(Not yet approved!) Mad Pride 2012 teaser poster design...

I designed this poster, using my winning logo for Mad Pride Toronto, at my Radical Design class, as a teaser for this year's Mad Pride week.  It has yet to be officially approved by the Mad Pride committee, but if it is, it will be posted in parts of Toronto - Kensington Market, at least, will probably be displaying it.

I like the design, and I think I'm finally satisfied with the logo (I edited the lower text).  I just need to wait for the final approval!

-Saraƒin

Shamanic update: Frankincense!

Thought I'd make a little post about my "shamanic" healing.  (I put shamanic in quotations, because my skills as a shaman are like comparing the application of a band aid on a wound to seeing a real doctor... I lack any real training, and am going by instinct, and some research online.)

As any of you who read my blog no doubt know, I feel that much of my healing is thanks to the intervention of at least one helpful spirit.  I also believe that I am a bit more attuned to spiritual energies, good and bad, than your average human being, at least your average human being in my part of the world.

My technique, up until this point, had been to try driving the negativity away, using substances like white sage and dragon's blood, which I'd ignite and bathe in the smoke of.  This worked to some degree, but I had been neglecting the fact that letting in the positive instead of just driving out the negative was probably an excellent idea as well.

It recently came to my attention that the heart chakra region might be the core location of this pesky entity, so I started smudging it rigorously with dragon's blood.  This irritated it tremendously, and I could feel it thrashing through me... it would never fail to do so.  But I also had a baggie of Frankincense kicking around, and last night I decided to try something different, and ask that positive energies be let into me as I burned the resin.

Tremendous results!  The channeling connection between me and the entity now feels weaker than ever!  I also paced my apartment with smoking Frankincense and asked that my space be made sacred, and filled with positive energies.

I'm going to do more research on this substance, and others, because I now think that just smudging with the aim of driving the spirit out is limited as a technique on its own.

Maybe someday I'll be a proper shaman.  :-)

-Saraƒin

Part 2: Strip 13 - The ward...

Sorry about the delay!  I just got this one done today.

-Saraƒin

My Mad Trench!

 This is an old white (now off-white!) trench coat I wore when I was homeless, manic, and roaming the streets of Toronto, chatting with voices... so, as you can imagine, it holds special meaning to me.  Lots of people who had observed my behaviours in public would later say "...in that white trench coat", while speaking sadly about how "pathetic" I must have looked.


The waist belt and the straps that looped around the cuffs were removed from the coat and never returned to me during a hospital stay at the Clarke.

Well, the coat itself was just something I never felt I could part with, so I decided to hold onto it and turn it into an art project: the ultimate punk DIY Mad Pride trench coat!

So far I have silkscreened the webcomic's logo onto it, have added a plush wing (there will be 5 more, just like on the cartoon drawing I often insert of myself), and have pinned and sewed on some Mad Swag, and some trinkets I collected while I was in "psychosis".

I'm not sure how much stuff is going to go on here, but I'll add to it as I collect things/come up with ideas.  I love working on stuff like this!

-Saraƒin

My final design for the Mad Pride Flag Design campaign... for now, anyway!

So after much fooling around in Adobe Photoshop, this is the flag design I settled on my for entry for the Mad Pride Flag Design campaign (madprideflagdesigncampaign.wordpress.com).

The pink and purple stripes, as I may have mentioned on here before, are in reference to the Cheshire Cat from Disney's original 'Alice in Wonderland' cartoon.  The Cheshire Cat is, I feel, a playful and likeable representation of madness.  The design of the stripes, running horizontally, is based on those of other Pride community flags.  (People seem to be attracted to this colour scheme, so I think it could be accepted.  Other colour combos I've tried were either too jarring or too politically loaded for some folk.)

Please lend me your feedback! 

(Sorry, no new comic page yet... I took some time off because of my withdrawal, which is now going well again... had to go onto 50 mgs of Seroquel XR for a while, to taper off more slowly.  I will try to have the new page up soon!)

-Saraƒin

Spoke too soon!

Ok, so my mind is fine, but I got hit with insomnia real bad as soon as I went 48 hours without a Seroquel XR tablet.  I don't like making posts about bitch 'n moan pharma woes, cuz I generally like this blog to be positive, but I thought I'd post about this one, seeing as I had just posted about how easy it was to make the transition.  It's now getting hard.

It's not the switch, it's the withdrawal.  I don't like having to do this, but I'm hoping to get some Ativans from my shrink to get through this period of little to no sleep.  I can fall asleep, but even two melatonin tabs can't keep me asleep for more than an hour or so.  Think I need to call in the benzos now.  PS: My futon sucks, and I won't have a new bed until the 15th!

Seroquel XR withdrawal is HELL!  Not heroin withdrawal hell, not even Effexor XR withdrawal hell... just, fuck-with-your-schedule-cuz-you-can't-sleep hell... work sucked today cuz of this crap.

Beware the Seroquel XR withdrawal!  It's full of ICK!

-Saraƒin

0_@

Part 2: Strip 12 - B3...

I wish the orderly looked a bit more "straight" here... ah well, I like this page overall anyway.

-Saraƒin