City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon: an urban fantasy mixing magical realism with gonzo noirish prose, where duels are fought in Pioneer Square, and union meetings are beseiged by ghost bicycles.
When I watch Desert Hearts now, I think of a few people. I think of the (older) baby queer I matched with on Tinder who disappeared and who I followed up with a month later anyway. I think about how, because of that follow-up, we spent a night together where, following her lead, we stopped at making out with clothes on. I think about how that person is now so much more settled in their queerness—with their sexuality and their gender.
Yeah, so that was digital lettering. Again, at that time I was not that focused on comics. I came out of Milton Glaser Studio. It was my first job coming out of college. He was an instructor at college, at SVA, so I was working there, and like I said, my dad was in advertising. So I'm just used to that world of dealing with type. Back then we used to glue it on boards, you know with the rubber cement and razor blades and all that stuff and overlays. You have what they call Rubylith. I'm not even gonna explain what Rubylith is.
It’s emblematic of the way predators in the arts and entertainment industries are tolerated by colleagues and fans until the accusations become too detailed and too numerous to ignore. It is the insistence of ignoring material reality and uncomfortable truths because to stand on moral principles might be inconvenient. It’s DNC-goers covering their ears so they don’t have to hear protestors shouting the names of Palestinian children blown apart by bombs sent by the Biden administration. It’s taking a big sip of delicious warm coffee and refusing to consider the enslaved children who picked those beans and congratulating ourselves on being so virtuous.
On her back on the bed in the dark her pale hair still in its thick rope of a ponytail draped over one shoulder soaks up what little light it can. Her knees drawn up together tipped over to one side, her little black dress rucked up about her hips, her feet bare. Her eyes closed. It’s a round room with casement windows all around cranked open to the sound of rain. Cardboard boxes full of clothes stacked here and there, and more clothing strewn about the bare wood floor. The table by the bedside’s a scrolled marble top balanced on a single fluted pedestal leg. A little blue glass reading lamp, dark, an alarm clock, a flimsy balloon of a wineglass with a small dark puddle at its bottom. A paperback book turned over, splayed open, says The Wounded Sky on its spine. She opens her eyes.
He’s standing in the doorway, the only flat wall in the room, silhouetted by the dim light in the stairwell. His head a great dark mass, his hair in dreadlocks that hang down past his shoulders. “You’re in a mood,” he says.
“Go away,” she says, closing her eyes again.
“Tell me,” he says, “this isn’t what it looks like.”
After a moment she reaches for the switch on the cord of the blue glass lamp and flicks it on. “What does it look like?” she says, sitting up a little, picking up the wineglass.
“Like you’ve suffered some apocalypse of the heart, sister dear.” His eyes are bright, his smile is gentle. “Like you’ve lost your one true love, who’s never to return.”
“Long, complex with a lyrical rhythm to it that’s intoxicating.”
