bestiary
"BESTIARY" explores the characters, monsters, and otherworldy creatures from Gossamer’s existing metaverse.
Since ancient times, people described animals and natural history in volumes called bestiaries. The characters in BESTIARY are a reflection of Gossamer’s exploration of identity - gender and ancestry.
With a love for manga, anime, video games, comics and self-published narratives, Gossamer started sharing comics online at the age of 15 and reached the top twenty picks for Tokyopop's former Rising Stars of Manga contest in 2006 and 2007. Gossamer’s characters now live on through tattoos, illustrations, sculptures, and digital collectibles.
BESTIARY made its debut in July 2021 and will be reimagined and integrated into Tigerbob lore in 2023.
View & Purchase on OpenSea
Refinement
Gossamer’s first digital collectibles were smaller designs, most notably the tattoo flash Tzttoo. BESTIARY was an opportunity to dedicate a collection to larger, more complex narrative artwork. Pieces in this series look back on Gossamer’s comics and zines, and pave way for new stories.
The first piece was minted on KnownOrigin.io in July 2021. Gossamer was experimenting with traditional and digital two-frame animation, and soon started to dive into minting colored pencil drawings (See MRAMMOU).
BESTIARY later migrated to its own collection with Manifold, for sale on OpenSea.
Past and Future
At the age of fourteen (2004), Gossamer had all sorts of plans to write and present their stories and characters in comics and graphic novels. At the time, the ultimate prize was to pitch my story to any number of comic and manga publishers at the time - such as Slave Labor Graphics, Dark Horse Comics, and Tokyopop - and create a multi-volume series with great success.
Gossamer later learned it was possible to self-publish either by hand at home or in a small print run. Gossamer began printing their own zines in 2017 as a labor of love, since sales of their little art books were not sustainable.
Digital collectibles have brought Gossamer back to these old stories, characters, and sketches from their teenage years. Your participation and reflection on the work, regardless if you’re a buyer or just a viewer, inspires Gossamer to make new stories.
The future of BESTIARY lies in the lore of Tigerbob, which will be explored in 2023.