Published: June 9th 2021, 10:10:38 pm
BEFORE YOU READ, a list of content warnings:
Visual reference to disordered eating, implied body dysmorphia/dysphoria (mostly visual), (fairly constant) alcohol use, sex, brief visually implied menstruation, and dreamlike gore/body horror.
The warnings related to food/eating apply more to the dialogue (which is not featured here), where a comment made about a character's weight is referred back to a few times by the target of the comment.
Hey everyone! So while I was recovering from surgery, I started reading more about opera, and got the idea for this comic. It follows an operatic contralto playing a leading lady (as opposed to a trouser role) for the first time, and the feelings about gender and performance that come along with it. The main character, Primrose, is caught in a place between masculine womanhood and transmasculinity (if there must be a word to define it - this being loosely the 1890s, this language is never used). It's a short story with a brief respite, but no resolution.
I think a lot about TERF rhetoric about transmasculinity - that someone who feels these things is a "failed woman", or that this is a means of "escape" -- I think that's hilarious, because there's no way for anyone to "escape" misogyny. For some, there's no way to "escape" the perception of womanhood. I wanted to write about those feelings of futility, and I wanted to write a story where the main character is never actually understood by those around them.
(As an aside, I use "he/him" for Primrose when posting on social media, bc I know where he ends up in his Gender Journey post-this comic. He's actually the protagonist for a very different horror story I've been thinking about, which is set years after this comic....anyway............)
With that out of the way -- I plan to update you with weekly progress until the comic is finished. I don't have a set schedule yet, but I think after I hammer out the first batch of pages I'll have a better idea of what my timeline should look like. The final comic in it's entirety will be uploaded here as well!
As a reminder - there still will NOT be a sketchbook for May. June will have a sketchbook posted in early July.
Thank you for your patience as I've been recovering! I had a tiny complication in my healing process, but I'm feeling a lot better, and I'll be getting back to work as normal!