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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you. I appreciate it. “The deal I deserve” is a good way to put it. I don’t think I deserve all the money in the world but the last offer I got from a company to write a graphic novel would have paid me less than $1,000. Less than my monthly rent. I’m so frustrated.

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

😭 Thank you, Maia. 💖

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

I hope you get a kick out of them. 19/19

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

I just want to tell stories, and it's awful feeling like you're being kept from doing that. Anyway, here's the pages if you want to see them. I guess somebody should. 18/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

So this tells me that the basic essential pursuits, jobs like being a doctor or a lawyer, or an essential worker, those are worthy and noble, but the creativity, art, music, and sharing those things through stories, thats what we need while we are living. That's what we need to feel alive. 17/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

A while back I had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam and see where Anne Frank lived when she was forced to hide. During that time she decorated her room with postcards, magazine pictures, photos of celebrities, the Queen. She made up quiet games with her sister. She wrote in her diary. 16/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

Stories. Books, Comics, Movies, TV shows, video games, creative projects, DIY projects. I played an insane amount of Animal Crossing and I started making puppets during the pandemic. Don’t ask, I can’t explain it. I got super into BL and KPop. 15/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

One of the first things to go when we are told that there’s no money or budget in schools is what? Art. Drama. Music.
Anything creative. They are deemed non-essential. But during the pandemic, after our basic needs of food and sleep were met, what did we all turn to in order to survive? 14/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

And I get it, the world's messed up right now & people aren't spending much money on art & everyone is worried that the world is going to end...but you know what? During these times, when we are told that art isn't essential, that our stories aren't "sellable" that's when we need art the most. 13/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

As if I didn't have to sit there and watch the boy I liked (and couldn't tell) flirt with a girl who was supposed to be one of my best friends. But yes, the Mormon stuff. Let's just talk about that. It still makes me mad to think about it. I haven't sold a book in about four years... 12/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

I heard about Matthew Shephard on the news & saw how people vilified Ellen Degeneres after she came out. As if growing up in Boise ID, and listening to Sinead O'Connor & Sarah Maclachlan & Natalie Imbruglia didn't shape me. As if Buffy and Disney cartoons and X-Men didn't inspire me to draw. 11/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

But reducing my experience and my life down to JUST the missionary stuff felt so demeaning to me, as if my dog disappearing when I was 16 didn't damage me since she was the only one I'd come out to. As if I didn't muster up the courage to come out in 1998 only to chicken out when... 10/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

The response was that it was confusing (as if people/readers don't know what a flashback is) and that it would be better if it was just about me as a missionary. And THAT is what really angered me. More than the year of waiting. Because yeah, I get it, the culty shit is more fascinating...right? 9/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

I was then ghosted by this editor for a year. That's so incredibly unprofessional to me that it angered me. I don't think I'm special, but I also don't think I'm so disposable that you would not respond to something YOU asked me to do for over a year. And then when I finally heard back... 8/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

And I liked them. A scene of something that happened to me as a missionary & a flashback of me at 16, in 1996, on the beach in Ixtapa Mexico, flirting with a boy in secret. And maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but considering most days I feel like comics is done with me, I'm just gonna go ahead 7/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

And I mean, I get it, I tell my students all the time that they need to be able to talk about their art because explaining what I do to someone who likely can't picture it and convincing them it will make them more money is a big part of my job. ANYWAY, I dug in, and drew the pages. 6/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

...for a book that there was no guarantee would get picked up. And even more so if I didn't plan to draw the book. How am I supposed to commit an artist to a book that they would have to do free pages for especially if it isn't a sure thing? Anyway, I'd be drawing this cause it's my story...5/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

So I wrote a pitch a few years ago, and there was some interest from an editor, but they asked me to draw a bunch of pages & that took me forever because I was always doing commissions and writing to survive. And to be honest, I was slightly frustrated by editors wanting to see finished pages... 4/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

They are very active in their church, I've since left the Mormon church (like the minute I finished my mission) & it took me a long time to repair a relationship with them after I came out- but I realized, my parents don't really read my work anyway, and I'd just be talking about my experience. 3/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

So yeah, it took me a long time, but I thought maybe a book about my teen years & what helped form me could be interesting considering the second 1/2 of the book, all of those things would be kept from me as I'm forced to be a missionary when 9/11 happens. I just didn't want to upset my parents. 2/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 1d

For years people told me to do a graphic novel memoir. It took me a long time to agree, my life is just my life, but I guess a book about a gay, biracial, Mexican-American kid growing up in a Mormon & military home in the 90's who then goes on to be a missionary in NYC during 9/11 could be good? 1/?

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 9d

Haircut.

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 11d

Monsters in Love #3 cover by me for a backup story in The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos: Children of the Night #3 - August 2025 - This was fun to do.

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 14d

Gentle reminder:

Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 15d

I’m having a big sale on all my #Kpop merch. Pricing and ordering details in the photos here. More photos of product in the comments. #kpopdemonhunters #zerobaseone #huntrix #Sajaboys

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Terry Blas @terryblas.bsky.social · 15d

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