More of My Shitty Comics.

This one took awhile, but sometimes that's how it goes. You start out with that creative urge down deep in your guts, but when you sit down to bang it out,... nothing. So you figure maybe you'll have better luck if you try again later, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. It becomes a waiting game. You can't force it. You just have to relax and let it come, and when it finally does, and you look down at the finished product it's with a mix of relief and pride. You did it. Now it's time to close the lid on this one and send it on it's way, out into the world. Your work here is done... for now. The urge will soon come again, and you will once more take to your seat and create! Such is the fate of the Artist.

But I'm posting it anyways

Here's this weeks entry! It's short, but it's,.. well it's short. Anyway, I'll be back next week with something more substantial.

Forbidden Love!

I'm back by popular demand, with more of those comics I make! I'm gonna try to lay something on ya at least once every week from here on out for the rest of the year. Can I do it? *shrug* I dunno, maybe, I guess. The only way to find out is to hop aboard this white knuckle roller coaster ride of a blog, and hang on to the end of the year! Ho Boy! You can smell the excitement in the air!

Now as a guy who spent some time working in the retail end of the comics biz back when it wasn't so glamorous, I can attest to the fact that there were more weird, wacky, and wild characters coming through the door, than ever existed on the printed page. I swear to all the Gods that some of these guys had such a throbbing fetishistic love for comics and toys, and the characters therein, that I shuddered to think of what they did alone at home. (Ask me about the Tigra guy sometime.)
Are the events in this strip real? Maybe. I mean, I can't say for sure this hasn't happened. I've just presented the possible facts, and leave it to you, the reader to decide.

Strange visitor from another planet...

Happy New Year! The dawning of a New Year always seems to inspire reflection on years past, and as I am posting the last of (for now) my faux covers, I thought I would include a few thoughts relevant to the title in question, and comics in general.

Back in 1980 I was buying a lot of comic books, in January, I bought 26 Marvel comics, and 1 DC book. Looking back at what was on the stands in the months preceding and following I can see that on average I was buying 25 - 30 comics and comics magazines a month leaning heavily on the Marvel side of things. Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot, but I was 15 years old at the time, and the only form of income I had was my lunch money. So I ate what my friends didn't want (apples, tapioca pudding, date loaf, etc.) and bought comics on my way home after school.

I'd always read comics, they helped teach me to read. I would get them in my stocking at Christmas, on road trips, I'd buy them with my allowance during the summer, I'd read and trade them with my friends, but it wasn't until 1978 that I began buying comics regularly and using them as a form of escape. that was the year I became a fan-boy, and the year my parents divorced.

Similar stories abound, I've read them online, and heard them anecdotally back when I worked in a comic shop, many a Fan-Boy was born, like Batman through some form of childhood trauma and need for escape. This no doubt explains why so many social misfits make up the core of comics fandom and industry pros nowadays, to the detriment of the all.

Yeah, not a popular opinion, I know. But come on, this industry was better off when it was being run by petty criminals and pornographers, than it is now, with fat socially retarded fan-boys at the helm.
I like to think that the 60's to the early 80's are an exception of sorts, the Gangsters were retiring and the early fan-boys were just starting to creep in, and all those involved were trying to maintain a certain level of professionalism. But what do I know?

At any rate, on to the subject at hand, Rom Spaceknight. This was one of those things like G.I Joe, or Transformers, or Micronauts, that was a toy property dropped into Marvel's lap to create a backstory for, and to generate an ongoing comic series meant to promote a toy line. In the case of Rom however, it was stillborn. the one toy produced was a piece of crap, and the proposed line ended there. The comic I think ran 72 issues with stories by Bill Mantlo and art by Sal Buscema and Steve Ditko. These guys truly made lemonade out of lemons and I for one enjoyed the result. So, submitted for your approval, my fake Rom cover!

Hail Satan!

Last post of the year, and it's another of my fan-boy indulgences. I'll probably throw up one more of these next year, and then it's back to some comics.
Hope everybody out there has a Happy New Year!

Fill Your Boots!

Another one of my cover homages, this time a homage to Swamp Thing #9 by the great Bernie Wrightson, only with Man-Thing swapped out for Swamp -Thing, seemed like a natural.

I met Wrightson at an industry party during the 1994 (I think) Chicago Comics Con, He was cordial, but as soon as he realized I was just another fan,  and no one of importance, he left like I had dropped a bad fart. I don't blame him, he'd spent the day talking to fawning fanboys, and was probably at the party looking to make some valuable connections. If I was him I would have probably done the same thing. It was nice to meet one of the Masters of Comics Art though, and express my appreciation for his work. There are far too many that I didn't get a chance to thank for the entertainment and inspiration they gave me over my life, and that's a damn shame

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Merry Christmas!

In an effort to keep adding crap regularly to this blog I'm posting another of my Marvel cover homages. This time I threw one together based on those 25th anniversary covers they did some years back.
There's a ton of stuff in my drawings I'd like to re-do every time I'm finished, but you gotta let shit go and move on to the next one or never finish anything. So here it is.