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JesseAcosta

Jesse Acosta
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One thing I've always been searching for, whether it's a group on deviantart, or even on Facebook, is a quality group of cartoonists that discuss work and give quality feedback to each other. 
Time and time again, when I join possible cartoonist groups, they always end up places where people just share their sketches and half hearted works like a fourth grader putting new art on the refrigerator waiting for praise from mommy. I can't stand that one bit. I want people to share art that is something they are really putting all their effort into. Not just sketches either, actual work pertaining to comics. Character design, thumbnails and roughs, and final pages of solid sequential art. 
I used to be in a group like this on Facebook. But the moderators passed the baton when their lives got busy at the time (no judgment on that, it happens to us all). But the new moderators in charge left the barn doors wide open  so to speak, and didn't have discretion with who joined, or watched the direction of the discussion of the group. Eventually the group fell into disarray like all other art groups, and was just a place for lazy artists to bomb the discussions with posts of their new sketches and not even trying to be a part of a group discussion, or even seek discussion of their work, only to show it off and ignore the group entirely..

If you know of a good group of selective members of indie comic artists who are actually looking to discuss tje medium of sequential art, and give and receive well thought out critiques, please let me know! I'd love to find that haven again. Ive been working on new comic work, and would love to have a group to share my work with for solid real critique and not just ass kissing.
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My Cancer Story

3 min read


This last year has been very difficult for me, and my new little family. Last summer, a week after my wife found out she was pregnant with our first child, we learned that I had cancer. Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the tongue to be precise. Never been a drinker or smoker either, so it was a real shock to have oral cancer.

Over the last several months, Ive had four surgeries, lost 30% of my tongue from surgeries to remove tumors, had two neck dissections to remove tumors from when the cancer spread to my lymph nodes, a major muscle was removed from my neck in the process because of the cancer, lost my job because of all the surgeries and wasn’t able to do the physical work after the removal of my sternocleidomastoid muscle. Just a month ago, I finally finished the grueling process of radiation therapy on my throat and mouth, and chemotherapy. I lost over 60 pounds from chemo and radiation making it difficult to eat from chemo sickness, and swelling my throat from radiation. The chemo also gave me tinnitus (ringing in the ears). The chemo med I was on is a newer med, cisplatin, and fortunately I didn’t lose the hair on top of my head from it like you see in the movies and tv. The radiation though actually affected all my facial hair, and everywhere they shot me with radiation (below my nose down to the middle of my neck). My beard fell out, and now I can’t grow any facial hair. The worst part of the radiation is losing taste from targeting my tongue. I also can’t make saliva like I used to because the radiation affected some of my saliva glands. 

As you can imagine, the medical bills for this have been coming in, and it’s been unbelievably overwhelming. My wife and I have been doing our best to stay afloat, but it’s been hard since I’ve been out of work for all the procedures, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. We’re at about $5,000 in bills so far from cat scans, PET scans, surgeries, hospital stays, biopsies, labs, and I’m still getting bills as we speak. I had a post chemo/radiation CT last week, and the estimated bill for that is $766. 

My friends have been great, and started a Go Fund Me campaign. I know a lot of people don’t have the money to assist others, so I’m simply asking for you to share this journal at the very least. You can get to my GoFundMe campaign here: www.gofundme.com/n28nnk 





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Today was my last day of Chemotherapy, and Thursday will be my last day of radiation therapy. Here's to a positive, bright, and long future with amazing new directions and wonder.
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2014 Goals

3 min read
I’d like to jot down some ideas while I have then in mind. I have a lot of goals for my art in 2014, and I don’t mind sharing them with the world. Hopefully it will keep me in check.
I have several comics in various stages of progress and I’d like to get them finished this year. Not only that, but I want to have them look 100% my best work. I’ve made comics in the past years, but I feel like I could have hit them up with a lot of revisions, and not just let the comic slide just because I want it done to have another finished comic. I want to have friends critique the pages, and I want to be diligent enough to redraw complete pages if they aren’t strong enough.
The books if like to crank out this year are: Enzo the Barbarian: It’s a Thundarr pastiche, and a 16 page tale to start. I want it to be black and white toned for printing, but also a full color rendered piece to put up in Comixology for a dollar. I’d like to tri that arena and see how it goes. Current this comic is at character design stage, a complete script, and I want to start thumbnailing soon.
Second book I have an twelve page mini comic of Gran Búho, a luchador story. I have four pages penciled, one fully inked and toned. I wanted it for a Halloween release, but now I just want it out and done.
Third book is an Oscar the Otter story(a vintage style cartoon character I developed last year) retelling the famous stone soup folk tale. My friend wrote a script, I just need to start pencil pages. It’s more of a story book than a comic.
Last year I dived into screen printing, and that has been amazing. I really want to incorporate some of that into my comic work this year.
Lastly, I’d like to make a couple zines. One on screen printing, and another on lucha libre. The screen printing book I’d like to make because I’ve been thinking about approaching a few art stores to teach a workshop in screen printing. Id like to be able to give them a small zine covering the bases of screen printing after they take the workshop for reference when attempting at home.
For my screen printing endeavors, I’d also like to take on more small tshirt jobs. It’s been a lot of fun making shirts for small businesses and events. I’ve also sold a lot of shirts with my designs on Etsy. I’d like to keep that up, and more designs through the year.
That’s a lot of talk. Let’s see what I can cross off and be proud of this year.

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So, I just sat down and purged so much old, embarrassing, and ugly art from my deviantArt profile. It feels good to have it cleaned out and streamlined. It appears in 2006-2009 I scanned just about any junk and tossed it up here. I also organized a lot of art. I only have a few things in the "featured" gallery now, and everything else has been put into proper folders. The difference between the illustration and sketch folders are that I feel that a sketch is just a quick piece of art, versus something that took longer which would fall into illustration.

In other news, I am still working on the Day of the Dead Nintendo series. I am hoping to get about 12 characters in Nintendo bunch,  with six heroes and six villains, but heroes might outweigh in the end. They are all going to be silkscreened on 11x17 black cardstock, as well as turned into 4x6 silkscreen postcards. I need to put what I have in my Etsy shop soon. Besides purchasing through Etsy, I always have these at the cons I attend.

Here are the characters I have so far:

Full digital color-
Nintendo Dia De Los Muertos Set 1 by JesseAcosta DiA De Los Muertos King Hippo by JesseAcosta Dia De Los Muertos Kid Icarus by JesseAcosta

White silkscreen ink on black 11x17 cardstock:
Mega Hombre - El Bombardero Azul by JesseAcosta La Leyenda de Zelda by JesseAcosta Los Super Hermanos Mario by JesseAcosta
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Featured

Seeking a quality art group for cartoonists by JesseAcosta, journal

My Cancer Story by JesseAcosta, journal

Last Day of Chemo by JesseAcosta, journal

2014 Goals by JesseAcosta, journal

The Purge (not the new movie) by JesseAcosta, journal