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DIE-jest continues....

Page 4 - it's just a dumb joke. I am a cartoonist. Even when I draw comics, all the pages are a just a set-up for some stupid joke or pun. I will build an entire story around an event just so that ONE character can say ONE line. It doesn't have to be at the end. It does't have to relate to the rest of the story. I just want an excuse to utter something silly!


Page 5 - The Rant Because most of what my characters go through are senseless or disfunctional situations, at some point, someone's gotta crack. And it all comes out in a rant!


Page 6 - Filler Ok, sometimes you gotta spend time transitioning scenes or doing set-up. At least every character gets a silly phrase GULP! WAH! GYAH!

Catharsis via Comics

I enjoy a good story, but for me, drawing comics has always been cathartic. In my stories, I tend to have characters navigate a series of disfunctional set-ups...be they mechanical, social, or political. My characters spend most of their time getting past things that simply DO NOT WORK as they should. In the midst of these disfunctional structures I flush out all kinds of mental flotsam....so the result, I believe, is probably at least 50% incomprehensible. In fact, people often tell me I say the most nonsensical things all the time. I agree 100%. But this is how my mind works.

In 1988 I made a proclamation to my friends: "I am a 'toon!" Meaning, I navigate the world almost the way silly cartoon characters encounters things that don't make sense, come out of nowhere and seem just plain impossible. I see the world this way, and I make cartoons that reflect that view.

This story, "DIE-jest" ran in an animation newletter, one page a month. It was a reactionary story because people had asked me why I hadn't drawn some comics in a while. So I did some exploration via the cartoon world. It was great, I really had a good time drawing it up and just being totally wacky.

Every other line in here is a pun or an in-joke. Half the visual props relate to something real or in the comics/animation world. The three main characters represent Wants-Needs, Skepticism, and Incomprehension. Don't get caught up in that....really, the strip is just for fun, but yes, there are deeper meanings to half the events in the story. Pages 1,2,3 of 15.

Page 1 - FIN Yeah, I had only planned on doing the one page.


Page 2 - No backgrounds Yeah, I suck at backgrounds, so I don't draw 'em. Why should I? They ruin the jokes.


Page 3 - Notes to myself This is the first page with the sideline comments. Egad!

New Year - Old Stuff

Once again at the start of the year I look at my old work and tell myself I'm gonna blow off the dust and post some of it. Here are a couple from the 80s:

My contribution for the ACME Comics tale "Crisis on Infinite New Universes Crisis" --



& The very last work I did on Galactic Adventures - I had plotted the finale and fate of all the characters, unfortunately, I never finished drawing the pages. Terrible! Yes, the cover is completely misleading, it doesn't end that way at all - no war, no deaths, no exploding ships even!

Election Withdrawls....

Hmmm.....I didn't touch drawing tools much over the last month. Been glued to the TV/Web reading the pundits and blogs on the election mudfest. I'm still "in the zone" about it all, but slowly getting back to normal routines. Back in July, I asked political cartoonist Daryl Cagle to draw a cartoon of Obama for me. I told him I wanted change...and this is what I got...Cool!

Been doing mostly dumb photo collages for the Survivor BBs, but I did ONE SKETCH.

Just Survivin'

Now that the fall shows have started, my productivity is a write-off for the rest of the year. I'm back on the Survivor BBs trading quips and strategy, and trying to do a show-related sketch each week. That will probably last about a month......I've got a lot of video game catching up to do, too!

Recap: San Diego Comic Con 2008

I hadn't been on a vacation since August 07, so I was ever so happy to attend Comic Con this year! Comic Con is like Disneyland for geeks -- I didn't want to even think about work or doing any kind of project. I just wanted to wander around for 3 days and gawk at comics, costumes, chicks, celebs, and cinema. I did just that, and had a fantastic time! Yeah, I stood in line a lot, but the overall experience was just fun, fun, and more fun.



I ducked out of the convention melee on Saturday morning to do a racing yacht cruise, so truly it was a magnificent vacation. When I got back to the exibition hall on Saturday night, it had turned into a battle of commercial EXCESS!!! Seems any major company with a few bucks on hand went out and hired some models/actors and put them in costumes to show the company's wares. Then the TV/cinema folk trotted out their stars hike up DVD sales. Heh---it was disgustingly crass commercialism, and I loved it. I wandered around and followed the big crowds then they made noise.

Here are some pics of my jolly trip. Like Paris said, "Comic Con is hot."

Spicy Space Sketches

Since March, I've been tossing some pages into the Spicy Space Tales comic blog. It's a good thing since it actually makes me work a bit and when I start a page I have a real deadline to finish it, so I don't overreach and I have to decide quickly what stays and what goes. Usually I find I have much too little space and far too much dialogue....but I feel it's necessary to inject some ulterior motives into the goings on.





When I see the other contributions, my mind explodes into lots of different plot threads! Somehow I find a number of ways to link it all together into a stream of sequential progress. But each new page cuts off my options and by the time I contribute again, my original ideas are not longer a fit.

Anyhow, here are some of the concept sketches I've done over the months. Who knows when these ideas will be used....???

Case Closed on Cheerleader Cop

When I started this blog two years back, I mentioned Cheerleader Cop, one of many quick-sketch ideas I started on years back and never finished up.

This week I wrapped it up in one page so I can check it off in my brain --- completed! All three pages!

Are Comics A Waste?

Any illustrator knows the frustration of labouring over a design and having it tossed to the junk pile. For cartoonists / comic illustrators it's the same -- we pour our sweat and creativity into work that sometimes gets shelved, postponed, lost, or displayed in some remote location where the intended audience will never be able to appreciate it.

Are such comics a waste?

Well...if you had fun drawing them, of course not! And hopefully you can re-use the concepts or layouts in other work. With that being said, today's art is a mascot for a store in some town that sells something that has nothing to do with what I drew....

BACKSLIDE: The Backstory!!!

Everyone has throwaway stories, concepts and characters that never get used. One of mine is BACKSLIDE. Stephen and I hijacked the Halloween party theme in our company's production department and made it Comic-book Characters. So we both went to work and did pretty much EVERYTHING --- the cityscape cut outs, word balloons, outrageous props, newspaper scraps that had outrageous headlines on them, and Stephen made these carnival type posing stands. I drew up templates for people to make up their own heroes and add them to the list I had on a board called the Hall of Heroes or the Vault of Villains. Not too many people signed up...oh, well....at least we got a few brave souls to wear costumes. My costume was BACKSLIDE - a minor villain with the uncanny ability to backslide into time up to 15 minutes!

I had planned to disrupt Stephen's story continuity in THUGS by having BACKSLIDE show up from a side alley and alter events past. I never got around to drawing more than one illo about it. And now your know the backstory.

Covers For All Occasions

I have said before that I'm more of a cartoonist that a bonafide comic book illustrator. Stories I tell are basically extended jokes with the punchline somewhere in the pages, not necessarily at the conclusion. I will build a story around the punchline or wacky situation I have in mind. Every detail is secondary to making that one panel, that one scene where tension, paradox, and incredulity is at it's peak.

That's why comic book covers are great! You can do it all without even telling the story. The covers I like to make are just one-panel gags. Sometimes at a day job a wacky idea hits me and I just sketch it up. Usually when there's nothing to do anyway and I have plenty of time to think up goofy stuff.

So here's a set of gag-covers I whipped up a couple years back, before my company played a gag and sold all the designers down the river.[Can you tell I'm pissed?]

Apocalyptic Anthology -- I love stories about the end. I love that there is no hope here, but the chick is already thinking about a tryst with a bug-eyed-monster. Bigger, better, deal, you go, girl!

PAC-MAD -- This is a direct rip-off of an old Guardians of the Galaxy cover.

GIJOE Testifies -- Amazing how our foreign policy is based on a ludicrous cartoon from the 80's!!

Zombie Physics -- We know how zombie physics works, but what if you were tested on it?

Drive-Thru Divorce -- Yeah, it's weak.

Pin Pro vs. The Devil -- Got to be one of the weirdest ideas I ever had. I just wanted to see this bowling dude kick the devil's ass without breaking a sweat. He's like Job of the bowling alley -- unflappable like he doesn't even know the stakes. Damn!

Unfathomable Fish Tales -- People vs. fish is always great drama or great comedy!

Lost Pages

A couple more sketches from the woebegone boxing project. Not used, but more in the manner of illos I would have preferred to do.