I'm Duino D. Duck!

It’s 6PM. You’re sitting in a booth in The Last Straw Diner, half a sandwich and most of a milkshake sitting in front of you, momentarily forgotten in the midst of a perfect view of the sun setting over Anyport Harbor. The firm red plastic of the bench doesn’t feel a day older than when it was installed, but the music idly humming from the jukebox sure does. Momma Swine gives you a smile as she walks by, leaving a small pile of plates for Pop to attend to after he’s done cleaning the glass display loaded with fresh pies. The Cantles are a few tables over, going head-to-head on the games printed on the menu. Young Cal giggles over his word search successes as his mother Alina confidentially misspells “prestidigitation” over and over again. A cool breeze from an oscillating fan tickles the back of your neck. Summer isn’t quite here yet, but you can already see the boardwalks setting up their lights even from all the way over here.

10PM, a few days later. You’ve got amazing seats in Major Stadium, watching the Leftfield Wrong Horses face off against the Plotsburg Ad Hawks. Leftfield quarterback Mitt E. Gator makes a mad dash toward the Ad Hawks’s defense, who can’t really do much against a nine-foot-tall reptile “excuse me”ing himself through a ten-man pileup. Popcorn and confetti rain down from the stands above as he scores the game-winning touchdown seconds before the clock runs out. The screams from the stands erupt like a sonic boom. You and your fellow citizens wave and cheer, making faces at the nearest Plotsburgian you can find. It’s all in good fun, and you relish it while you can; these teams are playing basketball tomorrow night, and Mitt is terrible at basketball.

11AM later that week. You’re in a bathing suit wandering the beaches of The Spits. The sand is warm and the water is crystal clear, the smell of brine mingling with smoke from a cook fire. Somewhere in the distance you can hear a plane taking off from Handyman Hanger, or the Redline Trolley making a stop behind you in the Coconut Falls Retirement Community, or a piece of heavy machinery collapsing in on itself at the Straight & Narrow Technical University. But you’re far away from that, and those are someone else’s problem. The hubbub of the city is drowned out by the crash of the surf and the slothful plucks of a banjo, the elderly skunk fussing with it inviting you to occupy his second hammock while he dusts off his singing voice.

Late nights watching performances at The Powderkeg Circus. Early mornings picking through fresh finds at The Bizarre or meeting friends at Morning Joe’s. Scuba diving in Mainstay Bay and finding pirate treasure or making friends with a kraken. Shopping for a new outfit in Thorough Fare before being swept into a ridiculous competition the town is hosting in Encore Plaza. There’s always laughter in the air and music on the corners. It’s home. It’s where you belong.

That’s Leftfield. That’s what it is, to me.

A lot of people see Duino as violent, and dangerous, and an ever-present threat. And- well, he is, honestly. He’s that in spades. But to me, something that defines a cartoon is that conflict is opt-in. The characters we see getting into ridiculous situations either go looking for trouble, or when trouble finds them, they have a hand in making things much worse. And, if Duino’s status as a “freelance antagonist” is any indication, that’s by design. Naturally, things are stale if there’s no one to stir the pot, and for that purpose Duino and Smacky are spoons sprung to life. But trouble here takes rainchecks and sometimes calls in sick. It has a way of finding you, but it doesn’t always have to. Life in Leftfield is cartoony, but in the ways that can mean its hectic and zany, it’s also saccharine. Bright. Colorful. Silly for the sake of being silly. It’s an escape from reality, because troubles with weight have no place in these winding streets.

People often jump to the idea that being a toon is purely chaotic. That it’s exhausting, overwhelming, and oftentimes severely painful. I’ve seen people depict it as suffering; that being a toon is akin to being tortured by the cosmos, never knowing a moment of reprieve. And my heart aches at that notion. The reality we all inherited is fraught with so much of that already. Do we need to let the one we’re creating together have it, too? A story needs to have stakes and conflict to be interesting, obviously, but a lot of the time, I’m not interested in a good story. I’m interested in a good day.

I’m not going to pretend I’m some end-all, be-all arbiter on the nature of toon fiction. People have different interests and intents, and even grander than that, different methods of escapism. And if your fiction is more indulgent or mournful or sadistic or whatever, I hope it brings you joy! But this is mine, and I pour myself into it because it means a lot to me. I’ve made jokes like “I don’t have a fursona, I have a municipality” but it inches closer to the truth every time I name another business or city road.

Leftfield is my happy place. I’d recommend taking time to create your own! But I’m always happy to let people visit mine.