Allie Kleber

Queer cartoonist and illustrator. 38, they/them. If you like my work, every little bit helps! paypal.me/alliekleber

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A bellicose betta fish.

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Another concept illustration, from the next issue of Queer Thrills. Margot gets a warm welcome from some cuddly, flirty faery folk. 💖🧚🏽

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I live! The pandemic may not be over, but I’m done letting it sap my creative energy. So, starting off with some concept illustrations … here’s Angie and Way from PLUNGE, on their journey between Angie’s escape pod crash site and Way’s aquatic settlement home.

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There was this meme going around Twitter months ago, and I saved it and forgot about it until rather recently … but really, who could resist?

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Some woodland fae smooches. Happy Pride month!

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“Hopefully, anyone who saw a woman riding a screaming mermaid in a wheelchair down Leavenworth at a quarter to five in the morning would just think they'd had too much to drink.” -Seanan McGuire, One Salt Sea

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I had a request for Xena fanart on Patreon, and it's spooky month, so here's a tribute to the classic S2 lesbian vampire (ahem, "Bacchae") episode, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"!

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Did some Nancy Drew art for my patrons this past month! I love a good mystery, and my mom’s collection of the original Nancy books was where that love started (even though “good” might be a bit relative, when it comes to them). Vintage fashion is extremely fun to draw; also, the second piece (an illustration from a book that doesn’t exist) is an homage to R.H. Tandy, the original Nancy artist from the 30s and 40s.

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Quick-and-dirty Harrowhark portrait because I’m overflowing with Locked Tomb feelings just now.

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Here’s how I’ve been trying to pull myself out of my slump ...

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I’ve been putting more into fighting the annual rush of dysphoria. No shoes included here, because I so rarely leave the house. Haha ... quarantine.

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For June’s fanart poll on Patreon, I drew a little coda image to the Steven Universe Future episode, "Why So Blue?" It was hard to pick one idea for Lapis & Peridot, but "cute" and "flowers" are kind of where I’ve been at, the last couple weeks.

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I think we’re at the end of Feelings Birds for awhile. Thanks for bearing with me ... it’s been an intense few weeks.

It wasn’t really coming off, so I decided to stop fighting with it and just post. It’s kind of pretty? But these particular feelings got lost in translation on the way to the page. Which is okay. Onwards and upwards, tbh!

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In my feelings.

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I drew these last year to express experiences during a painful conflict. I’d originally intended to keep them private, but I’m in a sharing mood.

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Rewatching Utena got me reminiscing about my adolescent, heavy with religious symbolism, problematically horny, intensely angsty first comic attempt. (Utena is SO much better, but my point is, you could sure see my influences.)

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I’ve never done much with tarot before, but when Utena won my monthly fanart poll on Patreon, I immediately wanted to play with the swords suite.

The ten of swords is a card that, to my meager understanding, represents pain, endings, betrayal, heartbreak, and so forth. However, reversed, it represents learning from your mistakes, choosing to break painful cycles, confronting and processing old pain so that you can move on. Something like that, anyway. Which seems very appropriate for Anthy and Utena (not to mention, the fact that the card traditionally depicts someone pierced with many swords, in the back).

I approached it as though Anthy were on the traditional card, but then scooted the image down (or up, as this is the card reversed) to get Utena in there at the top, about to pull the Sword of Dios (which is the tenth sword on the card) and begin the work of unraveling a cycle of pain, bitterness and betrayal. It's meant to be both grim and hopeful.