NOT NICE/ A MONTY notes (after reading, please)

So, if you read “A Monty”, I’d just like to address some things, right off the bat.

It’s got some hard stuff in it. Take your pick, really. But.

I knew putting “The R word” in there with regularity was going to be a tough pill to swallow, and some valued friends brought it up. I certainly didn’t throw that word around without consideration and thought. It’s wasn’t fun or funny for me. And I absolutely did not intend to be insensitive on purpose.

So: without any qualifications, I think calling someone a “retard” is a shitty, cruel thing to do. Then and now. In fact, I think that’s what my whole strip is about.

It’s about a child (in this case, me) learning that for themselves.

The fact is, when I was a kid, that word was as common as “jerk” or “asshole”. People also called each other “fags” and all sorts of other terrible shit that we can now look back on (if we have any conscience) and realize was just cruel and thoughtless and mean.

Hopefully, language changes and moves because we learn better, we come to know better (also what I hope my strip is about). If what we learned better was just “not to say it, ever”, rather than WHY it’s a shitty and cruel thing to say…I’m not sure much was actually learned, there.

NOT using that word in this comic would be a denial that, in fact, using it WAS as common as dirt; no matter how much we’d like to feel that it wasn’t (Check any 70’s-80’s movie for confirmation). That we always “knew better”. I had to cop to those realities, here. And without going too far down a rabbit hole, I think denial regarding horrible things that happened in the past is dangerous stuff. Look around.

And, frankly, telling this particular story “avoiding” that word would render it just about pointless. I will say that a reading of this comic (with ALL of it, really) leading to “this is just fine, no issues here” misses the point entirely.

I brought Monty up with my sister and another person who was in that crew of kids, so long ago, and we were all pretty mortified at how we treated him. You can’t go back. You can’t change it.

There’s a lot I would change, if I could. Which is also what the strip is about.

Ok with that out of the way— reading it on a screen is fine and all, but where and what I love is holding a print version in your hands. I’d hoped to get that up at the same time as this initial post, but…nope. I’ll spare you the gory details. Hopefully this weekend/ next few days.

It’ll be a 2-color Risograph zine, 24 pages. $7? $8? Hell, I don’t know, somewhere in there. Had this crazy idea that I'm going to hand write my name on the cover of every copy. Why? Because.

I’ll post about it and you’ll be able to get it at the STORE (up there at the top of the site. Probably a new poster, too). Good? Good.

Take care of yourself, out there.

—zak