Kori Michele
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korimichele.bsky.social
Kori Michele
@korimichele.bsky.social
870 followers 110 following 160 posts
Cartoonist, zinester, shawol.
portfolio: korimichele.com
fun website: studiokori.neocities.org
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korimichele.bsky.social
Would you believe this is the second time I've made a zine about my favorite musician's mullets?

The world is on fire but sometimes u gotta make a silly zine. You gotta. Fixate on a weird thing that makes you happy for a night. This made me happy.

The #1 mullet in action:
youtu.be/QbBVKf9VenQ?...
photo of small zine. Cover: "Ranking Key's Mullets II" by Kori Michele. 2025 edition. Back Cover: December 2025. Luv little freaks. Happy Keyland USA! Uncanny Valley Tour. korimichele dot com. Ink illustrations of Key (Kibum Kibum) in a long curly yellow mullet.
November 4, 2025 at 12:22 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
A Eulogy for Social Media
(a very short essay)

Read on my website here:
studiokori.neocities.org/blog/eulogy

Preview:
October 28, 2025 at 1:22 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Are you makings zines yet? Are you teaching other people how to make zines? Are you proselytizing about the good word of zines?

I've finally updated my website with all of my zinemaking worksheets available to download & use for free. You can find them linked here:

studiokori.neocities.org/zines
A cartoon humanoid cat character with a hat, glasses, and a hoodie that reads "make zines!" They're saying "You can do it! Today!!" in speech bubbles, and holding up two booklets, one that reads "My top 10 Duran Duran songs" and one that reads "Herbal teas."
October 27, 2025 at 2:12 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
The painting is 11 x 14, & I used Holbein Artist's Gouache as watercolor. Lettered with posca marker. Digitally composed & added color effects to nail the mood. I really liked the quality of the ink sketch, but needed to redraw it on something that wasn't vellum to paint. Had so much fun with this.
October 18, 2025 at 4:28 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Illustration based on Key's performance of Strange at Uncanny Valley Seoul. Watercolor on paper.

I wanted to make something new for the anthology fanbook and I'm obsessed with this costume. The style was inspired by (early) Yun Kouga and old CLAMP Saint Seiya doujinshi.

(detail/process to follow)
A manga-style poster illustration of kpop idol Key (Kim Kibum) in purple, blue, black, and teal, in his elaborate space demon costume, 3/4 body and in close up profile. Hand-lettered title reads "STRANGE/KEY."
October 18, 2025 at 4:22 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Thinking about my favorite zine.
Swallow Your Pride (NY, 1990s)
October 16, 2025 at 5:40 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
Art! Art! Art!
October 8th 2025
Art! Art! Art! Real artist. Real artist? Don't talk to me about what makes a real artist. Every artist is real. If you've ever had a human emotion and tried to share it with another person, you're a real artist. Everyone can make art. Your yearning, embarrassing teenage poetry was art. The crooked picture of Goku you copied from a magazine as a kid. The flowers you doodled on your mother's birthday card. Art, art, art! Accessibility? Nothing is more accessible than art. The blind, the deaf, the limbless, the broken, the starved, the infertile, the decrepit, the senile? Have they hummed a tune they remembered from years ago? Have they written a grocery list? Have they asked a priest why they're alive? Art! Art! Art! Anyone can make art. Good people. Bad people. Saints. Sinners. Toddlers. Have you cried into someone's arms? Have you screamed in grief? Have you dug a gruesome tunnel into your guts with your fingernails, searching for feeling and meaning? Art is always real. Have you ever made something out of nothing? Have you ever made something out of something else? Have you kissed? Have you cooked a meal? Have you brought yourself to orgasm? Art! Art! Art! Art is human! A machine can't feel grief and a machine cannot love and so a machine cannot make art for you. You make art. We make art. Art is everywhere: My favorites are the hand-painted Snoopy characters in winter clothes painted on wood boards in the neighbors' lawn at Christmas. That poem by a child that says "The tiger is out!" The five notes of a song my husband hums to me, out of tune, key, and tempo, that is inevitably one of my favorite songs. Beautiful! Precious! Alive! Don't talk to me about who can make art. If you can plunge a finger into an open wound and draw a line in blood with it, you can make art. -Kori Michele Handwerker, October 8th 2025
October 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
I have published a new book & it's a collection of the past five years of my paintings, drawings, and zines about my favorite artist, SHINee's Key!

I'm selling them online to cover the print run & to raise money for NYCSHINee fan club projects!

korimichele.bigcartel.com/product/key-...
Promotional image, including: cover of the "Key to My Heart/ fan artbook by Kori Michele/ for the 2025 Uncanny Valley US Tour" featuring a painting of kpop artist Key in the style of Patrick Nagel. Text reads: "On Sale Now! 44 page fan artbook. (5 years of paintings, drawings, and zines.) $15 + shipping. $5 of each sale goes to NYCSHINee fan project fundraiser!! In celebration of KEY in the USA!!! https://korimichele.bigcartel.com/product/key-to-my-heart-fan-artbook . There is a strip of images of photos of the inside pages of the pook, which depict more paintings of Key. Also lots of fun little colorful squiggles in pink, purple and teal.
October 7, 2025 at 5:56 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
Painting a new jacket.
Sketch pinned to back of black denim jacket that depicts a tiger in pearls and punk jewelry with the text "Little Freaks Still Believe In Love" Black denim jacket painted lightly with a tiger silhouette and the text "Little Freaks Still Believe In Love" Close up of sketch of a tiger. My elderly orange cat Henry sleeping on a flat shipping box under my desk. Gonna give him a raise.
September 24, 2025 at 8:53 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
Going through it on a monumental level and am feeling the need to post this comic I made three years ago when I was going through it worse.

Trying to imagine kindness, love, community.
I love you.
September 13, 2025 at 2:44 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Writing an essay inspired by the process of painting this and I'm at the part where suddenly I feel like this essay is incredibly stupid & a waste of time & oh my god this is actually the dumbest most indulgent thing I've ever written. Pray for me to push through and reach the good feeling again
A stylized bust-level portrait painting of singer Kim Kibum (as his "Hunter" character) bloodied and looking distant in neon reds, with a large red dragonfly painted and collaged partially obscuring his face with semitransparent wings, all over a solid black rectangular background.
August 18, 2025 at 7:34 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
I love painting. Also Hunter by Key is a fantastic album. WIP
A painting of Key based on a still from the Hunter music video. It has a florescent red underpainting that is left visible for the hair, blood, eyes, and wounds. A painting of Key based on a still from the Hunter music video. It has a florescent red underpainting that is left visible for the hair, blood, eyes, and wounds. A painting of Key based on a still from the Hunter music video. It has a florescent red underpainting that is left visible for the hair, blood, eyes, and wounds. Dragonfly wings, drawn on yellow vellum, are laid over his eyes experimentally.
August 17, 2025 at 5:59 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
Also, wips if you're into that
August 6, 2025 at 2:54 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
Wild and crazy mood board for this thing
A rainbow of light in the palm of my hand, cast from a port window in my stairwell The sun, obscured by wildfire smoke from Canada, with an eerie red edge, taken in a Shaw's parking lot A cool airbrush style retro poster posted on Instagram advertising lesbian goth night at the Moroccan lounge A photo of my computer screen with several zoomed in profiles in 80s advertisement paintings, also one photo of Taemin
August 6, 2025 at 2:51 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
Untitled painting. Acrylic on paper with holographic strips. 14 x 17 in. August 2025.
August 6, 2025 at 2:44 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
Art and the Perpetual Hole

(pages 8-11 of 11)
July 31, 2025 at 2:25 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Art and the Perpetual Hole

(pages 4-7 of 11)
July 31, 2025 at 2:24 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Art and the Perpetual Hole
a journal comic about surviving the horrors

I love you

(pages 1-3 of 11)
July 31, 2025 at 2:23 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Was looking through my drawings from the past few years. In the early years of the pandemic I was drawing lots of "angels." I still really like them. We can make so many cool and exciting things with our hands.
A fantasy creature in watercolor and ink. It's a naga-like masc character with maroon skin and lots of wings, horns, and eyes, on a blue background and lots of circular decoration. A fantasy creature in ink and digital color. It's a slight/femme demon/imp-like character with freckled, lilac skin and lots of wings, horns, and eyes, on a circular yellow background with a chunky tail and monster feet. A fantasy creature in ink and digital color. It's a thick/femme monster character with many arms and waring a cat skull. She has a unicorn horn , a thick patterned tail, and monster feet with claws. She has a unicorn horn, a flame, a disc, a galaxy, and a sword in her various hands. She has long red hair and textured shoulders. A fantasy creature in watercolor and digital color. It's a naga-like masc character with lots of wings, horns, and eyes, on a blue background with lots of circular and radial decoration.
July 28, 2025 at 2:07 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
I'm holding onto one thing.
I love you.
A black and red ink drawing, reading "Even in the hardest times/ I am confident we will find ways to love." In the center panel is a person hugging a bundle of fire tightly, and it is flanked with simplified decorative flower motifs. Ink on vellum, digitally layered. By Kori Michele Handwerker.
July 27, 2025 at 9:13 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
That last one was a sketch for my first attempt at some pixel art...it was fun
Pixel art of a cat girl portrait in front of a moon and starry sky
July 25, 2025 at 4:07 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
What's in my sketchbook this week
a half-finished painting of a tiny fraction of a circuit board (light array chip) as seen under a microscope, gouache on paper brushy experiments in orange and light blue, gouache on paper ink drawing of an angel/demon oc...they've got lots of eyes and wings and a big chunky tail sketch of a girl in a cat-eared bodysuit holding a magical compact, blue pencil on paper
July 25, 2025 at 4:04 AM
korimichele.bsky.social
Painting in my sketchbook
Painting of a green haired cartoon woman Painting of a green haired cartoon woman (closeup) Painting of a green haired cartoon woman (WIP)
July 18, 2025 at 3:40 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
I don't want to be posting, either.
I Don't Want to Win the Game They're Playing You will never convince me that standing up for Palestine hurts "the cause." If standing up for Palestine loses Kamala's election, then we don't want Kamala elected. If standing up for Palestine means Trump's base is empowered, then let them gain power. If standing up for Palestine make us "look bad," then I don't WANT to be attractive- Standing up for Palestine doesn't HURT the cause, it IS the cause: It's the same system. It's Queer as in Free Palestine. It's Trans Rights, Black Lives Matter, Healthcare is a Human Right, Free Palestine, Land Back, No Empire, No Fascism, No KKK, No Zionism. We don't throw anyone under the bus to reach other goals. Not black people, not trans people, not poor people, not Palestinians. Step over one body to reach your destination and you should understand how easy it will be for people to step over yours when you become to controversial, when your body becomes too "politicized." Trans people tend to understand this! VERY intimately! This is not about stubbornness. They will not give us what we want if we ease off of a particular vector, they will just take more. We will not trade Palestine for Trans Rights, they will still take both Palestine and Trans Rights, and that is NOT the fault of the people who refused to give up Palestine. I don't care about winning, and I'm sorry if that's frustrating. "Winning at any cost" is what "THEY" do. That's why they win. I don't want to win at that game. I don't want to play that game. That game sucks. (Illustration of a red poppy flower)
July 10, 2025 at 5:54 PM
korimichele.bsky.social
ROT, pages 9-12
(part 3/3)
July 9, 2025 at 2:49 AM