Another drawing from 1988. This one is Etrigan the Demon, one of Jack Kirby’s minor creations. The Demon isn’t one of my favorite characters. He is good for big melodramatic illustrations. ‘Course, most of Kirby’s characters are good for that. Kirby was good at creating dynamic characters and situations. He wasn’t the most brilliant writer but as an artist and an idea man he has few equals.

From the 1988 sketchbook –

I believe this is my first depiction of a Burrabb. The Burrabbs are one of many alien species populating my imagination. Initially the Burrabb were invented just for this image – two missionaries debating religion. Both the human and the Burrabb priests have come to convert the species in the background. Trouble is, neither priest is able to make any headway with their would-be converts. The convertees just can’t wrap their minds around the idea of a spiritual world. They can’t see it or taste it, they don’t care what happens when they die and aren’t interested in where the world came from. They are polite to the priests but that’s it. So the priests spend most of their time debating theology with each other.

More Burrabbs will show up as I scan other sketchbooks. As you can see from the link to the Burrabb bead crafter, the species has evolved somewhat. The latest versions hopely look more like aliens rather than stereotypical demons. Which is what I originally intended them to look like but the joke got old. Especially since I’m the only one I was telling it to.

Fan art for Warlock 5 from 1988! As far as I can tell there’s no fansite for this series. It concerned five (really?) “warlocks” (yes!) who were constantly at each other’s throats. There was a dragon that could take human form, a punk necromancer, a white witch, a black knight and terminator type robot. I don’t remember much about the actual stories. The art, by Denis Beauvais, was amazing.

This is part of the portfolio drawings from 1988. The scruffy fellow is August Thyme. No deep meaning behind the name. I liked the sound of it. I rarely name characters with any deeper intent. I choose names because I like how they sound when I say them. There’s a personal music in them.

August is a villain. I say is because he’s still wandering around the corridors of my imagination. He collects people’s souls in that little medical bag of his.

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We finally had our IRS audit this morning. Probably have to pay some taxes on things we thought we were allowed to write off but apparently we can only write off if we were making money. The auditor was a nice guy. Not at all the power-mad psychopath that we assume all IRS auditors are.

Old drawing here. The signature says 1988. Pre-figure drawing classes. I believe this one was part of a series of portfolio drawings I did in order to get work in small press fiction magazines. The only story I can associate with this drawing is that I’m pretty sure the monster was inspired by a critter from Niven and Barnes’ Dream Park.

I did two different storyboard projects while at Labor of Love. I don’t think that this was part of either project. I think I was just doing a storyboard panel.

It’s a chair. And a cup. Sometimes it’s a good idea to draw what’s in front of you. The actual chair didn’t have the hearts on it.

Fall of 1998 – Labor of Love was using a turtle as its mascot during the publishing years. This is the version I drew for the relaunch of GLYPH as a free tabloid.

More character sketches for Zazkwatch. The sprite in the left corner is one of the Legion of Sarahs.

More sasquatch sketches, this time of other sasquatches than my protagonist. The fellow at the top left appears in the first episod of Zazkwatch for the GLYPH tabloid.