Two more miscellaneous illustrations that got lost when my old blog crashed.

http://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/billy-corgan-gets-in-a-nasty-internet-fight-with-a,60967/

http://purpleferretspirit.tumblr.com/post/9409212838

I was an absolute starry-eyed superfan of the Smashing Pumpkins as a teenager — wall full of posters, collecting ephemera like singles and EPs and bootlegs (sort of a difficult task pre-internet!), endlessly repeating certain riffs on my bedroom guitar…the whole nine yards. It’s been about a decade since I’ve had any real interest in any of Billy’s projects, and the current incarnation of the band does nothing for me…but up until this week, I was such a sentimental defender of the 90s Pumpkins. This was my good memory comfort food music, and it’s like I just saw evidence of the chef taking a shit in the kitchen.

Long story short: dude’s a bigot. He got into a dumb internet feud with a guitar pedal maker who happened to be a transwoman, and for some reason veered off into a bunch of transphobic insults and baffling threats of violence — and it turns out it’s not the first instance. There’s a video posted at the AV Club link above where the woman, Devi, talks about this — she seems like such a cool, likeable person, and I hate that she has to put up with this stupid shit. She’s close to my age, and her trajectory with the band is the same as mine: big fan as a kid, mostly lost track, turned off by Billy’s weird latter-day interests like Jesus and conspiracy theories, but still retained a lot of nostalgic goodwill until recently.

This is the utter disappointment of seeing rotten true colors from someone you liked in the first place because they seemed like an ally. Devi talks about getting into Siamese Dream as a closeted teen because she related to the themes of alienation and struggle to, like, break free as your true self. Young me had similar feelings, and was totally attracted to the fact that the Pumpkins clearly had dork/misfit/underdog affiliations. They really did seem like probable queer allies who liked to play with gender in their lyrical themes and costuming. I also loved the whole classic aesthetic of this band because it was really feminine — like, swirly Victorian lettering and old-timey art of iconic-looking female characters, and silent-movie-style panda eyeliner. They’d do art-campy promo photos with everyone — girl and boys alike — doing things like holding red roses in their mouths or wearing crazy gowns with floor-length sleeves. I can’t believe this is the same person. Maybe I read the lgbtq-friendliness into that imagery because I wanted and needed that so much as a lonely kid. I mean, now I could name you a bunch of other grunge-era musical acts who were actual allies re: gender & orientation, but I sure couldn’t then.

And sure, he always had the reputation for being an asshole — but hell, it always seemed like his asshole-ism was more in the vein of, say, being difficult to work with in the studio.

I don’t usually write long, rambly notes like this — but I feel like this demands a public declaration that This Bullshit Is Not Okay. I don’t want anything to do with anybody who thinks it’s even vaguely socially acceptable to insult a woman because she’s transgendered, let alone threaten her. The amount of goddamn shit that trans people (of all genders and orientations) keep having thrown at them by the hateful and the ignorant is so much more than I’ve ever had to deal with as a gay woman, and that shit is motherfucking not-okay bullshit and needs to be called out as such. My trans friends tend to be way cooler and more level-headed about this stuff than I am due to being more used to it, and I hate that the world’s like that.

Additional sidenote: If this seems quite abstract because you don’t know anyone who’s transgendered — and if it seems like a rare thing akin to knowing a wizard or something — I’d say it’s similar to thinking you don’t know anyone who’s gay: it’s fairly likely that you do without realizing. It could be someone who transitioned years ago, and doesn’t universally share her life story. It could be someone who internally identifies as a different gender, but hasn’t taken any outward steps towards it because it’s so daunting and the prejudice and rejection and even actual physical threats are so real and pervasive.

I know there’s an argument to be made for mentally separating a flawed creator from their output, but this is it for me — I can’t enjoy those old albums anymore. They’re poisoned. So, yeah, another lousy lesson in disappointment is learned — but what I AM going to hold onto is the moments of Pumpkin-related bonding that I’ve had over the years with friends of all genders who are also fantastic human beings. In conclusion: I think we should switch some of our early 90s inspiration over to Bill & Ted, and be excellent to each other.

Heed well this cautionary tale.

There have been several!

PS: gotta figure out what I’m doing with this blog — the intention really is to use it for other stuff.

Where? Here!

I gotta rethink this system, because this blog’s starting to lean towards just being a bunch of redundant notifications about the other half of the site. So if you’re following the comics and seeing this, maybe update your bookmark over there, or update your subscription feed to this one?

I really do intend to post more additional stuff over here. It’s just that my extracurricular interests are (clearly) leaning quite heavily towards campy band comics lately.

New band adventures.

I think I’m gradually going to repost most of the miscellaneous drawings that got lost in the Great Blog Crash of ’11. First up: a sampler of mermaids. I like mermaids, you guys.

The first one’s a tribute to this amazing 1930s Disney cartoon, and this insanely catchy Gorillaz song. The second one I drew, like, right before a girl I really liked dumped me and broke my little heart. MAN OH MAN. Third one’s like…who doesn’t appreciate a narwhal?

New Band Vs. Band comic, with benefits in the underneath post.

Ugh. So, I had to reinstall this whole site anew after somehow triggering a glitch that messed up the database…and then destroying it utterly in an attempt to fix it. Seriously, the level of breakage was cartoonishly terrible.

The bad news is that the old posts are gone. The good news is that I’ve got everything rebuilt now, and I’m actually sort of liking the idea of a fresh start. Band Vs Band Comix are also functional again in their own section, and they totally want you to read them. Signs point to a new comic within the next couple of days. I’ll re-post the miscellaneous images that were on the old blog over the next little while, and this is also where I’ll be posting random non-bvb stuff. New band comics will be posted in their new home.

Jeanne, thank you for commiserating with me about this website apocalypse last night, with the patience of a goddamn saint.