Jade

So this is Alexandria Proudfoot's sexy version of Jade. And such a fitting picture to add after posting my newest comic #139. It's a pivotal twist in the comic and may or may not be shocking to some. If you haven't read the comic I suggest you go and read it now before reading forward in this blog post.

I always deep down knew that I was going to make Jade bi. She's a very experimental person to begin with. Plays by her own rules and does not care what society thinks of her. For a long time I was contemplating whether or not I should do this particular comic, seeing as some people may either be pissed off or maybe even happy that I did this. It could go either way. The comic is about gender stereotypes and being who you are, and I think that it was only fitting that I made one of the characters gay or bisexual to show that it's ok to be yourself. Even though Tara's reaction was abrupt and Jade read her all wrong, I'm sure somewhere down the line there will be some kind of reconciliation. Jade is too cool of a character to phase out. This will not be the last you see of her. However be prepared for more drama unfolding soon after. At least now people will get the point of the comic #69. Yes I've known since then that Jade was going to be this way, actually it was a thought I had when I first created her but for a while I wasn't brave enough to follow through with it. I think it was a good idea to allow Tara to trust Jade and then have her spring it on her unexpectedly. Hopefully you won't stop reading the comic after this, it gets interesting later on.

Wizard World Comicon 2010

Well, Wizard World Comicon was a tremendous success! So many cool things happened! It's amazing how just sitting in one spot at a table can accomplish so much. A person brought a ferret by our table so we had to take a picture of my boyfriend Matt wearing a "You Dunno Jack" Shirt. A girl with Tom Boy Tara hair wandered by so we had to take a picture of her, naturally. I met Winston from the Ghost Busters! He hugged me!!! Also signed a Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man piggy bank I own. So cool! I'll explain most of these pix.

This is me at Wizard World on the first day with a random con outfit I decided to wear. Plus my cool utility belt for making change when someone buys my merch.

Me at the table on the 1st day, guarding all my merch.

This is the second day, with me at the table guarding my merchandise.

This was my crew that stayed with me at the tables Saturday and Sunday. Alexandria with the blue/purple hair and Matt with the Cicadas shirt on.

This was my t-shirt I made for Tobey in one of my comic strips and thought it looked cool so I bought it for myself to wear around on Saturday.



This is my friend Tina who is a colourist/cosplayer that attends my comic book Wednesday crew hang out sessions on occasion. She found my dolls and robot pencil sharpener and enjoyed them immensely, as you can see.

I got this cool "Game Over" cuff for fun! I like video games on occasion and it went with my blk and wht ensemble quite well.

I tracked down artist Attila Adorjany and purchased a shirt from him. He does a very cool webcomic Metaphysical Neuroma, definitely check out his stuff!

These are some of my pins and Convention Magnets I made by hand to sell. They're all like unique fridge art. I drew lots of replicas of these babies.

This is me and the comic crew on the 3rd day at the con. We're all pretty tired by this point but we're still havin' fun!

Ok so this guy isn't the real Jack, but we had to take a picture of him. It was just too cool to see a ferret at the convention when I had Jack plastered all over my merch as you can see here.

Yes, it's Tom Boy Tara for realsies! Naw, this girl just had her hair but it was so epic we had to take a photo of her!

I met Xena! I mainly took this pic for my friend Melinda who loves Xena, but man, her costume was really incredible! So much detail! It was superb!

Me gettin' in the middle of a Storm Trooper prom. I just had to disrupt it!


Lexia was doing some cool drawings for me of Jade and has done past awesome drawings for me of Tara, Tobey, Jack and Deena, so on the last day I told her she should make some money off her drawings. She ended up making $30 bucks after drawing two commissions for people and had so much fun doing it she wants to be more prepared for next time and make a ton of prints for the next con. Hopefully we see more of her work soon. I will soon post her Jade drawing in another post.


As if the con wasn't cool enough I met Ernie Hudson, A.K.A. Winston from Ghost Busters and got my piggy bank signed by him! My boyfriend then bought me a Ghost Busters jersey (which I've wanted for a long time) for having such a good con! Seriously best con evar!

March Update

The month of March has been an interesting one. A lot has been going on. My birthday was on the 5th, and we ended up doing a little karaoke party in celebration of the occasion. I got a friggin' amazing present! Most of my friends know I'm a huge fan of Back to the Future, and every week when I go into the comic store on Wednesday I drool over the Back to the Future miniature Time Machine replica from the 2nd movie (my fave one) but I could never afford it. I honestly didn't think my friends were listening every time I said, "I'm going to get that when I get the money to...someday it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine." Turns out I was uber shocked! My friends had cameras poised awaiting my reaction when I peeked inside the bag and realized what they pooled their money in to buy me. I was so gleeful I couldn't stop hugging my new delorian. It lights up, and makes sounds and everything! Definite conversation piece if the party convo ever died down...which I don't think it ever did. It was a super fun night, and I don't think anyone had a shitty time...if they did I didn't notice cuz I was having too much fun myself.

Well, it's been decided. I'm going to the Wizard World Toronto Comicon on March 26-28th at the Direct Energy Centre. I have a whole table to myself in which I will be displaying my t-shirts, buttons, prints, my comics and portfolio of other things I have done. Not to mention will possibly be doing commissions of my cartoons for a small fee which will either go to me eating food for the day or I may put it towards my site depending on how many people will buy stuff from me I guess. A cool little pic of me and my work as well as a bio of me is being displayed on the Wizard World Site here:
http://www.wizardworld.com/home-toronto.html
and here:
http://www.wizardworld.com/emilyragozzino.html
Needless to say I'm super excited to be going to the event! I hope to see a lot of cool people there!

I think that just about ends my little blog for March...there were many other things that happened in this month too, but whatever, it's not necessarily comic related. On that note, enjoy some of my new comics I've displayed. The plot's been thickening:
http://www.tomboytara.com/comics01.php

Facepaint, "Fan Art" and Feature

So I tried my hand at face-painting recently. Went to my niece's 1st birthday and tried to paint her face, but as I predicted she was all fidgety so I painted her mom's face instead. It's harder than I thought on another person, but perhaps it's because a lot of moving around was going on, seeing as my niece was in her mom's lap, and well, you know babies, they have attention-span problems and won't sit still. or something. So I painted my own face afterward. I tried a bunny design. Yes I actually went in public with this paint on my face too. It was too funny. I went to pet shops and toy stores and the kids seemed to love it. The adults mind you, some thought it was great, others tried to veer their kids away from me when I was walking along. I got a few disgusted glances. I'm a girl for crying out loud! I just came back from a b-day party for my niece! I'm not trying to creep anyone out...but whatever, people are afraid of clowns and dolls, I guess it's a legit thing to be freaked out about. I guess I was just brave walkin' around the mall like that. Most people wouldn't bother, they'd instantly wash it off.




So whatever, it was a fun little adventure anyways. As well recently I coloured in Alexandria's guest art she gave me recently. It was incredibly hard to resist...I just had this urge! Her line work was so inviting! I just needed to, ya know?

Also for those interested, I have a little advertisement on a cool website about the Canadian Creative Community called Thebroker.ca

My webcomic as well as my products are shown there and other info about my business is listed.

http://thebroker.ca/home/classifieds/for-sale/8/Tom-Boy-Tara-Products/Toronto/Artists_

If you're a Canadian artist and would like to advertise for a whole year for free please join "Thebroker.ca" and you will be able to easily do so! It's a great place to be for artists and you can converse and meet other artists like yourself that will make your current business more fun in the long run!

Why Women May Be Like This

I've been reading incredible articles recently on gender stereotypes and tolerance of the sexes (keeping in the know with articles like this helps keep my writing fresh and allows me to think about how each character would react in certain situations) and it's amazing what they're discussing.

I first stumbled across an article on the new Barbie they are releasing called "Computer Geek Barbie" which was actually based on an online public survey about what her next career should be. Even though everything is very pink to make it gender specific the idea (though behind the times) is somewhat respectable. Why shouldn't they portray women as intelligent in the doll world. They're doing it mainly because the Barbie franchise is going under and the older women collectors have given up on the thought of collecting the dolls so they want to hear what the public wants for a change. I've been making Tom Boy Tara dolls for the hell of it, just to see what she'd look like in 3-D form and to show a prototype option if a manufacturer of toys ever came into play. I've dressed her in jeans and a t-shirt (with a logo I made myself ironed onto the shirt) and I found such clothes from a very hard to find Ken collection. When I look at Barbie clothes in search of something else for Tara to wear all I see is pink clothes or dresses/skirts so I have to turn to Ken. This may come as a shock to the companies but women wear pants too, and not every woman is a fan of pink either.

I then came across some other articles randomly in my search to find a picture of this new Barbie to be released soon. I just wanted to see exactly how girly she still looks despite her nerdy appearance. In my search I came across numerous articles on a website for Women's Rights. Now I'm not a feminist, I may understand how women should be equal to men but I believe some women's lib representatives take it a tad too far, thus confusing men to no end as to how to behave around women now. Though I think some of these articles have a ring of truth to them.

http://womensrights.change.org/blog?category_id=gender_stereotypes&page=4

From videogame equality (as I mentioned to my boyfriend recently, it's interesting how there's always at least one woman thrown into a handful of male characters in most videogames, some women like adventure too, maybe they should have a few more choices of female characters) to men being pregnant, there were a lot of fascinating articles on gender stereotypes.

I particularly enjoyed the article that discusses women Photoshopping their own images in the hopes that they'll look like a magazine cover model. It's true, women are notorious for wanting to look good, but strive for perfection even more so than ever before. I admit I've even been known to Photoshop my own images, either for ironic reasons (I once got rid of my giant belly in a photo of me dressed as Jessica Rabbit for Halloween to show the unrealistic body expectations people have with cartoon women) or if it was to remove a tiny blemish or zit from a close-up shot for a portrait that was taken, I have been known to be vain too. However I may not go to the extreme as some women do. In real life on occasion I'll dress to the nines for fun, but when hangin' 'round the house I'll just lie around in the clothes I've worn from the night before, hair in disarray, lookin' like a mad scientist just to get my comics or projects done. I left perfectionism behind long ago when I realized I was going no where with it. Even in my art, if I made sure everything was perfect I'd never get my stuff out. I know my drawings aren't completely accurate nor are my panel boxes ruler straight, but I know even though there are flaws in my art, and even flaws in myself I know that someone (though not everyone mind you) will find it beautiful and that's all that truly matters.

"I've certainly fallen victim in the past trying to reach these unattainable goals of beauty. And I can tell you - the pursuit of physical perfection is far more damaging in the long run than any short term beauty ambition."~ Jen Nedeau (Picture Perfect. Or Not.) I completely agree with this statement. From seeing countless dramas on plastic surgery and the like I feel women (and perhaps even men) need to realize that nobody's perfect and that even surgery cannot fill your self-esteem void. Photoshop is a mere band-aid and only makes you look completely false as a person. You're not showing the world who you really are, in fact you're lying to those around you that you think won't accept you for who you really are. Who cares what other people think? The people who don't love you for you aren't worth keeping around and those who accept you inside and out are the true friends, those you need to treasure. I know it's hard to hear sometimes, and I'm sure hard to believe, and we as a gender still have far to go even though we've accomplished so much tolerance, but perhaps one day we will see just how beautiful we really are and will grow to accept it.

Guest Art

So every Wednesday night I get together with a clan of the most amazing comic people and chill in the comic store (as it is new comic book day in comic land for those who are unfamiliar) and afterward a select bunch of us may end up going to Tim Horton's to have a donut and shoot the shit. While at a random Timmies I was with my friend Alexandria Proudfoot who happens to have the most gorgeous head of blue hair that reminded me of Tara instantly as soon as I saw her. Naturally we became fast friends and I told her about my comic. She found it, read them all, sent it to a friend and the next time we meet she shows me her drawing skills. I was in awe just watching her draw her version of Tara, Tobey and Jack. She gave me the wonderful drawing she did and I am no doubt adding it to my guest art on my website once it's set up, but for now I will show you the wonderful work here:


I love it! She captured the characters so well! And no doubt earns an eternity of gold stars for adding Jack in the backpack lookin' all adorable. I friggin' love guest art.

If you or anyone you know would like to do guest art for Tom Boy Tara and send it my way, please do! I love seeing the different styles of art people have. You can send it via e-mail to tomboytaracomics@hotmail.com and I'll be sure to post a little tale about it in my blog and give you full credit for it. Love seeing this stuff! Happy drawing!

Marionettes and Mannequins

So I figured it's about time for an update. First of all, Happy V-day to those who like the "holiday" and for those who don't, don't worry, I've been in sitches where I wanted to hurt/kill/destroy every happy person holding hands before too, it's not a new phenomenon, just rest assured that a vast majority of people are with you on the animosity of such a stupid idea for a day.

Well with that out of the way, I have been a bit secretive lately and have been withholding some information about some recent projects on the go right now. I don't want to blab too much about it but I think it's going to come together nicely so I'd like to start discussing it now.

I've joined up with a fabulous artist friend (who will remain nameless until I get his permission to speak about him in such blogs) and we will be collaborating on a comic book together. I wrote a story a while back actually after I finished "Why I Hate Cheerleaders" and before I began this Tom Boy Tara saga entitled, "Marionettes and Mannequins". The writing is still being tweaked at the moment but the artwork, from what I've seen, will be outstanding! We hope to have a few books published by Fan Expo or at least we hope that we will if our deadlines work out for us. The wheels are definitely turning on this project, and we already have a bunch of cool people helping us with the making of it so hopefully the book series will be epic! I hope once we're done you all come out to Fan Expo and pick up a copy of a book or two (depending on what we finish by then I'm sure) and chit chat with us. I wanna start promoting it now 'cuz I can honestly see the idea going very well. It has promise for sure.

Well, I figured I was due to give you guys a little update so hope you like hearing what's going on. I have a few other projects happening too all at once but I'm taking my time with sharing the information because I'm not too sure how smoothly it's going to go. Take care guys, and in the mean time enjoy the new comics I've been updating!