Crustacean Singles

2025-12-30

In which Grambo encounters a kind of line

Implied frame 1: Grambo approaches a line and muses aloud, "I wonder what kind of line this is." Implied frame 2: Grambo very apprehensively steps one foot over the line, grimacing.

2025-07-29

Cactuspilled graftmaxxer

Pictured, a cactus graft in which a seedling of Weberbauerocereus winterianus has been vertically bisected and attached to two correspondingly cut stems of Pereskiopsis 'spathulata'. The scion half in this photo is healthy five days after the operation (as is the other). The photo includes a ruler in the background showing that the scion is about 7 mm tall and not more than 3 mm wide.

I've just written something about a really esoteric pursuit of mine, except I wrote it for the dozens of fellow cactus grafting nerds on the internet, meaning it has no glossing or explanations for normals. I posted it free for all to read on my ko-fi.

After I wrote it, I thought to myself, "I wonder what it would be like to read this as the person I was before I became a cactuspilled graftmaxxer." Probably gibberish! Maybe I will adapt it into a more accessible essay, but life has a way of saying "eh, maybe not".

2025-07-26

A sign of life

Illustration: Grambo sits in the bare branches of a gnarled and leafless tree that grows on the edge of a cliff. Caption: Sometimes, when you don't hear from me, it's not because things are going bad. / I mean, things are still not great. But that's not why.

https://ko-fi.com/Post/A-sign-of-life-Y8Y81IOOWR

2025-04-01

Fooling

`ALT TEXT: Top panel shows three increasingly close shots of a stick figure in a manic pose with a rictus grin who says, "Look, everybody! I feel fine! I'm not sick and nothing hurts and I have positive feelings about myself and the future! / did I get you? Did I have you going there?" The bottom panel shows two stick figures reacting: "You are so bad at April Fools." "I pity you more and like you less now."`

I don't like this one very much. People said they wanted to see the ones I didn't like, so here it is. All told, with constant interruptions and the weaknesses of the fleshy vehicle, it took me at least an hour, which hardly feels worth it.

2025-01-14

Shake well

This is the first time in weeks I've felt like some semblance of myself. And, thanks to this unexpected respite, I have emerged from the underworld bearing juice. The juice is for you, my friends. Thank you for being here.

2025-01-09

Bottom of the cycle

On the ground, a large puddle or small pond. In the sky, fluffy, faceless clouds passing. The puddle/pond thinks, "I miss it, but I can't seem to get back to it."

2024-12-31

Time

Grambo stands almost on a line extending forward from the left and ending in an arrow at the right edge of the frame. Pensively and not without some concern, Grambo thinks, "Time is doing that thing again."

I haven't forgotten about you, dear readers, and I haven't given up on making comics. As you surely know if you've read more than a handful of my posts, I am permanently Going Through Some Stuff. It's several things, each one both variable and unpredictable, but for most of this year they have been severe and unremitting enough that my decades of acquired coping skills have been strained almost to breaking. Mere survival is often all I can do. And the prize for surviving is more struggle, holding on and and waiting for more favorable conditions in which I could grow again. It could happen. I'm not ruling it out.
Anyway. I am still here and I hope that you will stick around too.
And good riddance to 2024.

2024-12-15

Serene beast

2024-12-01

Am I right, folks?

Strap in, folks, cause it's six panels this time. 1: A bird on a branch thinks "Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe?" 2: Same bird flying. "Am I safe?" Looks over one shoulder. "Am I safe?" Looks over the other. "Am I safe?" 3: A cat's paw swipes at the bird, who flaps backwards in shock and says "AAAUGHGHCK". A worm poking its head above the soil thinks "Heck?" 4: Bird sitting alone on an electric line. "I'm safe!" Then "*Am* I safe?" 5: Bird pulls a worm from the ground all while thinking "Am I safe?" over and over. The worm thinks "EEEK". 6: A snake has the bird in its jaws. The bird cries "AUGHGHCK". END

2024-11-27

Sondage

Grambo stands at the bottom of a body of water deep enough to be quite dark. A fish swims by overhead and a pale crab looks up at Grambo. Grambo thinks, "This puddle might be too deep." The crab thinks, "This puddle might not be deep enough."

2024-11-24

Old style

Grambo, sitting in a puddle, recounts an important tale to a small child, also sitting in a puddle and holding a toy that appears to be a potted branching cactus and the pot has the legs and tail of a Tyrannosaurid dinosaur. And so anyway Grambo says, "So I made a humorous reference to wearing an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time..." The child experiences puzzlement. The end!

2024-11-14

Zigged when I shoulda zagged

Not a comic, but this is my site & I can post cactus pictures if I feel like it.

Photograph of a small cylindrical cactus of the species Austrocylindropuntia subulata, green with hints of red in the areoles and tiny leaves, sparsely spined and with small tufts of hairs at some areoles. This specimen has been cut at slight diagonals in three places; the pieces were rotated 180 degrees and reattached to the segment from which they were cut. The effect is of a cactus growing in a sharp, unnatural zigzag shape.

2024-11-06

Just stay alive

In black and white. Red Guy, currently in the form of a sort of flattened ovoid blob, says, "Why do we struggle so to survive? What motivates us?" Blue Guy, a spiky ball, answers with gritted teeth: "Spite, mostly."

I do not claim it will get better—though for all I know, it might—only that there are good reasons to remain. / This is not a sentiment original to me and has quite likely been said before, but it's what's on my mind so here it is in comics form. / I'm not saying this is the *last* Red Guy & Blue Guy, but I'm feeling like it's time for something different, TBD.

2024-11-03

Silence and the keeping thereof

Red Guy, who doesn't seem to be having any fun, looks down at Blue Guy and asks, "How much longer will you keep your silence?" Blue Guy, in the shape of a blob with two shrugging arms, has also shape-shifted the letters to spell "SHRUG" across the top of their head.

2024-10-27

So much

this is a nothing

but I would like to not lose the habit entirely, anyway, so.

(Want to hear how my cactus grafting is going?)

2024-10-20

Words words words

This is an animated GIF of Red Guy and Blue Guy saying "words". That's all it is.

I made a GIF! In 2024! I am relevant!

Also, I wrote some stuff last night and you can read it here.

2024-10-13

Exact

In the top two panels, Blue Guy looks from side to side in disquiet and alarm. Panel three shows a closeup of the same troubled face and the thought bubble "I have worried about this exact scenario."

2024-10-06

Red and Blue and spooky all over

Blue Guy, in the form of a floating ghost, asks, "Does it feel spooky in here?" Red Guy, shaped approximately like a skull, answers, "Not nearly spooky enough."

2024-10-04

Self-assessment

Red Guy, whacking self over head with a club labeled "self-congratulation" and grinning vacantly: "I am good at this." Blue Guy, limbs writhing pensively and placing one finger on the chin, also pensively: "This one may be too subtle for me."

You are doing another of your "metaphors"?

(CrustaceanSingles presents: Red Guy and Blue Guy, where the 'guy's are gender-neutral and the colors are an accident of birth, not a sign of political or sports affiliation. And they change shape! It's fun.)

2024-09-26

Information

Red Guy, whose head has sprouted an arm that holds between thumb and forefinger a piece of paper reading (in pixelated text) "Click here for more information" with an image of a mouse cursor (also pixelated). Blue Guy folds two arms and extends a squinting eye on a stalk to read Red Guy's paper. Blue Guy scowls.

No, I don't think I will.