about
What is Mixten Genetics?
“Mixten Genetics” is a story I started writing in Fall 2022 after a spark of inspiration... or insanity. I somehow got the idea to start drawing characters loosely based around mythological half-human creatures. Given my science background, I decided a modern sci-fi story with a mythological twist could be fun.
The story mostly follows Olivia Greene and her experiences after making the poor decision to sign up for a clinical trial without reading the release form. I initially planned on making a couple one shot type comics with very little over-arching story, but that quickly changed as I just really enjoyed the characters I was coming up with.
The more I’ve worked on the story, the bigger the universe has become. My two other stories, “Couch Goblin” and “Fourth Chimera” both spurred from random art I drew that I quickly worked into the project. Given my difficulties with focus, it’s actually helped me flesh this out into something bigger as I can swap between stories to weave a deeper narrative.
Now I just need to find time to draw.
who am I?
I'm Matt Gibson (aka FossilJockMatt), a relatively unsuccessful Twitch streamer but actually decently successful museum curator specializing in paleontology. I've always enjoyed art and drawing little comics for myself, often to the annoyance of my teachers. When I settled into my career path, I drew less and less. I just wasn’t able to find the time and even now it’s a challenge.
Then I was given a digital drawing tablet for Christmas one year by my best friend (Thanks Earl!) and I started getting back into drawing. I had always been more of a “creature artist” coming up with random kaiju-esque things to entertain myself. I was never really that great at drawing people.
A few Instagram tutorials and one manga drawing manual later I came up with Olivia. A fun mix between my interest in drawing creatures and animals while also forcing me to learn how to illustrate human anatomy. The more I drew her, the more my imagination made a back story for her. I made her a friend (Brynn) and suddenly the story really started coming together… and I mean REALLY coming together. I have a lot of word documents.
I don’t know where all this will lead… I don’t know what avenues it will take… but as I’ve built lives for these characters in my head I have the need to share them. One of the biggest goals I made for myself as I wrote these stories was to be as inclusive as possible. I hope that, as my stories grow, these characters might touch someone the way they’ve touched me. If someone sees one of my characters and sees themselves, then I feel like I’ve truly made something worthwhile.