How Baby

Ninja Scroll, for those unaware of its myriad charms, is an anime movie with a superlative amount of violence and sex, including a woman whose secretions kill anyone who has sex with her, an invincible golem guy who assaults her and then dies, and a naked tattooed woman who stores snakes in her vagina. It played during the special week that Teletoon, the Canadian cartoon network, played a bunch of anime – which was very rare at the time – and, like, I’m not gonna say it rewired my brain or anything, but I also did not need to look up those details to remember them, almost thirty years later.

…but hey, that special anime week also introduced me to Macross Plus! So that’s a win!

It just threw me for a real loop as I was listening to Momo watching cartoons the other day, and then when we watched Princess Mononoke together. How there’s so many movies I’m excited to watch with her soon, but also how we’re so, so protective of her innocence as well. She’s not interested in growing up too fast either and she trusts our counsel on that, so we usually end up deciding together what’s age appropriate for her and what she feels ready for. It’s been peaceful so far… and then a memory like this from the past smacks me right in the peace of mind and reminds me that soon, if not already, you can’t plan for everything.

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TRANSCRIPT

Panel 1 (no dialogue; Lindsay and Momo sit calmly in the living room while the theme song from Spongebob Squarepants plays)

Panel 2 (white sketchy lineart on black panel; Lindsay has suddenly had the chilling realization:)
Caption: THE REALIZATION THAT MOMO IS THE SAME AGE I WAS WHEN I WATCHED NINJA SCROLL

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You can now pre-order my other comic, Motherlover, wherever books are sold!