Fun With French Curves

Clearly, this one's ready for the Whitney Biennial of a a half-century or so ago! I'm not 100% sure of the tool employed; the line is too thick to be Bic Banana, but it's not a chisel-point, which rules out Magic Markers or El Markos. I can at least tell you that it's drawn on typing paper. I suspect this is actually a pen test, rather than a regression to a three- or four-year-old skill level; the rest of this pad of paper can be pretty conclusively slotted into the 1974-76 range (lots of Star Trek, no Star Wars), and there are other more coherent pieces involving this same French curve/protractor thingy.

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.

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.

Flying House

I'm a bit confused by the fact that the rockets attached to the house are firing, yet not producing enough lift to prevent the parachute from opening. And since the chute is fully open despite the counteracting thrust, one would assume that the house would be descending fairly rapidly... but the smoke from the chimney is drifting diagonally, rather than vertically as one might expect under the circumstances. But even if it's impossible to gauge the rate of descent, here's obviously a problem, since the occupant has bailed out using the attic-mounted ejector seat.

Unfinished Hawkman

I assume that the sudden realization that I'd left no room for his right arm was the reason I abandoned this one.

Cutaway View of a Cyborg

I've always had a real fondness for exposed internal organs.... the Visible Man, Pulsar, Gre-Gory, Mutagen Man, whatever. One of the things in life I still need to do is to see one of those cows with windows installed in their side so you can watch their innards.

Cardboard Bunny

This is pretty self-explanatory, I suppose. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't find a white or colored piece of cardboard, but its drabness has an certain low-key appeal. It would be another two or three years before I'd start using an X-acto knife with any regularity (and even then, I usually favored big scary box-cutters instead), so this was cut with poked-through scissors, hence the ragged edges.

Questionable Perspective

...unless we assume that this is in fact a special covered wagon shaped like a piece of elbow macaroni, so as to make it easier to circle the wagons at night. Of course, during the day, you'd just be riding in circles, so maybe this would be best suited for chickens who want the pioneer lifestyle without the risk of actually leaving town and heading out to the territories.

Dog-Head Monster From Outer Space!

This one required a fair amount of retouching to be readable, since it was apparently drawn with a fairly hard pencil lead on cheap gray newsprint-- specifically, on page 12 of My Own Book for Listening and Reading (Student Record Book for Reading Laboratory® 1b, 1973 Edition). Still, I felt like it was absolutely worth it to share that crazy dog-monster with you, my loyal viewing public.

Hang In There: a Story Treatment

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I never actually submitted this to 20th Century Fox. I mean, there's no romantic interest, little opportunity for product placement, and the third act just fizzles out. But maybe if I were to rework it with an eye toward the Sundance market...

Cross Section

Always a classic compositional gambit, here we have my first usage of the old "What's on his mind?" bit. I'm not certain if this is intended to be a self-portrait or not. The presence of a comic book would seem to confirm it, but the other objects seem less apropos, as it were. The bottom object, I believe, is a wrapped piece of hard candy, and the striped thing is probably a peppermint stick. I do like candy, though those aren't my favorites. The horse (?) is further afield, the barbell I don't get, and I have no idea what the object in front of the horse is... a ping-pong paddle? A mushroom?

Batman in "The Treeman Strikes"

Today we present a somewhat truncated short story for your entertainment. The story structure seems to be inspired more by the TV show than actual comics, and I believe the "Treeman" may be intended to be one of the generic villains (of whom I can find no image) included in the "Superadventure" Colorforms set I had. Note the unorthodox use of "arching" to mean "practicing archery". Also the lack of punctuation. I don't know if I just ran out of steambefore the fight scene or whether I was more interested in character and dialogue than gratuitous fight scenes. I suspect the former is more likely.

Vindictive Cloud

I don't know what that tree did to anger the cloud so, nor do I know why I chose to depict it on a faux postcard to my grandfather ("Gaga"= John T. "Jake" Thompson, Sr. [1912-1983]). Nonetheless, I did. I'd have thought that I would have known where the stamp should be placed by that time, but maybe not.

Interdimensional Postal Rates

A letter that I never sent to my old pal Mr. Qlxiz Qzlzi. Some stamp collector would probably pay a fortune for that uncanceled $100 Griffin stamp. Dig those crazy perforations! In retrospect, I'm surprised that I didn't use the pinking shears for that, too. I suspect that I made this at my grandparents' house, as my mother generally discouraged my use of her pinking shears for non-fabric applications.

Mouse with Bat-Balloon

And we return from the unannounced summer vacation with... well... whatever this is. I mean, it's obvious that it's a mouse and a balloon shaped like Batman's head. But why? Good question. Are they supposed to be part of the same image, or just two drawings sharing a sheet of paper? Dunno. It seems that the mouse is reacting to the balloon (he seems pleased to see it, if startled), so I guess it all relates...but, as with so much of this stuff, the rationale is lost in the past.

Three Happy Fellows

I'm impressed that they can keep their spirits up with only one nostril apiece.

Ben and Me

Like our subject of April 15th, this was part of a book report, this time of a more well-known book (also a Disney short), though one that I remember nothing about that one couldn't deduce from looking at the video box. It's interesting that I selected a scene that doesn't include the mouse narrator---I wonder if I perhaps didn't actually read the book, but just drew Franklin's experiment, which I already knew about?

Who's the Leader of the Club?

When the syndicated version of the Mickey Mouse Club was re-released in 1975, I was glued to the TV every weekday after school (Match Game '75, Mickey Mouse Club, and Batman, all in a row...how could going outside to play possibly compete with that?). I already had a couple of Little Golden Books and some View-Master reels featuring the Mouseketeers, but this was the real deal!
Thusly, I was inspired to create this piece on some sort of paper that I can't identify-- the texture is somewhere between a thin paper towel and crepe paper. I don't know if I transcribed the entire "Mickey Mouse Club March" on the missing part of the sheet, or whether it just petered out. Note that in the drawing, "me" takes top billing over "you". It's actually a pretty fair self-portrait, given my rendering skills at the time. I don't think the girl is any particular Mouseketeer, though it might be Karen. Of course, Annette was the one I thought was the cutest (which has caused me to watch some truly dismal movies in my life), but Karen was my age (well, at least at the time they filmed the show...she's a year older than my father), so I felt a certain kinship with her and Cubby.
I was thoroughly displeased when the reruns were withdrawn in favor of the wretched New Mickey Mouse Club, and was gratified to see it crash and burn, though not before it give us the always-annoying Lisa Whelchel. And as for the '90s incarnation, I never knew that it happened until it had already laid its eggs of evil in our culture.