When Words Fail, Comics Prevail: How Drawing Comics Can Help You Process Complex Emotions
Introducing THEM CATS: a comic about my lifelong love affair with therapy
Step aside, IFS (Internal Family System) model! Drawing a somewhat fictionalized comic is the best way to talk to your wounded selves.
“Geeks” like me have been drawing comics for as long as we can collectively remember, but it’s really to get in touch with all the feelings. Oof. So many.
I have been creating comics since the age of 13, drawing inspiration from a wide variety of 20th-century material, ranging from MAAD and Heavy Metal to Marvel, DC, and sensacionales.1 These diverse influences significantly shaped my artistic style. Note the vague nods to Moomins, Garfield, Snoopy, and Simpsons characters in this work too. These subconscious nods are meant to comfort the reader with familiar and beloved creations.
And those eyes—I learned to draw bodies by copying artists I liked initially, like Sergio Aragonés, known for "Groo,” and being the fastest cartoonist ever:
![An image of one of Serigo Aragoné's comics from MAAD magazine depicting a man yelling at two wrestlers. An image of one of Serigo Aragoné's comics from MAAD magazine depicting a man yelling at two wrestlers.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcd581c27-d50b-4b23-80d0-a42c98132ab5_1428x496.png)
Then came style. Cuban-born Antonio Prohías of “Spy vs. Spy” was the style I liked the most. His lines are very clear and edgy.
There was something about it being black and white in "Spy vs. Spy" that I gravitated to. I couldn't put my finger on it for a long time, but eventually, I figured it out:
There was something about it being black and white that I gravitated to. I couldn’t put my finger on it for a long time, but eventually I figured it out. Drawing in color too close for too long makes me dizzy.
Nowadays, I broker that work out to someone else. This year, I recently hired Bay Area artist Autumn Askew to do the art for my upcoming poetry chapbook, Mornings Are Darker because producing and selecting a color palette was a headache. She has taken on such a challenge, and I’m pretty relieved.
It’s no wonder my mind found the simplicity of the line in Prohía’s work so soothing—even though the violence was through the roof.
In general, I gravitate to artists who possess a clean, bold aesthetic, and I’ve got a mega list of influences queued up in a draft for another day, but I’d say these two were the most important to me as a little one.
Drawing One’s Self
I can draw myself as a human, but drawing myself like a cat is easier. Somehow, drawing myself as a cat softens the blow. It smooths the realness of it all. It’s like disassociation. The “thing” or trauma, basically, the experience, didn’t really happen to me. It happened to that cat.
The drawing below is taken from a hand-drawn note sent to someone I went out with. I got locked out of her place while she was out and decided to memorialize it by drawing her a picture of what transpired. Suffice it to say, her little dog gets out while she’s running an errand. I go to rescue this precious charge—because we clearly bonded—and then. Oops. I can’t get us back in. My phone is in her house. I’m barefoot, and in the shirt I wore the night before.
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
In my note, I tell her I snuck back into her place by crawling through a small window and conveyed how I softly landed.
It’s kinda braggy:
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff353bf06-a172-43af-9aaf-a7c1614e011e_1348x686.png)
But when I draw myself as a cat, the story becomes light, and we’ve even got a sympathetic gardener wanting to help in this version:
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde26245b-9f7b-4c4f-93fc-eff4b27c4ae9_1234x644.png)
I can see why we didn’t continue seeing each other. Perhaps I was a bit too chaotic-good for her?
In the last two years, I’ve picked up my pen to draw these cats, and then I had them say whatever came to mind.
Here’s my latest character sheet generated on my reMarkable2 tablet:
Font Note:
I don’t know what font is used nor do I know the digital rights to displaying fonts native to the reMarkable 2 tablet either...but when I find out, I’ll be sure to write an article.
Digging Deep: Talking to Yourself via IFS
I learned the Internal Family System model in 2021 when I was first diagnosed with mild autism. I was in a neurodivergent group with renowned autism therapist Dr. Tasha Oswald. It was life-changing for me because, through her group, I felt seen by my peers in an all-encompassing way. And normally, I am uncomfortable doing group work.
See this article from Lissa Rankin as a primer if you’re unfamiliar with it.
In IFS, we connect with parts of ourselves trying to respond (the firefighter), manage (the manager), or avert disaster (both). It’s having a conversation with your “exiled” parts of yourself.
Boring.
With IFS, you need to talk to these parts of yourself. But, having a conversation in my brain is h-a-r-d. I needed something else. I needed these parts of me to live outside my head. Interacting with speech bubbles and all was the thing. Visualizing wasn’t enough.
Besides, there are also times when I am too emotionally upset to draw myself in human form. I needed to represent myself, and drawing myself didn’t seem possible since it felt re-triggering.
THEM CATS helps me re-frame my experience
With its stripes and big eyes, THEM CAT is my cartoon alter ego because drawing myself as a cat is, yes, easier. However, in the comic, I have learned to find a voice. It’s a visual way of sharing layered themes that come up for me with my therapist in real life.
Apparently, “boredom” gets me to entertain myself. But more so, it’s next-level journaling. I can explore frustration and even ways of being. In the excerpted comic below, I convey frustration in dating while embracing singledom:
I’m not a cat person, but my therapist is
The cat representing me doesn’t have a name or gender, nor does its therapist, who is also a non-binary cat. In the comic, the main character has imaginary conversations with their therapist. These talks soothe parts of myself that are processing hurt, pain, disappointment, sadness, and even anxiety.
You may think I love cats—I do—but I’m allergic to them. I took an allergy test once, and they pricked me a thousand times. I had no allergic reaction except for the pricks from roaches and horses.
I told The Therapist (my nickname for my therapist) that I’m allergic to everything except horses and cockroaches, and said:
“Cockroaches were my friends.”
(I also built up a tolerance for horse hair, and I think that’s because I used to groom a horse named Ramsees when I lived in Colorado)
That’s all—for now
My upcoming installment, “Roach Motel,” is an imaginary therapy session in which I disclose that I was so lonely I rescued roaches from a Raid Roach Motel.
In my real-life session, the roaches were more about having immunity to them, but in the comic, I’m processing rejection, fear, and connection.
And, while I have the gumption, I will copyright and trademark this whole thing.
Let me tell you have it all over IFS!
I love this and want more of it please??