We were lucky to catch up with Joe Blablazo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joe thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?

I am mega fortunate to have the kindest family and friend group on the planet so it’s hard to narrow it down to one thing, but this story always makes me smile. One year, when I was a sixth grade teacher, I would joke with my students about eating their chicken wings if they brought some for lunch because that was my favorite food. I’d say silly stuff like “you better keep an eye on those wings or they might disappear when you’re not looking!” or I’d offer to trade a single chip for all of their wings and pretend to be upset when they’d decline the trade ha ha!
All joking aside, I am a wing fiend, which makes the next part of the story so dang sweet.
Later in the school year my house gets burglarized and I’m pretty bummed about it. My students overhear me telling another teacher about what had happened and so they check in with me:
“Mister, did they take your playstation?”
“Yes.”
“Oh nooooooo!”
“I know!”
“What else did they take?”
“A big pickle jar full of quarters.”
“Oh no mister, that’s your chicken wing money!”
“You’re right it was!”
We all had a laugh and finished the day.
The next day, at lunch time, 3 or 4 of the kiddos’ parents show up with trays of chicken wings! These sweet children organized with each other and told their folks what had happened and convinced them to make chicken wings for me because they knew I was a wing maniac! One of them said to me, “I tried to get them to buy a new playstation but they said wings were better.” They were. I don’t remember if I cried in the moment but I do get a little teary eyed when I remember.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Sure! My name is Joe Blablazo. I’m an artist/cartoonist/screen printer in Denver, CO, originally from the magical, dusty, desert city of El Paso, TX, and I’ve been drawing spooky monsters, whacky space folk, and silly jokes for as long as I can remember. Thinking about it now I’d say it was more of a compulsion than a hobby, I just did it. At first I was just drawing my favorite characters from the steady stream of amazing 80’s/90’s cartoons and comics I was consuming. Then the Kenner toy line for the Aliens movie came out. It featured not just the space marines and the aliens seen in the movie, but also different versions of aliens that were not in the movie. This blew my 8 year old mind. “You can just make stuff up?!” I thought to myself. My reality exploded and I started drawing all the weird and nutty stuff I could imagine. Not too long after that, another epiphany rocked my world. My dad rented The Rocketeer and boy oh boy did I want a Rocketeer costume. Rocketeer costumes were not a thing at the time, at least not that I saw, and it bummed me out big time. How could something so awesome not exist?! I could not believe it! My dad agreed and over a couple of days he made me a Rocketeer costume out of random stuff from around the house. I was ecstatic, and as I was running around the house punching imaginary nazis in my one-of-a-kind costume I couldn’t stop thinking “You can just make things that don’t exist yet?” The final gear clicked into place later in high school after a drawing of mine was selected to be printed on our class t-shirts. I turned my drawing in to the teacher and two weeks later the whole class was wearing one of my drawings. So I asked the teacher if I could give her another drawing and some money to have shirts made for me. She agreed (Thanks Mrs. Carroll!) and I went around the school asking if anyone wanted these shirts I was having made. Maybe 20 or so kids gave me money that I passed on to the teacher and a couple weeks later there were kids wearing two of my shirt designs.
Everything came together. I could make whatever crazy idea I had into an actual thing, and sometimes, people will like it enough to pay for it.
So that’s what I try to do. I try to, mostly, create things that I think are cool and haven’t seen, and hopefully folks like them enough to hang in their house, read in their spare time, wear on their bodies, use them for branding, or even commission an original piece. We all try to express ourselves differently and collecting really cool art is one of the best ways in my opinion. We are constantly bombarded by ads for brands, reboots, sequels, spin-offs and while I love, consume, and obsess over those things like everyone else, I am also constantly craving new and original ideas, images, and stories. I think lots of folks feel the same way and I hope that when they see my work on my website, or instagram, or at a horror convention, that it can provide a fun alternative to stuff they might be seeing everywhere else.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Deep down in my guts, I love, love, loooooove the entire process of seeing a project through to completion, from a little sketch in a notebook, to a tangible item, to a sale. I do consider sales a part of the process, and I especially love in person sales. I do a lot of conventions and trade shows so I get the opportunity to interact with folks and make each sale personal. A lot of the work part of the creative process is solitary so getting to share the final product with folks and receiving their feedback is exhilarating! Through this work I’ve been able to meet some incredibly sweet folks, make new friends, and even chat with some of my heroes. Even online I’ve had some amazing interactions with people who have just stumbled upon my page because of a beer label I designed or a silly hashtag I used. It’s such a human thing to want connection and I think it is so neat that art can facilitate that.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Ha ha! After I just talked about how fun and rewarding it is, it’s important to remember, it is also work. It’s very rewarding work, but it is time consuming and energy draining like any other work. It can be difficult and scary because you are betting on yourself; not just as an artist, but as a marketing person, a sales person, a shipping person, a schedule person, and that’s a lot of hats to wear. With that being said, it may seem to non-creatives that we are actively making our lives more difficult. We kinda are, but I think that’s worth considering. Why would we do this to ourselves? Every individual artist will have a different answer to that question but I believe part of that answer is that it feels… right. It feels natural, maybe even spiritual for some. I’m not saying that I feel divinely called to draw space skeletons but you get the idea ha ha! Why have and nurture these skills if not to use them? If you have friends or family in the creative biz one of the easiest things you can do, that helps more than you realize, is talking about them to others. Share their social media posts. Invite co-workers to gallery openings. Wear their wares. There are so many amazing artists producing incredible work and because most of us don’t have access to the advertising power that other art forms (tv, film, music, etc) may have, those seemingly small acts can help creatives make connections that can propel them towards achieving their dreams.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://joeblablazo.com
• Instagram: @joeblablazo
• Facebook: Joe Blablazo