Jay SennettBesides publishing cartoons, Jay Sennett is the founder and publisher of Homofactus Press, a global digital micropress. On JaySennett.com he writes, “By far the craziest thing I have done in my life is creating and publishing these cartoons. I can’t draw. In real time I don’t think I’m funny. But as long-post, uber theoretical blogger, I suck some serious wind. So I decided that if I couldn’t say what I needed to say in a business-card sized cartoon, I had no business saying it. The second craziest thing I have done in my life is change my gender.” I asked Jay to get personal about money, sexual identity and the funny pages.

1. In your book, Self-Organizing Men: Conscious Masculinities in Time and Space, you and others discuss the masculine self. Is there a price attached to becoming a man?
The price depends on the investment, I think. I reaped much benefit from simply feeling better about myself after living on hormones for awhile. In the balance, I lost something with women that became something different, finally, after many years of living as a man.

2. What is your most significant memory about money?
That we had a lot of it.

3. What is your worst habit around finances?
I don’t plan to save.

4. Can you create a cartoon that says something funny about money?
Cartoon Sure. See right.

5. Who taught you the value of a dollar?
Ms. H., my beloved. She has a black belt in personal financial management.

6. Does gender matter when it comes to making a buck?
I think it can. I also think race matters greatly, too, and I don’t believe they can be separated.

7. If you could buy one thing right now what would it be?
A bespoke jacket from Richard Anderson, Ltd.

8. Did your parents ever disagree about money? How did this affect you?
Yes, they did. Spendthrift meets skinflint provided much dramatic entertainment growing up for me and my younger brother.

9. Does money spend the same whether it is carried in a purse or wallet?
Considering an iPod video 80 gig spends about as much as a pair of Manolo Blahniks, I think, maybe……of course I’m not saying whether the purse or the wallet is buying the Manolos!

10. Does money buy happiness?
I don’t think money buys happiness, but it does buy people more time. Poor and working class people spend a lot of time fixing things themselves, waiting in lines at hospitals, etc., because they don’t have the money to purchase those things which come without the price tag of time attached to them.

Yes, it may cost only three hundred dollars to replace the muffler yourself, but then you actually have to replace it but first you have to drive to your cousin’s house to get the ramps to lift car up and then go to your brother’s house to get some other tool you need while meanwhile you swing back by your house to pick up your kids to drop off at your friend’s house who will only be home for another fifteen minutes so they can stay there over night and get a ride to school in the morning because the muffler you are fixing is attached to the only car in the family, the only car that currently isn’t working…

More about Jay Sennett
Jay Sennett Book Jay Sennett is an activist, writer, and cartoonist living in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is also the founder of Homofactus Press, a global, digital micropress dedicated to publishing books by, for, and about trans masculine experiences around the globe. His anthology, Self-Organizing Men, published by Homofactus Press, has been called “liberating” and “a highly valued collection of stories” about diverse masculine experiences.

Self-Organizing Men will debut in Sydney, Australia later this year while Homofactus Press will be publishing Eli Clare’s collection of prose and poetry, The Marrow’s Telling, and King Guise, a photo-essay collection dedicated to drag kings of color. You can find more of Jay’s cartoons at www.jaysennett.com.

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