About The Author

Hi, I'm Jay French
I imagine you wouldn't have come to this page unless you wanted to know a little about me as an artist and writer, so I intend to babble. If any of this is repetitious, please forgive me.
I was born Jay Alee Judice in Wichita, Kansas, March 28, 1968, but I grew up in San Antonio, TX from ages 5-12. I went through high school in Colorado, Estes Park for 4 years and Colorado Springs for my senior year. After high school, and without a college fund (it had been lost in my father's bankruptcy), I moved back to San Antonio to live with my sister briefly. A strange set of circumstances landed me in Austin in 1987, where I've lived since (and loved it... except for the heat).
I married too young and too quickly... twice in a row (almost a third time), then met my third (and final!) wife, Laura. I now have 3 beautiful daughters (and no more), at the ages of 17,16 and 12, Amanda, Taryn and Ember. I have 3 cats and 2 tiny dogs.
I don't remember when I started drawing, because I started as soon as I could hold a pencil (also because I have a bad memory). My mother is an artist, her father was an artist, my children are artists. There's no arguing the genetic tendencies here. Another interesting point is that we all concentrate primarily on the human figure. My grandfather drew busts of women, my mother did pastel portraits and cartoons, I do superheroes, portraits and caricatures, and my 2 younger daughters are into Animé. I started creating superheroes as young as age 8. My subjects before that were mostly dragons and ghosts (I haven't changed much). I first started writing and drawing comic books at about age 11. I took a few oil painting classes back then as well. In high school I experimented with acrylics, charcoal, pastels, pottery, clay sculpture, calligraphy, wood working and even stained glass. Some of my first paid projects were tourism button designs for Estes Park. I did a logo or 2, and some hand-painted signs.

I began playing around with the written word (other than comics) at about 12. My first finished short story was about 50 pages, titled "The Star Children", a science fiction adventure. My inspiration to write shot up like a rocket. I continued to write "Snowbeast" (a horror), "The Moon War" (another science fiction, my longest at 198 pages), "The Rock Band" (a music-driven play), "Dreamstone" (a bizarre science fiction), and "The Rejected" (a semi-autobiographical drama). I probably started about 2 or 3 dozen stories that I never finished.
I have since written a couple of little short stories, begun my fantasy novels about 4 times, written or co-written about a dozen comic stories (including the first rendition of "Steel Rain"), wasted a lot of productivity on writing intricately-plotted role-playing campaigns, and outlined and partially written the first 14 issues of "Steel Rain". Publishing the first issue of "Steel Rain" (not to mention getting some generally nice feedback on it), has been a wonderful vindication of all this time spent.
I hope you, the visitor, will enjoy this website.
Thanks