Meet Jon Van Jean ( J.V.J. )
I wanted to write a little bit about each character in the comic strip, This is the 1st one. Meet J.V.J.
JVJ is the lead signer of ThunderSläp – Lead Vocals and Karate Sensei. He’s got the swagger of Steven Tyler, the karate moves of David Lee Roth, and the liver of Keith Richards.
JVJ is a mashup of every 80’s hair band lead singer, meets Bill The Cat if he was human, and Billy Mack from the movie Love Actually.
JVJ co-founded ThunderSläp with Big Sticks Johnson and Kix-Six. He has been the iconic voice and frontman of the band since its historic start in a small to-be-named town near Liverpool, England. (I’ve never been to the UK, so I’ll have to come up with that.). He is a three-time Grammy winner, a four-time Rehab champion, and an Emmy away from an EGOT. He has numerous albums and has 10 times that number of substances in his system.
He’s stupid fun to draw, and I haven’t quite nailed down his outfit, but that will change over time. He’s wirey and in shape for an old rocker, and his hair has thinned out over time. See example.
Scarves and bandana are a must. Cloth is just hard to draw and the bandana/hair tie in a pony-tail is an easy cop-out to illustrate, which was done for simplicity but pretty fun.
I’m excited to go back and forth in time in the band’s career to tell that story. I’m not sure of his age yet, but he’s not quite on the level of Wolverine. or Paul Rudd.
Like any rockstar metabolism, much of his longevity is due to the hardening of his organs by lots of drugs. He’s been doing this since the late 60s, and I have some fun story ideas on how to showcase that down the road.
Here are some early sketches of JVJ and with any comic character he’ll change over time.
