SEASON'S GREETINGS

On vacation next week so this card for our (climate) changing times will have to suffice...

JUNGLE BOOGIE

 

 

 

 

MINNEAPOLIS.  BACK IN MY AD DAYS (when 'X' was just a letter in the alphabet and a box was something you kept stuff in and the X-Box was still a long ways off) I designed the cover for the MATTERHORN SCREAMER computer game, but I also did a rough cover for another Disney theme park ride adaptation for THE JUNGLE CRUISE.  For whatever reason it was initially entitled JEWEL OF THE JUNGLE (probably because the goal was to get the sizable diamond hidden somewhere... I dunno -- we never got past the box cover.)  Anyway, I did my rough and it was sent to Disney and the artist there Disne-fied it -- and made it 110% better.  But he/she did retain my design... and the cool bamboo typeface I did.  I did wonder why they gave the jungle-guy such a big nose though...

THE SAGA OF JIM J., NE'ER DO WELL

This originally appeared on the back page of CRITTER COMICS.  One of those, limited panel "how will I end this strip" situations.  Originally done in marker and colored post-publication with the trusty Corel.

HAVE A DICKENS OF A THANKSGIVING!

One for you English lit nuts...

A TEEN WOLF NEVER-WAS

In the first season of TEEN WOLF, the big reveal was to be – after discounting the impotent, burn-scarred and vegetative Peter Hale as a suspect, we see the big bad Alpha werewolf – and HIS FACE IS BURNED TOO!  The logic: As a human, he’s comatose by day… but a rampaging monster by full moonlight.  This angle was abandoned but not before I did a production illio of Hale’s night-time version.  No denying it -- heavy Berni Wrightson influence at work here.



EVER SEEN KEEN EDDIE? LOG ONTO NETFLIX, NOW

 

KEEN EDDIE was one of the best shows I worked on.  Shot and cut in the Guy Ritchie LOCK,STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS style, our show followed a NYC cop working with Scotland Yard -- a fish-out-of-water premise actually shot on location in London.  Mark Valley played the title character -- he was great-- and it was Sienna Miller's first foray into acting (also great.)  They were backed up by the inimitable Julian Rhind-Tutt and the super-cool Colin Salmon as Eddie's detective partner and SY superior, respectively.

 

The series was created by Joel Wyman and the editing was fast-paced, the locations and guest casts rocked and the music was fantastic.  But don't just take my word for it -- all 13 episodes are available on disc.

 

I wrote two of the episodes but like a lot of the shows I work on, I also did some production sketches in the the writer's room.  The one above is of Eddie calling on a gangster whose daughter is having her portrait painted.  As for the tea kettle, I guess it was influenced by the fact the show took place in London, England.  Tea time and all that. 

BIGGEST MONTH YET!

 

 
Congratulations all you ardent followers from around this big ol' world -- October 2012 has been the biggest month yet for Vlam-Ink!   678 people checked out the blog!  Subtract the people looking for stuff on Maurice de Vlaminck (the French painter (1876 – 1958) and that still leaves an impressive number.   

To celebrate I had fun with Corel Painter 11.  The beauty of a quick little doodle is you can spend the time festooning him with colors and vines and all the cool Painter details I'm still uncovering.

Twelve O'Clock Somewhere Intro

CRITTER COMICS

 

 

Critter Comics was my first stab at a comic book that actually involved spending TIME... penciling panels first, using big ol' sheets of artboard, etc.  Admitedly, the world is, and was at the time, not remotely original -- a world populated with bipedal, world weary animals that gambled and smoked cigarettes.  In my defense, I was at the time hugely influenced by R. Crumb's early FRITZ THE CAT strips, the ones drawn with rapidograph pen that had Fritz as a government/James Bond kinda guy.  The big difference --  Steve Critter was a dog.

 

Critter comics only appeared once and I photocopied and stapled all copies myself.  Funny story -- somehow an issue made its way to California (how, I dunno... I was in Minneapolis) and a guy there sent me a check for a year's subscription to the comic.  

THE GREATEST MOVIE YOU MAY NEVER HAVE SEEN

Before THE INCREDIBLES, before RATATOUILLE,  and way before the live-action MI:GHOST PROTOCOL, Brad Bird adpated the novel The Iron Man (by British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes) and made THE IRON GIANT, arguably the best animated feature released in the last fifteen years.  One of the last 2-D animated features (though the Giant was totally computer drafted) the movie bombed -- Warner Bros didn't know how to promote it, CGI was catching on and word-of-mouth on the movie wasn't hot enough to make it a grass-roots sensation. 

 

After the movie closed at thatres, the above postcard was released to promote an IRON GIANT memorabilia sale at the local mall's Warner Bros. Store featuring Bird and the other creative minds behind the film.  There the group lugubriously signed autographs and lamented the fizzle of what should have been.   

More Yeah Right? Yeah, right.

 

Aother pen-and-ink flyer for one of our gigs, this one at the famed Seventh Street entry, the side bar of Minneapolis's

First Avenue club made famous by Prince (among others).  Lots of now famous bands played 7th St. including LOUD FAST RULES (later to be named SOUL ASYLUM -- a less interesting name), THE REPLACEMENTS and TRIP SHAKESPEARE.  We even warmed up for TETE NOIRES there, an all-girl quintet who were years-ahead-of-their-time and helped make Minneapolis THE 80's music scene.

 

As for First Ave., my brother and I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers there long enough ago that we went to a Thanksgiving show on a whim and managed to get right up to the stage.  I recall that we kept shouting to the band members -- possibly Flea himself -- that they should do a tune in 3/4 time. 

 

As for the smoking dog adorning the flyer, that's Steve Critter the title character of CRITTER COMICS, a b&w comic book about a former secret agent who happens to be a dog who smoked cigarettes.  More on CRITTER in future posts.