@kickintheeyes-blog / kickintheeyes-blog.tumblr.com
Hey all, a while back I was locked out of this Tumblr account on computers because the email address linked to the account is defunct. I still have access via the app on my phone but I’m not sure for how long and can’t promise a comeback. Please visit http://www.mjcomics.com to see my work moving forward (I’m working on a website overhaul soon) join my email list here and feel free as always to contact me - mj at mj comics dot com
The Hook, originally published in Inaction Comics no. 1: Productivity.
a little poem about a little gemini feeling
friend at the college i went to (oberlin) asked me to make a comic for the grape (weird student newspaper) so i whipped up this lesson for the youngins (click image to zoom in)
The comics MJ Robinson creates have a musicality to them. You can hear the words in their comics bouncing off of eachother like you are thinking them yourself, their sounds and rhythms revealing as much as their meanings. There’s a playful atonality to some of their work, where they seem to be pulling from children’s drawings in the same way other artists are inspired by outsider art. Which is no surprise, as much of their recent work has been informed by their experiences as an educator of small children. This childish earnestness is counterbalanced by a jangly hipness, and somehow together they reveal complexity and truth in simple autobiographical narratives.
MJ grew up in Pennsylvania (mostly) and graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio with a BA in Studio Art and Creative Writing. They currently work as an arts and museum educator, freelance illustrator, and cartoonist.
You can read through 5 years worth of their comics at http://mjcomics.com/ and follow http://kickintheeyes.tumblr.com/ for new sketches, art, and news on upcoming events! Their printed books and comics are available for purchase at Czap Books.
Eager for even more? Check out the Inaction Comics Creator Talk at the Boston Comics Workspace on Sunday October 11 at 7 PM featuring Kimball Anderson ( @earnestattempts ) , Cathy G. Johnson ( @cathyboy ), MJ Robinson ( @kickintheeyes ), and Laurel Lynn Leake ( @laurellynnleake ) . See more information here.
BOSTON!!
I’m excited to speak on this panel with Kimball, Cathy, Laurel - three careful and thoughtful artists & kind people whose work I admire. It’s bound to b good...!
comic about the moon
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These are all the screen printed cards I got yesterday at 186 Carpenter St.’s opening of “Collect Em All: A Providence Comics Consortium response to Garbage Pail Kids, M.U.S.C.L.E Men, and other 80s kids junk”!!! And the bottom 4 are the ones that I drew based on characters invented by the future minds of tomorrow; Shahid, Sandy, Victoria, and Tunmise. The future is BRIGHT!!!
if you’re in the Providence area, come on out to FOO FEST 2015 on Saturday, 8/10. From 1-3pm, i one of these fine providencecomicsconsortium creatures will be DOLING OUT FREE ADVICE (in the form of a drawing/comic) to anyone with a question. xo
Q: MJ where are you?
A: my art studio is infested with bed bugs (”authentic!”) and i have been making primarily ugly paintings (see above). who knows when this phase will pass!
guess where
Up to stuff
She Sending Seeds, from Inaction Comics no. 1: Productivity
My RIPE recap is now up on Broken Pencil. Check it out. Photo of the Papercut Zine Library table.
Look at these RIPExpo highlights from Jonathan at Broken Pencil Magazine! There’s a section about my work with Inaction Comics, which is available for purchase here.
Artist and Providence resident MJ Robinson is a contributor to and assistant editor of the RIPE debut Inaction Comics no: 1 anthology. Edited by Somerville, Massachusetts based Kimball Anderson, the first of this multi-volume series explores the power of nonintervention. MJ celebrates Anderson’s guidance of the collection into a whole that ebbs and flows with a unified feeling, that complicate each work by being presented together. The book is divided into three sections: floating, weighted and balance. MJ’s first Inaction offering, “She Sending Seeds” uses the trope of Spring to create a simple, but more than surface look at happiness. Their second work, “The Hook” is all about the contradiction of how the verb ‘let’ though passive is still a form of action that can allow for violence, inspired by their work as an educator. With cover art and movement separations by RIPE organizer Cathy G. Johnson, Inaction Comics features gorgeous pieces from a variety of cartooning talents.
self portrait of me bouncing and a bouncer
We are very excited to unveil the RIPExpo 2015 poster, designed and screenprinted by Alison Rutsch!
Alison Rutsch is a local Providence artist. She will be exhibiting at RIPExpo 2015!
We would like your help getting the RIPExpo 2015 word out there!
If you live in New England, you can help us by posting fliers for RIPExpo! Click here for a black and white 8.5 x 11 version of the poster, which you can print off and post in your local libraries, comic shops, community centers, schools, jiu jitsu gyms, etc etc etc!
Excited to be tabling this year! B)
Here it comes!!!! RIPExpo!!
