The Official Website of Jinky Coronado

Hey, everybody --

I wanted to confirm here that I WILL be at all three days of PITTSBURGH COMICON this weekend at the Monroeville ExpoMart.

You can find me at the Glass House Graphics booth. I'll have with my photos, unpainted statues, various issues of BANZAI GIRLS plus the trades, and some other goodies, such as my original art for sale.

If we haven't yet met in person, please come up and chat with me!

Kat WILL be there...and so will Jasmine...and Dave, too.

Hugs,

-- Jinky

     It's Springtime, and it seems a lot of eyes are on all things Banzai!

Yeah, I know I don't appear live-action "in the flesh," but my work still makes an appearance in the spoof SUPERHERO MOVIE, now in theaters. If you watch the multiple scenes in which the parody's Peter Parker-type character is in his bedroom, you can very clearly see my Arcana-published BANZAI GIRLS #1 cover is a big poster. Maybe Hollywood is taking notice.

My thanks go out to Sean O'Reilly of Arcana Studio, who clued in the movie people and supplied the graphics.

     If you're not sure what artwork to be looking for, it's right here.   Now you can say, "BANZAI GIRLS? Yeah, I saw that at the movies yesterday."

     In other new news, I've just finished AVALON HIGH: BOOK TWO with best-selling author Meg Cabot, and I expect the TokyoPop/HarperCollins co-published project to be in comics shops this August. And yes, I expect to be starting work on AVALON HIGH: BOOK THREE's art later this month!

     In other good news, Arcana Studio has OK'd three new BANZAI GIRLS projects -- and the first is a full-color BANZAI GIRLS ANNUAL, which I'm working on right now., and it's jam-packed with extra pages. The story is called "The Terror of...TIKBALANG!" I'm writing and drawing, of course, but have a special co-writer on this issue. Her name is Mica Chua, and she's also a popular cosplay model in our native Philipipnes. (She also an author and a teacher, making her a pretty terrific triple-threat!)

     The BANZAI GIRLS ANNUAL is coming out this summer. Here's a preview of the cover art!

Check out the latest Issue of ImagineFX Magazine, Jinky Coronado has a feature interview on Issue 28 of ImagineFX Magazine, click the scan portion of the magazine for a short teaser. Grab the copy to know more about the interview feature.

My sister visited me from the Philippines and wow, did she get a few big blasts of cold! Very used to the tropical weather of our native country, Michelle went from the usual-90 degrees-or-so temperatures to the 30 degrees-and-below temps we had in the Ohio Valley.

Our hopes and palns are for Michelle to return to the USA for summertime convention season -- but, in the meantime, here's a look at us braving the cold!

     BANZAI GIRLS #4, in full color from Arcana Studio and by yours truly, is now on sale, at better comics shops everywhere.

. The story is entitled, "Banzai Girl 2.0!" -- and it's loaded with surprises, rampaging robot stuff, and plenty of action, action, action. Kat, Michelle, and I take on the deadly Robot from my nightmares, and you won't believe the result. And wait'll you get to the last page!

     As usual, I'm writing and drawing, with some finishes by Larry Tuazon, colors by Michael Kelleher and his band of merry men, and lettering by Matt Thompson. It also has a two-page lettercol, a great new photo gallery of Michelle and me, and even a back cover pin-up.

     Here's a preview of the cover and a couple of full-color pages!

     I apologize for this: My Jinky Coronado's MegaMall online store has been experiencing problems. Half the time I'm not receiving the orders, so I need to alert buyers here.

     My solution: Until this gets fixed, I ask that you PayPal your orders to me. You can Email me directly at BanzaiGirlsMC@aol.com and we can arrange for check or PayPal, or simply include all the info in the body of a PayPal order sent directly to my agent's account at David@glasshousegraphics.com.

     Some of the latest store items seem inaccessible on the site, so I will list them here:
          * BANZAI GIRLS #1 (Arcana) -- $5.00
          * BANZAI GIRLS #2 (Arcana) -- $4.00
          * BANZAI GIRLS #3 (Arcana) -- $4.00
          * BANZAI GIRLS #4 (Arcana) -- $4.00
          * BANZAI GIRL Manga Trade (Arcana) -- $10.00
          * BANZAI GIRL Full-Color Trade (Sirius) -- $15.00
          * BANZAI GIRL Full-Color Poster (Sirius) -- $15.00
          * BANZAI GIRLS Music CD (Galaxy Music) -- $10.00
          * BANZAI GIRL STATUE (painted) -- $169.95 (plus $5 special packing)
          * BANZAI GIRL STATUE (unpainted) -- $129.95 (plus $5 special packing)
Remember, postage is only $4.00 per order, whether you order 1 book or 100!

Hi, everybody! -
     A few weeks ago as I type this. I appreciate all of you who are posting on my Message Board, and I hope to see the rest of you joining in, now that my series is back in full swing.

     I'm typing on a Mac Mini, visiting my famliy in Iloilo, Philippines; it's my annual trip back to see my mother Judith, my father Pepito, my sister Michelle, my brothers Pejee and Jhopet, and so many aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

     (A musical thought: Yes, the publisher of our CD is talking about getting us back into the recording studio while I'm here, and I'll know as the month progresses whether it will happen. Here's a link to a song we've been working on: SWAY)

Download the Mp3 of SWAY here

     Yeah, it felt great to be back in the Philippines where I grew up. You see, after much scrimping and saving, Michelle and I -- with many many thanks to our agent, David Campiti of Glass House Graphics   -- have bought and and built a brand-new California-style home for my family.

     With tile floors, high ceilings, a 42" lcd TV, and a gorgeous, intricately-cut front door, it's three bedrooms, three baths, a huge living room/dining/room/kitchen area, a carport/porch area, even a dirty kitchen (Filipinos will know what I mean), storage shed, and even a room for my father's electronics business.

They are comfortable for the first time in our lives, and I couldn't be happier. I could be a little less exhausted, though.

Wow, what a year it's been. After I focussed many months of attention on my AVALON HIGH artwork collaboration with writer Meg Cabot at TokyoPop, the editors there immediately rolled me into a second AVALON HIGH book, with one nearly twice the number of pages! It's an relentless schedule, but I'm glad that people are finally seeing that I'm not just a "one-trick pony" with BANZAI GIRL. (Someone the other day referred to me as just a "booth babe." As if!)

Of course, the same year I'm doing AVALON HIGH is when I decided to bring back BANZAI GIRL in a new series, this time from Arcana Studio, and we decided the sequel would add an S -- making it BANZAI GIRLS.

     The story picks up about eight months after the end of the BANZAI GIRL ANNUAL that I did for Sirius awhile back, and it chronicles "my" life since then as a pop singer/celebrity returning home. (Hmm, sounds a bit familiar.) It also puts me into the fray of more Pinoy legends -- the Duwende, the Kapre`, and more. I ran out of space to include the Tikbalang, though.

So I'm doing more work than I ever have in my life, but the readers seem to be happy, judging by all the letters and Emails that I've been receiving.

     If you're keeping track of such things, Arcana Studio has released BANZAI GIRLS #1 (with an art cover, a photo cover, and a Retailer variant so rare I haven't even seen it), as well as BANZAI GIRLS #2 (with just and art cover.) They've scheduled BANZAI GIRLS #3 to come out right before Christmas, with #4 due in February -- possibly sooner.

     And we're discussing a BANZAI GIRLS ANNUAL for the next year, as well. I'll let you know more on that soon.

     Arcana has also released, in a strategy I thought was brilliant, a brand-new BANZAI GIRL trade, digest-sized, collecting the original five issues PLUS a ton of never-before-collected material, in graytones and in manga format. Look for it in bookstores and on comics shops shelves in the manga section.

     If for some reason you can't find it on the shelves and the store owner won't order it for you, you can order it from my JINKY CORONADO'S MEGAMALL online store, the same place you can order all other things BANZAI, including the new comic book series. CLICK HERE to check 'em out.

     It seems like years since I first designed a couple of Banzai Girl statues that I hoped to make available to my fans. One person designed a statue that is proudly displayed in my office; the original was the only one made. Later on, two other people promised to make and manufacture statues for me, but they never delivered.

     Enter: Pinoy artist Norman Jim Faustino, who was true to his word. Working from my designs, he created a genuine Banzai Girl statue that he's personally overseen created into a resin collectible statue, available in both painted and unpainted versions. Check out the pics:

          This statue is ONLY available at Conventoins where I'm signing or through my online store.