Jeff Boob: Just drawn that way 

I’m used to seeing the requisite T-shirts with rainbow smiley faces or rows of kittens, or recognizable logos like the Nike Swoosh saying “Pride” using the company’s font at various Pride festivals, but at a recent street fair for Stonewall Sports, I found a vendor who had products that I hadn’t seen before — as many festivals as I’ve been to. The vendor, JawnGoods, immediately drew me in and I got a chuckle at the whimsical, and sometimes naughty, shirts that were also available. 

Jeff Boob is the owner/artist and he’s got a line of “Knotty” T-shirts in his Kink collection. You can get an “Eat My Ass” drawstring bag, a “Serving South Philadelphia” tank top emblazoned with a feminine looking SEPTA bus complete with lashes and a manicure, but the ones that gave me the biggest laughs were the shirts printed with slogans like, “Lazy Top,” “Exhausted Side” and “Bossy Bottom.” JawnGoods also carries altered logos, like the Visa card that swaps “Visa” for “Vers,” as well as a line of sexy zodiac tees drawn by the artist himself.

OK, let’s get right into it. What’s the origin of the name “Boob” and how badly were you teased?
I looked it up and it’s Pennsylvania Dutch, obviously from my father’s side of the family. I wasn’t teased as much as you might think. I think my sisters had it worse. I adopted it as a nickname fairly early, so everybody just called me “Boob.” It’s actually a little weird having people call me by my first name since I moved here.

Where are you from?
I was born in State College, Pennsylvania, like, the dead center of the state and Centre County. I lived there until I was 30. 

Wow! Isn’t that the area James Carville called Pennsyltucky?
Yeah. I grew up right around the Penn State University area. So I wasn’t too far out in the weeds. But yes, go a little in each direction and there was farmland. Things weren’t too bad there because it was a college campus town. It was a little polarizing because it was either all young people or older adults who were the professors and stuff. So there was no middle ground, but for the most part, it was pretty good.

No big fights between the townies and the school?
No, but weird things like when parents would come back and want to relive their glory days in college. So even the adults were partying whenever they were there. It was a strange place from that aspect. 

And what about your family? What do/did your folks do?
So I am not in touch with my father at all. But my mom has just moved down to the Rehoboth Beach area. She is retired now and she’s living her fantasy! 

Her best beach life. I was wondering because you seem to be a very creative person. I didn’t know if you got that from either of the folks.
No. Growing up, my dad was a laborer and did all that kind of work. And my mom was a salesperson. She worked for Tupperware almost all of her adult life. A lot of my upbringing was going to those Tupperware parties! [Laughing] That was her life. She was very sales oriented.

I think you’re the first person I met who was related to somebody who did Tupperware. So I guess you know how to burp them?
I do!

Do you have any siblings?
Yes, I have two sisters. One I’m also not in touch with. My other sister works in the banking world. She just actually moved back to the State College Area, so she likes that area. She deals with a lot of business accounts and she often gets to work with football players. So she’s friends with some NFL players now who were at Penn State. She follows them throughout their career.

That’s where you got my attention. I’m a big football fan!
Sports aren’t entirely my thing. But my family was a huge football family so college football was always on the TV at home.

So what extracurricular activities did you do in school?
I was the drama kid. I did a lot of art and drama growing up. I actually progressed past what my school’s art program provided. So my senior year, I did a self-taught art class. I had to come up with my own curriculum and what my projects were going to be for the year and everything like that. It was really fun.

What kind of stuff were you doing?
So in that class, specifically, I wanted to choose a strange medium. I had help from one of the teachers who was an art teacher there. So one of my big projects that year was: I painted a chair. I feel like that’s not a medium normally used in that fashion. I created a mural on it and I had that chair for a while.

Is art what you studied in college?
Actually, I went to school at a university in Florida, and studied computer animation. I thought 3D was going to be my thing, but it turned out, not so much. But I did finish, so I do have my bachelor’s in computer animation.

I did a little research on you and saw that you now work for a company that does AI. Very topical!
Well, we are what you would consider a disruptive technology in the medical imaging world. Usually when you go to get a CAT scan, you think of a table where you lay down, and it moves and scans you. Ours is a device that you walk into and stand up. And then it has the added benefit of seeing how your bones and joints are reacting while you’re standing, which obviously is something most people are doing during the day. So essentially you get added information for the surgeries. But we just expanded recently and we are merging with a company in Australia. I think they’re bringing more of the AI part of it.

What’s your role with the company?
Marketing and design — designing anything from our physical mailers to our emails — and I just finished designing a logo for one of our new systems that we’re releasing later this year.

Does AI scare you like it does most people?
It’s a small portion of what we do, but in the future, everything’s gonna be AI related.

I’ve actually kind of leaned into it when I was starting my own business. I didn’t know entirely where to start with building the website and all that stuff. So I use ChatGPT and other AI tools to help me come up with plans instead of just guessing or doing a ton of research that might not lead to anything. 

Tell me about the company, JawnGoods.
It’s a custom design company. I do anything and everything from coming up with my own designs, to working with the customer to come up with a design when they have the idea of what they want, but need help with actually creating the design itself. It’s all about listening to what people want. 

How long has JawnGoods been around?
Since the beginning of May and it’s going very well. I did a decent amount of build up so I felt like I was prepared when I got the website going. I’ve now started doing block parties and that kind of thing to get my name out there.

You hit the ground running as they say. One of the things that I noted in writing my opening for you was that normally when you go to the festival, you often see the same merchandise and it’s usually family friendly. Yours were a little bit more grown up.
I feel like I have a good mix. I was a little unsure of some of my designs, maybe thinking they went a little too far. But I saw what other people were selling at this recent festival and I was like, “oh, I’m good.”

Yeah, I saw a few things that were more hardcore. I think yours are more playful. Do you make all the designs yourself?
Yeah, I sometimes use some references from archives and that kind of thing. But the finished design is 100 percent me. 

What was the hardest part about getting the business going?
Honestly, it was the technical aspect of starting a business. Most people think, “You know, I can just start a business and start selling stuff and that’s all there is to it.” But there are a lot of forms to fill out just to make sure you’re doing everything legally so that you don’t get in trouble later on down the road. It’s hard to figure out because there’s no platform which walks you through that kind of thing. I just actually paid my tax withholding fees for the first time, so that was fun!

And is it pretty much a solo enterprise?
Yeah. My partners help me with a lot of the stuff, they were at the block party and they will often help me sell stuff and are a great support system. Plus, I do everything out of our home, so they have been very patient with the messes I make trying to create.

How would you describe your style?
I don’t know that I would pin my style to like a specific thing. I like to say I’m a jack of all trades. If I see something, I want to learn how to do it. So that’s one nice thing about my partners. They know how to reel me in. Whenever I see something new, I’m like, “oh, I need to buy this thing.” And they’re like, “Maybe let’s focus on what we have. All right?” But style-wise, recently, I’ve been immersed in something called continuous line art. The concept is you draw the object or person or whatever it is, with one stroke, never letting your pencil leave the paper.

Is that how the astrological drawings on your site were done?
Yes. That’s a perfect example.

So let’s talk about coming out. What was the best part of coming out and what was the scariest?
[I came out] kind of late in life. I didn’t come out until I moved to Philadelphia and away from everything in my past. I feel like for me, coming out was easier in a sense because I’m not super close with my family.

So my coming out story is that I jumped on social media, typed something out, hit enter, and then everybody that knew me, knew. It was nice in the sense that I moved to a new place and restarted. Since I didn’t really have a friend base here, I got to choose who I was when I moved here. And the people I was meeting were all a part of the community already, so I never felt the awkwardness of having to tell them. 

Well, you must be doing something right because most people have a hard enough time finding one partner and you have two!
[Laughing] I lucked out. They were together when I met them so they were a great package deal! 

Two for the price of one! You described yourself as “Just a gay poly Philly bear artist trying to pay his mortgage”? Did you have any difficulty trying to find where you fit in? We have the whole LGBTQIA+  alphabet community, and sometimes it’s hard to figure out where we land.
I think, kind of like with my heart, I don’t really like to limit myself. I know that in our community, we love our labels and pinning ourselves and being comfortable saying like, this is what I am. I don’t think I necessarily fall into that. I guess right now, if I had to put a label on it, I would consider myself a polyamorous bisexual cis man, but I’m very open as far as all that goes. I think part of coming out later in life [is that] I don’t want to limit myself. I want to experience things while I can and if I enjoy something, then great.

It seems you jumped into coming out wholeheartedly just like you did with your company. What was the first gay bar you went into?
I actually went to a gay bar back home before I moved to Philadelphia. I think it was called Chumley’s. It’s the one gay bar in State College, or at least when I was there. It was a small hole in the wall.

I interviewed the manager a long time ago.

OK. If I remember correctly, it was a very nice lesbian who ran it. 

Yes. So what did you get into trouble for the most when you were young?
Boy… not a lot. I think my creative mind always found ways to get out of trouble. I was very good at weaving tales of what actually happened. Someone else always ended up taking the fall for me! 

What’s an example?
One of the stories that comes to mind is when I was in elementary school, and we were at recess. We used to play this weird tennis/kickball game on the tennis courts. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I ended up kicking the ball really hard and hitting one with the other kids. He got very upset, but exaggerated his side of the story and by the time I finished my side, he ended up getting in trouble. I will say that in general, though, I was a very lovely child and didn’t get in trouble a lot growing up.

If you could do something dangerous with no risk to yourself, what would it be?
I would say either skydiving, because planes are not something I’ve really grown up around, and I’ve only been on one as an adult. So the idea of jumping out of a plane, let alone being on one for traveling, is pretty scary to me. Or maybe something around being in the ocean. I’ve been pretty landlocked my entire life so I like the beaches, but like going out in deep waters is pretty terrifying.

Where did you travel to the time you flew?
It was just last year. We went to Chicago for a Memorial Day trip.

What’s a cartoon character that represents you?
Hector the bulldog from the Tweety Bird cartoons. [Laughing] I feel like visually speaking, I always connected with him. I also tend to rush into things a lot like he did. 

What’s a song that resonates with you?
There’s a song called “Independently Owned” from the new musical, “Shucked.” It’s about an independent woman who enjoys making her money and being her own boss. I have a great support system, but I like being in charge and coming up with creative ideas. I want to wake up every day and love what I’m doing.

What is the best and worst thing about being in a throuple?
Believe it or not, I think the worst part is trying to choose where to eat out! We’re all very agreeable, which leads to not making any decisions! The best part? Free wardrobe! We constantly swap clothes with each other. 

I love it! How can people find JawnGoods?
They can find me at www.jawngoods.com.