Roffles Lowell, the interior illustrator of the upcoming Jake and the Dynamo, Book 1: The Wattage of Justice has kindly sent along this exploitable image of Miss Percy, Jake and Dana’s hot but desperate schoolteacher.
Category: Fan Art
#WaifuWednesday Special: Andalusia Trading Card is 50% Off!
On this Waifu Wednesday, are you alone? Are you lonely and miserable, sitting in your mom’s basement with your fedora askew on your unwashed hair as you scratch your unshorn neck and pick at your acne? Are your hot pockets tasteless, no longer satisfying? Does your anime character body pillow no longer comfort you as it once did? Do you wonder if this is all there is to life? Do you yearn for something more? Are you in need of a warrior dame named after an autonomous community of Spain to lift you out of your doldrums?
I think so. In fact, I know so.
That’s why, in honor of Waifu Wednesday, our one-of-a-kind Magical Girl Lady Paladin Andalusia trading cards are half off for one day only! Featuring Andalusia’s genuine signature and the professional photography of artist Roffles Lowell, this card depicts Andalusia in a striking yet sensitive pose, eyes humbly cast down as she thanks God and the Moon Princess for her latest victory over monsters and Saracens … or maybe she’s just thinking about the Backdoor Boys, because, I mean, Donnie in those tight jeans? Like, OMP.
So don’t delay. Shut up and let me take your money … or something like that.
Team Pizza! (and a J&tD update)
Art by Roffles Lowell
My schedule is still fairly harsh through this coming week, but after Saint Paddy’s Day, things will slow down a bit for me. I hope to be posting more regularly.
Things are coming along smoothly so far on the publication process of the first volume of JAKE AND THE DYNAMO, which is currently under the working title of Down and Out in Fifth Grade. There’s no projected publication date yet, but some of the earliest preliminary work is done. I’m working on the bonus content: I had originally produced an extra chapter, but now I’m unhappy with it, and I’m considering instead including a novelette featuring Rifle Maiden’s misadventures while babysitting the Bubble Princesses.
I believe I’ve chosen a studio for cover art, and I don’t think he’ll mind if I say that I’m talking to Roffles Lowell about the possibility of doing interior illustrations. No commitments have been made, so this post isn’t an attempt to pressure him or anything. But I really enjoy the YA look of his style, and I appreciate that it differs from the standard style of Japanese light novels or Japanese-influenced work. This is obviously a weeb novel, so I like the idea of the art being non-weeb.
In the midst of our conversation, Roffles sent me the above picture of Team Pizza to show me what his work looks like in black and white, and he told me to do with the image as I wish. So this is me doing that. Featured up there, of course, are Pizza Margherita, her faithful dog Pepper, and Crazy Annie Shové, all riding comfortably on the Pie in the Sky.
Jake and the Dynamo Fan Art #3
Featured image: “Jake and Dana” by Roffles Lowell.
I asked Roffles if he’d be willing to draw Jake and Dana together, and he came through. Looks like Jake finally got Dana that juice box he owes her, though from the design on the box, it looks like he didn’t find strawberry milk. That’s probably why she’s pouting. Of course, she’d pout anyway. I like the big brother/little sister vibe he’s captured in this drawing. Three different artists have produced interpretations of the characters now, but I believe this is our first picture of Dana in her non-magical form.
Roffles doesn’t like the way I dress Dana and has told me so, so he went his own route with her clothes. But the joke’s on him: she’d probably be perfectly comfortable in ripped jeans and sneakers.
For the record, Dana’s canonical couture is based on Jake and the Dynamo‘s inspiration. Before I went to bed and had the dream about Jake and Dana that eventually became the serial novel, I was watching the anime adaptation of Shugo Chara, an influential and successful magical girl title from the beginning of this millennium, created by the two-woman manga-ka team Peach-Pit (who are probably best known, at least in the U.S., for Rozen Maiden, which has a substantial internet cult following).
Anyway, the protagonist of Shugo Chara is a fifth-grader whose mode of dress is described in-universe as “Goth-punk.” I attempted to mimic the look, more or less, with Dana’s wardrobe.
Jake and the Dynamo Fan Art #2
Featured image: “Sukeban Tsubasa vs. the Demoniac” by Roffles Lowell.
CODENAME: Magical Girl Sukeban Tsubasa
ALTER EGO: Unknown
FAMILIAR: Kobe the tanuki.
CURRENT AGE: 15
THREAT LEVEL COMPETENCY: 2.4
MAGITECH: Gadgetry
When a spacefaring alien decided to upgrade to the latest model of mecha power suit, he gave his old model to a teenage human girl because he knew he could write it off as a tax-deductible donation. Thus, Magical Girl Sukeban Tsubasa was born.
Tsubasa’s identity is unknown. She has been seen primarily in New Beijing, though her name suggests Japanese origin. Her bizarre accent, however, is unidentified. As a brand new magical girl, Tsubasa recently made waves when she single-handedly and in a single evening cleared New Beijing of both zombies and robot dinosaurs from space. Although her threat level competency is modest, a formidable arsenal suggests that it is likely to rise rapidly.
Tsubasa’s power suit may not look like much, but it uses truncated superstrings to store a vast array of weaponry inside a pocket dimension, which Tsubasa can access through her bracelets. To assist her, the suit comes with a self-aware instruction manual that by sheer coincidence resembles a Japanese raccoon dog.
The full range of her weapons is unknown. However, it has been confirmed that the suit has a built-in antigrav unit that allows her to fly and hover. Astonishingly, she recently used a nanoprobe cannon to perform an exorcism, an ability not typically observed in magical girls who receive their powers from extraterrestrial rather than spiritual sources.
According to her own statement, she has, quote, “more guns dan a Navarrone rummage sale.” Experts are still debating what this means.
Although she has only been a magical girl for a few days, Tsubasa already has an avid fan following, primarily because of the way she boasts of scandalous behavior. Dubbed the “bad girl of magical girls,” Tsubasa claims to engage regularly in what she calls “bad stuff,” including such un-magical-girl-like behavior as smoking, drinking, vandalism, and hanging out with boys. She has not yet been observed in male company, but insists that she has several boyfriends.
Her most shocking act to date is challenging Magical Girl Pretty Dynamo to single combat. Pretty Dynamo is currently the highest-rated magical girl in Urbanopolis, with a threat competency rating of 9.0. However, critics and magical girl experts point out that Dynamo’s arsenal of electrical weapons is highly specialized. This makes her ideal for taking down large kaiju (and thus achieving a high rating), but can hinder her when facing other threats. Tsubasa has already demonstrated that she is considerably more versatile.
Tsubasa’s fans have petitioned the Threat Assessment Board to raise Tsubasa’s rating to 9.1 if she successfully overcomes Dynamo in a match. However, some experts warn that adjusting a girl’s rating when she fights other magical girls could set a dangerous precedent, as it might encourage more intra-sororal battles in the magical girl community and thereby focus the girls’ attention on competing for ratings rather than their true task, which is defeating the monsters bent on mankind’s destruction.
Jake and the Dynamo Fan Art
In this image by Roffles Lowell, Magical Girl Pretty Dynamo broods as she flies high over the city she is doomed to protect. She contemplates the implacable foes bent on humanity’s destruction. She contemplates what nefarious mastermind may be behind the latest wave of monster attacks. She contemplates how she’s pretty sure she saw Jake making eyes at Sword Seamstress, so she is really going to give him what-for when she gets home. Just see if she doesn’t. Jake is such a big jerk. Boys really suck. Totally.