Deep Dark Droll Fears
It’s officially October, dear Toonstack fiends…I means friends, which can only mean one thing: gourds. This is unfortunate for people who suffer from cucurbitophobia, the fear of gourds. Pumpkins? Get out of here. Squash? Don’t even think about it. Watermelon? Maybe on the weekend. This week, I’ve asked my fellow cartoonists to share cartoons inspired by their fears.
Speaking of which, what are gourds afraid of? Things that go pumpkin the night! (I would have also accepted cucurbitophobes).
Some other strange phobias I just found on Google are:
- Arachibutyrophobia (Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth)
- Nomophobia (Fear of being without your mobile phone)
- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (Fear of long words)
- Listophobia (Fear of inane lists)
So unless you suffer from kyrofelonoshophobia, the fear of cartoon characters, help us usher in October with these cartoons about our fears (and collect some dirt to use against us in the future! *cough* You’ve annoyed someone, Ellis *cough*).
SINcerely,
Navied
Ellis Rosen
This cartoon represents three of my deepest fears: 1. That I am unknowingly annoying someone, 2. That I am annoyed at someone, but the problem is in fact, my fault, and 3. The unwavering existential fear of eternity, and that somehow, in some inconceivable way, the indefinite progress of existence continues while my tiny insignificant, meaningless life becomes infinitesimally smaller as time marches towards infinity.
It sends shivers down my spine. I mean, imagine it. Someone finding you annoying? That might make them not like you!
Suerynn Lee
I think this combines two pretty straightforward fears - oversharing while drunk and being awake during a surgery where you definitely should have been knocked unconscious. Drunk oversharing something that I think is really deep/meaningful/interesting while the listener is like, “Okkkk, wow, when can I walk away from this?” is a real fear of mine. Better to share nothing with no one and then sublimate it all into a cartoon, eh?
Kendra Allenby
I drew these panels on my recent hike across the country and they feature my 2 deepest fears: lightning and failure. According to my brain, lightning should be feared anytime there are clouds in the sky or I think about clouds possibly being in the sky. Also according to my brain, if I don’t draw for one day, I will probably forget how to draw, and probably never draw again, and cease being a cartoonist and thus fail. Thanks brain!
Hilary Campbell
This cartoon was inspired by my Aunt Ginny, who sat down at our lake cabin and announced “I’m not going to do ANYTHING today” at like 9 A.M. I thought I might have a heart attack. I need a plan, people! I need at least ONE activity. What do you expect me to do, sit here with my own mind????? THE HORROR! I’m also very afraid of getting locked in public bathrooms for the same reason. Oh, also my Aunt Ginny doesn’t even remotely look like what I’ve drawn here. Sorry Aunt Ginny.
Amy Hwang
When I was working in an office full-time, I often had the thought of how awful it would be if I died while at the office or on a work trip – that the office would be the worst place to die because not only would I be dying, but it would be while doing something on behalf of a corporation and someplace I didn’t care to be. That was the inspiration for this cartoon. Being at an office job is as undesirable to me as jumping out of an airplane.
Navied Mahdavian
There’s an old story about Hollywood starlet, Lupe Vélez. Lupe wanted to be remembered, so she planned an extravagant suicide: made-up satin bed, flowers, white gown, hair and make up done. Unfortunately for Lupe, the overdose of pills didn’t mix well with the burrito she ate for dinner (“Mexi-Spice Last Supper” according to sources). So she ran to the bathroom, slipped, fell headfirst into the toilet, and that is where she was found the next day, enshrining her and her death as one of the great urban legends of the “Golden Age'' of Hollywood. At any rate, that’s what I learned from the first episode of Frasier (which is where I learn most of my history).
Like Lupe, I had a close call with a toilet once (the bowl, to be precise). I was ten and getting ready for a birthday. As I stepped out of the shower, full of youthful energy and optimism about the future (the hope of becoming a superhero, to be precise), I stood on the edge of the bathtub, arms akimbo (you can see where this is going). And like many of my heroes before me (read: idiots), I was felled by (or fell into, rather) the toilet. After an awkward moment with my cousin and sister (think Carrie, but with more blood and an adorable ten year old butt) and a quick trip to the hospital, I got out of PE for a week.
All of which is to say that I’m extra careful now when standing arms akimbo on the bathtub’s edge.
Johnny DiNapoli
Every few months I have a nightmare about the world ending. Sometimes it’s a natural disaster. I’ve had a couple about raptures. They’re always bad and scary and I regret to report I’ve never prevented a single apocalypse. Which is weird, because I think I’d be good at that kind of thing.
Sofia Warren
I may or may not be talking about grout, and I may or may not be talking about marriage, and I may or may not be a scruffy middle-aged man living in North Dakota, but whatever I’m talking about, the idea that no amount is enough? That’s what keeps me up at night.
Amy Kurzweil
Bees, spiders, time, getting a rare disease, someone I love getting a rare disease, getting a common but still debilitating disease, someone I love getting a common but still debilitating disease, regular aging, Nazis, earthquakes, climate change, forgetting to lock the door just once and it’s exactly the night when a murderer comes to town, forgetting to email someone important, wasting my life with email, not finishing my book, finishing my book, someone got their feelings hurt and it’s my fault, what’s that pain in my hip, now it’s in my foot, I never really learned to draw and everybody knows I’m a fraud, fire, bears ... this is an incomplete list of things that may keep me up at night. But at the end of it all, what I’m really afraid of is being afraid, which is to say the only thing I have to fear is fear itself, which is also to say that fear itself could strike at any and all times, and everybody knows a human animal is most vulnerable when sleeping, so we all better stay vigilant.
Jared Nangle
I have a fear of vast open spaces and a fear of rejection. So this cartoon should be nightmare to look at more or less draw. But it wasn’t, and I quite like it. It’s because I’m brave now. Also, I decided the people in the cartoon are all alive, floating in space, forced to reflect on their failures and marvel at their home planet. But only for a little while, and then by some miracle they re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, dart through the sky and onto the ground, dust off their knees, then work on another batch of cartoons, and shoot for the moon again.
For Your Pleasure: Cartoon Extras
Pre-order Murder Book, Hilary Campbell’s upcoming graphic memoir AND you’ll get Law & Order sticker. Out November 9th!
Pre-order Send Help! a desert island cartoon collection by Ellis Rosen and Jon Adams
Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon!
Follow Kendra Allenby as she walks the Continental Divide Trail for 5 months! (She just finished!!!!)
Be sure to check out Shelby Lorman’s newsletter, Please Clap!
The same goes for Sofia Warren’s advice newsletter, You’re Doing Great!
See more cartoons from Ellis Rosen’s weekly Junk Drawer!