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This is just frankly an astonishing haircut. You might say Kasper’s majestic bunny hair is nothing but a cartoonist’s fancy, the fevered imagining of a wretched shut-in blissfully unaware of the physics governing the world around them.

YOU ARE WRONG. I have seen this haircut in real life. It was green.

The rabbit-like (insectoid?) construction in question was attached to the head of a guy I saw many times at various Los Angeles goth events in the early aughts. I don’t know his name. I don’t know how he did it. I don’t want to know how he did it. I want it to live forever in my head as a beautiful mystery, unsullied by the knowledge of “glue” or “support wires” or “my own faulty memory.” I want it to linger there like a haunting.

It is not, however, the best hair style I’ve ever seen at a goth club. No, that honor goes to the middle-aged man rocking a 12-inch mohawk that VEERED AROUND HIS BALD SPOT. That’s right: the “detour” cut. No magic needed, just simple punk rock ingenuity and the will to make it happen. We salute that beautiful man.

Cool haircuts are always really impressive to me. I used to have pretty serious hair dysphoria from my tweens up into my thirties. My thin, wavy hair just never did what I wanted it to do, no matter what I tried. On the days I managed to get my hair to kinda-sorta-maybe-halfway cooperate with me, I’d wander back over to a mirror every twenty minutes to see if it had fallen apart. Which it did, every time, no matter what kind of slops and sprays I put in there. Utterly demoralizing!

It didn’t help that I was too timid to try anything genuinely punk. Punk might’ve saved me! Instead, I would just sit around all day drawing characters with hair cooler than anything I’d ever attempt. One late night in my CalArts cubicle I became obsessed with having a sweet asymmetrical cut like Lain from Serial Experiments Lain, complete with little x clip. The feeling dissipated by dawn, but God, what could have been.

I did have blue bangs like Sera for a hot minute while I was working on ZIM. For some reason the color turned out way too light at first, though. Almost turquoise? Rikki tried to assure me “it doesn’t look that bad” and other folks had tips on how to dial in the look (try a better brand of dye, color the rest black, etc.), but not everyone was cool about it. One dude grabbed a similarly-colored My Little Pony from his desk and wiggled it in my face, giggling like a maniac. We weren’t even friends or anything! He was just taunting a workplace acquaintance!

Anyway, that guy turned out to be a groomer, so if a co-worker ever taunts you with a My Little Pony, definitely keep the kids away from them.

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I would definitely go on a Haunted Mansion roller coaster. Does such a thing exist? Something where you get cool animatronic horrors mixed in with your hurtling coaster? I know Disney stuck a Yeti on the Matterhorn and dresses up Space Mountain with horror stuff sometimes, but I believe we as a society can do better.

Just looked it up and OH RIGHT, I forgot about the Mummy one at Universal Studios! Never been on that. Haven’t even visited Universal in a billion years, actually. I should go again! They have Mario and shit now.

There’s also apparently a SAW coaster in England? That might get us some of that “Serenity Rose Blackened Bus” terror-flavor. Ideally we’re in the market for something with more monstery vibes, though. Spinning blades are the wrong note.

For years at conventions I would describe Crestfallen as a “supernatural Disneyland.” I just meant that it was an overcrowded tourist trap, but it’s fun to think of the place literally having rides, too. Which I guess is sort of what Tess is proposing at the end of book three? (SPOILER ALERT for people reading this for the first time in the weirdest possible format!) 

Nice save by Kelton in panel nine. That’s true friendship!

BACK TO THE PRESENT!

STATUS REPORT: Thumbnailed up to page 165 of SHOCK CITY book two. Probably wrap this stage up in about two weeks, then take a short vacation, then spend a little time revising. Man, books take a long time!

With the book one release date coming up in September, I should probably start thinking about marketing, the most terrifying possible thing to think about (narrowly edging out cancer, civil war, and circus peanuts). My publisher has some marketing plans, but I need to come up with some ways of being loud on my own. Maybe start some BEEF with fellow creators? Do you think Raina Telgemeier might be up for a cage match? Seems a little too nice for that…

If you’ve got any ideas, let ’em flow! And thanks again for pre-ordering!

NEXT WEEK: A COOL CASE.