JoJo's blog

Aw, wow, I totally failed eleven days ago, as far as letting you guys know what's going on. (See, I got caught up in something big that Andrew and I are working on...It's really exciting, but I can't tell you about it yet!)

So! It's a new month, and that means that I have a new shirt for you. For March, we have a Cosmic Liger. :D

And now here's a new page of Dis for you! I've decided that before we hop immediately into chapter 4, we're going to do a brief intermission...a short myth in color! Be excited! But first, continuing chapter 3.

03: 40 : Honest Woman

And because I forgot to mention when page 19 went up, you get that and the just-completed page 20!

Yay!

Here is some more art that I've made recently:

Also! One new wallpaper, if you're into that sort of thing.

Also! I've received gifts! From wonderful people. <3

Jadine made these adorable drawings of Persephone! I just wanna give her a squishy hug!

And Inferno drew me this seriously badass portrait of Zeus! Awww, it's such a perfect likeness of him, with that nasty grin...

And dearest Dani drew me not one, but two pictures of the Makeshift Man!!* She has made him look like a pretty, pouty, primpy teenager...which is so excellent, because that is basically what he is. She's gotten that idea across much better than I do. <3

Awww...So much love. <3

I should probably end this news post or I'll just start ramblin' to ya about music and books and stuff, and I really ought'a be getting more V'Day sketches drawn, instead. So I'm gonna do that.

Peace, everyone!

*Two exclamation points; one for each picture.

Status: Disco...Listening To: Casiokids - "Fot I Hose"...Been Reading: Kazushi Hagiwara - Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy...Been Watching: The Adventures of Pete and Pete

Aaaaaauuuggggghhhhh, what is this?! Comic pages?! Madness...!

A new page of Dis! Wherein a compromise is reached. Five more pages until the end of this chapter. (I might redraw the last four of 'em...)

And a new page of The Makeshift Man! Wherein MM is surprised, and wherein it is also revealed that he wears mismatched socks (as, I suspect, everyone already assumed.)

You can, like, discuss these goings-on in the forum, if you like. That'd be nice.

So! Amazing! I've received some lovely gifts!

Kelly drew this happy lil' ghetto picture of her and me and dinosaurs and delicious cake:

And Greg drew this great picture of Hades! I love how he looks so miserable, but not at all surprised...

And Matt drew this amazingly kickass picture of Eros! Aw, he's never looked so good...

Thank you so much, everyone! <3

Here are a couple things I've put together:

Now for those Valentine's Day sketches...

Here are some comics that I've read recently that I've really enjoyed. I think you should maybe read them, too. :D

(Psst! Also! Tote bag! Get you some'a that!)

Well...I'm sorta under the weather. Gonna go crawl in bed with some tea and a book. Keep it groovy, all. JoJo out.

Status: Somatic Mutiny...Listening To: Orgy - Candyass...Been Reading: Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby...Been Watching: Space Ghost, Coast to Coast

JoJo's in the kitchen, a-cookin' up somethin' for you...

Can you pick up on what I'm puttin' down, baby?

Status: Somatic Mutiny...Listening To: Gorillaz - "Stylo (Yuksek Remix)"...Been Reading: Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby...Been Watching: Space Ghost, Coast to Coast

It's that time of year again when my little JoJo circulatory muscle gets to be so full up with love for you guys (and blood!) that I just can't even stand it anymore, and I have to let it all come gushing out through my fingertips, via pencil graphite, and go splattering all over sheets of 65lb acid-free drawing paper! (Evocative imagery, non?)

So, please let me have this opportunity to, once again, draw a sketch of something happy for you...completely free, of course.

Here's how it works:

Comment on one of my four official Sketch Catch locations: Dead Squirrel, LiveJournal, DeviantArt, or Sheezy Art. (Just one, not all four, you silly.) And tell me what you'd like a picture of. I shall be happy to honor your request!

The Sketch Catch will last from February 12 until 12am February 15. That's the moment when February 14 becomes February 15. You must make your request within this time window. (February 15 is so easy to remember, of course, because it is my birthday. ^__^ )

The usual rules apply:

1. Take this opportunity for a drawing of something that'll make you happy. I won't draw anything hate-y. Also, I'm not gonna draw anything that you'd have to hide under your mattress to keep your mom from finding it.
2. These are gonna be graphite sketches; no ink or color. Please don't let this notion surprise you.
3. Sketches will be done in the order in which requests are received. The complete list will be kept here at the DSC forum, so you don't have to ask me when you'll get your sketch; you can just check the list. Modern convenience!
4. No placeholders; you won't go on the list until you know what you want a picture of. You've got a couple days to think it over, so no "I'll get back to you," okay?
5. Please provide a reference when you make your request! I can't draw your portrait if I don't know what you look like, and if you ask for any kind of video game thing, I will probably not know what it is, and I will get things wrong if I try to figure it out on my own! (This has happened before, much to my eternal mortification.) In any case, you'll get your sketch faster if I don't have to spend time researching, and can just hop into drawing! If you're asking me to draw an original character of yours, please tell me a little about their situation and personality, too.
6. Please only make your requests in one of my official GVDSCE10 posts. I get so many of these sketch requests that if they're in different places, I can't keep track of them! You don't want me to lose your request.
7. Please don't comment on my request posts to say, "Oh, this is so nice, but I don't want to burden you with a request." It's not a burden! I do this because I want to, otherwise I wouldn't do it! And it insults me if you don't want one of my drawings even if I'm giving them away.
8. You don't need to be a regular watcher or anything. It's okay if we have never spoken before! I will still be just as happy to draw for you.
9. Only one sketch per person! You can't ask for one sketch for you and one sketch for your kid brother. Your kid brother will have to ask, himself.
10. You can put this picture on your website or print off a copy for your wall or something like that. But you can't use it for anything that's gonna make any money. ('Cause that's not fair, ya know?) If you show it anywhere, please give proper citation. (And a link back to me would be awesome, if it's online.)

One final rule:

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday: the world is dressed in my favorite color (cadmium red,) a certain little Greco-Roman god* is plastered everywhere, everything smells like chocolate, and it's a celebration of lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ove. And, ya know, that doesn't have to mean romance. But you know what real love is? Selflessness. Now, I'm as myopic and narcissistic as anyone else here (and probably more so. Why else would I become a writer, of all things?) But it really breaks my heart when I see this day that's supposed to be about showing others how much you love them, and people talk about "Black Hearts Day" or "Anti-Valentine's Day", being spiteful and angry because they might not be all romantically tied up at the moment. Everybody's got someone to love.
So anyway, my last rule is that, if you're one of those people who hates V'Day, you just shut up about that particular opinion. At least while I'm around. Cool? Cool.

Then let the sketching begin!

* Well...putti, at least. Not necessarily the same as Eros (not to be confused with Eros.) But, ya know, I figure I'm within my rights to project my own ridiculous notions onto what I'm looking at, in such instance as this.

Status: Love Love Love!...Listening To: Alice Cooper - "You & Me" (Live)...Been Reading: Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby...Been Watching: The Venture Bros.

Hmm...Whatever was going on with the comic navigation appears to have corrected itself. Weird.

But, anyway, here is a new page!

...Aww, MM, yer such a nice fellah, wearin' your tacky suit an' comin' into folks' homes to murder their children or whatever...

Here's a couple more drawings. There's not a lot, because I've been busy working on commissions, and y'all don't get to see 'em until after they've been delivered.

New wallpaper, if your desktop needs more swagger:

I think I'm gonna be able to get back to writing Dis soon. I know I've mentioned this before, but I get to overthinking what I'm doing, and my head gets all tied up in knots and reservation. I've just gotta keep reminding myself...
1. I am not a philosopher, a sociologist, a political activist, or anything else like that. I'm just an author.* Just. An. Author. My job is to tell stories, not to portray social theories.
2. I only need to write stories that I, personally, will like. I don't need to write to please anyone else, or fit anyone else's agenda of what makes a good story. I just need to write a story that I, personally, would want to read.
3. I only want to write individual characters. I don't want these characters to be representative of any ideas or groups. I am a writer of personalities, not of allegories.**
4. My characters all*** tend to be either idiots or jerkasses or both. Hence, my characters tend to be wrong, in whatever opinions they're professing at any given moment. I don't need to worry about making anyone "right". I just need to make them act in character.
5. Everything I'm going to do is going to be misinterpreted anyway, and no matter what I do, people are gonna totally hate my guts for one reason or another, 'cause, ya know, that's pretty universal****, so what me worry?

Mehhhhhhh.

Did I mention that I have a fabulous shop full of magical wonders? I think you'd look mighty fine in a t-shirt with a bunny rabbit. I surely do.

Oh, by the way...It's time to think up what you want a sketch of for Valentine's Day. Details pending.

* I was gonna type "writer", but that feels disingenuous 'cause I draw, too. So..."author", even though it doesn't sound as nice.
** I feel self-conscious writing that, as though I'm sabotaging myself with some kind of womanly writing brought on by my irrational and hysterical ovaries. Oh, good gravy, there I go again with the overthinking what I do...I need a good kick in the head or something, Itellhyewwhut.
*** Exception: Grandmother Death, in The Makeshift Man. Not sure when she's gonna show up, yet. Maybe Hestia, in Dis, too. She's super introverted, though, so...
**** What is the phrase? "All analysis is over-analysis"? Something like that? Who said that...?

Status: GUH...Listening To: The Beatles - "Come Together"...Been Reading: Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby...Been Watching: Muppets Tonight; The Venture Bros.

Man, oh, man, it's been a whole friggin' year since I updated my portfolio! Kinyewbeleevit? Crazy. Well, that's been taken care of. Please do kindly go and take a look at my portfolio in all its updated glory. Glory.

Now...I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I have a new page of The Makeshift Man! Hooray! The bad news is that for some mysterious reason, it isn't linking up with the rest of the comic. We're not sure why, yet. (Though it's showing in the RSS feed.) Most curious, most curious. I was gonna wait until that was fixed before announcing it here, but, well...I guess I'll just go ahead and link you here, and we'll just keep working on getting that beaten forcibly into submission.

This is page sixteen, wherein the number sixteen is of some significance. Fabulous coincidences!

I'm making splendid progress writing the second issue and getting things designed for it. It's going to be set in Watertown, South Dakota, and Andrew and I will be taking a research trip down there as the time draws closer. And he's actually going to be filming a documentary on the process of making this crazy lil' independent comic! How awesome!

And here is some more good news! A new shirt for sale, following our habitual monthly custom! I call this one "Feed My Rabbit". Inspired by equal parts Electric Six and Lewis Carroll, the white rabbit comes screaming into your consciousness for a fabulous tea party. :D

And! Oh! A gift! I received a gift! How wonderful! Miss DemonLordOnigawa just recently became a new Dis reader, and when she got all caught up, she drew me this sketch of her, um...meeting Hades. IT IS ADORABLE. :D <3

Ya-a-a-a-a-ay! Here is some other art that I have made in the past...month?:

...SO MUCH. GUH.
But I'm caught up on things, now, besides a couple outstanding commissions that I'm working on. This is good, because now it's February, and you all know what that means!...Keep it tuned for here-tell of my annual Valentine's Day Sketch Catch Extravaganzapalooza... ^__~

All right, back to work. Keep it frosty, cats n' kittens!
~ √JoJo

Status: Busy!...Listening To: Alice Cooper on the King Biscuit Flower Hour (1975)...Been Reading: Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby...Been Watching: Mystery Men

Been in this wicked art slump, lately, feeling all kinds of awful things about me being without skill and having a stupid, unmarketable style, and how I shall die a poor failure, and thus a shame to my father the engineer who is very concerned with my finances even though I otherwise wouldn't really care all that much about it, honestly, and that my stories are idiotic and probably will get everyone in the world hating me.

Anyway, I've gotten over it, and I am back to my usual and preferred state of feeling like I could play checkers against a Bengal tiger and punch out the Sun. This is because, well, heck, getting people all riled up is what I should be doing. In the right way, of course. But boy howdy, I ought'a be unconcerned with that. All I've gotta be concerned with is my relationship with Jesus Christ, dig? Everything else will just work itself out one way or another, and who cares.

On the subject of my newly scaled-back hours at the day job, in order to have more time for comics, commissions, and other art, I was thinking about signing up as a provider on Elance. Have any of you had experience with this site? Was it awesome or heinous? Did you get swell results? Is it totally legit-ass?

Anyway, here's a groovy-as-buttons collaboration I did with Juno Blair B. as a poster for Absinthe Junk's recent Chicago show.

So, uh...CafePress is selling things to benefit Unicef's relief efforts to Haiti. I submitted a design to them for the purpose, but I don't know if they're gonna use it. I'll let you know if that happens. But please think about making a purchase (all proceeds go to the cause) or making a donation directly to Unicef (which is what I did.) Even a small donation will make a big difference to all the people who were affected by this terrible event. :(

~Peace

Status: Better...Listening To: Skillet - "The Fire Breathes"...Been Reading: Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby...Been Watching: Space Ghost, Coast to Coast

Hmm...Yes...If you haven't figured it out yet, I've found myself taking a slight comic hiatus for the holidays. I'm not gonna lie...It's been really nice; I've been playing a lot of Rock Band. But I'll have new pages soon. In the meantime, here is what new art I've put together so far in 2010.

Got some forum Christmas gifts:

And other stuff:

So-o-o-o-o-o... I've been entertaining the notion of beginning a larger painting series, with the intent of having, after about a year, enough material to fill a solo gallery exhibition. But I'm not quite sure what I want to paint! Right now, my three main ideas are
1. Golden Age inspired pulp literature...We are talking UFOs and dinosaurs and true crime and Lovecraftian monsters. Probably in a variety of media.
2. Fairy tales...Traditional tales of magic and wonder and scaring the snot out of small children all over the world, with my own kind of visual shenanigans going on. Probably in watercolor.
3. Something for which I think the working title--though not the final one, for obvious reasons--would be "Amerifuckingana". Basically, a continuation of what total balderdash I started in "Young Love in the Sherbert Ripple". Would be acrylic.
...Or do you have any even better ideas for what I should spend a year painting? Please let me know!

In other news, I am seriously considering the purchase of a laptop computer. I would use it for the purposes of writing, and store my various story notes upon it, and take it with me hither and yon to seclude myself in places without distraction (such as a coffee house) and get into the habit of serious writing. Make shit happen. I think this might be a really good change to my lifestyle. I will perhaps get this for myself as a birthday gift to me. (February 15th, if you'll recall.)

News today that is good and doesn't have to do with what I'm doing:

1. The Zombieland writers have been hired to write the screenplay for the Deadpool movie. They intend to be totally true to the character in the comics, and they plan to listen carefully to Ryan Reynolds' input.

2. There's gonna be a David Bowie tribute album to benefit War Child UK, probably in May, and MGMT and Duran Duran are contributing.

3. Sir Christopher Lee is recording a symphonic metal album about Charlemange.

4. Daybreakers opens in two days.

(P.S. Support the radical hijinks!)

Status: Fwee!...Listening To: Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes...Been Reading: Jane Austen - Persuasion; Stan Lee & Jack Kirby - The Avengers...Been Watching: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; Rock-A-Doodle

Status: Mm, Yeah, Pretty All Right...Listening To: Led Zeppelin - "Whole Lotta Love"...Been Reading: Jane Austen - Persuasion; Japanese Love Poems...Been Watching: Clone High; Dead Snow

Whoo-hoo! It's a brand-spankin', shiny-ass new year, y'all! And as it is now January, it is time for a new shirt-of-the-month for sale! Hooray! This is also my first art of 2010! Oboy! I decided to kick-start this year off right...with monkeys! Monkeys in masks! I hope you like it. The design itself is available in three different color schemes, and you can get each one printed on, like, a bazillion different colors o' cotton. The amazing possibilities, you guys!

Also! My "About" page has been update-ified. Be aware of this.

...So, uh...You wanna see my last art of '09? It's not much, since I've been wicked-busy with the holidays, but here are the Christmas cards I designed for my day job, and a picture in response to the horrible blizzards we've been beset with, 'round here, and also a picture of myself as an X-Wing fighter pilot:

Plus! Something special to celebrate the completion of a decade*, and a whole decade of Onieros with still not a satisfactory finished comic page to show for it...here is the evolution of my art** through ten years, traced through a single character.

So, what are your resolutions? I'm resolving to draw my comics on something akin to a schedule, to draw more, and to handing out more money to other people. Here's to the bright and glorious future! *toasts with a glass of pomegranate 7-Up*

* Yes, John, the new decade technically starts with 2011. However, when that penultimate digit rolls over, we all start thinking of it as the breaking point. And it makes a lot more sense conversationally!

** Yeah, yeah, I used to draw in animu-style when I was thirteen. I've never hidden this fact!

Status: I'm wringing my hands...menacingly!...Listening To: The Who - "Substitute"...Been Reading: Jane Austen - Persuasion...Been Watching: Clone High

Hey you guys...crazy request, if you happen to have one a' them Twitter accounts.

Tweet my name here, please?

Some of us are desperate for inquisitive eyeballs. ^__^;;

Y'all are the best internet street team of any independent cartoonist, ever. <3