Becky Hawkins
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Political Cartoon: Crap you hear in a wheelchair
🕑 Added 2025-12-02 01:02:51 +0000 UTCThis is Barry's and my political cartoon for October. It's a genre of cartoon I like to call "Nine types of jerks."
As a cartoonist in the internet age, I'm really lucky to have access to drawing tutorials as well as reference photos! I found wheelchairs really hard to draw from photos (what are all those bars for? WHAT'S HAPPENING UNDER THERE?!). But I knew there were some tips and drawing tutorials out there. I saw them on timeline every once in a while, when a cartoonist hadn't done their due diligence before a comic went to print. So I wanted to thank Art Resources & Tutorials on Tumblr, and Aurelia Ceitinn, who created this image:
Barry writes:
(Makes a mental note to review all the stuff Becky linked the next time I need to draw someone in a wheelchair.)
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Speaking of research: I'm not a wheelchair user. When I write strips like this, research is essential. Because my imagination just is no match for the real shit able-bodied people say to disabled people in real life. (In the case of panel seven, it's combining lots of similar experiences into a single panel).
For instance, one of the better strips I've made (in my opinion, anyway) is You're So Brave, I'd Rather Be Dead. Once, I wouldn't have believed that this was a common experience. It's still hard to believe. But I've read dozens of responses from disabled people to that cartoon, saying "this is spot on" or chiming in with their similar experiences.
A user on Reddit wryly replied:
My favorite is when someone suddenly feels the need to pontificate in my general direction and how the medical community keeps people alive when they have no quality of life and it's just tragic. That people should just be allowed to die.
My go to is always "you first."
Every panel in this cartoon is based on real things people have said, as reported by disabled people on social media.
When I first began doing strips like this one, years ago, I was worried that people wouldn't like me putting their experiences of discrimination into cartoons - that they might find it appropriative. And of course, I remain concerned that I'll screw up and say something stupid. But what I've found over the years is that most people, far from being mad, really enjoy seeing things that reflect their experiences in a comic.
(And writing that out, it seems very much like saying 'I've discovered that the floor will keep me from falling through to the basement." Obviously many people enjoy seeing their own experiences reflect in media. But it took me a while to absorb that, as applied to my own work.)
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Becky again! I was sick for a week and then out of town, but I'm excited to hit the drawing desk in this brand-new month of December! Thanks, as always, for supporting me on Patreon.
