Factsheet Five art submission from 1990.

For this illustration I tried to experiment with different tones by shading with pencil. The art was then photocopied (not scanned – this was 1990, I didn’t own a computer) and then mailed (not emailed, no internet) to Factsheet Five. By the time the art saw print (if it saw print) the pencil shading would have blurred into an interesting texture.

Mike Gunderloy broke down his reviews in Factsheet Five into different categories. Each category got its own graphic. This was my submission for the Misc section.

Spot illustration for Factsheet Five.

Ouch?

Another spot illustration for Factsheet Five, drawn in 1990. What nefarious doings is this creature engaged in?

Another spot illustration submitted to Factsheet Five in 1990. At the time I was using a lot of stippling in my illustrations. I like the ethereal look the technique can give an illustration. I’d probably still use it now and then if it wasn’t so time consuming.

I liked this illustration when I did it 20 years ago. I like it now. A lot of the time when I look at my old work, especially the stuff I did before I took figure drawing classes, I appreciate more what I was trying to do than what I actually accomplished. This is one illustration that I like just as it is.

I scanned this from the same sketchbook as my Factsheet Five spot illustrations. I don’t remember if this was one of the FF illustrations or if I used it for a Christmas card myself. Possibly I did both. The tree decorator here is Zipperhead, a cheerful serial killer in the tradition of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger – Freddy Krueger especially since Zipperhead enjoys quipping while he kills. Jason and Michael tend to be silent types.

I invented the character for a series of contributions to a minicomic called All Cover Comics. The premise of the series was simple and fun – each page was the cover of an imaginary comic. Besides Zipperhead I drew imaginary covers for The Midnight Avenger, Steffi (Queen of the Urban Jungle) and … I don’t remember what the fourth series was. Hmmm. One of these days I’ll actually unpack all my old minicomics and put some scans up. There doesn’t seem to be much on the web about the series. And you know the web needs more info posted about obscure limited run publications.

I don’t remember thinking much about the spot illustrations I submitted to Factsheet Five. For the most part I just thought up some images that seemed cool (and disturbing) and then drew them. I was (and am though I don’t use it much now) very fond of stippling and cross hatching so most of the illustrations feature those techniques for shading and texture.

I’ve been having illustrations published for a little over 20 years now. I started publishing my own minicomics in 1989. Kinkos 24 hour self service copy shops were a new phenomenon and I took advantage of it. There was (and is) something very satisfying about folding and stapling a little zine together. Once I started publishing minicomics I quickly discovered that other people across the country were publishing as well. One of the best sources of information and reviews in those ancient, pre-internet days was Factsheet Five. Mike Gunderloy reviewed just about anything sent to him. And he liked (or at least had positive things to say) about much of it. Factsheet Five was illustrated with drawings and photos contributed by its readers.

The next series of posts will be drawings I sent to Factsheet Five. Most of these were intended as filler illustrations for Mike to put wherever he had an empty space in his layout. Not all of them saw print. I have a hard time looking at a lot of work I did prior to the mid nineties but I still like most of this stuff.