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Hoist the Jolly Roger

"Put some pants on him"
That's what Eric McRay said when I showed him the first ever sketch I had done of Captain Mojo. Originally he was drawn more like a Looney Tunes type of anthropomorphic character....meaning he had just enough clothes on him to be identified as a pirate. I didn't have any overall big ideas for the characters at the time. But after Eric said he needed pants it didn't take long for Mojo to not only have a full cast of characters, but an ongoing story arc with as many ideas as we could fit into it....and then a little bit more. The voyage of his pirate ship, The Jolly Jack will reveal a world of exploration, adventure and discovery that doesn't shoehorn into what many of us think of a typical pirate tale.



Captain Mojo's world….which we dubbed "The Mojoverse", is more than what it seems on the surface. The characters might be anthropomorphic animals, but they aren't the typical animal-as-characters pirates. As his story arc unfolds you'll find that many of the characters have facets to them… sometimes dark facets, sometimes whimsical. While writing and defining them we never think of them as animals but as actual characters that happen to be represented by animals.

We didn't stop with Mojo though, the Mojoverse has a lot more on the table and the next up is Brother Panda. I've known Eric McRay for more than 30 years. (We were roommates in college, so by that you know he has the patient of a saint) What began with a casual joke about an internet meme ended with a noir-Jack Bauer-meets-Shaft- 70s noir -crime drama. Brother Panda is a bit more serious in content than Captain Mojo but we built the Mojoverse to entertain kids and adults alike with action and satire and compelling personalities.

There are more characters on the way. Welcome to the Mojoverse. We have cookies….and heroes. Big **** heroes. Naturally it didn't stop there. I've known Eric since 1983 when we were college roommates. Once we start mashing ideas together it usually goes on until we pass out from exhaustion. We began filling up an entire universe with anthropomorphic characters. Brother Panda began as a discussion on an internet meme and ended up as a noir crime drama with a satirical look on 70's culture. These are just 2 parts of an expanding world we dubbed the "Mojoverse". I could go on about the other parts but then I'd be giving it away.