Writer, critic, translator. Street cat photographer. President of the Great Clown Pagliacci fan club. Enjoyer of posts and content. https://linktr.ee/dialhforhagai
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was thinking earlier about how, as a writing, I absolutely cannot relate to the “OC” mindset of coming up with A Guy and building out his whole life outside of any specific story because I just never really get attached to any of my characters? when the story ends, so do the characters
actually kind of shocking now that I think about it that literally none of AMERICAN SPLENDOR is in print
I haven’t seen the movie but I read some of the (later) comics when I was absolutely too young to really Get them
I haven’t seen it since it came out, but at the time I found it just about unsalvageable.
wrote out how this Encounter played out in case I do wind up making it into a comic if anyone wants to help me enter my AMERICAN SPLENDOR moment
linnea i have been asked to ask you if you want to do another washi tape. this has nothing to do with the above but
might start I REMEMBER by Joe Brainard tomorrow
Oooh! Competence! (I joke, I joke)
I’ve never read Geary but for some reason I’m finding myself intrigued…
Are all the Rick Geary NBM books any good…?
I appreciate “let’s give more idiosyncratic/alternative voices a platform on their own terms” as an effort, though not without reservations — a cynic (surely not like myself!) might view it as a corporation subsuming alternative approaches to art so that buyers don’t need to go elsewhere…
I’ve read Kyle Baker’s WHY I HATE SATURN (which I like) and the first book of EPICURUS THE SAGE (which I was whatever about).
I haven’t! I would like to at some point, but right now I don’t have the bandwidth to engage with it the way I would like.
I am very much a hater of that show tbqh
fuck it what if I did make this into a comic
God you’re actually so right
9 days until you can read my comic and many moooooore at Shortbox Comics Fair @shortboxcomicsfair.bsky.social
tbf, Erica Henderson basically did it to perfection in two panels
Well, I don’t really like Miles Teller as an actor, and he does seem like a bit of a prick, but I don’t think he’s as bad as Sean Penn was when he was married to Madonna…
Neither.
Outside of comics, I’d probably still enjoy at least some Vonnegut, and of course I got into Pynchon when I was 15 and I still like him now…
Well, if we’re talking proper childhood then I haven’t read BONE since I was 10–11 but I’m sure it’d still be enjoyable. Of the stuff I got into as a teenager, PREACHER probably is still good (haven’t read it in a few years — since 2021, I think?).
I honestly don’t know! A worthwhile question, but I can’t really think about other cartoonists who fill that niche. But this reminds me of the time a critic I don’t care for very much dismissed Tsuge Yoshiharu—deeply wrongheadedly, clearly having not read a lot—as “the Japanese Crumb”…
I don’t really tend to think about adapting movies, specifically, but I would like to make a comic that feels like GREY GARDENS, or MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, or MIKEY AND NICKY…
Supremely burnt out, more than anything.
I think Muñoz and John Wagner could’ve made a great team in the ‘80s/‘90s. Ditto Wagner and Tardi, come to think of it…
I think someone on here asked me about them but I haven’t had a chance! Always open to recommendations.
mostly just sitting around waiting for holiday dinner, ask things
oh, we’re halfway there / oh-oh! tortoise and the hare
250 comics read in 2025
shave + haircut + new glasses + Ciorbă the street cat
if all goes well Q4 of 2025 is gonna be neat
I’m excited about all the comics I have coming up but there’s a couple that I’m extremely ‼️‼️‼️ about
Daniel Clowes-type comic called “I Was a Rizzler” about a 30-something guy thinking about the online-celebrity life his parents forced him into when he was just a kid
it’s a slow day today, ask whatever
shave + haircut + new glasses + Ciorbă the street cat
just a month and a half until Vacation… save me vacation…
Hi. Is your refrigerator running? “Running” is a new eight-page collage comic written and drawn by me, based on photos from friends and willing participants. .pdf version available on a PWYW basis — Itch.io: hagaipalevsky.itch.io/running Gumroad: 5987842792553.gumroad.com/l/running Enjoy:
every poster whose skeets get read in court should be required to have a username that is this funny, at bare minimum
[hanging out with my friend who’s secretly a pig and I know his secret but I want him to be comfortable talking about it without feeling pressured] do you wanna play a boar game. sorry I meant board game
Yep. Same @
I had to go and check and I’ve seen exactly three, so, with that in mind: THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME.
[hanging out with my friend who’s secretly a pig and I know his secret but I want him to be comfortable talking about it without feeling pressured] do you wanna play a boar game. sorry I meant board game
I got rid of NEW FRONTIER a while back because I just truly did not feel compelled to revisit it, ever. Eventually I’ll probably lose interest in the PARKER books as well. I’m happy to say that—as opposed to when applied to other artists—that’s not a thought that scares me.
I like to think that, all in all, I’m a pretty thoughtful critic; combative, on occasion, sure, when it comes to principle (moral or aesthetic) but I try not to engage in bad faith. Whether or not my strong opinions make me repulsive to some, that’s not up to me.
The short answer is “If it’s snobbish to look down on a solipsistic, culturally-retrograde phenomenon whose sense of self-importance is the main obstacle that stops it from making worthwhile work, then I’m fine being viewed as a snob.”
YEAR ONE, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. I used to be an ardent STRIKES AGAIN defender but tbh I’m not sure whether that opinion would hold up on rereading. Ditto EGO, which I used to love but haven’t read in the better part of a decade. There’s a follow-up Q, I’ll answer that in the reply…
to celebrate batman day might I suggest reading comics that are good instead
I think the apple's rotten right to the core from all the things passed down from all the apples coming before
THE KILLING (Kubrick, 1956) is Alright
Hi pls find me away from this place…
Read Chester Brown’s I NEVER LIKED YOU last night, which I found interesting — the nigh-ascetic formal approach and sparse dialogue are a very compelling contra to the overwrought post-Crumb mode. Definitely a lot more effective in evoking the emotional repression it’s reaching for.
feel like this is going to do numbers while I’m asleep so just gonna preempt just in case, hi, I’m Hagai, fuck AI vultures, read my comics,
RIP Stan Lee you would’ve loved whatever the fuck this is
who wants to draw this
Taking the temperature today…
it’s Are You Mad At Me Friday. are you mad at me
here is another cute picture of thistle getting excited that i sat on the couch next to her. its an exciting thing
upstairs
fuck it what if I did make this into a comic
God if he weren’t so busy I’d email him
I really would rather kidnap a cartoonist I *like*
I had that thought immediately after it happened, and now several people have said this. Sigh…
lol
Updated my shop with two new art zines! evangelinegallagher.bigcartel.com/category/zines
😇
This is funniest possible headline for a song literally called "Song for Bob Dylan"
icymi true story time
it’s the one Adam Warren wrote
it’s funny because he is generally just a nice friendly guy but now it’s like ‼️
I fully just laughed it off
tl;dr the guy at the package pickup opened my mail in front of me then asked me if I know where he can buy hentai while I just kind of stood there people are so interesting
I put the comics back in the bag they came in, and then, as a finishing touch, he looks at the IRON MAN book and goes “when you’re finished with that one you’ll give it to me, right?”
once again taken aback by the directness of this guy whose name I don’t even know, I stammer something along the lines of “probably, I don’t know, I don’t really look for that” (which is true), and the conversation moves on
then he asks me, bashfully but rather directly, “Do they have—sorry if this is a weird question—do they have dirty comics as well”
he starts asking me questions, where do I order these and if he can get them as well, &c &c, and I cooperate, telling him that most of what I buy is second-hand stuff from this one specific website
now, these are three alternative books, odd-looking to the guy who only knows “comics” from the MCU and its kind, so naturally he gets most excited when he gets to the fourth one, an IRON MAN book
while I’m standing there, truly stunned by the abandon with which this guy just casually opened my mail (and thankful that I have nothing to hide), he sees that it’s comics, and he is excited in the way that people who’ve never actually seen a comic in real life get
suddenly, intrigued by the really rather wide potentiality of the category “books,” he’s like “I’m sorry, I’m too curious, I gotta” and then proceeds to—I swear—open the package to see what kind of books I get
anyway, today I go to pick up a package, and he’s there, so it’s the usual hey how’s it going, and then I sign for the package while making idle chitchat
just wait until you see where this goes
he knows my name, he knows that usually the packages I get are books of some sort or another — that’s all he needs to know
nothing too offensive or overstepping, just a bit more outgoing than I am with people I don’t know outside of a very specific context
so, a lot of the packages I get are routed to a nearby supermarket that has a postal pickup service, and one of the guys who take care of the mail is a very affable guy who, because I’m nice enough in person, has taken to assuming that I am his friend and developed a rapport with me
Flint is for sure a peak. I take issue with a significant chunk of 2000AD artists since the ‘90s — the post-MacNeil trend of polished, handsome competency that tends to compromise on energy. Flint only gets better and better, though.
I enjoyed CONTROL, though to me DREDD really is a Wagner work — no one‘s come close that I’ve read. Haven’t read A BETTER WORLD!
Which books are you reading?
sources fear he’s about to become a Mordillo guy
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶
I go to exactly one con every year and this is how I feel every time. “this was nice… I love people… what the Fuck…”
Spent much of the day reading all of Antonio Prohias’ SPY VS. SPY comic, which are a treat; Prohias’ charmingly-contrived slapstick is equaled by really beautiful cartooning, which reminds me of Chaland, Martí, or Franquin depending on the page. Repetition without inertia or atrophy—a miracle!
“Life’s really something, if you don’t weaken!”
I have the single issues for all of them, but I would like Giffen’s TRENCHER to be reprinted and Kirby’s 2001 and CAPTAIN VICTORY to be collected. Also, the last few issues of STRAY BULLETS still remain uncollected…
Dilbert
Scary Gorgon 
