Of Interest: Tim'rous Beastie Anthology
This is yet another soft announcement, but I’ve decided that in 2017 or 2018, I want to Kickstart an anthology called “Tim’rous Beastie,” and will later this year around fall open up to submissions. The point of this post is to give people interested an early ‘heads up’ to start brainstorming.
Long story short, I got the idea to do this anthology after discussing with friends all the books we grew up on about small cute anthropomorphic animals having perilous and, frankly, terrifying adventures, often with themes of cults, the occult, Eldritch horrors or even in some strange cases Satanism. I’m talking Redwall, The Deptford Mice, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and even Felidae and Watership Down. These are stories from our childhoods that have left a huge impact on me and my friends, and I want to see that influence channeled into new stories, specifically comics.
However, aside from featuring comics instead of prose, this anthology would also endeavor to overcome shortcomings of these stories, such as avoiding ethnically/racially coding entire species of animals as ‘minorities’ while coding (species of) main characters as ‘white’ by default; or depicting certain animals as inherently evil, while mice (for example) are always inherently good. That sort of thing.
The stories would feature realistically scaled/proportioned intelligent animals on much larger adventures, focusing on the genres of science fiction, fantasy and urban fantasy, with many sub-genres welcome: horror, romance, slice-of-life, etc.
Again, there will be more details when submissions are open, and I am not accepting submissions or ideas now. This post is just to give people a “heads up” that I’m planning this, and will be rolling out more details as the next few months progress. I am also looking for editor help, but again that’s something I’m working on.
Thanks for reading, hope this got interesting ideas bubbling.
As I get older I’m finding that a lot of the “intellectuals” I used to admire are actually just condescending and pretentious. And also realizing how much more important it is to be present, considerate, and empathetic because nobody really knows what they’re talking about and anyone who claims to know everything about anything is feeding you bs.
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
- Rabbi Abraham Joshua HeschelYes. Much more succinct.
i was 14 and i was walking through a mall by myself at 12am after my shift at coldstone creamery lol and a bunch of men started whistling and meowing and getting really close to me and they kept asking me questions and i kept not answering until i didn’t know what else to do so i said “i’m only 14” and almost in unison they said “we don’t care” i was so fucking scared i didn’t know what to do and they kept talking about how i looked and how my body looked and what they would do i was on the verge of tears i was all alone in a huge mall i knew i couldn’t outrun them all i felt totally hopeless until a maintenance worker came up to all of us with a huge industrial broom in her hand, i thought she was going to yell at all of us for being in the mall after hours bc she probably thought we were all friends but instead she cursed all of them out in spanish, threatened to press a panic button on her belt and then proceeded to walk me to the basement garage and waited with me until my mom got there to pick me up she had a death grip on her cart the whole time and a face of steel she looked so strong and i just kept saying thank you and she kept saying not to thank her because she had to stop them.
that was the moment i realized women were the most important beings on this planet and we have to protect each other bc nobody else is going to, she didn’t even know me, we couldn’t even communicate that well because of the language barrier, she could have lost her job for waiting with me in the parking lot but she looked out for me when she didn’t have to, she had nothing to gain from it, i’m 21 now and i tell everyone this story even though it happened 7 years ago, what she did that night helped me form and shape lot of my beliefs early on.
i was at a grocery store really late one night and some old guy kind of eyed me as i walked out of the store next to this other lady. She and I made eye contact and i knew she was scared too. we loaded up our groceries into our cars as fast as possible and I had way more bags than her so she got done faster than me. I panicked because i was sure she was going to leave so i just hurried faster, shaking a little, and then i noticed she sat in her car, watching me and making sure nobody came near. She waited not until all my groceries were loaded, or until my cart was put away, or until I got into my car. No, she didn’t drive away until I drove away.
And that was the moment that I realized how much women need other women. That we can’t win this war without each other and we have to be looking out for each other, every second.
my last year in new york city, i got off the subway around 9 or 10p.m. i only lived about 5 blocks from the f train, but i hadn’t gotten more than two before a woman’s hand suddenly touched my arm.
“that guy behind us is following you,” she said. “he was watching you leave the train car and followed you up.”
i hadn’t noticed him, or at least not noticed him following me. when we stopped outside a grocery store, he stopped half a block back and loitered. the woman linked her arm with mine and walked me several blocks out of her way to my front door and made sure i got inside safely.
another time, nocigar and i were walking home and at a stoplight a stranger grabbed my arm when i wouldn’t respond to him and tried to physically drag me over to him. she—who is, by the way, not a very physically imposing girl—ripped his hand off my arm and snarled, “don’t fucking touch her.”
protect your friends. protect strangers. there are good men in the world, but don’t wait for them to do something if you can do it yourself.
I was at a club once and my friend left with her boyfriend so I finished my drink and was heading out to the parking lot when three girls came up to me and basically surrounded me.
“Those guys behind us were talking about following you. We can walk with you.”
I have MMA training but have never in my life had been offered the protection and sanction of my own gender. This is so important.
GIRL CODE. FUCKIN’ GIRL CODE. LEAVE NO GIRL BEHIND. EVER.
When i was 17 i worked at a department store. One evening after closing, an equally young female colleague and i were cashing out straggling customers. There was, in order, a large middle aged woman, a well off looking middle aged man and a senior lady. The man hassled us to be faster (we close all the cashes but one by close) complained that the exit music was too loud (it’s loud on purpose so people won’t stay past closing like they had) and started getting aggressive with us when we asked him to be patient. The old lady behind him nodded along with him, as if yelling at teen girls was noble of him.
I was about to call security but hesitating - no way i can do it without him seeing me do it and security was a 45 second run away WHEN the lady we were checking out turned around suddenly and ripped him an entirely new asshole, just fucking destroyed him. We were so grateful, we were almost comically nice to her as she completed her purchase. Come his turn he was like, pseudo apologetic and, still trying to blame us for being slow, but he’d clearly been subdued.
I still think about that lady. Thank you.
