The Poj

Q:Since I barely know you, I'd like to get to know you! (haha wow that came right out of the creeper express.) So would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?

I wrote up a long answer to this, but then my browser goofed me up and I’m back to square one now. D’oh!

As a child, I grew up with Disney movies, the original Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Sunday funnies, all of which contributed toward an early love of (mostly) American cartooning. In high school I was religious reader of Penny Arcade and Homestar Runner along with some other early flash cartoons and webcomics. I was also my high school newspaper’s cartoonist, and I did a monthly strip known as “Super Chicken” that followed the exploits of its namesake hero versus the evil Professor Pigeon. It was nothing too impressive, but it did have an episode about “misfortune cookies” that I still chuckle at whenever I remember it.

In college I studied mostly fine arts including oil painting, fine metalworking and plaster mold-making/casting, but it was ancient architecture history that held my interest more than most of the studio subjects I pursued. This tends to be reflected in my college notebooks. My sarcasm, enjoyment of humor and occasional cynicism tend to betray the “seriousness” of most fine art, and as such I’ve always had a soft spot for pop art. One of my favorite moments as an artist was catching a Jeff Koons show at the palace of Versailles in France.

Upon graduating from my University in 2008, I realized my real passion was still cartooning… something I really didn’t follow while I was in college. Although I didn’t grow up reading printed serial comics, I love to write almost as much as I love to draw and I find that writing/drawing comics fulfills both of these desires very well. I owe a lot to War for Arcadia and other internet art peers for helping me discover who I really am and where I want to go with my art, especially now that I’m pursuing digital art. Digital art is still a realm that’s relatively new to me, and I am eager to pick up anything I can.

These days, I do custom-painted shoes from time to time and I also spend a lot of time working on digital 2D art. I love video games, and ultimately I’d love to land a gig someday as a 2D game artist.

That is all! Long answer ahoy!