iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 02/09/2026

[to the tune of Tom Waits' "Chocolate Jesus"] Well it's got to be a:

A black IKEA sign with handwritten white text advertising a $2.19 4 oz CHOKLAD LJUS

Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 28/07/2026

I had to say goodbye to Miles last May after nursing him through hospice care for fifteen months, and Chester went to join his brother yesterday. These guys were with me for my entire adult life until then, and I can't believe that part of it is over. It goes so fast...and it's never enough time.

A much younger version of me sits at a drafting table, petting a tiny, tiny orange kitten.

An orange and white cat perches on the shoulder of a bearded man in a red hoodie.

An orange and white cat lays on the chest of a bearded man in a black hoodie

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 28/07/2026

Sixteen years ago, my cats Miles and Chester spent many hours with me as I wrote all fifty issues of The Unforgiven. They spent many more hours beside me and on my lap while I illustrated it over the years. I drew both cats into this issue I put out in February, which seemed only fair.

Crop of a comic book page. All panels are grayscale pencil drawings, with only the figures in full color. Panel 1: a cat walks across a grass lawn toward a dilapidated shed off to the side of a stone path. The figure in the foreground (Shaggy blonde hair, teal collared button-up shirt), facing away from the reader, watching the cat, says "But we make the rules here." Panel 2: the cat wiggles its way beneath the dilapidated shed. Panel 3: The figure from the first panel squints his eyes and says "C'mon. I've got a hunch about something. And it seems to me this is the kind of place to trust those." Panel 4: The same figure and his friend behind ascend the steps of the shed. Panel 5: The figure's hand turns the shed's rusty doorknob.

Single comic panel. A cat, spooked, darts from the now-open shed from the previous image, past the two figures. The blonde from the previous image says "Chester! So that's where you've been."

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 23/07/2026

St. Louis! This Sunday is the third occurrence of the Comic Book & Collectible Show for the year, and yours truly will be there with original comic art and indie comics for y'all. Last time I did one of these I only had two issues of The Unforgiven under my belt 😵

A green flyer pinned on a bulletin board advertising the St. Louis Comic Book and Collectible Show at the American-Czech Center at 4690 Lansdowne this Sunday, July 26th from 9 am-2 pm

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 29/05/2026

Tony doesn’t care if I finish my pencils today

A Siamese cat squeezing himself on an artist’s lap at a drafting table where there really is no room for him, making it very difficult to work

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 21/05/2026

CREEPY synchronicity watching through Fringe with @chelsmurphy.bsky.social and just happened to watch this episode from 2011 TODAY

A screenshot from the TV show Fringe with flash-forward text that reads “FRINGE MEDICAL NEW YORK MAY 20-2026”

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 20/05/2026

Getting to draw scenes literal decades in the making this week—stuff I first conceptualized when I wasn’t even old enough to drive, finally being actualized. #comics #comicbooks #comicart

A pencil drawing of a crazed-looking guy with a mad scientist-like jacket and goggles on his forehead, hair sticking straight up, points an ice pick behind him at a grinning demon-looking guy with curled horns and black smoke for hair

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 30/04/2026

Last day of #repostyourart : "whimsical" “I ditched work today. Took a train out to Montauk. I don't know why. I'm not an impulsive person.” Blue Ruin. Agent Orange. Name that movie! #Linocut

Two art prints made from linoleum block, one in blue ink and one in orange ink. The images are of a man and a woman touching foreheads together, their brains seen through their heads stretching mingling thought lines across the page. Two figures in winter clothing run down a deserted beach away from the viewer in the bottom-center. presented on a frozen lake.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 29/04/2026

For the penultimate day of #repostyourart , we have "plant." Here's a whole bunch of 'em. #comicart #comicbooks #comics

A man in an orange jumpsuit with brown hair in a ponytail, mustache, and soul patch, smirks at the reader. He is surrounded by lush green wilderness, a few feet from what looks like a prison wall.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 28/04/2026

Day 28 of #repostyourart: cottage There are a few of them here, and they're burning. Cover inks for The Atonement Bell #2, 2022. #comics #comicbooks #comicart

Three masked, robed riders on horses carrying torches and muskets gallop through the snow away from a village they've just set alight. Three cottages burn within view, smoke rising to the top of the page. A skull with glowing eyes and curled horns looms large in the background. All traditional inks, black and white.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 27/04/2026

Day 27 of #repostyourart: Garden If you squint, you can maybe see the edge of Citygarden in this page from a 2016 issue of The Unforgiven #comics #comicart #comicbooks

A grayscale comic book page, full-page art. The city of St. Louis, downtown, post-apocalyptic, in ruins. Overgrown, crumbling. The shadow of The Gateway Arch thrown across the ground.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 25/04/2026

#repostyourart Day 25: abstract As an illustrative artist, this Doctor Who gouache painting from 2016 is about as abstract as I get (and it's still not that abstract). #artsky #traditionalart #painting #doctorwho

A gouache painting of elements of elements from the David Tennant + Billie Piper run of Doctor Who in a loose grid pattern. From top-left to bottom-right: Dalek shell casing; K-9, front-facing; Cyberman eye; The 10th Doctor, from Doomsday; two shades of Chucks, the tan and the red; blue TARDIS outer panels; brown trenchcoat; blue suite with red pinstripes; brown suit with blue pinstripes; 3-D glasses; Rose Tyler's purple leather jacket, pink shirt; orange space suit; TARDIS interior panel; Rose Tyler, from Doomsday; Union Jack; The Moment; Davros shell casing

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 24/04/2026

#repostyourart Day 24: Fast/Slow Here's a slow burn from 2012--in that it took me two weeks back then to put all this graphite on the page. I've gotten much faster since then, mercifully. #comics #comicbooks #drawing #comicart

A full page of comic art, rendered in graphite, of London burning. The Great Clock of Westminster stands at the forefront, one of its clock faces burst out in flames.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 23/04/2026

#repostyourart Day 23: Magic How about a whole coven of witches? Inks from The Atonement Bell #1 (2021) #comics #comicart #traditionalart

An inked double-page comic spread from The Atonement Bell of a witch in a long, fur-lined robe and skull mask with curling horns protruding from the forehead points her finger menacingly at a figure kneeling in the bottom-right. The figures are in a winter forest, snow swirling around, while several robed and hooded witches float and fly around the scene, some carrying wood and stone spears.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 22/04/2026

Day 22 of #repostyourart : Paint I rarely paint, but when I do, it's usually some form of ink wash--which is basically watercoloring. Here's about as basic as it gets with a commissioned painting I did in 2021. #artsky #traditionalart #painting #inkwash

An ink wash painting over an ink drawing of a one-story red brick house and detached garage on a grassy hill beneath some green trees

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 21/04/2026

Day 21 of #repostyourart : Cloud Different use of the word here, from this 2016 painting #comicart #watercolor #inkwash #traditionalart

A mixed media ink wash + charcoal painting from 2016 in purple hues of Jessica Jones (seated, cross-legged, in blue jeans, gray jacket, black boots, white tank top, shoulder-length black hair) enveloped by a purple cloud of smoke trailing her name from the mouth of the background figure, The Purple Man, seen only from the shoulders up to the bottom of his eyelids. He's smiling; and, y'know, purple.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 19/04/2026

Day 19 of #repostyourart : Fruit Okay, I'm admittedly cheating a bit on this one: this isn't old work. It's the brand-new, never-before-seen cover to the upcoming issue #18 of The Unforgiven. I didn't really have anything older to fit the theme, and I knew this was in the pipeline, so--voila!

A glowing, full-color peach hanging from a bare, snow-covered tree limb as four gray hands (or the same hand, moving up from the bottom of the page, and aging as it does so--depending on how you want to read it) reach(es) up to grab the fruit.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 18/04/2026

Day 18 of #repostyourart : Everyday Life From The Unforgiven #9: Civil Disobedience (2017) #comics #comicbooks #comicart #traditionalart

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 17/04/2026

Day 17 of #repostyourart : Doodle Here, have this doodle of Aaron Burr I did in my AP American History notebook like 20 years ago as I turn into dust

A pencil sketch of Aaron Burr in the margin of a notebook page with the caption "Oh No, it's Aaron Burr!" He wears a collared jacket and cravat, with his hair slicked back. He holds a vengeful fist in the air and points a gun at the viewer, and looks particularly deranged and enraged.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 16/04/2026

Here it is again but with all the lettering and digital effects they added for the promo, now that Bluesky is done exploding (maybe?)

The same cover posted previously, but with digital text and decorative elements

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 16/04/2026

Day 16 of #repostyourart : Colorful Here's a comic book cover I did in 2020 to promo a friend's indie short film by the same title. All the drawing traditional, as usual--colors digital. Check out the film if you get a chance, it's a blast! #comics #comicbooks #horror

A colorful comic book cover featuring the silhouette of a wolf man with long, bushy hair and glowing eyes, wearing a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He grips a struggling victim by the shirt, and we can only see the victim's rumpled clothes and his hand thrown up to protect himself. The wolf man is framed in the glow of a fire behind him, which we can only see by the light it casts and the smoke it emits. A woman in a rumpled shirt and jeans lies on the ground in the distance behind the wolf man, shrinking back in fear. Behind her, in front of a tent, three scruffy-bearded men in rural garb also look on in terror. A wheat field is in the far background, framed by a deep blue sky filled with ominous purple clouds. The title, "LOOM," adorns the top in a bright seafoam. The corner box at the left features a more well-lit head of the wolf man in front of evergreen silhouettes and a starry sky. Three circular vignettes align in a column at left, in the style of old horror comics, each with a yellow banner identifying the characters. A lone yellow banner above says "Featuring..." The first vignette is Adam, a man in a red flannel shirt and wide-rimmed glasses with longish, sideswept blonde hair. The second viginette is Shelly, A woman with long brown hair and mouth open in a hiss to reveal vampire teeth. The third vignette is "Fishman," a green, bug-eyed monster with a large, wide mouth in the style of a bass fish.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 14/04/2026

Day 14 of #repostyourart : Yummy In 2019, I created a series of "from life" photos, magazine clippings, and even a cigarette box to use in a photo spread to be cut into fourths for The Uunforgiven's four-part "Strays" story arc covers. Here's the uncut photo, with breakfast. #comics #comicart

A photo collage with a whole bunch of drawings of characters from the comic book series The Unforgiven as though they are photographs taken of them. They are spread out on a brown wooden table. A blueprint, two diamond playing cards, and two childhood drawings underlay the photos. Arranged around and amid the "photos" are a coffee mug, creamer, a pack of cigarettes, a plate with two sunny side up eggs and two pieces of toast with a fork, a cloth napkin, a spilled ketchup bottle, a German textbook, an arrow for use with a bow, a miniature metal Titanic, a miniature metal bicycle, a plastic army man, a wooden pencil, three glow-in-the-dark stars, and a small metal globe.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 13/04/2026

Update: the squirrel made it though the night and is now with the local wildlife rehabber!

Two gloved hands holding a friendly baby squirrel

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 12/04/2026

No no. No no no. I cannot become a squirrel parent today.

A baby squirrel squats on a teal outdoor rug between two human feet in gray shoes and black socks.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 12/04/2026

Day 12 of #repostyourart : Cozy This is about as close to that as I can get in the mishmash of dystopia sci-fi horror that encapsulates most of my body of work. #comics #comicbooks #comicart #traditionalart

A black and white/grayscale comic book page, traditionally illustrated. Three panels. In the first panel, from the neck down, a woman is seated on the left, a man on the right, and a bottle of mostly empty gin sits on the floor between them. The woman on the left (Sara) wears a slouchy turtleneck, leggings, and tall socks. The man on the right (Caine) wears a wrinkled tee beneath an open robe, and pajama pants. Sara says: "...I don't even remember where I heard it, but something about the context must have given me the impression it might be a 'bad' word. But it was also a *hilarious* word to me, so I had to find out if I could say it without getting in trouble. So I wrote 'fuck Tammy' on this piece of paper, and I had Andrea go and give it to her while I stood in the back room, listening. And from down the hall, I heard Tammy scream, 'DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOW THIS TO YOUR MOTHER??!'" Caine laughs. Panel 2: Sara, on the left, her blonde hair in a messy bun, smiles as she continues the story; Caine, long, blonde, disheveled hair, wipes away his tears as he responds. Sara: "So yeah. That's how eight-year-old Sara learned she probably shouldn't say 'fuck' to adults." Caine: I always wondered why the babysitter didn't like Andrea." Sara: "My bad." Caine: "Whew. That's amazing. I don't think I've laughed, since..." Panel 3: Caine and Sara, their smiles fading slightly, look down toward the floor. Caine: "I'm glad you came." Sara: "I could stay." Caine: "Hah. If only." Sara: "Really. Honestly, whatever I have to do to keep Ben from atomizing me again. I've already lost my lunch. I'd like to keep my *dinner* down, at least."

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 11/04/2026

Day 11 of #repostyourart : Sparkles From The Unforgiven #11: Strays (Part 2 of 4) (2021) #comicart

A black-and-white, six-paneled comic book page, "colored" in gray Copic marker. Panel 1: A little redheaded girl in jeans and a dark t-shirt and an old bearded man in a cabbie hat, jacket, and jeans kneel on a tiled floor while one State enforcer in riot gear points a gun at them and another holds the girl's hands behind her back. The old man is tapping his wooden staff on the floor, as a third State enforcer in the foreground, facing the reader, shouts "Three, motherf--" Panel 2: A close-up of the top of the old man's staff as it lights up and throws sparks, or, the closest I've got for "sparkles," with a "FWAAASSSH" Panel 3: Close-up of the shouting enforcer's face as he squints and says "WHAT--?!" Panel 4: A close up of a previously seen character's obfuscation mask flickering with the EM pulse from the old man's staff, as he smirks Panel 5: The locks on cages holding stray cats and dogs click open. Panel 6: The cats and dogs burst from their confines, about to cause havoc (and a distraction for our heroes)

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 10/04/2026

Day 10 of #repostyourart : Pencil Showcasing the downtown St. Louis Public Library's gorgeous architecture in The Atonement Bell with these pencils from 2022.

Pencil work for a comic book page from The Atonement Bell, six panels. Panel 1: the outside of the St. Louis Public Library downtown, seen from the front. Snow is piled up on the ground. Panel 2: three teenage characters in winter attire (two boys, Jake and Baby Al, and one girl, Sara) move through an interior of room of the library, dwarfed by its lavish architecture. Panel 3: Sara and Jake are seated in front of a computer, set to the task at hand, while Baby Al continues to take in the intricate details of the library's decor. Panel 4: All three teenagers, facing front, are engrossed with something on the computer's screen (off-panel). Panel 5: Jake points at something on the computer screen. Panel 6: A close-up of the computer screen displays an illustration in an old manuscript of a robed woman in a horned skull mask holding her hand over a kneeling woman with her hands together in prayer position.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 09/04/2026

#repostyourart Day 9: Light The first hint of color bleeds into The Unforgiven, with the striking of a match. 2017

A six-panel comic book page, rendered in grayscale, with a slight hint of orange light emanating from the flames in all panels containing them. Panel 1: a pair of hands holds a matchbook in the left while the right strikes a held match alight. Panel 2: the hand holding the match lights a gathered pile of kindling. Panel 3: a shadowed figure, seen from behind, watches the pile of kindling and brush go up in flames, and we're pulled back enough now to see that the pyre is collected and lit atop the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Panel 4: A different scene, concurrent, interjected: A white, middle-aged man in a suit jacket and collared white shirt enters a office where a woman, seen from the waist to the neck (suit jacket, white collared shirt, painted fingernails), is gathering her things in the familiar "pack up your stuff, you're fired" brown file box. The man says "Dana, there's a man here from the Chancellor's office. They want you to retract The Unforgiven story. It's...not a *request*." Panel 5: The woman (Hispanic, chin-length straight black hair), seen from the shoulders up, smiles silently as the hint of orange from the previous scene's flames symbolically bleeds into her panel. Panel 6: Back to the fire starter (Black, thick-rimmed square-frame glasses, scant facial hair along the jawline and upper and lower lip, bandaged cheek, hooded jacket, hair shaved along the sides and tall on top) seen from the shoulders up, smiles hopefully in the orange glow of the fire of revolution.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 07/04/2026

Day 8 of #repostyourart : Silly. Deffo not feeling that adjective today, so reaching all the way back to the not-Halcyon-but-certainly-less-chaotic days of 2008 to bring you this delightful intaglio etching I did of Tony Danza as the King of Hell.

A black and white intaglio etching of Tony Danza, smiling, hands folded in his lap, wearing a black suit and white collared shirt, sitting on a high-backed throne bedecked with flames on the back and skulls on the armrests.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 05/04/2026

Day 5: Mountain. I’m from the Great Plains, so I don’t get to see or even think about mountains all that often. But turns out I do have this one single comic page from 2016 featuring a mountain that is completely apt to post on this holiday. #repostyourart #comicart

A black-and white comic page with two panels. The first, a narrow panel spanning the top of the page, is a close-up of an elderly, Caucasian, bald, bearded man, seen from front-facing POV from the neck up, to the left of a brick wall stretching back behind him. His arm is raised toward his face, and he speaks into a wrist communicator of some sort with a shocked look on his face. He says, “Christian…” In the second panel, spanning the rest of the page, his dialogue continues as a text box overlay: “I think the world may be a whole lot less empty than we’ve been told.” This panel features a detailed landscape spread of Rio de Janeiro, seen from behind the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer, looking out toward the ocean. The tall statue of a man with long hair, seen from behind, wearing flowing robes and holding arms outstretched, towers over the city from a pedestal on top of a mountain. A few people mill about below the statue, silhouettes, nondescript, minuscule by comparison. Dirigibles fly above the city, in the valley below, and guard towers dot the mountains along the coast as well as several circular, raised platforms circling the inner city, giving it the appearance more of a futuristic prison than a metropolis. This is not the Rio we know, but a future dystopian incarnation of it that the characters of the story had long been told did not exist.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 04/04/2026

Day 4: Cat/dog. Since I don't have any drawings of CatDog, and since I already shared my scratch board of Brina for "Bloom," here's a few panels of my cat Miles featured in the latest issue of The Unforgiven. We miss the little guy in this house. #repostyourart

A crop of four panels from a comic book, all rendered in black-and-white graphite except for the human figure and the comic book cover in the first panel. The first panel is a comic book laying opened, face-down, on a stone path, while a cat's paw gently steps on it. The comic cover says "The Unforgiven #14: Dirge for a Dream - Tyler B. Ruff." The cat says "Mrrow?" The second panel is a close-up of the cat, purring, and rubbing himself against a small boy's leg as the boy says "Miles!" The boy has Caucasian skin and muted yellow shorts. The cat, though rendered in black and white, would be an orange and white tabby pattern if rendered in color. The third panel pulls back to show the concrete back patio of a house with white siding, where the boy is crouched down to speak to the cat, who is now rubbing himself against the gray metal screen door of the house. We see now in addition to the previous details that the boy wears a muted teal t-shirt, and is blonde. He says to the cat, "Where's Chester, hm? Where's your brother? Hm? Oh! You want in." The fourth, small, inset-panel shows just the hand of the boy pressing the button on the handle of the screen door to let the cat inside, saying, "Here ya go."

A crop of three panels from a comic book, all rendered in black-and-white graphite except for the figures, which are rendered in muted color. The first panel shows two men seated in the yard of a house, from the side POV. The man on the left--the adult version of the kid from the previous image (blonde, Caucasian, teal collared button-up shirt: Jared), looks into the middle-distance, lost in thought. The man on the right (Japanese, black hair, gray t-shirt: Jon) looks at the blonde with concern, asking, "You okay?" In the yard, we see a medium expanse of grass, across which is copse of trees along a picket fence, and a few out buildings with white siding. The farthest and most detailed and complete shed we can see has a pitched flat roof angled down toward the right, its paint flaking, some junk collected along its West (right) side, and a bird house nestled under its eaves. Approaching from the shed is Miles (the cat from the previous image), crossing a stone path that cuts across the middle of the grass expanse. In the second panel, we see a close crop of the legs and shoes of the figures as the cat wends its way between the legs of the two seated men, saying, "Mrrow." Both figures wear jeans. The figure on the left (Jon) wears brown saddle shoes; the right (Jared), gray and white Converse-style tennis shoes. The third panel shows a close-up of the two men from the shoulders up, front-facing POV, Jon on the left, Jared on the right. Jared looks down dejectedly at the ground, while Jon still looks at his friend with concern, as he says, "That fight...did not go the way I remember it going." "...No," Jared responds. The cat, off-panel, again responds "Mrrow."

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 03/04/2026

Day 3: Spring #repostyourart "Springs Eternal," hand-cut collage on paper, 2023

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 01/04/2026

I'm bad about posting my art online anymore (for myriad reasons), so gonna try and stick to this themed schedule for the month to appease the algorithm gods (and for people who enjoy viewing human-made art, obv). Today: Hello! "Here I am." #repostyourart

An illustration of a Caucasian man with long blonde hair and an arrow protruding from his face (and several other parts of his body), sits lopsidedly at the end of a trail of his own blood against a graffitied stone wall beneath a ruddy window in a derelict warehouse littered with detritus. The man wears a long brown hooded trench coat and blue armor with gold accents. The text box reads, "Here I am." The title page of an issue of a comic book series, the issue information is also written on the wall ala graffiti: "The Unforgiven, written & illustrated by Tyler B. Ruff. 2.2.1: Strays, Part One."

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 12/03/2026

“You wouldn’t steal a BUILDING—“ I would, and have, and am, right now. And I’ll do it again, too.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 03/03/2026

Comic art is something else. There are no “backgrounds,” there are only opportunities for world and mood building—and driving yourself insane with tiny little minuscule details, as a treat

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 21/01/2026

Today is a great day to read comics and abolish ICE.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 02/01/2026

Y’all, the new issue of The Unforgiven may just be the best thing I’ve ever produced. Can’t wait for you to see the whole thing. Coming in February!

An opened comic book showing two pages side-by-side in close crop. The left page is in grayscale, with some color figures, slowly fading into sepia tones with some desaturated color figures. A high school fight is taking place.

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Tyler B. Ruff @wearetheunforgiven.com · 15/12/2025

The book club is meeting this week to discuss Project Hail Mary

A screenshot of a text message conversation in which participants discuss the various items they will be bringing to the book club discussion, each making reference to something from the book Project Hail Mary: vegetable bullion base in gogurt tubes, strong vodka and protein with toxic metals, burgers made of cloned flesh, and 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎶

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