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Kimball and Laurel

@counterintuitive.bsky.social

2 queer and disabled people making weird comics together. https://www.patreon.com/counterintuitive/ https://outside-life.com/c/ https://earnestattempts.itch.io/ https://laurellynnleake.com/ https://laurel-lynn-leake.itch.io/

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Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 6d ago

part 38 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section the panels are filled with realistic drawings of birds in flight. On this page, they are hawks with wide wings speckled black and white. We see one soaring, and another turning. The writing starts: I have built a life here though, in the illness. Built parts of myself I am proud of.Smaller birds are on this page, birds with wings up at the apex of their flap. Text continues: all of this self I have built for health management, for analysis, for understanding and reacting to the tiny sensations, that warn of health concerns.One tall panel stretches from the top to bottom of the page, with a drawing of a seagull mid-turn with almost vertical wings. Text says: all of the art I have made, and the friends I have, bonds I have made.Two speckled birds fly in the panels on this page: a small bird seemingly in the midst of taking off, and a falcon coming in for a landing. The writing reads: if I got well, what use would that all have, that would all wash away with it, right?
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · last wk.

Issue 6 in a series based on 20+ years experience as a spoonie, about rest and how hard it can be to accept that you need it. If you want a print copy, I send them out in my patreon monthly mailings before posting them here! I'll send old ones too while I have them! Link in bio.

One large panel takes up the whole cover of a zine. The background is gray with subtle hatching that alternates in direction like a woven basket. Shapes seem almost mirrored on top of this background in a lopsided way. Text says: how to rest 6, cushions and rules. Small text at the bottom says: kimball anderson.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2w ago

part 38 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! patreon link in bio - no pressure, but any little bit helps!

In this small section, faces are drawn but details are left out. We see the shadows around eyes but no eyes or eyelids. We see a faceless head. Text starts: I look at myself in the mirror, blank minded, clear eyed.Another head, on this one we see a little bit of an eye and a mouth, but the rest of the face is gone. Below, an eye can be seen between the fingers of a hand, but the rest of the hand and face disappear. Text concludes: washed away.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2w ago

Sending How to Rest 8 this month! This one is about my own special little theory haha. It’s a play on the thing from pacing called “switching”. Get a copy on my patreon $20 tier (or $1 discounted slots, while they are still there). I’ll catch you up on older issues too!

A zine rests on folds of a seafoam green blanket. The cover has a large panel with light polygonal shapes on a gray background. White lines spread across it and split in a pattern that feels natural somehow. Dark text says: how to rest 8, tactical switching. Below in a blank area, it says kimball anderson.A page from the opened zine. On it, three wide panels show bright polygons on a murky gray background. Lines move across them, seemingly parallel at first and then splitting off in slight variations. Text says: You feel like you are a passenger on a plane that is moving through a cloud. For now everything is darkened and obscured. But you know that at some point you will come out on the other side.A page from the zine that is just plain white with a paragraph of text that says: Two decades ago when I was a teen trying to figure out how my health worked, I had this idea that maybe for each activity there was a perfect opposite. That you could make something like a color wheel where if you wore yourself out, say, walking you just had to do math after. Sometimes it would work, but too often for my liking switching to the opposite activity would make me feel worse. Reflecting on this problem is how I initially came to establish the spoons and forks and knives theory of the last issue. A page held open by pale fingers. On it, writing says: here is a table with my 1-10 scores for 14 activities. It is not comprehensive, but it should give you an idea. Below, a table which has activities going up and down, and energy types going left to right. To get an idea of it, the first activity is art and uses 1 physical, 10 focus, 4 decision, 0 math type, 2 multitask, 1 narrative. Other activities have high scores in different areas, like walking using 10 physical, or video games using 9 decision.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 3w ago

part 37 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! patreon link in bio - no pressure, but any little bit helps!

In this section, the view outside a side window of a train. White glare is cast across the landscape, and parallel lines of the aisle lights move through the branches of trees. It seems to be winter, and the leafless branches are loosely shown with the occasional lush evergreen. Text starts: sandcastle life, sandcastle life.Those parallel lines of light, like dashes or dotted lines. Lifeless branches. Text continues: build something today, it can be beautiful, or meager. Just build it.The reflection of a luggage rack looks like the ribs and spinal column of a snake. Trees pass by. The writing says: then let it wash away, and be gone. Let it go.A tree stands in the diffuse white glare. Another spindly one moves by. The text concludes: and build something else tomorrow.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 4w ago

part 36 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this one page section, horizontal lines slash across the face of a figure. The figure holds their chest in pained body language, and then tries to put one hand up to their face. Words read: ugh destroy myself, let go, let all of this go, and become something else. Please.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · last mo.

part 35 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section, parallel lines lead down to little hooks, like many fishing lines. Or perhaps the hooks are more like indents, like hair follicles coming out of pores. The writing starts: if I can create problems in myself like this, out of fear and feeling like, the moth to the flame.In one panel, a light seems to be cast from the hooks, like a shadow. In another, there’s a circle in the middle, like a reflection of the moon in the midst of reeds sticking out of water. Text concludes: then how do I know I didn’t create my illnesses that way?
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · last mo.

Issue 5 in a series based on 20+ years experience as a spoonie, about rest and how hard it can be to accept that you need it. If you want a print copy, I send them out in my patreon monthly mailings before posting them here! I'll send old ones too while I have them! Link in bio.

The front cover of a zine. About half of the page is filled with a panel that holds two shadowy polygonal shapes with scratchy scribbles under them. Below it says: how to rest 5, quantifying. And then in smaller text it says: kimball anderson.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · last mo.

part 34 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section, detailed and realistic drawings of mouths, with white showing light bounding off of the lips. A mouth held slightly open, a mouth held firmly closed. Text starts: and at some point the talking to myself, felt like it was out of my control. Like I would have to stop myself from blurting things out, when I was around others.A finger enters the panels, and it smushes and pulls the lips. In one panel, pulling it up so gums are shown. The writing continues: I knew on some level that I had created this problem, but, that did not mean I controlled it.In one large panel, fingers pull at the bottom lip of a mouth, dragging it down so that the mouth looks unsettling. Text concludes: I had gone on some self destructive fantasy, and, actually created something real out of it.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Mailing How to Rest 7 this month, which is about expanding spoon theory into multiple energy types. Get a copy on my patreon $20 tier (or $1 discounted slots, while they are still there). I’ll catch you up on older issues too!

A zine rests on a fabric which has bands of color that almost look like a landscape. On the cover a single panel with a murky gray background holds pointy dark shapes at the top and bottom. Parallel swooping lines that look almost like a claw mark move down from the top of the page to the bottom in a gentle curve. White text at the top says: how to rest 7, spoons and forks and knives. And then below it says: kimball anderson.A pale hand holds open the zine, still at rest on the fabric. Two pages filled with panels show overlapping gray geometric shapes and swooping parallel lines. Text on the pages reads: At some point you just had to acknowledge the obvious. Maybe you will not be worn down like this forever, but you probably will be in a month. You are so tired of it, tired of it all. Tired of your own frustrating stubbornness.The pale hand holds open another set of pages filled with panels of abstractions with text on top. Writing on the pages reads: You do not know why this particular event has you so tangled up inside. Plenty of other plans have fallen apart. There are too many friends you have not seen. But these mostly just drifted away quietly.A single page is shown. White with a paragraph of text, which reads: Seeing these things in myself I started to wonder if instead of a unit like a spoon, perhaps there are also knives and forks and even soup spoons. If there are multiple types of energy that can get depleted or built back up. That maybe you could start a day with say 10 spoons and 1 knife. That it is not just a matter of having all of your symptoms flare up, or recede. But that you can be both doing well in one way, and not in another.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"me me me", a selfish about feeling bad and being a mess, by me, Laurel. Because that’s how life is a lot of the time, you know? especially when you're disabled & isolated like me. starring the squishy slime mold with too many emotions, Poly Morphous! who is NOT me. definitely. 1/4

The cover of a zine with a background made up of textured red watercolor wash. In the corner, a funny little yellow creature looks like it has had enough. It is crying and the huge tear drops are falling away and expanding out into areas of light blue. Large white text at the center of the page says: me, me, me. And then smaller text says: Laurel Lynn Leake.vLush cyan and blue watercolors fill the entire page in wide and wet brush strokes, looking almost like undersea landscape. Yellow text at the top of the page says: me, me, me. Below, in smaller white cursive handwriting reads: I am hiding, I am hidden. A little yellow big headed figure looks suspiciously out from a cave-like slash of dark blue. The writing continues: Do not tell me to leave, because I cannot get out. The yellow head with narrow, wary eyes seems to be sweating.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2mo ago

part 33 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section, hands move through a yellow murkiness, reaching for something. Text starts: when I paced and paced, and said words to myself, I started to feel like I was not the one speaking.The hand reaches and tries to grasp. We are so close to it. Text continues: I did not decide the words I said, just habits, associations maybe.The back of a fist slowly opens and tried to reach up. Words say: and I imagined some wordless part of me, was trying to be heard. Through not the meaning of the words but the feel of them.Reaching fingers. Slender fingers stretching out insistently. The text concludes: some deeper self, lost to those who, were too well to seek it.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Personnes aux États-Unis/Canada - Vous pouvez désormais imprimer notre fanzine scientifique COVID-19 gratuit au format lettre sur notre itchio! USA/Canada people - You can now print our free COVID-19 science zine in Letter format on our itchio!

Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Je suis tellement honoré d’annoncer l’édition en français de mon zine scientifique gratuit sur le COVID-19 ! L’équipe de traduction Eli, Neptune, Jibé et Alex a magnifiquement transformé WHY WE MASK en POURQUOI PORTER UN MASQUE : CE N’EST PAS 'JUSTE UN RHUME' ! #WorldMaskWeek #SantéPublique

Au premier plan, une personne noire débarrasse de la vaisselle en jetant un coup d’œil à deux adultes blancs qui parlent alors qu’un de leurs enfants éternue. L’air circule et tourbillonne autour d’elleux, éclabousse le visage de l’adulte qui écoute et forme des émanations qui remplissent le reste de l’arrière-plan. Lae serveureuse a un badge disant « service avec le sourire » même si sa bouche est couverte par un masque FFP2. Écrit à la main en gros en haut de page, les mots « POURQUOI SE MASQUER » sont sur un fond noir. Sur les émanations il est écrit « CE N’EST PAS » puis avec des guillemets « JUSTE UN RHUME ». Dans le quart inférieur droit, il est écrit « Laurel Lynn Leake » au-dessus d’un large « 2026 ».
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2mo ago

part 32 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

Loosely drawn figures fill the panels in this section, with little details in white. On this page, a figure walking to and fro, gesticulating. Writing reads: the thing is, I think I maybe just saw this on TV. That this is what it is like to be sick. Pacing and rambling random words. Some vague portrayal of madness.A hand with a white light in the palm. Walking across floorboards. Text continues: and I have this sense that I chose to do it. That I pushed myself into this habit, as an affectation.A figure from behind, gesturing. Then from the front, holding whiteness to its chest. Writing says: this memory of feeling like, an excitement at becoming further and further from, my well self.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2mo ago

part 31 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section there are drawings of the indoor environment, captured in realistic detail. A baseboard heater. Floorboards. Text says: staying up after everyone had gone to bed, in my teenage years, I started talking to myself.Text starts the page, reading: like I think it was because of anxiety, and restlessness. I’d pace back and forth saying things. The back of boots on the ground, with shoelaces hanging down to the floor. Baseboards going around the corner near a doorframe.The edge of a rug, the baseboards joining at another corner. Table legs. Writing says: working out something within me, with nonsense words.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 2mo ago

part 30 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section, amorphous blobs of gray-white float in every panel, looking like clouds or unicellular life forms. Text reads: how can I decide anything though, how can I be an authority on anything. I am just.The strange blobs have shadows on their forms, suggestions of what lies within them. Writing says: silence is so much more powerful. The implicit message, the thing that. And then in quotes it says: we all know.Text starts the page, saying: we all know that you need to make yourself into something someday. The lumpy orbs have an almost glassy surface to them. Text continues: you can only lie around relaxing for so long, before, you need to start being responsible.The blobs have a ghostly feeling, like they had once held human shape until they lost the memory of how to hold it. Writing says: we all know that you are some, awkward thing we are humoring.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 3mo ago

part 29 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

This section has detailed drawings of frogs in gray ad with touches of white that show their wet sheen. Text says: afraid to be sick, afraid to be well. The strange shapes of frogs, somehow both lumpy and sleek.A frog looks right at us. Another seems to contemplate a leap. A third looks a little goofy and a lightly drawn note underneath says: kermit? Text on the rest of the page says: afraid to be neutral, afraid to be male.Frogs look at us, their odd eyes bumping out of their heads. The pupils horizontal. Writing reads: it is these ambivalences, these contradictions, this dissonance.A strange, thin frog. A frog that crawls up vertically. Text says: it is all of this that, vibrates unease, and anxiety, through me.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 3mo ago

part 28 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section figures in gray lines are accompanied by a second set of white lines. First a head and shoulders with a white outline of a head looking another way. A standing figure facing a white lined figure. One head looks up, and the white one looks down. Text on the page reads: I have always had this sense that I never acknowledged, that I could not have my past and my future at the same time.A hand with curled fingers at rest, a white lined hand with fingers outstretched. A cross-legged nude from behind, and a white lined nude with knees up from behind. Writing on the page reads: that if I could have a future, it would be because I was wrong about my past. That I should be ashamed of my past.Again, white lined figures take different but almost the same poses. On this page, they seem more guarded. Text says: and if my past was true, if I was really sick, then I would have no future. I would never be able to work, or be a real person.A figure seated on the ground looks up and gestures, as if speaking to someone. In white the figure looks down as it pulls knees in close. Text reads: so if I just let the possibility lie inside me, that, maybe I am faking everything. Let it exist in a quantum state. Then in a sense, I could hold on to my past and future.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 3mo ago

part 27 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In this section, balls of white impose upon figural drawings. Fingers, but a thumb and most of a palm lost to the white. White across the top of a head, like thoughts are being lost in it. Text says: so maybe holding on to all selves, everyone I have been, every form I have had, is part of that. A face with a sedate expression, one eye missing to the whiteness. Legs hanging off a bed with a curled hand held above them, the knuckles lost. Text reads: maybe the normal thing to do is, to push away parts of ourselves, that we cannot contain right now.The thumbs of both hands, fingers of the right one lost. A hand held up above a figure’s face, but the hand and face are gone. Seated knees and one foot is gone. Writing says: maybe coping requires, loyalty only to the here and now.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 3mo ago

part 26 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

In the section abstractions fill the panels. Text says: I am becoming more and more aware that, the largest act of self destruction that I have done is the act of cessation of self protection. In the panels, lines and colors struggle frantically to find their way out of a gray haze.Text starts off the page, and it reads: at some point I decided I would be someone who looked at the whole truth of myself. Lines in the panels look like cracks in glass as a white glare casts upon them, drowning the gray and colors. The writing continues: someone who faced everything.The abstractions have a feel to them that if you could see through the noise of lines and colors there would be something beyond them. Text reads: someone who would crash up against society, until the tides calmed.A yellow light seems to shine through the noise of shadow and line. Writing says: I removed all of my coping mechanisms, one by one, replacing none.
Kimball and Laurel@counterintuitive.bsky.social · 3mo ago

part 25 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!

Birds fill the panels in this section, carefully drawn with sharp highlights of white. Text says: which self do I want to destroy. Below, a bird that seems to have been frozen after being noticed and a bird with ruffled feathers and eyes closed. The writing continues: the child faking illness? The adult digging inward holes?A bird seems to cry out as loud as it can. Text says: I want to keep all of them, to respect all of them. Another bird is in flight, and one has a vulnerable look to it.