HARRY POTTER... MEET HENRY PORTER

Before the KIDSPACE MUSEUM moved to their new and current location in Pasadena, it was located in the gymnasium of a former grade school.  Every October volunteers converted the place into a big, snazzy haunted house and busloads (literally) of kids from all around LA would come to see it. 

Each year had a different theme and one October -- after the HARRY POTTER book series had started but before the first film had been released -- the theme was Harry Potter... sorta. No one wanted to risk copyright infringement so Harry became Henry, Dumbledore became Stumblemore, etc.  They asked me to do the haunted house poster but I had no clue what the books were about (my own kids were pre-HP).  I figured it's about kids in a magic private school, right?  I worked off a cool fortress/castle in a HELLBOY comic and drew the accompanying students with the requisite magicical hats.  I never clarified but while it might be assumed Henry is the boy with the glasses, I always thought he was the pudgy Asian kid.  

HOLY PICKLE SPEAR, BATMAN!!

Coming up with an original superhero is never easy.  Muscles are free, but inevitably a suit, a cowl or a logo are copyright protected somewhere.  So when we had to devise  a comic book hero for an episode of the WEIRD SCIENCE tv show -- CAPTAIN  INVINCIBLE -- I devised a few options.  This isn't what the showrunners finally chose  but I thought it was kind of funny -- especially a big muscled guy waxing philosphical with a big ol' ice cream cone in his hand.  What the headphones were for -- or what the insignia stood for, I have no recollection.

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.

12 Midnight... Cocktail Hour

 

A rough draft-to-final page from 12 o'Clock Somewhere.  Between the sketch and the final version I realized -- nothing speaks blood lust better than a cool pupil dialation.

ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP!

As our cross-country roadtrip continues, I thought this painting seemed appropriate.


It's one of several acrylics I did to help pitch a movie idea about monsters in a cross-country road race. Inspired by the style of the classic “Odd Rod” trading cards from the sixties and seventies, the pictures all featured the monster at the wheel, not the car they were in. Who wants to look at a car, right? I showed them to my (then) manager who was impressed, but worried, “Are all their cars going to be so tiny?”

Yeah? Right.

Years ago, back in Minneapolis, my brother Jonathan and I were part of an alternative band. Our four man rock band had the dismissive, cynical name of YEAH RIGHT, though the music we played were hardly cries for anarchy or slams against The Man. Nothing proved this contradiction better than this flyer I drew for one of our local concerts. For anyone visiting the Twin Cities, 7th Street Entry is still there, adjacent to First Avenue, home to many a great TC band. 

Our one and only video is now on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EJWdWf_Tb0

America's Deadbasket

Missed last Wednesday's blog as we were driving across the country on a road trip to Minnesota.  On the day I was to post we were at 8300 feet in the Colorado rockies with no wifi signal in sight.  From there we returned to sea level where we passed many a Nebraskan cornfield.  As a tribute to that I present a storyboard panel from my super 8 opus 'GOOD LUCK' whose shocking climax occurs in, yes, a cornfield.

12 O'Clock Somewhere BAT BAM

Three panels from an intro to the book featuring main character "Car-door" Farrabee as he explains how his motto went from the drinking man's eternal excuse,"It's five o'clock somewhere" to the book title...

...and squashes a vampire bat at the same time.

13 GRAVES!

   

Going through old files I came across these drawings I did during production of a friend of mine's pilot.  Five years ago, Joel Wyman of THE MEXICAN and more recently FRINGE fame, wrote and sold a pilot for FOX entitled 13 GRAVES.  The series was to follow a disparate band of treasure hunters as they pursued the legenary "13 graves" where Conquistador Francisco Pizzarro had buried his fortunes in stolen Inca gold. 

I had written for Joel's previous series KEEN EDDIE and though only the 13G pilot had been sold, Fox wanted additional scripts and Joel asked me aboard to assist in writing those.  13G never went to series but the pilot turned out great.  Shot in LA, Miami and Bulgaria (!) it had an amazing cast: Matthew Lillard (THE DESCENDENTS, SLC PUNK, SCOOBY DOO) Robert Forster(THE DESCENDENTS, JACKIE BROWN), Norman Reedus (THE WALKING DEAD), Billy Drago (UNTOUCHABLES, lower right) and star-to-be Eric Stonestreet (upper right) now stealing scenes in ABC's MODERN FAMILY. 

FRANKENALYSIS

 The monster first appeared onscreen in a film version by Thomas Edison in 1910  

 www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcLxsOJK9bs

but ever since Boris Karloff portrayed the famous monster in the 1931 film we have this ingrained image of the creature as this big green guy with a flat head.  Evidentally he was green because that color looked better on B&W film than yellow did.  Yellow?  See, when M.S. wrote the book she described the monster as having yellow skin (she also described his features as "beautiful" but how is that supposed to scare movie audiences?) 

As for the flat head I heard that Jack Pearce, the make-up artist on the film rationalized that taking out the brain of a cadaver would require taking the top of the skull off.  Makes sense.  Likewise, putting that brain into another skull would require topping THAT skull too... therefore the recipient of said brain, the monster, would have a topless head -- or a flat topped head.  Never mind that presumably to keep dust and bugs out, Dr. Frankenstein would have had the werewithal to REPLACE the removed skull cap, thus returning to his creation that normal "round -headed" look.

If you know of any other explanations, I'm curious to hear them.    

THE COLD WAR OF BURBANK, CA

Whenever my good friend Scott Nimerfro and I get together for dinner we either A) grouse about how crazy/unfair/ass-backwards the TV business is, or B) pitch series ideas to one another and fawn over each other's brilliance.  The former occurs when one or both of us are between jobs and the latter when we're employed and, for the moment, content.  Scott had this one great series idea that I won't present here but it takes place in the model for Suburbia, USA -- Burbank California in the late fifties.  Revolving around the lives of aerospace designers and their homemaker wives, you throw in the local top secret flight design lab, Russian spies and you have a based-on-a-true-scenario series idea.  Laughs and drama, romance and culture clash against Cold War nostalgia.

 I thought, "What if it was a cartoon series?"  Hence the sketches...

E-GAD! EVERY WEEK...?

That's right.  Upon comments and urgings from friends -- "You should update people as to what you're doing professionally...", "How often do you put stuff up?" -- I've decided to do this on a regular basis.  I can't compete with Scott McCloud http://scottmccloud.com/ and his ilk, so adroit at providing daily writings, samples and tidbits but, once a week?  No prob.  Which day of the week works for you?   Let's say Wednesdays. 

It's a date. 

As this is an announcement and nothing more I've attached an arbitrary selection of a Soviet Robot circa 1957, under fire.  (Actually I think the hammer & sickle ensignia is backwards) 

TEEN WOLF THIS SUNDAY NIGHT - JUNE 5th, 2011

Set your DVRs -- TEEN WOLF's official premiere is nearly upon us, Sunday, May 5th following the MTV Movie Awards.  The next episode follows the next night on what will be the show's regular time slot.  We recieved a lot of good press and enthusiastic web chatter as well as the cover of the May 21st New York Times Sunday Magazine.  I drew this sketch last August ('10) while our staff was breaking stories.  Watch the series and see which scene it corresponds to!

A FEW PANELS...

Some panels from a comic book I started, based

on a screenplay I'd written (free) for some production company. Even though I literally had written the entire story I never got past the first couple of pages of the handdrawn version.

SILHOUETTE PORTRAITS

A quick glance at Wikipedia and you learn that the ancient Greeks started tracing subjects's shadows and created the art. Others claim the ancient Egyptians started the art form six thousand years earlier. Regardless of who deserves credit, fact remains -- they're all boring. I thought I'd add a little motion and zip things up.

MORE 12 O'CSW

Another sketch from the ongoing opus 12 O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE. I inked it in and then "colored" it with my Corel Painter program. Once I figured out how to use the gradation setting, it turned out pretty cool.

SALLY FORTH, YOU TEASE!

A little background is required on this one. back in the eighties a local Minneapolis attorney started a comic strip featuring a working mom as its main character. Relevent and tapping into the decade's zeitgeist it was entitled SALLY FORTH (get it?). Problem was the artwork was not that great. Now anyone who's ever tried to launch a comic strip is told, it's not the art but the ideas and writing that makes a strip sell. And true, the strip was popular enough but it was always needed an artistic upgrade. It could only help.

So when my best buddy Steve Burbidge's mom, who was friends with Greg Howard who created and drew the strip, informed me he was looking for a "wrist" to do the drawing as he continued to do the writing I jumped at the chance. An established comic strip? Produced right there in the Twin Cities?! I quickly did a bunch of samples, re-drawing panels of his strips and met with the guy... only to learn he WAS NOT, in fact, looking for a "wrist". He was very, very nice and while his art was admittedly sub-par, he figured he'd never get better if he stopped. Ironically enough a half decade later Howard turned the drawing chores over to an editorial artist at the Minneaplois Star Tribune... who employed his own cartooning skills in bodily proportions and movement... but retained the originator's balloon-ish, dot-eyed heads. As years passed I wondered if I had been full of myself, thinking I was a better cartoonist than the creator of a successful strip. Then I came across this in my files...

TEEN WOLF TO PREMIERE

Sunday, June 5th is the official premiere date.
Immediately following the MTV Movie Awards.
Set your TiVos now (if that's possible. Otherwise just indelibly stamp the date in your brain). The show's gonna be great. Scary, sexy, funny and did I say scary? And funny?
And while I am not allowed to reproduce official images from the show this is a production sketch I did for one of the episodes I wrote.

DICK CLARK LIVE, FROM THE AMAZON!

As anyone who draws will tell you the beauty of doodling is that a drawing can veer off in a hundred thousand different directions. A businessman with briefcase is suddenly in the beak of a pterodactyl lifting him from his bus stop. An air conditioner can suddenly sprout legs and chase a man on a unicycle, wearing hockey gloves.

This drawing began as some smiling guy in a suit but, as anyone who draws will also tell you, from the neck down suits are BORING to draw so I adjusted accordingly as you can see. Then I realized he sorta looked like the American Bandstand host and the idea was complete. In came the pirhanas and the dropped microphone, etc. I had some press type lying around and I added the title to avoid confusion. The thing I always loved about pictures like this is how the subject continues to smile even though what he endured must have been beyond painful. But hey, Dick Clark was nothing if not a pro, under any circumstance.

The Long Migration of a Robot Wolf

Back in High School I wrote a fifteen page script (in pencil) called SPARX AMPERAGE, intended to be shot on Super-8 like all our previous motion picture endeavors. In college I rewrote the script as a feature length script and incorporated, among other things, security guards in the form of robot wolves. THEN, after we moved to California and I was looking to make a buck any way I could, I drew sample storyboard panels from feature scripts I'd written. The robot wolves in SPARX seemed like an obvious subject. Never got a job storyboarding for the movies but the drawing turned out well.

RAT MANIA!

A few years ago Laird and I created this comic book. The hero is a character I created when I was 12 but as crime is always with us, RM remains timeless. With the exception of the Duck and Turtleman Lairdo created all the bad guys, including the dreaded Dr. Liger. [FULL COMIC NOW AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD AT theillustratedsection@gmail.com. Check out all the other digital comics there as well!

KONG ON THE BIG SCREEN

This is a panel from my ongoing comicbook project 12 O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE (or if you wanna be promotionally trendy, 12OCS.) The fact the hero and his confidant are meeting at a movie palace screening of the first incarnation of KING KONG has to do with the fact the story takes place in, that's right, 1933. I sorta like the kid in the front row wearing a beany.

POST SCRIPT

Stephen Cannell, the uber-successful writer, producer and sort of creator of (my favorite) TV series THE ROCKFORD FILES, died a couple of weeks ago right here in Pasadena. When we first moved here I saw him at the local grocery store, buying seafood and I wanted ask, "Hey, is that Rock-fish you're buying?", an allusion to the nickname Issac Hayes gave Jim Rockford on the show. As it turned out, I didn't ask Cannell the question and a good thing too, as rockfish are plentiful off the Pacific coast and he very well may have been buying some. This pictured sequence, for anyone who hasn't seen one of his shows, is a nod to his production company tag that wrapped each one of his shows, wherein he'd rip a finished script page out of his typewriter (it was the 70's and 80's, remember) and tossing it into the air where it became the letter 'C'.

NEW GIG

Anyone who looks through the postings on this site will notice that over the years I've put up more than a few pictures of my favorite monster -- the werewolf. So it was a bit of a coincidence that in June I started working on a new show entitled TEEN WOLF. A TV series about, you got it, a teen who becomes a werewolf.

It's for MTV and will premiere in the spring of 2011 and in the meantime we're coming up with cool stories that follow the trials and tribulations of just how hard it is to be a teenager... and a shape-shifting, claw sprouting, fur-covered monster.

The show was adpated by CRIMINAL MINDS creator Jeff Davis, from the 1980's movie of the same name, starring Michael J. Fox. Beyond the similar premise the TV version won't be as light hearted, has higher stakes and way more scares and definitely has a cool looking werewolf in the featured role.

Keep posted.

Some accumulated doodles.

REAPER WOOF

Every episode of REAPER (both seasons available now on DVD) featured an evil soul returned from Hell, often reincarnated in visually cool and deadly form. Although I was a writer on the show I often did sketches of certain visuals to help point the visual effects guys in the right direction.

Usually they were spot on -- usually. The TV version of this returned soul wound up looking more like an agitated German Shepherd.