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.