Head your sweet, sex positive butts over to

Oh Joy, Sex Toy (OJST) is a weekly comic that updates every Tuesday to bring you reviews of everything that relates to sex, sexuality and the sex industry. From toys to workshops to birth control and much more, no stone will be left unturned, no vibrator left unused, no nipple left unpinched. With the aid of guest reviewers, this comic will cover products for ALL the different anatomies people posses, from vulvas to penises and beyond. OJST strives to be relevant to all different genders, body types, and sexualities.

DANG! Exciting! I hope you enjoy :)

(Credit to Amy T. Falcone for coming up with the title and Scott Kurtz for inventing “A celebration of fornication” You guys are better at this than I am.)

I’ve written a big long letter about my decision to end DAR and what you can expect to see from me next over here.

The entire run of DAR! plus my various other books are available through my store.

Thank you again for reading, I’m gunna go pass the fuck out now.

You can sign up to receive occasional updates from me about my latest projects, convention appearances and speaking gigs!

CORRECTION 12/28/09: I’m so stupid, I got my dates mixed. DAR doesn’t end until Tuesday, the 29th. Sorry for the confusion!

Important Announcement

Maybe you already know about it, as it’s been no secret since I’ve talked about it in a lot of the interviews I’ve done in the last few months. But here is my Official, F’reals Announcement. The final strip will air on December 29th, 2009.

My very first DAR! strip was drawn in October 2003 and then made it online sometime not too long after that. That means I’ve been working on this project for about six years now.

It started my sophomore year of college as a 20 year old student and has seen me through my first love, finding my queer identity, my first heartbreak, my first rebounds, traveling to another country, depression and medication, having stupid adventures, meeting the man I’d eventually marry, re-structuring “my identity”, graduation, working in the real world while struggling to keep making art which brings us to today where I’m a 26 year old self-employed happily married woman.

Oh, and I guess there were some dick ‘n’ fart jokes in there too.

Having a weekly deadline has taught me to draw more efficiently and the limited space of six panels has forced me to communicate my ideas as concisely as possible. It’s helped me find my voice and opened up a helluva lot of doors to me professionally. I am extremely fortunate to have gathered a big enough readership that I can mostly live off of this goofy little journal. Most importantly, this comic has been directly responsible for me meeting my heroes, some of my very dearest friends and especially my husband.

I’m extremely grateful for the wonderful opportunities and experiences and connections that have come into my life because of this ridiculous comic.

After six years, I feel emotionally and mentally ready to move on.

But don’t worry!
I have so many more projects I’m turning my attentions towards! DAR! was not my first comic and it is so far away from being my last. Making comics has been my passion for over a decade now (Hell, I even graduated from college with a self-made degree in comics) and I can’t see a time when I’ll ever stop. I’ve still got a whole second volume of DAR! to put out! (It’ll be in my store in early 2010)

If you would like to be updated when my new projects launch, please sign up for my newsletter (I raaaaarely actually use it, you won’t be getting blasted with weekly emails, I promise):

As always, you can keep up with me on the various different networking sites out there:

My books and original art will continue to be available for purchase, of course! And, uh, is it too cheeky to include my Amazon Wishlist?

And you can see more of my work on:

In closing, thank you.

Thank you to everyone who has read my work over the years.
I truly appreciate every ounce of support I have ever received from my readers and cannot even come close to expressing how much it has meant to me.

Thanks for sticking around and I hope I see you guys in the future,
Erika

Lookit my collection of various tentacle-related endeavors.

Who is this Visioluxus person in the comic? Just a totally fab photographer I’ve had the pleasure of working with a few times. She’s selling prints of my totally sweet ass wrapped in tentacles, if you’re into that kinda thing.

Eep! And I forgot to mention: Specimen7 has been one of my favorite places to pick up crazy little tentacle creature sculptures (which is where I got the one that appears in the third panel!)

Important Announcement

If you’re in Portland, OR this week come on by either or both of these events! I’ll be there :)

The above is my contribution to OMG PWN!ES, a gallery show of modified My Little Ponies. If interested in purchasing my pony, please contact show and gallery curator Kaebel Hashitani at sequentialart (a) gmail.com

OMG PWN!ES
Thurs­day, Decem­ber 3, 6-10pm
Sequen­tial Art Gallery
328 NW Broad­way #113
Portland, OR 97209

The Legend of Webcomics
Saturday, December 5
3-7pm
Dunning-Kruger Solutions Ltd
1515 SE 46th Ave
Portland, OR
RSVP on Facebook

The Legend of Webcomics

Saturday, December 5
3-7pm
Dunning-Kruger Solutions Ltd
1515 SE 46th Ave
Portland, OR
RSVP on Facebook

I’m very proud to be offering work by my friends and fellow studiomates Dylan Meconis, Steve Lieber and Sara Ryan. They are extremely talented and this is the perfect opportunity to try a little comic variety and save some money on shipping from ordering through one store.

And on a different note, I’ve been doing a daily drawing over on my LJ, to help me warm up in the morning. My guidelines are to complete a fully inked picture within one hour of getting to the studio, five days a week. I neeeever ever just draw except for comics, so I’m hella insecure when I have to do sketches at conventions. Also, I really wanna get better at inking so this exercise seemed like a good way to improve on several fronts at once!