Someone Who Is A. Transgender And B. Funnier Than Me Should Do Something With This. Amazing Spiderman

Dangit I missed the window, gotta catch the next drop. (Never underestimate SH fans, they brought the guy back from the dead and haven't rested since)

WATSON'S SKETCHBOOK VOL 1 is available to purchase! 178 pages of black and white comics, illustrations, and occasional essays on Victorian queerness, covering the Watson's Sketchbook story from A STUDY IN SCARLET through SECOND INTERLUDE. Many of the comics have been updated and cleaned up from their online versions. Also they are signed and I drew a little guy inside!

Paypal gliched out on me and cost me a minute...and it sold out in 4! T-T noooo

Well, I still have the lovely online version

Watson's Sketchbook is on sale here! Quantities are limited and it will probably sell out pretty quickly fyi!

All of these options feel like saying "ampersand" aloud instead of "and."

It wouldn't be wrong, I suppose. "&" is a symbol for that word, and can be called that.

But why???

Thanks, Anon!

-submit your poll!-

Don't you just love a cozy little fandom? :D

@professorfoglio replied to your post “y'all about to make me never liveblog girl genius...”:

Hey. The whole purpose of this stuff is to entertain. We tried REALLY HARD to not make the novels have any "spoilers", but, I will confess that they DO contain more information than the comic. It's a different medium. Personally, I get a kick out of your updates. I would say, treat any comments you get like we treat fan fiction: we know its there, but we do not allow ourselves to read it, and assume it's all positive. Good luck!

​alsfhalsdfhldasfjakl

THE COMIC WRITERS?!?!?!??!?!?!!?!?!?

uh...hi? big fan.

still working on getting through first read but The Horrors are interfering

i uh thanks for the advice!

A Crash Course to Kendrick's Super Bowl Performance, from a Black Woman

Note: this does NOT go in depth into all of the song's lyrics. I don't have time to recount two decades of his discography. This is just a summary of the performance itself.

Let's start with the first visual we get:

UNCLE SAM - most notably recognized from WWII American wartime propaganda, Uncle Sam is the personification of American patriotism and freedom. The term "uncle" is also evocative of Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom's Cabin, an abolitionist book that aided in inciting the Civil War. Uncle is also a very common term (both endearment and derogatory) towards Black men (eg. "unc"). Samuel L Jackson was fantastic.

Uncle Sam also resembles a circus ringleader, notable for my next point:

THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME - no, not Super Bowl. The GAG is us the people being pitted against each other: through late-stage capitalism, through the culture war, through class warfare, through being built of the backs of slaves. We are all players in the GAG because none of us on this site were the oligarchs seated at the inauguration.

This is also seen as Kendrick's stage was a Play Station controller. Not only did it remind of circus rings visually, but it was a game battle stage. The Great American Game is a battle royale of the commoners for the amusement of the rich whites.

Remember the foods / Them color was tin and brown / But now they 100 and blue - For this I'll just say, look what the last election said about lowering the price of eggs... and look at the prices now.

The revolution about to be televised / You picked the right time / But the wrong guy - Election 2024 once more.

THE FLAG DANCERS - yes, the dancers formed the US flag... off of the backs of Black people. Not a single white person in sight, and that's true of the cotton pickers in the fields. Plantations are part of how the US came to economic prominence after being a "backwater" colony. Remember tobacco? Cotton? Our bloodlines do.

The red and blue dancers are also notable for representing the Crips and Bloods, two infamous street gangs. The dance in Not Like Us is the Crip Walk. I recommend researching more on your own time about them, but just know they are a large part of the stereotype of Black people being "ghetto."

TOO LOUD, TOO RECKLESS, TOO GHETTO. Do you really know how to play the game? - This is exactly what Black people, especially Black men, get told all the time. It's why we change our names on resumes if they sound "too Black." It's why we codeswitch in non-Black company. This is especially rich considering how non-Black people love our culture and love to make money off of us, as the latter part of the quote points to. And it's even more profound during the Super Bowl-- the NFL is majority Black players.

STREET LIGHT A CAPELLA -- "thug" stereotype dancers to counteract the a capella connotations, with Uncle Sam then saying that Kendrick figured out "bringing other street guys around being a culture cheat code." Yes, this is a direct hit at Drake (listen to "Not Like Us") but also politically. Look up "model minority". Notably I would point to Candace Owens, or the Miami Venezuelan political group that's been in the news recently, especially as this directly led to Kendrick being surrounded by...

DANCERS IN WHITE -- it's white America. That's... that's the allegory.

NOT LIKE US TEASER -- Kendrick says "Not Like Us" is "their favorite song." -> he means white people specifically here. It comes after he's surrounded by all white dancers, the women around him who are his call and response are also in white (my opinion, they represent the industry). He's saying "Not Like Us" is the favorite of yts because it is about BLACK MEN FIGHTING. This again is reflected in the video game stage and ringleader Uncle Sam.

SZA -- instead of giving what they want, we see SZA. She's one of Drake's exes and Kendrick has always supported her.

ALL THE STARS -- This was in the first Black Panther movie, which I recommend you watch. Rest in Power Chadwick. Notably, this movie was incredibly mainstream as a major Marvel movie, and then we have Uncle Sam say...

"THAT'S WHAT AMERICA WANTS: NICE AND CALM. DON'T MESS THIS UP" -- translation: Marvel (the industry, America, etc.) wanted a safe, semi-pop song because white American likes safe pop songs, not Kendrick's usual heavy rap style about his life as a Black man! Don't mess up what you've got going mainstream for having this "Black rap feud" with Drake, who is an R&B model minority to white people because he's safe.

So what does Kendrick say?

IT'S A CULTURAL DIVIDE / IMMA GET IT ON THE FLOOR -- He was warned not to be political or apologetically Black for this Super Bowl performance, but he is using this big stage opportunity to speak out.

40 ACRES AND A MULE / THIS IS BIGGER THAN THE MUSIC -- 40 acres and a mule are what the freed slaves were promised. Instead, this land went to white sharecroppers. Research Jim Crow laws.

THEY TRIED TO RIG THE GAME / BUT YOU CAN'T FAKE INFLUENCE -- rig the election, rig the industry like with model minority Drake, rig the Great American Game with culture war to distract from active class warfare.

NOT LIKE US -- the only thing I'll mention because it made me holler is Serena Williams crip walking on Drake's metaphorical grave. She's another one of his exes.

TURN THE TV OFF -- exactly like he said! The TV is a distraction, the Super Bowl is a distraction, the mainstream news is often a distraction. Turn it off and get with your people!

GAME OVER — could not see this on my stream but at the end of the performance, the lights in the stadium spelled this out. The world is watching, America…

In conclusion, Kendrick Lamar is a visionary and thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

The absolute tonal whiplash of this story delighted me as a kid, and you have somehow captured it in reverse with these three comics. A bungee cord from tragic to comic to ???Large?Feelings??? Also, Ms. Hudson here is a fantastic portrayal.

THE DYING DETECTIVE - part 3 - part 1 - part 2 - "to the last gasp he would always be the master" - there is at least one panel that made me laugh while drawing it so I hope it makes you laugh, too. It's the least I could do.

This will most likely be the last update for a few weeks - going to England on a trip (where Sherlock Holmes lives!!! omg!) - when I return it will be for a cozy early Christmas special, THE BLUE CARBUNCLE.

(This is in the Watsons sketchbook series!)

I love a sketch that does this; at first it's funny, you immediately get the bit. Then it keeps going and it's REALLY funny. Then they bring THAT ONE PHRASE where you lose it. Then we see it double down, the coworkers, and you think 'well, that's it, that's peak comedy right there,' and then, if you're really lucky, you're wrong. The ending somehow, someway, spins it sideways, takes it up to 11, and tops itself all over again.

SO psyched!

more physical copies of WATSON'S SKETCHBOOK are arriving soon! I will be opening the site for sales on FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 at 9:00am PST/12:00 noon EST/4:00pm GMT. Last time they sold out quite quickly, so I recommend setting an alarm if you want one from this batch!

Here is the link for the shop where you can find them (as well as other comics!)

WATSON'S SKETCHBOOK is a 178 page zine of sketches and comics from the Sherlock Holmes canon, which I've been posting in webcomic form on tumblr and my newsletter. Ships worldwide.

obligatory cat+books post under cut:

TOAST!

^"He was right, of course." (/she/them) Seriously though me too he had it all figured out

You can tell that I’m a real Lord of the Rings expert because my favorite character is the unnamed sentient fox that appears for three lines in chapter 3 of the fellowship of the ring. 

Every step seems perfectly executed, but somehow I never have even the slightest idea where this is going.

The full thing for anyone who wants it!