Ron Regé, Jr. is a very unusual yet accomplished storyteller whose work has a passionate moral, idealistic core that sets him apart from his peers. The Cartoon Utopia is his Magnum Opus, a unique work of comic art that, in the words of its author, focuses on "ideas that I've become intrigued by that stem from magical, alchemical, ancient ideas & mystery schools." It's part sci-fi, part philosophy, part visual poetry, and part social manifesto. Regé's work exudes psychedelia, outsider rawness, and pure cartoonish joy. In The Cartoon Utopia, Utopians of the future world are attempting to send messages through consciousness, outside of the constricts of time as we understand it. They live in a world of advanced collective consciousness and want to help us understand how to achieve what they have accomplished. They get together to perform this task in a way that evolved out of our current system of consuming information and entertainment. In other words, the opposite of television. Instead, these messages appear in the form of art, music and storytelling.
Author
Ron Regé Jr. began drawing and self publishing comics in the early 1990’s in Cambridge MA. His first book Skibber Bee~Bye was published by Highwater Books in 2000. His most recent book Against Pain collects short works from 1986-2006 and was published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2008. His comics and drawings have appeared in hundreds of zines and comics anthologies. Illustration clients have included Nike, Sony, Tylenol, HP, McSweeney’s, Vice, The New York Times, and Canada’s National Post. Ron currently lives in Los Angeles. His current project The Cartoon Utopia began in early 2008 as a series of 60 small drawings, but has expanded to include larger drawings, and longer comics pieces, including those presented here. Drawings from The Cartoon Utopia have been presented as solo gallery shows in Los Angeles, Montreal, Richmond VA, and Austin TX. They will eventually be collected as a book.
