The Wizard (of Oz) is the only character on the page who is someone specific. He’s the gentlemen at the top there. I usually base my sketches of the Wizard on the Neill version. Neill’s Wizard doesn’t match his description in the text. Baum invariably says that the Wizard is as bald as an egg and “little”. Neill invariably drew him with a lively fringe of hair and the proportions of a tall man.

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Last night’s film festival was an interesting contrast to this weekend’s film festival. All of last night’s shorts were technically well done, that is, they were obviously made by people who knew how to record sound properly, light their subjects clearly and (mostly) edit their film in an effective rhythm. Most of the films last night didn’t tell stories. That’s an observation, not a complaint. SJ’s film had the clearest narrative. It was a fun piece. Red Riding Hood is adorable, the Wolf even more so.

Today’s 1997 sketches –

In blue pencil and in the center, Beastie makes her return. At this point the character had acquired a fairly complex backstory. She was Dorothy Gale, post Oz, post marriage and widowhood. In this version Dorothy lived the life you read about in the Oz books, let herself age and finally, sometime in the sixties, came back to America, got married and had a kid. Her husband and kid were killed so Dorothy, in the depths of depression, had herself returned to childhood. She grew up in America this time, though she still had an unusual childhood. She became a child actress and, for a while, starred on the most popular sitcom on TV. When that ended she joined the military, spent time as an MP and, after an honorable discharge, she set herself up as a fixer. Since she was rich from her acting career she didn’t need to work for money and could take any case that interested her. Now that I’m working on Oz Squad, Beastie has become someone else again.

The guy with his tongue sticking out is Archie Andrews, the brunette is Veronica Lodge. When I draw corporate comic strip/book characters I rarely make an attempt to present them in the corporate house style. It’s more fun for me to see if I can make them recognizable in my own style.

The dude with the pompadour and the goatee? No idea.
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Got back from the Lovecraft Film Festival about mid day yesterday. It was a lot of fun. Derek handed out about ninety copies of The Unspeakable and the Inhuman, the comedy audio serial he co-wrote and produced. Ramsey Campbell kindly autographed a copy of one of his books that I’d brought with me. I met Scott Glancy and very briefly discussed doing work for Pagan Publishing.

Derek and I decided to concentrate on watching short films, the sort of material that we’d be unlikely to find at the video store. Most of what we saw was interesting, though not all of it was good. One of my favorite pieces Old Time’s Sake had some of the best acting but suffered from poor sound and no budget special effects. There were three versions of The Music of Erich Zann, a story that I’m not so fond of to begin with. There was a very icky claymation version of From Beyond. And, as they say, many more.

Tonight I’m planning to go to see a block of short films by Seattle area film makers. Specifically I’m going to see Little Red Riding Hood by my friend SJ Chiro. Who knows what other little treasures I’ll see?

Here’s another version of the raggedy man character that haunts my brain. This version was a villainous sort. He was intended to be an enemy for Black Molly. Black Molly isn’t exactly a heroic character herself. This guy was much worse.

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Unless I get lucky and hook up with someone who will let me borrow their computer for a few minutes I won’t be posting on Saturday or Sunday. Derek and I are going down to Portland for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Nizzibet will be stuck no car and the evil, evil cat all weekend so feel free to call her and chat. Or invite her out to do something fun. She may just want to sleep but it’s always nice to have a choice.

I read to Nizzibet at bedtime. We’ve gone through the last few of Caroll O’Connell’s Mallory novels, most of Thomas Perry’s Jane Whitefield novels, quite a bit of Ursula K. Leguin’s fiction and sundry other stories this way. Currently we’re reading Lynn Hightower’s Lena Padgett series. We’re on the second installment Fortunes of the Dead.

Years ago, between me reading to her, Nizz would tell me stories. One of those stories was about a boy named Under and his adventures with a genie named Hajinn. The fellow with the horns in the upper right is Hajinn. One of these days, hopefully, Nizzibet will write the story down and shop it around to publishers. There were quite a few clever bits in the story that I’ve never seen duplicated.

You’ve probably noticed that the body part I draw most often is the head. Presumably the reason is obvious – the face is the most recognizable part of a person. People we’re familiar with we can usually recognize at a distance (providing they are behaving like themselves) but casual acquaintances need to be close enough for us to see the details of their faces.

I was in QFC on Sunday when the man in front of me was greated by the woman in front of him. He commented that he wouldn’t have recognized her if she hadn’t said anything. After she collected her groceries and left he told the clerk that she was an ex-girlfriend that he hadn’t seen in fifteen years, that he didn’t recognize her because she was dressed so conservatively.

I have no idea why the Scarecrow looks so sinister. It’s especially odd since Jack Pumpkinhead is looking as cheerful as ever. When I sketched this page back in (presumably) 1997 I had no thought of working on Oz Squad. Sketching Oz characters was as normal as sketching Dilbert. More normal actually. More fun too. This is obviously one of those pages I sketched to a) kill time, b) work off some drawing fidgets or c) both. Under Jack Pumpkinhead is an unfinished version of Ron Post. Under Ron is Black Molly. The rest of the folks are random inspirations.

Another pass at drawing friends and roommates from the S.K.I.G. Row days. These versions are less simplified but still very cartoony.

The girl with the big mouth was inspired by my dear friend Cindy. I don’t know if Cindy likes to argue or if she just considers arguing an important part of life. Either way, Cindy is a very good arguer. She’s also a very good peacemaker. I’ve seen her talk very drunk dudes at loud parties into behaving themselves. It seemed like either Cindy was at the Row or I was at her place almost every day.

The guy with the soul patch is based on Ryan Kursh, the original K in S.K.I.G. Row. Ryan passed away a few years ago.

The guy with the bowl hair cut is based on John Gerboth, the G in S.K.I.G. The bowl cut is a simplification of the eccentric hair cuts he regularly got. They tended to be odd asymmetrical things that probably would have looked like I was being sloppy if I’d tried to draw them.

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To all who have wandered here from Designers Who Blog this morning, WELCOME! Take a look around. Feel free to leave comments on any of the posts. Stop in again sometime.

And thank you to Cat, mistress of DWB, for deciding to feature me. I submitted this blog on a whim and hadn’t expected to hear back from her much less be included in her roll.

On the upper right of the image is (are?) Moe and Lili. Everyone else here appears to be one-off doodles. Except maybe the bearded guy at the bottom, the one with the scars. I ran across him in another sketch book whilst trying to choose which book to scan. I can’t think of who he might be though. One of my characters? A character from a book I read? Don’t know.

More S.K.I.G. Row sketches from ’97. The guy with the long hair and the goatee is based on my own shaggy appearance during the S.K.I.G. Row days. It’s a shaggy state that I’ve maintained almost constantly for the last 20 years. The goatee is artistic license however. I’d have to check photos from the time but I’m pretty sure I was clean shaven during that period. I worked at Jack in the Box (4 months) and Taco Bell (about 2 years) and neither corporation looked fondly on beards. They weren’t much on long hair either but ignored mine as long as it stayed under my cap.

In 1985, I and some friends rented an apartment. We named the place S.K.I.G. Row. This was an anagram of the initials of our last names – Smith, Kursh, Ingersoll, Gerboth. We kept the apartment for a little over two years, keeping the name when Kursh moved out and Kucera moved in. It was a great place to live. I had one of my favorite Christmases there. We partied a lot. There was always someone dropping by. There was drama, laughter and not a lot of sleep.

This sketch page is an attempt to cartoon the inhabitants of the Row. The situation was ideal for a comic strip, comic novel, something. Not all the sketches here are based on my roommates. It looks like I thought of doing that cartoons after I’d already done a couple of sketches. The cartoons themselves only vaguely resemble their inspirations. I was going for very simple designs – basic facial shape, then exaggerate.