Jo Chen (Chinese: 咎井淳; pinyin: Jiù Jǐngchún; born July 4, 1976) is an American comic book artist and writer best known for her highly detailed painted comic book covers. In the Japanese comic industry she is also known by the pen name TogaQ and is known as Jun Togai ("Togai Jun" 咎井淳).
Early life
Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan and emigrated to the United States in late 1994.[1]
Career
Working professionally in the Asian comic book industry since age fourteen, she began her career in the U.S. comic book industry with her art work for the Racer X mini-series, part of the Speed Racer series published by Wildstorm/DC Comics in 2000.
In other media, Chen has also produced packaging artwork for Microsoft's popular XboxFable, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Fable II and Fable III RPGs, and done covers for PlayStation Magazine (a Final Fantasy cover for the January 2002 issue and a Tomb Raider cover for the February 2003 issue).
Under the pseudonym TogaQ, she and author Kichiku Neko (aka, Narcissus) created the yaoidoujinshi-turned manga series, In These Words. The title was eventually picked up by Japanese publisher, Libre Publishing and serialized in the yaoi comic anthology, Be x Boy Gold.
She is the younger sister of artist Christina Chen,[2] and lives with her family outside of Washington, D.C.[3]
Bibliography
Interior work
Racer X #1-3 (DC/Wildstorm, 2000). 3-issue miniseries.
Darkminds: Macropolis #1-4 (Dreamwave, 2002). By Jo Chen and Christina Chen.
Robotech: Love and War (DC/Wildstorm, 2003). Jo Chen drew "Little White Dragon", a back-up story included in every issue of the miniseries. Also drew a cover for the back-up story of #6.
Battle of the Planets / Witchblade (Top Cow). Jo Chen assists her sister Christina Chen in the pencils of this one-shot crossover. Talking about the series in The Pulse in 2002, she said "Christina is the lead artist and I am only assisting with some minor peripheral characters that pop up in a panel crowd scene."[4]
In These Words volumes 1 and 2 (Digital Media: 801 Media (English version), Libre Publishing (Japanese version), TokyoPop (German version), Taifu Comics (French version), ImageFrame (Korean version), Guilt Pleasure (Chinese version), HongSamut (Thai version) by Jo Chen (TogaQ) and Kichiku Neko.
Cruel to be Kind Guilt Pleasure (Chinese and English versions) by Jo Chen (TogaQ) and Kichiku Neko 2010.
Father Figure Guilt Pleasure (Chinese and English versions), Libre Publishing (Japanese version), ImageFrame (Korean version) by Jo Chen (TogaQ) and Kichiku Neko 2010 - 2014.
Maybe Someday Guilt Pleasure (Chinese and English versions), Libre Publishing (Japanese version), ImageFrame (Korean version) by Jo Chen (TogaQ) and Kichiku Neko 2015.
Street Fighter. Jo Chen has done several covers for the "power foil" variant covers of the Street Fighter comic-book series produced by the UDON studios. Some of these covers were also used in some Street Fighter merchandising (at least in prints and control pads).