was zur US-Wahl sagen, aber wir haben ja unmittelbar danach den Koalitionsabbruch bekommen und es stehen nun zum zweiten ****** Mal seit Juni vorgezogene Wahlen an, also erstmal keine Zeit gehabt diesen spezifischen Untergang zu verkraften. Die Lage ist ernst, daher hier ein paar Ansagen.

Wenn ihr das liest, deutsche Wahlberechtigte seid und im Ausland wohnt, ist es für euch jetzt die Zeit, den Antrag auf Eintragung in ein Wählerverzeichnis einzureichen. Wenn ihr Leute kennt für die das zutrifft, sagt es bitte weiter. Infos dazu findet ihr hier und hier. Der Antrag muss spätestens am 21. Tag vor der Wahl eingegangen sein. Die Wahl findet am 23. Februar 2025 statt.

Ob ihr im Ausland wohnt oder nicht: Fragt euch was ihr bei jedem Wahlergebnis bereuen würdet getan zu haben oder nicht getan zu haben, und macht was ihr könnt, damit ihr nach der Wahl nichts zu bereuen habt. Und: haltet dabei bitte diejenigen im Sinn, die am direktesten von den Wahlergebnissen betroffen werden, auch diejenigen, die euren Alltag teilen und nicht bei der Wahl mitentscheiden dürfen. Uns betrifft ja auch die deutsche Bundespolitik. Danke euch im voraus.

March 30, 2024

February 6, 2024

Hourly Comics Day 2024 minus three

I didn't have time on February 1 this year, so I drew these a few days early. Enjoy!

A black-and-white comic. First panel:  00:00, Claire scrolls the website "wiewardertatort.de" (how was the Tatort) on their couch. The answer is 4 out of 10, which is fair 00:30 - 1:00 lie awake 8:00 up and scrolling phone on the couch again 9:00 make egg. A soft-boiled egg cooks on the stove while "if you're gonna go then go but go with caution" plays (lyrics are from Alkaline Trio's "Shake With Me" 10:00 breakfast - Claire, in a plaid shirt, eats from a tray on the couch with two glasses on another tray beside them. Dialogue comes from the big-screen television: "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!" "Giiirrrrl!" 11:00 laundry, Zelda, podcast - Link stands on a large tree root in the dark, with a barrel fused to a stick hanging off his shoulder. Something like a lantern shining off in the distance.  A caption says "I live for this shit"


January 23, 2024

An Indie Cartoonist's Life On The Internet

 

A black-and-white comic in four panels. In the first panel, we see Claire, wearing a hoodie and looking at their phone, with some foliage off to the side. A caption coming out of their phone with the Twitter logo says "Surprise, you put a decade of work into this platform and some dude just put his foot into it like it was a fucking anthill". Claire thinks to themself "what a novel concept". In the second panel, Claire is sitting at their drawing table wearing a plaid shirt and using their Cintiq, which is connected to a laptop sitting on the top of the table. A caption with a message icon is coming out of the laptop and says "What you do isn't actually work and no one needs you. We'll take your cool pictures though! Claire smiles weakly and says "Heh heh heh, you hear that fellas?" The "fellas" are their brain and their heart sitting on pedestals on either side of them. The brain is emitting lightning bolts and is hooked up to their left arm, and the heart is seeping blood and squirting droplets while hooked up to their right arm. The third panel shows Claire in a hoodie, lying on the couch with a Nintendo Switch controller and their phone sitting next to them. The panel is covered in captions containing a heart symbol and the word "spam", all pointing in the diryection of their phone. The fourth panel shows Claire crouching in front of their fridge with the door open and a frowning face coming out of it. Groceries are sitting on top of the fridge with a caption showing rising prices. A caption from their phone shows a message icon and the words "At last, we've wrested access to creativity from the privileged artistic class!" Claire thinks to themself "you've done what from the what now"

Wrote this sometime in the summer of 2023. Nothing new under the sun, tbh.

[ Green Day - Bobby Sox ]