I don’t remember the genesis of this illustration. I know it didn’t see print anywhere. It’s a frog, with a box of Amway soap. I’ve never written any articles for or against Amway. Nizzibet and I told a stab at being Amway distributors for maybe a year back in ’95 to ’96. We created no downline business. Barely used the products ourselves. I’m not much of a salesman even when I believe strongly in a product or idea. I tend to think that if I need to spend much time changing someone’s mind about something then I’m just being annoying. And I’ve got other things I’d rather do with my time than annoy people.

On the left, one of the Lizards’ hands. Couldn’t tell you which one. Their hands look pretty much all alike. Well, maybe not Aunt Hortense. Her hands might be more scaley and gnarled.

On the right, the head shapes of the Lizards who aren’t Aunt Hortense. From the top – Missi, Lamallia, Willy, Seth and Zerro. Missi and Lamallia are the girls, Willy, Seth and Zerro are the boys.

I adore Aunt Hortense. She’s vile, manipulative, amoral, cruel and just doesn’t care. She can create doors between dimensions and she knows more than she lets on. She seems to have a Mission. Maybe her actions are part of a Plan. But she’ll never tell. That would be ruining the show for the rubes. Can’t do that. It’s a wonder that I haven’t done more with her.

The head at the top right and the figure on the bottom right are from the story A Taste of Fertile Soil. They’re versions of a sort of otherworldly gardener. They hunt invasive “weeds” and removes them from the garden. In the context of the story the garden is the human race.

On the left we have our standard anonymous practice drawings. Pompadours are fun to draw. Never actually tried to wear one myself. I tend to favor the shaggy look.

This is one of the flying boys from Bonecage Graffiti. The flying boys were actually from another, even less finished project called Wild Shadows. When Nizzibet and I decided to put together the Glyph magazine anthology my contribution was to be a serial that featured many of the characters from Misspent Youths. It was an ambitious undertaking and would have eventually run over 300 pages. The flying boys were one of the Shadow Tribes; groups of humans who, through supernatural means, had become something other than wholy human. In their case, the flying boys (I never did come up with with a name for their tribe) were a tribe of eternally prepubescent boys who could fly as long as they stayed loyal to the tribe and never tried to grow up. Yes, they were inspired by the Lost Boys of Peter Pan, though in 1995 I was still eight years away from reading the novel. I’ve still never seen the Disney version of the story.

This illustration was part of an attempt to create sample advertising material to either attract advertisers to Glyph or to get paying work designing ads so we could afford to publish Glyph. It was intended for an ad for a used clothing store. Seattle has quite a few of those.

This illustration was for a party invitation for the first Halloween Nizzibet and I lived in Seattle. The inks on this piece were done by Pia Guerra. I’d met Pia back in ’91 at the big San Diego Comic Con. We worked on the first issue of a series called WEIRD Knights (me writing, she penciling) that never made it to the inking (much less publishing) stage. In ’93 we did a couple of stories (me writing, she penciling, me inking) for Millenium Press that saw print in Asylum #1. She has since gone on to fame and fortune as the artist for Y the Last Man.

Continuing our journey through my sketchbook from 1995, we reach another one of those pages with stuff on it. A bug, a face and a hand holding a glass. Is there a profound connection between these images? Does the man’s hounddog expression result from a disease in his water from the bacteria carried by the insect? We’ll never know.

We are now looking for another new (used) car. The body shop told me Friday that it would cost more to fix it than to replace it. And that it might not be legal to drive it in its current condtion. If you know of anyone with a good used car for sale, in the Seattle area, please let me know. We’re ideally looking for another Toyota Corolla but we’re not married to that idea.

This drawing got used to illustrate an essay by Fred Burke in the first issue of Glyph Magazine but I don’t think that I originally drew it for that purpose. I could be remembering wrong.

—-

Real world update –

Enough. I’d like some time to get some artwork done please? I’m managing to get some work done here and there and some of the interruptions have been pleasant (the Ellen Forney reading on Wednesday for instance) but last night’s addition to the mess was just annoying. I got rear ended at a stop light. The back end of our Corolla is totalled, tail lights smashed, trunk pushed in. No damage to the other vehicle, a Ford truck from 1978. Its bumper went right over mine to do the squishing.

The driver seems like a good guy. The car should get fixed, whether by his insurance or by him directly I don’t know yet. I just don’t want to spend the time dealing with it, y’know? After a multitude of family ailments, the ongoing IRS saga, earlier car repairs and my own plain tiredness I’m ready to win the lottery now. What? No I don’t play. Another distraction.

Okay. Done with the whining for now.