Jeffrey A. Krell is an openly gay American cartoonist, known for his long-running syndicated comic strip Jayson.
[1] The strip is about Jayson Callowhill, a skinny farm boy who moves to Philadelphia searching for a job and a man, and has been described as "the gay Archie".
[2] Krell created the comics strip Jayson in 1982, and it began appearing in Philadelphia Gay News the following year.
[3] New strips were created for Gay Comix starting with issue #6, and reprints appeared in most volumes of Meatmen, two of the most-read anthologies of LGBT-themed comics.
In 1998, Krell collaborated with singer/songwriters Romanovsky and Phillips on an off-Broadway Jayson musical comedy, which ran for 10 weeks at The 45th Street Theatre in New York City.
This milestone gave Krell the opportunity to be a featured guest at San Diego Comic-Con’s “Gays In Comics” panel.
It also features panels of Bertha, Jayson's mother, in Philadelphia working as Robyn's assistant for his latest film.
This graphic novel features comic strips going back to 1984 to 2016, and it also has a game board called, "Help Jayson out of the closet!
While living in the city, Jayson and Arena have a hard time finding a job and become desperate for money, and their solution was to get married.
The cast included Matt Crabtree as Jayson, Lisa Joffrey as Arena, Karen McCarth as Bertha and Dino Andrade as Robyn and Murray.