The first new Johnny Appleseed comic since 2015

Johnny Returns in: "Johnny Eats Some Food and Vomits. A lot."

While running my comic convention, I invented a mascot character named after Johnny Appleseed.

The real Johnny Appleseed is buried in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where my convention was held. And was also the namesake of the convention.

The elevator pitch was something like: What if Johnny Appleseed was conceptualized as an Art Clokey character? I’ve been a fan of Clokey and the fever-dream world of Gumby for as long as I can remember. Knowing full well that my approach to the fever dream was more tongue-in-cheek and definitely more cynical (Clokey was a big Alan Watts guy), I still wanted to get some of the innocence and zaniness of Gumby in there.

The only comic I made with the character was a 24-Hour Comics Day project, and it was definitely borne out of a combination of merriment, caffeine, and sleep deprivation. I’ve always liked it and the character.

Anyway, this weekend, I helped out at a book drive my kid set up for her high school. I ran a minicomics-making station and had some blank layouts for little kids. While I was sitting at the table, the spirit moved me to make a new Johnny Appleseed short on one of the pre-fab pages. Here it is. It’s dumb, impulsively and hastily assembled, and it made me giggle.

Enjoy.