Al Johara means “the jewel” in Arabic. Yes, I learned it by watching “Jewel of the Nile” and confirmed it twenty years later in my first-year Arabic class. I’ve always liked the sound of it, and it turns out that it synchs up with my name quite nicely. Allow me to demonstrate:

Astrid Lydia Johannsen > A. L. Joha(nnsen) > Al Joha(ra) > الجوهرة

The “ra” comes from “terceira”, which is the island I was born on in the Azores. So sometimes I go by the moniker Johara al Jazeera, or in English, The Jewel of Terceira. Alas, I’ve never been back, but I’m working on fixing that.

I’ve been drawing since I was old enough to take a purple marker to the back of my mom’s rocking chair. I’ve been interested in comics once I learned to start drawing on paper instead of furniture. And I’ve been doing digital art since 1984 when I learned how to program in BASIC on my Atari 400. In 1990 I discovered the magic of Bézier curves and vector illustration, and I knew that I had found my ideal medium.

In 2008 I finally went quasi-professional with my first really big illustration job. Finishing that gig was a very satisfying feeling, and it’s given me the drive to push forward with additional illustration as well as my first ongoing webcomic. Hopefully my webcomic will take me further in the realm of comics drawing. Eventually I hope to create a graphic novel. Or several.

In June 2009 I graduated the University of Oregon with a B.A. in Religious Studies. In my time at the University of Oregon, I’ve also studied Ancient Greek, Latin, and Arabic. Today I regularly look at myself in the mirror and say to myself: “You are doing the thing you’ve wanted to do since you were six years old. How fucking cool is that?!” I’m still having a hard time believing it.

Carpe Diem,
الجوهرة