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...I mean, only if you want to, of course. I'm not trying to force you to click on anything if you don't feel right about it.

Impromptu Yoda Costume

I believe that the impetus for this project was probably my acquisition of a stack of sheets of green foam rubber originally used as packing material at the Singer plant in Anderson where my grandmother worked. For whatever reason, one day it occurred to me that said foam rubber might be combined with a tank driver's cap from the army surplus store to create the fabulous headgear here depicted. The addition of a bathroom and my fabulous goat's hoof-tipped walking stick (hand-carved by my father several years earlier; it still exists, but is ludicrously short now that I've passed the three-foot line), and I was ready to offer up the ancient wisdom of the Jedi to all supplicants. I then posed for these photos and moved on to whatever mischief next called to me... likely one that involved swimming, fireworks, watermelon, or all of the above, since my memory is that this all occurred in late May or early June, not long after the movie came out.

Plagiarism

... of Joan Walsh Anglund, of all people! Although I can't seem to find a baseball player image of hers to compare it with, so it's possible that I'm actually attempting to do original work in her style, which is even nuttier. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out the lower image, and I've only just untangled it. I initially saw it as some sort of robot (or perhaps a space heater) on skis or rockers, but I now realize that I was looking at it from the wrong angle:

As goofy as it may seem, I was apparently drawing Darth Vader's TIE fighter with a baseball cap on it! I've flipped the wing and added the front window in blue to the above detail view, to more clearly illustrate my thesis.

Mr. Mind Strikes Again!

Those of you who haven't given me up for dead may recall this posting on my birthday back in April, where I drew Captain Marvel's famous arch-enemy, Mr. Mind, following instructions in an old SHAZAM! issue. In looking through a different notebook, I found another, simpler version, presented above. Comparing the two now suggests to me that the other one may have been done a year or so later than I previously believed, though it's possible that I may have just put more effort into the other one.
Actually, further investigation confuses the issue even further. I've just determined (between the two paragraphs) that this drawing is unquestionably from late summer/early fall 1977. So it's definitely the same age or newer, just more hastily drawn. So that's that.

Irish Snowman

As one might surmise from the various clues to be seen, this photograph was taken on St. Patrick's Day, 1971. I am a little over a month shy of my third birthday; my mother is 22. This is probably the first snowman that I had any direct participation in, and certainly the one I have the most vivid memories of (though that can probably be attributed to the existence of the photograph as much as any other factor).The eyes and buttons are radishes (a vegetable I otherwise have no tolerance for), the mouth is obviously carrot-based, and the hat is, I think, from Hallmark.

Other Fun Facts:

• This is the front yard of 139-A Cochran Road, where we lived from 1970-74.
• I still have a scar under my arm where I got pinched badly by shifting parts of the swing set in the background.
• The scarf and hat were particular favorites of my mother in those days; I still have said scarf, currently stored with my own seldom-used winter accoutrements.

The Ballad of Davy Crockett

Click here to hear me and my new Realistic-brand Cassette Recorder. I don't yet know how close to hold the mike at this point, so it's even poorer quality than the equipment and tape would have dictated, but it is what it is.

Collage Piece

                                                                Devlin Thompson

Waka! Waka! Waka! Waka!

Adhesive paper, enameled metal door

1979, 1981

                                                                ARTIST'S STATEMENT

      In this piece, I have attempted to make a statement about world hunger through repurposing commercially available "bubble-gum card stickers" portraying popular actors and video game characters to create an imagined scenario in which "Pac-Man", having no access to the "power pellets"  that constitute his/its normal diet, is forced instead to consume "Commander Adama." To subtly reinforce the food theme, I chose as my substrate an actual refrigerator door still in use at the time, so that the viewer would be forced to contemplate the image before every  meal or snack.  Not shown: several subsequent image groupings on the same door, involving "Spider-Man", an  orange cow, "Blinky the Ghost" (famed nemesis of Pac-Man), and magnets displaying pictures of food and the telephone number of a local pizzeria .

Mr. Tawny

In our previous installment, we took a look at my attempt to follow the instructions for drawing Mr. Mind provided in the above comic. Returning to that same feature, we also find this tutorial on rendering Captain Marvel's feline friend, Mr. Tawny:

...and here is my resulting masterpiece:

The unfinished piece below it is apparently Dr. Sivana, the third subject of the lesson. If I actually did a finished version, it is lost to history.

Mr. Mind

Today we present to you  Limited Collector's Edition # C-35, Apr.-May, 1975, in a scan stolen from www.treasurycomics.com. If you were in possession of said comic, and you were to turn to page 44, you'd find yourself reading a feature by the late great Kurt Schaffenburger entitled "SHAZAM! Presents...How To Draw Cap's Friends and Foes". An excerpt follows:

And here is my attempt to apply this lesson:

Tune in tomorrow for more of the same.

For those who might find it of interest, I'll note that , as I click on the "publish post" button, it will have been forty years and eight minutes since Dr. James Ruff delivered your host into the world. 

Mr. Crucifix

I guess this is how the denizens of Lidsville depict Jesus in their religious art. Note that this was penciled, then inked (with a Flair pen, I believe). For whatever reason, I did this for several pages worth of drawings in this particular notebook, though none of them show any evidence that I was attempting to refine them in the inking process. I suspect that I just came in after the fact and traced what I'd previously done (after a run of 8 or 10 pages, the inking stops abruptly in the middle of a drawing of a giant cannibal policeman). I wish I'd kept notes to explain my thought process, but that's probably asking too much of a seven-year old.