Silence Killed the Dinosaurs by Lucy Grove-Jones
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  • Shaved My Legs

    Comic with three panels. In all, comic Lucy stands with her partner. First panel: Comic lucy says, with evident excitement, 'Look! I shaved my legs!' In the second panel, small spots of blood can be seen on comic Lucy's legs. Her partner says 'I guess you're out of practice since the baby. In the final panel, there is more blood, it is dripping into little puddles. Comic Lucy says 'What makes you say that?'

    No, really, what makes you say that.

    I wear jeans a lot more these days. And leggings. Leggings are the best invention possibly ever. Technology peaked at stretch fabric.

    2 comments on Shaved My Legs
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  • Holidays are Over

    Comic with 2 panels. In the first, comic-lucy walks toward her desk saying 'Holidays are over, time to get back to it.' In the second panel comic-Lucy is sitting at her desk, laptop open, and says 'I've forgotten how to do everything'

    ‘I’ll just give myself a little break over Christmas,’ I said. ‘I’ll get right back into the swing of things straight away,’ I said. ‘Relaxing is a good thing,’ I said.

    I guess there’s nothing for it but to head to the hills and live off the land.

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  • The Star

    Comic with two panels. In the first, comic-Lucy is looking at a disheveled christmas tree with a cat sitting on the top. She says 'Where's the star?'. In the second panel the cat responds "I'm the star. Obviously.'

    Merry Catmas to all who observe!

    Although actually the cat has been very well behaved about the tree this year. It is the toddler pulling all the ornaments down so she can play with them.

    1 comment on The Star
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  • Got Milk? Breastfeeding Part 1

    Nothing can prepare you for waking up in the soft, glowy morning after having your first child—that one in the little plastic-walled bassinet next to your bed, wrapped up like an angelic bug in a hospital baby blanket—to the brick-wall reality that you are definitely already doing everything wrong.

    Three panels of a comic. In all, comic Lucy is in a hospital bed, a bassinet is next to her with a sleeping baby, a midwife has come in and turned the light on. First panel: comic Lucy is lying down, groggy, rubbing eyes. The midwife has a clipboard and is saying 'Wait, you let the baby sleep for 4 hours without a feed?'. Panel 2: Comic Lucy sits up, but still looks groggy, and says 'I guess? What's the time?'. Panel 3, The midwife makes a note on the clipboard and says 'Hmmm... today we will be learning to feed on demand.'

    On demand feeding means you feed the baby whenever they want it. You are supposed to learn their cues—open mouth, moving arms, turning head—so you know they’re hungry before they actually start crying. Apparently, I was useless at it.

    First three panels of a comic. In all, Comic lucy sits on the edge of a bed holding a baby and is conversing with a midwife. First panel: comic Lucy says 'Doesn't that mean if she sleeps fo 4 hours without demanding a feed, I should let her?'. Panel 2: the midwife says 'No! They need feeding more often than that!' Panel 3: Lucy says "So...for next time... how long do I let her sleep before waking her for a feed?'
    The comic continues. In the first panel, the midwife says 'You don't! There's no need to wake a healthy sleeping baby! She'll wake you when she needs a feed!' Panel 2, comic lucy says '...but ... what?'. Panel 3, the midwife says 'Clearly you need a lot of help'

    This is the early stages of motherhood. Is the baby okay? Why’d they do that? Are you bad at everything? All the advice seems contradictory and confusing, but maybe it isn’t and comprehending basic instructions is beyond you because you’re too physically and emotionally messed up from staying up all night in agony, pain meds, having your genitals cut open and stitched back together, losing 1.3L of blood, being pooed on by the small squidgy human you went through all this for, coming down off pregnancy hormones and going back up on breastfeeding hormones? Did you just pee your disposable blood-soaked undies a little bit?

    Who knows. Certainly not me. But the stakes are high.

    The first few days of breastfeeding were awful. I couldn’t get the position right, my baby struggled to latch, when she did latch it hurt like her tongue was covered in needles, and she wouldn’t stay on very long.

    All that was before my milk came in. To begin with, you only make something called colostrum. There isn’t much of it, and it’s just to keep the baby going until approximately day three when your body starts pumping out the real deal. The transition involves a tsunami of hormones that make you weepy and anxious, turn your breasts to a mass of engorged lumpy nightmare, and roast you like a big sweaty chicken.

    For me, the first wave was pure anxiety.

    First three panels of a comic. In all panels, comic Lucy is sitting up in a hospital bed, a sleeping baby in a basinet beside her. A midwife stands in the open doorway. Panel one: comic lucy is grabbing her chest saying, says 'HELP I'M GETTING CANCER THERE ARE LUMPS EVERWHERE'. Panel 2, the midwife says 'It's 3am. Get some rest.' Panel 3, comic Lucy says 'I CAN'T I'LL MISS THE NEXT FEED'
    The comic continues with three more panels with the same scene. In panel 1, the midwife says 'She'll wake you. Just sleep.' In panel 2, comic Lucy says 'NOW I MIGHT BE HAVING A HEART ATTACK?!?'. In panel 3, the midwife says 'No'
    The comic continues with a final three panels. In panel one, the midwife is turning off the light and closing the door. Panel 2 is completely black. Panel 3 is completely black except for comic Lucy's panicking face drawn in white in the darkness.

    Later, the depression hit. In a twist surprising no one, I was flagged early on as high risk for post partum depression (previous history of both anxiety and depression, previous pregnancy losses and pregnancy related trauma, life upheaval during pregnancy which I haven’t talked about here but essentially my little family was stuck with only my patreon income (lol) for five months but it turned out fine don’t stress, etc, etc).

    It was the weirdest bout of depression I ever experienced, because I was happy too. My life was exactly what I wanted it to be, and I truly and honestly felt amazing about that and so lucky. I had no trouble bonding with my daughter, who was and is still the most wonderful, fascinating thing on the planet and probably off the planet too. But simultaneously I felt worthless and hopeless and I would just walk around dripping tears like a sopping dishcloth. It wasn’t a ‘I should be happy but I’m not so I feel guilty’. I legitimately was happy. Just also broken.

    And breastfeeding affected me in the weirdest ways. You’re supposed to get a surge of oxytocin with it that makes you relaxed and happy, and I definitely got that later on when it all settled down, but for the first couple of months anytime I breastfed my insides would drop away and I would fall into this grey canyon of empty darkness.

    This is all to say, hormones are weird, man.

    And, disclaimer, I absolutely got help. Like I said, I’ve had mental health problems in the past and knew this was likely to be a rough time for me. I pre-emptively set myself up in therapy and the moment things started going wonky I went to my GP and we sorted out medication we knew from previous experience would help me. I already had a playlist of things to do when it all went to hell—start small, music, company, walks, TELL SOMEONE etc, etc—that I immediately activated.

    The great thing about having had depression for most of my life is that I have had lots of practice implementing those things even when getting out of bed feels like too much effort.

    Take your meds and stay in therapy, kids

    Because I lost all that blood after giving birth, I had to stay in the hospital a few days, and in hospital we hadn’t been allowed many visitors thanks to the great panini, so the day we went home all the new grandparents came over. My parents very kindly and with amusement brough a large cabbage, which is supposed to help with breast discomfort somehow.

    I remember going to the bedroom to feed the baby, and just being caps lock DONE. My partner came in, and I told him the baby had finished and could go out to see people again, but I would not be. I informed him that I would be lurking in bed with our big, chunky lunchbox icepack shoved down my sweaty, miserable cleavage and with cabbage leaves layered in my suddenly-too-small bra like the seashell cups of some sort of farty-bathwater mermaid.

    He said fair enough, and he took the baby to distract the guests.

    I lurked as described, and wept for no reason.

    I couldn’t work out why I felt so awful, other than everything was awful. Bleeding, stitched, anaemic, exhausted, sore, lumpy, sweaty, leaky, shivery, and cabbaged.

    Comic lucy prostrate in bed, semi wrapped in a blanket. Her chest is all over lumpy, with an ice back and cabbage leaves sticking out her shirt. Smells lines radiate from her. She looks very tired and stressed.

    The concept of an equal partnership in child-rearing is lovely in theory. And, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of it both in theory and in practice. It’s just that there are some areas that are impossible to split. E.g., pregnancy. If you don’t have the bits for it, you can’t help much there. And even if you do both have the bits for it, it’s not like you can switch partway through and do half each. Same with breastfeeding.

    If you’re the partner, you do still have a job. You’re the Sam Gamee of this breastfeeding quest. The breastfeeder is Frodo. The baby is the one ring to rule them all. Your job description is that bit near the end where Frodo is caps lock DONE and Sam is all ‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you’ and then picks Frodo up and carries him and the ring together up the volcano.

    Just stop the analogy before Gollum jumps out and starts biting off fingers and they chuck the baby in the lava.

    You are in charge of bring heat packs and cold packs as required, keeping the feeder hydrated and fed, changing the baby, general garden maintenance … and hypothermia prevention.

    Comic with three panels. In all, comic lucy is in bed, wrapped in a blanket, with cabbage leaves and and ice pack shoved down her front. Her partner stands nearby holding their peacefully sleeping baby. Panel one, comic Lucy says 'I don't know why I'm so cold.' Panel 2, her partner says 'uhh ... is that a huge ice-pack right against your heart'. Panel 3, comic lucy says '... is that wrong?'
    Comic Lucy's partner supports her with one arm while holding the baby in the other. They are walking toward a steaming shower. Comic Lucy says 'This will be a funny story one day.' Her partner, who looks very unimpressed, says 'Hilarious. Get in the shower.'

    Turns out some of why I was feeling so absolutely dreadful and shivery was that I had managed to ridiculous myself halfway to dying of exposure while in bed wrapped in a doona.

    Boobs: 1. Lucy: 0.

    6 comments on Got Milk? Breastfeeding Part 1
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  • True Crime

    Three panel comic. In the first panel, comic Lucy is wearing headphones. Text reads: "From true crime podcasts I've learned..." second panel text reads: '... people always first assume dead boeies are just mannequins" image shows a dead body lying next to a mannequin. Final panel: comic lucy drags a dead body behind a mannequin factory to where there are bins full of broken, discarded mannequins,

    ***********

    What podcasts do you listen to? Any good true crime ones?

    6 comments on True Crime
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  • The Bird

    3 panels of a comic. Panel 1: A bird flies over comic Lucy and her toddler, doing a bird poo which narrowly misses Lucy. Panel 2: Lucy calls out 'Missed!'. Panel 3: the toddler toddles back into frame carrying something.
    3 panel comic. Panel 1: Comic Lucy bends down to take whatever her toddler is bringing her and says 'What's this...?'. Panel 2: Comic Lucy looks at what she is holding, it is bird poo, while her toddler toddles off in delight. Panel 3: Comic Lucy is still holding the bird poo. The bird flies back over flipping the bird and wearing sunglasses

    ***********

    Betrayed by my own blood.

    I’m updating my Patreon tiers! Now if you join at the Triceratops tier or higher you will get a sticker pack in the mail. They are very cool. It would be awesome if any patrons out there who haven’t already could pop on over to Patreon and update their shipping details so I can mail them out!

    3 comments on The Bird
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  • Unexpected Things Babies Like

    A comic. Title reads: Unexpecting things babies like. Four panels. First panel: whisks. It depicts a baby happily chomping on a whisk. Second panel: pictures of other babies. It depicts a baby

    I completely expected for them to like power points, grabbing the cat’s tail and throwing themselves from heights. I knew about those things. Following a crawling baby around stopping her from repeatedly headbutting every solid object she came across was not something I expected to be doing at all, let alone often.

    Big thank you to the friend who put me onto whisks as the best impromptu baby entertainment object.

    6 comments on Unexpected Things Babies Like
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  • Double Standards

    Two panels of a comic. Comic Lucy and a friend sit facing each other on dining chairs holding cups of tea. In the first panel, the friend says 'I don't feel like anything I'm doing is good enough'. In the second panel, comic Lucy replies with 'You're doing amazing just by being you!'
    Two panels of a comic. Two Comic Lucys sit facing each other on dining chairs holding cups of tea. In the first panel, the one of the comic Lucys says 'I don't feel like anything I do is good enough'. In the second panel, the other comic Lucy is standing holding her chair over her head, ready to beat the first comic Lucy (who is cowering on the floor) with it

    It’s okay everyone, I’m in therapy, therefore this can be read as socially-acceptable self-deprecating snippet of entertainment and not a poor attempt to muffle the scream for constant validation that bubbles up inside me in ever smaller intervals that I am slowly becoming aware will never, ever be sated.

    Show this comic to someone who likes tea. Or chairs.

    9 comments on Double Standards
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  • Cats (pattern)

    A blue circle full of illustrations of cats doing playful or funny things. Some are jumping or stretched out. One is poking a cactus. Some are in boxes. One is eating a plant. One is licking itself, butt visible.

    This isn’t a comic or story.

    I’ve used my Lu Repeating pattern skills (reminder that I have a pattern persona called Lu Repeating) to make a new cat pattern of Silence Killed the Dinosaurs style cats. For fun.

    Also for my store.

    Above is the not-actually a pattern version.

    Below is the actually a pattern version.

    A pattern of cartoon cats on a blue background. Some are jumping or stretched out. One is poking a cactus. Some are in boxes. One is eating a plant. One is licking itself, butt visible.

    That’s it. That’s everything. Please go about your day.

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  • Lucy Ruins Everything And Says Fuck A Lot

    You may have noticed that my website looks a little different (if you haven’t, please notice now). Well, I’ve been thinking for a while I should jazz it up, and I was sifting through WordPress themes to see what my options were and think about what I was going to do. I figured, with a chronic illness and a one-year-old in the picture, it would be best to plan meticulously, get everything I needed drawn, written and organised over a few weeks, and then pull it all together quickly and painlessly. Like a professional.

    I’m sure you can guess the general direction this is going.

    Three panels of a comic. In all, comic-Lucy lies sprawled in an armchair with a laptop in her lap. In panel one, she says ‘Hmmm… I quite like…’. In panel two, a tick shows up green on the laptop screen and there is a *click*. In panel three, the whole laptop screen is green and Lucy says ‘Fuck.’

    I ruined everything. I accidentally activated a new theme.

    And I couldn’t just switch back to my old layout because a) I would have to re-do the aesthetics anyway just like I would on a new layout and b) I had CSSed the crap out of the old one so actually it would take much, much longer to re-do.

    The only way out of the mess I had made was through.

    I kissed goodbye to my beloved sidebar. I love the old-school blogger vibe, jam-packed with buttons and banners and links and titbits. But the look is dated, probably no one else likes them, and it only shows up on desktop which hardly anyone uses outside of work these days anyway.

    We won’t linger on the new WordPress Site Editor [beta]. I do like the concept. It’s versatile. Makes all kinds of cool shit possible. But actually using it is kind of like trying to format anything in Word.

    Three panels of a comic. In the first, comic-Lucy sits at a desk with her laptop in front of her and slightly to the left (her right) and her baby on her lap but slightly to the right (her left). The baby has her glasses and is clearly very awkward to hold. Comic-Lucy says ‘I’ll just move this over…’ while moving a mouse. In the second, comic-Lucy makes a *click*, and a block of website that says ‘Silence Killed the Dinosaurs’ flies out of the laptop into the top right of the panel. Both comic-Lucy and her comic-baby look at it, baffled. In the third, the comic-baby stretches desperately to reach the block of website, glasses abandoned on the floor. Comic-Lucy struggles to hold her, a baby-foot in her face, and says ‘fffffffforklift.’

    I stayed up past midnight several nights running. I built headers and footers. I re-jigged menus. I vectored logos. I tripled checked everything would not size weird or go to complete shit when viewed on tablets or mobile.

    Three panels of a comic. In all, comic-Lucy and her partner sit next to each other on a couch in a dark room. There is a laptop resting on comic-Lucy’s couch arm, her partner has a TV remote. In the first, her partner is looking toward the viewer and holding the remote out in one hand like he is watching TV, the other arm is around Comic-Lucy. Comic-Lucy is turned to the side and typing furiously saying ‘fuck’ over and over with no punctuation. In the second, both comic-Lucy and her comic-partner look down at her stomach, which has *rumble* written over it along with wobbly radiating lines to indicated it is rumbling. In the third, her partner takes his arm from around comic-Lucy. Comic-Lucy looks directly at the viewer and says ‘fuck.’

    And then I got gastro.

    I realised to make all the new site editor elements work the way I wanted to, I would have to go back into each individual post I had ever made—as in, back seven years ago to 2014—and change/add various meta-data elements I had been pretending didn’t exist because life is too hard to learn new things even if they make everything look much more professional.

    And I don’t want to have a big, angsty moment here, but it’s really difficult to go look at old work. Like just … really difficult. I avoid it. I avoid it so much it’s the main reason I put off updating my site for so long in the first place.

    After a while I became completely desensitised to it, which I guess means it functioned as DIY exposure therapy and maybe I’m emotionally stronger and a better creator having done it or something I don’t know FEELINGS I don’t like feelings especially ones about myself they bother me into the worst flustery run on sentences it’s much more comfortable to draw myself being horribly obliterated.

    Back to nice, comfortable catastrophe. There was still heaps to get through and without the emotional distress melting my face off, it was just boring.

    In short, the last couple of weeks have been A LOT.

    But I did it.

    Comic-Lucy sits at her desk facing her laptop, one hand resting on the keyboard. Above are speech bubbles and sound effects reading: ‘Fuck…’ *click* ‘…’. She looks tired but happy.

    Ta da.

    Click around. Make yourself at home.

    I know what you’re thinking. Fuck yes that header-logo-banner-whateveritis image is awesome, and you bet your gastro arse you can get it on a mug.

    Now, excuse me while I go have a nap.

    9 comments on Lucy Ruins Everything And Says Fuck A Lot
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