Page Notes

Originally published as "Mermaid Ex Machina 03" on 12/29/2011

I think this is true, generally (except when it isn’t), but specifically the claim that you need “spirits to deal with spirits” is inspired by a (I believe) Japanese ritual for cleansing a house of evil spirits. What you do is clean the entire house (ideally with a group of people), with all the doors and windows open. Then everyone drinks liquor and goes around screaming and spitting alcohol all over the place until all the evil spirits have fled. Then you close the doors and windows and you’re done. We did it in our house and it seems to have worked pretty well.

Molly Demeter Sokolow Hayden (or Modemeter, for obvious reasons of length) grew up surrounded by her father’s comic book collection, sometimes literally. She fell in love with Will Eisner’s Spirit at an inappropriately young age and wishes she could draw like Jaime Hernandez. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, her daughter, and her cat, and sneaks down to her drawing table whenever she can.