New Year's Comic (and some Bonus Xmas ones)
End-of-Year Comics based on weird Victorian Greeting Cards!
I’ve had hundreds of Victorian greeting cards saved in my files for going on two years now—they’re so hilariously weird, it almost feels like cheating to make comics off of them.
Here’s another:
And another one, although this one is based off a much later card than the Victorians:
Oh, you sexy Santas. Peak culture.
If you want to know what’s going on in these cards—specifically the Victorian ones—someone else already summed it up much better than I could. Basically, with the invention of new printing technology, as well as the commercialization of Christmas in Victorian England (thanks to Queen Victoria going super hard for anything Prince Albert was even slightly into—aka, German Christmas celebrations) Victorians started making cards to send to each other during the holiday season.
And delightfully enough, they got kinda weird with it.
There are thousands more all over the Internet, so if you’re still craving more holiday weirdness before the new year rings in, you should go poke around the archival corners of the web. It’s a delight.
As with everyone during this time of year, I’ve been floating between holiday business and huge, gaping chunks of time with nothing going on. I spent last week at a rental house with relatives—we ate food and played games and sat down and put together a tricky Edward Gorey puzzle that Jon gifted me this year.
We went to two museums—one for art, one for science. Both were worthy of a good, long wander, and both drove the kids mad with boredom before I was ready to leave (oh well). I read some books and watched the cousins beat each other at video games—all the perfect things in this weird slurry of Christmas-New-Years-limbo of time that we’re currently in. I’ve been letting the dishes pile up (metaphorically and literally) and ignoring the vaguely threatening voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me I should be doing something.
Leave that til tomorrow. Fresh start and all that.
I had some idea of leaving you with a Year-End roundup—favorite Haunted Librarian moments from 2022? Best books I’ve read this year? Favorite new foods? Spookiest encounters? Sketches, panels, and comic ideas that didn’t make the cut in 2022? Let me know if you’re interested in any of that, and I’ll toss it into next week’s post.
I hope you’re all feeling the pull of the new year in good ways—the promise of possibility, the grief of time slipping away, the fresh excitement of turning over new leaves in all our books.
Thank you all for being here. Happy new year, my loves. If there’s anything I want in 2023, it’s to abandon the silly idea that I deserve anything that comes to me—good or bad. I’m constantly baffled by the joys and sorrows in my life—it’s all so beautiful, and so sad.
Let the new year bring all its gifts, whatever they may be.
All my love,
💀Becca Lee, Haunted Librarian💀
it's all so beautiful, and so sad.
You capture existence so well in words and image. Thank you.
XO!