ANXIETY: Withdrawal

People get very irate about anti-anxiety medication. Some say everyone should just get over it with exercise and positive thinking and diet. They can't have experienced the sort of panic bout that leaves you unable to eat, walk or think for most of the day.

There are risks, it can't be done without proper medical supervision, there may be very bad side effects, it might not work, and even if it does it's only a way to enable a person to take care of themselves - it's a raft, not a motorboat.

I've found medication really useful at times of great stress - for example while house-hunting in London. It keeps the panic attacks under control and gives me time to sort things out and re-settle.

Going back off it is great, but no fun at all. It's important to remember that the withdrawal is temporary, and that although it takes time to phase it out gradually it's a very bad idea to just stop cold.

Note: As always, this is about my personal experience, not an advert for medication - it really is prescribed for the wrong reasons at times, I agree. It's part of my anxiety narrative. Your mileage may vary.

ANXIETY: Gamify!

Ah, homework.

Brushes and nibs

I'm still collecting things to make brushes and nibs from...

Sea snail nib

Pigeon quill

Catkin brush

Curing quills in hot sand

Bags for collecting, fixed to belt

ANXIETY: Childhood Dream

Bastia Comics Festival: Robots, doodles, friends

I was invited to Una Volta, the comics festival at Bastia, Corsica, to run a cardboard robot workshop and meet French comic artists. It was great! I met some lovely, brilliant people. Check the link to see who they were - I'll just forget someone if I list them here. They were all great. The work was amazing. I felt honoured to be there, and I laughed my head off because everyone was hilarious. I especially enjoyed making use of some echoing dungeons under the Citadel where the exhibition was held, singing quite dreadfully in harmony.

I was very proud to see my drawings from "Cheese Belongs to You" and "Sleepwalkers" framed up, I've never exhibited pencil drawings before.

The Robot Workshop was a big success, despite my terrible Franglais. I had very good assistants.

I doodled a lot to distract myself from all the socialising. Socialising at Festivals is hard. These are doodles on demand, just people telling me what to draw so they can laugh at how fast it happens.

And some doodles just for my own enjoyment.

 We went to the beach looking for treasure.

There was a panel talk. It was brief, so I didn't bring up the one thing that bothered me: how come that half the children in my workshop were girls, many of the organisers were women, there were girls and women all over the festival, taking part... but when I looked through the books on display, pretty much all of them were about men having adventures. Strange.

Otherwise, I absolutely loved the whole event. You wouldn't believe the amount of tasty food we were fed constantly. Look, there even was bacon at the panel talk.

Hello Bacon.

 I came back early in the morning of my birthday and fell asleep in a nest of balloons. Yay!

WE ARE GOING TO ELCAF!

Hey there!

My best friend and collaborator Alexis Deacon and I will have a table at the East London Comics and Art Festival this year. Can't wait!

Here are our websites:

VIV

ALEXIS