Max and his team. The little girl is the daughter of the woman with the glasses and the man on the far right. The boy with the hat is the girl’s cousin. The young man with the shaved head is the team’s mechanic and technician. The blonde is the team’s psychic. Don’t all teams need a psychic?
Category Archives: miracle max
Max 2
The early Miracle Max was sort of an adopted uncle to a pair of kids. The girl here is the daughter of the two of the scientists of his team of adventurers. The boy is her cousin.
This is another example of inking with Micron pens. I love the things. I was so happy when a friend introduced me to them. For years I used refillable technical pens when I wanted clean consistent lines. The technical pens were fairly expensive and required a lot of care and maintenance. These days I do most of my inking with a brush but I still use Microns for straight lines and when I want to do detail work.
Max 1
I’m fascinated by primates – lemurs, monkeys, apes and, especially, hominids – the offshoots of the human evolutionary line that probably have gone extinct. I say probably because human beings have been seeing mysterious hairy manlike creatures on every continent except Antarctica up until the present day. There’s the Yeti and the Yeren in Asia, Bigfoot in North America, the Yowie in Australia and a variety of creatures in Africa and South America.
Miracle Max was originally conceived of as a sort of simian, more family friendly Doc Savage. He had team of scientists and adventurers that he worked with. Sometimes he fought international criminals. Sometimes he tracked down mysterious creatures – lake monsters, sea serpents, skyfish and other things.
This illustration was done to both play around in that version of Max’s universe and to practice inking with Micron pens. I put as many examples of primates, both real and anomalous, in the illustration as I could fit. The featured humans are members of Max’s team.
What is It?
I don’t know what the main critter in this image is. I was purposely trying to draw something strange and alien.
Hide in Plain Sight
A page of character sketches for Miracle Max.
Monster Rally
Across the top of the page – a variation on Teenage Frankenstein, a reworking of The Thing and a Teenage Werewolf.
On the right side of the page, a character from the Miracle Max stories.
At the bottom is either an attempt at a serpent man or maybe the Lizard from Spider-Man comics.
The End of Max
Actually, it’s just the end of this sketchbook. We’ll see Max again someday.
Evolving Max
Max begins to look more like himself.
Gorilla
It’s a cartoon gorilla. Everybody dance so the gorilla can laugh.
Early Max
Hey, it’s a series of early designs for Miracle Max! No, not the dog. No, not Billy Crystal. The other one.
