johnnywander

Chapter 9 / Page 18 pencils

WAHH, we got so distracted sharing new interior Chapter 6 pages during the kickstarter, I stopped sharing early pencil pages! Here's Page 18, which is being posted TOMORROW! Chiaki is heeerreee ~

As always, this page was thumbnailed by Ananth with models in CSP and handed off to me.

I'm excited to start sharing the next scene! It's probably the single most difficult to color scene of my entire career? Slogging through it has absolutely made me want to give up on color entirely haha, I miss working in black and white :,)

Hope you're all doing well!!!!

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 17 & 18

Here's some large versions of this week's comics! And we have special guest appearance!

Looks like it's time for a scene transition, but to where~ ~ ~ ~

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 15 & 16

This week's comics!!! 🥰 Loving this vacation into Cameron's brain

Also we got in our one pg-13 f-bomb lol

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! The KS ends tomorrow!!

Tomorrow is Halloween!!!!! Happy Halloween everyone!!!! 🎃🎃🎃

I've been juggling a lot of work lately so it was admittedly nice to hunker down and just draw a big fun Halloween illustration! Originally we were talking about having Percy & Leeds be Frankenstein & Frankenstein's monster (we weren't sold on which would be which yet, Leeds in a lab coat sounds fun)... but honestly, the comic is called BARBAROUS, shouldn't they both be monsters?? Right?????

ALSO, if you were interested in backing the BARBAROUS Chapter 6 Kickstarter, you have about 24 hours to do it!!!! Everyone together just unlocked a new sticker sheet, so I get to design another one of those for you! 💃

And don't forget, after pledging you can also pick up a pretty big variety of other stuff from our regular online shop as add-ons (including the secret 18+ BARBAROUS zines if you wanted to get your hands on those! There's 2 of them now!)

As always, thank you for your support!!!! I hope you're having a chill week and have a fun weekend ahead of you~ 🎃👻

New BARBAROUS 6 interior art: Fortuna

The BARBAROUS Chapter 6 Kickstarter ends in TWO DAYS, on HALLOWEEN!!! 🎃✨

In celebration, I wanted to show off some more interior art I did just for this collection!

This was the final large illustration I did for the book. We didn't want to change the placement of the spreads (a spread being a set of two facing pages), so this illustration of Fortuna needed to stretch across 2 pages -- hence her long lion tail trailing behind into the right-hand page. In print I think it will look both eye-caching and also be a nice moment to relax the eyes (imo this is actually really important in comics!)

I feel like as time has gone on, Fortuna has become more extruded and and more angular... more like a strange alpaca hybrid than a dog, and it makes me want to go back and make her weirder in older chapters. BUT NO, I must resist my baser instincts to go back and redo art for the sake of ego. U___U

I've mentioned it before, but older familiars are supposed to be references to classical statuary. Fortuna in particular was designed to look like a dog made out of acanthus leaves. In a much older draft of BARBAROUS, Fortuna was originally named Artemisia, but we eventually opted for Fortuna since it's a much simpler (and more intriguing) name.

Thank you again to everyone who's supported BARBAROUS and supported the current Kickstarter - we couldn't be sharing this kind of work without you! Here's to many more comics from us to you!

BARBAROUS Chapter 6 cover: process & design!

HELLO!!! The BARBAROUS CH.6 Collection Kickstarter ends in THREE DAYS!!! AAA 🔥

In celebration, I wanted to do a writeup on a the cover design process and share it with everyone! (Note: jsyk, this isn't the final book design! I'm sharing a cover without finalized trade dress, back text etc..)

We decided early on we wanted to try to do something slightly different with the trade dress, since Ch.6 marks the beginning of a new season and a new story arc. So now the BARBAROUS logo is sitting vertical up the left side and isn't stacked in that more-designerly-but-also-more-difficult-to-read way.

BARBAROUS Chapter 3 cover. The logo is stacked over the cover art and semi-transparent.

BARBAROUS chapter 6 cover. The logo is vertical up the left side of the book, and more opaque.

The cover concept was 'Leeds tying the magic string on Percy' - which is the big plot beat that happens in the middle of this chapter. Ananth and I each had our own ideas on how to do this — I wanted to do something using Leeds as a huge frame and getting a peek of Percy. Ananth wanted something Percy-centric where she's completely framed by Leeds. We went with Ananth's thumbnail since it was more playful and kinetic, and mine was a bit more emotionally somber. I think I'd still like to use this for something in the future, though!

Originally we wanted Fortuna on the back cover, since she's introduced in this chapter (and I love drawing her.) Unfortunately, this idea was scrapped because she has SO much detail in her that it would make cover text really difficult to place and any areas of overlap difficult to read. We simplified the concept and ultimately did a pushed-back string figure that wraps around to the front of the cover. This would leave lots of space and legibility for any text on the back.

About 75% of the way through the process we were looking at the cover and going "this needs more movement. What is the cheapest way to get more movement into this cover since it's already mostly done" and the answer was "rotate everything by ~30 degrees" AND IT WORKED REALLY WELL?? Sometimes the answer really is dutch angles. Thank you film school for FINALLY doing something to help me.

Those are all of my deep thoughts about this chapter cover, but please feel to ask questions!! Thank you again to everyone who's supported this Kickstarter! If we get to the next goal, I'll be bullied into drawing another sticker sheet (these are very fun for me I like drawing our characters cute and blobby), so if you desire please assist in making this happen.

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 13 & 14

This week's pages!!!! Everyone's taking a fun relaxing vacation in Cameron's brain 🥰

BARBAROUS ch6: Percy's instagram

WAAHHH the BARBAROUS chapter 6 kickstarter has only one week left!!!!!! If we hit the next goal, everyone will get to vote on what to make me draw for a new print lol

In celebration, I wanted to share the biggest new piece of art I did for the collection (other than the cover!)

For the new book collection, we wanted to add a two-page spread to insert a quiet beat right after Cameron sees Percy's new selfie. Here's that page to remind you:

You get to scroll down in Percy's old photo feed, from Cameron's POV, reminding him what he missed about their relationship. I also love adding goofy sponsored content to his phone so you can see where his truest interests lie (getting scammed by weird creatine supplements)

Looking at the book files all together, I think it came out SO NICE! We added a few spot illustrations (and this spread!) to let the chapter breathe more and I think it looks really cool. Chapter 6 is one of my favorites, I really love the addition of Cameron to the cast to shake everyone up like a jar of bugs. (He, too, is a bug in this metaphor.)

Thank you to everyone who's supported the KS and thank you to everyone who's supported us here on patreon! The only reason we can make weird self-published comics about monster romance is because you're here with us. 💖

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 11 & 12

Cameron got put into baby jail U___U

(Also, Cecilia is the commissioner of said baby jail)

Matchbook sticker progress: Winter

I loooove drawing Winter! She was based a tiny bit on the Doll from Bloodborne so I like to give her slightly uncanny valley long limbs.

She shows up for like 1 second in Chapter 6, so I get to draw a sticker of her for the Chapter 6 kickstarter ohohohohohoo

I was messing around with the kiss cut design and wound up giving her some cute Clamp wings -- I figure if someone doesn't want that detail on their sticker, they can do a little negative space surgery with scissors.

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 9 & 10

How nice, his head is perfectly palmable 🥰

The BARBAROUS Chapter 6 Kickstarter is LIVE!!!

Hi everyone! We're so excited to finally be bringing you the BARBAROUS Chapter 6 collection! We're printing it at the same large format (our Leeds-sized Editions) so it sits nicely with the rest of your BARBAROUS books!

The book will have a beautiful wraparound cover featuring brand new art-- and speaking of new art, it’ll also have extra interior art exclusive to print! We'll also have stickers, prints and more! And if you're new to BARBAROUS, you'll be able to get the previous books as Kickstarter add-ons as well!

If you need a refresher on Chapter 6, you can reread it here! 

We're so excited to be bringing the Chapter 6 book to print, and we hope you are too! Thanks for reading!

Also if you've missed it, we’ve started posting Chapter 9! You can start reading Chapter 9 here. And if you want to go all the way back, you can read BARBAROUS from the beginning here.

That’s all for us! Thanks so much for reading!

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 7 & 8

HAPPY EARLY UPDATE!! Today is Ananth's birthday!!!!

🔥THE BOYS ARE FIGHTING🔥

The BARBAROUS Chapter 6 Kickstarter is coming in October!

BARBAROUS CHAPTER 6 KICKSTARTER PROJECT PAGE

You can click "Notify me on Launch" to get informed as soon as the project goes live!

We're so excited to be bringing you the next Leeds-Sized Edition in our BARBAROUS series! This time we are collecting Chapter 6. The book is going to have a beautiful wraparound cover, and the interior will feature some new art expanding a few story moments! The project will also have stickers, prints and more on offer!

If you're interested, go ahead and follow the project by clicking through to the project page. We can't wait to show you more! And as always, thanks so much for reading!

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 5 & 6

OHOHO finally back to the present! Look who finally met face to face! 👀

BARBAROUS character profiles

For [upcoming project] we wanted to remind readers who all these people are, since we've accumulated a lot of characters in Barbarous! The front of manga collections always have cute "who are these people" pages, and we wanted to emulate that... but for some reason I can't just allow us to reuse old character art from earlier comics pages, I have to draw something COMPLETELY NEW RIGHT THIS SECOND

I wanted to share these with you since I think they came out pretty cute... also when they're reproduced they'll probably be pretty small! So please appreciate them at a nicer resolution U___U

My personal favorite is Clyde the Enchanted Object-Loving Semi-Feral Cat

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 3 & 4

OH! It's the family dog! She's so normal!

I'm going to start posting a full-week's early updates over here, I figure it's more fun for both you guys and easier for me! Just as a heads up, some of these pages are not technically final - we'll sometimes do last-minute language tweaks before posting publicly, so you get a window into our chaotic work arrangement lol

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 2

Page 2!!!! The flashback continues ~

If Cameron's room is upstairs, then whose room is this....

EARLY COMIC: BBR Ch. 9 pg. 1

We JUST got home from SPX and I ran to my computer to post this! Here's a flashback with everyone's* favorite guy! 😊

*my

Chapter 9 / Page 17 pencils

In celebration of the Chapter 9 cover being released, here's the rest of the scene that inspired it!

And then Chiaki had to come and ruin the moment. U__U Very rude.

Once again, Ananth and I are going to be at SPX in Bethesda, MD this weekend! If you're around come say hi!! We'll be at Table W-82 right up at the front!

Hopefully see you then! 💖

BARBAROUS CH 9: COVER

SHH MY SHOW'S STARTING

CHAPTER 8 BUMPER Pg. 4: the end!

~CAMERON YOU'RE RUINING YOUR LIFE~

THAT'S IT FOR THE CHAPTER 8 BUMPER!!! Chapter 9 starts THURSDAY!!!!!

SPX debut: print/stickers

It hasn't been a secret that I've been wanting to make a Barbarous figurine for YEARS! A few weeks ago we picked up a Peach Riot blindbox and it rekindled that desire to make a really cute fashion figurine. I WANT A PERCY FIGURINE (also a Leeds one lbr)

Anyway, if I can't have a Percy figurine I might as well make a fake menu for Percy Blindboxes, where I can design as many cute outfits as I want. There's a mix of outfits from past chapters, (including one upcoming outfit from chapter 9, feel free to guess which one it is!), as well as some other cute outfits I felt like dressing her in.

This is going to be available at SPX later this month!!! It'll be both a 8.5x11" print as well as a sticker sheet!!!! I'm really really excited for them, please join me in my fantasy of ~dreaming of a cute figurine~

If these go well I'd love to make a matching Leeds blindbox illustration! He deserves to also look cute!

CHAPTER 8 BUMPER Pg. 3

OH, she's a little scary ~

(Cameron likes that)

ONE MORE PAGE AND THEN WE START CHAPTER 9 PROPER!!

CHAPTER 8 BUMPER Pg. 2

Cameron and Hyewon did actually have a pretty compatible relationship until Cameron threw a bomb into it U___U

oh well, she can do better~

BARBAROUS IS CONTINUING! TOMORROW!

Sorry for the sudden drop! We were intending to start the chapter much earlier in the month but we were so preoccupied with Rook's health issues, it got pushed back a bit.

On that note, thank you so much to everyone for your kindness in response to our last post. I really appreciated reading your messages, and it means so much to us that Rook will continue to be remembered. ❤️

I want to make certain our patrons continue to get early peeks at all our comics before they're put up publicly, so here's Ananth's thumbnail and my pencils for the first page of the bumper! The comic will once again begin posting Tuesday and Thursday at johnnywander.com! Starting tomorrow!!!

Thank you for everyone's patience while we worked through this past year! It's been a tough one, but I'm hopeful that things will improve as we move forward! I hope you're excited for the next chapter of Barbarous, it's going to be funnn >:)

CHAPTER 8 BUMPER Pg. 1

Ahhh omigosh it's starting!!! This page is going up TOMORROW!

✨We've got a flashback!✨

Hey, remember those flowers? It's been a minute, they're here (a bit fresher in the flashback though) :)

Long Live Rook!

Heads up for talk about animal death.

Man, this is tough to share. Rook had been in very slow decline since March. It's the same thing that happens to every cat once they become old enough; his kidneys started failing.

His condition rapidly deteriorated over the course of the past month, and we were advised to say goodbye to him a few days ago. He'd turned 20 this year.

Rook was my first pet who was truly mine, and Ananth's first pet at all. His adoption was one of the first things we did when we arrived in NYC. We went to a shelter with the intention of picking up an adult black cat and found him immediately: a sweet 4-year old boy who'd been dropped off in a giant tupperware box full of 17 cats from a cat hoarder the day before. They had to separate him from the rest of the cats from the box because he was being bullied.

His intake was so fresh he didn't even have a shelter name yet. He was just 5108-E. This was the first photo we ever took of him.

Rook was a huge part of our lives, and I'm so happy that we could share him with you. Thank you to everyone who ever asked after him or gave us a black cat themed thing or made a piece of art of him. The walls of our home are covered in little pieces of art of black cats, many of which were given to us by kind people at conventions. It makes me happy to know he touched you guys!!

I wanted to share some of my old comics and art of him. He was a huge inspiration to me-- a mild-tempered guy who would do tricks for food and loved to scream (and only got louder after he went completely deaf a few years ago).

Here's an unreleased original version of the Johnny Wander omnibus back cover, I always really liked how the cat paws came out!

A couple years ago the vet recommended we remove a troublesome birthmark on Rook's ear. They wound up taking off half of his ear. Afterwards we would always joke that he was pretending to be a reformed street-cat when in reality he'd actually never once been outside on purpose. (TNR'ed feral cats in NYC are ear-tipped to show that they've been neutered)

Honestly there was nothing funnier than Rook in a cone. He was our little clown roommate.

Rook's buddha face. He loved to sleep wrapped around my head, and if it was too warm, on my legs. His immense weight actually messed up my left leg in a way that I'm still recovering from. It's okay, I forgive you!

It means a lot to us knowing that our little cat will be remembered by lots of people. Thank you for knowing him, even a little!

Chapter 9 / Page 16 pencils

I realized this has been labeled as "pencils only" but I somehow also started sharing inks as well for the past several pages without realizing it. I hope there are no complaints! I'm gonna keep doing it!

Anyway, we're making our own fun! I hope you are also having a good time!! Cameron's subconscious is going ham and we're all on the tour bus :)

Chapter 9 / Page 15 pencils

Still in Cameron's brain! HMM, this scene looks familiar, where have I seen it before?

(it was in chapter 6, pg. 2)

It was really fun and funny to draw all these featureless blob people, Cameron's brain just doesn't care enough to fill in their details. Who are they? Where's Albermarle? (who's now his superior at work!) Eh!

I think this one was tossed back and forth between myself and Ananth (I can usually only ever tell based on who did the thumbnail face drawings). I LOVE that Percy in the audience in panel 1 lol