(via Haunter Part 1 By Sam Alden)

(via Haunter – Part 1 – by Sam Alden)

Haunter: an incredible comic from Study Group Comics. Wordless watercolour. 

Read Part Two Here

Olafur Arnalds . For Now I Am Winter (2013)

focus. study. write.

I guess you haven’t heard the news that David Cameron face-fucked a pig.

In the news today; a man doesn’t sing the national anthem. Never mind the ongoing refugee crisis, or the child tax credits cut though, yeah?

Cenote Angelita: "Underwater River"

Probably half my posts are going to be irrelevant to comic studies. Just saying. Goodnight everyone.

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. I want to describe, not what it is really like to emigrate to the kingdom of the ill and live there, but the punitive or sentimental fantasies concocted about that situation: not real geography, but stereotypes of national character. My subject is not physical illness itself but the uses of illness as a figure or metaphor. My point is that illness is not a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness - and the healthiest way of being ill - is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking. Yet it is hardly possible to take up one's residence in the kingdom of the ill unprejudiced by the lurid metaphors with which it has been landscaped. It is towards an elucidation of those metaphors, and a liberation from them, that I dedicate this enquiry.

Preface to ‘Illness as Metaphor’, Susan Sontag (1978)

ONE PICTURE CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING: Changing British Attitudes Towards the Refugee Crisis

(Comic above by OneMillionMouths)

Below is a timeline of how the image of Alan Kurdi transformed the British response to the refugee crisis overnight. (With Lots of Pictures) 

I realise tumblr has probably been flooded with posts like this, but I wanted to make my own, when I saw the above comic by OneMillionMouths, which really resonated with me in regards to this issue. People are naturally empathetic, you just need to change their perspective and get their attention. 

1) ‘Perceptions & Reality: Public Attitudes to Immigration’ - Bobby Duffy & Tom Frere-Smith (January 2014), Recent report on British attitudes to Immigration. 

2) Katie Hopkins, prominent British tabloid columnist and ‘deluded lunatic’ (her words), publishes a piece of hate speech in a national newspaper describing refugees as ‘cockroaches’. In a following LBC interview, she states ‘I would use gunships’ to deter fleeing refugees. (Monday 20th April 2015)

3) Photos of drowned 3-year-old refugee Alan Kurdi are taken by Nilüfer Demir, (Wednesday 2nd September 2015)

4) Within 24 hours, the image has spread across the world and internet, prompting passionate and fierce debate over the refugee crisis. The Independent UK, The Telegraph. There is a global outpouring of grief and empathy. The Independent (UK) starts a #RefugeesWelcome campaign. (Thursday 3rd September 2015)

5) The Sun Newspaper (which previously published the ‘cockroaches’ article) does dramatic U-turn and starts ‘For Aylan’ campaign, still manages to propose bombing Syria as a solution two days later. (Friday 4th September 2015)

6) British PM David Cameron announces UK to accept 20,000 more refugees. (Monday 7th September 2015)

7) The UK Marches in Solidarity with Refugees. (Saturday 12th September 2015)

8) Government Petition for UK to accept more refugees has amassed 438,312 signatures. Thus meeting criteria  of 100,000 signatures to be debated in Parliament. Official Gov response has been posted from the Home Office (Last accessed: Wednesday 16th September 2015)