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Skook WIP #19

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Welcome back! It’s Friday! I hope things are going well in your neck of the apocalypse.Time for another edition of this newsletter!

A reader recently suggested that I provide an upfront summary of each newsletter so they’d know what to look for. It’s not a bad suggestion. I hadn’t considered it before because the newsletters I’ve subscribed to don’t have that feature.

The biggest block to me doing this is that I’m always writing these against a deadline and around delivering mail, doing chores and new drawings. I don’t know how much I’ll get in before I hit my Friday morning deadline. So I’m flipping the order of things a bit. I’m putting the life news up front with the art in progress stuff following. If you just want to look at the pictures feel free to scroll past all the words.

These Days …

Last Friday Sarah and I were finally able to get our covid tests. We’d needed to wait until our new housemate’s covid cycle had theoretically run its course. Three weeks in quarantine. I know, I know, lots of folks have spent a lot longer periods quarantined. I did get a lot of artwork done. And we binged some distracting series. Things could have been worse.

We took the test in morning. We were told that we’d either get a call from a doctor (if the test was positive) or we’d get a notice in our mychart (if the test was negative).

We got our mychart notices in the late afternoon. Negative.

Saturday morning I went back to delivering mail. Saturday afternoon my arms hurt in ways they hadn’t in years. It seems that if you don’t do a certain repetitive action for three weeks your body forgets how to do that action and then complains when you start again. Thank heavens for Tiger Balm. I highly recommend it for muscle pain.

Sunday was a day off.

Monday was another day delivering. No repeat of Saturday’s pain. The body gets back into a rhythm pretty quickly.

Tuesday was a scheduled day off. It was also the day I’d scheduled my second covid vaccine. Other than feeling sore in the needled arm I didn’t think I was having any adverse reactions.

Those came Wednesday. I’d missed so many days of work (and I’ve worked while tired, sick or suffering from ennui in the past) that I felt compelled to go in. I started the day feeling a little woozy. I finished the day feeling exhausted, chilled and needing to go to bed early.

Thursday I felt great. Work was a breeze.

I still feel okay today. Not quite as perky but I suspect a lot of my good feeling yesterday were in contrast to how crappy I’d felt the day before.

I still expect to continue wearing masks in public for awhile. I haven’t gotten a cold in over a year and I credit that to masking and physical distancing. Humans are disease bags.

Dieux Sans Portefeuille

Open on:
The Skookworks studio. The Cartoonist sits at his drawing table. He is sketching. Next to him, at the computer desk, the Salesman is typing.

Salesman: This is what I’ve written for the copy for our Stardust and Fantomah design …

Cartoonist: Stardust the Superwizard.

Salesman: What?

Cartoonist: Stardust the Superwizard. Try doing a search for just “Stardust”. You’ll get a million Stardusts that aren’t Stardust the Superwizard. We have to make sure that we include a “Stardust the Superwizard” tag if we want people to find us.

Salesman: Do a lot of people search for “Stardust the Superwizard”?

Cartoonist: I do.

Salesman: You’re not helping. Can I read what I wrote?

Cartoonist: Sorry. Go ahead.

Salesman: “Stardust is a Super-Wizard, awesome in thought and power. Just ask him.
Fantomah is a nature goddess, slow to judge, furious to respond. Don’t mess with her. Fletcher Hanks thinks he created them. He was wrong. They allowed him to unleash them upon the world. The cat? I don’t know anything about the cat. ”

Cartoonist: That sounds fine to me. Were you wanting a critique? The copy is probably superfluous. People either like the design enough to purchase it or they don’t

Salesman: We must but try. The proper words can move mountains.

Cartoonist: Mountains don’t have ears. Words mean nothing to them.

Salesman: You can be annoyingly literal. You know what I mean.

Cartoonist: Yeah. Yeah. 

Salesman: So. Why?

Cartoonist: Why what?

Salesman: Why Stardust and Fantomah? Why these characters? What is their appeal for you? You’ve already expressed a lack of love for Fletcher Hanks’ art and storytelling.

The Cartoonist stares into space. The Black Cat wanders into the studio. It meows loudly. It wanders out again.

Cartoonist: They are a challenge. They aren’t the sort of characters I would have created on my own. The Heap, The Face, Octobriana – those folks are more familiar to me. When I invent superheroes they tend to me midrange sorts. Fantomah and Stardust are essentially gods.

Salesman: A lot of superheroes are. Superman is ridiculously powerful. And a few superheroes are gods from prechristian pantheons. Thor. Hercules.

Cartoonist: The comics industry has mined a lot of mythologies to create new characters. What I find interesting about these two is that they aren’t anyone’s gods or standard superheroes. They’re not from an existing mythology. They don’t fit the regular superhero template either. They aren’t regular people transformed into superbeings. They don’t have secret identities.They don’t have some tragedy in their past that is prompting them to right wrongs and seek justice now. Their powers are undefined.

Salesman: You’re seeing potential in them?

Cartoonist: I’m seeing a challenge. In order to do anything good with them I have to …

Salesman: Think outside the box? Color outside the lines? Do different?

Cartoonist: Think beyond catch phrases?

Salesman: If you want to get complicated.

Cartoonist: I do actually. I like complexity. I like considering new ideas and concepts. What would it be like to have godlike powers? What would you do with your time? Who would you hang out with?

Salesman: Who would your arch enemies be?

Cartoonist: Maybe. Maybe not. What if you didn’t have arch enemies?

Salesman: What about the cat?

Cartoonist: Don’t ask.

Salesman: Hey! Kind reader! Yes, you. The person reading this sentence. This design is intended to be featured on dark clothing. We’ve got a sample down below and there are many more examples in our Redbubble store. Check them out!


Out of the Aeons

A few years ago I got some flat files to better store my art. As I sorted art into different drawers I came across this unfinished illustration –


I’m not sure when I originally started it. It was likely in the mid nineties. The graffiti on the side of the shanty are symbols that I was using in the “Bonecage Graffiti” series in Glyph Magazine. The folks around the fire are Moe, Trouble Coyote, K.Z. O’Neil and Detritus from my Misspent Youths comic. I don’t know why I hadn’t finished the piece. If I don’t finish an illustration within a reasonable timeframe (say, within three months) I usually don’t finish it at all.

I thought this one had potential for completion. The main work was done. I just needed to complete the interior of the shanty and the brickwork up top. I set it aside with a few other unfinished pieces. I’m an optimist.

Years passed. The other unfinished illustrations got put into the flat files. This one kept getting moved into stacks of newer works in progress. Then I got quarantined. I worked my way through all the other illustrations in my stacks. Now or never.

I did the finishing in Photoshop. I was concerned about making mistakes on the original page so I worked digitally. It’s a lot easier to change direction or correct errors that way. I’m really happy with the results. It was a pleasure to hang out with some of the Misspent Youths gang again. The completed illustration is available on a variety of products in my Redbubble store.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading. I hope you’ve had a chance to finish an unfinished thing or two yourself. I hope you’ve been able to start a few projects as well. It’s great to have goals!

See you next Friday!

Skook WIP #17

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Open on: the Skookworks studio. The Cartoonist sits in front of his computer. He is typing. A black cat is slumped on his lap. It’s impossible to tell the time of day. The room has no windows. Two of the walls have built-in floor to ceiling bookshelves. The desk on which the computer sits is cluttered with scraps of paper and pens. The drawing table next to the computer is similarly cluttered but with a different variety of pens and pencils and the papers have more art on them.

The Salesman wanders in.

Salesman: “Hey.”

The Cartoonist doesn’t look up. Cartoonist: “Uhm?”

Salesman: “Did you listen to the Planet Money podcast about buying a superhero?”

The Cartoonist stops typing. He looks at the Salesman. Cartoonist: “Of course I did. We’re the same person. If you’ve done something, so have I.”

The Salesman rolls his eyes. Salesman: “For a guy with a lot of imagination you’ve got a narrow focus. Just pretend we’re two people so I have something to write about in this week’s newsletter.”

The Cartoonist rolls his eyes in exactly the same way the Salesman had done. Cartoonist: “I’m writing the newsletter while we’re talking. So keep talking.”

The Salesman frowns. Salesman: “Why isn’t the Writer writing the newsletter?”

Cartoonist: “We can only be so many people before I get confused. Let’s stick to the point. Or find one. What about the Planet Money thing did you want to talk about?”

Salesman: “What do you think?”

Cartoonist: “I think the Archie comics guy was right, Micro-Face is a terrible name.”

Salesman: “Not that. What do you think about us digging up our own public domain superhero?”

Cartoonist: “Another one? We’ve already got five. What do we need another for?”

Salesman: “All of our guys have been used by other people. Why not grab a more unknown character and use that?”

The Cartoonist stares at the Salesman. The cat yawns and adjusts its position slightly.

Cartoonist: “Having some recognition helps us doesn’t it? These characters all have some reputation outside my drawings. A more unknown character might as well be a completely new character.”

Salesman: “Have you at least looked at the Public Domain Superheroes catalog?”

Cartoonist: “I’ve looked there and at this list. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. There are thousands of characters listed. Lots of gods and goddesses from old myths. Lots of daring aviators. Lots of folks who wear masks to fight crime. Lots of Flash Gordon wannabes.It’s fun to look but it’s hard to get more than a glimpse at any one character.
And I think the public domain status of some of the characters is questionable. The lists were put together by fans not copyright lawyers. I’d rather not get inspired by some character, do up a bunch of designs and then get sued. That’s not fun.”

Salesman: “I’m just trying to figure out an angle to take to promote our work. It’s … weird.”

Cartoonist: “Isn’t that an angle. ‘Weird stuff’?”

Salesman: “There’s a lot of weird stuff online. I’m trying to figure out a more focused branding to use.”

The Cartoonist makes a crumpled up paper sort of expression. Cartoonist: “Do you have to use the term ‘branding’? Isn’t that outdated by now?”

Salesman: “I googled it before you typed my dialogue. It’s still in major use.”

Cartoonist: “I hate marketing catchwords.”

Salesman: “Deal with it. You’ve got to play the game to get rich.”

Cartoonist: “A. If we’re trying to get rich we’re going about it wrong. B. We’ve got a day job to pay the bills so we’re doing this for the fun of it.”

Salesman: “You’re doing this for the fun of it. I want us to be rich.”

Cartoonist: “You’re only a tiny part of our personality. The rest of us doesn’t care about being wealthy. Some parts of us are morally opposed to great wealth.”

Salesman: “The Mail Carrier wouldn’t mind retiring. Soon.”

Cartoonist: “He does have an exhausting job. And I would enjoy spending more time drawing.”

Salesman: “Right! So I’m trying to figure out a more focused branding for our merchandise. The stuff in our stores is all over the place. Cute cartoon animal greeting cards. The Mighty Nizz. Cthulhu stuff. One-off scifi and monster illustrations. I’m thinking we’d better off having a half a dozen more directed stores instead of a couple general ones.”

Cartoonist: “Have you wandered off the point? I thought we were talking about our superheroes.”

Salesman: ” …. Right. So we’re not going to revive some obscure public domain character?”

Cartoonist: “Not today. Our stores are a jumble because we just jumped in and started putting them together with what we had on hand. We’re past that stage now. I’m designing images for the available merchandise. I’m having fun. I’ve got plans for Stardust, Octobriana, the Heap, Fantomah and the Face.”

Salesman: “Are you doing new comics?”

The Cartoonist makes that crumpled paper sort of expression again. The cat hops off his lap and wanders out of the studio. Cartoonist: “Ask me that when the Mail Carrier has a long vacation. Comics take time and concentration and those are rare commodities in this studio. Meanwhile, I’m working on some fun designs.”

Salesman: “Fun designs that I’ll be able to sell?”

Cartoonist: “They’ll be designs I’d want to wear myself.”

The Salesman sighs. Salesman: “More weird and obscure things? You hate me, don’t you?”

These Days …

Happy Friday! Thank you for dropping by.

This issue is a shorter one, a bit of breather between finishing the greeting card conversions and starting discussing the next phases for the online shops.

It’s been a weird couple of weeks. If you read my last newsletter you know that we (me, my wife and our housemate) have been quarantined because our new housemate is recovering from covid. The responsible thing to do after exposure is to stay away from other people for 14 days. So no work outside the house. No delivering mail.

Last week I was in a bad mood. I like my routines. This wasn’t in my plans. It wasn’t a vacation. I may have complaints about the number of hours I work at USPS but working there gets me the paycheck to fund the rest of our life. Not going to work makes me nervous. Not going to work because there’s a potentially deadly disease in my living space adds to that discomfort.

This week I was in a lighter mood. Our housemate has been getting better. Neither Sarah nor I have had any symptoms of covid.

I’ve been able to use the home time to get a lot of designs completed for my shops. Chemo, the black cat, has been acting as my executive assistant. He was waking me up at 3 am before quarantine and he has continued to do so now. Most of the new work is available now in my Redbubble store. I’m really happy with how the new stuff has been turning out. I’m enjoying the challenge of creating images that both suggest stories and look good on t-shirts (and mugs and blankets and shower curtains and phone cases and ..). I will be showing the process steps for each design in upcoming newsletters.

We’ve been rearranging the space a bit so our new housemate has room for her own stuff and has a place to work on her paintings. We’ve been giving away furniture. Chemo and the new grey cat, Flax, have been getting along.

We plan to all get tested for covid tomorrow or Sunday. Assuming we’re clear I’ll be back delivering mail next week. I’ll be getting my second Pfizer vaccine the week after that.

Yay.

I hope that things in your world are looking bright. If you need to wear shades, put them on. Everyone looks cooler in shades.

See you next week!

Skook WIP #16

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Another town, another train.
Nothing lost and nothing gained.

No. Wait. Those are lyrics from an ABBA song.

Another Friday, another newsletter
Nothing to read is ever better. 

There’s a good way to get started.

Welcome to the sixteenth issue of the Skook Works in Progress newsletter. It’s been a more eventful week than I would have preferred. I would prefer to just stay home and draw and occasionally hang out with friends. This week … I had to stay home and draw and avoid people for the good of humanity.

But we’ll get to that after the pictures.

Greeting Card Conversions

The following are the last examples of my before (scans of hand drawn and colored art) and after (digitally edited and updated) greeting card designs. I did the first versions of most of these back in 2013. I did more than fifty of them and these are the final designs that needed updating. The current versions are all available for purchase in my Zazzle shop.

Everyone Needs a Hobby

There are so many uses for a chainsaw other than carving up random tourists for the family sausage business. Carving sculptures is one creative one. I hear you can use them to cut down trees as well.

Chainsaw sculptures can be used to decorate the grounds of your family sausage business and attract more tourists! Marketing is everything!

Working for Bones

What’s in your lunch box?

Or is it a lunchbox? Is a really a suitcase filled with extra socks? A carrying case for an unusual musical instrument? A kit bag for a cat assassin? Is he a good boy or a bad boy?

Any Other Friday

If Friday the 13th is your day for chopping up horny teenagers, what do you do with the other 51.2 Fridays that don’t fall on the 13th day of the month? And what do you do on the other six days of the week?

You could garden. You’ve got more tools at your disposal than just a machete. Gardens are good places to dispose of bodies and said bodies can enrich the soil.

Cognitive Dissonance

Most people seem to hate clowns. Most people seem to like cats. What happens when you combine the two?

You get the apocalypse of course. Or maybe you just get a sardine custard pie in the face.

Yumm.

Shall We Dance?

Of course we shall. Any other answer is the wrong one.

Dance at dawn. Dance in the afternoon. Dance on into the night.

HOOOOOOO?

Last week I said I’d be designing a calendar featuring the Mighty Nizz for 2022. Zazzle has a template that looks like it will work for the project. There will be twelve full page illustrations. Maybe thirteen if I use a different image on the cover. It is, of course, a work in progress.

The above image is my process gif for the first illustration I completed for the project. The calendar will probably only be available through Zazzle. If you’d like to have Nizz staring at you before then, she and her feathery friends are available now on a variety of merch in my Redbubble store.

These Days …

Bleah.

We have a new housemate. She’s here a little earlier than we planned. Officially she wasn’t going to move in until May. She stayed here for a week last month to be sure that her cat and our cats could get along. The visit was success. Flax and Chemo and Sabe reached cat detente and even worked their way up to some moments of playful interaction.

We thought the new housemate would be able to move in during April, being here completely by May 1st. She had some medical problems that she couldn’t put off that made moving her stuff and cleaning the apartment too much to manage so things got delayed for a month. She was getting those problems handled when she started to get sick in unplanned ways. The kind of sick where one loses ones sense of smell and taste. Where one coughs a lot.

She got tested and came up negative for covid.

She got sicker and was having a hard time taking care of herself and her cat. So we offered to have her stay here until she felt better. No biggie. It wasn’t as if she had the plague.

Except she was having constant coughing fits. So we took her to the emergency room. Where they diagnosed her as having covid.

That happened Saturday night. We’d been wearing masks to avoid catching her cold or flu so we had some protection. On Sunday Sarah and I went to an urgent care to see if we could get tested for covid. Sarah got her second dose of vaccine Thursday morning last week. I got my first on that afternoon. The urgent care folks said we would need to wait five days to get tested and that our vaccines wouldn’t be fully effective until two months after the second dose. Probably. New virus. New treatment. Not enough history to be certain of anything really.

Our housemate has her own bedroom and bathroom. Quarantining her is relatively easy. We’ve got masks and gloves. I called in covid to USPS. I have plenty of sick days and no one wants a possible plague carrier in the station so there was no argument.

I’ve spent a good part of the rest of this week in bad mood. I have a better understanding of why some people are lousy at plague safety. I feel fine. I don’t think I’m sick. I didn’t do anything to try to get the plague. I’m just helping a friend. Shouldn’t I get to just keep on with life as normal? Shouldn’t I be able to go to work and hang out with the rest of the world? Why should I be inconvenienced when I’m healthy?

In general I place being responsible to and for others over following my whims. I also know that shit happens even when you’re being careful. So I may be grumpy but I’m grumpy about the situation. I’m grumpy about the culture and the systems that have allowed (even encouraged) the current mess.

I’ve also been getting a lot of artwork done. It’s the sort of art that takes advantage of being cranky. Bonus!

Our housemate’s health has been improving. When she was at the emergency room she got a dose of the drug cocktail that the 45th President had received. It seems to have helped, as have the various meds and vitamins she’s been taking since. Her cat and our cat are getting along. Sarah has been very patient with both our housemate’s needs and my attitude.

We’ll be in the weeds for a bit yet but we’re forging ahead.

Thank you for dropping by. I hope you are doing well. I hope you are healthy. I hope you are in a good mood. If not, I hope you’re able to use your mood for something that will give you satisfaction down the line. See you next Friday!

Skook WIP #15

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It’s Friday. You’re where you are. I’m where I am. This newsletter connects us for a moment. Thank you for stopping by!

Greeting Card Conversions

As usual, we start with before and after versions of some greeting card designs. The after versions will be available in my Zazzle shop. Normally they are already uploaded by the time I send out this newsletter but … squirrel!

Speaking of Squirrels

Joy + Noise = Music.

Truth.

A little extra color just makes it shine.

Hip to be Square

Good god, I’m dating myself by quoting that song.

It wasn’t true then. It’s not true now. It’s hip to be hip. Being square puts you in a corner.

Dress for success. Dress for excess. Dress to impress. But, please, dress!

And the Award for Best Best Goes to …

Sometimes you just need a prize, an award, an acknowledgement that you did it, you made it, you’re still here. And if you’re fine today, then someone else can use it. Share the love and the kudos and the huzzahs and the cake!

Especially share the cake!

A Relaxing Cup of Tea

I like the idea of sitting down and drinking a nice warm cup of tea. Of just letting the world take a pause.

I really should try it sometime.

Joyful Noise

This is the first design created specifically for my online shops. Because I have this newsletter I thought to scan each step in the process.

Most of my design start with a sketch. I use a non-photo blue pencil to do the rough sketching.

Once I’ve figured out the basic design I use an HB lead pencil to finish the sketch. I scan it into Photoshop and use a filter to remove the blue lines.

I then convert the pencil drawing into a blueline drawing and print it out at a larger size. The original was done on 8.5×11 cardstock. The second version is on 11×17 bristol board.

I ink over the blueline and then add shading. Sometimes I shade with greytone markers. Sometimes, as in this case, I just use an HB pencil. I scan this version into Photoshop, remove the blueline and start coloring.

Voila!

Here’s a process gif. It’s not real without a process gif.


This design is available on a beer stein in my zazzle store and on many, many other things in my redbubble store.

These Days …

Each week is a juggling act of attention and action. The day job and the Sarah get my attention first. Then it’s chores and art and writing and marketing and goofing off. This week I was having so much fun working on art projects that writing and marketing got mostly ignored. As did some chores.

I will show off the art in weeks to come. The chores you can imagine for yourself. I will have more to say next week.

Thank you for visiting. Stay well. Get your shots. Pet a cat. Give a compliment. Look out for each other.

See you next week!

Skook WIP #14

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It’s Friday. You’re where you are. I’m where I am. This newsletter connects us for a moment. Thank you for stopping by!

Greeting Card Conversions

As usual, we start with before and after versions of some greeting card designs. The after versions will be available in my Zazzle shop. Normally they are already uploaded by the time I send out this newsletter but … squirrel!

Speaking of Squirrels

Joy + Noise = Music.

Truth.

A little extra color just makes it shine.

Hip to be Square

Good god, I’m dating myself by quoting that song.

It wasn’t true then. It’s not true now. It’s hip to be hip. Being square puts you in a corner.

Dress for success. Dress for excess. Dress to impress. But, please, dress!

And the Award for Best Best Goes to …

Sometimes you just need a prize, an award, an acknowledgement that you did it, you made it, you’re still here. And if you’re fine today, then someone else can use it. Share the love and the kudos and the huzzahs and the cake!

Especially share the cake!

A Relaxing Cup of Tea

I like the idea of sitting down and drinking a nice warm cup of tea. Of just letting the world take a pause.

I really should try it sometime.

Joyful Noise

This is the first design created specifically for my online shops. Because I have this newsletter I thought to scan each step in the process.

Most of my design start with a sketch. I use a non-photo blue pencil to do the rough sketching.

Once I’ve figured out the basic design I use an HB lead pencil to finish the sketch. I scan it into Photoshop and use a filter to remove the blue lines.

I then convert the pencil drawing into a blueline drawing and print it out at a larger size. The original was done on 8.5×11 cardstock. The second version is on 11×17 bristol board.

I ink over the blueline and then add shading. Sometimes I shade with greytone markers. Sometimes, as in this case, I just use an HB pencil. I scan this version into Photoshop, remove the blueline and start coloring.

Voila!

Here’s a process gif. It’s not real without a process gif.


This design is available on a beer stein in my zazzle store and on many, many other things in my redbubble store.

These Days …

Each week is a juggling act of attention and action. The day job and the Sarah get my attention first. Then it’s chores and art and writing and marketing and goofing off. This week I was having so much fun working on art projects that writing and marketing got mostly ignored. As did some chores.

I will show off the art in weeks to come. The chores you can imagine for yourself. I will have more to say next week.

Thank you for visiting. Stay well. Get your shots. Pet a cat. Give a compliment. Look out for each other.

See you next week!

Skook WIP #13

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Thirteen weeks into 2021. Sixth day of the week. Pictures to look at! Words to read! Yay!

Greeting Card Conversions

In which I present a scan of an original hand drawn, hand colored image and then the digitally cleaned up and edited version of the image that is available as a print on demand greeting card in my Zazzle shop.

Better Than Impossible

“When pigs fly” is an expression to indicate an event that will never occur. Silly cynical people. We live in the future now. Flying pigs and talking cats and vacations on Venus are right around the corner!


Once pigs get off the ground, other gravity challenged species will demand equal time. All sorts of critters will fill the skies. Birds will complain. Strict demarcations will be made in our airspaces to prevent collisions. This is not an anarchist future. It’s a future with rules!

Or maybe it’s just a fun greeting card design.

The Fast and the Really Slow

Sloths spend so much time hanging upside down that their fur grows in downward pattern from their bellies. They spend so much time being still that there are species of algae that have evolved to grow in their fur. Sloths are not speedy creatures. Not in modern times.

In the past there were giant sloths that lumbered on the ground and tore up termite mounds without seeking permission from the builders. There were sloths that lived in the ocean. Sloths can adapt. Sloths can dream of speed.

“When sloths caballerial” may describe an impossible event today but tomorrow? The possible lives in tomorrow.

Spring is Sprung

The seasons have changed. There’s less cold. More sun. More color. More bunnies. All you have to do is look.

You will need to be very patient if you want to see them in their spring fashions. They don’t get dressed up for just anyone.

Squeezebox in the Night

What is that music? It’s 2 am. I want to sleep not dance. I don’t need infectious rhythms pulling me to feet inspiring me to boogie. Go to bed you annoying noturnal critter!

In the future the raccoons will wander through our ruins and give thanks to the ancients who left them such fascinating trash. Then they will dance and sing and give thanks for their clever thumbs that have allowed them to rule the world.


Designing Fantomah

I thought that coming up with “my” version of Fantomah would be easy. She’s a blue nature goddess with a skull face. It’s pretty simple design. I’ve drawn her a few time before and had fun. I assumed the main challenge would be adapting Fletcher Hanks’ original design into a version that was comfortable for me to draw on a regular basis.


Her skull face is fun to draw. As with all his characters Hanks gave her a limited set of expressions. I like sketching a range of emotions. Her hair in the original comics is long with a series of tight curls. She does have awesome magic powers so maybe she uses them to style her hair. I tried doing curls the first times I drew her. This time I tried drawing her hair as if it were always floating, constantly twisting and turning.


I ran into problems when I started thinking about her dress. She’s wears a black cocktail dress. Why does she wear a black cocktail dress? Why does she, a jungle goddess, wear a black cocktail dress in the frickin’ jungle?

I know, I know, a blonde, caucasian jungle goddess is already a problematic figure, why do I care about her outfit? I’ll get back to that blonde, caucasian part in a minute.

I like the main design in the above sketch but it’s a very different look for Fantomah. It’s more goth superhero. I think that if I’m going to take an existing character I should at least start with a version that’s close to the original. It also looks … warm. Aren’t jungles hot?

The two smaller sketches are inspired by ancient Egyptian fashion. I wasn’t satisfied with them either. Egypt is located in Africa but it’s more desert than jungle and I don’t know enough about ancient Egyptian culture to appropriate it for an imaginary vengence goddess.


I settled on a black dress with simple straps. Is it still a cocktail dress?  Probably. It somehow seems different to me than the original version but I can’t tell you why.

The unskulled faces are possible versions of Fantomah’s human alter ego. I working from the idea that the version in the original comics is a sop to its white American readership, that Fantomah is herself African. As yet I don’t have an origin story for her. It will come. My brain seems to think up ideas without me having to work at it much. They aren’t always good ideas of course. And ideas by themselves are just seeds. There are great stories and fun characters who were born from bad ideas.


These Days …


I did not wake up at 1:30 am this morning with a cat pawing at my face to tell me that it was time to feed him.

There is currently no cat at my feet staring up at me in order to get me to check that the food dish has fresh food in it.

For the last seven years we’ve shared our apartment with two cats, Chemo and Sabe. Sarah picked them up at an animal shelter in 2014. Chemo was a kitten. Sabe was a full grown cat that, supposedly, had lived with an elderly woman who had passed away. Supposedly he was not a friendly cat. Sarah put the kitten in the same room with him. He didn’t exactly play with the kitten but he wasn’t upset either. Sarah thought he just seemed tired and needed a home.

Chemo and Sabe got along fine.

Chemo grew into a big cat, bigger than Sabe, but Sabe was always his boss.

We shared our place with a housemate and her cat, Toulouse, for a few years. The cats all got along. As you can see.

Sabe died on Wednesday. We’d taken him to the emergency vet on Tuesday night. He’d had a massive seizure. They had kept him overnight in hopes that they could get help him. I called in the morning to check on him and they reported that he was doing well, considering. I went to work. We’ve been short carriers a lot recently and I didn’t want to stick anyone with carrying my route if I didn’t need to. I’m an optimist. I thought Sabe would hang on and I’d be able to bring him home in the evening.

No.

He had a heart attack about mid day.

We knew his time was short. He had kidney problems. We’d treated him with subcutaneous fluids for a few months but he got tired of the process and refused to participate. He got thinner. He seemed to have a harder time getting comfortable.

He was a good cat. He spent a lot of time in the window watching the world. I was the one he expected to fill the food dish. Sarah was the provider of laps for his naps. We had to be careful not to leave the front door open because he’d try to get out. When he did he never went far. He just seemed like he wanted to feel the world that he saw from the window.

There’s a ravine behind our house. It’s full of all sorts of wild things. I tucked his body in a sheltered spot a short distance down the incline. Nature will claim it.

His spirit goes where it wishes now. We miss him. I’m glad for the time we had.

Skook WIP #12

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Is it Friday again? Time flies! And occasionally stumbles. I’m still adjusting to, and complaining about, the time change. I do like that my phone and my desktop don’t require me to update their clocks. It would be handy if the rest of my timepieces adjusted themselves on their own but I really don’t need more objects connected to the web.

Thank you for joining me again. I hope you are well and happy.

Greeting Card Conversions

We start, as usual, with the before (scans of the original hand drawn art) and after (digitally corrected and edited for print) versions of the greeting card designs I’m posting in my Zazzle store.

Hil(arity)raiser

You’ve solved the puzzle and summoned the tormenter. Your giggles will be legendary even in Heck.

Keep your shoes on! Wear a heavy sweater! Stomp your feet and protest. He can only tickle you if you let him. Bunny cenobites require consent to torture you. They’re polite that way.

Out for a Stroll

Spring is on its way. So I’m told. It’s a mix of rain and sun and warm and cold here in Seattle. Dressing for the weather means taking a gamble at being too hot or too cold, often on the same day. But, heck, you might as well dress to show off and take your chances. You’ll look good for a few minutes at least.

Every season has its moments. Enjoy them as they come.

Fancy a Game of Catch?

After spring comes summer and with summer comes baseball! Teamwork! Batting! Throwing! Catching! Running! Yelling at the umpire! Nothing more American than yelling at some guy for having the wrong opinion.

Make sure to pick that frog kid for your team. He’ll never let a fly get past him.


A Dragon Indeed

This critter doesn’t hoard gold or diamonds. His favorite treasure is cookies. He doesn’t eat them. He takes them back to his cave and stacks them in neat piles. Then he sighs with satisfaction.

Chocolate chips. Oatmeal raisin. Peanut butter. Coconut maroons. He loves them all. They may get stale but they stay free of ants. When they show up the dragon eats them. He likes their spiciness.


The Panel Jumper Does Octobriana and the Heap

I got an email on Sunday from Cole Hornaday reminding me about his Panel Jumper series of videos. The main videos are neat little documentaries about various aspects of comic book history. In particular he has episodes focusing on two of the weird heroes I’ve appropriated for … whatever …
Click these links for histories of:
Muck Men (including the Heap)
Octobriana

After you’ve checked out those videos spend some time listening to the Perfect Bound podcast. It’s an entertaining and informative way to spend your quarantine!

Face the Face

The Face had a simple premise: radio announcer Tony Trent puts on a scary mask to fight crime. I like the basicness of the concept. Trent had no supernatural powers and his adversaries were primarily just ordinary crooks. The Face was featured in the anthology Big Shot Comics, appearing in 62 stories. In issue 63 Tony Trent stopped wearing the mask and went on to have another 40 adventures until the Big Shot was cancelled with issue 104.

This is the third time I’ve spent time (re)designing the Face. I did one version here and a second here.

I started with the idea that I was going to just update that second version but it wasn’t clicking. It didn’t look scary. So I went back to the original Big Shot design – short hair, no eyebrows – and played around with different variations..

I do like the horrifying version with all the exposed teeth but I ultimately decided on a look that wouldn’t require a lot of prosthetics (or magic) to pull off.

The original Face fought crime while wearing a blue tuxedo. It’s not a bad style. I went with a brown suit that, I think, more emphasizes the weird green and red mask. In the 1940s wearing a tuxedo made the Face stand out. Suits were the standard uniform of even the lower classes. These days suits are less common so fighting crime in one would be unusual. And, to me, more comfortable than the spandex and leather that most superheroes put on. I also think that, these days, a plain brown suit makes the Face look more like a middle class crime fighter. I get that the “hero with a secret identity” originated with rich guys (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, Batman) but I’m not a rich guy and, the older I get, the less sympathy I have for rich guys.

I honestly don’t know what, if anything, I’ll do with the Face but now I have a standard version to use.

News from the Night Forest

A couple of updates on the Mighty Nizz project –
Sarah wrote a vignette and it’s live on the site.
Unless something goes wrong, Nizz will be the star of my 2022 calendar. Zazzle has a calendar template that I should be able to make work for my preferences. I’m hoping I can customize the template to include people’s birthdays but I haven’t really looked at that yet. I will update you as I figure it out.

These Days …

Last week I forgot to do an “Influences” section. This week I’m sort of putting that section and this one together. After I’d written about Bill Peet I thought about other chlidren’s book authors I might want to feature and, of course, Dr. Suess came up. His books were ubiquitous for kids who grew up when I did. Obviously his work had some influence on me.

Right?

At first my answer was, “Kinda. Sorta.”

I don’t remember wanting to draw like Suess. I couldn’t remember any specific Suess story that had an impact on me. I remember How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears a Who from the cartoon specials rather than the books from which they were adapted. I’m sure the absurdity in his stories and art had an impact but I couldn’t come up with anything specific.

And then it was announced that some Dr. Suess books are no longer going to be printed. My first thought was, “Which books?” because the first few memes I saw didn’t say. Being a someone who prefers to know what he’s getting upset about I did some research and found the list –
1. And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street
Marco watches the sight and sounds of people and vehicles traveling along Mulberry Street and dreams up an elaborate story to tell to his father at the end of his walk.
2. If I Ran the Zoo
Gerald McGrew visits a zoo and finds that the animals are “not good enough” and describes how he would run the zoo. He would let all of the current animals free and find new, more bizarre and exotic ones.
3. McElligot’s Pool
A boy named Marco is ridiculed for fishing in a small, polluted pool, and tries to justify himself by imagining the fish he might catch
4. On Beyond Zebra
The young narrator, not content with the confines of the ordinary alphabet, invents additional letters beyond Z, with a fantastic creature corresponding to each new letter.
5. Scrambled Eggs Super
A young boy named Peter T. Hooper spins a tale of an incredible meal he created by harvesting the eggs of fantastically exotic birds.
6. The Cat’s Quizzer
The Cat in the Hat asks many, sometimes ridiculous, questions of the reader.

Of the six on the list I remember having read the first four. I don’t remember much about them. The summaries I’ve included came from the Suess Bibliograpy wikipeda page. I don’t remember racist imagery in the illustrations but when I was a kid I wouldn’t have noticed much. There was enough racist imagery all around me that such illustrations probably seemed normal. I was a white kid growing up in a mostly white community. I didn’t see a lot of examples of other races and cultures. The human beings in the good doctor’s illustrations were all pretty cartoonish. I didn’t have the awareness to know the difference between generally cartoonish and offensively cartoonish.

I did feel disappointment in hearing that some of the Suess catalog would go out of print. I especially felt a twinge over the loss of Mulberry Street. That was Suess’ first published kids book and had been rejected by multiple publishers before it debuted in 1937. It had been an example for me of success through determinated effort. I’m also attached to the idea that a book I liked once would be available for me to read again someday. But books go out of print all the time. Most of the books on my shelves right now are out of print. Before print on demand, most books got one, maybe two print runs and that was it. Mulberry Street was in print for EIGHTY-FOUR years. The Cat’s Quizzer, the most recent of the books, first saw print in 1976. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to buy a copy of it or any of those other Suess books.

Theodore Guiesel aka Dr. Suess passed away in 1991. His widow, Audrey Guiesel, passed away in 2018. His books and the licensing of his characters is now managed by Dr. Suess Enterprises. It’s a nonprofit company but it exists in a capitalist world. It’s a property management company. They could have had the books edited to change or remove offensive content. Suess himself did it slightly once with Mulberry Street. I’m sure there would have been outrage at that. But the money to made with Suess’ work isn’t in publishing books. It’s in licensing. Licensing for toys, film and television adaptations, games. It’s in recognizable characters like the Cat in the Hat, Horton the Elephant, the Lorax and other non-human creations. Those characters can be sold to any parent of any race and ethnic background. Those characters can be marketed internationally.

It’s been over a week since the announcement and the internet has moved on to other outrages. I have a lot of time to think while I deliver mail and I’ve devoted more time to thinking about Suess in the last couple of weeks than I have in the last twenty years. I realized that, yes, I did have some favorite Suess stories. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Green Eggs and Ham. The Pants with Nobody in Them. Horror stories for children. 

Most folks probably wouldn’t consider them such. They all have happy endings. I don’t remember if any of those stories gave me nightmares but they are fuel for such. Pants, in particular, has haunted me through the years. I’d forgotten about Bartholomews adventures until I read the Suess bibliography. Pants was a story that I’d use as an example of a really creepy children’s story. I was disappointed to discover that it’s not actually titled The Pants with Nobody in Them. The proper title is What Was I Scared Of? That telegraphs the pleasant resolution. I did remember that the pants and the narrator became friends. But I remember more the disturbing idea of being stalked by a piece of empty clothing.

I don’t need to own those books. I need to let go of a lot of the books I own now. I love having a big library but eventually we’ll have to move and it will be a lot easier to do that with a lot less books. Those Suess books that are no longer being published will, sooner or later, enter the public domain. Mulberry Street will do so in twelve years, in 2033. At that time anyone will be able to publish the story. They can publish the original version. Or they can redo it to fit their own taste. It will be interesting to see the variations we get.

In the meantime, I hope you own the books you love and you have time to read them. See you next week!

Skook WIP #11

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Today is March the 12th, 2021. Friday the 12th. One day away from being a Friday the 13th. Supposedly the 13th is a day for bad luck. I’ve only experienced one bad luck Friday the Thirteenth. That was back when I was 16 on a bicycle tour of Europe. I got lost. I got into an accident that required replacing my back wheel. I was grumpy and frustrated. I was also in Europe with friends so, in retrospect, it wasn’t that bad a day. Perspective is everything.

Today is also the fifth day of my Long Week. Because of rotating days off mail carriers have a six day work week once every five weeks. That week is bookended by a three day weekend at the beginning of the week and a two day weekend at the end. After seven years at USPS I’ve gotten used to it. Of course I complain about it. I am human. Humans complain. It’s in the handbook.

Tomorrow is Saturday the 13th. Since it’s the last day of my Long Week it seems like a lucky day to me.

Shall we get started?

Greeting Card Conversions

Once again – before (scans of the original hand drawn and colored illustrations) and after (digitally cleaned up, edited and ready to print) versions of greeting card designs. The after versions are available in my Zazzle shop.

Let it Snow!

I love the idea of snow. Here in Seattle it only takes a little snow to shut the city down. But I still have to go work. So I don’t love the reality of snow.

That’s okay. This mouse isn’t me. He’s enjoying himself!

Forget the cold. Forget the wet. Enjoy the miracle of fluffy frozen water drifting down from the sky!

A Master of the Feather Duster

Armed with a feather duster, Jeeves attacked the disorder and entropy of the house. Armed with dry wit and keen observation Jeeves deflated the egos of his “masters”.

Jeeves is unflappable. Mess not with the Jeeves.

A Room with a View

Available soon: one room, great views, very cozy, perfect for writer or monk or other single hermit. Current occupant is a working mother who is looking forward to stretching her wings and getting away from it all.

The mother will be taking her children with her. Some redecorating may be necessary.

Eight Arms to Hug You 

Love is whatever you make with whoever will make it with you. Love can happen at the beach or the bottom of the sea. Love is a word. A gesture. A look. Love is vast and may have suckers.

Love is where you look for it. Love is where it looks back. Love is love is love.

Bigfoot Boogie

Sasquatch are generally solitary creatures. Mostly quiet. Mostly keeping to themselves. Once in a while they feel a need to be social and loud. You won’t hear them. They know how to be loud a long way from human ears.

Most human ears anyway. They consider the Mighty Nizz to be, if not exactly a Sasquatch, different from those critters that only see a forest for the number of trees they can slaughter.

The above is a process gif of one my Mighty Nizz illustrations. The final illustration is available on all kinds of stuff in my Redbubble store. Plug. Plug.

Defining Octobriana 

Octobriana is 50 years old this year. I first met her as supporting character in The Adventures of Luther Arkwright back in the early Nineties. Her first published appearance was in 1971 in Octobriana and the Russian Underground. Her original adventures can be read here. Supposedly she was the creation of a group of Soviet artists and writers in the 1960s. She wasn’t. That’s a hoax. But it’s a story that gives the character an attractive background and it inspired quite a few comic book artists to use her in new stories in the following decades.

I’ve drawn her in my sketchbooks a few times over the years. I included a couple of illustrations of her in my 2019 daily drawing project. One of those is now gracing a coffee mug in my Zazzle store. She seems like she’d be fun to use for other merchandise so I set about doing development sketches.


My version of Octobriana is more conservatively dressed than most other depictions. I’m a fan of dressing comfortably. That boob bandana she is usually shown wearing just doesn’t seem practical, especially in a fight. Octobriana has magic powers and deadly combat skills. Maybe she also has superior sartorial sorcery?

That’s a question I didn’t try to address in these sketches.


Part of the fun of drawing Octobriana is that she’s angry almost all the time. Well, maybe not angry, maybe passionate is a better term. She’s a revolutionary. Revolutionaries have got to have strong emotions to keep going. Octobriana stares into the abyss and laughs.


What will I be doing with Octobriana?

Eh. I don’t know. Part of my creative process is to (re)invent a character first and then find a place for them. In the process of trying to write this part of the newsletter I came up with a new backstory for Octobriana that ties into a few of my other imaginary mythologies. Once she was Nurri Kala, child of the caverns, daughter of Surrilana, Blessed of the Blue Flame, priest of Shub Niggurath, citizen of Carcosa, Devil Woman of the Endless Revolution. All that is a bit too complicated to fit on a coffee mug.

These Days …

The house is quiet. It’s been quiet for a week. Thing One and Thing Two have moved on to better places.

No, they aren’t dead! They’ve literally moved somewhere else.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent and to laugh at search engines. The Thing One and Thing Two designations come from Dr. Suess’s The Cat in the Hat. I’m sure you know the story.

Thing One came to us a year and a half ago. “Came to us” sounds effortless. It wasn’t. Thing One is one of Sarah’s young cousins – 22 at the time of acquistion. Sarah had been in contact with some of her cousins in Texas. A group of them was homeless and she had been trying to help them out, not an easy thing to do given the distance and our minimal resources. He and Sarah had struck up a friendship via text and messenger. He was living in and around Spring, Texas. He was friendly and had spent some time caring for elderly relatives when he was younger. Sarah has medical issues that have made her eligible for in home caregiving. The agencies in charge of supporting caregivers advocate making family members caregivers whenever possible. Sarah had had one caregiver that she’d really liked and a number that hadn’t been good fits. Her favorite caregiver was needing to return to her home country for a while so Sarah got approval and offered the job to Thing One.

That was the easy part. One had lost his ID. He had no bank account. He had a cellphone for communication and not much else. You can’t get on a plane without an ID. You can’t get an ID without a mailing address. It took months of wrangling to get him an ID and onto a plane. It was his first plane ride. He’d never been out of Texas before. He arrived in Seattle in September, 2019.

He spent the first year sleeping on a couch in our library/studio. He got certified as a caregiver in Washington and got a regular salary. He cleaned and cooked and helped Sarah with physical therapy.

In August, 2020 our housemate moved out and we rearranged things so One got his own room. Less than a month later we acquired Thing Two.

Thing Two came to us from Spokane in Eastern Washington. She was 20 years old and she says she’d never been out of Spokane. She was part of group of friends that Thing One had bonded with online. One of her parents had just been arrested for assaulting her and Thing One thought she needed rescue. He convinced a neighbor friend to give him a ride to Spokane and bring her back. Yeah, we agreed to it. We believe in helping people when we can. She and Thing One shared his room.

There was drama. Drama with exes. Drama within their online groups. We didn’t see most of it. It happened online and over the phone with people in other states. They mostly kept to their room. Eventually things got heated enough that the Things needed to go. Thing Two went to Pennsylvania to live with friends on February 25th. Thing One went to live with loved ones in Texas on March 5th.

I had hoped that, in living with us, they would have the chances to build up their resources (mental and economic) so that when they moved on they would be better off than when they arrived. And they were better off. They went to places that are a better fit for them. We’re told to live by the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would have them do to you”. That’s a good start, but one that doesn’t take the other into account. A more compassionate rule is: “Do to others how they would want done to them”. That one is harder because it requires communication and observation. It requires that I am able have honest, revealing conversations with the other person and that I am able to observe their actions and way of being in the world enough to be able antipicate their needs and wants. It requires time and patience. It requires communication skills that I’m still trying to develop.

The world that existed for me in my twenties doesn’t exist for the Things. Their home lives were very different  from mine. They have a neurodivergencies that I hadn’t really heard of at their age. It’s common to complain that “kids these days” spend too much time on their phones but cell phones didn’t exist when I was their age. Neither did the internet. I’d keep thinking about what I would be doing at their age in their situation and I’d have to keep reminding myself that my experiences couldn’t be used to fit their situation. Economics were different. I didn’t live through a pandemic.

So we gave them a place to stay and regroup. We made sure they got fed. We tried to pass on the knowledge and wisdom that we thought would help. The Things are intelligent. They are generally kind and honest. Thing One is creating a family with people his own age. Thing Two is living with people who were expecting her. I’ve lived long enough to guess the problems that they will face. I wanted them to be better prepared for the world before they left. But they are not me and they have their own experiences and mistakes to learn from. I wish them well.

I wish y’all well as well. I hope that your loved ones treat you as you wish to be treated and you can talk about it when they don’t. I hope you are able to do the reverse with them. See you next week!

Skook WIP #10

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Well hello! It’s a delight to see you again! The constant insanity of the modern civilization doesn’t seem to be infecting you at all!

Me? I’m okay. There are been some bumps in the road but whether those bumps are problems or high points is something I’m still figuring out. I’ll talk about those next week when they are more sorted out. This week, let’s just talk about some art. We’ll start, as usual, with some greeting card conversions, before (scans of ink, colored pencil and marker drawings) and after (digitally cleaned up and edited) versions. (The final designs are available in my Zazzle shop.)

Carving Your Face

In America, Halloween is the season for giving faces to oversized, hollowed out squashes. This is, apparently, an evolution of an old European traditon of carving faces into hollowed out turnips. A long series of films to the contrary, it is not a season for killing teenagers. Killing teenagers is frowned upon by all right thinking people. If you’ve been thinking about killing teenagers, please consider carving pumpkins instead.

Admittedly, killing teenagers will give you more cardiovascular exercise. However, most teenagers are actually more entertaining when they are alive than otherwise. Pumpkins are much more entertaining as objects to carve than teenagers. Plus, you can roast the seeds for a tasty snack!

There are No Weak Kittens

One day Sarah, my fabulous wife, described herself as feeling “weak as a kitten”. That comment inspired this card design. She has the original.

That original was done on a sheet of 8.5×11 folded in thirds. For the version that’s in my shop I had a lot of fun moving and reorienting the elements to fit a standard 5×7 greeting card design. Climb those curtains baby!

A Bit of a Breeze

There you are, walking with your umbrella, staring at your feet, thinking out what you’re going to have for lunch, trying to keep dry and suddenly …

The wind gives you a new perspective!

The world is suddenly a much bigger place. So many colors! So many birds! So much moss on people’s roofs!

Love Is …

Time is short. Spend as much of it on the things that bring you joy in the company of those you love.

A little peace and some cuddling makes the chaos of the rest of the day so much more bearable.

Hail to the King!

Photoshop is a massive program and my knowledge of it is actually pretty minimal. I know how to do a few things fairly well but the program can do so much more than I use it for. Lately I’ve been practicing making gifs of my illustration processes. I save my work in layers so making gifs is fairly easy. This process gif is of one of my King in Yellow portraits.

Influences – Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones is the one of the first film directors I remember identifying. I didn’t really know what he did, I just knew I liked his cartoons more than most of the other cartoons I saw on television. The short cartoons were funny. The smart characters outwitted the buffoons. The drawings were attractive.
As an adult I can identify why I liked Jones’ work more than other cartoon short directors. His character designs are a mix of angles and long curves. His heroes were the smart guys. They succeeded by being more clever than their adversaries. When the clever ones crashed it was usually from failing to think out the ramifications of their latest plan. (Hello Wile E. Coyote!)

I saw most of his work on television. There was the regular Bugs Bunny show on Saturday morning and during the week there were blocks of cartoons that played on a local station in the afternoons. There was The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Horton Hears a Who. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. He drew a comic strip that ran in our local paper for awhile. I loved the art but it didn’t really stand out from the other strips. Jones was a master at motion and timing in film. His strip looked good but didn’t have the space to play to his strengths.


My Moe and Detritus/Misspent Youths comics owe a lot to Jones. The heroes (mostly) succeeded by being smarter than the bad guys, by being (mostly) calm in the face of chaos. Hell, I owe a lot of my personality to Jones. I got bullied and picked on as a kid. He gave me examples of characters who faced bullies and survived (and thrived) by being more rational and much weirder than their foes.

Model Sheeting the Super-Wizard

Last week I posted concept sketches and a model sheet process gif of the Heap. This week I’m posting concept sketches and a process gif of Stardust the Super-Wizard. (Superwizard? Super Wizard?)

The first thing I realized as I started sketching Stardust is that, in the original comics, his expressions were pretty much the same from panel to panel. They ran the gamut from stern to slightly more stern. I spent all of two seconds considering making my version of Stardust just as stoic and blank faced as the original before deciding, “Nah. That’s no fun!”


The original Stardust seems to be a giant – taller than regular humans. I made him about ten feet tall, lanky and stretched out. He’s a space wizard. Maybe he grew up in zero gravity. Maybe he grew up on a planet with lighter gravity than Earth. Maybe his practice of superscience has transformed his body. I’ll figure it out later.

Expressions!

I updated Stardust’s outfit slightly, more for the fun of it than because there was anything wrong with the original. I don’t question the fashion choices of technosorcerors.

That guy in brown standing behind Stardust? His name is Bill. He’ll be in most of the model sheets for size comparison. He claims he’s 5’10” but, you know guys, he may be exaggerating somewhat. He is on the taller side of average. The average height for men in the USA is 5’9″. Since I’m an American that’s the height I’m conditioned to think of when I have to think “taller than” or “shorter than” average when designing characters.

What do I plan to do with Stardust? When I know I’ll tell you!

These Days …

“Bad art is forever.”

I have a friend who likes to quote that when talking about why he noodles on all his projects and has abandoned many altogether. I get that. I want to be proud of the work I produce. I want it to be the best it can be. I’m also plagued with more ideas and images and thoughts than I will ever get down on paper. I plan the work. I do the work. I fix glaring mistakes. I resist noodling. I put it out in the world and leave it to the world to judge whether it is good or bad.

I will always see the faults in my work. Most creative folks can tell you everything that sucks about their work before they can point out what’s good. But art, good and bad, exists in interaction between the work and the audience. Once I put art into the world it’s no longer completely mine. I retain the copyright and the trademark but the interpretation? The judgment of goodness, badness, coolness, greatness? That belongs to the audience. And that’s great! Not because the creator is a bad judge of their own work (although they often are, both rightly and wrongly) but because humans are social animals and art is part of the conversation we have with each other.

I got an email recently about Misspent Youths, a comic book series I created back in 1991.

Hi, there! I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been a fan of Misspent Youths for a while now–since they came out, actually, when I was a disgruntled and disaffected teenager working in a comic shop. The shop I worked at brought them in and I snatched them off the shelf eagerly whenever they arrived, but for whatever reason (it might have involved the store eventually going under; it’s kind of hard to remember) I never got to read Issue #5. Flash forward three decades and my original copies have long since vanished into the aether and I’m in lockdown halfway across the continent from my hometown. Regardless, I got a hankering to read Misspent Youths again and found a set on eBay for a reasonable amount, so I ponied up my money and waited. Well, they arrived today and I couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve read the first issue again so far and it’s just as great as I’d remembered it (and captured much of the flavour from my hometown’s punk scene in the ’90s (minus the Pile and the cop homicide (though we sometimes wished it were otherwise)). Interesting characters, fun dialogue, compelling story–just great  all around. In any case, I just wanted to shoot you a quick line to let you know that those comics you put out all that time ago imprinted on and have stuck with someone since they came out, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to read the entire series through for the first time. Thank you very much for the quality read.

I thanked the author, Chris Eng, for writing, saying –

Your email made my day. I’m delighted that, thirty years later, someone would track down issues of Misspent Youths. I hope issue five was a good read!

He replied:
Issue five was, weirdly, really touching. I mean, it did bring back the shitty kitchen job I had in my teens (where I put up with the first of many exploitative managers but thankfully not a hostage situation), but the issue in general was a nice coda on the (too) brief tales of Detritus and Moe (and all of the other assorted and endearing members of the cast of characters). The series in general summed up my time in my hometown’s punk scene: all of us living as best as we could and looking out for each other while scraping bottom. Good times all round. (Also, can I just say that I would have loved to have seen Detritus and Moe in Bugtown? That would have been a hell of a story. I’m imagining the bizarre and intense meeting between Detritus and Hiroshima. Or the Pile jamming with the Bulldaggers.)

His letter did more than make my day, it made my week. I loved doing Misspent Youths. I loved the characters. Doing that book was fun and exhausting and satisfying and … unprofitable. The publisher didn’t make any money. I certainly didn’t make any money. I did draw 160 pages of comics in about a year while working a part-time job. Brave New Words (the publishing company – they also put out the first four issues of Oz Squad) put out more issues of Misspent Youths than any other series they printed. Cancelling the series was a mutual decision – the guy behind Brave New Words was reassessing his business plan and I wanted a break to improve my art skills. I’d planned to pick the series up again, to publish it myself.

Other things happened instead. My drawing skills did improve. I drew the Misspent Youths characters in some calendars that got printed at Kinkos and sold to friends. I got married. I moved from Santa Rosa, California to Seattle, Washington. My wife and I tried running a publishing company and put out few anthology magazines. I worked in a couple bookstores and as an office manager and now as mail carrier. In the thirty years since Misspent Youths I’ve illustrated/collaborated on a lot of projects (comics, RPGs, novels) that haven’t gotten finished. I’ve enjoyed that work. I got paid for most of it. I’ve improved my skills in the process. But I’ll never get any fan letters complimenting or complaining to me about that work. It sits, unfinished, in my files.

Bad art in the world is more fun than great art in a drawer. I’m not saying that Misspent Youths was bad. Not at all. I put my heart and soul into it. It was the best work I could do at the time. And it’s out in the world. Copies can be found on ebay and on comics specialty sites. If the internet crashed all the art on my websites would be unavailable but someone could still read an issue of Misspent Youths.

I’m a different person than I was when I did that book. The characters still keep me company but they’re older and wiser and (mostly) more settled. They wave to me from the back of my imagination. I love the idea of drawing comics but, so far, working as a mail carrier doesn’t leave me the time and mental energy necessary to do an ongoing series. Drawing is relatively easy. Writing takes more concentration than it used to.

So what’s my point?

Number One –
A big thank you to Chris Eng for writing! Chris has finished some projects of his own. He has a couple of novels available through Amazon: Molotov Hearts and ZeroWave. He didn’t ask me to include those links.

Number Two –
That project you’re working on? Finish it. Put it out into the world. Art is ephemeral. Do the best you can and let it go. What was brilliant once is often considered terrible by a new audience. What was obscure and forgotten originally can find new fans. But it needs to be available.

Yes, I’m talking to myself as much as to y’all.

Back to work. See you next week!

Skook WIP #9

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Welcome to the ninth issue of the Skook Works in Progress newsletter. You are a fabulous person and very good looking. Give yourself a gold star!

Greeting Card Conversions

In which I present a sampling of before (scans of the original ink and colored pencil/art marker drawings) and after (adjusted in Photoshop) greeting card designs. The final designs are available at my Zazzle store.

Probably Not Bob

In the January 15th issue of this newsletter I posted a card design featuring a beer drinking, cigarette smoking reptile. One of my reader’s asked if it was a portrait of Bob the Lizard. My response was, “Who?” The reader sent me an image of Bob saying that he was a character in the Grimjack comics published in the Eighties and Nineties. I read a good chunk of those Grimjack comics but I don’t remember much about them.

My beer drinking, cigarette smoking lizard is Aunt Hortense. She made her first appearance in The Highly Unlikely Adventures of Moe and Detritus minicomic, issue 5. She’s the parental figure of a bunch of dimension hopping lizards. I published that minicomic in 1989. I don’t know when Bob the Lizard started showing up in Grimjack comics but the first issue of that series was pubished in 1983. Did Bob influence my creation of Aunt Hortense?

I don’t remember. What I do remember is that, sometime in the mid-Eighties, a good friend of mine got tattoos of some drawings I had done. One of those drawings was the silohuette of a lizard. I remember thinking, “I should draw more lizards!” From that seed came Aunt Hortense, Seth, Zerro, Lamallia, Missi and Willy. I first drew them as basically identical but, over the years, they evolved distinct appearances. Aunt Hortense got craggy and squarish. In the Nineties I featured the lizards in a series of xeroxed calendars and some issues of GLYPH magazine.

In recent years I’ve only drawn Hortense a few times. Once was the previous greeting card design. More recently was this portrait done for my tattoo sporting friend for her birthday.   

I didn’t do much to update the image for a greeting card. Hortense is not someone you mess with.

Good Buddies

This image is blatantly inspired by the Chuck Jones directed cartoon Feed the Kitty. I saw it as a kid on one of those afternoon cartoon shows and it stuck with me.

We all need friends and having friends who are very different from us is good for our character.

A Smile and a Dance

I have no idea what’s going on in this illustration. He’s happy so I’m happy when I look at him. That’s good enough for me.

Let the joy shine!

A Little Monster

Inside every big monster is a little monster that just wants a hug. And a cookie.

Giving this critter a cookie and a hug will not only bring you joy, it will keep you from feeling those claws and teeth. It is a monster after all.

Spreading the Heap Around

I did this drawing of the Heap as one of my daily sketches back in 2019. It’s one of my favorite pieces from that project so it seemed like it would look good on a mug.

To better fit a mug I extended the image, colored the figures and redid the background. Here’s a process gif showing the main stages.

I usually imagine there’s story behind my illustrations. The Heap and this girl are grooving at a night club. Why?

I don’t know. I often always know the story. I have to think about it.

The Heap as a DJ? As an MC? Maybe this image is part of an album cover?

Okay then.

And if it works as an album cover, why not on a t-shirt?

Okay then.


Influences – J.C. Leyendecker

It’s hard to discuss J.C. Leyendecker separate from Norman Rockwell. Rockwell is now the more famous of the two illustrators but Leyendecker came first. Rockwell idolized Leyendecker and his early style is strongly modeled on Leyendecker’s. I was glad to read that the two artists did become friends.

I love Leyendecker’s art for its precision. It’s deceptively simple. It’s all sharp angles and clean lines, geometry and design. All his characters, even the (rare) down and outers, have a sparkle to them. No grime.

Oddly, it was easier to find good images of Leyendecker’s work online than Rockwell’s. The link in my first paragraph will take you to a ten part blog series that features a wealth of his paintings. I only grabbed a few for flavor. The man did thousands of paintings – magazine and book covers and clothing advertisements.


It occurs to me that Leyendecker’s idealized men and women could have been models for the original comic book superheroes. The artists of early comics would have known his work. Today, he is a nostalgic footnote. In the late thirties and early forties, he was famous. It would have been hard not to think about Leyendecker’s work when you wanted to depict a heroic figure.

Character Concept Sketches and Model Sheets – The Heap

The Heap. The Face. Octobriana. Fantomah. Stardust. You’ll find depictions of all these characters in my shops. They are all comic characters who have escaped into the public domain. They are actually just a few of the comic characters who (mostly) debuted in the early days of the American comic book industry who are now available for anyone to use. So why am I  interested in this bunch?

Honestly, it feels like they found me. I didn’t go looking for public domain comic book characters to illustrate. I’ve participated in online remake/remodel challenges using other public domain characters and none of them stuck in my imagination.
Each character has a different appeal.

Stardust is a space wizard. His sorcery is of the “Technology so advanced as to seem like magic” variety.

Fantomah is a jungle vengence goddess.

The Face is … so basic he’s fun. He’s a guy who puts on a scary mask to fight crime. No superpowers. No tragic backstory.

Octobriana is a kick ass revolutionary.

The Heap is the original comic book swamp monster.

Until now, all my illustrations of these characters have been one-off images. I hadn’t considered drawing any of these folks on a reoccurring basis. Because of that they often look significantly different from version to version. I’m now past the “just get started” phase of creating merchandise in my shops and I’m moving on to the “create a consistent brand” stage.

That has meant doing what would have been preliminary sketches. These are to try out different versions of a character to see what looks good. I figured I’d start with the Heap. I’ve drawn him quite a few times over the years and his design is pretty simple. He’s basically a humanoid haystack with a sort of a carrot nose. In most of my illustrations I’ve given him some sort of eye. The Heap was drawn by a number of different artists during his original comic book run but most of them just gave him shadows where his eyes might have been. Having eyes means there’s more of a chance of having expressions so I decided to keep them. Most of my earlier versions have had some sort of roots and fungus on them. That gives a little variety to his design.

The Heap is a compost pile that’s come to life. It grew up around the body of a WW! pilot who had crashed his plane in a Polish swamp. It shambles about the world fighting monsters and human evil doers. 
Once I’d gotten a feel for the details of the character I set about creating a model sheet. I plan to do this with all the characters I will be using. Model sheets are usually created when a character is going to drawn by different artists in a variety of media (animation, comics, toys, breakfast cereal, whatever). It gives the creative team a base to work from. I’ve done model sheets for myself when I’ve been designing characters for comics and graphic novels. Most model sheets feature a character in a series of standing positions – front view, side view, back view. Most of my model sheets will have character in motion. It’s more fun to draw.

I basically stuck to my Big Swamp Boogie version of the Heap. I liked it when I drew it in 2019 so why not?

I’m mostly going to be showing my process work as gifs. I like watching an image as it evolves but, if you’d rather (or would rather also) see the different stages as separate images, just let me know.

These Days …

I like deadlines. But only deadlines that I’ve either given myself or negotiated with a client. I like them because they help me to structure how to manage a project. If something is due in two weeks I know I should be finishing at least 1/14th of it every day. I therefore know the minimum of work I need to complete. I also know that life happens and I may not be able to do 1/14th of the project every day so I aim to get 1/7 of the work done each day. That does not mean I push myself to do twice as much work as possible every day. I hate rush jobs. It means I’ve planned (or agreed to) a schedule that allows me to do good work at a comfortable pace in the time I have available outside of my USPS job and my responsibilities at home.

Last year’s newsletter was an exercise in getting myself to write on a regular basis. The art I posted was primarily from past projects. I published an issue a week. That was my goal and I met it. Yay me! My one frustration was that I wanted folks to subscribe and only a couple of people did so. Apparently the set up of my website made the subscription link difficult to find. I subscribe to a couple dozen newsletters. I don’t read every issue but having them show up in my inbox reminds me that they exist. So for 2021 I decided to use an email newsletter service to see if that would make it easier for readers to sign up. A number of the newsletters I read are hosted by tinyletter.com. Most of the rest are hosted by substack.com. Substack allows writers to charge for subscriptions. Tinyletter does not. I don’t plan to charge for subscriptions so I chose tinyletter.

Because I like being ahead of a deadline I started setting up emails. At the moment I’ve got images prepped (and some writing about those images) for newsletters into April. The first seven newsletters went out with no problem. You folks subscribed. Thank you!

Last week I hit a snag. I pressed send on issue 8, went to have a cup of coffee and came back to this message –

“Your account has been flagged by our abuse prevention system. Our team reviews all accounts for Compliance with our Terms of Use. If your letter has not been sent after 12 hours, please reach out to our Support team with the username for your account.”

Issue 8 was stuck in limbo and, most annoyingly, I didn’t know why. Was it the Rockwell images? Was it the joke about the red canid with the trumpet? Did I have too many links? I read the Terms of Use. I checked FAQs. I missed my Friday posting deadline. Phooey. After 13 hours the newsletter hadn’t sent so I sent tinyletter an email asking for help. Friday became Saturday became Sunday. I

The really embarassing thing is that, having concentrated on putting together this newsletter for the last few weeks, I’d kind of forgotten that I still had a website. Having remembered I recreated the issue as a blogpost and sent out links via tinyletter as a test to see if it was just my 8th issue that was blocked or my whole account. Those links went.

On Monday morning I got a response from Stanley at tinyletter –

“Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out about your TinyLetter account. We’ll be glad to help offer some clarification here. 

Taking look at the account, it appears that our automated prevention system, Omnivore, detected content, keywords, or activity that can indicate the possibility of harmful information being sent through our service.

Upon review, however, we can see that the letter is fine and has been moved back to drafts where it can be resent. 

We appreciate your patience during our human review. As the specific keywords and content that Omnivore detects are constantly changing, we’re unable to provide a full list of all potential triggers, however if you run into any issues in the future, please reach out and we’ll be happy to assist. 

You can read more about our detection practices here:
http://mailchimp.com/omnivore/

Please let us know if you have any questions. We’re here to help. “

I responded, jokingly asking if it was my joke about the horny fox. Stanley then answered with –

“Hi David,

Thanks for the reply. For proprietary reasons I wouldn’t be able to divulge exactly what set off our system, but rest assured we’ve made adjustments to prevent it from stopping letters in the future 🙂

Let us know if you have any questions. Take care :)”

I sent out issue #8 on Monday afternoon. If you haven’t read it yet it’s available in both the tinyletter archives and my website. Hopefully you’re reading this issue on Friday morning in your email as planned. If not, check my website on Saturday. I’ll be reposting it there.

Hopefully you are also doing well and only a little stir crazy. I get outside as part of my job and I’m stir crazy. Hopefully you’re managing better than I.am. See you next week!

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