Dear friends,
I'm writing these lines in the limbo of feeling like I might be getting sick but not being completely sick yet. The frustrating twilight zone of not being able to do anything about something bad approaching. But what can you do? I hope it magically stops getting worse and that my sore throat is just a sign of perfect health. That would be an interesting turn of events, wouldn't it?
I'm looking forward to you wishing me well, just like you're hopefully looking forward to this week's comics.
Monday
I like spelunking in the weird corners of the internet where people still discuss whether the Covid vaccines gave us all the ability to wirelessly communicate with Microsoft's servers. It's fascinating to see people still stuck on a topic that everyone else has long since moved on from.
When I drew this, I wondered for a second if I should post it, because I didn't want to start a stupid discussion about something that's a completely normal bodily reaction to being stuck with a needle. But then I remembered that I can just block people. Ha!
Anyway. This was a couple of days after I got vaccinated, and it took nearly another week for the green color to go away.
Tuesday
I tend to get milia on my chest. The aesthetician didn't know why that would ever happen and made me feel like some weird edge case of a human being, but getting my face smushed for 50 minutes made me forget that affront pretty quickly.
This was a nice experience. Unnecessarily expensive, because I ended up getting something I never wanted, but while lying there, getting every pore of my upper body cleaned out, I decided to consider it a good investment in having something to draw about that day. Do it for the comic!
Wednesday
When I'm really focused on a project I'm invested in, I still have no problem hammering out hours and hours of focused work. One of the core truths about my life is that I feel better when I have something engaging to work on and think about. I love making progress. I love improving things. It's the best.
Thursday
I'm not naming any names here, but I was forgotten about! I normally tend to subtly remind people about things we've planned together, but this friend in particular has always been so reliable that I didn't consider it necessary. He apologized profusely, and I actually didn't mind. I spent 20 minutes in the restaurant drawing the other people eating their noodles while sipping on my 0% beer.
Actually, I really enjoyed having something to wait for. Most people in my life are on time, or even a bit early, which means I rarely get the chance to just sit around, watch people, and draw them. I kind of need to figure out a way to do that more often.
Friday
I still need to get used to it getting dark so early again. My favorite route goes through the park near my apartment, but it's basically a forest for most of the way, and even though I don't really expect wolves to jump out from behind a tree, I did turn off the noise cancellation on my AirPods just in case...
Saturday
Anna and I are working on a project (well, mostly she's working on it) to make it possible for me to spend a night in her bed without ending up with two days of back pain afterwards. To make that happen, she's replacing her whole bed and buying not one but two mattresses. So I get the same one I have at home, and she gets one that's absurdly hard and should not be legal to sell. Win-win!
I'm very grateful that she's going through all the trouble of replacing her whole bed just so I can sleep better when I'm staying over. Not that I ever doubted it, but this makes me feel very loved, and I'm hashtag blessed.
Sunday
Okay, this one is a bit hard to explain to people who aren't from Germany. Long story short: There was a beached whale, people somehow thought it could be saved even though experts said there was no point, and the poor animal was going to die anyway. This went on for weeks, with one rescue mission after another, and at some point the whale was freed, only to be found dead a couple of days later.
All of this was accompanied by people on social media talking about how they could spiritually communicate with the whale, creating AI-generated songs, and going through some kind of collective psychosis.
A theater here in Hamburg made a whole play about that short but intense chapter of 2026, and Anna and I went to see it and had a great time. There was even a live performance of the most famous AI whale song. "Er hat sich das nicht ausgesucht" roughly translates to "He didn't choose this" and has been stuck in our heads for months.
Me partly turning into the Hulk, dead whales on crosses, monsters in the dark. What an exciting week! I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of my life, drawn for your entertainment, and I'm looking forward to seeing you next time.
Cheers,
Marcel
🐋