Kentucky and Indiana

I think it's safe to assume that this had something to do with Abraham Lincoln.

Boba Fett

Firstly. let me pause to welcome a valuable new member of the Early Works team, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 20 scanner, who will be filling the position formerly occupied by Mr. AcerScan 620U. It is hoped that a scanner not bearing a sticker exhorting the user to "Get Ready For Win98" may be better equipped to serve this blog's needs.
Now, to the matter at hand: everyone's favorite bounty hunter, Mr. Fett. This drawing was drawn months in advance of his live-action debut (but over a year after his animated debut), and is referenced partly from a plastic cup available at theaters during that year's Star Wars re-release (mine is inaccessible, and I can't find it online, but here's another in the same set), but mostly from the ad on the back of the action figures for the mail-in offer that convinced a generation of the existence of the "missile-firing backpack" Fett figure. For those who haven't got the memo yet---that kid you knew who swore that he had one/ his cousin had one/ some kid at camp had one was lying. He didn't.
The detailed color work on this piece was done with the felt-tip markers discussed here, and the forest background was rendered either with Design Markers (R.I.P) or those Magic Marker-brand pens whose body is actually a stubby glass bottle with the label shrinkwrapped around it. Man, I loved those things! I suppose that it's been long enough that I can confess that the few of them that I ever had were in fact stolen from school. But if I'd ever known where to get them, I'd have gladly purchased them legitimately! Incidentally, I couldn't find any images of the particular model I'm discussing, but here's Sidney Rosenthal's original patent, and here's a really amazingly cool variation on the theme that I covet mightily.

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.

Centrifuge Incident

The device pictured is a hand-cranked centrifuge from a Gilbert chemistry set that I had mounted on racks on the wall over my desk. One raises and lowers the handle at the top to cause the test-tube holders to spin, in the manner of a mechanical top. It is the star of today's anecdote.
From the time I was 8 or 9 years old until we moved into town where we could get cable (circa 1987), the only television in the house was the one in my room, a big old color model that was primarily used as a monitor for the Atari and Commodore 64, as our reception was lousy. If something of interst to others came on, they'd come into my room to watch.
One night, when my cousin Susie was visiting us, there was something coming on that she and my parents wanted to watch but I didn't (possibly Saturday Night Live), so I bade them good night, crawled into bed and headed off to Slumberland as they watched their show nearby.
The next morning, when I got up and headed out into the living room to get breakfast, I found everyone staring quizzically at me as I entered, and Susie was having trouble maintaining a straight face. After a moment, they explained.
I had been asleep for something less than an hour when, without warning, my eyes snapped open and I sat up straight, announcing "I have just the thing! I have just the thing!" I then hopped out of bed, ran across the room to my desk, and snatched up the centrifuge. I pumped the handle several times, watching it spin, and, to the startled onlookers, announced "I'm not a weirdo...everyone's doing it!" Then, I quietly went back to bed and went to sleep. I can't recall if I took the centrifuge with me.
While I've done plenty of talking in my sleep this is the only incident of somnambulism on my resume that I'm aware of.

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

I'm back now.

Forced Nostalgia

A strangely forced, obligatory portrayal of an American Grafitti-style Drive-in scene. Sometimes I would do drawings in which I felt in some way compelled to follow my impression of how things were supposed to be depicted, rather than really expressing myself, and this seems to be such a case. I also have several examples of the cliched squiggle-haired stick figure labeled "TEACHER" (occasionally misspelled intentionally) that are invariably seen on the blackboard in any cartoon set in a classroom.
A notable aspect of this drawing is that I did draw the sign of the now-defunct Pete's Drive-In No. 5, located near my grandparent's house on E.River St. in Anderson, SC, although I don't think there was a canopy out front. Also, I should point out that the convertible has to be at least 30 feet long.

Chagrined Lion

Half-Freckled Cyclops

I think this fellows unusual markings may be attributed to laziness rather than intent, but who knows? Kids are nutty. I've always suffered from poor follow-through, though.

Star Trek

I'm trying to figure out what the thing at the bottom (apparently not part of the Star Trek bit, since it's separated by the line above it) is supposed to be. It reminds me of the crude, stylized race cars in Indy 500 (or Rally-X, but that's still several years in the future). It's possible that I drew a car, and then was idly doodling, connecting outer edges, then corners. Alternately, the car image I see might just be coincidental, and it's an attempt at a version of some Star Trek vehicle or prop that I just can't remember, as I really haven't seen a whole lot of episodes in the last 20 years or so.

Two Unfinished Gaikings

For the uninitiated, Gaiking was a Japanese robot featured in the Shogun Warriors toy line, but not in the comic book.Probably referenced from some imported "Presto-Magix"-style rub-down transfers I got at a toy store in Wilmington, NC that I always visited when in town to see my grandfather. I used most of them on some cheap styrene plastic shoe-boxes I bought to store small toy parts (missiles, guns, etc.). Regrettably, they broke almost immediately, but I kept the cracked, useless lids for several years thereafter, purely because of the chipped, flaking images of Dangard Ace and friends still clinging to them.

Darth Vader's Head

I suspect that the stylized diamond-shaped "cheekbones" here are clumsily-referenced from Carmine Infantino's art in the Star Wars comic, but that's only conjecture.

"OPO"

Okay, so it's an octopus, obviously. but its bifurcated cranium seems to suggest that it's intended as a monster of some sort, and I believe that the squiggly lines in the middle are evidence that it's intended to be transparent, with the tangle of lines representing its internal organs. And, apparently, its name is "Opo" (possibly inspired by "Ocho", the pet octopus from the Hanna-Barbera Addams Family cartoon), unless those are supposed to be lumps or spots on its skin that were too sloppily drawn. I'm pretty sure that's his name, though.

Invasion of the Saucer Men

    

       The inspiration for a lot of these pieces is lost to me, but this one is easy. It's referenced from 2 or 3 different publicity stills from Invasion of the Saucer Men, but mainly this one: 

... which was one of the illustrations for the Famous Monsters of Filmland article on the film, as reprinted in 1979 in this Alien cash-in  special, which has one article on Alien, but is otherwise all early-'60s reprints (which was just fine by me):
I remember being very pleased with this drawing, particularly with the color modeling of his bulging head-veins.

Hand-Turkeys

Now, what else did you think I'd post today? It's a grand old American tradition. I wonder what children in turkeyless countries turn their hand-tracings into?

This is the drawing that's bleeding through from the reverse (or possibly obverse...I'm not sure which side was originally the front) side of the above piece. I don't know why the vulture perched on the sign has two different-colored wings.

Eyes or Ears?

You tell me. Whatever they are, they're pretty ostentatious.

The UHF Spectrum

Today's episode is dedicated to Mr. Dave Merrill, America's Ambassador to Canadia.

In today's media-soaked world, it's easy to forget how limited and ephemeral one's entertainment options really were (I mean, if you weren't willing to settle for playing outdoors and interacting with other living humans and stuff, of course). Upstate South Carolina had many good points, but the availability of a wide selection of interesting syndicated reruns and cartoons on the local channels was not among them. Until 1980, if I wanted to see cable television, I had to ride on a different bus after school with my friend Richard Dubose to his grandparents' house in town, at which point we could then watch about 90 minutes of WTCG (Later WTBS, TBS, and now WPCH) out of Atlanta before we hitched a ride home with one of my parents at 6:00. Spectreman and Space Giants were rare, hard-won treats indeed. If I was staying downtown in the evening, I could go over to the bar adjacent to the bookstore my father managed and they'd let me watch KTVU out of Oakland, which was at that time a "superstation" on nationwide cable, like WOR, WGN, and the aforementioned WTBS. Not only did it have a thrilling (if crappy) array of shows I'd only read about previously, like The Marvel Superheroes, and Clutch Cargo, but due to the time difference, they just got going as the local channels went to the news hour. Plus, they featured TV Pow!, the world's most retarded game show!
Around this period, my friends and I generally rushed up the hill from the bus stop to the nearest friendly house to watch Star Blazers (and, most days, the second half of New Zoo Revue, which preceded it, even though we were a bit old for it) on the local Christian channel, WGGS. They mixed a bit of secular programming amongst the sacred, but outside of the aforementioned pair, there wasn't much to see. On the other hand, it was always exciting to tune in to channel 40, if they were on the air.
WAIM was a tiny, low-power station that showed both ABC and CBS programming in the evenings, but the afternoons were filled with a crazy party mix of kid-oriented programming. A typical afternoon would feature Felix the Cat, Mighty Mouse, Speed Racer, The Little Rascals, and other assorted cartoons...but in no fixed sequence.! In fact, on at least one occasion that I recall, they played a Speed Racer, followed it with 15 minutes of Mighty Mouse, and then repeated the same Speed episode. Also, at least once every couple of weeks, the transmitter would break down and they'd have to send over to Greenville for a repairman, so they'd be off the air for the night. Watching channel 40 was an adventure. It was probably on such an afternoon that I drew this page of mostly Speed-related doodles. I don't recall if the flying saucer car is from the show, or whether it was my own design. Again, like yesterday, we see the notes on homework interpolated with the drawings.

10 Homonyms

Regrettably, this was just a drawing and a hastily-scrawled homework assignment sharing a page, rather than an illustration of a fanged gentleman shouting his love for homonymy. Incidentally, spellcheck thinks that "homonymy" is not a real word, but it's a big stupid idiot in that regard.

With luck, my recent computer difficulties are behind me (though I'm still using a scanner bearing a sticker exhorting me to "Get Ready for Win98", so there are still opportunities aplenty for disaster), and, barring further mischance, (week)daily postings should now resume. Did you miss me?

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.

Stylized Toddler

I believe this is my attempt at doing Munro Leaf.