It’s happened again. Previous New Year Comics here.
New Year Comic 2025
Tag: art
Lonely Friends 10: Huh?
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.
Lonely Friends 9: Stage (/ˈstɑːʒ/)
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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!
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! 🎃
New Year Comic 2024
New year, new New Year Comic. I started doing these at the start of the decade and will continue doing them till the end of the decade. You can read the first four here. If they seem oblique that’s cause they are. See you again next year :).
Transcript
1. TEXT: I dunno man.
[FRANCIS sitting up in bed.]
2. [FRANCIS pulling on pants over long underwear.]
3. [FRANCIS unlocking bike from the porch railing of a house.]
4. TEXT: I’ve hardly paid attention to climate change these past few years.
[FRANCIS biking along the Schuylkill.]
5. [The Ridge Ave trailhead to the Wissahickon. Two figures wave to each other.]
6. [FRANCIS and MAX walking on a hiking trail.]
7. TEXT: Next year we’ll be halfway through the decade.
[Two figures walking across Jody Pinto’s Fingerspan Bridge]
8. TEXT: Check back with me then.
[FRANCIS walks on a path between two rocks. The path ahead winds.]
Signed FB 10 January 2024.
Public Domain Day 2024: The Silencing and Rediscovery of “Life in the Iron Mills”
Happy Public Domain Day! Today, works from 1928 enter the public domain in the US and many other countries! Most infamously, this is the year that Steamboat Willie, the ur-Mickey Mouse, enters the public domain. The Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a great write-up on what’s entering PD this year, as well as a detailed post about the Mickey Mouse situation.
As I do every year, I’m celebrating by ceding one of my own works to the public domain: “Just Dig”! This is one of the first stories I self-published, back in 2017. It’s a very short story about asteroid prospectors and luck. Has kind of a western vibe to it. It’s good! I’ll eventually upload it in more formats and update the ebook version on Smashwords, but for now you can read it in this single-sheet, printable version. To read my other posts about the Public Domain, or my other works in the public domain, go here.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to highlight a piece of writing which has been in the public domain for over a century, and which I love—”Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis.
This is a short story first published in The Atlantic in 1861, describing a few fateful nights in the life of Hugh Wolfe, a worker in an iron mill. The story was sensational and much acclaimed when it was published, and ahead of its time as far as exposés of the American underclass—this was decades before Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair. However, the story and Harding Davis fell into obscurity for a while, before being re-introduced to the world in 1972 by writer and literary scholar Tillie Olsen. Olsen, an editor at Feminist Press at the time, published a new edition of the story, along with a lengthy biographical essay about Rebecca Harding Davis, drawing parallels between the thwarted creative efforts of the character Hugh and those of the writer. Olsen then expanded on this idea in Silences, a book about authors whose output was stifled or cut short by their socioeconomic circumstances (e.g. being a woman, being poor.)
I mention all this because 1. reading Silences is how I discovered “Life in the Iron Mills,” 2. I think Silences is required reading for anyone serious about being a writer, and 3. this cultural transmission is a triumph of the public domain. “Life in the Iron Mills” probably entered public domain in 1917, if not earlier. If it had been subject to our current laws, it wouldn’t have entered public domain until 1980, 70 years after Harding Davis’s death. Tillie Olsen would have had to track down the author’s estate and pay for the copyright. If she couldn’t find the estate, or couldn’t reach an agreement with it, she would’ve had to wait eight years for it to enter public domain. Basically my point is that our fucked copyright law is another form of silencing.
If you want to read “Life in the Iron Mills” now you can read it on Project Gutenberg, or you can get the 2020 edition of it from Feminist Press, which includes Olsen’s biographical essay, a few other short stories by Davis, and a new foreword by Kim Kelly. I would not recommend the 2020 edition though. Kelly’s foreword adds nothing, and the story itself contains several typos—right away there’s a typo in the epigraph, and later on an entire paragraph is missing! I would recommend just reading the story, then reading Silences, which does include a version of Olsen’s biographical essay on Harding Davis.
You can also read it in this little zine edition I made! And here’s a print-imposed version, you can just print this 2-sided, short-edge binding, and it’ll come out perfect.
I put this zine together over a year ago, just as a proof of concept for making little booklets like this, and I think I did a pretty good job. Nota bene: I included Olsen’s introductory note, so this zine is not public domain! This zine is illegal! But I think Olsen’s note is so good, one of the best introductions to a literary work I’ve ever read—probably because it’s so brief. So I will take her lead and not waste any more of your time.
Happy Public Domain Day!
Two Irish TV Shows I’ve Watched Recently
This is kind of a strange one! Before I get into it, here are a couple quick updates:
You may be excited to know that I have started writing a novel, and it is going well! I have not worked on the first draft of a novel since 2020, when I wrote the second half of a novel that I started in 2015—which was the last time I started writing a brand new novel. So this is my first time starting a brand new novel since 2015!!! Needless to say, I am killing it, best thing I’ve ever written, guaranteed career-making title, etc. etc. I won’t be posting updates about it very often, because that’s tedious, but here is a teeny tiny sneak peak at the opening paragraphs. You will see nothing else of it until it is finished.
As for some writing which you’ll be able to read a little sooner, though: in May I will be publishing “Is Magic School Still Worth It?” as a zine! It is a very good short story about trying to put a price tag on our nobler aspirations, i.e. magic. And higher ed. The zine will be available for free, just like “Cartographer” was. Drop me a line at FrancisRBass [at] gmail [dot] com if you want one! I will be making more noise about this as release date gets closer, so no rush.
Okay, onto the post! These are two Irish TV shows I watched on youtube recently. I don’t normally write about TV shows, and I’m not doing so now because I have anything tremendously insightful to say about them. But these shows are pretty damn terrific, and I expect you would never hear about them (unless you’re Irish) if not for this post, so you’re welcome.
Also there’s a new 1-page comic at the end :^)
Hands was a documentary TV series, composed of 30-minute episodes, released between 1978 and 1989. There were 37 episodes in total, each covering a different artisan craft still being practiced in Ireland at the time of recording. The episodes will usually focus on one craftsperson, or a family business, but sometimes they take a broader survey of several practitioners.
I’d describe the tone as generally nostalgic and patriotic, in a way that is charming rather than obnoxious. The show is warm and mild, and mostly just wants to celebrate the crafts that it spotlights.
Each episode has a different narrator, and many of them bring character and liveliness to their episodes, animatedly recalling scenes from their own childhood when things like horse carts and shoemakers were more common.
The strength of this show is combining that warm, human delivery with a clear and thorough depiction of the various crafts. The process of weaving a rug, or repairing a leather book, or constructing a currach, is shown from start to finish, with good, steady shots of the handiwork. It is immensely satisfying seeing raw materials slowly become a finished good in this way. The work is slow, but bit by bit the embroidery, or the harp, or the hurl, becomes whole, and you got to see it every step of the way.
Read More »Goblin Week 2023 and others
Another Twitter tradition I’m migrating over to this blog: I have been participating in Goblin Week for the past 4 years. It is a week where you make a goblin every day. It is at this point the only art thing I do really consistently every year (other than my new year comics.) I used to only post them on Twitter; I will now be posting them here every year. Find below as well my previous Goblin Weeks.
This year I drew bike goblins. You’re welcome.
New Year Comic 2023
Starting in 2020, I’ve been making a one-page comic at the start of each new year. I’ve only ever posted them on Twitter, but since I’m putting more focus on this website now, you can count on seeing them here every new year. I’m also including the previous 3 comics so you can see those—they do all reference each other.
Also sorry the first one is very scratchy, they do get better.
2020
Transcript
Date: 1 January 2020
1. [Francis asleep in bed.]
2. [Francis wakes up, sitting straight up].
FRANCIS: Ah!
3. FRANCIS [Pointing]: New decade! Let’s go!
4. FRANCIS [Getting out of bed]: The 20’s! We’re gonna halt climate change!
5. FRANCIS [Putting on pants]: 10 years from now we’ll be STAGGERED by the progress made!
6. [FRANCIS, fully dressed, looks out of a window, leaning against it. We view this from outside. Clouds and other buildings reflected on the window.]
FRANCIS: A long future for a young and vigorous human race!
2021
Public Domain Day 2022: A Public Domain Review Review
Happy Public Domain Day! As of today, works from 1926 have entered the public domain—among them the first Winnie the Pooh book, the first Hercule Poirot book, and the first novel by Ernest Hemingway! This year’s Public Domain Day is special because for the first time literally ever, sound recordings are entering the public domain. You can read more about that and what else is entering PD over on the Duke CSPD.
This year, in celebration of Public Domain Day, I’m reviewing the Public Domain Review. PDR is an online journal which publishes essays concerning art and artifacts in the public domain. They also curate collections of artwork, photographs, and books, some of which they sell prints of. At the start of 2021 they celebrated their tenth anniversary, so they’ve got an extensive backlog—294 essays and 990 collection posts, by their count. Throughout all of 2021, I read every essay they published and perused every collection they showcased, in order to write this review. So I’m going to talk about why Public Domain Review is great, and then recommend some of my favorite posts from the past year.
Firstly, Public Domain Review is great just for being what it is. The public domain is vast. It expands infinitely pastwards. This is exciting, but where do you start? Say, for example, you’re an ES-EN translator, and you want to cut your teeth on a public domain work that hasn’t been translated before. You know plenty of old Spanish books, but they’re the ones that everyone knows, they’re the ones that have already been translated. And you may be familiar with more recent untranslated works, but these are under copyright. (This is why, vast as the public domain is, it is still not vast enough—the stuff that is most recent, most relevant, most likely to be known, is the stuff that is least accessible.)
Read More »Comics from (mostly) this year!
This year, I actually drew quite a few pages of comics, but you probably didn’t see them because I only posted them on Twitter. I may collect them into a little PDF or something once I’ve done more, but for now you can read them all here. Merry Christmas!
Note: The first two are actually from 2020. I’ve also not included the “Bread Bible” comics, because I’ll probably put those in a separate post when I’ve completed them. You can read those on Twitter here if you want to see the story so far.
Like a Pack of Dogs
Review: Sex Fantasy by Sophia Foster-Dimino
Sex Fantasy by Sophia-Foster Dimino is a collection of eight zines published between 2013 and 2017, plus two previously unpublished zines at the end. With one exception, the zines are not about sex fantasies, though they are about intimacy, relationships, and the gaps between people. The slight, but not total, mismatch between title and content is indicative of the way a lot of the book operates, in that it invites interpretation. It reaches for something, but doesn’t go all the way toward grasping it—the reader will have to do that on their own.
The book is divided into three sections of three issues each, and a fourth section of one. The first three zines are the most esoteric, consisting entirely of short declarative sentences (usually starting with “I”) paired with illustrations. Although there are a few moments of sequential art, there’s very little scene, and you could scramble the individual panels out of order and not change much. There isn’t even a consistent, recurring character that appears as the “I” or “you” in all the panels. They operate accumulatively—”I made an effort”, “I hit a wall”, “I wasn’t thinking”, “I’m useful” add up to a persona, an emotion. It’s textual-visual poetry, essentially—and like a good poem, you can slow down and appreciate each line, or panel in this case, as it’s own work of art. In fact, the format of the book encourages this, with each panel taking up an entire page, so that you’re only ever looking at two panels at once.
Although these first three zines aren’t my favorite in the collection, I think they hold some of my favorite individual panels. Some are very intricate, while others are imaginative or surprising in how they illustrate the text. “I like your socks” is printed beside a person wearing hamburger socks lightly stepping on someone’s face. “I’m a beverage vendor” appears beside a drink stand; the stand has three large jugs and three containers of ice or tapioca pearls; a bottle for tips; a vase with a flower; eight notes tacked to the stand’s single contiguous wall; a patterned canopy; empty cups held on pegs; a dangling bell; an OPEN sign; a vertical banner displaying a woman drinking from an enormous glass with a straw; and the “I”, sitting on a stool, wearing a spaghetti strap top, flip flops, a hair bow. The text is spare, but the illustrations are rich and suggestive of worlds that extend beyond their snapshot focus. They are not sex fantasies, but fantasy, or fancy, sure.
Read More »
Francis Bass 