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ASCENDED MASTER

09-Feb-12

OH SHIT! First illustration of the new year! I painted this in gouache for the cover of Mimi Thi Nguyen’s upcoming book, The Gift of Freedom, to be published this July by Duke University Press. Click to view larger:


Ascended Master
Gouache on craft paper
6×9″

As an added bonus, here is the test palette on which I daubed me paints:

I was so incredibly honored when Mimi asked me to illustrate her book cover. I read her Punk Planet columns back in my young poseur days, and I was lucky enough to take a really great Gender and Science course for which she was the Graduate Student Instructor. The day we swapped zines (her most incredible Race Riot, which I still have and cherish, for my incredibly bad autobio sub-manga mini-comic) was the day I vowed to continue to make zines and stay XupXtheXpunX forever

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TWIN SISTER

08-Dec-11

Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother:
I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.

Twin Sister
6×6″
Brush pen & gouache on four Post-Its

for Post-It Show 7, opening at GR2 on Saturday night:

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LOOK TO THE FUTURE

03-Dec-11

A preview of the last illustration I’ll do in 2011. Pencil on computer paper:

Good night
Schlaf gut
어서 꺼져

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BAY AREA NATIVE

01-Dec-11

This is a new painting I did for “Devil Town”, which opens tomorrow night at Gallery 1988 on Melrose. This illustration, like the rest of this finely curated group show, is inspired by the haunting Daniel Johnston song, “Devil Town”, while also serving as a sort of homage to South San Jose, where I grew up.

BAY AREA NATIVE
Brush pen & watercolor on Arches
12×16″
Click to view larger:

Here is a detail, in which two girls are performing bunshinsaba, a Korean summoning charm that enables communication with ghosts.

Here is a recording of the song, followed by the lyrics:

Devil Town
Daniel Johnston
“1990″ (1993)

I was living in a Devil Town
Didn’t know it was a Devil Town
Oh, Lord, it really brings me down
About the Devil Town

And all my friend were vampires
Didn’t know they were vampires
Turns out I was a vampire myself
In the Devil Town

I was living in a Devil Town
Didn’t know it was a Devil Town
Oh Lord it really brings me down
About the Devil Town

“Devil Town” opens at Gallery 1988 LA (7020 Melrose, LA, CA) tomorrow night, Friday December 2, from 7-10PM. The show will remain on display through December 24. Thanks to Daniel Danger, who curated this show, for kindly inviting me to participate.

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THE GENTLE ART OF SELLING YOURSELF

13-Oct-11

VOTE FOR ME HERE

BUY MY SHIT THERE*

PUNCH OUT A DICK

GOOD NIGHT

*I got me a new store at bigcartel. THAT’S SO MONEY!

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SKATE OR DIE

28-Sep-11

Remember when you were young and wild, leaning on chain link fences, trespassing on foreclosed homes with your teen gang, and looking for dried out pools to skate? Yeah, me neither. I squandered my youth wringing my hands and constantly panicking about the future, and on top of that, I never learned how to skate. What a fucking waste

ANYWAY, here is a watercolor illustration I did for Grace E. This is the very last private commission I’ll do for as long as I am employed, so put your eyeballs all over it (click to view larger):

Pool Skate
9×13
Brush pen & watercolor on Arches

I’ll have giclee prints of this illo, postcards, buttons, comics, my Poketo wallet … y’know, all the same old shit, at APE this weekend. I’ll be tabling with Calvin, Ryan, Derek, Anthony, and Evan at table 614, so steal your mom’s wallet, and git on down hurrr. BANG GANG FOREVER

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FUCK YOU, FRIDAY

23-Sep-11

This is my new business card. It’s a current portrait of me, adjusting to my new life:

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JUDITH FINDS LOVE

22-Sep-11

My appalling rendition of the Gentileschi masterpiece, “Judith & Her Maidservant”, is now available as a limited edition, numbered giclée print, produced and sold by the lovely Rotopol Press in Kassel, Germany. This is a single print run of fifty, and they ain’t gon’ print it again, EVER, so hand over your euros HERE.

And speaking of Judith, here’s a small illustration for ROBOTS!, the GR2 Benefit Show which opens this Saturday. Depicted is a fanciful sci-fi re-imagining of Biblical heroine Judith, her maidservant replaced by a cyborg assistant who loves her. Or some horse shit. Click image to view larger:

Judith & Her Borgservant with the Head of Holofernes
brush pen & watercolor on Arches, 7×7″

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PROSTHETIC HEAD AUX

16-Aug-11

Finished this watercolor illustration last night, six months overdue. Commissioned by the very patient Woody F., who requested that it involve ramen. Because of my incredibly limited skill set and narrow field of interests, I drew some young dirty people eating instant cups of Shin Ramyun on a gray beach day, and I sorta painted in a muted blue-to-red analogous color scheme . Click image to view larger, or something:

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FISH LATE FISH

04-Aug-11

You might have already heard, but the good people of Poketo recently released a wallet featuring an illustration and a corresponding comic strip I did for them (click to view bigger):

You can buy just the wallet, or you can upgrade to a Hellen Pack, Hellen Mega Pack, or Hellen Super Mega Pack. All shit is available in limited quantities, and for the time being, poketo.com will be the only place online where you can purchase anything of mine. ETSY IS DEAD TO ME!

I also did a short illustrated interview for Poketo here. Below is a small preview:

This wallet was produced as part of a trio of women cartoonist wallets, featuring megababes Esther Pearl Watson and Lisa Hanawalt! TOO COOL, DUDES

And speaking of Esther P. Watson, she has curated a LADY COMIX ART show in Waxahachie, TX that I’m honored to be a part of! Live in Waxahachie? Know where the hell it is? GO THERE:

The show runs through September 18th!

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HAMBURGER ÜBER ALLES

24-Jun-11

QPop invited me to contribute a painting to their upcoming HAM BA GA show (”celebrating the hamburger lifestyle”), so I did a real small portrait of young brooding women. No, I don’t know how to draw anything else. Click to view larger:


Brush pen, watercolor, pencil on Arches
5×7″

Calvin pointed out that the burger I drew for this burger-themed show was not as conspicuous as a burger-show burger ought to be. HEY MAN, IT’S *GOT* A BURGER IN IT, WHADDAYA WANT FROM ME

HAM BA GA opens tomorrow at QPop in LA.

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WE RESPECT YOUR DARK POWER

15-Jun-11

Here is a long-overdue illustration, commissioned by David H., of a bunch of textile-laden nude women. DARK RED N RICH, BITCHES (click to view larger):

12×9″
Brush pen, Micron, and watercolor on Arches

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YEAH I COULD GO FOR SOME BLOOD

17-May-11

I AM MOVING TO LA IN TWO WEEKS OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!! I’ve been living in the Bay Area since 1990, so I figure it’s time to get a-movin’, yeah? Incidentally, I’m having a yard sale. Won’t you come and dig through my shit?

I drew our house in pencil for this flyer. I am going to miss you, TenTen!

In other news, I posted a couple giclee prints (of MORTAL RESIDUE and YUKI), an old small painting, and the Root Rot anthology up in my etsy store. Someone please spend $5.70 today so I can pay my bills!

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I like you so much

14-May-11

Lotsa shit bin happening to me, dude, but I’ll tell you aaaaalllllllll about it later. In the meantime, watch this awesum video by Crazy Band, full of girls I don’t know but internet-admire. SKATING ON THE FUCKING FREEWAY!

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UP YOURS, NARC

04-May-11

HELLVIN is heading to Toronto tonight, for TCAF this weekend! Visit us on the first floor, at table 141, part of a veritable island paradise with Ryan Sands and the Koyama Press militia. I have two new giclee prints, a couple paintings, a shitload of stupid buttons, and no new comics. CH’YEAH!

I’m also proud to be a part of the debuting Koyama Press anthology, *ROOT ROT*, for which I did a two page watercolor comic, “Making Friends”. Here’s a preview of my portion:

Depressed teens and flowers, man! I’ll be present at the book release on Saturday morning. See you there?!

Koyama Press is proud to announce a launch party to celebrate the release of the ‘Root Rot’ anthology. Ten of the artists will be in attendance for the book’s debut. Come and meet them!

Featuring: T. Edward Bak, Michael DeForge, Ines Estrada, Bob Flynn, Jesse Jacobs, Hellen Jo, Joseph Lambert, Diana McNally, Robin Nishio, Angie Wang and Mickey Zacchilli

Hosted by Anne Koyama
Location: Learning Center 1
Time: Saturday 10:15 – 11:15

The folks over at Sequential also wrote a lovely review of the book, and said some real nice shit about me:

Another one of the few non-Canadians in the collection, California’s Hellen Jo, follows suit. Jo uses one of her favourite types of characters, a kickass Asian teen, to create an environment that rivals the wildness of imagination in (Ines) Estrada’s. Set against slate gray pavement, the comic features a sobbing teen with a skateboard, motionless in the centre of the panel. But things come alive when her tears connect with a weed growing through the cracks of the pavement. The bare, uniform atmosphere grows to be detailed and colourful and the character rides the newly created flowers in startled wonder.

And it’s this sense that Root Rot evokes well, that the possibilities of imagination and the spirit of exuberance are infinite in spite of the constraining limitations of a particular setting.

SHEEEEEEEEIIIITTTT! “California’s Hellen Jo”?! EVERYONE CALL ME THAT FROM NOW ON

P.S. Here’s the lovely TCAF poster, by Teen Queen J. Tamaki:

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