Century Man - Rough Pencils

For years, my plan to start in comics was to produce an ongoing superhero series called Century Man. This went through various permutations, starting as a story set in 1890s England, and in its final stage was a modern 21st century story. I had an outline for the first few issues and a roster of characters planned out. 

I never thought I had the professional art skills to pull this off myself, so I was always on the lookout for a young artist willing to do this for free, for the experience. I even had two lined up at two different times, but they fell through because working for free, naturally, is always going to be your lowest priority. 

Eventually, I decided if I wanted this to get at least one step closer to being done, I would need to at least do the art breakdowns myself, and then work to find someone who would finish them for me. And even that I never got around to completing. But this is my favorite page from those breakdowns, as I think I got a lot of energy and motion into these roughs. 

 

Random Comic Strip

I did this many years ago, so I don't remember if this was something I did in a class, or if I just set myself the goal of roughing out a comic strip as quickly as possible. I think it turned out very well, maybe because the rough pencils keeps it from looking as stiff as my inked work sometimes does. And also I think it's pretty funny.

Bill Justice

William Barnard Justice was an animator and engineer for The Walt Disney Company. Justice joined Walt Disney Studios as an animator in 1937 and worked on such features as Fantasia, The Three Caballeros, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. He died in 2011 at age 97. 

I got to meet him (I think) in 1991, when he was 77, at the Stay Tooned Gallery in Barrington. He spoke to the audience before the signing. I don't remember anything specific that was said and I know he didn't say anything to me; I was just another person in line. Still...

I wish I had taken better care of this print he signed.

 

Stay Tooned Gallery newsletter

When I was 20, instead of counting the days until I could go to a bar and drink, I was counting the days until I could next go to the Stay Tooned Gallery in Barrington. This was 1991 and the height of the collectors' craze for animation cells, and Stay Tooned Gallery was committed to not only supplying that need, but in attracting the best talents from animation to come and do signings at the store. 

This blog is meant to be a repository for my own writings, not someone else's newsletter, but I figure there should be some record on the Internet of what their newsletter was like, before I trash my saved paper copy.

Philosophy Class Doodles

 More scans of old mildewed paperwork that needs to go...

Some of the doodles were of classmates. The girl who wore hats to class always intrigued me, which is why she got drawn twice. She worked on the school newspaper, but I don't know what her name was.

The above character is Marcy the Lich, who's already been featured on this blog in the past.

That was a terrible portrait of Joe Dunham, my philosophy teacher at Aurora University. He was a great teacher, perhaps never exemplified better than our above exchange. I had long doodled on tests, but here Joe met me on my own turf and answered my doodle with a doodle of his own! Yes, that's his Ziggy next to my Skyler from the comic strip Shoe. I never had another teacher do that.

Ouch, this one came out really light on the scanner! At the beginning of my notes from class that day is an ode to my favorite TV show at that time -- something you never hear about anymore today -- The Gary Shandling Show. It reads: 

These are the notes to Casper's class

The notes to Casper's class

Dunham called on me and said

"You've got to take some notes, son."

 

I was also big into Finnish mythology at that time, hence the portrait of Vainomoinen Suvantolainen. 

 

This showed up a little better. First is Thanos with his infinity gauntlet, showing its soul gem and its rap gem. I was pretty funny back then! And the second doodle is a much better sketch of Professor Dunham himself, much as the man looked, though I don't know why I left the temples off his glasses.

Art for a Day

I don't even remember taking this field trip, but apparently we went into Chicago to see the Art Museum during art appreciation class, and our assignment was to have an aesthetic experience and write about it. I only got an A-, possibly because of my unanswered questions about aestheticism. Still, I'm awful glad to still have this, as I don't have memories this clear of any other visit to the museum!

 

Renaissance Men Reborn, or, A Better Picture of the Giants

I remember being so excited about this idea. Tired of writing nonfiction essays for college, I decided in art appreciation class that I would write a fiction piece, imagining a confrontation between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, that would be well-researched enough to count as an essay. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped and my teacher's critique still stings in my ears -- "That's all they would have said to each other?" In the end, though, he decided he couldn't resist the idea of the piece and I think he gave it an A-.

Past page 2 I had to revert to my handwritten rough draft because those darn dot-matrix print jobs fade so badly!

 

 

Old Doodles

An unrealized project I apparently once planned to make happen, sometime around '91-'94, was a comic strip called The BIG Network, which was going to lampoon television with fake pitches for TV shows. All that exists of it is this page with a sample logo and the next page, with a first panel.

Besides my impeccable handwriting, these old notes were worth saving for the margin doodles I often did in class. This one was on the rough draft for an essay I wrote for art appreciation class and the rest were all notes from that class or a literature class I was taking at the time.

Old Cartoon Samples

Oh no! A lot of my old paperwork stored in the garage is infected with mold. Time to scan it all and throw it away...

Below are some drawings I had done, submitted and rejected for political cartoons while I was at Aurora University back in '91-'94. My, they don't age well, do they? I was quite the conservative, highly suspicious of multiculturalism and spending. Though unlike Republicans, when I lose in the culture wars I lose gracefully and accept things have changed...

 

From the Dominican Star, 4/22/1998

One of the few comic strips I had printed during my last stint in college. 

Major Magus Sketches

I'm currently finishing up some artwork for the second Major Magus story in the next issue of The Trophy Case (see here for more issues!).  When you read the Major Magus stories, you should be able to guess which Golden Age superhero he emulates, but it's even more obvious in this initial sketch for the character.  Thank goodness I cut back on the number of buttons on his coat since then!
I've made his long coat longer, so that it hangs more like a cape behind him and, of course, now he has a moustache (with that moustache and brown widow's peak, the last time I drew him he reminded me of Dabney Coleman!). 

This second sketch is a "deleted scene" from the latest story.  Major Magus is gently scooping up a paralyzed old woman (it still happens in the story, but I decided to go without the drawing).

  

Peanut Avengers #5

I finally feel like I've nailed drawing the Wasp in the Peanuts style.  But her legs kept changing length on me!  Oh well...

Peanut Avengers #4

I completely messed up on the Wasp in that last panel, inking in a belt and short boots on her when she doesn't wear either in panel 2! *sigh* This is why I let Mike Bridges do most of my art chores these days!

Peanut Avengers #3

For those who only know the Avengers from the movie -- that's Iron Man and Ant-Man.  I somehow didn't notice that my panels were crooked until it was already inked.  And Iron Man should be about to fall over backwards in the last panel.  But other than those quibbles, I liked how this turned out and enjoyed drawing Ant-Man.

Peanut Avengers #2

The last panel and Hulk's incongruous body language now bothers me, but I like how the rest of this turned out.

Peanut Avengers #1

I made a few of these as Christmas gifts to my coworkers this year.  Here is the first one.

L'il Fantastic Four

Inspired by a few joke pages in Sensational She-Hulk #50 back in '93, I did this sketch for a L'il Fantastic Four of grade school-aged versions of the classic heroes. I came across this recently and decided to share it. I remember writing up at least one story synopsis at the time, but I haven't found it yet.

New Castle Greyhawk: the Comic Strip blog!

Rather than continue to share the Castle Greyhawk comic strip here and see it buried in with the rest of my stuff, Mort and I have decided it best to feature it on its own blog, which you can now find here!

Castle Greyhawk : the Graphic Novel - pg. 2

[I love how Mike improved on my script for this page, particularly panel 2. Enjoy!]

Castle Greyhawk: the Graphic Novel - page 1

The focus of this blog has always been all about me and my writing. But today, that all changes.

No, I take that back. It's still about my writing. But this time, for the first time, it's about a new and exciting collaboration! "Mortellan", famous for his W.O.G. comic strip and Greyhawkery blog, has agreed to a daring experiment -- to try and adapt my "Castle Greyhawk" novella (found here) to comic book form, one page at a time.

And, to start the project off, we began with a brand new bridging scene between "Castle Greyhawk" and its prequel, "Ehlissa's Story". Enjoy!

[Update: New version has backgrounds!]