If you haven't checked out my Full Overview on Orange Zeppelin, you should.
If you wanna read a far shorter interview from November 2022, you can HERE.
In 2017 you did the Mockstrosity Tour Artwork for Mac Sabbath, Metalachi, and Okilly Dokilly. Are there any bands out nowadays that you would want to do artwork for?
OZ: I would love to do something for Nekrogoblikon! I’d also give at least one one of my toes to make anything at all for GWAR since they’ve been such a big inspiration to me over the years.
In general I’d like to practice making art that translates well into album covers,I tend to be very character-focused and treat backgrounds as something one does only when forced at gunpoint. Recently I entered a contest for a comic called Kill them Dead that is going to paired with a power metal album and we were tasked with designing art to be printed on the vinyl itself. That ended up being an interesting design challenge since I really had to take that round shape into consideration.
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You made the Metalachi Fan Armour, and now you've revamped it into Something More Orcish, turning your boob cups into a Deadly Mace. Do you plan on adding any new pieces to it? Have you worn it at the anime shop yet?
OZ: I don’t have any big plans for it at the moment though I’d like to refine the bottom half a bit more. In the original Metalachi look I had a pair of shorts inspired by mariachi pants which is an odd juxtaposition with the orc theme! The codpiece that went with the outfit was also sewn directly to the shorts, so I may do a new codpiece next.
As for wearing it to the shop, I might bring it out if we do an RPG event in the future. I do ride my bike to work so that will be quite the spectacle to behold.
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How has the Anime Shop been for you? What have you enjoyed from the stuff they stock, if anything?
OZ: The shop has been awesome to work at! It’s called The Nerdy Otter because we’re right on the waterfront and our town is famous for our sea otters. It’s a tiny little place that was originally the storage room for a bakery until around April of 2023 when the owners decided to create a side business with anime and comic merch. We’re a small town so there’s really no one like us in the area. My goal for the near future is to spearhead a monthly gaming night or at the very least see if the owners will let me take over the social media so we can be promoting ourselves better. You can find us on Instagram HERE
I’ve taken good advantage of my employee discount and bought lanyards and pins to wear while at work, and I’ve got some really cool dice sets as well. Several of our Sanrio plushies have made it home also, though with those it was because they arrived to us damaged and I wasn’t able to repair them well enough to sell.
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Your recent video on studying Gaelic with your hobonichi journal(and like 3 others) was pretty entertaining, and as a person who keeps going on and off with German and Japanese, it was inspiring to see someone actually progressing without taking on a tutor. Besides just having fun with it, has learning the language and keeping disciplined changed anything for you?
OZ: Aside from opening up a whole new world of memes, mostly about underpants and people named Iain, it’s opened up a lot of possibilities in the future when I can communicate at a level other than “literal baby”. I’m definitely thinking up ideas for working Gaelic into comic strips and I’ve found communities online that would probably really enjoy them. My big pipe-dream goal is to start up a second YouTube channel for Gaelic vlogging and just maybe do gaming videos, but that’s going to take a lot of study and tech set-up that I can’t accomplish just yet. Since Gaelic is very much a language on the brink of dying out I think it’s super important to use it as much as possible and to show that it is absolutely learnable.
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I am guessing you've researched the Celts to an extent since you draw them plenty, do you have any favourite facts or stories about them that you've come across or artifacts?
OZ: My favorite artifact is definitely the Gundestrup cauldron, a silver cauldron unearthed in Denmark that features one of the most iconic images of the god Cernunnos ever found. Cernunnos himself is very interesting as we really don’t have any documented information on him or even know if that was his common name. A horned god appears numerous times in Celtic art but the only place he is explicitly named is on a monument known as the Pillar of the Boatmen.
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I remember you saying your soundtrack whilst Arting was all over the place and didn't exactly reflect your barbarian babe vibe, so what exactly do you listen to?
OZ: As of recently I got back into playing Sonic Adventure 2: Battle so I’ve been listening to a lot of my favorite songs from the game, though maybe that’s a bad example because that OST goes absolutly hard as fuck in some levels. But I like to pair my music with the vibe of what I’m making and sometimes my vibe can only be captured by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. While my playlist is mostly metal, Tiny Tim is hiding in there somewhere along with Cab Calloway. Billy Idol has also carried me through many drawing sessions!
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Now besides an Arting playlist, give us like 10 bands you would recommend nowadays?
OZ: In no particular order: The Irish Rovers, Brocas Helm, Peat and Deisel, Slough Feg, Wrath of Killenstein, Randy (who the demon dog in Gobliterated was named for! Not to be confused with a Swedish band with the same name) Jerusalem (also not to be confused with a Swedish band of the same name, This is starting to look like a pattern…) Those covers of Alvin and the Chipmunks songs where they slow it down to 16 speed and it turns into sludge metal,
The entire Gauntlet: Dark Legacy OST, and The Hu.
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Have you made a soundtrack for immersing yourself in Gaelic?
OZ: I’ve got a couple of playlists saved and built on YouTube with anything that looks useful for immersion, finding Gaelic content is way harder than something like Spanish where I can immerse just by going outside and eavesdropping but you can still dig around and find a lot of helpful materials. I don’t have a lot of gaelic music included because I’m focusing on as much natural speaking as I can.
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Hail Yourself Zine how did you get in on that? Did you enjoy being a part of it?
OZ: Getting into Hail Yourself was a very lucky coincidence, they had flyers printed out and spread around town and I came across it on one of my collage’s bulletin boards. I sent them an email and a couple of art pieces, and Krystal sent me an email back saying she looked me up on Facebook and saw the comic strips I was doing (unofficially) for Metalachi. She was hoping I could made a comic strip in a similar vein to Beelzebubs, and that’s how Gobliterated originally came about. This expanded into having a table at the first Mid-State Metal Fest, and being asked to design the flyer for the second. Unfortunately COVID came and shit all over everyone’s everything everywhere so that event was canceled, and the zine creators ended up moving across the country leaving our area once again bereft of a good metal zine. But it was a good experience while it lasted, and it was by far the most high-quality zine I’ve ever come across.
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How have you felt about your zine journey so far?
OZ: I think that I’ve learned a tremendous amount not just about the process of DIY publishing but about where my strengths are when it comes to making comics. Since I’m working with a set number of pages with the expectation of a physical printing it also forces me to think more about story pacing and how pages “flow” together. I’ve definitely moved from the mini-magazine direction to the straight-up comic direction, and I’d like Brain Fart Comix to basically be whatever comic idea I’m floating about at the moment.
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In November 2022 you said you weren't too good at self promotion and the audience was small but growing, have things changed?
OZ: Online algorithms are a beast we’re enslaved into feeding, and there’s still a lot of ways I could be better but I’m noticing that my Youtube is gaining a lot more traction. I’ve recently changed my vlogging format to show more actual process footage and to focus on each month’s big project. I’m hoping to exploit my down time at work and use that for promo work and studying instead of researching terrible jello salad recipes like I’ve been doing.
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With Gobliterated I felt like Grokka was your avatar so to speak, but then I noticed in the notes for some strips that even Ronnie was mirroring things in your life, such as planning out your week and then COVID. Who do you relate to the most? (You can not say Randy.)
OZ: There was actually a secret logic to how I wrote each Gobliterated character, and it’s that I wrote every character based on my more negative personality traits or habits. Ragnar gets big ideas but when faced with roadblocks he can get the wind knocked out of his sails and loose motivation. He also wants to be perfect right off the bad and doesn’t like going through the pains of learning a new skill. Grokka is somewhat neurotic in general with a tendency to beat himself up over conceived flaws, and even overcompensates by working himself to burnout.
I didn’t get to show a lot of Ronnie as a character but she takes bad moods and makes them worse by stewing and ruminating on them, and she’s probably who most closely resembles me in personality.
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If FATAL QUEEF actually made music, how do you think it would sound?
OZ: Ska from hell!
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Ok let us discuss this Wes Johnson obsession, when did it start, how is it going, and would you plaster cast his face and wear it around the house? When are we getting a spicy version of him with a mace and malog balls wabbajackin' off?
OZ: Oh man, this was a rabbit hole that started with me getting really into Sheogorath from the Elder Scrolls, which lead to me stumbling into a photo of his voice actor in full Sheogorath cosplay, and then I started researching other projects he’s done. In the words of the great Squidward Tentacles, “Oh no, he’s hot!”. For those who aren’t familiar, Wes Johnson is an absolute gigachad who’s been voice acting in Bethesda games since Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, he’s easily half the characters in Oblivion, he’s done tons of voice over work and radio appearances (even appearing with the legendary Wolfman Jack) and also announces for the Washington Capitals hockey team. I swear, he Unleashes the Fury and there isn’t a dry pussy in the whole Capitals Arena.
Everything I’ve heard about him personally is that he’s an absolute sweetheart. I’ve shown a few of my drawings to him (not everything, I think he’d sleep better at night never seeing some of my Sheogorath art) and he’s loved them all. I’d love to meet him at a con someday provided he hasn’t hired security to keep me as far from him as possible.
If I ever make a Wes Johnson dakimakura you’ll know I’m in too deep!
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On that note, give some updates on your most current projects and happenings in your life so everyone can keep up with you!
OZ: This actually ties into the Wes Johnson question! He holds an event in May called Voiceapalooza where he teams up with other voice actors to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Association. A lot of gamers join in by raising funds while streaming, last year I did an oil painting of Hermaus Mora to auction off. This year I have a slightly ambitious goal of making a short Sheogorath themed comic and selling printed copies to help the cause. I will have to haul ass on it because Voiceapalooza starts May 1st and I’d like to be able to promote the comic all through that month. As of right now I have an oil painting to finish and then all of my energy will be focused on the comic!
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OZ Through The Pen Of Beefus Von Griefus
IF YOU HAVEN'T READ MY PREVIOUS ARTICLE ON OZ, CLICK HERE!!!!!
You can find OZ pretty much fucking everywhere...
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