The Girl and Her Dinosaur
Coming this October to ComicMix –The Adventures of Simone & Ajax! This is the story of Simone, a fun-loving 20-year-old girl, and Ajax, her friend who happens to be a small, green dinosaur. Together they find themselves in a series of strange and wacky adventures, taking them to many different lands, times, and places. Simone is not so much the leader of the duo, but more the instigator, looking to have fun and often acting before she thinks, getting herself and Ajax into trouble and so into their adventures. She’s not dumb, just over-zealous. Ajax, the dinosaur, is the more sensible of the two. While deep down he loves adventure, too, he’d rather ponder and worry before leaping into the fray.
Simone & Ajax’s adventures take them around the world, and off it, as well as to any time or place, be it Atlantis, the Moon, Santa’s Workshop, Victorian England or the grocery store. Sometimes strange adventure comes to them at their home in the ruins of Rene de Chartre Cathedral. Their adventures are "a bit like the best issues of Cerebus, and a mood that harkens Bone" (Toph, Overstreet’s Fan #21). It’s a buddy strip, but all in all, The Adventures of Simone & Ajax is a fun and exciting comics series that will attract readers of all ages looking for exciting, zany adventure stories.
Creator Andrew Pepoy was born in 1969. After abandoning such worthless pursuits as becoming the President or an accountant, at age 10, he decided to draw comics. Soon after, he met the classic Buck Rogers artist, Rick Yager.
After many years of publishing fanzines, and while still attending Loyola University Chicago, Andrew sold my first professional work and was soon working for Marvel, DC, and other major comic book publishers on such characters as Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, The X-Men, Mutant X, Scooby Doo, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Simpsons, Betty & Veronica, Godzilla, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and many more. Starting in 1995 I also wrote and drew my own comic book feature, The Adventures of Simone & Ajax.
In 2000, he was asked to redesign the Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip, which he drew for the next year. Andrew is currently working on various comic books, including writing and drawing a revival of Katy Keene for Archie Comics, and developing new ideas for comic books and comic strips.
Andrew lists his influences as “Roy Crane, Dan DeCarlo, Russell Keaton, Bob Lubbers, Matt Baker, Alex Raymond, Charles Schulz, Mark Schultz, Steve Ditko, Enoch Bolles, George Herriman, Henk Kuijpers, Francois Walthery, Wally Wood, Bob Oksner, Don Flowers, and so many more.”
You’ll find Andrew living in a condo with a turret on the north side of Chicago with his wife (and assistant), Chris Atkinson, and two odd cats.
Here’s what Andrew had to say about the upcoming stories.
On this day in 1947, 
John Gaunt is GrimJack, a hard-bitten mercenary and private detective in Cynosure, a city at the nexus of dimensions. Raised in the Pits to fight for the amusement of the public, Gaunt lives by his finely honed wits. He can and does fight demons, sharpshooters, magicians and gangsters. 
I finally watched most of the third X-Men movie on HBO last night, and found I didn’t really miss the absence of Patrick Stewart for half the film. A major reason for that, of course, was another wonderful performance by Stewart’s fellow Shakespearean thesp, Sir Ian McKellan.
