This is sort of a companion piece to We Love Trees.

So my friend Kathy linked to my Avatar comic on the Livejournal community deadbrowalking, and lots of people came to have a look, and I followed the referring links back to the community and had a read.

Now I’d been thinking that I’d kind of handwaved away the cultural appropriation problems with the film in my post about it – just went ‘hey, look at this article on io9′ instead of addressing it. And linked from that community was lots of useful and interesting discussion of that, and of cultural appropriation in general. And this strip is sort of me thinking out loud about it.

The Japanese song is the theme from Hayao Miyazaki’s brilliant film My Neighbour Totoro. The lyrics mean, roughly, “Let’s go for a walk! I’m feeling lively!”

You might not even realise that internalised critical voice is there, until one day it shuts up for a while and the silence where it was is blissful.

Thanks to everyone who came and said hello and bought comics at the Alternative Press Fair. Bemusement, rather than thanks, to that one guy who declared “There’s a fuckin’ MINGE in your comic,” like it was an insult or something. The only possible response was a cheery grin and “Yes. Yes there is.”

Then the next day I went to Orbital Comics, who are now stocking One Word For Everything and also Urban Beasts, by boyfriend Dan with Karen and Anna Rubins. Go! Buy! Enjoy their giant beanbags and their exhibition of original thriller-comic art by Arthur Ranson!

And check out the new Stockists page above. It seemed worth making a page now that I have more than two stockists. I’d like to get some more to add to that. If there’s a comic shop in your city that takes small-press stuff, please comment and let me know.

This is dedicated to Margaret McCabe. I hope your ship came for you, too.