It's time to introduce Squid Wit!
Just a genderfluid squid living in the human world.
Several years ago, I started drawing squids. Specifically, land squids. I wanted to develop a character that could represent how it felt as a genderqueer person living in a binary, modern world. And frankly, I felt anything but binary. Mostly I felt strange. queer. mutable. outspoken. silly. But most importantly - genderfluid.
When it came to life, I positively knew other people had it easier. Most of the people I admired had opinions and felt strongly towards one thing or another. I always felt sort of wishy washy about everything. Favorite color? Well… I like all of them! What to watch tonight? Uh.. you pick! That’s easier!
Learning I was neurodivergent was helpful in accepting this inexplicable inconsistency about myself. Some people are rigid. I am most certainly not. So naturally, a character like a squid, with lots of moving tentacles, flexibility in the water and killer instincts, makes a nice contrast to the humble human. And wouldn’t it just be so cool to be a squid?!
The First Iterations
Squid Wit as a concept took a while to form, but it’s been a part of my drawing life for the last 3 years. Not surprisingly, that is around the time I started questioning my gender. Now, I feel more comfortable with my expression, so I stopped drawing squids as a way to explain my gender and started writing more about life as it was happening around me. Squid Wit, at its heart, is a memoir comic. I am choosing to use a cartoon squid, Squid Wit (so clever), to represent myself, and if you know me like my friends do, you know this is very accurate. I am floppy and flimsy and constantly moving and dancing. I am a cartoon squid in human form. I am… Squid Wit. (cue brass superhero music played by different cephalopods) (ooo, I like that! note for later…)
Gender Expression Part Two
Soon Squid Wit started to become a place I could mess around with my gender identity again after identifying more as Trans Masc. Some of my Squid Wit squiggles are really silly but allowed me to add different jewelry or change my hair. It felt like a natural place to explore some new self-decoration, especially as a child who drew and played with dolls all day long. At this time, I was also trying to see if I could spell my name in the tentacles… It’s hard to know what you want to do with tentacles until you have to draw 10 of them in every frame…
Chronic Illness Outlet
Several of the comics in Volume 1 are about chronic illness. This most recent version of Squid Wit started as an outlet for me to process what was happening in real time around me while my body began to also shut down. Having a neurological disability means that when my stress is up, my flares go up, and this past year has been brutal to say the least. Writing these comics was one way to cope with life as I was starting to fall apart. Some of the comics I wrote early on didn’t make the Zine and this is one of them.
Squid Wit Vol. 1
The Adventures of Squid Wit: Volume 1 is a collection of comics about Squid Wit, your new favorite neurodivergent genderfluid squid living in Coast Salish lands known as Seattle, WA. I let these stories flood out of me during times of physical pain, mental frustration, and anxiety. And from that saddened stream pours a physical object that I myself created to express who I am to the world?! Now that is fucking cool!
I hope you will join me in on the adventures and let me know what you think along the way. Squid Wit is my baby, and I can’t wait to birth it into the world on February 13th, 2026 at SweeThe4rts: a t4t art show at Common Objects in Belltown. There will be so much community, love and spirit at this event, I can hardly contain myself.
Live out of Washington? Have no fear! Squid Wit will be available digitally as soon as I can figure that process out! The only way to know when that will be is to come along for the ride. Subscribe below and you will receive not only information on when Squid Wit is dropping digitally but also get the announcement for my STORE! I’ve started the process and now that the zine is done, I can focus my attention there. You all spoke on my post about upcoming merch and the winners were:
Stickers! Posters! Nature! Gay Shit! And that is the first assignment on the merch making agenda! Thanks to everyone who participated, it means a lot!
