Warren Ellis continues his REMAKE/REMODEL subject threads over on his forum this week. The character he offers up for reinterpretation this time is BUCK ROGERS– who, as I found out in Warrens description of the character, was actually created BEFORE FLASH GORDON. I learn something new every day– even if most of it is useless fanboy trivia. Warren always provides origin excerpts and descriptions of the characters he chooses from as many source materials as he can find to help the artists for each thread… but what got me for this one was this personal aside/thought about this particular subject:

” I have a fondness for what people call the “paleo-future” or retro-future/retropunk aesthetics. I don’t want to colour your remake too much — but consider a scientifiction romance of the 25th century where there are no computers.”

For some reason, those words helped to evoke something in my mind, and I came up with the sketch that I’m posting today.

OK… gotta keep it brief today. Have a great one.

This is Entry 374.

Mike

I’ll admit– that’s a lame attempt at a connection between title and sketch… but I don’t have much to write about, being buried in this SPIDER-MAN/FF mini series– and ‘MOUNTED MONDAY’ sounded twice as lame. So there you are. Today’s sketch had kind of an odd genesis. It was initially a very small thumbnail scrawl that I did as a warm up over the weekend. As I’ve said before, a lot of the sketching I do ends up not being even close enough to be worth posting. Some of it is the kind of thing that only I can even interpret, it’s so messy and indecipherable. So, over the weekend, I sketched out a small, messy version of a cowboy riding a horse at high speed… and I like the gesture of it, so I scanned it in, enlarged it in Photoshop and printed it out. I then traced it over again in blue, cleaning it up along the way. This morning, I went over that with graphite… and there you have it. I think the process leeched out a lot of the energy that I get with my more spontaneous sketches…. but then, that’s a problem I struggle with all the time, as I’ve said in past postings.

A couple of weeks back I was listening to the local talk radio station, and the host was discussing the subject of the recent pet food recalls and the dangers to our 4-legged loved ones from Melamine and other contaminates in name-brand pet foods. He was speaking with an animal nutrition expert, and she was talking about how terrible most of the brands that can be found in most every grocery and pet food store are as far as nutrition and the kinds of terrible ingredients they include in what is SUPPOSED to be healthy for pets. I was shocked at how terrible and disgusting some of these ingredients were– diseased and cancerous meats thrown in to what’s generally labeled as ‘meal’. Chicken meal… beef meal….. anything with the word ‘meal’ has this problem. ‘Byproduct’ as well, falls under that category. Then there were the preservatives she discussed that lead to eventual kidney failure and cancers in our pets. The speaker mentioned a discussion she had with a Veterinarian nutrition specialist who told her that there was no reason why the average medium-sized dog couldn’t live for 25 years… and the average cat for 30 years with the proper nutrition. As I said, I was shocked. My Charlie’s almost 3 now, and I had no idea that what I was feeding him– what I thought was the top-of-the-line food available only in pet food stores– was not as good for him as I thought. The woman mentioned several brands of pet food offered by the NATURA PET FOOD COMPANY.. These are the healthiest foods that can be fed to our pets– some of the brands they offer are completely organic. The beauty of this site is that you can do a search for places in your area that sell these brands, and I did that– as it turns out, there’s a place only 15 minutes from my house, and I went there immediately to buy some INNOVA brand cat food for Charlie. He absolutely loves it– and it might just be wishful thinking on my part– but I would SWEAR he’s grown a bit more in the week I’ve been feeding it to him… he seems even more muscular than he was before…. and more full of energy (not that he wasn’t already a terror as is…). So if you’re interested in possibly finding a food that will be healthier for your pet and perhaps help them live a longer, more full life, check out the NATURA site.

OK.. that’s it. Back to the superheroes.

This is Entry 373.

Mike

OK… another week has come to a close (as far as the week DAYS go). I’m just going to leave you all with a quick one today. Warren Ellis is continuing the “REDESIGN (FILL IN THE BLANK CHARACTER)” threads on his forum and this week, the assignment is to redesign SUPERGIRL. KARA seems to be a very popular subject for costume design ‘memes’ or threads… and there have been a lot of fun takes on her over the past months. If you do a Google search using the words “Dean Trippe SUPERGIRL meme” you’ll find tons of fun designs from a lot of incredibly talented artists. I missed out on Dean’s party– so I thought I’d jump in on this one.

So– to end the work week, I’ll leave you with my SUPERGIRL design. Not entirely original, but I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for the Chris Sprouse-era LEGION costume designs, and I thought I’d use that for a jumping off point.

I’d also like to remind you that you can see this piece as well as over 150 other sketchs and finished pieces over at my DEVIANTART gallery. Those of you who might have missed past posts will probably be able to find the art from them there.

Have a great weekend, all.

This is Entry 372.

Mike

For today, I thought I’d cobble together some odds and ends and throw them all on one ‘page’ to post today. A few of them are unused cover sketches– some of them are just details from a page of warm-ups that are a bit more complete than the rest of the images on the page. I don’t create a completely finished sketch every time I sit down to warm up for the day’s work. Some times I just doodle out a couple of ideas for stories or subject matter that I’m thinking about at the time. Most of those little doodles I never go to graphite with– which is why they’re in blue.

Just a quick in-and-out today. DOCTOR DOOM is threatening me with a painful death if I don’t get to work drawing him…..

This is Entry 372.

Mike

I felt like drawing another LEGION character… and I thought it might be fun to draw MON-EL for this week’s first post since I’ve never drawn him before. Over my career, there have been times when my work has been described as either BEING manga or having manga influences. I think that a lot of people who claim my work is ‘manga’ influenced (and many of them are using the term as a pejorative) are equating the cartoony nature of my drawing with that of Japanese artists. I’ve always felt that my influences were more European than Japanese. Even the blurb on the back of the recent MODERN MASTERS volume spotlighting my career speaks to my work having a blend of manga and classic Silver Age influence– though they weren’t highlighting that as a negative.

There are times when I think of pushing my work in a more manga direction. I’m a fan of some manga… so it’s something that’s always interested me in exploring. I think of lengthening the figure, sharpening the faces and simplifying my drawing even more than usual. I know that I can never get away from my natural instincts when it comes to drawing– and I covered that in last Monday’s post. There are, however, things that I can do to tweak it here and there– and so that’s what I was thinking and playing with in today’s MON-EL sketch. I’m not saying that I’ll actually GO this direction– but that’s one of the things I like most about this blog. It’s the online equivalent of a journal, where I can work stuff out in my head– and hopefully offer a little amusement to anyone who likes to watch along the way.

OK… back to work for me.

This is Entry 371.

Mike