Back in Full Effect

So I know it's been a long time coming, but I am finally back! In an effort to keep my personal life seperate from my art life, I have refrained from posting anything that would compromise my readers appeal in my recent days. I have been uber busy and super depressed dealing with recent deaths in the family and having to move. But I will soon jump right back into my artistic lifestyle. Just wanted to give ya'll a heads up. Talk to you in a few days once moving is done and I get settled.

Zine Fest

So my comic has finally been printed and zine fest is literally tomorrow. I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get patches and small zines printed all week. For some reason this type of stress is more pleasing than that of any other that I've ever experienced. I usually hate stress, but I look at this as a can you rise to the occasion type of thing. And so far in every aspect I have not yet let myself or anyone else down. And that's a great feeling.

Everyone that has seen my comic so far has given me great responses except for a small group. But they are pretty PC so I try not to let that get to me. My comic is raunchy but fun and light hearted in the end. I think people look at it and think I'm trying to offend. But I'm just spectating and commenting. But I digress. My original point was that it feels good to know that people are interested in what I'm doing. I have a few mixed feelings about Zine Fest. I'm excited to see all the zines and what other people are working on, I'm even more excited to see who is interested in what I have been working on. But it's a whole new different ballpark. It's the first time I will be meeting people face to face and putting myself out there as an illustrator. And that alone is enough to make me feel a bit odd. I am confident as an artist, but this is a really big fish for a little guppy like me to be in right now. Luckily enough I am so excited that hopefully it won't matter.

Man Made Magic

In the last 2 weeks I have proven to myself just how motivated and badass I can be. As I'm sure that you can tell, if you have read my comic, I am a pretty skeptical person. But I can honestly say that lately I have even made myself proud.

Last Monday was a great day for Barely Alive. I printed the first silk screened covers for the very first issue. And they look absolutely AMAZING! I am so happy and pleased with them. It had taken so long to get the covers printed that I had finally given up, but then luckily I got to go to a good friends house and print my screens there. I had so much fun just being stoned and zoning out pulling print after print. Altogether there were about 200 prints, with 2 colors. So I pretty much was printing for 8 hours straight with drying breaks. But I was pumped. It was so worth it. I felt this caffeinated adrenaline just rushing through my brains out of sheer excitement and content feeling of being finished. I wanted nothing more than to keep going, and Mel helped a bit. But I pretty much did most of the work on my own.

It was magical seeing the covers, seeing what I had visioned in my mind for months, finally be pushed out onto paper. It's almost like watching your brains visions just appear right before your eyes.

Today was the marathon folding and stapling session. I managed to spend all day putting patches and comics together and yet and still you would think I would be too tired to write it all down here. But it's so important. The process, and documenting the emotions and all of it. I love that people will be able to come here and scroll back to the day I put together the first 200 copies of my first zine, and fell in love with it as fast as a mother would a newborn child. I am so excited I could literally just shit.

Now for zine fest....

Miseducation and Miscellaneous Hold Up's

So I am sure at this point that (if anyone reads this blog at all) I'm sure your wondering, " Hey, where is your comic?" Well, let me tell you. At this point in time I am sure that Barely Alive in Cubicle 5: Issue #1 is cursed. I'm sure of it. After so much has happened to discourage me from making this comic. First a few pages went up missing and I had to re-draw them, then the pages I re-drew were almost ruined when my bf spilled wine in my purse, then I found the original drawings I had made that we way better. And with the printing of the cover, first it's been put off for months because of conflicting schedules and my own personal lack of knowledge on illustrator. Forgive me but I look at myself as a traditional artist. I like to draw with an actual pen to my paper, I like to sculpt and actually cut my own blocks when I print. I don't believe in the photoshop, illustrator mumbo jumbo. In fact if I could do an awesome screen print with as minimal computer usage as possible I'd be a happy camper. Anywho, after all the months of missing the printing, finally I go to get things done this weekend. And I am as happy as a button. But there are just a few small things that wind up being a lot bigger standing in my way. First, I had orginally selected Teal and Pink for my zine colors, and apparently so did Endless Canvas for their 3rd zine, who happens to be the group that I'm publishing barely alive with. SO I had to change colors which was annoying but not horrible. But next, my disc was the one that was magically lost in limbo, which meant my screen would not be burned because I had no vellum copy. SO, no biggie, get some copies right? Or even better I'll go get transparencies, and I'll print them on my computer and have them out in no time! Right? Wrong! Couldn't find a place that was open that had transparencies for computers at an affordable rate. I only needed 10 at the most, not 120. So we think HEY, we can just print out copies on my computer and take them to the copy store. Right! Wrong AGAIN! You know why? Because your printer doesn't work you fucking idiot. BUT IT'S OKAY! Because there is still hope! You can just email it to yourself and take a back up copy with you to the copy store and print everything out there, right? WRONG YET AGAIN! Because damn near all the copy stores are closed because it's SUNDAY, and one of the files that you need so desperately is corrupted on your email account as well as on your Flashdrive. So you get to go all the way home and drive all the way back to Berkeley from West Oakland, after putting everything on a disk. But it's okay, everything is cool right? NAW! Because even though you were just there literally 15 minutes ago, now they no longer have a working hub that can black and white copies on the computer. So now your lucky self gets to go to yet another Copy store, where we run into the same computer problems all over again. Except this time they have a MAC, so it ends up working out randomly.

As if the rest of the day hadn't been annoying or frustrating enough, we get to the final copy store no one hardly wants to help us, and the guy that we ask to print our transparencies tries to give us the shittiest one in the pack with holes and crinkles all up on it, and then looks at us crazy when we tell him that we need the copy to be darker with less streaks. Turns out, the guys the brother in law of the manager and complaining does nothing because there is no way he'll ever get fired for sitting on his ass and doing nothing.

*Sigh* I love this, but if you can't tell I'm starting to get discouraged.

Ol, Buddy! Ol, Pal!

THis weekend was a totally rejuvenating experience. I spent some really needed quality time with my family, and I got to spend sometime with a really good friend that I hadn't seen in about 2 years. It was really calming and motivating, just what I needed honestly. I been saying I wanted to chill with more creative people with goals in their lives, and Melissa has always been like my little white punk sister. I've always really respected her for being so comfortable being herself and working extremely hard towards her goals. It really meant a lot to me when she asked me about my goals and what I plan to do creatively, when considering what path she should take next. I feel like there are a lot of people in my life that take me for granted, or that just don't take me seriously. And it always really frustrates me to not be respected by my peers ( who know nothing about art or what I do.) I feel like everyone needs a pat on the back every once in a while, or to get some "props" from people dear to them. It's motivating, like one tiny compliment can regenerate you into a completely different person. That's how Melissa made me feel. None of my other friends act like my opinions or life accomplishments ever matter. But Melissa gave a lot back to me just by talking with her. She had been piercing for 3 or 4 years, and just got so sick of it she decided to plan to make her next move, and she really wants to study art. I got so excited when she showed me her sketchbook. The staff was so simple and fun, I couldn't help but she expresses her self, and feeling like I can connect with her on exploiting everyday dull life into something whitty and funny. That by itself made me want to collaborate with her. None the less, it made me happy to know that even as years go by, you still find new ways to connect with the same old friends, and they can inspire you to be you all over again just by being a familiar personality. Now I have a friend that I'm comfortable with, that's not only a girl, but someone like minded that's juiced to collaborate and paint, it's not a chore, it's an event! That's what I'm fucking talking about! No excuses.

Barely in Wonderland With Things I Can Not Say

Ok, I know it's been a really long time since I posted. Well, not that long, it's not like anyone's paying attention anyways. But last night I got really high, and started looking for a movie to watch on Netflix. As it was that I had the house to myself, I decided to watch a particularly "me" movie that I had been wanting to watch that I knew Mel wouldn't like. So I picked Phoebe In Wonderland. A darling little indie film about a little girl, as she grows older starts to suffer from Tourette's syndrome. One day there is a new drama teacher in school, and they have a play of Alice in Wonderland, and she is casted as Alice.

This movie literally made me want to cry. It reminded me of when I was in high school reading Alice, and painting a mural on it, and decoding all of the reality of the books true meanings. And watching a 9 year old deal with their thoughts and insecurities, and watching her struggle with urges that she can't control, it reminded me a lot of myself. I don't have Tourette's, but there is something that always stood out to me about Alice in Wonderland, that stood out to Phoebe in this movie. Sometimes in life you run really fast to stay in one place. And for Phoebe I guess that could mean all the odd things she would physically do to herself out of fear of losing something important to her. It's no secret that in life we all do these things. We struggle to keep ourselves a float, even when most of the time to us, it seems like everyone else is just swimming along. It's funny to me, that life long lessons can even be understood to a 9 year old.

But what also got me about this film (other than my blatent obsession with Alice in Wonderland) is that in every other situation Phoebe was considered unrulely and troublesome, but the second she hits the stage she's a different person. She's happy, she's thoughtless, she's not scared, or angry, she just IS.

I feel like for most of us, in life we don't usually find things that can just take us away from ourselves for a really long time. And when we do find it most of the time we don't know what to do with it. I was just telling a friend today, how much doing Barely Alive has helped me to feel that way. I usually work on Barely Alive at my job. In order to not get fired I'll just say that my job is purely on the phone calling people all over California for 6 hours a day. Sometimes work can go by very fast on it's own, and other's it tends to mostly lag. Originally I just started doodling at work, just to pass the time. And now if I'm working on a series of pages I can knock out 2 fully inked pages in 1 shift. When I do that all the people hanging up in my face, screaming at me, asking me if I know what time it is, all of it fades away, and none of it matters at all. Because I just keep going right back to drawing and not even thinking for a second about a word anyone has said. It's like I don't have to think, I don't have to do anything extra at all, I can just sit in the corner and make the world how I want it to be in my drawings, or laugh at things I could never laugh about, say things I would never say. It's like I'm healing myself in every aspect just by illustrating how I see the world.

Fun Fact: Elle Fanning plays Phoebe in Phoebe in Wonderland, and she also happens to be Dakota Fannings little sister.

Barely Alive Art!!!

Ahem! So I have recently decided that I will start making larger painted pieces that are devoted to the themes and characters in my comics. I recently did a series of these pieces with actual panels from the comic pasted within the painting itself and I really dug it. You get a feel for the comic and the character and you have an actual piece based on a fictional character itself. I will post pics as soon and I have some from the last 2 shows.

BTW! This weekend I placed these pieces in the Bay Area Booking Collective's coming out parties. And we also did a few pieces on the walls. It was a really great show. Lots of great energy! Lots of great bands, a good mix of music to dance to in between. It was honestly the most fun I've had at an indie/ punk event. You guys should look out for these girls, they are doing great things. This was there first show and there were at least 150 people there. Check them out on Facebook. BAYAREA booking collective.

Even Adam Says So....

Bessie Johnson and The Tale of The Disappearing Re-Appearing Comic

As anyone reading this blog knows, I just recently started my first of God knows how many mini comic books. For those of you that are curious, I am actually about ready to print my very first issue at this point. The process has just been getting held up by random problems here and there, like the internet connection being messed up, or not having a driver for my scanner. One of my biggest issues has been the problem related to my newest comic.

In recent months I have been turned on to the fabulous Love and Rockets comics, and was lucky enough to receive a collection of Locas for Valentine’s Day from my sweets (thanks babe!) I was very inspired by the fact that there is a complete collection of comics portraying the everyday life of punk rock Hispanic females, and I slowly began to realize that I have never seen a punk comic devoted to the lifestyle of black females. SO, it got me thinking about starting a small comic in that style. After reading various indie comics and watching various female exploitation films, I had finally put together an idea of what I wanted to do. My aim is to draw black people in a predominantly black known city (like Oakland) doing things that are naturally mixed into black culture as well as DIY culture.

Most people don’t realize that black culture has been deeply invested in DIY culture for years out of necessity. Blacks in the south used to make moonshine in tubs, sew patches on old worn clothes, and planted their entire gardens by hand. These are customs that were taken up out of broke necessity, which is just the same when you look at Indie/Punk DIY culture. People generally do things themselves because they can’t afford it any other way. Yet and still there is a huge line drawn between us, and them in Black culture. It’s as if it’s weird vs. necessity.

Anywho, I digress. The point of my comic is to bridge a cultural gap. To portray Black women in DIY culture, and show how we are all in one way or another tied to some type of DIY culture or mindset out of necessity. And I felt I did a good job with my first mini-comic. It was about 5 pages long and it was a very difficult comic to draw. The first 3 pages entail a long walk through the rain and a series of panels that make up the act of train hopping. I have never train hopped, but I know lots of people that have and still do, and this is some SHIT to draw. But as I was saying, the comic was all done and ready to go, all except for the watercoloring of their skin tones. And then a thunderous storm cloud opened up from above and it happened. I lost the first 3 pages!!! How could this happen? Where could they be??? I was so hurt. I tore the house apart looking for them, and yet they were NOWHERE to be found. Eventually I said I’ll just re-draw them. And I did, however my new drawings were nowhere near as clean and interesting as my first drawings. But I was prepared to take that set back, at this point I just wanted my comic to be done.

So there my comics are, just sitting in my purse while I chill at home ( I always take my sketch pad everywhere I go) and then it happened again. God played a silly little joke that I’m sure just tickled him pink. I’m laying on the couch sipping on some white wine mixed with Mandarin Lime soda (hella trashy) and in walks the drunken love of my life, to accidentally knock my wine right into my purse with my EFFING COMICS!!!!!! I could have died. I was going to have to re-draw them again for the 3^rd time. And just when I finished the first page about a week later, he calls me and tells me he found them in the top drawer of the living room. Just sitting there, all 3 pages, AND the cover to Barely Alive Issue #1. Ain’t that some shit? So you know when you read your copy of Issue # 1 that it nearly killed me.

ANARCHY!!!

Yesterday I tabled with Endless Canvas at the Anarchist Bookfair. It was pretty much the most fun I’ve had in a really long time. I got to see my friends from Sacramento and even right around the corner in Oakland. It was nice to see so many people I know from so many different areas in my life come together for so many different reasons. I felt like so many sides of me were appeased to there. And I luckily sold enough sticker patch packs, and art pieces to buy a $5 t-shirt from AK press, a compilation zine from Microcosm ( I love you Microcosm), and a sketchbook of Love and Rockets comics. Another thing I enjoyed , was that literally everything I had thought of doing in the last 3 months as far as art, other people were there with the exact same ideas as their finished products. One idea I had was to make a comic zine with a soundtrack to listen to when your reading it, another was to make really cool jewelry out of beer bottle caps (which isn’t that original) but someone had done that too. It was nice to be surrounded by so many like minded creators. I even traded a girl a piece for a massage for me and my bf. They were pretty nice too! I felt uber relaxed.

All of my experiences and peeking at how many copies BEER IS GOOD, Issue #1 sold, it really put a fire under my ass to want to make more stuff. I like the reactions I was getting from people at the bookfair. It’s like it gave me some confidence that I didn’t have for a while. Sometimes artistically it can happen where you get bored or uninspired by what your doing. And when you see other people’s faces when they look at your stuff it really helps. So that totally set a fire under my ass to get cracking on the second zine and get the first one published, also to make even more accessories. I just always feel like there is never enough time for me to everything I always set out to do. I always feel like I should have so much done, and when I set my mind to it all of these everyday distractions come billowing down on me. Sometimes it’s enough to make you just want to scream. But it’s alright. I’ll get there soon I suppose. I just have to really buckle down and want it.

Cheer’s to you Bookfair.

Drawings from Issue #1!!!!

These are couple of drawings from the illustrated mini comic I did of my friend Jen's drunken story of REVENGE!

The first page of A story about a girl Cat and the dirty little things that horny teenagers do.

I always feel like I have the silliest and worst fears ever. So I thought it'd be funny to find out what other people's fears are, I went and asked a few friends about their silly and pointless fears. This one is my friend Marilyn's. I am afraid of birds and one day we were walking together and I started freaking out at a crowd of pigeons. And she said I'd be freaking out if those were flying fish. Hence....fear of flying fish!

A re-done 3D box painting I did about a year ago, newly converted into an illustration for $1 patches and posters coming soon.

A funny ad I made for the zine. I would call this a fake ad. But it's not a fake ad. I want your stories guys! And I want them in my zine! If you want anything drawn for you or anything designed and you like my style. HIT ME UP! We can work something out I'm even down for barter or trade.

More coming soon! I hope you enjoy what you see so far.

Greetings Fans!

So at this point I don't have any fans. I just figured it would be a good idea to document this experience in it's beginning stages.

If your reading this, your reading the very first entry of Bessie Johnson, and this is for Barely Alive in Cubicle 5. In case your wondering what that is, it's a comic zine that I created when I was working at the most mundane of jobs, while trying to pass the time. It was spawned from the fact that I am a huge dork, and I often find humor in things that I laugh at to myself, and often I wonder if the rest of the world is laughing at them too, it also spawned from the fact that life is full of interesting and hilariously crafted stories, I thought it would be fun to tell the stories of my many misadventures.

Today is January 21st. I'm watching a shitty episode of Jay Leno right now. Usually today would be just as passing as the next. But I realized that I am halfway through with my first issue. So far I have 23 pages. I set my goal at 40, but who knows how much bigger than 40 it will be at this stage. I'm having a lot of fun passing the time with this, it's definately going to continue. I even have the first 3 covers for each zine drawn out and ready to go. At this stage the 1st issue will be mostly stories of witnessed experiences, small pieces of collage art, drawings of silly funny things, and random exploitations of friends experiences.

Later I hope to have an illustrated tonight show, interviewing Bay Area Locals, and an illustrate a story section where people can send in their stories for me to illustrate.

More in later...