Relief Journal

Cover of the Spring 2020 Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith

A short silent comic I created and illustrated documenting the life of a couple from childhood to death functioning as both a poster and a comic is featured in this Spring 2020 Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith. You can obtain a copy of the journal here: https://www.reliefjournal.com/spring-2020-relief-print

The Park

Poster by Joshua Kemble included with the Spring 2020 Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith

New Album, and Quarterly Stories Update

Cover of my New Album The Bottle of Better Then

The Bottle of Better Then

Along with cartooning, illustration, art direction, and graphic design, some of you might not know, but I also play guitar and sing in a band called No Saboteurs. Every Tuesday we generally practice/write music, and have been doing so for the past year or so. Till everything got shut down, and due to concerns over COVID, we halted our practices. Inspired by the inability to get together with my bandmates as well as many of the crazy issues happening in our world right now, I decided to record an album, using my acoustic guitar, bass, a cajon and a midi organ. The album is titled The Bottle of Better Then. I’ve created a great little section on my website where you can directly access links/videos for the album. The album is a weaving indie folk/rock narrative talking about our crumbling environment, data collection, love, drinking, backward progress, protesting, and civil rights, vividly told in an awkward tapestry. If you’re a fan of my work, you might find it interesting: https://www.joshuakemble.com/music.

Quarterly Stories Update

You might’ve noticed, if you’ve been following/reading Quarterly Stories, that it’s gone absent from my website. Rest assured this is for a good reason. My literary agent is shopping the book to potential publishers, so hopefully we’ll find a good home for it. In the mean time, while in the purgatory of waiting for editorial responses/hoping to find the right partner to bring the book into market, I will continue to post status updates on the second book. I’ve completed the manuscript, and intend to start thumbnailing pages. As usual, I’ll be posting status updates and sneak peaks behind my process on my instagram, facebook, and twitter, as we go.

Amid such turmoil in the world, I appreciate every one of you who visit my site, encourage my work, and have supported my creative endeavors throughout the years. I hope that my little contributions of music and artwork will somehow help you all navigating this new abnormal we’ve all entered into.

The 100s Anthology Is Up On Kickstarter! Why You Should Back It!

CALL TO ACTION

Before I get into it, here’s a call to action: I have a short comic featured in an anthology you should support by clicking here: http://100daysofmakingcomics.com/joshk and funding the creation of.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s the Why:

WHY?

A few months ago, I wrapped up a short 4 page comic called “Dinosaur Learns to Share” inspired by my son’s relationship with his stuffed animal for the 100 Days of Making Comics 2nd Anthology. Here’s a preview of what the pages kinda look like:

Select page from my contribution to the Werewolves & Unicorns and Other Mythical Creatures Anthology

The thing that got me into the 100 Days of Making Comics, was that my good friend, and fellow illustrator Kevin Cross had started an online challenge, that seemed like a brilliant idea, spending 30 minutes a day working on your own personal comic project for 100 days straight, no breaks, no excuses.

I loved this idea, as a cartoonist, I’ve built up a pretty good habit of working on my comic projects every day, mainly influenced by The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, a book I’d read that had a huge impact on me early on in my professional career as an illustrator. Like most aspiring authors/cartoonists, I’d been struggling to find a window of time to create artwork, and was really moved by Pressfield’s description that summed up equated to “You aren’t a writer any day you aren’t working on writing.” Basically: If I wanted to write and illustrate my own comics, on top of (at the time) trying to pay rent doing artwork, gain new clients, level up my illustration and design abilities, and have a social life.

This really allowed me to complete my first comic book NUMB, get the Xeric Grant, and launch my otherwise nonexistant career foray into making comics, and getting better professional illustration clients as a result. The ability to create my own comic, telling autobiographical stories, and convention at independent comic festivals, truly impacted the trajectory of my career, as well as life for years to come, and gave me much needed confidence as a kid. So, yeah, the book was needless to say, and the idea of daily work toward your personal art goals on top of professional work, in my own experience proved very necessary and fulfilling.

“This really allowed me to complete my first comic book NUMB, get the Xeric Grant, and launch my otherwise nonexistant career foray into making comics, and getting better professional illustration clients as a result.”

Flash forward to many years (nearly a decade) later. After completing graduate school at CSULB I’d taken on my first Art Director position, and my wife and I had our son, Benjamin (who the comic in this anthology is about). Learning how to navigate such an amazing yet time consuming and emotionally taxing position of wizardry required of most Art Directors, on top of navigating being a father within that first year of no sleep, pedal to the metal, living in a waking dream, and non-stop non-self related, yet most rewarding life experience, was definitely difficult.

My comic production had became close to non-existent, and mostly due to me allowing excuses to create a long pause that inevitably became two years of only doing professional work, both in and out of house. My graphic novel Quarterly Stories, was sitting, with the first volume at the halfway point, and it didn’t appear to be moving forward.

“My comic production had became close to non-existent, and mostly due to me allowing excuses to create a long pause that inevitably became two years of only doing professional work, both in and out of house. My graphic novel Quarterly Stories, was sitting, with the first volume at the halfway point, and it didn’t appear to be moving forward.”

The comic made a bit of headway, but mostly sat idle. This bothered me since I’m sincerely passionate about this project. As a Christian, I had grown to feel very convicted that Quarterly Stories was a necessary thing for me to write. It’s a candid confessional autobiographical story that dealt with topics of Faith and Mental Illness that I felt needed to be told. Not enough stories by Christian authors touch on the darker realities of life, and often show a world without characters who struggle with mental illness, sadness, depression, life changes, or anything of huge depth, and here I had this story, of my own experience, which would have greatly provided comfort to me when I was in the depth of depression years prior. And yet I’d allowed it to just stop being made, getting overwhelmed by life.

Skip forward again to me finding the will to make making comics a habit again. I found professionally that my work suffered, as I wasn’t involved making my own vision to life, I was less happy, less good of a father, less effective as a leader. I sincerely have grown to believe that as a creative, especially if you’re high up on the ladder of responsibility, it is essential to be working on artwork that isn’t tied to commerce. The big vision stuff is what not only advances your professional career, but will also give you the fuel and exploration to be able to grow and apply to your professional clients.

So, when Benjamin was two, while freelancing, commuting long hours, leading a team as an Art Director, working long hours, and being a father, I committed to spend time on advancing my comic, on a daily basis. A few months into this time, my friend Kevin Cross was visiting California, and on a late night he and I were having a conversation, where he convinced me to take on the 100 Days of Making Comics Challenge, as well as start vlogging.

The resulting efforts can be viewed on the videos section of this site, and I’m now close to 5 pages away from completion on my graphic novel. So, here’s what I’m trying to say:

1. The 100 Days of Making Comics challenge really opened up my community. Through it, and doing the Artcasters with Scott Serkland and The 48 Hour Artcheck with Cory Kerr, I’ve met so many supportive, amazing fellow cartoonists, and the entire 100s community, and it’s resulted in positive progress on my own personal comic projects.

2. As a result of being in the 100s, I was included in this second anthology.

3. You should support these creators, because every one of them has a story of struggle, overcoming difficult odds, and each one of them is a rad human being. Check out the info below, and see for yourself.

DESCRIPTION:

Over the course of 100 days, 28 comic creators, (from seasoned industry veterans to aspiring freelancers and weekend warriors), banded together and set out to create 28 short comics based on the theme "Mythical Creatures" and the book title "Werewolves & Unicorns"... The Result... 

FULL LIST OF CREATORS IN THIS BOOK:

• Noah 'Ox' Baas (Zombies Chase After The Stars, I Never Forgot) 

• Karyn Lewis Bonfiglio (Kitty Wars) 

• Jake Campbell (Adaptation) 

• Thomas G. Clemmons (Robot Friday, Hope Texas) 

• Pepper DeLuca (Camp Fire stories of Lake Kikipapi ) 

• Mike Emeritz (Legend of Space-Cat, Julie Jupiter, Sisyphean Complex) 

• Matthew Enstrom (Cryptid Adventures, Harvey Stone: Private Eye, Beast of Busco)  

• Scott O'Connell Green (Die in Yer Sleep, Mr. Green's MONSTER Zine) 

• Gaz 'Gazbot' Gretsky (EEP, Hero Envy, Kid Switch, Earthling, The Horror A4) 

• Yann Guyt (Space Cathedrals, Fosphor) 

• Dave Hingley ( DeeDee Danger, Negative Nanny) 

• Chris Isakson (Axl & Donnie, The Outsideling, Atris: The Knights of Aerrel) 

• Robert Johnston (My Little Skull, The Reverend, The Grontl, Zero Comix) 

• Joshua Kemble (Three Degrees, The Park, Numb, Jacob's Apartment, Quarterly Stories) 

• Cory Kerr (The Mixed, The Tongue Cut Sparrow )  

• Jeff Lafferty (Doom 2099, The Dead, Lord Pumpkin, X-Men, Berserkonaut) 

• Marshall Lee (Glyph, Corn Cob Rob, The Hitchhiker) 

• McKay & Gray (Pretty Mouth, The Magpie, The Scourge of Ninepoint) 

• Chris McQuinlan (The Legend of Rock, Nevermorrow, Monkey Junk) 

• True Murray (Hamchop, Wick) 

• Peter Palmiotti (Aquaman, Blood Rites, ARENA, Neon Edon,  Bright Eyes, RETRO)  

• Abiel Parsons (Furst Commandos, Blue) 

• Benjamin Pena (Dungeons & Deuce Man) 

• Teresa del Pilar (Graduation Nightmares, Space Copz, Held Back Summer) 

• Scott Serkland (Young and the Dead, Serkworks) 

• C.B. Smallwood (Wildcat, New Empire Comics) 

• Christopher Specht (My Little Skull, The Reverend, The Grontl, Zero Comix) 

• Finn Swan (Final Break) 

“You should support these creators, because every one of them has a story of struggle, overcoming difficult odds, and each one of them is a rad human being.”

Support it/Pick Up A Copy here: http://100daysofmakingcomics.com/joshk