For anybody looking for attribution, this comic no longer exists. It was called Pictures for Sad Children, and it’s essentially lost media now after the creator had some issues and took everything (including IA backups) offline.
Holy damn I just couldn’t stop reading.
Omg yessss
Oh my god I didn’t know it was still up anywhere. I regret not getting a copy of the book way back when but I was a student and had no money. It was a very good comic.
Ahhh thanks for this!! For years I’ve specifically tried to find a comic about a cloud… Very simple but really affected me emotionally. Just a drawing of a cloud over and over with captions like “this is a cloud I drew” “I hope you like it” “I hope it makes your day better” or something.
99% sure this is the author. I thought I was going crazy since nothing ever gets deleted from the Internet, so I also appreciate the explanation.
About to dive into the archive someone else posted now to find i that cloud.
deleted by creator
What? That was one of my favourites :(
Always a struggle for me. I saw Canada’s demo CF-18 at an airshow a few years back and was having simultaneous thoughts of “so this is why we can’t afford clean water for our indigenous communities” and “HOLY SHIT IT SOUNDS SO COOL”.
Frequently those problems could be solved for the cost of a single aircraft.
You can’t afford clean water for indigenous people because they couldn’t buy one fewer aircraft.
You needed all 138.
Can’t afford clean water for indigenous people when you want to exterminate indigenous people.
You don’t need planes for that. You just need a systematic foot on their necks. You know, like we do for the rest of the poors.
We can’t afford another plane because we need another highway first.
I see military spending as a necessary evil, it’s like paying your insurance policy against the evils in the world. There will always be someone with a stick willing to beat someone weaker than them. So you could theoretically spend that military money on something “more useful”, but if all your friends do that as well, you won’t be able to enjoy that nice world for very long.
Also, people usually highly overrate how much a country spends on defense and underrate how much is spent on social security. Where I live, in Belgium, with a similar military budget as Canada (in terms of % of GDP) they did a survey once and asked people to estimate how many euros out of €100 of tax money went to the military and other things. People on average thought it was €6.1 to the military and €17.4 to social security. In reality the proportions are just €1.3 to the military and €37.5 to social security.
So I guess what I’m saying is: it’s okay to enjoy the cool noises without guilt. You paid for it, it’s necessary, and at least they’re providing people with some entertainment now.
Canadians and Belgians can probably feel okay. As an American I’m disgusted by the waste. But that’s kind of our bag and there’s a long list of things that we waste money on.
America is a very unique case with these metrics, but its wortj noting most of our allies can also skimp on defense for the same reason. Whether thats worth it or not is a more political question
Huh. What a weird coincidence. Out of all the many communities in Canada, it just happens to be the indigenous ones that have to make do without clean water because of military spending. What are the odds?
I live sandwiched between military bases of all branches. I’ve lived with the sounds of warplanes and target practice most of my entire life.
These bases cut swathes through tribal lands, leaving whole areas uninhabitable due to live ordnance.
I knew some kids from the reservations and I’ll never forget how casually they’d say with every blast they’re reminded that they’re occupied.
how casually they’d say with every blast they’re reminded that they’re occupied.
🙄
I mean, their parents were involved in the Fish Wars, so the whole treaty rights thing was especially salient to them and their family.
Seems like their ancestors should have fought harder but they didn’t and lost.
Hence the sad violin.
Just because shit has existed before doesn’t mean it gets to exist in the future.
They still exist now, as people.
Can we like…respond to this anecdote by pushing for solidarity and reconciliation and equity and shit instead of just being like “yeah fuck you imperialism ftw”. I want to live in a better world than the past
RIP pictures for sad children
I’m really torn on this one. They were a great comic that reached a lot of people and then the creator went on all these rants about not really being depressed and it was all a show(and I swear they then retracted that but Wikipedia doesn’t seem to have that part listed). Then they burned their books and swore off creating and wanted everything removed. But then the book burning was even staged…
For someone who claimed it was all an act, it sure seemed like coming clean was a mental breakdown in itself to me. Like they had imposter syndrome, but then the irony was yeah, you are as dysfunctional as you “pretended” to be and just demonstrated it to everyone. There was no imposter.
That’s all to say I wish they’d kept creating and hadn’t left like that. Hadn’t basically said “this all sucks and shouldn’t exist”. But oddly, it is fitting. I’ll give them that. Viewed as a whole, it’s almost poetic.
ETA: I found a summary of the drama that included a mention of them retracting their claim of being depressed. I swear it was blog post called something like “I lied about lying about having depression”, a follow up to “I lied about having depression”. In the second post they claimed coming out as not depressed was in itself fake and I believe part of some art piece/experiment. The OP of the linked post adds a few details I’d missed. I don’t disagree with their posit that it was all an art project and Campbell isn’t a real person. I’ve certainly considered something similar in the past.
https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/a4t8s0/pictures_for_sad_children_a_summary_and_thoughts/
ETA2: Found an even better writeup with some more current details. There’s this gem tho:
Two days later, Veil posted again: “I’VE BEEN PRETENDING TO BE PRETENDING TO HAVE DEPRESSION FOR PROFIT AND I’M SORRY.” A day later: “IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PRETEND TO DO OR SAY ANYTHING AND MY COMICS HAVE NEVER BEEN ABOUT DEPRESSION.”
https://www.inverse.com/input/culture/pictures-for-sad-children-webcomic-simone-veil-interview
This sort of thing is so… annoying.
An art exhibition of a fake person having a breakdown who has imposter syndrome that itself proves the depression isn’t art to me. It doesn’t make me consider the world, or my place in it. It doesn’t evoke nihilism or humility or philosophy. It’s just… annoying. Marketing depression. Dishonestly.
I say this as someone with treatment resistant chronic major depressive disease. As someone who was first hospitalized for suicide in middle school.
Compare this garbage with hyperbole and a half and their honesty and their struggles and their openness and it’s…
Burning a copy of a book you sold to someone when they dare to email you asking for it? Fuck that.
Thank you for your comment. I thought of Hyperbole when I was writing mine. I have the same feeling about how they handled their struggles in a much healthier and constructive way. I’ve sent people their post on depression before to help explain my own feelings. I’m glad to know it resonated with others as well.
Campbell left a really bad taste in my mouth. It’s one of the few times I’ve been successfully able to completely sever the art and artist. I love the work, but kinda deplore Campbell. I don’t really want to give them any credit because they don’t even want it themselves.
It’s ironic, the pinnacle of human engineering in our war machines. But these technologies wouldn’t exist if they weren’t created for the war machines in the first place. Sad.
There’s definitely an interdependancy there, but don’t discount the incredible complexity of some cool civilan tech: James Webb Space Telescope, Mars rovers, ISS, the old Space Shuttle. Even mundane things like ocean-based oil rigs are chock full of amazing engineering.
I really like airplanes, especially the historic ones. The speed and sound is amazing. The engineering and skill in building and operating those aircraft is top-tier.
However, the airshows often extoll the fear and damage the aircraft can do to their targets, especially the modern ones. Really not interested in the bodycount or terror these aircraft inspire, but plenty of people enjoy the flex.
They’re having military practice nearby me today and my partner and I were just talking about how we both flinch when we hear military planes (small and fast) fly overhead even though neither of us has lived in a war zone.
Kurdish villagers… interesting choice. The people that Saddam Hussein dropped chemical weapons on. Those warplanes helped free them from Hussein’s oppression. That lasted until ISIS took over. Then those waprlanes helped the Kurds in fighting off ISIS.
I think the comic is trying to make a point but completely failing at it because the writer doesn’t know anything about history… even recent history.
Uh… the most recent history involves Turkey using US-sold jets to bomb Kurds in northern Syria.
Yeah Trump fucked them over, because he’s a dishonourable coward. Good thing he’ll never be President again, right?
Hey now.
It’s just old fashioned artillery they drop on the volunteer civilian aid workers in Kurdish Syria.
Maybe I’ll live to get to say Rojava one day instead.
I hate modern air shows. It testifies to such a lach of attention to what exists in the world.
The allied forces planes (all made by america by the way, the lancaster is a british knock-off of the B17) were killing the members of the Axis forces, like the ukrainians and the Italians and the Germans that became nazis
What on earth are you on about?
The 40s ones are based because it was fascists getting bombed
