Ladies and Gentlemen...Thong Guy

There was a point some years back when everywhere my family went on vacation, this character would magically appear at poolside, like our own personal Bellini. It kind of put us off vacations for a while.

My Creative Process (Part Two)

More joy with my Inner Critic and friends...

My Creative Process

Meet my inner critic! He's much nicer in person...

BONUS HIDDEN "IFFY" COMIC

Iffy's recurring pal "Doggypuppy" reads from an outline for his upcoming graphic novel:

This is the first panel (above)

This is teh next one

Above, the viewer will note another in a series of panels.

Panel # 5. (There was no panel 4. Did you miss it?)

The End. This has been an Iffy Production.

Here comes Trouble....

"'Here Comes Trouble?' You call that an introduction?"

Meet "Chip," the lovable, nacho-flavored tri-cornered invisible entity that lives on my shoulder. For reasons that should soon become obvious, I have kept him both invisible and silent, since he is apt to give voice to the worst, most egregious and unspeakable comments lurking in my subconscious. I cannot always vouch for or support what he has to say, but he's always there, and I cannot stop him.

In the interest of World Peace, I have decided to try letting Chip vent his imaginary spleen from time to time here in the relative privacy of the small room. Perhaps in this way, some harmless steam will be blown off, and I will prevent myself from spontaneously combusting. 

Perhaps. Perhaps...

Stay tuned.

Z v R

To tell you the truth, I never really liked zombies. Yeah, I know, George Romero is a cinematic diety (bla bla bla) and even I liked that comedy one with the Irish guys, but I'd find pretty much any movie where a non-zombie main character runs around with a dart in his head for fifteen minutes pretty hard to resist. But aside from that, I just don't get the big fascination with all the rotting skin and protruding bones, outsized contact lenses and other prosthetics. You can basically see scarier things on the red carpet at the Golden Globes. Scarier still is Vince, the evil-eyed SHAMWOW! on-air salesperson, but I digress...

And as for robots, well, let's just say their number was up with me when a little guy named Twiki shuffled onto the scene full of Mel Blanc sass and Billy Barty 'tude (pronouced: "Billibarttitude"). Not even the Terminator and Brit Hume could restore global robotic dignity after that.

But when you pit zombies and robots against each other, and have them be drawn by THIS GUY, hey you've gotten my attention. And attention has been gotten for well over a year, since I noticed a copy of THIS in my local pop culture and graphical novel salon (aka nerd haven). To be honest, even though I snapped up the first issue, I have a tendency to skip the pesky word balloons and just look at the pictures. Now the complete series is out in one big volume, so I can absorb all the pictures and ignore all the text in one, long, slothful indulgence. (No offense, writer guy, but to even things up I make a point of skipping pictures in books that have mostly words.)

Seriously, this guy Ashley Wood is a painter after my own money. I see his stuff on a cover and reach for my well-worn wallet as if there's a chalupa involved. He has a (kind of confusing) web site and a very accessible (BUT "NSFW" and "NOT KID-FRIENDLY SO UNDER 18-AGERS STAY AWAY!" ) BLOG, where you can see what envy inducing stuff he is up to on a regular basis. BE FOREWARNED: he is pretty "in yo face" with the risque content, but his skills are hard not to admire. Even things like gas masks, corpses, telephone poles and army helmets become things of beauty in his hands. He also does special edition toys and other cool stuff, but good luck finding even an image of one. These are all invariably snapped up by a more ardently devoted fan base than I am in, and whisked into the sanctitude of their bedroom closets and sock drawers, away from the prying eyes of the unfortunate.

(Editor's note: this post contains only links and no images because I don't personally know the artist, but he looks like he might be the kind of guy who'd kick my proverbial butt if I swiped grabs [or grabbed swipes] of his work and put them here. Likewise, I'd add a permanent link, but I try to keep things generally kid-friendly here, so nobody gets hoit. But if you're not a kid, and not particularly friendly, check it out.)

From the slosh pile

A noble bearA less than noble weasle.

"Flipp'er? I hardly even know 'er?"

"Ahahahaha. This guy thinks he's Henrich freakin' Kley! What a joke!"

Tytla, the "old mice-tro"

I just stumbled across these old xeroxes and figured I'd post them before I lose them again. They are from a project Bill Tytla was trying to launch in his twilight years: MOUSETHUSELA, THE 2000 YEAR OLD MOUSE. I can't recall who gave me these, but I had heard about this project for years. In at least one Tytla bio I read, one of his contemporaries (likely Art Babbit or Grim Natwick, I can't remember for sure) recalled seeing Tytla working on sketches for this project in his final days and referred to them as I think, "pitifull" or "pathetic".

Maybe my standards are lower, but aside from the main character, they aren't quite as bad as I expected. Mousethusela himself looks a bit too much like Magoo for my taste. Otherwise, the sketches still show wit and skill.
Some sort of aristocratic character, maybe a villain?

A "pixellated" (drunk) mouse, as described in type apparently devised to register the characters with the US copyright office.
I have a few more pages of this, but they are so faint and broken up, they are barely visible and not worth scanning. I remember a short (and rather boring) syndicated cartoon on TV in the 1970's about a mouse character cavorting in barely animated history lessons, but it was not done by Tytla, Maybe it was somehow revived after he died and mutated into something else.Here's a LINK to an episode. Was Ralph Bakshi involved in this?

UPDATE: Steve Worth has kindly sent along THIS LINK to an online reprint of a fine Tytla bio by John Canemaker. Included are better copies of the last 2 images shown here.