no doodle this week related to the comic! i'm getting a commission done and working on something more complicated. then im going to try to get a handle on the backlog of stuff i need to work on. for real this time! i feel like im finally approaching the ability to start doing that again. here's my weekly recommendations:

for manga, i've been reading:

• "let's go karaoke!" and "let's go familyres!" by yama wayama, whose work "the star of girl's garden" i enjoy very, very much. "let's go karaoke!" and its sequel revolve around a reserved middle school (and later college) student who is kidnapped by a yakuza for after school singing lessons. if the yakuza loses the annual family karaoke contest, he will be forced to get a bad tattoo by the boss lol. the yakuza is friendly, but annoying while the middle schooler is, rightfully, terrified. very funny and understated work.
• i also read "Kujima Utaeba Ie Hororo", which is about a giant weird bird-man thing from russia that moves in with a family in japan for the winter. he wants to eat japanese food. everyone just sort of accepts the situation quickly and doesn't question it too much. very sweet and pretty funny. 
• lastly, ive been blazing through "the lies of the sheriff evans", which is a manga with a single joke (sheriff evans became a sheriff in the old west to get popular with women, and always fails) that has somehow not managed to run it into the ground after 100 of the 200 chapters ive read. who knows what the next 100 chapters hold but i have a feeling i know what it is lol. surprisingly funny considering the limits imposed by the simple premise.

in other things to read and watch:

• this lady in rhode island is being sued because she was feeding turkey vultures in her backyard by throwing whole chickens out there and attracting a shit ton of rats
• ive been watching dungeon chill's videos as i work on things. here's one about a weird vampire game that was only released in japan for the ps1. very well made videos about relatively niche video games that usually did not get ported over to the west. the one about sweet home was also very interesting, especially in how it relates to the movie it was based on.
• charborg and criken are vampires in the sims, badly.
• buffalo chicken wings for the chinese palate 
• dark souls 2 poop only run

enjoy! uhh please subscribe to the patreon, which is 10 comics ahead of the main page here. or donate through ko-fi if you can manage. thank you very much for your support, for reading, and for following me through this story im slowly trying to carve out.