X FILES MEETS BANKSY

Okay, maybe not Banksy exactly, but when I was four I drew Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on my bedroom wall.  Not his whole body -- just his head peering around the dresser.  Still, I caught hell for it.

I didn't pull that stunt again until I was at THE X-FILES.  I was on the third season staff (known to some as the beloved, golden, Darin Morgan season) and the writers' offices were in a little building on the FOX lot.  I would sit at my desk and stare at the wall across from me as I pondered what I would write next.  The ceilings were pretty high and there was a lot of empty wall to stare at -- so one day I grabbed a marker and drew an alien head peering over the door in the wall (the series overarching story dealt with extra-terrestrials).  A week later I drew another head, one that pertained to the second episode of our unfolding season.  Then I drew a third -- and soon I was on a season-long mission, drawing an alien to reflect each new episode as it was written.  Late in the year the creator of the show Chris Carter came by the offices and saw the graffitied wall and after a long moment remarked, "Cool."   Way better than, "Drawing on the walls?  Your fired."

If you're familiar with the season it's fun to see which drawing represents which episode.  Sadly this photo was taken before the last couple episodes were written, hence their absence.  (FYI: The camera flash sorta obscures the one alien reading an X-Files comic as he's being struck by lightning.)

DOGGY DO-DON'T...

Years ago I wrote a feature script about a kid at summer camp who sees an alien spacecraft land nearby and (of course) no one believes him.  The alien pilot is on the lam and (conveniently) looks like a kid, sans hair.  He has, among other world-dominating skills, the ability to re-jigger a household toaster into a dangerous shape-altering, ally-recruitment device (see picture).  Not to worry, there was a good alien kid that also infiltrated the summer camp, intent on re-capturing the bad one.  Hilarity ensued, our human protagonist was exonerated and lessons were learned.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST STORYBOARDS!

As part of my craze over the film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK I bought The Illustrated Screenplay of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  The illustrated parts were mostly storyboard panels of the action sequences in the film.  Pretty interesting stuff -- but then Craig McNamara (of our STAR WARS parodies fame - starwarsstripz.blogspot.com)and I went on to storyboard our own panels for scenes that never quite made it to the finished film.  Very much in the SCENES WE'D LIKE TO SEE series found in old MAD magazines.  Here are a few examples: 

DANGER & X-I-MENT!!

Before Kathy and I moved to California (and way, WAY before RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES) I was noodling with DANGER & X.I.MENT.  The story (originally conceived as a comic strip -- a newspaper strip (!?)) followed a government agent who was teamed with a lab chimp who, thanks to various experiments, was vastly smarter than he was (hence the glasses and bowtie).  The agent's name was gonna be 'Dangerfield' or something and the chimp of course was 'X.I' 0r X.I.Ment for short.  I thought it would be kind of fun if the story broke through fairy tales and ancient mythology and incorporated other such charcters in procedural roles, hence Agent Humpty Dumpty and Cerebus the three headed dog giving his field report.