About me:
Hi. My name is Javen Ackerman.
What I do
Currently, I chase little kids full-time.
I sometimes do freelance creative work, like writing words, designing websites, and installing software.
In the time that I have left over, I make a couple of comics. You’re reading one now, but you can read the other one here.
Here’s some stuff that I used to do:
Used to be an IT contracter and hated it.
Used to sell comics, games, and porn.
Used to co-run a theater company (the bad, local, small-time theater, not The Theatre).
Used to work in the Registrar’s office at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
Used to be a cook in a family style restaurant.
Used to work in a video rental store.
Used to work the grill at a Dairy Queen.
Used to work in a corn field.
About The Winchcombe:
What’s The Winchcombe about?
The Winchcombe is a funny strip that’s set in an English pub-style restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. It follows the crew and owner, local car sales mogul Henry Decker, as they struggle to keep this local institution afloat in these fast-changing times.
Why another restaurant comic?
Long answer is that I believe that restaurants are pretty important in the lives of Americans these days, both in that we eat in them quite a bit and that many of us work in them. I find that they are an interesting crossroads where many facets of society meet and interact directly. Customers and servers, employers and employees, young and old, rich and not so rich, men and women. It’s a very charged environment. Lots of stress, fast paced. A great place for comedy and a little drama. Or do I have those reversed?
The short answer is that The Winchcombe is what I had originally intended for Q-Burger to be, but I ran out of fast-food jokes.
Why the tired-ass mockumentary device?
Truthfully, this is the only way in which I could really make this strip work and make the jokes and tell the stories I wanted to tell. I had dozens of scripts written, but all of them fell flat. None of them really popped until I wrote the first 6 strips in the PBS documentary style. After that, it still took a few weeks for it to really dawn on me that this was the best way to get into the world of The Winchcombe, but I couldn’t really see it being the same any other way.
I know it’s a little tired and played out, what with the success of The Office, but it is a successful format. I mean, if ¾ of all the sit-coms on TV these days are using this device, then it HAS to be good, right? Plus there are really good films that use the format, This Is Spinal Tap, Best In Show, that short one that Neil Gaiman directed, and I’d love to be compared to them
Plus, I don’t think I’ve really seen a mockumentary done in a comic strip format, have you? Let me know.
I do another comic over here
Feel free to email me:
Javen AT javenackerman.com!