I was camera-less on Sunday when I breezed through day 2 of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) 2008 Art Festival. The whole time I kept thinking wow, cool, awesome, as I beheld the expectedly fantastic body art on multitudes of comic artists, fans, and publishers.
As fate would have it, two days later I ran into Jenny, who was in attendance at the same event.
I spotted the above piece, and when we started talking, and she mentioned her comic, Too Negative, did I think to ask her if she was at the MoCCA event.
This tattoo was designed by Jenny and inked by Sophie Crumb (daughter of the legendary master of comix R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb), when she was apprenticing at Suerte Studios, in Brooklyn. Sophie has moved on and Adam Suerte moved his shop (Brooklyn Tattoo) from State Street to Smith.
The yin and yang symbols, a staple in Chinese philosophy, are popular emblems for countless people, and Jenny's design infuses the recognizable art with her own dark spin.
The circles in the standard yin and yang have been replaced with X's, a nod to one of her main characters in her comic, whose eyebrows are represented with a set of X's, as Jenny elaborated, "like a Manson girl who got over-zealous".
The flames surrounding the symbol refer to the devils that populate her comic. The blood dripping down is a nice touch, as well, definitely heightening the tension between Jenny's vision and the popular interpretation of the yin and yang harmony. Jenny's work is dark and twisted, and her influence on a design often associated with peace and balance, is unsettling and perfectly tailored to her artistic style.
Be sure to check out Jenny's site here. Her work Too Negative appears in the Comix section.
Thanks to Jenny for pausing during lunch on a blisteringly hot day to share her ink here on Tattoosday.