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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

War of the Satellites: the Prequel

Well...it looks like I have to slightly revise my understanding of last Wednesday's entry, which it now appears was the second panel of a narrative sequence. It seems that the space pirate's satellite-thingy was engaged in a dogfight with some sort of composite of an X-wing fighter and a Colonial Viper (suggesting that this was drawn slightly later than I'd imagined), as seen here, before defeating it in the previously-shown piece. It is likely that the off-panel assailants of the pirate craft in the other piece would be found to resemble the ship shown here. Aren't you glad we cleared that up?

Derivative Robot with Pistol

This fellow's head seems to be a variation on the "Death Star Droid" (with some kind of gadget emitting an electrical arc added on his forehead), while his legs come from Force Commander. The background is fairly perfunctory...note that the small rocky hill is in fact too small for the door built into it. It looks like I tried to fix it by adding a tiny doorway at the bottom to turn it into a tall building off in the distance that's awkwardly placed in front of a mountain, but the horizon line betrays me.

A Busy Day on the Moon

There's a lot going on here-- there's Space Station K-7 (propelled by rockets for some reason), the proposed L-5 Point Space Station, a Mercury capsule, and what I think are a couple of Robert Goddard's early experimental rockets, along with a dome-shaped lunar base and a couple of robots of my own design. A pretty odd mix.

Hurricane Fighter Plane

While that was a snappy title to borrow, I don't think this was actually supposed to be a Hurricane. It sort of looks like a Thunderbolt, but the lack of an engine cowling on the nose rules that out. Regrettably, my knowledge of WWII-era Allied fighter craft has atrophied somewhat since 1979. I'm just hoping that this is an aerial view of a plane on the ground (the immobile prop would suggest that), otherwise the pilot has a bit of a problem.

Death Star Droid

Drawn the same week in '79 as last Monday's entry, and unquestionably referenced from the action figure.

Droid With a Bad Motivator

Yes, it's poor old R5-D4, hanging out with another droid that I apparently decided wasn't worth finishing. Back in the period between EMPIRE and JEDI, when there was much speculation as to who the other potential Jedi that Yoda had referred to might be, the best theory I ever heard of picked R2-D2. The evidence for this being that, when Uncle Owen passed over R2 in favor of today's star attraction, R2 beeped angrily and shook a bit, and KERPOW!! Poor R5-D4's head blew up... just as if R2 had used "Jedi mind tricks" to sabotage him! It was obviously a stretch, but it still could have made for a better film than the cinematic cow patty that we wound up with.

Me Little Swee'Pea

It appears that this was drawn with a Sanford felt-tip calligraphy pen, for some reason.

Feets Don't Fail Me Now!

This is from one of the scenes with John Belushi as a Death Squad Commander that were cut from the final released version. Okay, so technically speaking, that's what is known as a "bare-faced lie", but there is an undeniable resemblance.This is the last to be posted, but the first-drawn of a series of images of Star Wars folk getting shot that I drew in the spring of 1979. This is unique among them in that the protagonist hasn't actually gotten shot yet, and there's an attempt at a background (with rudimentary perspective, even!).

Giant Robotic Caterpillar Vehicle (Cutaway View)

Actually, the title pretty much says it all.

Space Guy Swinging on Rope

Well, this guy's kind of an odd mix-and-match of source material...the "swinging on a rope firing a ray gun" bit is coming from the STAR WARS scene where Luke and Leia swing across the chasm, but the pose here is more akin to Spider-Man, particularly as depicted on the Bakshi cartoon. His mask is kind of a fruity Mardi Gras version of the helmets worn by the Spectrans on BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, crossed with Zoltar's mask from the same show. That part I definitely remember. Unlike the aforementioned characters, I conceived this guy as a hero, but I don't recall naming him. I do recall being very pleased with this drawing at the time.

Pin the Tail on the Daggit

For a slight change of pace, here's a photo of my father holding aside a balloon to facilitate a game of "Pin the Tail on the Daggit" at my 11th birthday, on or about this day in 1979. He made the game out of white and mustard-yellow poster board (do they even make that color anymore?), and did a bang-up job of it, if I do say so myself. There was also a cake with a Colonial Viper airbrushed on top, and I seem to remember loaning the baker one of the toys as a reference, though it may have just been a comic book or an issue of Starlog. The kid playing the game is old chum David Alexander, who I haven't seen in nearly 25 years. Wherever you are, David, I hope you're well...and thanks for coming to my party!
CLARIFICATION: Upon applying the advanced detective's technique of looking at the back of the photo, I learn that this party occurred on April 22, 1979. A simple investigation determines that it was a Sunday, and my actual birthday fell on Tuesday, both then and now.

Poor Stormtrooper!

This is the immediate precursor to the popular Walrus Man diptych from one of the first posts here. There's actually another one before this showing a Death Squad Commander fleeing from pursuing blaster fire, but I'm withholding that one for a later discussion of one-point perspective.

B.C.

Johnny Hart died Saturday at the age of 76. In his later years, his rededication of his life from booze to the lord made him a lot more intolerant and a lot less funny, but the first 15 or 20 years of B.C. were strong enough that I think I'd rather remember him that way, minus the piety and the flat, flavorless golf jokes. I can't imagine that the afterlife will turn out for him like he envisioned, but I hope he settles in well regardless.

"Take Me to Your Leader"

Drawing spacemen and taunting classmates...two of the great pleasures of elementary school rolled into one. However, I didn't write the name of the victim (though I seem to have written everything up to that point), and I have no memory of a classmate by that name. I might have done this at summer camp, which would lessen the likelihood of the name having had time to make an impression. Or maybe I'm just getting senile ahead of schedule. Anyway, I apologise to Billy Fowler, wherever he may be. Unless he really is a Martian, if which case this apology is withdrawn.

The War of the Worlds

Two different drawings of Martian war machines from the George Pal production of War of the Worlds. While it was always a favorite (helped along by plenty of coverage in Famous Monsters and Starlog), these were probably prompted by a 1979 showing of a double feature of WOTW and Close Encounters of the Third Kind that I attended at the Sky-Way Drive-In in Anderson, SC (about a year before it shut for good). I recall being amused at the juxtaposition of the radically different views of alien contact, giving a kind of 'point/counterpoint" approach to the theme. My other most vivid memory of the drive-in experience is from a year previous, when I dragged my parents to The Incredible Melting Man. I was thoroughly disappointed with it, and irritated with the gratuitous '70s nudity, when I was there to see melting flesh and action, and there wasn't enough of either! Phooey! I do hope to at some point get the Halloween costume, though.


To conclude our presentation, let me note that today's posting is sponsored by the letter "F".