About
About? About me, or the comic? Let’s do both.
About the Comic
Aikida is the continuing, rambling, tale of the title character and the odd assortment of characters linked to her. The strip loosely follows a series of stories, but on a day to day basis can be an in-depth dramatic exposition, or a Halo joke. You just never know. The comic takes place at Pepperwood College, where most of the characters attend school, and experience the lives that go hand in hand with it.
This version of Aikida has nothing to do with the previous iterations. (See below)
About Me
My name is Josh Meinzer, and I’ve been doing web comics (on and off) since 2001.
Aikida started out as a very simple comic about the game Anarchy Online, then quickly became a gaming comic with some drama injected, up until 2003. That year, I stopped doing Aikida in an effort to broaden my horizons as a writer and an artist. Thus, Pepperwood began what would be a fairly short, but solid run (in my opinion). It never caught on at the time (but is, ironically, one of the most requested archives these days), so I went back to doing Aikida in mid 2004. The strip had it’s most successful run then, evolving into a fantasy strip, until being ultimately discontinued in 2006.
I briefly tried a new series after that (the Mail Order Bride), but was so burnt out from the later end of the Aikida run that I subsequently dropped it and stepped away from webcomics for over a year.
Now, I’m back, and so is Aikida.
Personally, I’m not that interesting. Thirty-two now, I think I’ve learned quite a bit in the past decade (and beyond) of writing and art, and hopefully I can stay applied enough to present this in the new series. I am an avid sports fan, as most people who read my posts know (The Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Raptors and Green Bay Packers are my teams), movie fan and gamer. I try and incorporate all of my varied interests into the comic, and I think that makes for a better read.
While I don’t consider myself a great artist (or even a good one), I am very old school, and owe loyalties to a vast array of influences, including J. Scott Campbell, Yukito Kishiro (where Aikida gets her last name), Kenichi Sonoda, Masamune Shirow, Neal Adams, and Jim Lee.
I don’t really follow a style of writing, but I have great fondness for, and maybe a little flavour of, writers and comedians such as Kevin Smith, Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Seth MacFarlane and Ben Edlund.
If you’re interested in the old, retired archives of Aikida and Pepperwood, here they are.
Old Aikida Archives (no longer canon)
