John Boren

@johnborencomics.bsky.social

707 Followers 597 Following

Cartoonist. Letterer. Old nerd. Mendicant. False Gentleman.

Picture of a closed window, the blind drawn up, looking out on a yard. There’s a large bush, and a tree, with leaves turning yellow, amber, crimson. Very much a view of late fall.
Album cover to Prince’s Purple Rain movie soundtrack, 1984. Prince is sitting on a motorcycle, wearing his iconic purple outfit from that era, suffused in a haze of ‘80s neon light.
The cover to the 1973 short novel, ‘The Man Who Folded Himself’.
A Robert Crumb comic page, talking about what feeling paranoid is like.
Page 01 of The Magic Hour. It’s full of grainy images, photos I took and manipulated, as I walked to work at 3 a.m.
A very quick and dirty comic diary page about breaking an ipad, and my angel of a wife buying me a new one.
What a great pair of tits. I bet they’re a handful. I like to watch them bounce around, so cute! Wow, they’re blue!
Pencils for today’s diary comic.
Vina, the very green Orion Slave, from the first Star Trek pilot, and the show’s two parter, The Menagerie.
Pencils for today’s restarted diary comic. I’m posting the stages, from start to finish, to show my contempt for generative AI, and to have a nice, juicy, fleshed out post.
A sketchbook from Michael’s. 9x12. Lays flat, or so it claims. Binding is on the short side, that’s new. Cheap, ten bucks.
A ‘70s kid with a bowl cut kneeling on calico shag carpet in front of a plastic Christmas tree getting Micronauts.
A quick self-portrait with a new pen, in a new cute little sketchbook. Art supply retail therapy, in other words.
A diary comic from 2021, probably my favorite page I drawn the last few years. It’s just me playing with my tools, doing what I’m good at (hand lettering, playful layouts), and enjoying the act of creating.
This shows the steps I go through to get to finished pencils— a first pass, a polish step, then a second pass for clean-up and final positioning. I’ve taken third, fourth, and fifth passes on occasion. I’m not a perfectionist, I just like to torture myself!
Pencilled lettering from the title of my latest comics opus: a three-pager titled ‘Panic, Sorrow, and Pop Culture Awareness’. Stay tuned for more! [muted whimpering continues]
Pencilled lettering for the title of my latest comics opus: a three-pager called ‘Panic, Sorrow, and Pop Culture Awareness’. Stay tuned for more.
A page from a comics diary I kept. It’s a whimsical self-portrait of a cartoon version of myself, flying a UFO, and monologuing on the merits of analog drawing tools.
A page from my sketchbook, full of drawings of faces in a variety of styles and mediums. This is what I draw when I can’t think of what to draw.
An astronaut in space suit, holding a smartphone, floating in open space. They take a selfie as they float in front of a colorful cosmic phenomenon, thousands of light years away.
The bridge of the Enterprise, from the original 1960’s TV show. Home sweet home, as far as I’m concerned.
Ming: Klytus, I’m *bored*. What plaything can you offer me today? Klytus: An obscure body in the S/K system, your majesty. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet…Earth. Ming: How peaceful it looks… [Ming uses his evil ring to bombard earth with a variety of natural disasters. Ming laughs.] Klytus[chuckling]: Most effective, your majesty! Will you destroy this, uh, Earth? Ming[cavalierly]: Later. I like to play with things awhile…Before annihilation. [Ming’s echoing laughter intensifies]
Inked cartoon self-portrait with orange background. Word balloon reads ‘This is a test.’ Caption underneath reads: Copic markers & colored pencils Inked with Staedtler pens Blue pencil Masked with washi tape 2-18-2025 There are other notes to myself, about where the ink smeared, and where I peeled up the edge of the paper accidentally, and some more positive notes to myself. I’m not going to chew myself out like Chris Ware does in his sketch books, sorry.
I am filled with a perfectly balanced lunch, as all things should be. I am inevitable.
First panel: A cheerful figure in jeans and a t-shirt proclaims I'M AN OLD SCHOOL CARTOONIST! Second panel: close-up of a hand, drawing a line on a piece of paper. A word balloon reads: I PENCIL AND INK ALL OF MY ART ON SHEETS OF PAPER. [small caption] LEFT HANDED Third panel: An extreme close-up of a pen with the words ‘ROTRING ISOGRAPH’ next to it. A word balloon reads: I LETTER ALL MY WORD BALLOONS BY HAND, WITH PENS. Fourth panel: The cheerful figure is now sitting at a drafting table, holding an ipad and a stylus. He says: BUT DON'T GET ME WRONG, I USE MODERN TOOLS, TOO! I USE THEM ALL THE TIME FOR COLORING, HALFTONES, AND FIXING MISTAKES! I SAY, TRY EVERYTHING. EXPERIMENT! LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS. ENJOY THE CRAFTSMANSHIP. Final panel: A close-up of the cheerful figure. His head is surrounded by a glow of positive vibes. He thinks to himself: YEAH. CRAFT FEELS GOOD. 2・13・2025 JOHN BOREN
HOURLY COMICS DAY FEBRUARY 1ST 2025 9:30 AM AWAKENED BY CAT SLAP. “OW.” 9:45 AM - NOON INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH DOOMSCROLLING. NOON - 12:30 PM SHOWER & A SHAVE. 12:30 PM - 3 PM EXTENDED DISCUSSION WITH MY WIFE ABOUT WOMEN'S FASHION AND HOW WOMEN'S CLOTHES ARE MADE. “THE MORE I LEARN, THE MORE I THINK IT’S ALL ONE BIG KAFKAESQUE NIGHTMARE.” 3:30 PM - 7 PM SHOPPING FOR CLOTHES. “PATIENTLY BROWSING” “ANXIOUSLY DOOMSCROLLING” 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM STAR TREK AND PIZZA FOR DINNER. “STUFFED CRUST” 9 PM - 11:30 PM DOOMSCROLLING MIDNIGHT GOING TO BED. “ZZZ” JOHN BOREN
An empty corridor from the original Star Trek show.
My notebook, filled with a log of the day’s (non)events, and a page of art paper where I have penciled in the panel borders and lettered the title. Stay tuned for more!
I fleshed out some ideas in my sketchbook, and came up with this comic. It’s in black and white, with some screen tones. Gotta say, my favorite panel is the one with the laughing skull saying ‘Live To See Them Die.’
It’s a small white card, 6x8 inches, with 22 panels of art, sketched out in blue pencil.
Three Sleestaks, just chilling and enjoying the vibe of each other’s company.
My study of a Wallace Wood original piece of art. He inked with brushes, I used pens. He laid down a lot of screen tones, I shaded with colored pencils.
A quick study of a fifties comic book astronaut type, complete with fishbowl helmet, utility belt, and sidearm to shoot any slimy communist mutants.
Drawing warm-up doodles of smiling faces, as my brain tries to boot up with some brilliant idea for a comic page