AUDIO: Me singing to Lucy Bellwood (Patreon)

Buttstagram is the group chat that I share with my very serious, professional cartoonist colleagues, one Ms. Danielle Corsetto and one Ms. Lucy Bellwood. We use this as a space to talk shop, air our grievances with our profession, and share the gory details of our latest gastrointestinal disasters-- er. I mean-- provide each other moral support when faced with daunting pages.

Today it was Lucy's turn to wail into the communal room of comics yowling that is Buttstagram:

In response, I recorded the attached audio, which includes me not only singing unironically off key but also my voice noticeably cracking (again, unironically). 

You may laugh/cringe, but let me tell you: The You Can Do It song gets results!

THE RESULTS DON'T LIE. 

Look at that fuckin' panel!!! That is SO MUCH WORK and she pumped it out in 23 minutes?????????

Check those time stamps! 1:37 pm - 2:00 pm. My GOD, man!

At first I was genuinely happy for my friend! ........and then another realization occurred to me.....

Buttstagram is truly the gift that keeps on giving as it helps bolster our comics-making morale and accidentally providing me with some secondhand #content to share with you sweet patrons who put up with my bullshit here U_U

If you find yourself enticed by this panel (and I'm pretty sure it's statistically impossible to not find it enticing), let me direct you to Lucy's Patreon where she is sharing her progress on the upcoming graphic novel trilogy Seacritters!, written by Kate Milford, beloved author of the Greenglass House books. According to the book's announcement, 

"... Seacritters!, pitched as Pirates of the Caribbean meets Redwall, is about a young badger who joins the crew of a notorious pirate ship as they set out on a new semi-legal career path as privateers."

I've been a fan of Lucy Bellwood comics for well over a decade and as a connoisseur of her work let me tell you in all honesty that this is the best comicking that she's ever done. Like. I already know she's good. And yet. Every time she shares her latest pages I'm like "Holy fuck, she's actively leveled up. AGAIN." The character design, the acting, the page layouts, the timing, the dialogue... I almost wrote that it's "effortlessly charming and funny and heartwarming", except that it's not actually "effortless"- that level of performance only comes from somebody who has invested serious time and effort into her craft and the attention she pays to the nuance of how people interact with each other. This is high skill work that flows so naturally that it feels effortless to us, the lucky audience who gets to lose ourselves in this world of anthropomorphic capybaras and seafaring badgers. 

Woops! I didn't mean to write an ad for Lucy's new book?? I was just going to post my ridiculous audio. But I can't help myself! My friends are stupid talented!! Have you seen the art and comics Danielle Corsetto is posting every week on her Patreon???? I'M SORRY MY COLLEAGUES ON BUTTSTAGRAM ARE SO TALENTED AND HOT AND I CAN'T HELP BUT TELL EVERYONE. I gotta tell you all like I tell Lucy and Danielle in unwelcome detail about my gastrointestinal disasters. I just can't help myself. This is who I am.

Maybe I should make a song about it. 

Maybe I will make a song about it. 

Because if there's one thing I know, it's that youuuuuu can DO IT! You can do it! Youuuuuuuu can DO IT! You can do it!