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The Murky Way
Practical Uses of Cartoons about My Darkness
Work With What Ya Got
4 min readAug 19, 2026
Let’s get something straight, right away, ok? I’m not addressing real trauma, here — or the macabre, or grotesque horror, or having to change a burnt out light bulb. Nor will this having anything to do with despair over fascism or environmental catastrophe.
What I mean by darkness is internally generated bad feelings about my self: disappointment, regrets, frustration, non-acceptance, queasy indigestion, etc.
Of course, y’all being totally well adjusted (all settings at peak levels), have never felt that way, but I expect you to understand that many people are plagued by these low points of self-regard.
One way I've responded to being unhappy with my very being is to create imagery that expresses my negative…
