I have not read any of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars novels. What I know about them is mostly from the illustrations and paintings other artists have done. (I read every issue of the Marvel comics John Carter series. It made no lasting impression on me. I’d forgotten it existed until I saw some cover images on the web recently.) I’m sure I’ll get around to reading the novels eventually. Every time I do read a Burroughs novel I’m reminded what a lively storyteller he was.

I felt compelled to draw something Barsoomian one day. After a couple of stabs at sketching a thark I decided to do a Martian lion instead. I’m not really happy with the result. Not that I think it’s bad. I was just trying to do something specific in the inking process (bold clear lines) and the result wasn’t satisfying. To me.

There’s no story behind this one. He could be hero, villain or horror. He could be a she. I don’t know.

I’ve recently posted new color portraits on the Oz Squad Who’s Who page –
Button Bright
The Cowardly Lion
Nick Chopper
Some Orks
Polychrome
and the Wizard

These are the first portraits that are done straight color, no greytone work. These are also the last portraits I’m likely to post until I get an Oz Squad webpage set up and that’s really only in the vague thinking stage. At this point now I’ve got images and short bios of all the major players that I can write authoritatively about. Yes, there are some important characters that are missing. Some of them are dead in the Oz Squad world. Some have had major changes to their character or appearances since the original Baum novels and I don’t know enough about the history of those changes to write about them.

(some of) The Misspent Youths gang fifteen years later –

From left to right-

Top row –

Lili Veracruz, Moe, K.Z. O’Neil

Middle Row –

Trouble Coyote (not actually aged a day, I was tired and forgot what I was doing with the characters), Samuel (formerly Detritus), Buffy Crawfield
Bottom Row –

The guy from the fifth issue who wanted to kill everyone at Burger Bopper because his girlfriend was cheating on him, The remnants of the Pile, Treacher Murphy

More monster sketches.

On the left is the psycho girl monster from King Mantis. The sketchbook that features that series-in-development will start being posted next week so I’ll wait until then to say anything more.

On the right is a Frankenstein monster. I’ve developed this strange affection for Frankenstein monsters since I read the novel. Not sure why.

At the bottom is monster of indeterminate species. The image was sitting in my mind. My hands drew it. Don’t know what it is. It’s probably hungry though. Monsters usually are.

I think the name speaks for itself.

Another break time sketch. It occurred to me that most giant monsters (Godzilla, Rodan, the Ymir, Dragons) were some sort of reptile. The mammal giants were apes (King Kong, Konga, and then more King Kong). So this guy is a mammal of some type. Hard to say what species he’s related to. I was thinking of hyena when I was drawing him but he doesn’t really resemble any mammal I can think of.

Another recent sketch. Done during a break at the day job.