OJST Comic Preview (Patreon)

Harrow!

Since January this year, I've been quietly working away with Matthew Nolan, editor of Oh Joy Sex Toy on a guest comic. Matthew first approached me in April 2021 with an invitation to be one of their guests artists, however, the comic had taken many twists and turns since then and we had both decided to pull away in May 2021 since I had been able to nail the brand and tone of OJST.

When Matthew put out a public call for entries again early this year, I was determined to take on the opportunity, learn from my mistakes and try again. Over the course of these past 6 months and 6 different drafts, we've finally arrived at a point where I'm moving onto the inking phase.

I cannot express how much anxiety and pressure there is on my part for this project, especially whenever I see another guest comic appear on OJST's page with what seems to be effortless flair. There would always be a twinge of FOMO and panic while I'm still struggling with mine, especially the writing and content.

Originally, I had pitched a raunchy sex story involving my Meatier Showers characters. That pitch swerved sideways and didn't make the final cut. I pitched a nipple-play comic and quickly realized how vanilla I was and didn't have the voice and tone of a "sexpert" to really narrate that topic.

It was really disappointing since for all intents and purposes I am pretty vanilla when it comes to my sex life, and didn't have anything as juicy and substantial as all the other sex stories that were presented on their platform.

Ultimately, Matthew zeroed in on one of my other pitches on fursonas and fursuiting. It has been no easy task trying to find the right things to say and talk about in the compression of 4-5 pages. Given the mood and tone of OJST, I had to also filter out a lot of the dark, traumatic stuff of my personal experiences as it may be triggering to unsuspecting audiences.

I think all this has been a good learning experience, and especially informative on what I can or cannot do. The greatest challenge for me has been to start script first, which has been the opposite process of what I normally do which is to work like a storyboard artist and focus on gags and visuals first. This process tripped me up a lot as I work and flow so much better starting with sketches.

At this point of production, I'm operating on a level of "professional detachment" in the sense that, even though there is no official deadline, I personally don't want to drag this project on any longer than it needs to be. Whether other furries in the broader fandom appreciate this piece is sort of beyond my control and concern at this point. My promise to myself now is to get the inking and dialogues nailed down by this month.

PS: The raccoon you see is actually my senpai, Cooner. He was my first point of contact during Rainfurrest 2014, so naturally I had to include him as a cameo! Please check out his wonderful works and monthly comic!

Snares
Jul 2022