jean-wei

[jean-wei]

cried reading “see you” i love friendship and magic thank you for being who you are & sharing the art you make !

Thank you so much for reading "See You!" I also love friendship and magic !

Super glad it resonated with you. It was very much a comic made of feelings that I wanted to bottle up and share. Really, really appreciate the kind words. Have a lovely day!

[jean-wei]

I just found out your comics. I loved it!!!!

They are amazing!!! What's your process and inspirations??

Hi there! Thanks for reading my comics, happy to hear that you like them. : ) Process is pretty straightforward; brainstorming/writing >>> thumb-nailing >>> pencils >>> final inking >> toning & typesetting there can be a bit of back and forth between these steps, depending on how indecisive I'm being haha. Character designs and other design elements get solidified somewhere between thumbnailing and pencils.

Inspirations; In terms of coming up with ideas for comics, anything goes! Daily life, observations, historical objects, phrases I learn, lots and lots of wikipedia diving! I find it's usually 1 little piece of information that I have to let marinate in my head for a long time, using it as inspiration for slowly spinning something that resembles a story. Occasionally I have an explicit goal of doing some kind of special approach to format that ends up informing the writing.

In terms of media, I've always loved fantasy books, manga, and animation. And of course I love illustration of all sorts. I'd like to read more novels and nonfiction books!

[jean-wei]

i made a fu sign!! I've wanted to try making one for a while, and I've always wanted to try drawing some lucky bats! (see this wiki page for relevant bat information lol)

If you're getting ready for lunar new year, I have some of these riso-printed signs available for you in my web shop.

All proceeds this week (through 1/19) are going to gofundme's 2025 Wildfire Relief Fund. I'll email customers a screenshot of the donation receipt after I tally it all up on 1/20.

[jean-wei]

If any of you are out in LA, I'll be tabling at CALA this weekend! (My neighbor is the fearsome cheeto tiger overlord! @jxiaoo ) Please come say hi! Flip through some comics! I'll have so many prints and comics haha... Take them away from me... Comics I'll have:

See You!

Mending A Rift

Light Through Memory

Heat

Hearth's Haunting (print debut!!!!!)

[jean-wei]

Posting a whole comic! Mending a Rift, 2022. 34 pages. Sort of sci-fi, sort of fantasy, maybe a little grim, very much slice-of-life.

A digital PDF of this comic is available in my web shop.

[jean-wei]

I have a new comic out!! Debuting at @shortboxcomicsfair !!!! You can find it here!! It's 20 pages ! Black & white.

Are there ghosts? Maybe. Is there cooking? Maybe. Hope you'll give it a read!!! >: )

[jean-wei]

Are you going to be doing phrasebook again? It was such a lovely series that touched on such beautiful aspects of your culture. I loved the characters and the little world, they’re all so charming.

Hi there!

I hope to do at least a couple more Phrasebooks...! 5 feels like a nice, round number for a series, so that seems like a good goal.

Lately I've only ended up having time to draw. 1-2 short comics for myself a year, so it's been hard to find time for Phrasebook comics unfortunately. But I do have some ideas rolling around...!

Thanks so much for your kind words, and thank you so much for reading these comics! ^ ^

[jean-wei]

See You! Spring 2024. A new short comic. : ) Debuted at TCAF 2024. [edit: i've now added a PDF of this comic in my store! : ) ]

[jean-wei]

Don't know if any Torontonians follow me here, but I'll be tabling at TCAF for the first time this weekend!

I'll be debuting a new short comic, and will have copies of Heat available. As well as lots of other comics (print edition of Light Through Memory!!) and riso prints.

Come say hello! : )

[jean-wei]

the scribe & the storytellers.

new riso print! 8.5 x 11", 3 colors. Yellow, cornflower, and neon coral. Printed by the wonderful folks of Risolve.

It's available in my web store now! : )

[jean-wei]

howdy!!!! a while back, Smallbü Animation asked me to make them some merch designs!! As a big, long-time fan of their work, I was very happy to deliver.

They're currently running a pre-order campaign that ends on 4/17, so nab these shirts & totes while you can! There's a variety of shirt colors & sizing, so please take a gander and support the awesome independent animation work that they do. : ) ⭐ A LINK!!! to the store!! ⭐

[jean-wei]

Reblogging! Happy lunar new year!!!! : )

here comes another volume of Phrasebook! This is vol 2, "Dragon Whiskers". Also 2019. You can read vol 1, "All-Purpose God", here. And vol 3, "Tailwind" here.

[jean-wei]

Occasionally I'll get messages from folks about finding Heat in print... Happy to say that Peow's doing a reprint of the comic! : ) LINK HERE!!!

Nothing's changed from the original 2018 print run, but print books should be coming with a free sticker! (Red w/ many cats, see above design lol) No bonus materials or updates. But print is still my personal favorite way to experience the story visually, so hopefully you print-lovers out there will enjoy it.

It's an older book, so I'm really grateful that Peow and I share the same desire to basically keep this book alive somewhere and accessible to readers. The digital PDF is also still up in my store on a sliding scale basis, with all of the bonus materials and bells/whistles. If you'd like a free copy, just drop me an email and I'll send you a PDF.

It has been both very strange and very rewarding to have the chance to revisit this story lately. Hope you'll give Heat a read if you haven't before!

Jean

[jean-wei]

waiting for tea to brew

trying out some new brushes

[jean-wei]

these cards are back in my web shop for a while! they come in packs of 3, one of each design. I'll be closing up the store in mid-December, so please plan ahead if you're geting any gifts! > : )

designs for holiday cards! happy holidayyys!!

[jean-wei]

A belated batch of fanart drawings, post-SB Fair. :' )

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist by @punkratkid

A Three Body Problem by @juangeedraws

A Minor Catalogue by Wenting Li

Meryl by C. A. Strike

My thoughts on each comic are buried somewhere on twitter/insta, but in short, they were all wonderful. ^ ^ They're not available at the fair anymore since it ended, but I'm sure they'll live on in some form, sometime in the future. Please check out these artists' work! I had the chance to slowly read, I'd say... about 75-80% of the comics this year? It was astounding/inspiring/overwhelming to experience and be reminded of the variety of things you can do with a short comic. Short comics are both approachable to make but difficult (for me) to control and land with a deft hand, in a limited number of pages... What's a great, satisfying bite? This all reminded me of how enjoyable and engrossing it can be to digest and navigate comics. (I don't read enough these days, clearly.) Wish I had planned my lil one-man-promo-campaign a bit better, but I did more drawings than I expected hahaha.

Anyhow, SB Fair was a great experience this year. Keep an eye out for yet another batch of great comics next year! And if you picked up my comic this time around, thanks so much & happy reading!

[jean-wei]

A batch of fanart for some comics that I've been digging at this year's Shortbox Comics Fair! Comics and authors linked below.

Birds of the Storm by @mathildejr

Does Maribella want a croissant? by @gaiapapoila

Bunny Punch by @michaelfurler

The Quiet End of the Mundane Age by @theoplum

Ocean by @heyluchie

I've been posting tiny reviews on twitter and insta about each comic. But in summary, each of these comics made me laugh or marvel or feel emotional, or simply everything at once. I've read so many great comics so far, and regret that I don't have the time to make fanart for many more haha.

There's such a wonderful range of comics and cartooning on display at this year's fair, so I hope you'll check it out and pick out a few for yourself. : ) Less than a week left to go!