come see me and @bluedelliquanti chat about this incredible fcking comic!!!!!!!!!!!

Adversary’s book birthday is tomorrow, and the launch event with me and Ezra David Mattes at Magers & Quinn is coming up! Don’t forget to register, Minneapolis!

hair days (original available for sale via DM)

can you guys watch him while i smoke? commission for @hyeetles :-)

text ID: DESPERATE EMPIRES STRIVE TO CONVINCE YOU THAT YOUR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS MERELY A BAUBLE SIGNIFYING THEIR MIGHT AND RIGHTEOUSNESS /end text ID remix of the iconic photograph "the cock (kiss)" by wolfgang tillmans. expressing my disdain for pinkwashing as a nonsensical pretext for colonial violence.

larry fishburne poster for the trylon cinema from november 2023: official version left, rejected draft right (inclusion of curtis & morpheus was misleading for the actual film lineup, oh well lol)

TEXT ID: I saw these watermelon costumes at a demonstration I attended in Minneapolis. A white supremacist attempted to stab the crowd I was in with a box cutter, and I had enough. People were screaming in terror long after he was gone, like he might mow us down with his car from out of the blue. I hobbled down the grassy side of the Walker sculpture park, flicking up dirt with my cane and muttering unkindly about other attendees. This country has made me so small. 

Do you remember art memes on DeviantART? I watch disintegrated Palestinian children being pulled out of rubble by their shivering siblings, and I am gutted by the absurdity of meeting this horror with a “Draw this In Your Style” art challenge. How to compensate for this critical lack of imagination, this patently American creative dysfunction, when it comes to responding to crises? 

I know what it is like to be asked, by this rotted and festering empire, to kindly suffer and die in silence. I have watched this phony “return to normal” with my own eyes; eyes that cannot focus correctly when I am at my sickest. I am told the pandemic is over, and that is technically correct – the virus is now endemic. I am told we have the tools. We choose not to use them.

What does it mean to be a communist when you are too sick to get up and down the stairs in your home? What does it mean to be a Jew when your name is used to unleash and justify hell on earth? What does it mean to be queer, when empires dangle your expression as a spoil of colonial conquest?

What does it mean to be an artist, when no artistic endeavor is proportionate to the size of the world your country plunders for profit? 

I want to be as big as these watermelon slices. 

My liberation is wrapped up in yours. That’s all there is. My liberation is wrapped up in yours. / END TEXT ID

i had the absolute privilege of helping bring this comic to english-speaking audiences!!!!! go check out this delightful work right meow!!!!!

A comic about being nonbinary, existing in a body, and loving horror films.

Featured films include: - The Invisible Man (1933) - The Exorcist (1973) - Saw (2004) - The Fly (1986) - The Fly (1958)

Massive thanks to @ezrazone, whose work was one of the comic's main influences to begin with, for being the best English language editor I could’ve asked for ♡

DOWNLOAD HERE

just listed three copies of jeremy comic in my shop :-) i apologize for the lack of advance notice but future drops will have more warning. feel free to DM to inquire about international shipping or other art sales tysm!

hi! id die to have your art in my house, is there anything youre currently selling and possibly shipping internationally? sending love

omg! i'm planning on releasing copies of jeremy comic part one in small batches (to make fulfilling orders more manageable with my health) and will give some advance notice here and on instagram (also @ ezrazone) before each release. i also have quite a few original illustrations from other projects that i'd love to send to good homes, if you wanted to DM me i could give u a mini tour of work that's available! i can usually accommodate international shipping with a bit more flexibility for time. i just ask that that international buyers pay for the work up front through paypal (my shop links are only for US and canada) & then reimburse me for shipping once it's in the mail! thank you for the lovely message

this romey was part of a trade with @wuntrum :-)

Mattes, a young and supremely compelling trans cartoonist, lays bare his struggles with these issues of identity, using an unusual platform for doing so: externalization. In the first chapter, the cartoonist presents his premise, an appeal to Succession actor Jeremy Strong to “play” the author in his own autobiographical coming-of-age comic. Once the actor’s stand-in “assents,” the chapter becomes a tour through the realm of Mattes’ memory, culminating in a traumatic injury of his father’s, shortly before the parents’ separation.  This is, to begin with, a clever and surprising notion: the phrase “a terrified child played by Jeremy Strong” initially strikes one as a joke (especially given Strong’s performance as Kendall Roy, who for four seasons navigated a gorgeously frustrating petulance with stunning emotional nuance): intense and visceral as his performance is, the reader’s instinct is to remark on the mismatch between the role as cast and the role as perceived. But it is this mismatch, of course, entirely the author’s intent; in demonstrating his separation from his “past self,” and rendering it as a fictional performance, Mattes follows a grand tradition of the eschewing of memoir as a realm of fact: some of the most acclaimed comics of the genre (if the broad and decidedly treacherous terrain of “memory” can indeed be framed in terms of genre) like Thorogood’s recent hit It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth, Goblet’s Pretending is Lying, and (of course) Spiegelman’s Maus all employ the formal laws of comics—a form forever suspended, forever handheld and diminutive in presentation, forever limited in its power to immerse its reader—to remark, in their own ways, on the utter artifice of arranging memory, that ever-decaying mass, into the neatness of narrative. In lieu of suspending disbelief, Mattes enhances it in a theatre of associative allegory.

Believing and Understanding: Hagai Palevsky on A TERRIFIED CHILD PLAYED BY JEREMY STRONG by Ezra David Mattes and the Crafting of the New Self

100% of outstanding art & jeremy comic orders are now officially in the mail!!!!! i'm sorry i am terrible at keeping up-to-date information on this page, i'm a bit more on the ball on my instagram stories (also @ ezrazone)

hi! id die to have your art in my house, is there anything youre currently selling and possibly shipping internationally? sending love

omg! i'm planning on releasing copies of jeremy comic part one in small batches (to make fulfilling orders more manageable with my health) and will give some advance notice here and on instagram (also @ ezrazone) before each release. i also have quite a few original illustrations from other projects that i'd love to send to good homes, if you wanted to DM me i could give u a mini tour of work that's available! i can usually accommodate international shipping with a bit more flexibility for time. i just ask that that international buyers pay for the work up front through paypal (my shop links are only for US and canada) & then reimburse me for shipping once it's in the mail! thank you for the lovely message

aug 29 health and festivals update

i am not back to full health, but i feel myself emerging from the haze of the last four weeks (i'm now partially bed-bound instead of mostly bed-bound)!!!! i hope to get last month's comic and artwork orders shipped soon (with help from beloved friends) and i am incredibly grateful to everyone for their patience. i also especially want to thank every person who contributed to my ask for financial aid this month; it was a major relief, while i was too sick to stand to brush my teeth, to not also freak out about affording groceries. it was a great sadness to miss out on the last month of my cartoonist coop campaign, but i am also thankful for all of the support i did receive while i could think about work. i don't know what my health means for the future of jeremy comic yet, but i am also no longer in a rush to find certainty. not being able to draw for nearly a month has fucking sucked!!!!!!!!! but coming to terms with being disabled is changing me and my relationship to my work for the better. news for friends who attend comic fests: 1) the darling of my entire fucking heart and comics genius @hirosemaryhello is bringing a terrified child played by jeremy strong part one to her stacked SPX table on sept 9th. you will be able to purchase a copy from her but mainly enjoy her contribution to the second issue of datura zine and her fucking beautiful poetry book from silver sprocket. rosemary's enduring faith in me and my work is the lifeblood of jeremy comic and if u love my comics u should go shake rosemary's hand at SPX in a professional manner 2) that SAME WEEKEND (sept 10th) jeremy comic 1 will also be at MILK in milwaukee, thanks to the generosity of the organizers hannah & hali (and hannah's mom for driving my comics over from minneapolis lol). you can pick up a jeremy at their table, or find a copy at lionstooth in mke if you miss the show! 3) lovely friends (uncertain rn whose table it will actually be at) are also bringing jeremy to A2CAF in ann arbor on october 2nd!!!! second chance to shake rosemary's hand. do not miss it. these are a few of the events i know about for sure!!!!! now my body and brain is gonna stop working for another hour. i'm kissing you through the blog

picked up this journal at a garage sale two and a half years ago because it reminded me of my bubbie. i use it now for comic ideas while i’m laying in bed. the journal came with the first couple pages used by its previous owner, who was keeping a record of their movie list. when i first opened it at the garage sale, i loved that igby goes down was the first title.

spectacular review of a terrified child played by jeremy strong, now live on the cartoonist cooperative journal: "The text and image of A Terrified Child seem to be constantly pointing, even grabbing out at the reader. Characters stare directly out from the page, and the reader is denied the traditional structure of tiers and panels which allow the eye to set its own pace; most comparable to television, we experience this work an image at a time, boxed into a nearly unchanging aspect ratio. This is bolstered by the sheer obsessiveness of the image itself, reminiscent of the vague nausea of seeing a television actor’s individual pores on a large high-resolution screen. In the case of the drawn image, however, there cannot be any ignoring of the intense physical nature required to make the image. The layers of color pencil create deep, gaping, aquifers of color set aside quivering black. The weight of Mattes’s hand layers color over color until the “entire terrifying world” – with the exception of Mattes’s and his brother’s avatars – acquires the tonality of dead flesh."

much love to all the friends in my computer who have made this nightmare a little lighter. i am still accepting donations since my condition seems to be deteriorating rapidly and i have no clue when i will be able to return to work. love you all very much

personal post for friends & supporters of my work

i am currently experiencing a long covid "crash" almost a year after my initial infection. extreme muscle weakness makes it difficult for me to stand in the shower or walk up and down my stairs. i wish i could afford to take the time i need to recover from this flare-up, but professional success as an artist has not correlated with financial stability for me-- i still live below the national poverty line while selling out comics. i usually rely on my ability to take on more work to compensate for funds lost during my illness, but if you are able to help me get through this week (food, meds) my venmo is @ ezramattes and the icon is a medieval painting of a white cat. you can also find my paypal link here. thank you everyone!!!!!!!

got a new youtube video up!!! you need comic recs? i got em! (featuring @ezrazone front and center, tee hee)