Author: Francis Bass

Spooktober 2025 (and new zine!)

Francis BassLeave a comment

Alright before I get to the main event, I first have an announcement: I have a new zine out! “Map of the Lost City of Uatdan Wuchke” is an interactive fantasy story in which you, the reader, must draw the map. The zine includes a fold-out drawing surface for readers to use while they read. You can order it online on etsy, and I’ve also just added some bike goblin stickers to my etsy shop, if you’re interested in those.

Now, on to the spooky stuff! Every October I like to read a few horror books, and then review them all together in one post. You can see my previous spooktober posts here. This year I read:

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr — I always expect multi-author short story collections to be a mixed bag, with some decent stories, some great ones, and some duds. But this book’s got no duds! The worst stories were just decent, and the best had me wanting to read more by their authors. The pieces encompass a great breadth of styles and genres, from blood-and-guts horror to lyrical ghost stories to gritty crime. It was also really fascinating to see so many takes on storytelling, with several of the pieces containing stories within stories. Here were some of my favorites:

  • “Hunger” by Phoenix Boudreau—a beautifully lyrical wendigo story which, three quarters of the way through, switches perspectives to become a kind of monster-of-the-week episode. Both parts well executed.
  • “Scariest. Story. Ever.” by Richard Van Camp—Much like Tenacious D’s “Tribute”, this is not the scariest story ever, but a story about the scariest story ever. The narrator wants to win a scary story contest, so goes to a storyteller to ask him for the scariest story he’s ever heard. The storyteller agrees to pass the story on, but starts by explaining how he came to hear the scariest story ever … wonderfully absorbing, layered, and sticks the landing. This one’s my favorite of the whole collection.
  • “Collections” by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala—a Native American English major goes to her lit professor’s party so she can schmooze a letter of recommendation out of her, and finds that the professor’s house is decorated with human heads. Real heads. No one else seems concerned. Collections.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s into horror or dark fiction—with any luck, you may find a new favorite author in there.

Read More »

Tabling at Philly Zine Fest, and other updates

Francis Bass1 Comment

Mark your calendars, Philadelphians! November 1st, 11am-5pm, in Temple University’s Mitten Hall, I will be tabling at Philly Zine Fest! This will be my first time attending a zine fest as a vendor, and I’m very excited. Some things I’ll be selling:

  • All my previously published zines, to wit:
    • “Cartographer”
    • “Fires Burn Forever in this World”
    • “Is Magic School Still Worth It?”
    • “The War on Hormones”
    • Lonely Friends
  • A brand new zine about making a map!
  • Brand new goblin stickers from some of my goblin week drawings!
  • And a couple free things:
    • “Masters of the Wine Printers Guild” zine
    • “Just Dig” 1-sheet

If you are in the Philadelphia area please come by and say hi!

If you’re not able to make it, most of my zines are available on my Etsy, and sometime in November I’ll have the stickers and the new mapmaking zine up there, too.

Some other updates

The main thing I’m working on these days is a comic, One-on-One. I’ve drawn and inked about 20 pages (still need to “color” them in), and I expect the rest of the comic will be another 20 pages. Here’s a few sneak peaks. I hope to be finished with it by the end of the year, and have physical and digital editions up for sale.

On the reading front, I’ve finished Battle Hymn of China by Agnes Smedley and can at last move on to the actual sci-fi books on the list, starting with The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’m over a hundred pages into it now and really enjoying it.

Battle Hymn of China was good, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who read and enjoyed Daughter of Earth. It’s not as novelistic as that book, much more episodic. Reading all the chapters together, they don’t combine or build on each other too much, but there are a lot of really fascinating episodes.

That said, I’m going to put my utopia/dystopia reading list on pause in October so that I can engage in my annual tradition of reading horror books for the spooky season. This year I plan to read:

  • Never Whistle at Night, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
  • No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull
  • A Scout is Brave by Will Ludwigsen
  • And perhaps, if I have time, Strange Pictures by Uketsu, trans. Jim Rion

Look forward to a post about that 🎃. You can see my previous Spooktober posts here.

What I’ll Be Reading, and other updates

Francis BassLeave a comment

This post is mostly to introduce a reading list that I’m embarking on, but also to provide updates on a couple things.

First, DC 33 is no longer on strike. At the time I’m writing this, members are voting at the union hall on whether or not to ratify the tentative agreement that DC 33 and the city have reached. It will most likely be ratified. I’m very optimistic about the future of DC 33. “If workers end up divided and disorganised after the struggle, this is a defeat, even if something has been gained. If workers come out of the struggle more united and organised, this is a victory, even if some demands remain unmet.” (From We Want Everything by Nanni Balestrini, trans. Matt Holden)

Another update on something I previously announced here: my story “I Remember a One-Sided Die” is now available to read online, free! It was previously only available to subscribers or people who bought the issue, but now anyone can read it. You can also read the interview which Marissa Van Uden conducted with me about the story.

Now, to the main point of the post!

What I’ll Be Reading

I am setting out on a little reading list that I’ve put together. It’s a very specific niche, but a surprisingly populous one: science fiction books by women in which the main character travels between two or more realms governed by contrasting economic and political regimes. These are not books where the two realms are at war (not necessarily, at least), or where one regime must supplant the other. The protagonists are not leaders or warriors, they are travelers, diplomats, emissaries. Some of the books feature anarchism, some communism. I expect to have more thoughts on why this specific treatment of this specific subject has occurred more than once, and why it has always been women writing this*, as I work through the list.

*I didn’t exclude books by male writers from this list, I just didn’t have any! Of books that I’ve read, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy comes closest to qualifying, though those books take place almost entirely within the political realm of Mars, and one regime is supplanted by another there.

These are the books, in the order I plan to read them:

Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley (1929)
Battle Hymn of China by Agnes Smedley (1943)
The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin (1974)
Floating Worlds by Cecelia Holland (1976)
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh (1992)
Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu (2016)

The first book is actually not science fiction, it’s an autobiographical novel about a working poor woman growing up, and growing into political consciousness, at the start of the 20th century. And although she moves around a lot, she is always in early 1900s America, a uniformly dystopian capitalist setting. So why is it on this list? Well, the author herself was much like one of the main characters of these novels—shortly after finishing Daughter of Earth, Agnes Smedley moved to China, where she spent the next decade reporting on the nascent Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Civil War. Honestly, the book is on this list because I wanted to read the book, and I incorrectly thought it would cover some of her time in China.

And now it’s been so long since I first drafted this post, I’ve actually finished Daughter of Earth! I really enjoyed it, but it has quite an abrupt ending, so I’ve decided to just go ahead and read Battle Hymn of China, which as I understand it is a mix of autobiography and reportage covering most of Smedley’s time in China.

It would be cool if I posted a review for each of these books as I finished them, wouldn’t it? Yeah. Maybe I will. Probably not. But I will definitely periodically update the “Reading” section on my homepage as I move from one book to another.

If you have read any of these books, or want to suggest any additions that fit my narrow parameters, or if you want to read along (??), please write to me or comment below!

ON STRIKE

Francis BassLeave a comment

MYSELF AND SEVERAL THOUSAND OF MY FELLOW AFSCME DC 33 MEMBERS ARE ON STRIKE!

AFSCME DC 33 REPRESENTS OVER 9,000 MUNICIPAL WORKERS IN PHILADELPHIA, FROM ASPHALT RAKERS TO SANITATION WORKERS TO LIBRARY ASSISTANTS LIKE ME.

IF YOU LIVE IN PHILLY GET OUT TO A PICKET LINE. 1515 ARCH THE MSB AND CITY HALL COULD ALL USE BODIES. 1515 ARCH IS 24/7, DROP BY ANY TIME. UNITY CAUCUS ON INSTAGRAM IS A GOOD SOURCE OF INFO AND REQUESTS FOR SUPPORT. WE DON’T NEED WATER BOTTLES!!! COLD TREATS WILL GENERALLY BE APPRECIATED ANYWHERE. OTHERWISE, ASK WHAT’S NEEDED THEN BRING IT. PHILADELPHIA WORKS BECAUSE WE DO!

IF YOU DO NOT LIVE IN PHILLY, YOU CAN FILL OUT THIS MUTUAL AID FORM SET UP BY A FELLOW DC 33 WORKER AND SEE WHAT WAYS YOU CAN HELP.

YOU CAN ALSO VENMO ME @Francis-Bass. I APPRECIATE IT.

ONE MORE TIME PHILADELPHIA WORKS BECAUSE WE DO!!!! SOLIDARITY FOREVER!!!!!!

New Publication: “I Remember a One-Sided Die” in Apex Magazine

Francis Bass2 Comments

I’m thrilled to announce that I have a short story out in this month’s issue of Apex Magazine! The story, “I Remember a One-Sided Die,” is about an alien species with a strange way of perceiving time and memories, and is narrated by one of those aliens. This is my first story to appear in a magazine in a while, and the longest story I’ve ever had in a magazine, so I’m pretty excited to have it out there! I was also interviewed for this publication by Marissa Van Uden, so after you’ve read the story you can read that interview to see where the idea for this story came from, and how I developed it.

You can read the story and the interview right now if you buy the issue, or you can wait a month and both will be posted on Apex’s website, free to read. I’ll probably share that link in a future blog post as well, when it’s available.

Other news!

I don’t think I’ve actually mentioned it on this blog yet, but back in January I finally finished editing the book I’d been working on for most of the past two years! Currently I’m taking a break from it/waiting to hear back from readers, and later in this year I’ll start querying agents.

I’m also just taking a break from writing in general … although I am editing some short stories I wrote last year … but no new writing! Instead, I’ve been gearing up to making a short comic. I’ve never really intentionally set out to make a comic before, other than LYCC—and that was like a diary comic, so it didn’t require any overarching planning or character development. So this will be a bit of an adventure for me. Right now I’m mostly warming up to drawing again, trying to make it a habit, and I’ve been trying to draw a little 4-panel comic every day. I may clean some of those up and post them here at some point.

That’s the main news from me. Here’s a video of me biking up the SRT to Norristown yesterday.

2024 Capsule Movie Reviews

Francis Bass2 Comments

Sometime late in 2023 I got really into capsule reviews, and even bought a copy of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. I think there’s a lot of artistry to writing such succinct reviews, and a lot of fun to be had in reading them. So throughout all of 2024, for (almost) every movie I watched, I wrote a little review. Most of these are not movies that came out in 2024, they’re just the ones I watched that year.

Special favorites are rubricated (red.) I didn’t use any kind of star rating system, but the last line of each review is basically a rating. Reviews are arranged in order of viewing, with the most recently viewed movie at the top. My favorite movie of the year was Heaven’s Gate. My least favorite was Four Feathers.

NOSFERATU (2024). A woman is tormented by horny vampire nightmares. Her husband is called to Transylvania to broker a real estate deal with a Count. Guess who the Count is.
Thick-as-blood atmosphere, great performances, decadent stylings. Ending felt a little pat, but story is otherwise well paced and constructed.
It’s great.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON. A bank robbery is going very well until the robbers find the vault empty. Having to improvise to scrape up more cash, they soon find the bank besieged by dozens of cops and hundreds of onlookers, trapping them inside with a dozen hostages.
Another great Sidney Lumet movie where people with opposing views are stuck in a room all day and get very sweaty. Stellar performances from Pacino as the irresistibly charismatic bank robber and Cazale as his quiet, lethal accomplice. And from the whole damn cast—it’s all great.
All time classic.

MEDIUM COOL. Picaresque film following a Chicago TV cameraman in 1968 leading up to the Democratic National Convention. Mixes real documentary footage and scripted scenes fairly seamlessly. Stupid climactic sequence and stupid ending, but all in all the movie has a lively, authentic feel.
It’s medium cool.

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE. Coming of age film about two brothers whose parents are getting divorced. Father is a formerly great novelist, mother is a rising literary star. These people all have problems and frequently behave horribly and insufferably and my god is it funny.
It’s the filet of Noah Baumbach.

LONGLEGS. A serial killer whose victims all kill themselves/each other. Actually it’s the devil.
A-grade execution of a D-grade story. The devil magic renders any twists arbitrary, makes the Nic Cage character not that scary because he can be as dangerous or as weak as the plot needs him to be.
Great cinematography, long shots slow-building tension. There’s probably a killer short film in here somewhere.
It’s fine.

Read More »

Public Domain Day 2025: Philly Photos!

Francis BassLeave a comment

Happy (one day late) Public Domain Day!!!! Yesterday, on January 1, 2025, works from 1929 entered the public domain, including William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and The Skeleton Dance! You can read more about the Public Domain and what’s entering it this year on the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain’s 2025 page.

As always, I’m celebrating by releasing one of my works to the Public Domain. Actually, a collection of works—this year I’m ceding a bunch of photos of Philadelphia I’ve taken over the past five years. I am going to try to upload them to Internet Archive and Flickr sometime soon, but I want to take the time to add useful metadata to them. So for now you can just look at them on this site, or download them in one big zip file. I have more ambitious plans for next year. For 2025, this is what I’ve got.

I also normally try to write a post about the public domain or something … yeah I got nothing this year. You can see all my previous posts about the public domain, and all the works I’ve ceded to it, here. Maybe read my 2021 post, “A Plea for Authors to Consider the Commons”, if you haven’t already. It’s relevant again because this year, four major publishers—Hachette, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Wiley—won their suit against the Internet Archive, forcing the Internet Archive to end its practice of Controlled Digital Lending. Fortunately, the judge signed an order stating that the court’s decision only covers books which the publishers have made available as ebooks. So the Internet Archive can still practice Controlled Digital Lending of books which are otherwise not digitally available—and that’s a lot of books! It’s not such a bad outcome as it could’ve been. But fuck these publishers and fuck the AAP and fuck US copyright law and fuck Sonny Bono, forever.

Year in Review and Year to Come

Now, some quick non-public-domain-related notes.

It’s been a long year. I’ve been busy. Mostly writing this stupid novel. Novels suck. What an awful form to exalt. What did Borges say? “What laborious and impoverishing madness, composing vast books; developing an idea for five hundred pages whose perfect oral exposition fits in a few minutes.” [“Desvarío laborioso y empobrecedor el de componer vastos libros; el de explayar en quinientas páginas una idea cuya perfecta exposición oral cabe en pocos minutos.”] So I’ve gotten a lot done, but not much that’s in a ready, shareable state. Here are three cool things I put into the world in 2024:

And here are three cool things I hope to put out in 2025:

  • A halloween sadboy novella
  • Another short story zine, or two
  • A new short story in the April issue of Apex Magazine!

I’m very excited about that last one. The story, “I Remember a One-Sided Die,” will be my longest story to ever appear in a magazine—just over 7,000 words. So, look forward to that. Also, very soon I’ll release a big long post containing 40+ mini-reviews of movies I watched in 2024. And I’ll have another new year comic.

Okay happy new year happy public domain day here we go again another lap around the sun see you again soon!

Lonely Friends 10: Huh?

Francis BassLeave a comment

First <<

This is the last page of Lonely Friends! If you’ve enjoyed this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. [ESTHER and POLYHEDRON are doing closing duties at a cafe.]
POLYHEDRON: If he wasn’t so ominous he would be really cute.
2. [ESTHER and MAGDA seated on a trolley.]
ESTHER: But I don’t really go to poetry readings.
MAGDA: Yeah, cause you’re not toxic.
3. [KIM, ESTHER, and RATWITCH at a bar.]
KIM: I don’t want to just get into a pissing match, y’know?
ESTHER: I—
RATWITCH: But maybe it’s time to piss!
4. [ESTHER hiking.]
BONEHEAD [OS]: We could stop up there.
POLYHEDRON [OS]: My feet need a break.
5. BONEHEAD: My feet need a break.
POLYHEDRON: Esther, what do you think?
6. ESTHER: Huh?
Signed FB 6 April 2024.

Spooktober 2024

Francis BassLeave a comment
A larger than life size skeleton posed with arms raised in front of an obelisk grave in the Woodlands cemetery in Philadelphia

Every year around October I like to read horror books and you can see all my previous posts about that here and this is this year’s post.

This year I had a couple false starts with some really insipid contemporary horror novels, so I wasted time on those and didn’t finish them, and only ended up reading one prose horror novel—a novella, actually, Low Kill Shelter by Charity Porpentine Heartscape. I also read the graphic novel A Guest in the House by E.M. Carroll, and I watched a bunch of movies, and I went to some graveyards, so I’m just gonna throw all that into this post too. Enjoy! 🎃

What I’ve Been Reading

Low Kill Shelter by Charity Porpentine Heartscape – A virus has spread across the world which turns its victims rabid, and causes canine-like changes in their jaws. But it hasn’t spread so thoroughly that society has collapsed—in fact, the world is still running along as normal. You still have to work. And everyone has given up on discovering a cure, even the companies supposedly funded to do that. The officially sanctioned cure now is just to execute the infected person.

The novella follows a man who is keeping his infected friend chained up in a closet in his apartment, studying him and trying to find a cure on his own.

This is quintessential Porpentine—a dead-eyed vision of the world which brings the grotesque and the banal smashing together, transgressive in a way that doesn’t feel like just a stunt, transgression as a by-product of probing deep into pain, discomfort, and rabid desires. The book excels in attitude, style, and narrative voice, but the plotting felt a little stilted. At a certain point it just starts going from one archetypal monster movie scene to another, and loses the extreme tension, the claustrophobia, the push-and-pull dynamic of the beginning. Overall I enjoyed it, but it lost its edge about halfway through.

Read More »

Lonely Friends 9: Stage (/ˈstɑːʒ/)

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

Page 1
1. [BONEHEAD and 8-BALL are on the porch of a rowhouse drinking beer.]
8-BALL: I am so ready to leave that fuckin place.
2. 8-BALL: I’ve got a stage – a um, a trial shift scheduled at Renegade next week,
3. 8-BALL: as soon as they say the word i’m walking.
4. BONEHEAD: Stodge?
5. 8-BALL: It’s like a trial shift. Working interview.
6. 8-BALL: And if Renegade doesn’t work out, I can ask Yvonne about spots at Zócalo.
BONEHEAD: Stahzh.

Page 2
1. 8-BALL: They loved me when I interviewed there a couple years ago. 
2. 8-BALL: And they just started brunch service, 
BONE: Stosh?
3. 8-BALL: so they probably need hands for that at least.
BONEHEAD: Stoh. Juh. Stohhh—
4. 8-BALL: Are you listening?
BONEHEAD: Stäwj. Yes. No.
5. BONEHEAD: Yeah, no. Sorry.
6. BONEHEAD: But fuck that place, you can work anywhere you want.
8-BALL: Amen.
[They clink their bottles together.]
Signed FB 10 July 2024.

Lonely Friends 8: Missing Out

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. [8-BALL and RATWITCH are standing outside a rowhouse, each holding a mug. RATWITCH is standing, 8-BALL is seated on the stoop.]
8-BALL: So, what about you? How’s your love life going?
2. RATWITCH: You know, there are good—
3. RATWITCH [Placing their mug on a windowsill.] There are really kind, intelligent, deserving people out there.
4. RATWITCH: So many—thousands—who are missing out,
5. RATWITCH: On this! [They swing their leg up onto the stoop railing like a dancer stretching on a ballet barre. 8-BALL flinches in surprise.]
6. [8-BALL laughs.]
RATWITCH: [Still balancing one leg on the railing.] And it breaks my fuckin heart, y’know?
Signed FB 03/24/23.

Lonely Friends 7: Failed Writer

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. MAGDA [extending her hand to an unseen person]: Magda—I’m a failed writer.
2. MAGDA [raising a finger in objection]: Yes—well—failed writer.
3. MAGDA [holding her hands apart]: Because there’s a difference!
4. MAGDA [daintily holding her hand to her collarbone]: Me? Failed Writer.
5. MAGDA [sitting on a couch with her feet pulled up onto the cushions, one knee hugged to her chest, her head cocked to one side]: You must be confused.
See I used to be a writer. Now, I’m a failed writer.
6. [the same scene as the previous panel, but zoomed in now.]
MAGDA: Clear now?
Signed FB 19-12-21

Lonely Friends 6: Just Move In

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

Page 1
1. [Exterior of the top floor of a rowhouse. One window is open, and a disembodied gloved hand sticks out, holding a lit cigarette.]
BLANCA [O.S., except their hand]: When are you two gonna just move in?
2. [8-BALL is bent over looking in the refrigerator.]
8-BALL: What, sick of me?
3. [BLANCA stands beside the windowsill.]
BLANCA: Yeah, cause we both know you’re the messy roommate.
8-BALL [O.S.] Ha.
4. BLANCA: No, but you’ve been dating for a while, and—
5. 8-BALL [holding two beer bottles, closing the refrigerator door behind them]: I’ll move in with him, but he’s gotta ask me.
6. 8-BALL [walking to BLANCA]: I’m not gonna live with someone who can’t even vocalize his desires.
Signed FB, 20.7.21

Page 2
1. [BLANCA takes a bottle in one hand and puts their cigarette in their mouth with the other.]
BLANCA: 8, that’s, c’mon.
2. BLANCA [accepting a bottle opener from 8, O.S.]: You know that’s ridiculous.
3. BLANCA [opening the bottle]: What if he’s thinking the same thing?
4. 8-BALL: Great! Then we can be immature together.
We’ve self-selected out of the decent people pool.
5. [Exterior. BLANCA and 8-BALL are framed by the window, 8-BALL standing over BLANCA’s shoulder.]
BLANCA: I guess.
8-BALL: Stasis is so comfortable.
6. 8-BALL [gesturing with their open bottle]: You know he only knows how to cook one thing?
It’s great!
Signed FB, 12.12.21

Lonely Friends 5: Magda Isn’t Coming Down

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. [RATWITCH stands in front of a staircase.]
RATWITCH [holding up their hand, palm out]: Don’t talk to her, she’s busy being tragic.
2. [KIM stands in front of a table set with various dishes and tupperwares of food.]
KIM: Is she still in her room? I’d. I’d hoped to see her.
3. [close up on a messenger app. incoming text message.]
TEXT MESSAGE: Magda machine broke. Please proceed to the next available service window.
4. [8-BALL sits on the couch, arms folded tight across chest.]
8-BALL: Like she’s the only one with problems. Like ghosting all your friends isn’t— Because like—
5. [ESTHER stands outside holding a cup.]
ESTHER: I dragged myself across town, baked for the first time in months to have something to bring, and she can’t even walk downstairs into her own living room for …
6. [ESTHER crushes the cup in her hand. tears well in her eye.]
ESTHER: For like one minute? I miss—
Signed FB 4-7-21

Lonely Friends 4: Choke Pear

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. TEXT: I want to gag.
[a skeleton sitting at a table with a drink.]
2. TEXT: You ever hear of this thing called a choke pear?
[POLYHEDRON doing push ups.]
3.TEXT: It’s a weird pseudo-historical device. Unclear if it was ever actually used for torture.
[a chokepear]
4. TEXT: It goes in your mouth.
[ESTHER stands in a grocery aisle.]
5. TEXT: I’m so hungry, and nothing in here could make me full.
[ROLLO person checks his mailbox.]
6. TEXT: I’m so hungry all the damn time.
[MAGDA sits, with her fist against the side of her head, at one end of a table. in the foreground, the skeleton hand with the drink from the first panel is visible.]
Signed FB 20-6-21

Lonely Friends 3: Like a Pack of Dogs

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. [A person with a RATWITCH for a head stands on a balcony.]
2. RATWITCH: Sometimes, I want to come at these jobs like a pack of dogs.
3. RATWITCH: I fantasize about applying to every one of these low-to-no-paying jobs.
Jobs for asshole companies—jobs I don’t even want.
4. RATWITCH: Going to the interviews, then getting an offer, and turning it down.
“Sorry, I won’t work for a company who so openly disrespects me in their job posting.”
5. RATWITCH: As if I’d even GET an offer!
6. RATWITCH: As if I’d even get an INTERVIEW!
7. RATWITCH: Shit.
Signed FB 8/23/2020

Lonely Friends 2: This Can’t Sustain

Francis BassLeave a comment

First << >>  Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. [Two people, one whose body is invisible, BLANCA, and one whose body is entirely a glossy black, 8-BALL, are in a living room. 8-BALL stands, pouring wine into BLANCA’S mug.]
BLANCA: This can’t sustain.
2. 8-BALL: What, our drinking?
The pandemic that’s driving us to it?
3. 8-BALL [pouring wine into their own mug]: The whole-ass state that’s on fire, and refuses to do controlled burns?
4. 8-BALL: The hotter and hotter years that will eventually render even controlled burns useless?
5. 8-BALL: The whole wretched capitalist system and the stupid moribund world it’s given us?
BLANCA: No.
6. BLANCA: Me being single. I need to get laid, dude.
Signed FB 9/30/2020

Lonely Friends 1: Stupid Parenthetical

Francis BassLeave a comment

>> Last

If you enjoy this comic and want to read the full thing (with 8 additional pages not available here!), you can buy a digital edition on Itch.io, or a physical edition on Etsy. Thanks for reading!

Transcript

1. [ESTHER stands at the corner of an intersection, beside a bus stop sign.]
TEXT: I went out to the Wissahickon (alone.)
2. [ESTHER is riding the bus.]
TEXT: Packed a couple of the brownies I baked yesterday (for only me to eat.)
3. [ESTHER stands beside the Wissahickon creek at the trailhead by the bus stop. A large viaduct bridge breaks through the trees in the background.]
4. [ESTHER walks along the trail in  a heavily wooded area]
TEXT: Maybe I’ll go to that bar on Poplar tonight (alone.)
5. [ESTHER stops beside a sign where the trail splits in two directions.]
TEXT: That stupid parenthetical plagues me.
6. [ESTHER from only the shoulders up, leaning forward.]
TEXT: I can’t do anything nice for myself without the reminder that I’m doing it (alone.)
Signed FB 27-7-21

New Comic Zine!

Francis BassLeave a comment

Oh wow it has been a while! I have been hard at work writing short stories and then hard at work editing my novel and so have not had much time to write any book reviews or other posts, but I have managed to finish this collection of new comics!

Lonely Friends is a collection of comics about being lonely and having friends, sometimes at the same time. About half of these comics I’ve shared on this site in the past, the other half are brand new! You can get a digital copy on itch.io, or order a physical copy on my Etsy. Or if you’re in Philly I can give you one in person at the Philly Comics Expo—I’m not tabling there, but I will be visiting and will have some copies of the zine with me.

The pages I’ve shared on this blog have been kind of scattered throughout various posts, so I’m going to re-post those in order over the next couple months so that it’s easy to find them and click through—along with three more pages I haven’t shared before.

Also in the name of things being easier to find, I have a webpage for my comics now. Basically it’s just Lonely Friends, the new year comics, and Last Year Comic Chronicle right now, but I do want to dedicate more time to making comics going forward, so I’ll add to it as I do so.

Now, some unrelated stuff. Since it’s been so long, here’s a few highlights of what I’ve been up to over the past several months:

A video compiled from various bike rides throughout a year, from summer 2023 to spring 2024

A map for the novel which I’m sloooooowly editing right now

An online lecture series which I loved on the history of Industrial Design, focused on the ways that new materials and technologies shaped design/design process.

Okay next few posts will be pages of the comic, but the next regular post after that will be for spooktober!! Read my previous spooktober posts here! 🎃