Every time I run across this drawing I’m tempted to finish inking it. I considered finishing before scanning it. However, with all the projects I’m behind on, and all the things I manage to get distracted by on a regular basis, I promised myself when I began scanning my sketchbooks that I would just scan the art and post it. No fixing. No editing. No finishing. So this drawing will probaby remain unfinished forever.

Greeting card design from 1995. I don’t think I ever sent it to anyone. Her proportions look a bit off to me now though I am pleased with the picture’s composition.

Naked figure studies from 1995 –

Most of artists by whom I have been influenced have the ability to portray wide varieties of people. I aspire to make each character I draw individual enough that they’d be recognizable stark naked with a shaved head. I’ve still got a way to go before I can do that. Practice, practice, practice.

More random sketches. Mostly. The three fingered hand belongs to a lizard. Probably to Aunt Hortense, the creature smoking the cigarette. What did you say? That she doesn’t look like a lizard? Does Mickey look like a mouse? Does Oswald look like a rabbit?

Aunt Hortense is the matron(? boss? guardian? keeper?) of the five lizards introduced back in 1988. By this sketchbook all the lizards had developed distinct personalities (at least to me) and distinct appearances (at least to me). Aunt Hortense was sort of inspired by the weird uncle/nephew relationships in Disney cartoons. We never know how exactly Donald and Mickey have nephews. Parents aren’t in evidence. The lizards seemed to need an authority figure so the authority figure became an aunt. I don’t know how she’s actually related to the other lizards. Some things just aren’t important.

A design for one of Aunt Hortense’s many detractors. This one appeared in the first issue of Glyph, the magazine version, in the Bonecage Graffiti serial. I just checked the magazine to make sure I got the name right. My memory said that he was a member of the Brotherhood of the Grey Wound. In the magazine he says he’s from the Brotherhood of the Wound. I suspect that, in the process of lettering the script, I decided that “Wound” fit in the space available better than “Grey Wound”.

I usually wrote my scripts 3 times. Once as just dialogue, a second time to fit the thumbnails and the third time as I did the lettering. Sometimes while drawing I’d fail to compensate for all the dialogue I’d written. Usually that meant I’d edit the dialogue down a bit. Sometime I’d just decide that the dialogue was necessary and too bad if the art got covered up. Stupid artist shoulda thoughta that.

1995 sketch – there’s a possibility that this is the portrait of a psychotic Easter bunny. More likely though I was playing with how to make a giant rabbit scary. I have this delusion that at least one decent story can be grown from any idea, no matter how absurd. Whether that story succeeds or not often depends on how the story is presented. In the case of Night of the Lepus, the execution of the story turns it into an unintentional comedy. Giant fleshing eating rabbits could be scary monsters. Fluffy bunnies unwittingly pretending to be giant flesh eating horrors are just silly.

You can find a more detailed exploration of this idea here.

Other than Merriam up in the corner these are all practice sketches – no specific characters. Probably done in early 1995.

A version of August Thyme, circa 1995.

After finishing the first four pages of Bugfuck Palace I didn’t use the sketchbook for a while. I probably picked it up again because I needed a sketchbook and it was available. No point wasting it. The rest of the work in it dates from 1995 after Nizzibet and I had moved to Seattle.

In this particular set of sketches the only thing of significance I recognize is Chainsaw. He was a cat who adopted me back in 1993 when I was still living with the Potter. He hung out on our porch for months, probably stealing food from the other cats I was feeding, but otherwise being friendly and cheerful. I finally gave up trying to discourage him and when the Potter and I broke up I took him with me.

This story, on the other hand, is obviously a riff on an old Arabian Nights tale.

—

And thus endeth our flashback to 1988. A new sketchbook begins tomorrow.

Out in the present I’m working on covers for The Complete Annotated Oz Squad. Steve is collecting the series in two trade paperbacks for debut at this year’s San Diego ComiCon. The first volume will have 1-4 of Oz Squad, the Millenium Special and Lil’ Oz Squad. The second will have 5-10 of the series. I’m not sure what the “annotated” part will include.