CALLING ALL COP-YRIGHTS!

Back at the University of Minnesota, there was a West Bank bar called DICK TRACY'S SALOON and we at the MN Daily Creative Department did up ads for them, using my drawings of the Chester Gould comic strip characters.  Copyright infringement?  Who cared?  Eventually the syndicate that owned the comic strip cared -- enough so that the bar's name was changed to TRACY'S SALOON.  Which meant the place needed a new mascot -- copyright free -- and I came up with this guy... 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, ROBO WOLF!

 

Old fav, colored with Corel...



STAR WARS FRIDAY SUBMISSION

POW! PUT MOTION IN YOUR CARTOONS!

 

What puts motion into the picture of a guy getting punched in the face?  The ABSENCE OF STRAIGHT LINES -- sure, a bullet or an arrow shoot straight, but here it's the ARC of the punch and the BOWING of the recipient that bring the picture to life!

 

The book ANIMATION by Preston Blair shows great examples of the above.  And you can find a PDF copy online!  That book over every other really helped me learn to draw...

JABBA THE HUT BUYS IT -- THE ALTERNATIVE VERSION

One of the RETURN OF THE JEDI cartoons I did, part of the extensive STAR WARS strips Craig McNamara and I drew at the Minnesota Daily when we supposed to be working.  I know ROBOT CHICKEN did a lot of the same kinda gags, as did FAMILY GUY, but if it's any consolation, Craig and I were decades ahead of them...

WEREWOLF? THERE WOLF... GETTING HIS ASS KICKED

 

A personal favorite trio of panels from Twelve O'clock Somewhere -- inspired in part by Gene Colan's artwork in the old Marvel Dracula comics.  Accompanying (and apropos) poetry by Robert Service.



MAD MAX FURY ROAD

 

Saw MAD MAX FURY ROAD a third time in the theater.  Man, what a great film.  See it on the big screen if you still have a chance!  (The above drawing is not in any way, shape, or form connected to MMFR...)

FRANKENSEIN MEETS THE BABY SEAL

 

 

No, it's not some unknown Universal monster movie discovered stashed away in some attic steamer trunk... I was doodling at OUTCAST, and the above pictures were oddly juxtaposed.  Colored via Corel PAINTER.

DINO DILEMMA

Sure, Dinosaurs had lizard brains, but big huge ones... and who's to say they weren't puzzled by the prehistoric world around them?   A doodle done whilst at the OUTCAST offices...

HANNIBAL's influence on this fall's new MUPPETS SHOW

HANNIBAL IS OVER. LONG LIVE HANNIBAL

When NBC announced it wasn't picking HANNIBAL up for a fourth season, I drew this cartoon strip as a final send-off... but waited until the series had officially ended before publishing it here.  Whether it was to your taste or not, nowhere on network television could you find a headier, more stylish or daring show...

NEW GIG -- OUTCAST

HANNIBAL is halfway through its third season, but alas there won't be a fourth.  I'm happy to report that I'm now on the new Robert Kirkman series, OUTCAST.  The super-cool poster (which I DID NOT illustrate) is above... and you can watch the trailer at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJzVP_4HYT8

Look for the series in 2016 on Cinemax...

'EMPIRE STRIKES BACK' AT-AT WALKER BEATS THE SUMMER HEAT

 

 

The model is planted in real, honest to goodness Minnesota snow.  Using photos from ESB as reference, I built this ATT out of cardboard, balsa wood and styrene McDonalds burger containers (the feet and head.)

Remember McDonalds styrene burger containers?  Your great grandchildren will -- as those burger pods will still be bio-degrating a thousand years after they're gone...

SH-SHAAARK! JAWS forty years after its big splash...

 

Spielberg's second feature came out forty years ago this summer.  JAWS introduced the concept of Boffo Summer Box Office -- and you can see it again on the big screen!  June 21st and 24th, TCM is screening the film in movie theaters around the country.  Check if your city is one of the lucky ones! 

 

The above is a decades-old photo of a billboard a friend and I reworked to honor the film...

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS #46

HANNIBAL SEASON THREE PREMIERES JUNE 4th

 

The entire season three staff wishes you a happy season three viewing, June 4th on NBC -- check your local listings...

IN HONOR OF GAME OF THRONES, SEASON V, EPISODE TWO...

...Which airs tonight, I offer this old sketch I came across.

GARY v DEMON

 

A storyboard panel I did for a WEIRD SCIENCE episode back in the day

'EMPIRE' IS HOT, BUT DAVID CASSIDY WAS HOTTER...

ASSORTED DOODLES

From top to bottom: 1) Back in my Minnesota script group, often people reading their script pages aloud would describe a contemplative character's action as "kneading their forehead..." I drew a pic of what came to my mind, 2) an easily impressed earthworm and 3) An amalgamated marriage -- I had drawn the telephone-antlered moose and on the same page I'd drawn the cranky old man and, seeing their juxtaposition, I completed the doodle so that the little animal was peering over the fellow's head -- his pet, or his muse... or a parasite.

WHERE THUNDER COMES FROM...

Death's Head Script Cover

Years ago Scott Nimerfro and I came up with an idea for a feature -- what happened to Ebenezener Scrooge AFTER his visit from 3 ghosts?  Anyway, the title, for about 5 seconds, was taken from the last chapter title in A CHRISTMAS CAROL -- 'The End of It',  Naturally, I felt compelled to draw art for the script cover (a no-no in scriptwriting).  Clearer heads prevailed and we later changed the name -- but the artwork survives...

THE GANGSTER

Drew this while at The Minnesota Daily.  What's funny is it predates Stevie Van Zandt on the SOPRANOS, who looked pretty much exactly like this.  What May Day had to do with it, I dunno...

ABSTRACT, DOG

Two drawings for an art class in high school.  A "realistic" dog and its discombobulated abstract counterpart.

CHRISTMAS POST -- "THE REVENGE OF RUDOLPH (or how misfits get even)"

Happy Holidays... See you Next Year!

SOUTH PAW SCRIBBLE

My mom always said she was so right-handed, her left hand was all but functionless -- "it's only there for show."  Every once in a while I try drawing with my left hand... with pretty sorry results (see above.)  Still, the lines in the picture do gain a certain energy of unpredictability... 

Whether you're a lefty or a righty, try it -- and surprise the non-dominant hemisphere of your brain.

THANKSGIVING...for THE LIST OF 7

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for, among many things,  great books I've read...

In the 90's fellow Minnesotan Mark Frost (of TWIN PEAKS and other TV/movie fame,) wrote THE LIST OF 7.  It follows a young Arthur Conan Doyle M.D. who is teamed up with a brilliant, super-deductive crime-solver (a character who clearly inspires the Doctor-turned-author to create Sherlock Holmes.)  Super-fast paced, enormously rich in period detail and a great story, this book's out of print, but available used.  Look for it anywhere and everywhere but Amazon.

As for the picture above... I doodled it at work and later realized it was inspired by Frost's novel.  (The book's better, trust me...)

CLASSIC JACK DAVIS

Before MAD Magazine went black and white in the latter 50's, the mag was in comic book color.  This panel is from the 1954 classic "BOOK!  MOVIE!", wherein the Mad guys compared a story as told in its best-selling novel form versus the glossy movie adaptation version.  In the book the troubled protagonist meets up with his mousey mistress and they get it on -- in the movie version, the protagonist simply wants to dance (in a safe-for-viewing-audiences way.)

I particularly love Jack Davis's trademark loose and incredibly vivacious style in this panel.

DRAGON AND M&Ms

Ah, to doodle with a ballpoint pen...

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER

Princess Leah shows what's she made of when Luke Skywalker tries to rescue her from her Death Star cell in in A NEW HOPE.  [From the collection of STAR WARS strips Craig McNamara and I drew long ago]