I realized that it’s been over a week since my last post….! I’m not doing a great job of following through with my New Year’s resolution of spending more time on my blog here– but I’m into the last half of my final issue of FANTASTIC FOUR, and the deadline’s looming large. So I’m going to post a quick one today– this is a Christmas gift I did for Mark Waid this past holiday.

So– my apologies for the long time between posts, and for having to fall back on something already done like this. When I’m finally finished with FF, things will get much more interesting, I promise.

Mike

It was suggested in the comments section that perhaps it would be fun to see a more action oriented sketch when presenting these “revisitings” of the old characters I created as a kid. I thought it was a good idea, so this post reflects that addition to the fun. In an attempt to prove that not ALL my old characters were based on birds (although it seems as though most of them were based on ANIMALS, if NOT birds….)– I present a battle scene in which one of my characters called THE SILVER FOX is rumbling with a couple of bad guys known as THE BULL and THE RAM. The SILVER FOX character also had an incarnation/alternate version that was known as THE ARCTIC FOX, because I thought it would be fun and easy to draw adventures set in the ice an snow. I soon realized that not many folks (good guys OR bad guys) live in the Arctic area, and so I dropped the idea quickly.

Although, like most of the vast number of characters I created all those years ago, I never did any real comics stories with the SILVER FOX character. I DID, however, use the BULL and RAM baddies in an UNCANNY OWL story. Like most kids, my attention was fragmented, and so it was difficult to maintain a sustained enthusiasm for all the new characters that were pouring out of my brain. SILVER FOX was a victim of that lack of attention span. So it’s fun to give him a little due now…..

For those folks who might not frequent NEWSARAMA.COM as I do every day, you might have missed a story they did on various artists from the American comics market beginning to do work for the French publisher SOLIEL. I think this is a wonderful thing. I’ve got a great affinity for the comics produced in France (as I made clear in a previous post) because of the wonderful diversity in genre and subject matter that are prevalent in France (and Europe as a whole). It’s something that’s just not the case here. The American comic market it mired in a single subject matter: superheroes. And several of the artists listed in the article are personal favorites of mine– and yet they’ve gotten short shrift from the fans here in the States. I frequent many message boards on comics news sites, creator sites and general fan sites, and I’ve seen some of these guys get blasted simply for having a “cartoony” style. Frankly, in an American market that seems increasingly to gravitate toward artists who trace photographs and call them comics, it’s very frustrating and angering to me to see artists with unique vision and a strong personal style get shunted aside. So, I’m so thrilled to see some of these folks find a wonderful home in a market that really appreciates comics– of every kind, and in every style.

Mike

I think it’s time for another dip into the childhood character pool. This time, it’s a bad guy. As I’ve said previously, most of my characters– like the characters that MOST kids come up with– are derivative of what were my favorite characters from the comics I read at the time. So, THE BUZZARD is an obvious knock-off of one of my favorite SPIDER-MAN villains, THE VULTURE. I think that looking back at THE BUZZARD, the thing that impresses me the most about my work on this guy is that it looks as though I actually may have done some research on what buzzards look like. Hence his black body and wings, with an orange helmet, gloves and boots. A buzzard’s head is really red (I think…), but looking at all my drawings from that time that are colored, the red is really dark and usually covers up the line work, and maybe I was trying to avoid this. Maybe I just thought that blue black and orange looked cool together as costume colors (which I still do…).

I really don’t have that clear a memory of my thought processes from back then anyway. After all, it was 30 years ago….! So anyway, here’s the original drawing followed by my new sketch.

This continues to be a lot of fun. I’ve had more than a few folks in the comments section encourage me to actually do some comics with these characters– and though it might be fun as an exercise… and a wonderful way to reconnect with my childhood and maybe bring things full circle– A big part of me can’t help but think these guys are really lame. It would be very hard to resist redesigning them to make them more contemporary and modern. I couldn’t really see these characters as is exciting enough folks to actually buy them as a comic. But then, by redesigning them, what’s the point…?

I might give it some thought.

Mike

A little less than two weeks ago, we had several days in a row of temperatures in the low 70’s. The fact that it was almost mid January made me think that we were going to have an incredibly mild winter, temp-wise, and I was looking forward to one of those winters that I had experienced when I first moved down here to North Carolina 12 years ago (that is to say, non existent for the most part). Starting last Wednesday, that all changed. We started to get snow and freezing rain, and the temperatures at night have been dropping into the low teens. It’s still not nearly as bad as what most of the Northeast and Midwest are dealing with– not by a long shot. I really feel for those folks being absolutely buried in snow and ice with the amazing low temperatures they have to put up with.

I just can’t help but to cast my mind fondly back to those first few years I spent here when I went more days during the winter in shirt sleeves than in a jacket. I’m spoiled, I guess. Not as spoiled as I’m sure a former studio mate of mine who shall remain nameless (*coughcoughchuckwojtkiewisczcoughcough*) probably is by now, living out in sunny Los Angeles– but still– it sure was nice. Maybe the worm will turn back soon.

In the comments section of a post I made a while back with some European characters I had drawn for a thread over at SKETCHBOOKSESSIONS.COM, Augie De Blieck, Jr. mentioned BLACKSAD as being one of his favorite translated European comics lately– and it just so happens I had done a sketch of him as well. So, here’s that sketch too, to sort of flesh out today’s post.

Take care,

Mike

I thought I’d take another crack at drawing some of the characters I created as a kid. It’s been a very fun exercise, and this one was particularly enjoyable. Maybe because the drawing– of a team called THE OUTCASTS– isn’t of quite the advanced vintage of my previous entries. But at least the sense of design on the characters is a little more advanced (“advanced” being a relative term as far as crappy childhood superhero characters go…) as opposed to the previous examples done much earlier. This one was done in 1983, and I graduated high school in ’81– so I must have been around 18 years old. The drawing’s a bit better, but still not NEARLY as good as so many folks I see on the web and actually working in comics these days of the same age group. I guess I’ve always been a late bloomer.

THE OUTCASTS was my attempt at a multi-racial team like my absolute favorite of the time, X-MEN. I remember making many an attempt at emulating that comic that was so influential on so many of us wanting to draw comics back then. As you can see from the drawing, I wasn’t very practiced at placing figures in space. The Asian female character (I don’t remember any of the individual characters’ names, if they ever had any to begin with…) is on exactly the same plane as the much larger African American guy in (what’s supposed to be) the foreground. I had so much to learn…. (and still do). I see I was already signing my drawings as “‘Ringo”– but that comes from being nicknamed that early on by friends– just as my father was when he was in the Army.

Anyway, here are the two drawings– the first from my teens:

And the second one from today:

Mike