From the 1997, this is my first sketches of the client herself. Nizzibet and I were flown down to Berkeley to meet with the client and the woman doing her media development. We spent the day with the four of us in a room. Me sketching. Nizzibet tossing around story ideas and concepts with the client and the media developer. There was a big disconnect in that Nizz is a storyteller, she tells stories that have themes, that concern life changing experiences for the characters within them. The client wanted a series of events that were lively and flashy, that featured her characters and was sort of educational. I got the feeling that the client was a little annoyed that she couldn’t just tell us what to do and be done with it.

And these are various attempts at creating girl characters for the kids club. At this point we hadn’t met our client yet. We’d just been given an outline of what she wanted to do.

With a kids club comic there had to be some sort of story, an adventure for the kids to go on. There were aliens involved. If I remember correctly the kids were going to go to an alien world and (ultimately) help our friendly pharmacist hero teach the aliens about good health and nutrition.

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Hey! While I’m thinking of it, I’d like to compliment our pharmacists at our local Safeway on 15th and 85th. They’re very nice people, they always remember us and, while I can’t say I’m crazy about getting medicine, they certainly make the process as painless as possible. Cheers to them!

I don’t remember how much info we were given to start with for the kids club project. Did the client give us the number of kids (four) and their names? It’s possible. This was my take on Carlos. I don’t think we were given many details on the kids other than to make them multi-ethnic. I don’t remember the client being that interested in the kids actually. Hopefully I’ve just got a poor memory about that.

From here to the end of this sketchbook, about two weeks worth, are a series of sketches that were mostly done in a single day. Back when I was doing active design work at Labor of Love we got a very large potential client in the pharmacy department of a supermarket chain. The project was to do a short comic to go in a giveaway magazine in connection with their kids club. We were to create a set of multi-ethnic kids who were to represent the club. This kid is my first stab at creating one of the characters.

The cute little creature on the right is one of the Legion of Sarahs. The other two sketches are the usual mysterious guest appearances of unmet strangers.

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I now have a myspace account. At some point I’ll figure out how to muck with it so it looks more like this blog. I signed up because Schuyler and Leif and Derek all had accounts. I’ve since discovered Jason and Patrick and David (and a few other folks who haven’t responded to my friending yet) on the ‘space. I like seeing the faces (or whatever image they’re using to represent themselves) of people I know. I expect that this blog will remain my blog. Sooner or later I’ll actually set up my own website. Sooner or later.

From the 1997 sketchbook, a page of Misspent Youths characters. I’ve come to (mostly) accept that I have a cartoony style. When I’m just drawing, not thinking about trying to acchieve a specific look, my art has a cartoony flavor. It has a cartoony flavor even when I’m trying to draw something serious and horrifying. When I was drawing Misspent Youths back in 1991 I was trying to draw realistically. Really.

On this page I was purposely drawing the characters in a more cartoony fashion than usual.

The characters are, from left to right, up to down –

Buffy Crawfield – Buffy first appeared in the Moe and Detritus minicomics in ’89 or ’90, predating that other, more famous young woman with the same name.

Moe – Moe either has no last name, or many last names, depending on which version of Moe he’s being in my imagination.

Lili Veracruz – Lili is a terrorist. I got a fan letter back in the day suggesting that Lili was a fan boy fantasy. I’m not sure what the writer meant. Lili is a serial killer and not an especially nice one. She’s not one of “bad girls” that are often popular in comics who wear skimpy outfits and stand around looking provocative.

Cherice Unomuro – Cherice wasn’t intended to be a continuing character. She was part of a gag in the first issue. She seemed too lively to ignore so she ended up joining the (ever expanding) cast.

??? – This character only made an appearance in a couple of the Misspent Youths calendars I did for friends. (The art of which will show up here eventually.) I would need to hunt down a calendar to be reminded of her name and that’s too big a job to attempt at this hour.

Trouble Coyote – Trouble was inspired by my friend Schuyler, though, other than being thin and blonde, she neither looks or behaves much like Schuyler. Schuyler came to California to visit a couple of friends she’d met on the Peace March and she got adopted into my circle of friends. Trouble came to the City to go to college and got adopted into Moe and Detritus’s circle of friends.

K.Z. O’Neil – I got a fan letter from someone (not the same someone who wrote about Lili) who thought K.Z. was hot. I’m pretty sure I wrote back thanking him for the compliment. At least I hope I did. Given my drawing skills at the time I consider it a compliment to his imagination as well.

Dorothy and the Lion taking a nap after a rough adventure. Make of it what you will.

In the center is the Lion in his human state.

Around him are various sketches of Nick Chopper’s head. This is Beastie’s Nick from my 1997 sketchbook, not Oz Squad’s Nick (from whenever the hell I finish drawing it). This Nick has been the King (Emperor?) of the Winkies for almost a century and he’s quite contented with that. Every couple of years he has a new body built for himself and has his old one installed in his palace gardens to gracefully rust away.

Let’s see now …

In the upper left is Lili Veracruz. Lili is always fun to draw. She’s familiar. And she’s massive – seven feet tall. Depending on what age I’m drawing her that mass can be sleek or it might have body fat.

To the left are two views of the Lion in his human form. Since this page is from ’97 this Lion is the Lion from Beastie’s Oz. I’d stolen the idea that the Lion could become human while on earth from Steve Ahlquist’s Oz Squad. I figured that if I ever developed Beastie into an actual published comic I’d either figure out a good reason while he was human that had nothing to do with Steve’s reasons or I change that aspect of the story. I also figured that if I developed Beastie into a published comic I call it something other than Beastie. Currently (in 2006) this is what the Lion is likely to look like if he turns human in Oz Squad.

In the bottom right is the Scarecrow from Beastie. He’s the same Scarecrow that Dorothy met when she first arrived in Oz. He’s now living in Europe, playin saxophone in a jazz band. He goes by the name Buster. I figured that since the Tinman’s name was Nick both the Lion and the Scarecrow should have proper names as well. I’ve forgotten what I named the Lion. I know it was something dumb like Leon. I figured I’d think of something better if needed.

Finally, we’ve got Jughead from Archie comics. Just because.