Introduction

For those of you who haven’t met me, my name is Bethany. I grew up in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and was homeschooled through most of middle school and high school. I moved to West Virginia and started at Shepherd University in 2016, and if all goes smoothly, I’ll be graduating this fall. I have a bad habit of feeding stray cats and getting overly attached to them, resulting in me and my family having way too many cats.

My foster babies, Onmund (AKA Almond) on the left and Lucy on the right.

Brother cats we adopted, with Dusk on the left and Cloud on the right.

In addition to doting on my cats, I enjoy reading, playing video games, and watching anime and other T.V. shows. I tend to enjoy watching horror shows, like American Horror Story, or comedies and cartoons, like Futurama. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a bit of both genres, horror and comedy, and is my all-time favorite.

I’m always looking to improve my writing, and I hope that this course will help me explore a different medium of writing that I have little experience in. I’ve never really been interested in blogging, and I’m curious to see how much the format of it will affect the style of the writing. I’m also curious about how much the focus of the course will affect the type of subjects that we cover, and how that might affect the tone of our writing. And of course, aside from the experience I hope to gain in writing, I’m definitely excited to talk about funny women.

I consume a lot of different kinds of media that makes me laugh, including webcomics, anime, and memes. One of my favorite funny webcomics is Poorly Drawn Lines, which features cute, simplistic drawings with deadpan jokes that often refer to anxiety and depression.

Some of my favorite funny women are Youtubers like Natalie Wynn, who runs a political channel ContraPoints, that discusses serious topics in funny, easily digestible ways. Natalie is a trans woman who went through much of transition while in the public eye, and she uses her channel to discuss issues like gender, sexuality, and politics. Another favorite Youtuber of mine is Jackie, who runs a craft channel called NerdECrafter. She offers funny craft kit reviews, DIY craft tutorials, and occasionally provides commentary on various drama in the craft community.

I’m also a fan of webcomic artists like Kate Leth, who writes funny comics about depression, sexuality, and her experience working in a comic book store. Mary Cagle is another webcomic artist I adore, who has two ongoing webcomics, Sleepless Domain and Kiwi Blitz, two fantasy/sci-fi comics featuring teens acting as heroes. She also wrote the finished webcomic Let's Speak English, a funny comic about all the ridiculous situations she encountered while working as an English teacher in Japan.

My all-time favorite funny woman, though, is my best friend Tina, who currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with her dog Gambino.

Tina requested that I post a picture with Gambino in it, too!

Though she lives far away, she's been my best friend through a lot, and always makes me laugh no matter what the situation is. 

While I know a couple of funny women, I could tell while writing this that my knowledge of female comedians out there is seriously lacking. I look forward to learning more about the great women out there, and hopefully getting to know some of you, as well.

And finally, here are a few more cat pictures for the road!