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.

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. 

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.

Superman and Superboy-- Together Again!

This may have been inspired by a story published around that period wherein Old and Young Supie get stuck in the same period and resolve their dilemma by having one stand still and the other fly at him with all his might (accompanied by some narration concerning the whole "irresistible force/immovable object" conundrum), the result being that this causes him to be bashed through the time barrier to his own home time zone. It seemed like specious reasoning even then, but I accepted it. Alternately, this may be Superman with his son Superman, Jr., from the "Super-Sons" stories that ran periodically in World's Finest in those days. Either seems plausible to me.

Three Comic Strips

What Grandfather could ask for a finer birthday gift than a trio of pantomime gag strips? In March of 1977, my own grandfather, John T. Thompson, Sr. was obliged to consider that very question on the occasion of his 65th birthday. If dissatisfied, he never mentioned it.
Said comics seem likely inspired by the Gold Key Club comics pages then used as filler in comics from that publisher. Sometimes they would just be wordless gags by staff artists, and other times there would be setups provided by the company and finished by readers. (Most if not all of these were 10-year old reprints-or just old used comics-at the time I was reading them, but it was all new to me). In this instance, though, I had to start from scratch. Taken in order:

• Icarus: In my retelling, Daedalus isn't involved. Icarus does it all himself. Of course, this may just be some other dude making himself a set of wings, but the mythological angle adds a touch of class. I thought the first panel was worthy of Saul Steinberg.

• Star Trek: A rather slight gag, but surprisingly post-modern and sophisticated for an 8-year old, if I might pat myself on the back.

• Superman: The least successful, mostly because the third panel is incomprehensible. I think it might involve Superman's construction of a jail cell, but I don't get it. The readers' interpretations are hereby solicited.

In retrospect, I wish I'd structured the third one to end with an explosion, so as to maintain the narrative symmetry, but I apparently wasn't all that concerned with it at the time.

Dial "H" For Hero (conclusion)

(Continued from here and here.)



While I recall at least a couple more designs (one was a flying woman with big hair like Starfire, and I recall a sort of girl version of Polar Boy... there may well have been more), this is the last one of these designs that I can lay hands on. He's basically the Atom crossed with Ferro Lad, plus a cape. His atomic thingies are probably intended to be a Captain Atom riff, but the result, regrettably is more reminiscent of Firestorm.
These might or might not have made the grade if I'd had any follow-through, but we'll never know. As it is, the only marks I left on the world of comics in my teens were a letter in Neil the Horse and a mention in Cerebus. C'est la vie.

Dial "H" For Hero (part two)

Here we have the second of my never-submitted character designs, as explained in part one. I don't recall if Chris and Vicky ever changed their ethnic makeup in their transformations, but I apparently thought that Chris might work well as a black pirate guy with some sort of magic sword. I don't know if his peculiarly cross-eyed nipples are part of his super-powers or not. Man...that tiny head is traveling into Liefeld territory, isn't it?

Tomorrow: even more!

Dial "H" For Hero (part one)

Dial "H" For Hero was a fairly obscure DC Comics series created in 1965 about a teen-ager who found a magical gadget shaped like a rotary telephone that, when the letters H-E-R-O were dialed on it, would transform the user into a variety of superheroes. If this seems kinda similar to Ben 10 to you, you're not alone. Anyway, after a long dormancy, the strip was revived in 1981 with a new gimmick... now, the goofy contrived heroes (and villains) would be created by the readers. The winning contributors got t-shirts. I don't know off-hand how many if any of the winners ever worked in the comics industry, but there was a winning entry from famous comics dilletante Harlan Ellison. I wonder if he still has his shirt? I sat down at my grandmother's house one evening with pens, paper, and a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and turned out a stack of submissions, none of which I ever bothered to send in. I know there were more than I now have, but I've got a few left with which to embarrass myself. Though, frankly, these characters aren't any lamer than, say, Shadowhawk. But here, you be the judge! I give you.... FIRESTARTER!


Okay, so the name's kind of lame....but in my defense, this was the dawn of the "grab the nearest noun and trademark it" era of superhero nomenclature, and I basically lived in bookstore, so Steven King titles were staring me in the face constantly (though I've never read the book or seen the movie). The costume's kind of a Gil Kane riff and I suspect that the stylized flames were intended as kind of Steve Ditko-ish.
Tomorrow: more of the same!

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.

Kibbles and Bits

Random doodles, of which the three on the lower right were drawn by my father. Why did I draw a vampire whale? Who can say?

Hembeck Style

Fred Hembeck was (and still is) one of the most prominent star artists in comics fanzines, though he has done a fair amount of work for the major publishers through the years. I would first encounter his work in the form of short gag strips in the backs of various DC comics in the late '70s (archived here). I've always enjoyed his work, but 1980-85 was the height of my interest. I still remember riding back from a Charlotte Mini-Con in the back of my friend Jerry's mother's car, while we performed a radio play-style performance of the Fantastic Four Roast. Looking back, I can say that Fred was probably the single biggest outside influence on my taste in comics in those days. If not for him, I might not have known how much I needed Brother Power, the Geek or Mysterious Suspense. Thanks, Fred!
These drawings are an approximation of his earlier, clunkier style (he's since streamlined the lumpy elbows and knees, while retaining the trademark knee squiggles). One can criticize that early work for its overuse of a basic stylized design that is customized to suit one's needs, like a Zwinky or a Qee, but the upside of it is that a 13-year old can apply the design rules and produce a reasonably presentable imitation of it. Of course, that's not at all the same as being able to make actual comics of note, which Mr. H was doing all along, and continues to this day.

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.

Ducktor Solar, of all things

In the wake of the mid-'70s success of Howard the Duck (now overshadowed in the popular consciousness by the wretched movie), for a time there was a vogue in comics circles for drawing duck versions of popular characters (for evidence of this, see any fanzine from 1976-79). This is from a few years later, but I was really too young to appreciate Howard during its lifetime (my collection was assembled from quarter boxes at the [Anderson, SC] Jockey Lot from 1981 to '83). So...I decide to draw duck super-heroes. So who do I draw? Super-Duck? No. Bat-Duck? Nope. I do an anthropomorphic version of the at that point ridiculously obscure Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom. Go figure. I also did a batch of drawings in this same period of the X-Ducks (Including an acrylic painting of...um..."Ducklops", I guess), but I'm not inclined to expose those to the world. You wouldn't be seeing this if not for the urging of one of my most loyal readers. So, ultimately, this is her fault.

DEADMAN?!?

This one's not in the greatest of shape, but it's particular historic significance (to me, at least) because it is probably the first time I ever drew superheroes, inspired by the second super-hero comic I ever read, and the first one I actually liked, after this one creeped me out and chased me away from the long-underwear comics for another year. So, as it happens, the story that did appeal to this 5 1/2-year old was one wherin a serial killer using razor-edged boomerangs to slaughter innocents is revealed to be Batman's heretofore-unheard of older brother, who was institutionalized for life after suffering brain damage from a childhood accident. Batman and Superman solve this crime with the assistance of Deadman (who, for the uninitiated, is the ghost of an assassinated circus aerialist, who has been granted the ability to possess the bodies of the living by a made-up far Eastern goddess so that he might track down his killer). At the end of the story, Deadman wanders off in the killer's body (I never actually saw the later follow-up story where this is resolved until years later). In retrospect, I have no idea why this didn't terrify me, but I liked it enough that I was inspired to draw this baby.

A Cyclops and the Flash

This is the page immediately following my "Scythes" piece, offering a further cyclops drawing, along with some experiments in rendering motion, Flash-style. I'm kind of surprised that these two themes are mixed on the same page, since it was my tendency in those days to use a new page for every new idea (leading to endless pages with a single arm or a half-completed x-wing or the like). Here, though, the bits and pieces bump up against each other. I have no conclusion to draw about this.

Supercrab!

I'm sure there was a rationale for putting a cape and boots on an otherwise not particularly anthropomorphized crab. What it was, I cannot recall. I don't think this was a character I though through to any extent, or tried to develop further (like the Bionic Banana, whom you'll meet at some point). I think I just felt like drawing seafood with clothing.

Self-Rejected

Two drawings that I apparently found unacceptable at the time. Now I find myself to be my own Max Brod, bringing to light work that the 8-year old me never wanted to be seen. Sorry, kid. I guess I can see why I didn't like Bulletman, but he has his charm. My own Bulletman was chewed to death by a neighborhood dog; my associates and I made a sarcophagus for him from an old toolbox and put his remains in a crypt deep inside a stack of terra-cotta pipes behind our apartment building. I actually don't recall ever exhuming his remains over the subsequent decade of my residence there. The place has been messed with considerably since then, and I know it's long gone by now, but I do wonder at what point somebody found this puzzling relic. The Enterprise and the Andorian look comparable to my other drawings of the time, but I apparently felt differently. It's possible that the Andorian was referenced from the Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual, which I've still kept around, just in case I ever need to intubate a Gorn.

SUPER-AMPUTEE!

Q: Why does a super-hero wear red suspenders?

A: To hold his prosthetic leg-rockets on!

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN introduced the idea of prosthetics as super-power to a whole generation of kids...the idea that grievous bodily disfigurement is your ticket to adventure! I can recall imagining the fun I might have if I weren't saddled with those puny meat-limbs of mine. In retrospect, the White House might have gotten more bang for the buck using the money spent on bribing radio personalities and producing fake news spots to instead produce a new, extreme version of our old buddy Steve Austin. I'm sure the kids would be mobbing the recruiters looking for their chance to score an awesome new bionic arm or two.

SUBPeRMAN

Man...Supie sure is happy!This one displays a perhaps-borderline dyslexic tendency of mine to transpose "P" and "B" (also "M" and "W")...but I caught it in time! Also, then and now, I've always really liked lowercase "e".

From a year or so earlier, here are a couple of abandoned attempts (not actually from the same page, but united by Photoshop). The first one I obviously didn't care for, but I don't know why I didn't finish the other one.