frankensloan

ALT A comic page with simple shading in one tone of orange. The comic depicts an elder feeding a baby from a repaired mug in a strange earthen house. The text reads “Iam thinking about a future. I am an optimist, so in the future maybe humanity has survived. In this future it is a sin to create something new. Every object is old, rare, repaired a hundred times. Every item passed over with the love of a thousand hands. Then, each thing would be holy. Nothing would ever be made to be thrown away. Would it be a sin to bring a new shield into the world? I don’t know.

ALT A comic page shaded in orange. It depicts a number of people tending to gardens. One passes a basket of oranges to another who uses the aid of a cane to bring them to the house with the elder and the baby. The text reads “the cathars believed that creating a baby was a sin, since it trapped a divine soul in an earthly body to suffer until death. I don’t believe in god. But I will never have a child. The growing of plants is not a sin. It pulls carbon from the air, so it is honoured above all things. Farmers are priests and we are all farmers. In the future there is no money. Our hearts are not eaten by greed. Work is done because it is important, not because it is profitable. We can take care of our grandmothers all the time, not just when we can get way from the office.”

ALT The elder begins cutting up an orange and passes it to the others. Outside, a crow and a magpie watch on before taking flight. We see a three scenes then, of deforestation, of mining, of a landfill tip. The last panel shows the two bits-dos resting on a mountain of garbage. The text reads: “perhaps, in the future, the crows and the magpies are watching us. They remember how we used to poison and consume and murder. They tell stories of it, in their own tongue. Perhaps they will forgive us (though they should not). This is a future that I am thinking of, but I am a realist, so it is not a future that I believe in. I do not think we will stop. I think we are too greedy. Too stupid, too small. I think we will keep making garbage and we will choke our planet with it. And we will die regretting. Perhaps the crows will forgive us. (They should not).