I scanned this from the same sketchbook as my Factsheet Five spot illustrations. I don’t remember if this was one of the FF illustrations or if I used it for a Christmas card myself. Possibly I did both. The tree decorator here is Zipperhead, a cheerful serial killer in the tradition of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger – Freddy Krueger especially since Zipperhead enjoys quipping while he kills. Jason and Michael tend to be silent types.

I invented the character for a series of contributions to a minicomic called All Cover Comics. The premise of the series was simple and fun – each page was the cover of an imaginary comic. Besides Zipperhead I drew imaginary covers for The Midnight Avenger, Steffi (Queen of the Urban Jungle) and … I don’t remember what the fourth series was. Hmmm. One of these days I’ll actually unpack all my old minicomics and put some scans up. There doesn’t seem to be much on the web about the series. And you know the web needs more info posted about obscure limited run publications.