From the 1989 calendar –

Here we have Lady Heather Ann Shatter and the Demon, Boralis. At one time I had a whole series of adventures imagined for the two of them. Lady Shatter was an ex-secret agent. Boralis was a demon who’d been stuck on the terrestrial plane for the last five centuries. They’ve continued to appear in my sketchbooks over the years, changing professions and histories but maintaining their basic personalities – Heather basically sweet but capable of great violence, Boralis pragmatic and ruthless with an amused affection for human beings.

My earliest drawing are of dinosaurs. I was drawing dinosaurs and other prehistoric creature long before I got around to drawing human beings. So obviously I had to include some dinosaurs in the 1989 calendar. At the time this was drawn the idea that dinosaurs might be warm-blooded active creatures (rather than sluggish swamp dwellers who dragged their tails) was still new and controversial.

This is probably my first drawing of Cthulhu. It’s possible that I’d sketched him/it before but I’d have to scour my sketchbooks to find an example. I don’t remember being a huge Lovecraft fan in 1988. I’m sure I’d read Lovecraft but I’m probably a bigger fan now than I was then. His work was harder to find and therefore harder to be influenced by. Among writers, Clive Barker was probably my biggest influence at this time.

From my 1989 calendar –

In 5th grade (ten years old in 1974) I earned extra credit for my creative writing. Much of it was the sort of stuff that would probably get me sent to a counselor these days. I’d kill off the kids that picked on me in hideous ways. Usually they were eaten by extra dimensional monsters that had somehow been dropped into our reality. I also wrote more innocuous fare – stories in which I was visited by the Switagern, a creature that only appeared on an orange full moon. It was a sort of a griffin but made from the combination of a tiger and a swan rather than a lion and an eagle.

From the 1989 calendar –

I’d done a few Moe and Detritus minicomics by this time. Of course I needed to include them in the calendar!

In 1988 I was living with a delightful woman who called me “Honey Bunny”. I called her “Honey Bunny” affectionately in return. A person’s sign in the Chinese zodiac is based on the year one was born rather than the month (as in the European zodiac). She was born in the year of the Pig. I was born in the year of the Dragon. Hence this illustration.

From the 1989 calendar –

When I was a kid I read the book Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater. I’m sure I’d forgotten most of the details of the book by the time I did this illustration. There was one image that stuck in my mind then (and sticks still) – the protagonist wakes in the middle of the night, long after the television stations have stopped broadcasting, to find his television on, receiving a signal. On the TV a band of lizards is playing music.

So, while the idea of doing a calender of wacky lizard drawings probably doesn’t have one specific inspiration, having the lizards playing music was inspired by Pinkwater’s novel.

Apparently the editor of Graphic Smash considered Misspent Youths for his webcomics site. It’s flattering even if he ultimately decided that Misspent wasn’t a fit.

The next dozen plus illustrations are from my 1989 calendar. This was the second year that I’d done a calendar. I gave (and sold) them to friends and acquaintences. The first year, 1988, I’d done illustrations of “traditional” monsters for each month – a vampire, a witch, Frankenstein’s monster; that sort of thing. I did that one on a whim. I think I printed (xeroxed) about a dozen copies. For 1989’s edition I did more planning and produced more copies.

Why lizards? I’ve no idea. I’m not actually sure they’re lizards. They could be salamanders. (A friend termed them as “davamanders”). In later years the lizards would acquire individual personalities, character designs, the ability to create doors in time and space and a chain smoking, toxin swilling Aunt Hortense. For this calendar, though, they’re just happy dancing lizards. The two on the right would end up tatooed on a friend’s shoulder.

Why a monk? I’m sure he seemed like a good counterpoint to the activity in front of him. This was the first drawing I did so I hadn’t yet had to think very hard about what to draw.

From the 1988 portfolio series. Don’t have much to say about this one. The story is in the drawing.