
It’s my birthday today. I’m either older or younger than you. Nizzibet and I are off in Portland hanging with old old friends.
Author Archives: skook
Jeff Swenson Toon

Another Labor of Love member toon portrait – Jeff Swenson. Jeff has been one of the busiest of all the former LOL folks, at least artistically. Lots of cartoons and comics on the other side of that link.
Derek Fetters Toon

Another Labor of Love Studio staffer cartoon from 1999. This is Derek Fetters, writer, editor and currently, internet radio drama producer. I highly recommend checking out his horror comedy serial The Unspeakable and the Inhuman.
Jenn Manley Lee Toon

This cartoon portrait is of Jenn Manley Lee circa 1999. I can’t tell you why she’s holding a sword. It just seemed like the right thing to draw.
Kip Manley Toon

Another cartoon version of a former Labor of Love Cooperative member. This is Kip Manley. At the time (1999) he was also one of the principal staff members of the Portland monthly arts magazine Anodyne.
Tim Lowery Toon

In 1999, as Labor of Love was putting together the free newspaper version of Glyph I did a series of cartoon portraits of some of the more active folks contributing to the studio. This is Tim Lowery.
Farewell to the Armadillo Kidd!

I saved this image for last. It’s my favorite Backyard Enterprises illustration. I did the base drawing and Jeff Swenson painted it. The original (and all the other large BE paintings) is in storage now. The darned thing is huge.
The Penultimate Backyard Enterprises Post

And, now, at last, the second to last Backyard Enterprises post. The man behind the company packed it in after a little over a year. Would there have been a lucrative market for the materials he was proposing to produce? He’d started out thinking there was. The marketing he’d had us do indicated that there was some kind of market but that reaching it would probably require more capital than he had to invest. And there would be no guarantee of success. At that point he’d already spent a few thousand and really wasn’t interested in spending any more without an immediate turnaround. So Backyard Enterprises was put out to pasture.
Jump!!
Sexy?

I don’t remember the exact circumstances that resulted in this drawing. It was in 1999 or 2000 and an old colleague of Nizzibet’s (it might even have been the guy who asked for animated website serial ideas) had asked her if she knew of any comic book artists. Nizzibet suggested me. He didn’t doubt that I could draw comics. What he wasn’t sure about was if I could draw sexy babes. Apparently sexy babes were an important part of the project. So I set aside my ridiculous idea that I drew sexy babes all the time and endeavored to draw a Sexy Babe.
And was told – not what he was looking for. And, too Eighties.
Oh well.
