sneak peek: Ace 101
behind-the-scenes developing a guest comic for OJST
[Content note: this post includes a link to OJST, an 18+ website with explicit sexual content — very nsfw. This substack post itself has no explicit content, and the comic it’s a sneak peek for is a sex ed comic suitable for teens and older.]
Earlier this year I was invited to develop a guest comic for widely-acclaimed sex-positive/sex ed webcomic OhJoySexToy.com. I wrote and illustrated an Asexuality 101, and it goes live on Tuesday, September 12! I’ve been sitting on this for months and I’m very excited for you to finally get to see it. So to celebrate, here’s a little behind-the-scenes sneak peek!
I’m thrilled that OJST is adding an Ace 101 to their collection of educational comics — asexuality is an important and often misunderstood & overlooked part of the natural spectrum of human sexuality, and it deserves to be included in conversations about sex, sexuality, identity, and relationships.
My guest comic is five pages, full color, and features a conversation in a cat café between two friends, one who is asexual (ace, like me!) and one who is allosexual (a.k.a. not asexual). It’s cute, it’s informative, and it’s got cats. Cats!
Feelings Corner: When Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan reached out to me to ask if I'd be interested in pitching a guest comic to OJST last year, I had to spend like a week soothing my inner teen for whom this was a literal dream come true. Discovering Erika's journal comics on the internet over a decade ago was a turning point for my relationship with comics as a medium. It was Erika's webcomics that made me believe that I had stories worth telling and that I could tell those stories through comics. So this feels like a really sweet full-circle moment: my first legit, paid comics industry job, makin’ a comic for the lady whose comics got me into comics in the first place. 💞
Beyond this point is Process Nerd™ Secrets! For everyone else, head on over to OJST on Tuesday to see the full comic (it’s free!), and maybe even learn some things about asexuality that you did not know!