Liz Argall

On Thursday, September 12 at 6pm (Pacific Time, USA) my new 10 minute play, The Tetris Effect will debut with the Pulp Stage. This special event has been created to support Women in Games. Women in Games’ mission is to support women in a male-dominated industry and offer them the same treatment and opportunities that men would have. https://www.womeningames.org/

The event is being produced by Nikki Lu and John Marks and will also debut new works by:

• Samantha Marchant
• Alicia Whavers
• William Thomas Berk
• Greg Lam
  You can join the FB event, to get further updates and teasers.

To attend the event on Thursday, September 12 at 6pm PST:

1. Visit The Pulp Stage’s YouTube Channel: https://tinyurl.com/pulptube
2. Subscribe and Set a Reminder: Hit Subscribe and select the bell icon to turn on notifications. This ensures you’ll be notified when the broadcast is about to start!
3. Tune In on the Day of the Show: On the Thursday, September 12 (USA time) keep our channel open and refresh the page occasionally to see when the live broadcast begins.
4. Select Play and Enjoy the Show!: Once the broadcast is live, click play to watch the show.

Norwescon is just around the corner, and I’ve got an exciting update to my programming.

My Reading will now be on Saturday 9-9:30pm Pacific Time, 30 March. You’ll be able to see it at Cascade 9 or on Norwescon’s Twitch Channel. Yes, that’s right, you don’t need to be at Norwescon to come to my reading! I’m excited.

My reading will be my first attempt at a talk I’m working on, called “The Life You May Save is Your Own”

Liz performs a comic, speculative, and non-fiction performance piece, inspired by her zine, Ordinary Madness, a love letter to an unread book, and various short works. Rated PG.

Norwescon in Seatac (Seattle/Tacoma airport region), WA, USA, will be the first convention I do in person programming since Covid! It’ll be on from March 28-31, 2024.

Here’s the updated programing, with a few more details about each panel.

Friday

Improv- Cartooning

Relax and have fun as you watch artists challenge themselves in quick-draw cartooning challenges. Eee! I’ve never done something like this! I have no idea what to expect!

12:00pm – 1:00pm @ Cascade 5 & 6

Sven Red Beard (M), Stan!, Eric L Vargas, Liz Argall

Neurodiversity 101

What is neurodiversity? Who is neurodivergent? Is being neurotypical just an illusion? Come learn the basics. It’s more than just autism and ADHD!

1:00pm – 2:00pm @ Evergreen 3 & 4

Caren GS (M), Liz Coleman, Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti, Liz Argall, Tom D Wright

Saturday

Autograph Session 1

10:00am – 11:00am @ Grand 2

Brenda Cooper, Daryl Gregory, David D. Levine, D.L. Gardner, Gordon B. White, Gwendolyn N. Nix, Talulah J. Sullivan, Jack Skillingstead, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Jim Butcher, Remy Nakamura, Julie McGalliard, Karen Eisenbrey, Kate Sherman, Kat Richardson, Kate Alice Marshall, Ken Bebelle, Kendare Blake, Liz Argall, Nancy Kress, Neil Clarke, Rhiannon/R.Z. Held, Richard Sparks, Sean K. Reynolds, Spencer Ellsworth, Steven Barnes, Tara Campbell, Travis Baldree, Tyrean Martinson, Dr. Raychelle Burks, Charles Vess, S. L. Coney, Bethany Jacobs, Evan J. Peterson, L.J. Melvin, Laura Anne Gilman

The Neuroscience of Neurodivergence

How and from what does neurodivergence diverge? What may be some cognitive differences and how do they express themselves in the world?

12:00pm – 1:00pm @ Cascade 9 or on Twitch

Liz Coleman (M), Danielle Gembala, Liz Argall, Brian U. Garrison, A.W. McCollough

Youth – Learn to Draw with an Artist

This will be a simple how-to-draw lesson. Bring your ideas for what to draw and ask our artist to show you how it’s done!

4:00pm – 5:00pm @ Olympic 1

Jenny Shafer (M), Liz Argall

Liz’s Reading – The Life You Save, May Be Your Own

Liz performs a comic, speculative, and non-fiction performance piece, inspired by her zine, Ordinary Madness, a love letter to an unread book, and various short works. Rated PG.

9:00pm – 9:30pm @ Cascade 9 or on Twitch

Sunday

Figure Drawing Class

Assemble some costumed models, tables, and a timer. Sprinkle in some people with drawing materials, and voilà! A figure drawing class! Until Covid came along, I’d been a life model at least once a year since I was 19!

11:00am – 12:00pm @ Maxi’s Ballroom

Douglas Herring (M), Liz Argall, Sven Red Beard, Lizzy D. Hill, Kris ‘Pepper’ Hambrick

Norwescon in Seatac (Seattle/Tacoma airport region), WA, USA, will be the first convention I do in person programming since Covid! It’ll be on from March 28-31, 2024.

This is the preliminary programming, I’ll let you know if there are any changes.

Thursday

Reading: Liz Argall

5:30pm – 6:00pm @ Cascade 3

Liz Argall (M)

Friday

Improv– Cartooning

12:00pm – 1:00pm @ Cascade 5 & 6

Sven Red Beard (M), Stan!, Eric L Vargas, Liz Argall

Neurodiversity 101

1:00pm – 2:00pm @ Evergreen 3 & 4

Caren GS (M), Liz Coleman, Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti, Liz Argall, Tom D Wright

Saturday

Autograph Session 1

10:00am – 11:00am @ Grand 2

Brenda Cooper, Daryl Gregory, David D. Levine, D.L. Gardner, Gordon B. White, Gwendolyn N. Nix, Talulah J. Sullivan, Jack Skillingstead, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Jim Butcher, Remy Nakamura, Julie McGalliard, Karen Eisenbrey, Kate Sherman, Kat Richardson, Kate Alice Marshall, Ken Bebelle, Kendare Blake, Liz Argall, Nancy Kress, Neil Clarke, Rhiannon/R.Z. Held, Richard Sparks, Sean K. Reynolds, Spencer Ellsworth, Steven Barnes, Tara Campbell, Travis Baldree, Tyrean Martinson, Dr. Raychelle Burks, Charles Vess, S. L. Coney, Bethany Jacobs, Evan J. Peterson, L.J. Melvin and Laura Anne Gilman

The Neuroscience of Neurodivergence

12:00pm – 1:00pm @ Cascade 9

Liz Coleman (M), Danielle Gembala, Liz Argall, Brian U. Garrison, A.W. McCollough

Youth – Learn to Draw with an Artist

4:00pm – 5:00pm @ Olympic 1

Jenny Shafer (M), Liz Argall

Sunday

Figure Drawing Class

11:00am – 12:00pm @ Maxi’s Ballroom

Douglas Herring (M), Liz Argall, Sven Red Beard, Lizzy D. Hill, Kris ‘Pepper’ Hambrick

I’m so excited about the magnets I just got in! To celebrate, I’ve created a Mystery Magnet Mega Bundle, over on the Things store.

Over the next 5 weeks, I’ll be announcing one new magnet every week!

And every week the price of the mystery bundle will go up by $1!

The mystery items are:

1. Comic magnet value $4.99
2. Business card size magnet with full color art, value $2.99
3. Comic magnet, value $4.99
4. Cute square magnet, value $1.99
5. Comic magnet, value $4.99

The bundle will also include my existing, A Sad magnet, value 4.99

• Pre-order all the mysteries, $16.99 (OMG what a bargain!)
• Mystery 1 revealed, $17.99
• Mystery 2 revealed, $18.99
• Mystery 3 revealed, $19.99
• Mystery 4 revealed $20.99
• Mystery 5 revealed $21.99 (Sweet! you basically get the business card sized magnet for free!)

Alas, I can only ship to the USA, but if you’re in a different country, drop me a line. Maybe we can figure out a bulk order to your favorite book store or something!

Order now for maximum mystery and savings!

Go to my Redbubble store to get a range of Things Print on Demand merch that ships internationally  https://tinyurl.com/things-store

Hi lovely folks, go check out my latest newsletter to find out news about:

• My agent!
• My dad (dennis.argall.info)
• Where to get stuff of mine
• Patreon only content
• What’s up next!

I hope your 2023 is shaping up ok.

If you’d like to be on my somewhat sporadic mailing list, please add your email below.

Wow, 2022 has been and gone. Such an intense year I can only just now sit down to write about it. There’s been a lot of powerful work this last year, and more powerful work to come.

Thank you wonderful Patrons for your ongoing support, especially as a tunnel inwards in slightly different ways.

Ordinary Madness

In 2022 I published Ordinary Madness, a 60 page comic book about my experiences of psychosis. I drew this book in about a month, which meant working 40-60 hour weeks on the comic on top of a full time day job that can get pretty intense!

I’m really proud of that book. I’ve had mental health professionals with decades of experience tell me it’s taught them new stuff about psychosis. I’ve had people thank me for helping their own experiences feel more seen. It’s helped me be more open about my experiences, whether people have read the book or not, knowing the book exists helps me worry less. I own my experience more! Ordinary Madness is now 

Jagged Edges

A collaborative comic book with David Lasky. David Lasky and I created a comic book together! I wrote a script for him to draw, he drew a script for me to draw and we printed a book with two covers that you can read in either direction. I’ve got maybe 20 copies left, if you want to snarf a copy. $4.99 plus shipping in the USA.

Webcomics

I’ve been trying not to berate myself for not creating more short form comics. “I’ve had longer comics to create!” But I just did a read through and I think I did over 60 webcomics this year. I guess that’s what’s handy about doing a year in review! There were definitely more in the first half of the year, while the second half was a little sparse.

More of my comics have been Little Liz comics, which haven’t been such a good fit for Thingswithout.com, but you can see them over on my Patreon. You can view the comics for free, though Patrons get more behind the scenes content and special extra stuff. Some of the comics I’m most proud of this year are.

• Ladders (in memoriam) 
• Perils of Tidy
• Self Forgiveness (Starting a new job)
• Got You
• Horrible Wonderful
• Write About The Thing
• Fancy

Thingswithout.com website upgrades

I migrated the thingswithout.com website onto a new back end. It’s much more attractive and folks can scroll back and forth. I’m still working on migrating hundreds of pages of content into the new structure, so some content reads like a blog, while other content you can click next next next. There are many more days, weeks of time needed to migrate the content, though at least as I move the content I’m able to check that all images have alt text, all comics have transcripts etc.

A Sad Magnets

In addition to black & white or full color A Sad cards, you can now get A Sad fridge magnets. They sold out so first I had to almost immediately do a second print run! What a wonderful feeling. I have quite an addiction to buying stamps, I love all the different forever stamps and I prefer sending them to folks rather than saving them. When folks order stuff I have so much fun putting such magical stickers on parcels.

The next book!

Ordinary Madness was always the first step, I think the first step among many, as writing about mental illness and recovery is an ongoing process, not a simple unit of stuff. Over the last few months I’ve been working on a larger book. I’m quite excited about it. I’ve drawn about 160 new pages. I haven’t drawn a lot since I completed this new draft. But a few weeks off is ok sometimes. And now back to it!

Here’s to 2023!

Hi lovely humans, I hope everyone has managed to grab some nourishing moments in the last couple of months.

Me, I’ve been so wowed by the wonderful responses to my comic. It’s been so terrific to see Ordinary Madness and Jagged Edges so warmly received. I’d like to send an extra special thanks to the therapists and other caring folks who’ve purchased extra comics to give to folks or have floating around as a resource. I wasn’t expecting that, and I’m honored and humbled.

I’m really glad Ordinary Madness has been something joyful and mind opening for so many folks. When you’re an artist, I think being of service is one of the highest things you can achieve.

Since I published Ordinary Madness I’ve been exploring a few other concepts and building on what I learned in its creation. Some are longer works that aren’t ready for the world (although Patrons can get sneak previews), but I’ve published a few shorter works over on my Patreon. They’re free for anyone to read and anyone can subscribe to the public feed. New comics published on Patreon include:

• Locker Rooms – my experience of locker rooms as a teen!
• In Memoriam – Ladders – how I process things when someone suddenly and unexpectedly dies
• Reflections – what it’s like seeing a homeless person ranting to themselves, now that I know what it’s like to rant to yourself on the street

If you become an actual Patron you’ll get to see work before its published as well as special behind the scenes content (including pages I couldn’t fit into Ordinary Madness), access to a password protected experimental page and occasional special discounts in the store. For example, Patrons get free shipping on “A Sad” magnets for this month.

They’re $5 plus flat rate shipping (or free shipping if you get the discount code by becoming a Patron… in which case I ask you to pinky swear you’ll stick around for at least a few months!).

Sadly, I can only ship to the USA right now. I use a super secure commerce platform that is so secure it keeps thwarting me when I try to ship to other countries! If anyone is a WooCommerce in WordPress expert who wants to help a sister out, please drop me a line!

Thanks for stopping by, if you haven’t yet, I encourage you to order (or review) Ordinary Madness. Feedback from folks so far includes, wow, wow wow wow, insightful, extraordinary and terrific!… also, there are one or two typos that slipped through, thank you friends for pointing them out. All kinds of feedback is helpful and appreciated.

Good things

Liz

The previous comic talks about the playful madness of writers. How we can all call ourselves a bit mad sometimes, and I think that is no bad thing.

This second book engages with a slightly different kind of madness. It’s taken me a few years to feel like I can talk this openly about this experience. Two years of healing helps, not to mention many personal conversations where people have not treated me differently or lesser because of what I went through.

Available for pre-order at $9 for a week, and then it will go up to $10 in my store.

https://www.thingswithout.com/product/pre-order-ordinary-madness/

---

Between 2018-2020 I experienced three psychotic episodes. I was sucked into a world of delusion. An ever shifting mystery thriller that got me fired, had me talking to myself at bus stops and considering homelessness to protect those I loved from the conspiracy that hounded me.

Psychosis number two, my longest and most shattering episode, happened just before Covid-19 shut down the world. My plans for rebuilding a sense of normal gone, as “normal” disappeared for everyone.

Drawing comics gave me a mission and purpose. It provided an alchemical space for healing. It helped me feel less alone.

Psychosis isn’t something we talk about very much, outside of jokes, cliches and horror movies. We need to have better conversations about mental health.

It was scary, but I knew I needed to speak.

This is my voice.