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.

BARBARIC BUCKET LIST

BEHIND THE SCENES AT REAPER.  In the late great series the character of Ben (brilliantly played by Rick Gonzalez) was stricken with a decidely premature concern over an early death (I suppose helping your friend return escapees from hell every week could do that to a guy.) One episode found Ben obsessing on the many things he still hadn't done in life and above is an early list of what those things might be.  What the pupil-less barabarian sketch has to do with the list I don't know.  Or why Ben's missing nut is mentioned. 

"AIR OUT, STOMACH IN!!"

Yes, I know -- this blog usually features artwork and anecdotes about comics and movies and TV and such but it's also about funny stuff. 

 

Years ago my friend Lisa Roy sent me a photo-a-day calendar that I suspect was published in Germany, where she was living at the time.  Unlike most calenders that have twelve pictures, this one had 365 to be exact -- black and white photos that were laugh-out-loud funny or bizarre or absurd.  And I saved a lot of them.  The above shot of (Italian?  Czech?) soldiers diligently following orders  to blow up balloons fits any or all of the save-worthy criteria.

 

Turns out Lisa and Nancy Jones (another longtime friend) have checked out this site and even left comments... a section of the blog that, I apologize, I never check because... well, no one hardly ever leaves comments.

 

 

 

SHADOW ASSASSIN

Working on FRINGE I pitched the notion of a shadow going around killing people.  As opposed to the X-FILES episode with Tony Shaloub where, if people stepped into his shadow they sorta got sucked in, this was about a detached, sentient shadow that lumbered around knocking people off.  I wrote the finished episode with Joel Wyman and it turned out great, but - as with every show -- along the way various ideas were tossed out and then... tossed out.  One idea being the Shadow killer being delivered by a Renfield-like assistant via a seemingly empty overnight suitcase left open...

KICKING BUTTS AND TAKING FAME

On the TV show WEIRD SCIENCE big brother Chett (Lee Tergesen (HOMICIDE, and the upcoming RED WIDOW) was inspired to set aside his bullying ways and become a masked crime fighter.  The writers came up with various monikers, one of which was BUTT KICKER -- years before the comic or movie KICK ASS ever saw print or screen. Dunno what we finally agreed on but these were  some insignias I did for Butt Kicker. 

 

Personally, I prefer the anthropomorphized letters... more along the lines of Superman's 'S'. 

ROBOT PARADE

Some design sketches for a screenplay idea all about NY gangsters and Nazis and, of course, robots.

THE PORTRAIT OF THE LETTERMAN AS A YOUNG MAN

Apologies up front to James Joyce.  This is a celebrity caricature from way back, before David Letterman  A) moved to CBS  B) wore glasses  C) saw an orthodonist and D) went grey.  A similar comparative drawing of Jay Leno is not available. 

DEAD TO RIGHTS

 More concept stuff for the ongoing MONSTER RALLY saga... the first is an ink and watercolor of an undead lawyer who finds a loophole in the century-old contract that keeps monsters etc. literally undeground. 

The other is a marker/india ink panel of a hapless zombie who doesn't even make it out of his grave before...

SCARECROW

BARD DOG, BARD DOG....

On the road, I doodled this... can't believe the joke hasn't been done a zillion times before... but I've never seen it.

30's DAMSEL (SOON TO BE IN DISTRESS)



Currently on vacation, so I offer these ones from the recent files -- the original drawing of the luckless "Miss McGinty" from Twelve O'Clock Somewhere, as rendered on copy paper in india ink... and her full color doppleganger, compliments of the always reliable Corel PAINTER 11

AND THE AUDUBON SOCIETY AWARD DOES NOT GO TO...

                                                                                     So it's 1929 and you're a stockbroker on the top of your NYC office building, ready to resolve your predicament once and for all when this pigeon has the AUDACITY to light on your perch... 

ON THIS 4th OF JULY LET'S GIVE A NOD TO A 17th CENTUREY ENGLISH NOVELIST...

 Daniel Defoe, author of ROBINSON CRUSOE and the famous pioneer of the contemporary novel was many things in 17th century England, but a P.I. he was not.  Still, I always thought he should have been, what with his perfect, alliterative "Sam Spade-ish" detective name...  (and while lunch was certainly around in the 17th century, telephones were not)

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS, HAN SOLO...

Remember in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK when that nameless freedom fighter warns Han Solo that it's useless to search for Luke -- and Han snaps at him and blows out of there?  Well, true to Craig McNamara and my many delightful Star Wars Stripz, here's how that conversation plays out in the scene we never saw...

 

SMOKE 'EM IF HE'S GOT 'EM

For any good story you need a good Bad Guy.  An old adage that was never more true than in the CW series REAPER.  From viewers to the writers themselves, everyone's favorite character on the show was the Devil, splendidly played by Ray Wise (TWIN PEAKS, 24, SWAMP THING, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, etc. etc. etc.).  So when the show runners needed a picture to put on water bottles to be given out as gifts to the cast and crew I did this picture of the big D, congenially hawking, what else?  Cigarettes.     

12 o'CS COVERED!

The cover for the book, except this wasn't done with the Corel Painter 11 but with real brushes and acrylic paint.  I was going for that old Gold-Key comic cover look -- Boris Karloff Presents, etc., with cheesy cover paintings that didn't match the artwork inside at all.  I did this before I changed the title to TWELVE o'Clock Somewhere from FIVE, as midnight is the betwitching hour and Five isn't very spooky at all.

And sharp-eyed followers of this blog will recognize the doomed myopic bird from an earlier post shown here as the Comic Co. logo.

BEWARE ALL HUMBUGS -- IT'S CHRISTMAS IN JUNE!!

Back in the day, DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY was a big deal at the comics shop.  I never bought it but somehow I had access to a copy and I tried my hand at DCMW.  My muscled apeman turned out okay but it really came to life when I added my own Yuletide touch... and created a new holiday character to rival Scrooge, the Grinch and Charlie Brown's pathetic Christmas tree...

BATTLESHIP - THE MOVIE? WHAT TOOK SO LONG?

Forget BATTLESHIP - THE MOVIE, or for that matter any of THE TRANSFORMERS films.  I drew this "movie poster" for the first Hollywood feature film based on a simple, non-story game back in the video arcade game's hey-dey.  All the proof you need is that the star of the picture was to be the then go-to action star, Harrison Ford. 

Ah, what a laugh we had at the Minnesota Daily, at the totally and utterly preposerous idea of launching a Hollywood feature based on a simple two (or, to be fair in BATTLESHIP's case, three) dimensional game.   Could anything be more absurd?  Answer number one: Equally as preposterous is that such a movie would cost over two hundred million dollars to make (BS) and answer number two: Be on the lookout for CHUTES AND LADDERS at a multiplex near you -- in 3D no doubt.

CIVIC DUTY

When called to serve on a jury, the first part of the day entails crowding in with a hundred-plus other folks, waiting to get called.  During the Big Wait, it's fun to bring paper and pen and draw pictures of fellow jurors-to-be.  I didn't get many sketches off before I was called in to be on a potential jury for some nobody plaintiff named Kareem Abdul Jabar.  Really.  This IS Los Angeles, man. 

Years ago I was actually on a jury presided over by the honorable Lance Ito -- yes, THAT Lance Ito.  Then, after that, I was on a jury presided over by Judge Wopner -- no, not THE Judge Wopner, but the son of  THE Judge Wopner (if you don't know who Judge Wopner is, he preceeded Judge Judy as the official; 'TV Judge'.  if you don't know who judge Judy is, you're not watching nearly enough daytime TV...)

A CAUTIONARY TALE....

The tale of a misguided alien invader who lacked the foresight necessary for happiness.  Rendered in trusty dusty pantone markers in the Minnesota Daily advertising department when I should have been doing work.  

PLATYPUS OF ALL TRADES

Like every cartoonist that ever lived, I thought it would be great to start a daily comic strip.  My brilliant idea, something I hadn't seen before, was to feature a duck-billed platypus as the main character (this was before the invasion of Australian talent here in the US).  With the comic strip friendly name of "Scooter", my paneled protagonist 's thing was that he worked lots of different jobs, hence the name of the strip "SCOOTER FOR HIRE".

In about ten minutes I scribbled thirty two vocations my guy could try out.  You will note that some are not truly paying jobs ('ski bum', 'victim' or, arguably, 'writer') but it I had this stream of consciousness thing going...

COMPARING PROTO AND GOTHAM RATMAN IN A 21ST CENTURY CONTEXT

 

I drew RATMAN number one when I was twelve or so, rendered with a trusty ballpoint pen.  I loved the outrageous,absurdist idea that Commissioner Gordon would replace Batman with the super-powerless, inept Ratman and considered the comic book to be my finest work -- a project I began that I actually finished.

Years and years later, Tom Spezialy gave me The R. Crumb Coffee Table Book wherein Crumb reprinted a comic he'd done when he was a kid -- and the version he re-drew as an adult.  So I did the same thing.  When I was living in Manhattan working on a Glen Gordon Caron show, I spent my evenings redrawing RATMAN number one, replete with the exact dialogue, sound effects and exclamations  ("Yeeooo!") and, for the most part, the same panel composition.

 

Two comparative pages are posted above (guess which were the originals...) 

AHEAD OF HIS TIME

Some years ago, Kathy and I were in Tucson visiting my late grandma.  My mom was there too, from Minnesota and she was going through her parents' old photos when she came across this picture.  Not a photo of an old family member but one of my great-GREAT grandfather's classmates from Cornell University.  Like when I was in high school, evidently at Cornell in 1881 students swapped senior pictures for posterity's sake. 

That's right.  1881. 

Which is what makes this photographic remembrance -- and Frank Ramsey Luckey who conceived and "starred" in it -- all the more remarkable.  The Lumiere brothers and Thomas Edison didn't introduce the world to motion pictures for another fourteen years, yet this guy, in a jokey keepsake for his buddies, created this -- twenty three different pictures of himself (the "serious" acceptable, portrait hovering in the center)via a visual, flip-book kind of sequence.  But unlike a flip-book which conveys a single action, here Luckey shows all moods and expressions and even cross dresses (which seems to never go out of style).

Certain that Luckey was a drama student with ambitions exceeding the mere theatrical stage, I did a web search to see what noteworthy and creative heights he achieved... only to learn that he went on to become a Congregational minister in New England.  I was disappointed at first -- I had expected more -- but Kathy reminded me that a clergyman (particularly of the non-dogmatic, open-minded Congregational stripe) is at once a writer, an actor and a source of inspiration. 

Still if the guy had only hooked up with an inventor and a late-nineteenth century venture capitalist, who knows... maybe FDR and Churchill would've been Tweeting each other...

BIG BUNNY... one for the kids

One day, while working at the show WEIRD SCIENCE I decided to take a break from the complicated , soul-searching tales of two teenage boys and their adventures with a computer genie and decided to take a shot at a children's picture book. 

I wrote the simple tale and roughed out the art more as placeholders than anything.... but ended up liking it enough to color 'em in.  The basic story:  Big Bunny wakes up to find a rockset ship parked outside his kitchen window.  He and his neighbor friends (second page) postulate what the traveler inside might be like, B.B. has a dream that it's a green bunny like him with shared interests.  In the morning, the ship is gone.  A nod to the old adage: "If you find a spacecraft in your yard and you let it go..."

LIKE A ROCK

One of the monsters-in-cars series of acrylics I did, inspired by Big Daddy Ross's Rat-Fink and the Odd Rod bubble-gum cards.  Driving top-down is the only ride for a gargoyle.

MY BRUSH WITH A SPY

Scott Nimerfro and I had this series idea, right?  About spy planes secretly being built in Burbank in the fifties... and the bad guy was a Russian spy (above), with an American accent and the all-American, above-suspicion vocation of Fuller Brush Salesman.... able to enter every home in the city and sweet talk the wives of the aero plant engineers... before running off to a pay phone to relate his findings to Moscow via long distance operator.

A SPECIFIC RESUME IS REQUIRED

Inspired during my days of riding the MTC bus to campus.  En route from downtown Minneapolis to the University of MInnesota I saw a door on the side of a building marked 'PLANT ENTRANCE' and, well, it sorta grew from there.