It’s difficult buying birthday gifts for practicing Buddhists, nevermind the Buddha himself. That is, it’s tough unless you get creative with it. And by creative, what I really mean is cheap.

Or, in Lil K’s case, weirdly lucky.

It isn’t the Buddha’s birthday today (that is usually celebrated between April and May, sorry I missed it!), but it WAS my mother’s birthday a few days ago. She happens to be a Buddhist and a very difficult person to buy gifts for. I wanted to do something nice for her so this comic is dedicated to her.

When I was just a wee lad, my parents got divorced. It was kind of tough for all of us early on, but it was obviously the right thing to do as the two of them couldn’t possibly be more incompatible. What this meant was that I grew up between two houses and two families with two very different sets of ideals and beliefs. My father, a Christian, brought my brothers and I to Church a couple of Sundays a month and had us attend Sunday School while we were young. My mother, on the other hand, grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, left home and the religion at 18, and ended up settling into Buddhism when I was about 10 years old. She’s stuck with it all this time, meditating frequently, and going on retreats. It’s from her that I learned the basic ideas of Buddhism that sparked my curiosity in other religions and, eventually, my interest in mythology.

Between my two families I had two religions that I didn’t have much interest in being a part of, but which I found immensely fascinating from a scholarly perspective.

The figures of Jesus and Buddha had so many similarities and some terribly interesting stories that got me thinking about the stories of other people around the world.

The Buddha (to me anyway, and I realize this is subjective) seemed to be offering a much more complicated message than the prophets and founders of other major religions, though it isn’t wholly unfamiliar. The Buddha preached, first and foremost, the concept of mindfulness; the idea that one should strive to always be aware of the things they are doing at any given moment, that one should consider their actions and the consequences of those actions. Along with mindfulness comes freeing oneself from desire, letting go of the things you don’t need and paying attention to what is actually important (like in today’s comic!). Finally, compassion for all living things and an awareness of the suffering every creature goes through over the course of its life is immensely important to cultivate in oneself to the practicing Buddhist.

Obviously, there’s some overlap here with Jesus’s teachings. The idea of compassion for others, of giving up material goods, and the fact that they were both reforming religions that came before are all traits common to both figures. It’s interesting to note that it has been said that Buddhism is less a religion and more a philosophy and way of life. There are some people that practice both Buddhism and Christianity or Islam or whatever.

Of course, Buddhism is far more complicated than a paragraph or two can convey (as all religions are) but it’s one that seems to resonate with a great many people all around the world. Though I may not adhere to it as a practitioner, it has taught me a great deal about myself and others and for that, I’m thankful.

So to the Buddha, I say thanks for helping me find my interest in world religions and mythology, and to my mother I say thanks for helping me find the Buddha in everyone.

Happy birthday, mom. I offer you Mettā.

And to you, dear reader, I do the same.

I’m convinced Birthdays are just god’s way of counting down how much longer we have to live. Each one is a step closer to our chilly graves.

I’m kidding! Birthdays are totally rad!

Tomorrow is my birthday! How exciting! It also happens to be Lil K’s birthday by some strange coincidence. How did that happen? I have no idea.

Personally, I made past 18 and I like to think that Lil K will too. Sometimes Cat God is a little hard on him, but it’s probably just to toughen him up. Clearly they have a strange relationship

Anyway, I’m keeping this blog post short as I plan to relax as much as I can this weekend!

BIRTHDAY TIME!

They say death isn’t funny. It isn’t, unless you’re God.

I was talking to Liz the other day and we realized that there hadn’t been a strip yet about Lil K asking God about what lies after death. I found that strange, so we came up with a comic to remedy that situation.

There are some serious questions when it comes to death and dying, all of which seem to stem from the fact that life and consciousness are pretty sweet. They are so sweet, in fact, that we just don’t want to give them up. It’s a scary thing, the thought of losing them, so we wonder about what it means to pass away. Unfortunately, as a student of mythology and art, I haven’t got a lot of answers. Nobody really seems to.

My personal opinion has always been to try to let go of the negative, clingy feelings. I’ve lost family members, I’ve lost friends, but there’s no sense in focusing on the loss part of the equation. Instead, I try to think of all the awesome experiences I had dealing with those individuals. I make it a point to think of all the shitty experiences as well, because it’s not just the good that defines our relationships.

There’s no sense in sugar coating our memories.

It’s tough to take a less grief focused approach to death, especially when it’s the social norm to cry and moan and make other people miserable when you lose someone. I understand those feelings and I really do feel for people that suffer the loss of someone close. It’s not easy to get past that, but would the person you lost really want that for you? I find that hard to believe.

As for me, I hope people have a totally bitchin’ party when I’m gone. Hopefully not celebrating my demise, but rather, celebrating the life I lived.

Though I suppose they could celebrate my demise if I were hit by a flaming bus driven by Sasquatch playing Iron Maiden at maximum volume.

That would be awesome.

Picture this in your mind: It is Sunday, the heat is sweltering. Sweat beads down your forehead as you spend hours in church listening to some guy in a fancy robe drone on about rules and regulations thought up by people thousands of years ago. As you near the end of this marathon of rhetoric, there is hope. There are…snacks. You stand in line, waiting for your turn to devour the corpse of your savior, an extension of your god, but lo! You are denied your desserts! You receive but one small cracker and a sip of wine. You can’t even get drunk on that. You are not a tiny, yet devout, baby.

You grow up to curse your religion, forsaking your cultural heritage and becoming a shiftless vagabond crying out to the people on the street, “Trust not the Church! Trust not the Church!”

This is what Christianity has wrought!

Or is it? I can’t distinguish reality from imagination.

When I was growing up I went to Church with my dad. He is Romanian Orthodox Christian and in that particular section of the Christian faith, food is kind of a big deal. I actually had a pretty good time of things, post-sermon, as all the old Romanian ladies (my grandmother included) would provide food at the end. It always felt kind of awesome to know that I had got through another one of those things. It was like God was rewarding me for a job well done. He’d pat me on the back and say, “Good job kid, thanks for being here, now have some of this delicious spinach pita.” and I would happily oblige. Our version of the “flesh and blood” thing was a lot better as well. Homemade bread chunks and some pretty damn good wine made for a nice break.

Then I learned about Catholicism. Tiny dry crackers and barely drinkable wine were all that was on the menu. I remember going to a Catholic church at one point when I was maybe 9 or 10 and thinking, “This is insane.” I didn’t want to eat the crackers there, the Lord in that place didn’t look quite right.

It seemed contradictory then, as it does now, that a faith so heavily reliant on the idea of transubstantiation (the belief that, somehow through faith, the bread and the wine really DO become the flesh and blood of Jesus) would make their Lord taste so bland.

I tried sneaking a bottle of soy sauce in to liven things up, once.

It didn’t go over very well.

I stopped going to Church not long after.

Weird new art! Cool? Cool.

At some point, I’m sure, many people face questions about their existence and the existence of the universe. What are we here for? What is our purpose? Are jelly donuts really jelly donuts? I’m here to answer your questions:

Maybe.

I hope that helped.

Ah, science, bane of my youth. It’s no wonder some people are terrified of it when you really think about it. While it is true that I am a big fan of science (I wanted to get involved in every scientific field when I was a kid, still kind of do) it is also true that science nearly destroyed me as a person. Listening to ideas about the Big Bang in seventh grade was a huge mind fuck in a serious way and gave rise to a lot of weird thinking.

You see, people that have to be funny are generally very negative people. Comedy is how some people interface and cope with a world that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. If you’re into comedy and also into writing (as I am) then odds are good that you’re pretty messed up. When I learned about the Big Bang, I started to have existential crises. I hadn’t believed in God for a while at that point but this one theory lead to a whole slew of thoughts that I couldn’t really cope with. I began to think about how a universe (clearly a something) could come from nothing. That made me reconsider a deity of some variety but that just gave me the same problem. Where would that deity come from? Then I began to question reality itself, question my existence, and question my questioning.

Eventually I decided to say screw it and start drawing comics. Life is pretty sweet, whatever the purpose of it may be and there’s not enough time in the day to wonder, without real purpose, what it’s all about. Examining our relationships, interactions, and ourselves is complicated enough without the metaphysical implications of existential crises added to the mix. It’s awfully difficult to enjoy what we have when we try to wrap our heads around what amounts to unsolvable problems.

That’s not to say we should never consider them, but being consumed by them makes you a pretty miserable person.

I say this because I know first hand.

Fortunately, it seems a bit more difficult to think yourself out of existence than I’ve made it out to be in this comic.

Another God strip! Hooray!

An all powerful deity with human emotions was always something I found particularly funny in the Bible. There are many times where God is described as being angry or jealous or (as in the case of the New Testament) loving. I’ve talked about this before, but I find it hard to believe that a being with the power to create, animate, and infuse spirit into his creation would ever feel as we do. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In the Old Testament, you get this sense that God is essentially a kid with an ant hill and a magnifying glass, just tormenting people for the fun of it. I mean, the Book of Job? What’s that all about?

I don’t think it’s wrong to believe in a God or anything like that, but ascribing such incredible flaws to a being we probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend is a bit myopic. Sure, it’s nice to think that he’s just like us, but that’s also really silly.

That said, that sort of God does make for an excellent comic character. Especially when he’s sulky and draping himself over things.

This is a weird strip, I’m not sure what to say about it specifically, really.

God makes a triumphant return, and, true to form he is totally gross and a little surprising.

There are times when I write the strip and I desperately want to come up with something for a particular character, god, or mythology, but it just doesn’t work. Lately, I’ve craved writing more Cat-God strips. The sheer ridiculousness of his replies to K’s philosophical questions are fun and they were the basis for this strip ever starting in the first place. It’s good to have written something new with him in it.

The fun thing about God (both in the strip and in life) is that his (or her or its) very nature stresses the concepts our brains hold dear. Finite reality is not something that can contain him (or her or it) and rules of social niceties do not phase him (or her or it). I think we (as a species) have sort of moved away from the idea of God as the man in the sky with the big white beard and have started to believe in his (or hers or its) existence as more of an abstract. Plenty of people don’t subscribe to that set of beliefs but even they are aware of the concept and I think this applies to them as well.

Personally, I always thought it’d be great if God weren’t subject to our rules but still acted and thought like us but was just a bit more rude and ridiculous. Hence his behavior in every strip he has been in thus far.

It’s like, yeah he could just tell Lil K the answers but that wouldn’t be fun. He’d rather give us some bullshit reply, gross us out, and watch us writhe, laughing the whole time.

You’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself, y’know? If God does exist, that might be his greatest gift to us. Humor in the face of adversity (or just life in general).

You’ll notice I’ve put up some space for Project Wonderful ads. I don’t really like advertising, especially since I feel like it ruins the continuity of my design, but I need some money to start paying for merchandise and PW is a great service. I also put the donation button back in. Hopefully these aren’t too intrusive…

Oh and here is yet another Thursday sketchblog update for your perusal.

The problem with Modern Art is that most people don’t understand what the fuck is going on half the time. The idea here is that you make something so inexplicable that people are forced out of their daily routine and given something to think about. Unfortunately, this practice turns most people off to the idea of art as these sorts of things tend to be really weird. We, as a culture and seemingly as a species, no longer prize execution. We have narrowed the beam of our artistic focus and that beam shines almost exclusively these days on such idiotic ventures as Damien Hirst’s Shark in a Box; AKA The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.

This sort of art isn’t for me, I am a storyteller and a comedian at heart and my art is, more or less, the art of words and human experience. I am able to step back from my personal opinions and look at this objectively, even though it seems completely ridiculous. People are and should be allowed to pursue various artistic mediums. My problem is that this is what’s big right now and that we are not celebrating things that deserve to be celebrated in the way we should be. So-called “low art” (that is, comics, cartoons, animation in general, any art that relies on story rather than pure visuals) is spoken of pejoratively and with a sneer of disgust in art communities and schools. Meanwhile, people are paying millions for a preserved shark in a box. Seems a bit…strange doesn’t it?

The best part about this comic is that it is mostly true, minus the Sasquatch and deity disguised as a common household feline. My brother saw this very installation at the Philly Museum of Art and was appalled. When he told me about his experience in this white room filled with white panels hung from the walls and ceiling I was taken aback. He went on to explain that a strange hippie was sitting on one of the stools and listening to various voices robotically naming the days of the week in no particular order. It got me thinking…maybe that guy was the art!

Apparently he had come to the same conclusion independently. What can I say? We are brothers.

This points me to my main problem with Modern Art: people are no longer sure what art is and are, essentially, having to be told by gallery coordinators and school professors what does and doesn’t qualify. It’s a hilarious system but a shitty one at the same time.

Personally, all I want to see is some more diversity.

Yes, you can buy ghosts in China Town. You can get anything in that place, you just have to look.

The strip is slightly late again, please accept my apologies. I had crafted a strange experiment wherein the strip was presented in four, wide, vertically stacked panels. When I came home to finish working on it at 10pm, the file completely failed to open so I had to start from scratch. I figured the comic gods had deemed it an extravagance and done away with it. First time that’s ever happened.

I guess there’s nothing like a little consistency, eh?

It’s crunch time at school for the next week or so and things are spinning out of control pretty quickly. I ended up animating 25 seconds of work in 2 days just to get it over with and I feel like my brain is melting out of my skull. Couple that with sleeping only 3-4 hours a night and you have a dangerous cocktail.

That’s right, Sweet William’s love of stupid puns is rubbing off on me. I must fight against it!

I also must figure out how to start generating some revenue with the website. Would you guys be interested in buying prints if our store were set up nicely and I had more ridiculous things on offer? The reason I say this is that I’ve had a lot of people interested in buying happle tea books next spring, but to do that, I need money. Unfortunately, living in Boston, not having a job, and doing 70+ hours of work every week between school and this comic doesn’t leave much for my printing fund.

Let me know, I’m interested to hear what you might want, dear readers <3

I’d rather not shift over to advertising…I hate those ugly boxes mucking up beautifully designed websites…

There is a lot of speculation in the historical and religious community about just how and why Halloween came about and what its symbolism means. I am here to tell you that they are all terribly mistaken. Lil K has, in his childish wisdom, solved that problem.

Albeit, with some unfortunate casualties.

I’ve always felt a bit bad for severe diabetics at Halloween, I imagine it must be like being Jewish around Christmas here in the States. Assaulted by imagery and foods that could very well destroy you for at least a day every year can’t possibly be fun. And yet, they persevere, a clear indication of tremendous constitution: both physical and spiritual. I salute them.

To everyone, I hope you have a very enjoyable Halloween, La Dia De Los Muertos, or whatever Pagan Rituals you may subscribe to. If you happen to see any cryptozoological creatures (perhaps a Sasquatch?), do forward your photographs to me: k@10km.org.