I was driving up from Tampa...

gfingdammit it's Jemmy and Joe.
i'm happy to have a sparkly new vector of these two after years of no art. but i'm angry at how art-ADD i have been.

it's not my fault. i got the Tallahassee album from the Mountain Goats and suddenly couldn't refuse the urge to illustrate all of the shit that brought JnJ back to mind! it was so crazy. this song reminded me of how much Jemmy wanted to be with Joe but what a liability he turned out to be. and the cold bitter shouting vocals are perfect. like he knows he fucked up but deal wit it bitch.

the whole album though. it's... the domestic discord. and the Florida-core. and the fucking musical genius. i'd read about the "Alpha Couple" song series when i was researching the band before i listened to them; no idea how much it would resonate with me. the only other complete work that ever summed them up was Cursive's Domestica back in like 2002 which kicked off most of the story. the working class love drama part, not the viral epidemic and killer bears and wartime.

not everyone knows these two, so basically Jemmy is a crappier version of me where Ka is an idealized one. she's shy and a bitch and never wears makeup (and is not a fake redhead like Ka! XD) she was born and went to high school in California (sorry guys.) she also never really had any permanent friends her whole life, whereas Ka and i are amply blessed in that department. she was written to have...really nothing to lose, and thrive on poor judgment. she 's often robotic about seriously emotional things and has a bad habit of putting people off thusly. Joe is a perfect contrast, a crazy, pan-Slavic Adonis i made up in the tenth grade, after World history and Euro lit left me smitten with all things Russia and i was getting tired of Silicon Half. i contended with criticisms (mostly mine) that he was too similar to someone i know in real life. i admittedly fell into the habit for a while after i first met the dude, but over the years as that became a terrible idea Joe's had to be resurfaced multiple times to reverse the effect. unfortunately, when i try to keep him attractive in his original "black Russian" concept but drastically change details, i have more than once ended up with a drawing of my brother. >.< which is even more icky! so he doesn't come to paper easily.

anyhow their dead dads worked together in a research facility, they both escaped their contaminated town with severe lung rot and met up years later to live together with their bastard daughter who they eventually can't afford, so she lives elsewhere. love/hate eachother, but stay tied together for various reasons despite having grown embittered with hard times.

in a rare depiction, Joe's not been deported back to Russia yet. not long after this period in time does that happen, and do they-- in the face of some real shit-- start to be less pettily asshole-ish to eachother and reconnect with their original feelings before Sashe steals the show. but right now, they're both big kids.

and in for big trouble.

100% vector top to bottom. the clouds are gradients, not blurs., but the sunlight layer kind of... warped em.
there are three more songs on this album that i really really want to illustrate with these characters. we'll see how that goes.

_{See America Right song and lyrics © 2002 John Darnielle/The Mountain Goats.}