Screw Comics is an anthology series where each book features 2 or 3 short story comics, and they're sandwiched by mini comics. The short story comics range from action/adventure and humor, with sci-fi and horror twists, topped with a little bit of stoner culture. Each book is self contained, so you don't need number 1 to enjoy number 2 and so on. However, some stories will have characters that have appeared in other books, or even reference other stories. The mini comics include 4-panel gag strips and 1-page anecdotes, sometimes personal, always bizarre.

Lately, Screw Comics has served as a jumping-off point for new comic stories of mine. The short story serves as a pilot of sorts, after it's finished I'll find I want to keep writing the characters, and BOOM, a new series emerges.

Screw Comics!

Or the alternative title: Armstrong & Blindside's Continuing Adventures thru Crosstime

Armstrong and Blindside made their debut in the Screw Comics 1 story "Smoke n' Mirrors" as a few bungling hit-women on a job. Interesting enough characters for me, I brought them back for another story, The Miscreants of Time, a four-part comic story in Screw Comics 4. Since that story I wanted to continue their adventures in their own series. As a couple of stoner hit-women who can skip to any point in time and space, the scenario is open to most any kind of story I can think of, so I began writing this series. Since I was starting something new, I figured Let's Start from the Beginning and show the origins of these characters, where they come from. What came out is a story about a family, a strange and messed up family that resides on a space colony overlooking Saturn.

2 of the 5 issues from the first arc are complete and available in a Digital Edition. After Issues 3-5 are complete, the full book will be available!

Blinky & Burly

One of the breakout stories from Screw Comics 5, Starboob has been an idea in the works since 2015. One day my wife and I were at the beach and we started riffing about a super woman with a star logo emblazoned on her outfit. I drew up a few sketches and even a mock-up cover. But while I was all set to do something with it, I had nothing yet; no characters, no story, zilch! So, it just sat in the back of my mind for years.

But by the time Screw Comics 5 was starting production, I decided I wanted to try and tackle this story as one of the big stories of the book. I whipped up a pilot script of the origin story, some character sketches, and then I began work. After I closed on the pilot, I didn't wanna stop, so I kept working, publishing the subsequent chapters on Webtoon™, gathering enough pages to put out another trade. We'll almost there, y'all. Issue 5 is almost done with production, and that's when I said I'll put out a new book.

Be sure to check out the Starboob website for plenty more details, tidbits, and story overviews!

Starboob

A sort of first-attempt in my repertoire, Rock in Time is about a woman who has a strange time machine and uses it to travel to the most notable rock shows in history. As an avid music lover, this idea was born out the fascination with the music artists themselves and how doing a certain gig can affect history.

I've never sat down and attempted to write a full-on comic series before this. At the time, a friend and fellow comic creator was running a boutique imprint of locally produced comics. Determined to network with other artists and be a part of something bigger than myself, I had this idea in my pocket and pitched it. I soon as I got the greenlight I dove in head first, not fully comprehending exactly how I wanted the finished work to look and feel. As with the other titles on the label, it was expected to be in color, so the art was left as such. Things with the local label started to go south, and before I knew it Rock in Time would come back into the fold of the Milqtoast Comics label.

I penned the first 5 issues which take place in 1978 NYC, during the burgeoning period of punk rock. It's a story of a woman who would rather not be held accountable for her actions, travelling to and wreaking havoc in the past. There are rock critics, gangsters, and even glimpses of strange, inexplicable futuristic technology. There are the rock artists of the era doing their gigs on the days they did them, to the best of my research. And most of all there's philosophy and talks of the importance of music in one's life.

The set-up of the story itself is designed to be a fun escape for the writer; you can live in a specific time period in popular music by having the main character travel there. Liverpool or Detroit in the early 60s, Philadelphia in the 70s, Seattle in the late 80s; anywhere you wanna go is possible. This first arc will culminate at an epic show featuring The Ramones and Blondie, days before Nancy Spungen was found dead.

For now this series is on PERMANENT HAITUS.

Rock in Time

My First Graphic Novel!

After I had come home from my first year in college in Oakland, I settled into a more solitary collegiate existence. I wasn't living in the dorms, and the University of Houston is considered a "commuter school" which means a lot of solo travel to and from campus and between classes. I had friends, of course, but it wasn't a steady hang like living in the dorms of my first two semesters, so I had to find ways to entertain myself. One way of doing that was creating the Toonster character. Toonster (that's his name) was a cute chibi version of me that was more impulsive, said what he wanted, and was not afraid to do what he wanted (often times with no legal consequences). He was a stand-in for me, acting in ways I wished the situation went. At the time I was putting out the Chingazo zines, I was also writing little stories starring Toonster and his friends. One day in class I began what would become this story.

A Marriage Proposal is a wacky, silly story about a forbidden love on the run, and how you should always listen to your heart. It's different in the sense that the main characters aren't the main characters in the plot, they just get swept up in the action cuz they're standing adjacent. I penned/drew the first few chapters in my comic notebook, and then transcribed them to pro comic pages. The second half of the story was fleshed out a long time afterward, after I figured out how I wanted to end the story. In the story itself, there's a tie-in to the next Toonster arc, a part of a comic that appeared in Chingazo #4. We also get a glimpse of Juju and Hambone, two stoner characters that have popped up in Chingazo already.

Toonster Adventures: A Marriage Proposal

OUT OF PRINT.

Getting the REMASTER treatment as you read this.

It's a story of a strange goth girl with stranger powers who can talk to stuffed dolls. Over the course of the story she finds out exactly who she is and where she comes from. But the question is, how will she deal with it?

I've done other comics with Strangely, such as STRANGE STORIES for STRANGE PEOPLE Anthology, and a wacky one-shot DR. QUEEF, MEDICINE MAN.

Enchanted by Darkness

Here's an oldie but goodie. 2005-2009

I met the writer of this book, Dirk Strangely, when he cold-called me outta the blue looking for a comic artist. He picked my business card from a bulletin board at the Texas Art Supply Clear Lake location, and my card explicitly said I draw comics. I said What the hell, and he sent me a script, I sent back a few sample pages right after, and then he gave me the green light.

This is my first foray into creating comics with a writer. It's my first experience getting a script and being told this is what the characters look like, this is what they do and say. At first thought it would be constricting, but as I got to work I found it sort of liberating. These aren't my characters, I just have to put down what I imagine; what they look like, how the shot is set up, how the page is laid out. In fact, it helped that I didn't have an attachment to the characters (at first), because that freed me up to try new things, bold things.

Originally planned for 5 issues, we whittled it down to 4 and then 3. Not because we were lazy, it's just that working on an indie comic when doing other indie comics takes a long time. We were itching to get a project finished, have a fresh book on the table. Over the course of production we did release issues one and two as they came out, which introduced me to a whole 'nother aspect of comic making: Printing.

This was during the digital printing boom, when printers large and small, both near and far professed they could print comics. Let's just say this was the time I developed my pet peeve of stinky-ink printed comic books. We grew so much during this time!

We finished the series and put out the trade in 2009, subtitled "Season One" cuz the story, though finished, is left wide open. We sold out of the first 150 copies, but wanted to do a better cover before we printed more, but never got around to it, and that was it. Recently, I re-scanned the original pages and fished out the old script; this book is getting a REMASTER! With everything I've learned since, this book will look and feel way better than it originally did with updated fonts and bubbles, and better bleeds. For a bonus I wrote and drew a 24 page backstory for one of the supporting characters that's never been published, it's going in the new edition. Sit tight!

The Comic Zine Series that Started it All! 2001-2008

I've drawn comics since elementary school, making up my own bootleg superhero characters that were just amalgams of existing mainstream ones. Into Middle School I made comics parodying TV commercials, and spoofing action stories starring anthropomorphic cats. In High School I wrote stories based on the antics of my friends. We'd pass around my comic notebook and all get a laugh. This is where I really developed some level of sequential story telling chops. Part of my Senior Art Thesis was completing a 17 page comic on professional comic art boards, mounted on the wall for the whole school to see and read.

My first year in college my best friend and roommate created a zine. I looked over and thought that was neat, so I set out to make my own zine. Not knowing where to start I just shrank down and published my Senior thesis comic, and Chingazo was born! After that, my drive to create comics become focused: I'll make comics and publish them in zines. Nobody can tell me what I can or can't publish. And so once a year I put out a new comic zine.

They featured weird short stories with strange and quirky characters: the jetpack-powered Toonster, the skull-faced Skull Kid, the ladies' fave superhero Captain Stud, a dimensional-hopping alien named Celadon, and so on. A lot of characters I still write to this day got their start in Chingazo such as PJ the un-fun teen, and JuJu & Hambone and their stoner stories. Every year I had a new comic and every year Chingazo got fatter. It became more and more a pain in the ass to fold and staple all these zines, and I found it was mighty cost effective to just have them printed in perfect bound books. And that's how Screw Comics! came along. Making zines taught me how to layout a book so it was a natural progression.

I've long since stopped printing Chingazo, but I have layed out a remastered collected edition featuring all the zines in order, as they appeared with minimal "touching up", along with commentary and bonus art & comics from the time period. Unless, you bought Chingazo from me at the zine fests or other comic cons I did, YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THESE COMICS!

Chingazo

All Contents Herein ©2023-2026 Jarrod L. Perez / Toonzday Productivities