Hierophants

Writer/Creator Ra'Chaun Rogers is on a mission to share a piece of his mind with the world. In order to do so he's taken his words and scripted the first issue of his comic Hierophants. The world of the book is not unlike our own, there is tension with in Black and Brown communities and the role that the pomice hold in them, the difference is that this world has The Geist as a hero of the people. I spoke with Ra'Chaun about the comic.

 Kaos Blac: So what lead you to write this comic?

 Ra'Chaun Rogers: I'd been trying to write comics since really elementary school. I've been effectivly scripting comics since Junior year of highschool but my push for this was summer of 2008 where I interned at marvel and saw a mural on a wall with hundreds of characters if not thousands and only 10 of them were black. Most of them I'd never really seen, So I decided that we need some stories about us and we (meaning black people) were the only ones who were going to effectivly tell them.

 Kaos Blac: How did you come up with the name behind the book and the concepts?

Art By Kurtis Hamilton

 Ra'Chaun Rogers: The name has changed several times it was originally called the Geist but that name was owned by DC comics then it was called Vilgilance but there was another indie comic with that name. So I had been reading Sandman and Clive Barker's Hellbound heart and the word Hierophants kept coming up so I looked up the meaning and it fit. It's essential a being that guides others to something deemed holy or sacred. The concepts were drived from ancinet African spirtiualism, books that my older brother had recommended to me that I'd read and become enamorued by the info I gained from those books were what gave me the imeptus to make this a more supernatual story.

 Kaos Blac: Not to let to much of the story slip but this story resonates with the current case of Treyvon Martain, as well as NYC's own stop and frisk policies. Its seems to me that these things always seem to happen in the black community, would you like to share your views on the relationship between Black and Brown communities and the authoritative mishandling of people of these communities in dealing with crime. 

Ra'Chaun Rogers: I can yes, I feel we live in an age where "Walking while black/brown" is a crime. There seems to be a lot of "Hey you boy, you must be up to no good" especially in New York city. What gets me is that the people who are the most aggressive when it comes to this are black/brown cops. There is a consensus whether it be unspoken or spoken that Black and Brown Communities have a fear or apprehension toward Authority because of the behavior of said figures in black and brown neighborhoods. We can name the numbers of killings that are public and for everyone there are others that aren't public I had a conversation with my older brother and he said "What if the police are really afraid of us?" to paraphase. So that got me thinking too. My character of Roger Drake is a perfect example of one of the above points. He's torn between where he comes from (Harlem) and where he is (The police force) so his growth and development will show what I think of things related to that.

 Kaos Blac: So how many issues are planned to spin your tail of Hierophants? Ra'Chaun Rogers: Right now there a 8 issue scripted. there will be about 3 or 4 seasons each containing 8 issues so about 32 give or take that's if money is coming in to produceand if people support. Heh. Kaos Blac: So you have a long road ahead of you filled with more stories. Cool beans. Well do you have anything else to say about your work in closing?

 Ra'Chaun Rogers: Yes, not so much my work but the industry i'm in. I'd like to put out a call to all creators of color, keep doing what your doing and to people of color who want to see people with their faces wearing capes and flying around the city. Remember to support, I love to create but no one can do anything without support.

For more info on Ra'Chaun's work check out: Nelomaxwell.blogspot.com

Gender and Variance in species

Thanks to ComicsAlliance for putting me on to the great and varied art work of artist Humon. The site recently featured a set of pictures featuring differing animal groups as cutie figures and their fluidity of sexuality and roles. I just wanted to share these with you.

Also from her deviantART page comes this piece on PCOS

PCOS is a very common disease. 1 in 5 women may even have it, but most doesn't know. " About the gender confusion. There are some PCOS women who throught they were trans, but after starting PCOS treatment reported no longer wanting to change gender. This is not to say all trans people are like this, just that the overload of testerone can have a strong effect on some PCOS women's minds as well as bodies." - Humon


For more of Humon's art check out her DeviantART page.

Eye of the Creator...Mary Knowlton

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your Garden grow?

With color beams, and water color streams

and ideas that often flow. - Kaos Blac, 2011

Mary Knowlton is a self described "abstract painter and punk rocker" trying to find her way in this crazy world by any means necessary, her means of do so is through her art. She paints daily and exercises her ability's to convey what she's feeling through her art. When I can across her work I wanted to asked her a few questions to try to get to know the Mary behind the work, so here's Mary.

Kaos Blac: Tell me a little about yourself.

Mary Knowlton: That's a hard question to answer for me right now. I kind of feel like I'm in flux. The most honest way to put it is, I'm a painter and a punk rocker trying to find my place. Life is tough. No one ever prepares you for the moment you realize that you don't fit in to the way the world says things are supposed to be. Artistic aspirations don't count for much when you have no job and no health insurance. Things can get pretty grim.

(No Direction)

Kaos Blac: I can agree with you on the promise of aspirations in the face of lack of Job and health-care, I'm at that point myself, For me I see it as a transitional period. My Transitional summer if you will to explore myself and learn more about others like yourself.

Mary Knowlton: Really? That seems kind of similar to my situation. I graduated college last May, started working at an art museum, then overnights at an emergency shelter for kids(ages birth to 17yrs). The only thing I was really doing throughout that time was a little bit of painting. I wasn't even playing music anymore. I saved up my money until I couldn't stand being there anymore. Come March I quit my job and drove to California-twice. Then I moved to Austin and lived in a punk house until the lack of air conditioning killed me. Texas summers are brutal. Now I don't what I'm doing. I blew a lot of money staggering around in the heat, but I have just enough for one more run, so I might have to do that. Just feels like there's nothing here for me anymore.

(Chimp, unknown medium)

Transitional period, I like that. For me it's just bumming around. Hopefully I end up somewhere good.


Kaos Blac: Your work, to me, is very abstract and expressive as if you cant contain yourself and you have to get whats inside of you into a medium, in your own words can you describe what it is that drives you to create.

Mary Knowlton: You're completely right. I can't contain myself. That's actually a problem I've been working on. Once I get started painting I just enjoy so much that even though I know a painting is done and I should leave it alone, I keep going and then mess it up. It's just because I like to paint. I like the act of painting and when I run out of room and don't have anything else to paint it's hard for me to stop so I just keep going and building it up. A lot of times I will actually paint something and go over it until it's completely unrecognizable or I'll just paint the whole thing black and start over.

I create because it makes me feel better. It's kind of like therapy to me. If I'm feeling really heavy or have a lot of things that are stressing me out, the act of painting makes me feel lighter. If I'm really anxious about something, it's good for me to get it out. When you have a lot of intense feelings it gives you something else to focus on while your mind works out those thoughts. I paint just because I like it too. It's not always because there's something wrong. I've always painted ever since I was a little kid. I even dream about painting. I guess it makes me happy. I get kind of depressed if I go along time without painting. I can feel the difference.

For the most part my art is pretty abstract unless someone specifically asks me to paint them something, but I've stopped that because I hate it. It takes the enjoyment out of painting to me. I don't paint to follow some stiff set of rules that says I have to show things a certain way. One of the main reasons I like to paint is I can do whatever I want, period.

(Imitation, water color)

I like being able to pick any and every color up and throw it on a canvas. It's fun. Color is a huge part of it to me. I'm really affected by bright colors, they excite me. That's why I use so much dayglo and neon paint. Some of it is even glow in the dark. I'm very much into Hans Hofman, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Jules Olitski. Also Jonas Gerard is my hero. There's so much color in their work, it literally makes me happy to look at it. I know some of that comes out in my stuff too.


Kaos Blac: Where do you see your work moving towards, being a therapeutic release for you what comes next when you worked out your inner ferocity on canvas?

(Blue Elefant, watercolor)

Mary Knowlton: I don't think the therapeutic aspect of me painting will every go away and I wouldn't want it to. That's not something you can just "work out" and be done with. It's part of you. As long as you're alive there will be things that affect you. I see it as a healthy release.

Ultimately I see myself painting large scale abstracts as a professional. I just don't know how I'm going to get to that point with materials and the cost of living being what they are (especially when people always try to low ball you). Many years from now I can see myself working in my own studio and being able to support myself with my art full time. That's pretty much my dream-to be able to climb out of bed in the morning and spend my days creating these gigantic colorful paintings. If I could get to the point where I don't have to worry about money so much that would be good. It's not very important to me to have my work in galleries or museums, though I was in one show last year. I'm more into seeing it in the homes and offices of regular people. I'm most proud when I see my paintings on the walls of my friends an family. It makes me proud. They're just beautiful to look at.


Kaos Blac: Currently what is your favorite piece you've created, and why does it mean so much to you?

Mary Knowlton: I don't have a favorite. My feelings towards what I make change everyday. Today I don't really like any of my paintings-except this watercolor I made for my friend yesterday (July 5th 2011).

(Sticks, water color)

Kaos Blac: Yeah, I was just looking at this one. It's really serene and cooling. What was the idea/ emotion behind it.

Mary Knowlton: No emotion really. He'd just told me he had $5 bucks in his pocket and wanted to buy a watercolor. He said he wanted it to be all different shades of blue because that's his favorite color. Especially royal blue and deep blue. I used every blue I had in my Crayola watercolor set(lol) and a little black too. I just had the image of it in my head and painted it. I bet it took like 10 min.

The truth of the matter is it never takes me very long to finish a painting. That's why I always end up going overboard and messing it up. I just want to keep going and don't always have a fresh canvas or clean sheet. The bristol board I've been using has helped though. I still have a lot of sheets left.


Kaos Blac: Well it's cool that your turning your art into your business, to a degree, I hope you continue to create and evolve in your art and get out what you need to through the artist method of creation.

Mary Knowlton: Thanks, man. One step at a time lol.

More of Mary Knowlton's work can be seen at the following links:


Facebook
Twitter
Youtube Page
Mary Knowlton Afropunk page

Dick painting

Eye of the Creator...Gannon Crutcher

 Through the double doors, past the patrons of packed at the bar and along the brick walls off a dark lil' bar in the west village you'll wouldn't guess that you would ever come across works of art depicting Black men through various lenses of form and representation - superheros, nudes, gallant nights on horse back? We'll look again you stepped into Chi Chiz, a LGBT bar on Christopher street. I recently got a chance to interview one of the artist,Gannon Crutcher,  appearing in the latest gallery showing, Dark Knights. Here's what he had to say about his pieces and his art.



Chi Chiz is located at: 135 Christopher Street , New York NY 10014 USA. Its open daily from 2pm-4am Phone: 212-462-0027

El Malito's Matador, oh lay!

El Malito has been on a odd journey as of late. Aside from making music and theater /street dance he has also been pursuing another of his talents, film making. Currently he is in production of a series of Short's entitled Matador.

: So whats the concept behind "Matador"?

: Matador started as something just for fun. I was tired of live action film making, things like having to find actors, real locations, money, etc. That kind of film making is very hectic, very expensive, and frustrating and it wasn't fun anymore. So I started collecting images from the web and collaging images together. The characters are made up of different parts, for example the lion is a lion head, with a clown wig, a robotic arm, a quilt with female legs, and the body of a Calvin Klein model. The backgrounds are created in the same way for a lot of the scenes. This has allowed me complete creative control with the images(although I bet I'm breaking a trillion copyright laws, but I've started using creative common licensed images so I should be okay, I think).

Anyways, that's how "Matador" started. I made about 13 minutes of it with a very bad, loose story. Then it sat around for a while because I knew what a tremendous undertaking it would be to score and sound design those 13 minutes. Every time I opened it up to start working on it I didn't do a damn thing, plain and simple. Then after watching "Dexter" and "The Tudors" I got the idea to do "Matador" as 30 second clips with recaps at the beginning and that just seemed(and is) much more feasible to finish. Some episodes are a minute long, but again feasible.

As I'm going along putting micro short scenes out weekly the story and themes are becoming much clearer and now I know how it will end and that there is something to it. I like the word "Matador" and decided on it as the title, but now I know what "Matador" means in terms of the theme. This series to me feels like making music(and I'm a musician), particularly jazz(although I'm not a jazz musician) since it's been like free styling without necessarily knowing where it's going, but slowly and surely finding the way. I also think whatever "Matador" turns out to be has been stuck in my subconscious trying to get out and finally it's getting the opportunity.

: How long does each piece take to make?

: Each episode generally take 2-3 hours to complete. They are very short, but it takes time to sync the dialog, ambient sounds, and foley to the images because I'm starting from nothing seeing as this is animation and does not exist in this world. It's pretty time consuming to do animation, especially it's sound design.

: If approached to turn it into a tv show would you jump at the chance?

: I think I would, but I would have to be very honest with the people producing and letting them know I don't know what the hell I'm doing or how and what they will get. Hopefully they'll be open enough to trust something interesting will be unfolded. But good and interesting are not always great bedfellows :)

: So I hope I'm not jumping the gun here but where do you see yourself going with these piece's? Is there a deep meaning behind it all?

: There is a deep meaning in it for me. Maybe it might not be deep for other people, but different strokes...

Anyways, the meaning might hit home when it's viewed completely a little easier, but 'Matador' will finally end up being about trying to be good, starting out good, and the things in this world, the situations, the people who take that goodness out of us.

The following is a recap of the first 7 Matador video's in a single compilation.



For more of El Malito's shorts,(snicker, you'll get the joke soon enough if you havent already) head over to see his video's and for more on his his la musica, check out El Malitos.

Eye of the Creator....William Mwazi

Artist William Mwazi is a man of multiple worlds. Growing up William Mwazi had to contend with his bi-ethnic background, a child of mixed ancestry African-American and Asian, and whenever he showed interest in stating his background he felt confusion from others. His art on the other hand mixes in figures of historical and contemporary of both African and Asian backgrounds with comic book charcaters, images of himself. Tying together all the strands of his being, that elude others at times, into a visual representation of a man who is comfortable with who he is and wants to share his influences with the world around him. Currently he's residing in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province in China. I found his art online and was immediately blown away by the parring of characters and real life personas of his "A Hero Among Us series" and had to contact him, my interview with him is as follows.


Kaos Blac: You have been garnering some press with your participation in one of the "pop-up" galleries in the city, can you discuss how you came upon the opportunity to show your work in the space.

- "John Milledge", Dead Nubian's


- "Bessie Coleman", Dead Nubian Series

William Mwazi: I got involved with an organization that an acquaintance of mine is apart of that helped artist get cheap spaces to work out of as artist studios. The organization is called Chashama. So when I contacted them they I just happen to be looking for artist for their new spaces in Queens. I lucked out usually most people would have to wait to get a space where as for me I just moved right on in.


Kaos Blac: How do you feel that about your work being in the "pop-up" gallery and the reporting of the galleries. To me most of the pieces on the galleries have been fluff pieces and fodder in light of the art that's there.



William Mwazi: I felt that the press that we the artist in the space got was minimal. It really was not about the artist per say as to publicize the organizations that that helped the artist. I mean all of us where hungry to get some public acknowledgment! So we got pretty up tight about getting little recognition as individual artist. But I was happy to get some publicity of me and my work! I got a few good paying commissions from my televised appearance, so to say that if I didn't get the chance to have a studio space my work would have never gotten any of the press; little coverage that it was, but it was something...


Kaos Blac: I'm fascinated by your use of contemporary Afro-American figures in your work and their pairing with comic book characterizations. How did these pairing come up as a concept for your art-work?


- Mr. Terrific and Daughter, A Hero Among Us Series 1
2008
19 3/4inX25 3/4in
Charcoal on paper


- Oprah: Captain-Marvel, A Hero Among Us: Series 2
2009
19 3/4inX25 3/4in
Charcoal on paper

William Mwazi: I was and am so excited to work on my hero series. I compare what I do to what the master artist have done in the past. Instead of portraits of kings, queens, and nobleman of the past here I used our contemporary public figures that I immortalize. I'm a product of pop-art and that's where my influences come from I'm a big comic geek to boot, so I loosely based my A Heroes Among Us series II off of my A Heroes Among Us series I where it was the parents who where the heroes to the children with series II it was public and cultural figures as our heroes. It started when President Barack Obama winning the presidential race and I needed to do an illustration for the Studio of Harlem's magazine Studio. So the first image for A Heroes Among Us II was the one I had done of Barack Obama for there Studio mag. That was based on different drawing that I added as a bonus work for my Heroes among Us series I. That I exhibited at the Corridor Gallery in Brooklyn. The 2nd drawing of President Barack Obama for A Heroes Among Us series II and Studio mag had a different design that worked better with the magazines lay out.


- Captain America: Barack Obama (The Future of Leadership), A Hero Among Us: Series 2
2009
19 3/4inX25 3/4in
Charcoal on paper

Kaos Blac: So will you continue to make any more portraits in this series?

William Mwazi: Yeah I can and will go back and work on more of these images in the heroes sires 1 and 2. There are a lot of other unsung hero's that need to be acknowledge!!!

Kaos Blac: How did (do) you start to create your pieces? To me, the theme of juxtaposition of culture is a prevalent aspect of your work and appears often. Being of mixed ethnicity yourself do you feel that it informed what you do as an artist?


- William Mwazi (l) with the image of Tiger Woods in the background, both are of mixed African-American and Asian heritage.


-William Mwazi as Mao Zedong


- William Mwazi as Xuanzang


- William Mwazi as Yao Ming

William Mwazi: It started in New York actually before I even thought about coming here to China. Now that I think about it seems more fitting that I did finish my portraits here. But anyway back to how it started I did some smaller drawing of me as Mao, Bruce lee, and Laozi and they where hanging in my studio space just for show not really a part of my body of work at the time when one of my studio-mates Hidemi Takagi came in and asked me about them. That's when I got to tell her about my cultural background and that my drawings where a visual exploration in to knowing more about my grandfathers culture in China. So to say she was my first cheerleader in to moving forward into farther exploring my concept. So I thank her and other Asian artist and patrons who came and gave me the positive encouragement that I needed to follow my project through. So now I'm here in mainland China. I've been hanging out with my family in Guangzhou (formally know as Canton) when I got the opportunity to do an artist residency in Sichuan province in its capital city of Chengdu. After I was done with the artist residency I signed up to work as an oral English teacher at Sichuan University which I’ll start work next week. When I’m finish with the school year I would like to head to Beijing to do an art residency for a little bit then come back down to Guangzhou to see my family again and there I'll like to study Chinese and continue my art work. That's the plan anyway but I'll see.... Plans tend to change, Ha Ha. :)

Kaos Blac: What is your favorite comic book character?


- From the Super Self-Image Series, Green Lantern. William self imposes his facial likeness onto action figures. The statement on series is as follows, "With my illustrations of heroic images, I would like to inspire strength and courage in the African-American community, as well as the larger population. I believe that childrenalready have the desire to be larger than themselves (figuratively and literally), and that my work will inspire them to go beyond their limits and dream to be more. To exicte!!!

William Mwazi: My Favorite comic Character is The Justice League animated series Green Lantern - John Stewart I loved his personality! In book form his like most of the black fictional characters have no strong personality traits or flaws. They’re pretty bland with the exception of the Blade character! He always Rocked! Ha Ha. I guess other writers didn’t want to seem racist or stereotyping black characters or they just had them written safe with no flavor, but the Black Panther Books kicked ass under the writing of Reginald Hudlin the first and only black writer of the this main title. I felt a connection with the character was it because the writer happen to be black I don't know??? But the Character came alive for me!


- Green Lantern and Sons, A Hero Among Us Series 1
2008
19 3/4inX25 3/4in
Charcoal on paper


- Black Panther and Son, A Hero Among Us Series 1
2008
19 3/4" X 25 3/4"
Charcoal on paper

Kaos Blac: You know John Stuart really gets no love. Hal gets to die come back, get a yellow ring, a blue ring, a red ring, and orange ring, a white ring, hell all the other earth lanterns get some kind of shake up to their core values and powers. Black characters never really get to move beyond being the fact that they are created and its sad. I do however like what Reginald Hudlin has done to Black Panther. he's gone into the character and made them, well characters. You get a sense that they are living and breathing in their world. I really like the fact that the current Black Panther is a female. There really isn't enough strong Black female characters that can stand on their own and sustain a titular comic book, although the run was short but she is coming back. Continuing on with what I started talking about with John Stuart Black comic book characters in that they are just bland. They never really have any kind of in-depth personality traits and its a shame. My question to you is if you were ever to be approached to do a comic by any of the big boys', ie Marvel or DC, to work on any of their titles or even make your own who, out side of John Stuart Green Lantern would you work on as artist, pending they had a good writer so you could focus on your art.

William Mwazi: If I were ever to be approached to do a comic by any of the big boys', ie Marvel or DC, to work on any of their titles it would be Cloak from Cloak and Dagger. I always like the idea to do some awesome pen ink brush work on that character. But they're stories should be mush adventurous than being street crime fighters it lessened their potential where I thought the books should have gone more into a Hell-boyish or it's spin off The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (the B.P.R.D. or BPRD) direction that would have been hot!!!!!! but that's just me, what do I know?!

I do hope he gets a chance to work his magic on a comic or graphic novel some time soon. In the meantime his paintings, sketches, and drawings will have to suffice. You can find more of his work at William Mwazi. Also you can see his work in person if your in Brooklyn, NY at MoCADA as a part of the "Aint I A Woman" exhibition.

Eye of the creator....Jack Forbes aka Hebrewgod

Comic's are an escape for many and for many more it's a life line. For artist Jack Forbes aka Hebrewgod it was an escape from his life. I became aware of his art while seeing him appear during a signing he was doing at Forbidden Planet NYC and became fascinated by his work. The dark lines and mood of his line work enthralled me enough to ask to interview him. What follows is a concentrated look at an artist his life and a yiffing good time.


Kaos Blac: So tell me how did you first begin to get into creating comics?
Hebrewgod: I think I first got into creating comics back in 7th or 8th grade when I decided that it was the best idea in the universe for Mega-man and Sonic to have a crossover (they're both blue, both have rivals that start out as enemies then become friends that are red, the similarities go on). But this was just for fun and eventually it was time to choose a college to go to. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I was strongly leaning towards drug dealer. I had a pretty good idea how that system worked, knew some people I could intern to get my start in the business, but one day I was talking to my brother on the phone and he asked me what I wanted to do with my life, apart from sell crack rock, and I said, I want to be a comic book artist which was the wildest most unrealistic job I could imagine at the time. Then he said "Then go do that". To say that my mind was blown, that the heavens opened up, and god himself came down and made love to my face would be an understatement. Less than a week later someone told me about this place called SVA that actually had a major for making comics and was only a train ride away. I'm from Brooklyn by the way, So yea, I went there and started making comics and really got serious about the whole thing. Looking back though, I still wonder about the prestige and romance of slinging crack rock on them corners and what might have been but one must live with the decisions they've made.

- Page Three from, Heretic, comic

Kaos Blac: You know I've actually have heard similar stories from other artist, shit you not (well not the megaman/sonic thing ((that would be an end game killer, the world may blow up))). The drug game can really catch people out there when there is no hope else-wise or influences.



Hebrewgod: I think the reason a lot of artists consider slinging crack rock is because we all really hate the idea of working a corporate 9 to 5 job. The idea of dressing in a suit and tie is so unappealing that we'd rather murder people.


Kaos Blac: What was it like going to SVA as a local dude from Brooklyn?

Hebrewgod: It was cool. I didn't have to get a dorm. It was great being able to focus on comics and talk to other people about them in a really anal and overly critical manner. And it really opened me up to comics that I never even knew existed. For instance Tom Hart is introduced me to Moebius and blew my mind! The main influence was the SVA Library though, which had a huge comics collection so in the summer of my freshman year I would go to the Library every Monday, check out 10 comics (which was the limit), read them and bring them back the following Monday to check out 10 more. So I read all of Cerebus, Akira and Sandman that summer. Tons of stuff.

Kaos Blac: If you could, describe your art style.


-Untitled

Hebrewgod: I guess I would describe my artwork the same way most people would. Creepy as shit. It's not necessarily my intention to be really creepy, I just can't help it. I'm a creepy person in general I guess, which is cool to me cause I really love creepy shit, I'd be perfectly happy if I looked like the crypt keeper (from the TV show, not the comics.) because I think there's something really tremendously beautiful in grotesque and ugly things that most people don't appreciate cause you have to look a bit deeper for it. I went to Catholic school my whole life and my elementary school was basically a Gothic cathedral so that probably influenced my creepy sensibilities as well. But I would say my main goal with my art is to impart the viewer with an emotion, that's pretty much the most important thing to me, the second most important thing is beauty, I'm desperately in love with beauty of all kinds, so yea. I try to create things that are beautiful and emotional, but end up with creepy shit, that's my art.


Kaos Blac: In New York, especially growing up here, I'm also from the Bk (not Burger King) all you have is the grit and hum of the city life so its kinda powerful to be able to take those "ugly things" and see the beauty with in them.

If you could chose a piece of your work, or create something new to symbolize the elements of or personify the elements of your style what would it be or look like?

-(Lookin for love, in all the wrong places)

- (Ninja love is the best love.)


- Page Twenty from Orpheus, comic

Hebrewgod: I'm not sure what you mean by the question. Like which piece best represents my style? I don't know, the Orpheus comic that I'm currently working on (but there are a few pages on my website) represents my artsier side. I don't know, everything I do for myself represents different parts of what I hope to accomplish with my art. I mostly try to make comics like I've never seen before.


Kaos Blac: You recently made a comic with international bassist Melissa Auf der Maur how did you end up working together?


- Page twelve of Out Of Our Mind, collaboration with Melissa Auf der Maur.

Melissa is awesome, easily my favorite client. We met when I was working with Kevin McCloed on a comic for a magazine he did called MSTRM but that kinda fell apart and he introduced me to Melissa who was looking for a cartoonist for her latest project. So yea, over the course of months we'd meet up and discuss what to do with the comic. they'd already film about half of the movie and she let me see that. Melissa's smart because every time we met up she'd buy me a bacon cheese burger, which made me much more accepting of any revisions or anything she wanted on the pages. But yea, it was alot of fun. I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to mention this but we're kinda currently working on the next comic, which will feature the same character from the movie and comic. So I'm looking forward to more bacon cheese burgers!

Kaos Blac: Ah the age old bait and switch with a bacon cheese burger, a many have fallen beneath its cheese covered deliciousness. So beside a purposed second with with Melissa what else are you working on?

Hebrewgod: Lemme see. Right now I'm in the Mocca NeoIntegrity show. I've got 6 pages in the porno-corner with R. Crumb and Moebius and Jason Little and Alex Ross, which is still blowing my mind. I'm getting ready for some conventions that are coming up to pimp with my new book. It's called Yiffing the Stars: The Tragedy of Lesli Firecracker.

-Cover from Yiffing the stars: The Tragedy of Lesli Firecracker

Ok, funny story! So a friend of mine who I met at SVA, Jodi Tong, makes fucking furry pornography! Which is weird cause she's a hotty. Ok, so one year I said fuck it, I gotta see what this shit is about, because no one REALLY knows! Is it one big orgy? Are they all weird old dudes who enjoy petting their cats a little too much? Fuck I had to know! So I went with her to a weird fucking furry convention in Memphis (The Mephit Fur Meet). I didn't want to just go as a some fuckin' outsider watching the crazy happenings inside, oh no I needed to be apart of this world so I started drawing weird fucking furry porn so that I too was implicated in the crime of being a furry pornographer! and let me tell you, that place was fucking AMAZING! It was the best convention I've ever been to in my life! It was insanely nerdy! Fuckin 24 hour counter-strike! Fuckin' Smash Brothers Tournaments! Fuckin' Magic: The Gathering! It was insane! AND sometimes there'll be a person dressed as a 6 foot tall squirrel who wants to shake your hand because they think you draw awesome naked ladies. I don't know if you've ever tripped balls on drugs for 3 days but that's what it was fucking like! Anyway, Yiffing the Stars is the book I've made for this years convention (In September)!

- Artwork form Yiffing the Stars: The Tragedy of Lesli Firecracker


- Page from September 2010 Outdoor Life Magazine

I'm also the official Monthly cartoonist for Outdoor Life Magazine, a hunting magazine. Now before you said WTF, you should know that like 4 years ago Tony "Ex Machina" Harris was making comics for Outdoor Life! I'm gonna be working for them for the next year so if you pick up an issue of outdoor life any time this year I'll be in it.

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So aside from all the heavy pelts and pelt petting Jack's work is just getting me all yiffy, (look up yiff, and yiffying up its like falling down the rabbit's hole), and I cant wait to see what he does next and so should you. Get more info on his work at: