Joey Comeau



Joey Comeau (born September 26, 1980) is a Canadian writer. He is best known for writing the text of the webcomic A Softer World.

A Softer World

 * If at first you don't succeed...run.


 * I'd rather die terrified than live forever.


 * Fuck politics. I just want to burn shit down.


 * When I played "doctor" I played to win.


 * I've always known I'd be a bank robber. So judge all you want, ladies and gentlemen. Because you never did become an astronaut.


 * Be the trouble you want to see in the world.


 * You say catastrophe, I say, fuck yes.


 * There are plenty of fish in the sea, if I run out of women.


 * I never wanted anything to happen to my parents, but a hero needs an origin story.


 * The family that prays together, still probably dies in the fire.

Lockpick Pornography

 * My other pro-tolerance message is also condescending.


 * I'm tired of the moral high ground. We've already got more than our share of Gandhis in "the movement". We need a General Patton. No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor bastard die for HIS country.


 * DEATH TO THE CARTOON HETEROSEXUAL PARADIGM.


 * I feel the way bank robbers must feel before they go out on that last job that ends up getting them all killed. That is to say, optimistic.


 * The world needs balance, and if I have to be unbalanced to supply it then so be it.


 * When the end comes, I hope it’s as strange as that. I hope that the sky tears open and the world is washed with colors that we’ve never seen before.

One Bloody Thing After Another

 * Sometimes Margaret tells herself that there's a moral difference between killing kittens for no reason and what she does.


 * Her face is bent out of shape, but still recognizable. There are too many teeth in her mouth, now. It is torn open at the sides. Split along her cheeks, so the weird jagged stones of her teeth can breathe.

Overqualified

 * I HAD A PROBLEM.


 * Now I feel I am ready to face a world with sharp corners and all. I feel I am ready to come to work for Abrasion Enterprises.


 * The depression and suicidal fantasies of three years ago are nothing but a memory to me now.


 * My dead family and I are in your debt, and I long to help you in any way I can.


 * We need a new Mario game where you rescue the princess in the first ten minutes, and for the rest of the game you try to push down that sick feeling in your stomach telling you she's "damaged goods," a concept detailed again and again in the profoundly sex-negative instruction booklet, and when Luigi makes a crack about her and Bowser, you break his nose and immediately regret it. Peach asks you, in the quiet of her mushroom castle bedroom, "Do you still love me?" and you pretend to be asleep. You press A button rhythmically, to control your breath, to keep even.
 * Letter to Nintendo, pg 40.


 * Sometimes I think dent-resistant side panels are a waste of money, but then I remember ladies be always throwing themselves at my car, and titties can wreak havoc on a paint job.
 * Letter to Credico, pg 45.


 * I have a form of ESP that allows me to consistently pick losing lottery numbers, and generally make poor life choices.
 * Letter to Nova Magnetics, pg 59.


 * I had a shirt made up that says, "I consistently make poor life choices." The shirt was not very popular.
 * Letter to Nova Magnetics, pg 59.


 * Live for today you retarded little shit. The end is near.

I Am Other People

 * ...You'll never find someone calling A Softer World good natured. I don't think we do a completely bleak comic, but good natured just isn't a way you could ever describe it. Or my novels. Not the way I want.
 * Interview with Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics.


 * You've spent every penny going out for adventures, and you expect the people back home to be your safety net. I know that, but again and again I get restless, and I need to just sell everything and take off, and I tell myself that I won't rely on people to catch me afterwards, but of course, they're always there, and they always catch me, because they love me whether I'm stupid or not.
 * Interview with Ryan North


 * Romance is all about making a story out of our love
 * Interview with Adrian Comeau, artist and brother.


 * ...There’s a romance to danger. There’s a romance to drinking, to drugs, to petty crime and to heartbreak and loneliness. All of those things can be used to make the STORY of our lives better.
 * Interview with Adrian Comeau.


 * There are jobs I could work, temp jobs, call center jobs, tech support, if I had to. I have before, and I suspect that there will be times in my life when I have to get those jobs again, when I have to make ends meet. But I don't have another career waiting for me. I don't want another career.
 * Interview with Hamilton Chu, Video Game Maker.


 * I want to make something, and I want people to know I made it.
 * Interview with Hamilton Chu.


 * I would keep writing even without the eventual possibility of glory. Really, with writing, the idea that I was going to be able to support myself was a long shot. I’m living off my writing now, without grants or a part time job, and it feels so tenuous. It could go downhill tomorrow, you know? I was writing before I thought it was even a real possibility to support myself with my writing, and I’ll keep writing after it becomes clear that it isn’t a real possibility after all. Not because I “must write” or because it’s “in my blood” or anything poetic like that. Or maybe those are just fancy ways of describing this certainty I have that all of my worth is wrapped up in my writing. From very young it seemed to me that writing was the only thing I did that was worthwhile. That had a chance of lasting. So, my work is something I have always given priority. The rest of my life can be falling apart, and it often seems to be, and I still take the time to work on the comic, or short stories. I am always moving forward with my writing. In a way I do treat everything else as a support system for the writing, but it isn’t really. And by treating it that way, I tend to neglect it.
 * Interview with Hamilton Chu.


 * Well, it's possible to be mentally ill and rational.
 * Interview with Helen DeWitt, Author of The Last Samurai.

Anthology

 * Listening to music that I hate calms me down.
 * "Where Are You Off To Now?"


 * Now, I recognize that these are very real possibilities." I said. "But let's pretend for a second that they aren't.
 * "Where Are You Off To Now?"


 * Alzheimer’s disease is death before death, and I’m terrified of it.
 * "1e4".


 * My problem is that I can't come unless Johnny Cash is playing.
 * "The girl who couldn't come."