Happy Friday! Happy New Year!

Thank you for reading my newsletters this year. I had only expected to write 52 issues but, we ended up with 53 Fridays in 2021 and I only realized that when I was setting up issue 52. Being stuck at home due to injury I decided to take advange of the “extra” time and riff out something completely new.

Here are five model sheets for five pulp superheroes that I invented while I was sketching them.

The Necronaut

Jarred Navine had a near death experience after almost drowning when he was a child. The experience convinced him that there was not only an afterlife but an entire afteruniverse waiting to be explored. Using alchemy and mad science he fashioned a containment suit for his soul and set out to map the Other Sides.

The Plague Doctor

“Crime is a disease!” Many a reformer, many a law and order junkie has spouted this platitude. Duncan LeCroix took the idea to heart. He looks on criminals not as evil people but as infected ones. He uses science (and sometimes his fists) to cure those who have succumbed to corruption and predatory behavior. Many he cures. Some, like severely rabid dogs, he must put down.

Silurian Sue

Deep beneath the Himalayas are the caverns of Surrilana. In these depths evolution has taken different, strange paths. There are tribes of intelligent bats, powerful yetis, monstrous ant folk and the Silurians – beings neither reptile nor mammal but something in-between. When the corporations of the upper world discovered Surrilana in the early years of the 21st Century they fought to keep its existence a secret so they could strip its resources without interference. LIke most conquerors they failed to understand the people they were trying to conquer. The Surrilanians fought back, first in the caverns and then under the foreign sun of the surface world.

The Swift

Vinian Spencer was orphaned at six year old. While traveling with her parents on a Mission in China, they were killed by bandits. Vivian escaped and was found by an order of martial arts trained nuns. They initiated her in their order and taught her the secrets of kung fu. She learned many skills but concentrated on mastering the light body techniques.

After twelve years of searching her grandmother found her and brought her home to New York CIty. Of course she uses her kung fu skills to fight crime. Duh.

Sokkot the SIlent

When Sokkot was a young man, he paid a compliment to one of the concubines of one of the Princes of the city state in which he lived.. The Prince had Sokkot’s tongue cut out and exiled the boy to the wilderness beyond the city state’s borders. In that wilderness he was adopted by one of the many bandit tribes. They fed him and trained him and when he was ready, they sent him back to the city state to get his revenge.

That’s all I’ve got for 2021. Have fun tonight! I’ll be going to bed at my usual time.

I’ll see you next week with more words and pictures.

Cheers!