Behind the Sleepy Muse
I was fortunate to have an artistic grandmother who nurtured me at an early age into the love of drawing and art appreciation. As a Japanese American growing up in Southern California, Los Angeles area, I was heavily influenced by classic Disney and the Japanese arts and culture of my local community. Frequent trips to Little Tokyo, L.A. where I collected Japanese comics ( manga ) and Japanese toys based off the current Japanese Anime ( animation series and movies ), helped inspire my drawing style as I joined in the modern art movement of Asian pop culture aesthetics.
My first illustrated published works in comics were for the licensed Harmony Gold Robotech series line called "The Threadbare Heart" published by Academy comics ( 1993-1994 ). During this time my writer/artist/voice talent ( GIR ) husband, Rikki Simons and I were first establishing ourselves as an art team and learning by trail and error day by day. Neither of us had any degree in the arts, but we had the passion to create and the combined raw talent and perserverance to keep pursuing our craft together.
Not satisfied in just creating for someone else's works, we soon developed an original story idea called Super Information Hijinks: Reality Check! , a sci-fi comedy based on the new concepts of the internet and a house cat. I designed characters/costumes and the layouts and pen and inked illustrations and Rikki would write and digitally render it all together ready for print. Reality Check! was first self published in black and white by us in 1995 and after two issues, was picked up to be rendered in full color and published by SIRIUS Entertainment 1995-1999. Rikki and I created 12 issues in all. Our next comic was RankleChick and His Three-Legged Cat two issues in full color published by Slave Labor Graphics. Then in 2003 we created our ShutterBox paranormal romance series vol. 1-4 that was published by TokyoPop until 2008 when the company and contract dissolved and we parted ways. From 2008-to current we have created and self published a webcomic called "@ Tavicat" based on the antics of us and our house cats Pippi, Fargo and Pippin. Our newest webcomic project is called "Sad Circus by the Sea", a whimsical tale of creatures called Trinkkits who form a circus and are in search of an audience.
I also freelanced as flat and shadow colorist for comic companies IDW ( Edward Scissorhands ) and Oni Press ( Invader Zim ). And once helped paint background art to the series Invader Zim ( Nickelodeon 2000-2002 )
Please visit our main website where you can explore and find all the creative works I and Rikki have created:
www.tavicat.com
Thank you so much for stopping by~!
=^..^=
~tavi
