Johnny Wander Retrospective - 2 (Patreon)

Yuko drew me in a tie! I did a doubletake when I pulled this up. I was working as an in-office designer at the time, so I did actually have a lot of ties and button-ups. I guess I wore one for her graduation! Rare for me to put one on these days. 

The stat cards at the bottom... probably inspired by Bryan Lee O'Malley. I like how compact and effective they are! At first we were going to make them all have the same stats, but it looked too boring and we got to cram in so many extra jokes.

The autobio comics were tonally most influenced by Yotsuba, I think, with the idea of finding magic in the essence of daily life. Yotsuba is about a little girl with green pigtails who's discovering everything for the first time. There's a lot of joy in it! If you're looking for a cozy read these days, I highly recommend it!

I mention Yotsuba because there was a newness to the world when we were young grads (I won't pretend to know what it feels like to be entering the workforce now). But it was under a layer of urgency, like "school's out, , but also I need money to live". So there's Yuko in the graduation gown, and there's me in the work attire, speaking from being 2-3 years in the job world, each of us representing different periods in a young person's life. We definitely planned it out that way, to subtly hint at the various forces at play!

JUUUST KIDDING! We were winging it.