To help me make this dream come true, to help bring these visions and fantasies to light, become a patron of the arts: https://www.patreon.com/barefootjustine

By this point I knew, without a doubt, that this entire book was going to be based on the work that most influenced me, the work from the Warren Publications, “1984,” “Creepy,” “Eerie,” and even “Vampirella,” and artists like Alex Nino, Frank Thorne, Esteban Maroto, and especially Jose Pepe Gonzalez. Though to be honest, I have only recently become obsessed with Pepe’s work. See below, Jose Pepe Gonzalez inking with markers (a rarity).

I became obsessed with Jose Pepe Gonzalez after viewing the brilliant “Love Strip” documentaries about him and his work, find those on Youtube, they are brilliant. I fell in love with his odd mix of easy looseness and tight perfection, and through the film, his tragic personality, innocence, humor and a childishness that contributed to his downfall. Flawed artists, it seems, are attracted to other flawed artists.

And as I said before, I do a lot of research, not just into the art I love, but into anatomy, animals, how fat works, how wrinkles work, all these things influence me deeply. I am a research junkie, and fear I sometimes use it as a crutch.

I think the things that have most deeply influenced me have been Exploitation films, so I will be talking a lot about Exploitation films and directors as these blogs ramble on. To tell the truth, those films probably had as much if not more influence over me than any comics or art, especially the work of directors like Jess Franco and Jean Rollin, both of whom created images so audacious that the have continued to haunt me, for example, the below image from Jean Rollin’s “Fascination.”

But perhaps the imagery that has most haunted my erotic imagination comes from the great Master himself… Libertine, Sadeian, and genius… Jess Franco!

His absolute fearlessness and willingness to explore his darkest deepest fantasies, and on the lowest of budgets, remains an inspiration. Jess was a visionary, a hack, a madman and a master. He loved to show his heroines in all their glamorous glory one moment, and in their greasy bug-bit misery in the next. He explored any fetish that crossed his mind, yet remained always true to his nature as a voyeur. His shots are so consistently voyeuristic, so often we view his films as if we were a pervert hiding behind the plants in the apartment, or peeping through a mirror or window. Come to think of it, I need to play more with those visual themes as this project progresses past the first issue.

I think you can see in the bedraggled beauty below, just how significant an influence Jess Franco has had on me.

And, last but not least, to help me make this dream come true, to help bring these visions and fantasies to light, become a patron of the arts: https://www.patreon.com/barefootjustine

To take Justine’s classes: https://learn.sawcomics.org/collections/justine?q=