Bureaucrat Jon Morris has been writing and drawing under the pseudonym “Calamity Jon” for at least twelve years, or since the internet was in short pants. A long-time resident of Tucson, Arizona, he was born in San Jose, California, grew up in the small Hudson Valley town of Mahopac, New York, and now resides outside of Seattle in one of its many tamed suburbs.
Calamity Jon was raised in a house full of comics. His father – a German immigrant – taught himself to read English via comic books (particularly Jack Kirby and Joe Simon’s Challengers of the Unknown). His mother - an artist and English teacher - had been a reader of comics since her childhood. As a fashion artist and science-fiction illustrator, she was particularly drawn towards the strange, beautiful worlds depicted therein.
The family collection included books ranging from Conan and Tarzan to Uncle Wiggly to Whiz Comics to Heavy Metal to Zap, and everything in-between. This encouraged in Jon a love of the medium more than a love of any particular genre, and he (perhaps embarrassingly) possesses a nearly-encyclopedic knowledge of comics, comics creators and comics history across eras, and more importantly, adores comics for their potential and craft as much as for its colorful characters.
Calamity Jon has been a guest on
This American Life - owing to his blog focusing on absurd and unlovable comics,
Gone&Forgotten - and was nominated in 2001 for an Ignatz Award for his weekly webcomic
Jeremy: Just Turned Nine. He’s been a frequent contributor to Topps’ trading cards stable of sketchcard artists (working on Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings card series), has illustrated for magazines, role-playing games, card games and weekly alternative newspapers, and currently works as a User Experience designer for emerging touchscreen technologies.
In addition to all of that, he’s a contributing writer to - among other sites - the fictional urban blog
The City Desk, web-magazines
The High Hat and
Heavy.com and comedy website
Cap’n Wacky’s Boatload of Fun, as well as being a regular feature player on the
Wasted Words podcast. Calamity Jon is also a judge at superhero redesign blog
Project:Rooftop, in addition to frequently contributing designs himself.
A self-described “internet drunkard, two-fisted king of the hoboes and a blend of thirteen unfortunate herbs and spices”, Calamity Jon currently has about thirteen thousand irons in the fire. His plans include new original comics and a return to his
Jeremy: Just Turned Nine series for a 2010/2011 annual. He recently concluded a “
Marvel 30-In-One” series of illustrations for the Thirty Days of
Creativity Project, and has new, upcoming gallery shows scheduled over the remainder of 2010. He is also overseeing the editing for the Bureau of Drawers first official collaborative comic project (which will debut in the next couple of weeks)!
You can find Calamity Jon on ding-dang near every social networking site there is, all of which are conveniently linked to through his portfolio/blog,
Calamity Jon Save Us!
Several of our favorite Bureaucrats and many friends will be beating Shakespeare at his own game this and next weekend as they present "Outdoor Star Trek".
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