welcome! :')

hello! it's julianna. thank you for being curious about my substack journey! hopefully the next few sentences can help you decide if you want to be part of this new community >:)

Oct 16, 2024

who am i :0

if' you’re unfamiliar with me, my name is julianna romero! i’m from new york city (staten island — the home of pete davidson and colin jost) ( also did u know colin jost’s dad was my teacher in high school for CAD LOL) anyway… i am a cartoonist, illustrator, and animation filmmaker. you can check out some films & artwork i made on my portfolio :) (though i lowkey think i need update it one of these days..)

in ny, i was an emboldened & goofy kid who went to an all-girls catholic middle school, then a nyc specialized high school (staten island tech lol), and then i went to an honors college through the city university of new york (hunter college & then the city college of new york) before transferring to calarts in los angeles, where i studied character animation and graduated in 2023.

i’m now designing & illustrating things at the walt disney family museum. i was also an animation consultant for AMAZE, a nonprofit that creates accessible, inclusive animation content about sexual and mental health :) i helped localize, adapt and re-animate pre-existing videos for their global partners around the world, and also made new animated videos for them as well.

i currently live in los angeles where i like to play tennis, take dance class, browse coffee shops & bookstores, and walk by the beach :’) but i still think new york is the better city >:) (i won’t change my mind abt this SORRY)

soooo… what r u doing on substack

TLDR version: scroll down to the bottom of this page to read the comic i made announcing the launch of my substack!

the past few months & years on ig have felt emotionally depleting and uninspiring :( every time i feel i engage with the app, either as a consumer or creator, i end up feeling… miserable LOL. but, the one thing i do like about instagram is its ability to connect me with artists & friends and new faces, and how i can share my art with everyone.

sooo, upon some pondering & some research.. i decided it might be worthwhile to try out a newsletter-based style of art-sharing. by writing and illustrating comics & thoughts on substack, and having folks sign up for more long-form newsletters, i felt like it all together creates a more intentional & mindful way to engage with each other digitally :)

so, similarly to what i share on instagram, i’ll be creating and sharing my self-reflective & slice-of-life comics here on a weekly basis. i’ll also be sharing what creative projects i’m working on, what i’m doing for work, and interests that have been keeping my brain in critical thought LOL.

overall, my hope for this substack is to become a digital archive for my creative journey, a way to connect with my people more through my comics & illustrations, & a way to share more intimate parts of my life of how i maintain my career and identity as an artist with people who intentionally would like to receive updates of my work and my thoughts :’)

by up-keeping this archive, i also aim to engage in a consistent practice of writing & drawing for myself, which can be hard to keep when no longer bound by academic obligations lol.

i’ve always felt like being an artist & creative encapsulates so much more than what you merely create and practice, but how you navigate and experience life. i hope to share all this and become digital penpals where we can discuss this all together through substack <3

who’s allowed to join the club :o

anybody who enjoys seeing my work on instagram or out and about in the world, if you’re my friend LOL, or if you feel like being a creative person is tough and grueling work that needs constant monitoring and self-reflection… :’) this is the spot for u!

so what exactly am i going to get in my email inbox each week

i’ll be (hopefully) making your inbox a little happier by sending out a weekly comic every monday!

in between that schedule, i hope to have more fun posting scribbles, thoughts, essays and life udpates here and there in between the week as well.

there won’t be any sort of paywall for my content, and most of the comics will be the same i share on ig! but i am also experimenting with writing longer comics that don’t fit the instagram restrictions, so substack will be the place to access those.

i’m hoping to appeal to a different platform and viewership (aka anyone with an email) (like my mom’s friend who likes my work but doesn’t have an instagram lol), so i’m hoping to reach a wider audience this way!

depending on where my substack goes, i’ll eventually create exclusive content for different tiered subcsribers, but for now, let’s just keep it here!

that being said, if you do want to support me with monetary means, you can subscribe for $5/month! :) that would be awesome LMAO