mitziholder

[mitziholder]

I do think it’s nice to put a damper on every celebration of DTWOF with a reminder that Bechdel’s seminal Masterwork was just 240 pages of boohooing about and trying to sanitize/reclaim/rehabilitate the image of her beloved pedophile father, but at the end of the day the worst crime she’s guilty of is simply not being very funny

#spring cleaning

[mitziholder]

I was catching the perfectionism vibes, it's shame if it hinders your progress. Your characters and style seem so cool so I wanted to probe. Comics really are a marathon to create. Losing steam is natural and maybe switching up your conception of your project can help. Not trying to pressure you in any way, just hoping to provide some food for thought.

How do you feel about comics as a medium? You mentioned you mostly "skim" comics for inspiration and love Wimmen's Comix but is it a medium you feel very connected to in general and for your story idea?

I've seen multiple webcomic artists unfortunately struggle with the labor needed for drawing panels and incorporating prose along with art and regular comic panels to maintain progress. If you are more into writing than drawing, maybe incorporating prose along with comics/art is an option you'd be interested in. Don't have the best examples but thinking of Homestuck's long script-format convos that follow panels. And for a comic that later incorporated prose, the webcomic Paranatural went from all comic panels to mixing prose and art. I'll be honest that I stopped reading Paranatural as a teen before the shift so I can't speak to its writing/art quality.

“skimming” was a little disingenuous. I have read a lot of comics, but very rarely have I felt that they fully utilized the affordances of the medium. the reasons for this vary; comics are plagued by many issues deriving from the fact that they were, at one point, both extremely popular and cheap (low-brow) - kneecapped by the CCA and warped into something stupid and trivial for children. even today, that perception remains. I would say the majority of people aren’t capable of recognizing comics as a mature medium. lots of comic writers have a chip on their shoulder about this… particularly Alan Moore.

I bring him up because Watchmen was one of the first pieces of media that really opened my eyes as to what comics were capable of as a graphic medium; people regularly recognize the visual artistry of film, the (often) invisible work done in blocking, cinematography, effects, and editing that makes movies feel like art. comics should be art. every frame should be a painting. panels should fit together into a larger picture composed with thought and care. Dan Gibbons did so - with regard not only for how panels fit next to each other but also for how they fit within the page and the page within the chapter and so on… rich with detail, of equal weight to the dialogue in conveying narrative and thematic meaning. it amazed me because of how little the art actually matters in so many comics, only there by obligation (because without art, it would no longer be a comic). why is this? I don’t know. profit? but you see it in indie comics, too. that part confuses me. why would you make something if you don’t want it to be good? what’s the point?

anyway, I found that the story I wanted to tell would not fit within the bounds of a stage play. it has continually resisted (with some notoriety on this blog) my attempts to fit it into prose. the dialogue is what moves it, and with my sort of shaky aptitude for art and love of the medium’s potential, I felt that making it a comic was the natural choice. I don’t particularly enjoy the process of drawing, but without art I felt something was missing - a void that couldn’t be filled by anything else. I never wanted it to give the impression that the art was done by rote, incidental/inconsequential, a pure and thoughtless representation of the dialogue… but that is sort of what it has to be at this point. I wish that integrating the visual half came more naturally to me, but I’ve accepted that it’s a skill I’m going to have to hone with much practice. it’s something I’ve struggled with quite a bit as someone who is borderline aphantasic. very little of the art that I make comes directly from my brain. it is not intuitive to me at all. I am so reliant on references, have no imagination, am very rarely struck with the idea for a bit of visual humor or detail that adds meaning rather than merely visualizing the existing script - the words. I am obsessed with words, clearly. meaning and rhythm and punctuation. I’m a word person. I want to be an art person. I want so baaaadly for my work to be good. I try so hard.

I’m often tempted to throw in the towel and admit that my brain doesn’t work that way - that I’m aiming too high, stubbornly set on something I can never really have - not to an extent that I’m satisfied with. but if I gave in to that feeling, I would never finish anything. I feel like once I am done with my classes and my living situation is more stable, I’ll be sort of okay - or at least more consistent - when it comes to the art stuff... worst-case scenario, I cave and go the homestuck route (which is not something I thought I’d ever say). I don’t know. we’ll have to see. once this semester is over...😮‍💨

#ask #by the way thank you for the extremely thoughtful ask :)

[mitziholder]

haven't followed for long but seen posts about your comic occasionally. do you think you've made it your baby (like in this quote “Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the backyard and shot it) and been putting off just starting it, or is it your preference to want the whole thing written?

it’s my baby, sure, but I’m not unwilling to destroy parts of it that aren’t working, to tear it into pieces and start anew. the truth is that I’m crippled by perfectionism. I came at this project with the conviction that I had to be the best at everything: writing, pacing, plotting, dialogue, lettering, formatting, composition, anatomy, perspective, inking, values, rendering/color for the cover illustrations... and, for a long time, I was afraid to touch the art for fear that I’d lose the momentum of writing. but I’ve already lost the momentum, so at this point I am getting acquainted with just doing what I can.... drawing and sending it... no matter how much it hurts :-)

#ask

[mitziholder]

what media would you actually recommend? you seem to have very discerning taste

geeeeee... I don’t know. there are multiple metrics by which a piece of media can have value to me... but maybe not to you.

1) sheer entertainment value (personal, subjective - in my case usually humor-oriented, less focused on action and explosions and violence and gore and hacking and slashing and sex meant to titillate ... but humor is subjective in its own right)

2) rhetorical value (based on the presence and effectiveness of conveying intent - a thesis, a point to make, something new and interesting to say unique to the creator’s perspective. also, prose/dialogue/text that sounds good, hits right, says exactly what it wants to say with brevity and precision)

2a) IMO, “objective” judgments of a piece of media’s quality should rest most strongly on this point. 2b) sometimes the meat of my analysis is based in an interpretation of how a creator failed to say something or what they unintentionally revealed about themselves and their views in the process. and that can be interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily make the work any less shit

3) informational value (for research purposes, which may not be relevant to anyone else. definitely a step down in importance because I can read something and find it informative without enjoying it or thinking it’s “good”)

it’s impossible for everything I consume to meet all of those standards all the time... and I like to have a diverse media diet. I enjoy plenty of things which don’t really affect me or make me think too deeply. but it’s hard to recommend anything because people’s priorities and tastes vary so much.

as far as what I’ve enjoyed and found value in? I’ve already gone over books, so let’s do movies. I love Bob Roberts; had a point to make and made it with aplomb. it was very funny - and useful as a point of reference for my own work(!) Dr. Strangelove was also great. I’m a big fan of satirical dark comedies that leave you with this sense of gruesome hilarity... beyond the funnies, I like things that are sort of distant from their subjects, inhuman and quirky, using them as tools to move us along on a painterly backdrop - A Zed & Two Noughts and other Greenaway fare + and arguably Kubrick as well - but I also enjoy studies that lavish attention on their subjects, like Girl, Interrupted. I still love that one. in spite of it all. and I liked One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest despite its treatment of Ratched/the vile protagonist lol. Network was “good” no matter how badly they fumbled Dunaway and how much that fucking pissed me off. oh and anything about Watergate... I love a good documentary

but anyway, I know saying any of this invites speculation about the Problematic or questionable elements present therein. why not more lesbian media? why not more woman directors? how could you enjoy x knowing what y did to z? I don’t know. I respect an auteur, a clear and defined vision. I have had fun with many things that are not that. but at the end of the day, regardless of content, it all serves to entertain me, to shape and inform my artistic endeavors writing about what I want to read and saying what I want to say. so, you know, your mileage may vary. also I like musicals

#ask

[mitziholder]

like doesn’t it compel you. doesn’t it make you feel something. o my sisters, who tried so very hard, who had so many problems

#text by Phyllis Chesler who had(has) her own problems

[mitziholder]

Sorry, what is sita? Is it an acronym? Tried looking it up but couldn't find anything

autobiographical novel by Kate Millett that is currently driving me insane. it’s so meandering indulgent and delusional it barely even qualifies as a book. I have such a complicated relationship with the women of that era. I want to scream at them and laugh at them but also cry with them. a generation of lolcows with such beautiful minds

#ask

[mitziholder]

people will be like ohhhh there is so much good lesbian media what are you complaining about? and the lesbian media is like Prostitution x GL or some French director abusing actresses for 40 straight hours or actual cartoons for children. Yeah thanks. no you get it. that is exactly what I wanted. now if you will excuse me I’m going to go read Sita and torture myself with visions of a world I’ll never know

#it's a bug in jar type interest by the way

[mitziholder]

not sure if i should ask or not but is it okay if i commission a friend to draw your characters (the art will not be posted anywhere)

you are free to do whatever you want. I post this stuff on a public forum. I’m not going to sue you or anything. it’s 2024. Godspeed.

you should send it to me though. I am curious to see what you wanted exactly? forgive me but like you really do not have that much to go on. what I’ve posted thus far basically amounts to a twitter meme

#goals

although I am glad you seem to have faith in the possibility of a decent finished product..... eventually. (thank you?) it’s essentially the iceberg meme. there is so much shit going on in those... 700 or so godforsaken pages I’ve written but not uploaded. sorry about that by the way

#ask #sv

[mitziholder]

IMO there is a significant difference between being a “pickme” and being an “NLOG.” in the common parlance they are basically the same, but when I say Pickmeeeeeeee I am specifically referring to women who sell out, degrade, devalue, abuse, exploit, or facilitate the abuse/exploitation of other women for male attention/approval. NLOGs are simply girls/women who, for whatever reason (usually gender nonconformity), struggle to connect with the “normal” (stereotypically feminine) mode of female behavior and social connection. they may be spiky because of autism. I am spiky for other reasons. and that is fine

I hold absolutely no contempt for women, autistic or otherwise, who struggle to make connections with/understand other women. I am one of them. that is probably why I made this post. it’s only when they start to venerate males/maleness and talk about how much better men are as friends or in general that I begin to hate them lol. I truly don’t understand how that happens. as difficult as I have often found it to place my trust in other women, to not be ashamed of how much we apparently love to fuck each other over... I have never used that as an excuse to uplift moids and talk about how amazing it is that they can stand while pissing

someone needs to study the phenomenon that is the breed of self-professed “lesbians” who are nevertheless obsessed with men (Jordan Peterson in particular) and also incapable of commitment/forming long-lasting, emotionally deep connections with women. there’s just something about the macho manlarp without being stupid enough to attempt to transition but also simultaneously believing themselves to be above other women while possessing the same pickmeeeeee tendencies... pretending to be sexually attracted to women to feel like One of the Guys... “other women are stupid and frivolous and I hate them but they have to be that way. not me though. I am built different” like the only reason they’re not sucking cock is because it would remind them of what they really are. I wanted to call it the Paglia Complex. which is a little bland but nothing else is jumping out at me rn

[mitziholder]

someone needs to study the phenomenon that is the breed of self-professed “lesbians” who are nevertheless obsessed with men (Jordan Peterson in particular) and also incapable of commitment/forming long-lasting, emotionally deep connections with women. there’s just something about the macho manlarp without being stupid enough to attempt to transition but also simultaneously believing themselves to be above other women while possessing the same pickmeeeeee tendencies... pretending to be sexually attracted to women to feel like One of the Guys... “other women are stupid and frivolous and I hate them but they have to be that way. not me though. I am built different” like the only reason they’re not sucking cock is because it would remind them of what they really are. I wanted to call it the Paglia Complex. which is a little bland but nothing else is jumping out at me rn

#let's keep things Cool and Objective no feelings just Facts right?

[mitziholder]

reading your blog feels like when you're slouching and someone yells at you to sit upright. i'm not a good writer at all and i unfortunately love romance and tropes (i don't read fanfiction though) but i used to want to write, and you inspired me to at least give it a try, maybe one day i will be able to write something interesting. i hope i remember to check back when the day comes that you publish your comic

I appreciate you taking the time to write in :) I don’t mean to be like a drill sergeant or anything. don’t get it twisted - I am not anti-fun (self-indulgence). in fact, I would be flattered if someone found my characters entertaining enough to fuck around and write about them whenever I do publish. I also don’t think anyone has a responsibility to focus on becoming a better writer...

but I think it is a good idea for reasons I’ve outlined before. it’s the basic essence of communication, of having a deeper understanding of the world that we live in and the people who populate it. in my experience, writing helps me organize and articulate my thoughts/feelings. if I did not do that, I would go insane. and the communication of those thoughts and feelings tends to demand a response... so I’m not just screaming into the void. more than that, I consider critiques/reviews - as a response - a way of helping me sharpen my points and my ability to express them (whether I agree with those critiques or not)

better at writing = better at communicating = better at thinking = win (we are a social species)

I don’t think romance or tropes or what have you are inherently bad; as with any element of writing, it is simply a matter of how you use them. it bothers me when people fully rely on them for every aspect of a story; that sort of “shorthand” can be useful for conveying relatively minor story beats which do not need as much time to be developed, but if your entire story is shorthand - shit that has already been written a million times by a million different people in a million identical ways - then what is the point? it can be fun, and that’s okay, but it’s not really communicating. it doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know. like benching the bar unto infinity etc etc

THAT ASIDE

I am shooting to publish ch1 by the end of the summer hopefully? still doing layouts + work + school blah blah yeahhh it’s coming along. lettering is driving me nuts. but we are making progress.

yay :)

I wish you the best in your future writing endeavors!

#updated the fucking font #ask

[mitziholder]

for the record, everything I said in the last post cuts both ways. yes, telling me “you should read this because it has lesbians/women/feminists in it :)” is an indication that your judgment is probably compromised. at the same time, if anyone told me they liked my work “because it has lesbians in it,” I would not put any stock in their opinion either

[mitziholder]

coming back to this because I still had more to say

this post was sent to me by a friend and it made me laugh. first of all, anyone who refers to “queer creators being deplatformed” is in 98% of cases talking about sex perverts being scolded for their fetish pornography of choice. (I have since discovered that the creator of My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness is into abdl which explains a lot)

second of all, an attitude I have found online which I find myself increasingly frustrated with is the push for “queer content” in general - the idea that anything goes, that it is taken as commentary on the Gay Experience at large no matter what the characters are doing, that it must appeal, that I must relate to it as a “queer person” (lol) because it’s for and about me.

I have to say this: just because something is made by a “queer person” does not mean it’s worth the paper it’s printed on. there is a lot of “queer stuff” out there and most of it is FUCKING GARBAGE. it is BAD. having gay/queer/trans/whatever subtext or even gay characters does not mean that the narrative or themes say anything about gay people. this needs to be clarified:

1) anything does not go 2) it is not commentary on my experience 3) it does not appeal 4) I do not relate 5) it is not for or about me

I don’t owe it to any creator to give them my understanding by virtue of the fact that they or their characters are gay. I do not need to engage with/participate in “actual gay art or culture” because gay art and culture do not relate to me. no one would ever insist a straight person has the responsibility to Do Anything with a random straight character/author/story. the idea is absurd.

I do not want “queer content.” I do not want a “queer culture” to exist. I do not want to consume my media on the basis of the characters’ or the authors’ orientations; I do not want to consume media that is about Being Queer (or that which disguises itself as such, like MLEWL). I want content with women in it - content that does not purport to be about me, to represent my inner world - like looking in a funhouse mirror and having everyone tell you that it’s what you really look like.

sure, if gay themes are tied into a larger narrative with new and interesting things to say, that is fine. but I would rather die than have my work pigeonholed as being purely Queer Lesbian Yuri for Queers instead of what it is: an absurdist political satire on the mechanics of societal change, self-sacrifice, and selling out (which happens to feature two lesbians).

I resent the notion that I have anything to do with “other queers” (lol) simply because I am a lesbian. my work has nothing to do with theirs. my life and my opinions have nothing to do with theirs. I relate to MLEWL about as much as I would relate to a memoir written by Harvey Weinstein. it is my culture as much as any rapist out there in the world is my culture.

I will continue to tear down the work of “queer creators” (kinksters and idiot grifters), to bully and insult and despise them for as long as their horrible garbage work is being shelved next to mine. lol

Can you talk more about my lesbian experience with loneliness pretty please

ok. It’s dog shit written as the salve of a deranged narcissist’s ego.

I am sick of things being lauded as revolutionary and important just because they’re Real - Real and Honest. honest does not mean good. memoirs are works like any other. they have their biases and a point to make and goals to achieve. I can read into their content and criticize their handling of it and the goals and motivations of the “characters” therein. and, believe it or not, I am not in the business of clapping for wannabe rapists just because they were so far gone they thought that hiring a prostitute was an essential expression of their adult autonomy and independence (and Female Power and Sexuality blah blah blah blah blah)

boo-hoo. poor me. I had anxiety and depression and an eating disorder and I self-harmed and and and I was the most pathetic sad little worm on the planet. I was so sad and so lonely. and now I have put it out there into the world - seeking absolution from an army of people who think that what I did was fine because I put it all on display - and you can’t criticize it because it is so real. if you criticize it, you’re afraid of dark and uncomfortable subject matter. if you criticize it, you just didn’t get it. (on that note, I would say that I got it better than the author. the portrayal of that prostitute really says it all. lol. lmao.)

really, why should I give a shit about the pity party therapy session of a woman who used her own pain as a justification for exploiting another human being, who contributed to the sex industry, whose only fear was of disappointing her parents and only shame was the fact that she was too inhibited to really enjoy the experience? why should I support and uphold the work of a person who did that and then profited off of it? why should I appreciate the cultural contributions of someone whose perspective on Lesbianism is a purely self-indulgent affirmation of what people already imagine to be true: that we’re mentally unstable, dysfunctional sex perverts?

I wouldn’t clap for Jimmy Swaggart, either.

I am not going to say that I hope she dies but I’m ending the sentence there.

[mitziholder]

of course I know her. she’s me

#Please.

[mitziholder]

doing my God Blessed Duty to avoid and ignore all deadlines in favor of finally laying out chapter 1 version 2.0. why did the urge have to hit me only now instead of back when I had time? a question for the ages. in any case, doodle enjoyers enjoy your doodles

#sv

[mitziholder]

being a straight woman is "uncool" now and that's why I think there are so many "gay" female he/hims so they can be straight girls that gush about their male fictional and celebrity crushes but like, in a sooo subversive and queer and alt way! don't publish this if it will get you in trouble

I know you sent this with the best of intentions so I appreciate the thought but it is very funny to imagine an anon “getting me in trouble.”

what you said is fairly accurate. I can’t criticize the misappropriation of LG(B) terms without the people who do it thinking I am in some way affirming what they believe about themselves - that heterosexuality (or opposite-sex attraction in general) somehow taints or debases a woman, that it is inherently conformist/antifeminist...

which is far from what I believe. there are many ways to annoy me, but being straight isn’t one of them. I’d take a self-respecting celibate childless straight woman over a bdsm lesbian with sons any day... because breederism is a state of mind divorced from mere orientation.

when all is said and done, anyone can do or say or call themselves whatever they want, so in a sense I am fighting a losing battle. but I think what I think what I think and I relate to and respect a very narrow cohort who hopefully don’t have a problem with that. the rest can have their extremely queer alt jimin ABO or whatever

#ask

[mitziholder]

Can you talk more about my lesbian experience with loneliness pretty please

ok. It’s dog shit written as the salve of a deranged narcissist’s ego.

I am sick of things being lauded as revolutionary and important just because they’re Real - Real and Honest. honest does not mean good. memoirs are works like any other. they have their biases and a point to make and goals to achieve. I can read into their content and criticize their handling of it and the goals and motivations of the “characters” therein. and, believe it or not, I am not in the business of clapping for wannabe rapists just because they were so far gone they thought that hiring a prostitute was an essential expression of their adult autonomy and independence (and Female Power and Sexuality blah blah blah blah blah)

boo-hoo. poor me. I had anxiety and depression and an eating disorder and I self-harmed and and and I was the most pathetic sad little worm on the planet. I was so sad and so lonely. and now I have put it out there into the world - seeking absolution from an army of people who think that what I did was fine because I put it all on display - and you can’t criticize it because it is so real. if you criticize it, you’re afraid of dark and uncomfortable subject matter. if you criticize it, you just didn’t get it. (on that note, I would say that I got it better than the author. the portrayal of that prostitute really says it all. lol. lmao.)

really, why should I give a shit about the pity party therapy session of a woman who used her own pain as a justification for exploiting another human being, who contributed to the sex industry, whose only fear was of disappointing her parents and only shame was the fact that she was too inhibited to really enjoy the experience? why should I support and uphold the work of a person who did that and then profited off of it? why should I appreciate the cultural contributions of someone whose perspective on Lesbianism is a purely self-indulgent affirmation of what people already imagine to be true: that we’re mentally unstable, dysfunctional sex perverts?

I wouldn’t clap for Jimmy Swaggart, either.

I am not going to say that I hope she dies but I’m ending the sentence there.

#ask