Wednesday, November 6, 2013

SpookyBear Weekend 2013 - Extended Bar Video


Now that SpookyBear Weekend has finally come and gone, I can finally post about some of the things that I had to keep under wraps for months leading up to the event.  We design an plan for months for every last detail of how the Paramount Nightclub will be transformed for the big party, and we keep it all top secret, so that the "big reveal" on Saturday night has the biggest impact.  This year's plan was to create the sense of stepping into a giant comic book.  The wall art, which I will describe in another post, accomplished this, but there had been a lingering desire to use the screen behind the big bar to bring the theme to life with light and motion.  The Event Coordinator, Chris Grasso, and I, plotted to what extent we would delve into the concept, listing out pages of shows and movies that needed some representation in our "Heroes & Villians" video.  At some point, the powers that be agreed that a 20ish minute video would be enough to give the crowd the sense that something new was on the screen every time they looked at it. 

After several weeks of research, and several near-sleepless nights, the video finally came together.  It included finished photography from PhotoBearNE, the original animation I produced as Hairyer Parts Comics, portions of the wall art set to motion, and lots of rapid-fire action shots of Superman, Batman, Avengers, and so much more.  If you were at the party and peered behind the bar, you probably didn't realize that the footage was all set to music so as to ensure a sense of timing.  I previewed the finished product a few hours before the party to the postcard models who made it to Provincetown.  They convinced me it needed to be seen online by the community at large.  Later in the evening, I wiggled my way to bar and noticed everyone waiting for their drinks were transfixed to the screen, which made my night. 

We wanted to create something that captured the spirit of the SpookyBear Weekend, that would be fun, sexy, and maybe even a little campy.  I think we succeeded in this.  So, here it is, the entire video.  Please enjoy.  And if you did, please share it, so that others can see it!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxBzoZLF7WU

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Giant Robots

Well after weeks and weeks of working on SpookyBear artwork, I am happy to say, I am 99% done and ready for a switch from Superheroes.  It was a noble effort to mash up anime with superfriends, manga with entry-level DC comics... I am not entirely sure if I am 100% happy with the results, but for wall art, it will work, and for that I am glad.  BUT I am ready to move on to other things.

Which leads me to tonight's post.  I finally got to see (or at least hear) all of the Albegas series while working on the above project, which led me to discover more Toei based super robot cartoons, including Voltes V and Starbirds / Daimos.  I am sooo looking foward to finding more of these (I hear Danguard Ace is coming out on DVD soon) soooo... here is a teaser to hold me over until then.  Somebody stitched together the intros to all 80's mecha series.  It looks like it's at least an hour of animation, many of which I have only heard of but never seen.  Voltron is in there, as Golion and Dairugger XV of course, and Robotech is in there too.  Lesser known imports, like Macron I / Gotriniton are in there as well.  It's basically where I am right now.  I am so ready to dust off some of my very early works and bring them forward to completion.  So on that note, have a look:


Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Combattler V 2012

I love it when I discover new anime, especially new takes on old classics.  My favorites of course are the super robot series, especially those from the Toei animation, the same creators of Dairugger XV, Albegas, and King of Beasts Golion.  But there is one that I wish I had seen as a kid... it's gotten a sleek reboot in the last year or so.... a predecessor to those tapped for the Voltron universe.... Combattler V.  From the still below, you can see it's got a similar 5-member team format to Golion, Gatchaman, and so many others... it's like another flavor of your favorite ice cream :-)



I won't waste much time writing about these clips since I don't know much more about the series other than what I'm saying here, except that I find these to be visually intriguing.  Makes me wish that the ones behind the new Voltron Force series would sit up and pay attention.  It also makes me wish I had gone to animation school in Japan, but that's another story altogether!  So sit back and enjoy these...





Monday, August 26, 2013

It's a Voltron Kind of Night!!

So I'm taking a break from animating the next (and last) footage of the Ursafriends, doing laundry and packing for camp.  I am usually in the habit of putting something on the big screen TV in the bedroom when I am packing, and tonight is no exception.  This time, I was very much in the mood for Voltron, since, the Ursafriends are meant to be an anime-bear version of the Superfriends... but for some reason, I reached for my Land Team boxed set of Vehicle Voltron instead of the Blue Lion boxed set.  I took a snapshot of the screen and uploaded it to Facebook... and of course, doesn't everyone just love the Lions better than good old Dairugger XV a.k.a. Vehicle Voltron.  So I had to throw in that Voltron was meant to be a trilogy (and someday, maybe someday I will finish writing & illustrating that comic) so meanwhile.... here are a couple homemade "artifacts" that show the Voltron that could have been.  Electro-Light Speed God Albegas would have been the third (actually second) installment of the Voltron Trilogy, and you can bet anything that the guy who played Keith (and Jeff) would have taken the lead on this one.... here is a homemade video from Youtube footage of Albegas, redubbed as Voltron II.  Below that is a make believe screenshot of all three robots, as if they were side by side in the Fleet Of Doom movie.  Anyhow... enjoy :-)

  



Friday, August 23, 2013

Sneak Peek of SpookyBear 2013

For the last two months, I have been living on a steady diet of Superfriends, Arrow, and comics in general.  I must totally confess that getting involved with SpookyBear in my first off year was completely selfish on my part.  What cartoonist in their right mind wouldn't jump at the chance to channel the Justice League (with Wolverine thrown in) to a bearish audience??  So the interim result is this video which I am sure a lot of my friends have seen already, but for those who might be following me only on Blogger, please enjoy watching this.  If all goes according to plan, there will be even more to see behind the big bar at the Crown & Anchor at the Saturday night costume party at SpookyBear Weekend itself.  I am very happy with the results of this, and am looking forward to making more animation!  Cheers!!

 

This video can also be seen on the following pages:  Hairyer PartsBears & Hunters - Online Express Edition, and of course, the SpookyBear Weekend page.  As of the time I'm writing this, it was uploaded 5 days ago, and already has 399 views!!  The first showing was last Saturday at the Ursamen member's only pig roast... it was a real crowd pleaser!!

Thursday, July 4, 2013

SpookyBear The Weekend

So a couple things have been going on to slow down my posts on my creative blog.  First, I have been buckling down as any good ex-president would, and have taken the time to catch up on things around the house.  Second, and this is a big one, I had been sinking some time into co-designing and coproducing the next SpookyBear Weekend for the Northeast Ursamen.  The original idea last fall was to do a "Heroes & Villains" party, but that fell away in favor of doing a more sophisticated Alfred Hitchcock theme.  I had actually set down to sketch ideas for the Hitchcock party, but we all soon realized that a Heroes & Villains idea would allow for more creativity and participation from the crowd.  So out went the idea of "Alfred Bearcock" and back in went "Heroes & Villains".  I set out to draw a few designs with the mantra of, "what if they were bears?"  This is my normal take on any creative, bear-themed project.  With a few sketches in hand, Chris (the Events Coordiantor and I set out to recruit the personnel for our shoot.  The star list changed a few times in the interim, but in the end it worked out really, really well.  We sewed lots of costumes for the heroes (and villains too) and held a great photoshoot with stellar bear photographer Tom aka PhotobearNE.com.  Meanwhile, I have been working on some custom animation for this project, to be seen in its entirety at Spookybear itself.  Later this summer, I may offer up some "behind the scenes" images, but for now, the end results of the photoshoot leave me feeling very happy.  Please enjoy these, and consider coming to what's arguably the best Halloween Party for Bears and their fans.





Saturday, June 22, 2013

Vintage Science Books

While the world is busy falling in love with Superman again (and really, what's not to love about the new Superman??), I am reminded of some of the original books that made me want to fly to the stars myself when I was a kid.  I recently came across some old hardbound and paperback "How & Why Wonder Books" that I used to read all the time when I was in my single digits.  These books made kids like me want to study the sciences. I wonder if kids these days really get to explore the world with something other than a computer game, but I digress.  I love the futuristic take on the illustrations... especially where a lot of these were created well before we actually landed on the moon, or before we ever sent Viking, Pioneer, and Voyager out to get close up pictures of the planets.  I could say it a hundred times, I was definitely a child of the space age, and I suppose I always will be :-)

I have also been collecting vintage Golden Guides recently, which are probably the better known books for their illustrations.  I'll post more about those at a later date.




Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Boys Ahoy!!

I'm excited to be producing artwork for a non-Ursamen entity.  I'm a founding member of the new Leather boys of New England (Leather b.o.N.E.) and we are throwing our first bar party in a couple weeks at the Providence Eagle for the Friday night of Providence Pride weekend.  A couple weeks ago, we finally nailed the title as "Boys Ahoy!" but there wasn't any kind of imagery out there that I wanted to see in the poster, so I figured a "Hairyer Parts Comics" image needed to be created.  This cartoon is one part Gil Kane, one part Norman Rockwell, and one part Leji Matsumoto.... the end result is probably about 90% where I wanted it to be, but when time is of the essence, there can be no retakes.  It's the first cartoon I've done for somebody other than the Northeast Ursamen, and for those not following me on Facebook, I figured it was worth it to help get the word out about the event as well.  We will be doing a 50/50 and live demos.  The block outside the Eagle will be closed to traffic so that you can take your drinks outside.  It should be a great time!!  http://www.facebook.com/events/459799817439843/


Saturday, May 11, 2013

Peanuts, The Art of Charles M. Schultz

In my previous post about my first exposure to cartooning ("How To Draw Cartoons"), I mentioned Charles M . Schultz as an early influence of mine, and I must say, I have not said enough about him.  In as much as I was a consumer of his work, I really studied it too.  I think I must have read every book of his comic strips in our elementary school library.  I was also quite taken by the idea that all his characters had a similar look and feel.  His character designs basically had interchangeable parts.  All you had to do was change the hair and the clothes, and suddenly you had another member of the Peanuts gang.  As an adult now, I understand that the drawings are but one component of the overall character... just watch, or even just listen to, any Peanuts holiday special to get the idea.  But in any case, some of my earliest characters were directly inspired by the Charlie Brown characters.  For this reason alone, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Schultz and his work.

A few years back, I stumbled upon a stunning art book whose title is also the name of this post. The book features incredible close-up photography of the actual printed comic strips, so that you can see the half-tone dots that are a by product of the printing process used to render Schultz's ink work.  Many of the pages show tape marks as they were photographs of scrapbook pages full of strips clipped from newspapers.  Scattered throughout the volume are photographs of toys and other memorabilia.  The overall effect is one of a gigantic collage that is enjoyable to explore.  The book shows Schultz's work in a much more intimate way than it had probably ever been presented before.  It's worth noting that the book is designed by Chip Kidd, a world famous book designer.  In as much as I find Schultz's cartoons inspiring, I must say I also find Kidd's books to be as much inspiring if not more.  They make you want to design your own books in such a compelling way so that people will WANT to read them.  I think I'm quite a ways off from doing that, but the direction is there.  Of course, when I just want to feel like a kid again, I reach for this book.  It's been a welcome and well used member of my collection.

The book cover... this just screams of Chip Kidd's style.

We actually saw this wall at the Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa on our honeynoo in 2003.







Monday, May 6, 2013

The Gemini II Recovery, Recovered

Recently, I've found myself saying frequently that I'm very much a child of the space age, and here is one of the reasons why.  When we were kids, my dad would break out his slide collection every once in a while and give us a show.  More often than not, we would be treated to photos my dad took when he was in the navy in the 1960's.  I fondly recall seeing images of the Gemini II landing, which his aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Lake Champlain, recovered.  I mean, I was the crazy kid to get up early in the 1980's to see space shuttle launches, so I guess I figured every kid had a dad who got to be there when space capsules splashed down, right?  I know now that these are really special memories, and I was a lucky kid to have been this close to the space race. For me, it was just a part of life to dream about going to space... I know I did.  I was the kid that was going to land on Mars, apparently.

When my dad retired and moved to North Carolina recently, he asked me to hang on to his photos and slides until he could transport them himself.  Well, I did what any normal kid would do some 30 years later... I went rumaging thru the archives until I could find those Gemini II images... and I did.  My dad recently turned 70, and I scanned a few of the slides to be incorporated in a photo display that my younger sister put together.  Below are the best of these images.  I will have them professionally scanned someday, bur for now, 1600 dpi scanning from my own scanner will have to do.  They have a bit of an Instagrammy, ghostly quality... but if nothing else, they are historic and simply must be shared.  These haven't really been seen by anyone in decades.  So here for you are some recovered images of the recovery of Gemini II, as seen thru the lens and the eyes of a navy meterologist, who happens to have the same name as me :-)


 





P.S. I've been told that somewhere in the collection are a few snapshots of the astronauts themselves.  Looks like I have more digging to do...  When I find them, I will post them on this blog.

Revision:  I was advised by said retired meteorologist, that these were in fact Gemini II, an unmanned mission.  U.S.S. Lake Champlain also picked up Gemini V which carried Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad.  I've revised this blog post to correct the mission, which I had previously described as Gemini V.  These images are in fact from Gemini II.  More to come, once I do some more digging. (6/6/2015)

Monday, April 22, 2013

Oracle vs. Iron Man 3


One of the rare instances where work and pleasure overlap very well together!!  This is quite literally, a cell phone snapshot of what I found at oracle.com this week when I logged in for work.  I have to admit, I cracked right up with the cameo of Larry Ellison in one of the previous movies, AND, I got to see the Iron Man suits in person at Oracle Openworld about 3 years ago in San Francisco... the overlaps and cross sponsorships are fun and brilliant.  All this being said, I can't wait to see Iron Man 3... DC needs to learn something from Marvel I mean Disney, because these movies Marvel is putting out are really top notch and first class, and wonderful for comic fans like me.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Watching Superman II Tonight


Tonight we are watching Superman II. After the horrific events in Boston this week, its time for something fun.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Kellogg's PEP Comic Buttons

So I recently dusted off my old 1945  Superman radio show CD's and gave them a listen the other night.  They're delightfully goofy in all the right places, but the one part that sticks out in a rather odd way are the incessant ads for Kellogg's PEP, "that super-delicious cereal", which sponsored the show.  If you listen to the show and don't get the message that there's a free button in every package, then you must be deaf.  I decided to Google PEP and the buttons to see what they looked like.  They're actually kinda cool.  Most have white backgrounds, and they come in two general types.  The first few sets feature military insignia and war planes.  The second group feature pretty much every comic character featured in the press at the time... Superman, Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, and a lot of others that I don't know but probably should.  They're so simple but they make me want to mint my own buttons with my own characters on them!!  In any case, you can bet I'll be scouring the flea markets this spring for these little gems.  "They sure are a honey!"







Wednesday, April 3, 2013

1940's Superman Cartoons

I've been catching up on my superhero cartoons and have discovered some of the old 1940's Superman cartoons on Youtube.  These remind me of the old Looney Tunes cartoons that used to look grainy and have a big band soundtrack.  Somewhere in my collection, I have a hardbound book of the old Superman newspaper comic strips (I will have to do a bit on that for "Skeeter's Library"), and I also have a CD set of old Superman and Batman radio programs.  To find the animated cartoons from the 1940's is really great, because now I get to see that "3rd dimension" of video media that easily could have been lost to time.  I really need to find these on DVD... oh, and the 1970's Superfriends cartoons.  For your viewing enjoyment, click on the images below:



Monday, March 25, 2013

Space Age Art of Robert McCall

This weekend, Sir Robert and I paid a visit to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.  It had been about 20 years since I had been there, so it was good to get back there and see some great things again.  Space capsules, a Lunar Module, giant rockets, a section of Skylab, Pioneer, Viking, they were all there.  One of the most impressive things to see, however, was not a piece of machinery.... it was a mural.  On the wall in the main lobby was an amazing depiction of space exploration.  A moon landing and an larger-than-life Apollo astronaut seemed to gaze out at the museum visitors, amid a backdrop of countless planets, starts, and galaxies.   The style of the work was very familiar to me, so today,  I did some Googling to find out who the man was behind the work.

The mural, aptly named, "The Space Mural - A Cosmic View", was painted in 1976 by Robert McCall.  McCall is probably one of America's greatest space age painters of all time.  As I paged thru images of his work, I realized I had seen lots of his paintings before.  I was taken back to my youth, when I had a great sense of optimism for space exploration, science, and the future.  It's clear to me that McCall wished to share this same sense of optimism and vision with all those who saw his work.  He really spoke to an entire generation that grew up watching moon landings, shuttle launches, and planetary fly-bys.  At least, I can say, he spoke to me.  As I looked at the mural, and the array of capsules and rocketry, I said aloud in the museum that I always dreamt of space travel and the future... and I still do.

These are photos I took of the mural:




Here's a great article about McCall.  Here is another.

And just because... here are images of a few of the space stamps that Robert McCall's work appears on:


Thursday, March 21, 2013

Retro-Active....

I must admit, some of my most favorite toys were the original MEGO "Worlds Greatest Superhero" dolls.  Well, action figures.  I had Superman, Batman, and Robin.  I remember being a little perplexed why they didn't have wieners underneath their clothes.  If that wasn't a sign, I don't know what was!  But they were great, and how I wish I took care of them or held on to them.  Like-new MEGO's go for a pretty penny today.  Of course, I wouldn't be collecting them for the investment value... as it is, I have too many Superhero figures.  But when I found out that Mattel came out with a new line of "Retro-Active" figures done in a similar style, I'm as perplexed that I didn't know about them!!  Drat!!  I have the Green Lantern and Green Arrow ones they did in the 90's (along with Aquaman, Superman, and Batman) that were meant to look like MEGO, and now I'm wondering if the Retro-Active ones are smaller?  I'm guessing I would have to start over if I wanted something close to a JLA.  I swore I would not spend any more money on toys that were going to sit in boxes... but damn, these are cool looking!


1960's Superhero Cartoons!!

I totally on a superhero kick right now... they just announced the theme for SpookyBear Weekend 2013 as "Heroes & Villains" and that is totally right up my alley!  So I've been taking a trip down memory lane (again), catching up on the old Filmation superhero cartoons that predated the 1970's Superfriends programs.  It was not an unusual thing to see Green Lantern solo adventures right along side Superman, Superboy, the Atom, and The Flash.  Of course, we didn't get these shows locally... you had to hope the antenna on the roof would catch those weak signals from channel 5 from NYC.  When we finally got cable, they came up once in a while.  So here is an idea of what I'm talking about... totally goofy, primative, and campy to boot.  Here is my favorite superhero of all time, GREEN LANTERN, in his own solo adventure.  Check out the entire channel of Filmation's cartoons 


Friday, March 8, 2013

Cell Painting Tonight


Tonight I am painting a new Hairyer Parts Universe cartoon cell. If all goes according to plan, this priceless baby will be auctioned off for charity at the Northeast Ursamen's Out Of Hibernation 2013 in Provincetown, MA next weekend.

FYI, Hairyer Parts Comics now has a Facebook page, at http://www.facebook.com/HairyerPartsComics.  The final image of the cell will be previewed there before being put up for auction.  The entire collection of behind-the-scenes photos of the "making of" the cell will be featured as a permanent article on http://www.hairyerparts.com/ after OOH.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Star Blazers - WCC Animation Comics

In my teen years I began going to sci-fi conventions, and the vendor rooms were usually a treasure trove for fans of anime.  I remember seeing stacks of Japanese books on Space Cruiser Yamato, known here as Star Blazers.  It must have been around 1986 or 1987 when I stumbled upon an English print edition of the "Quest For Iscandar" series of Star Blazers.  I think I went there with hard-earned lawn mowing cash and spent $50 to get all five volumes of these "animation comics" which featured full color screenshots of the television series.  I went home that day with all five volumes.  I knew then I was starting a library of great art books.  I had often figured if there was ever a house fire, I would grab these books and go! I still have them today.


Sunday, March 3, 2013

Homemade Voltron Animation

So it's been about a week since my last post... work has been crazy, and this weekend at home has been all about spring cleaning.  As I was pondering what to post, I realized I had hardly posted anything about my favorite cartoon from my teens... and that would be Voltron!  Most people who knew me at the time associated this cartoon with me, mostly because it drove my creativity to new levels... if I wasn't drawing Voltron, I was writing with my best pal Debra.  We had a titanic expanded universe with both Voltrons, plus our classmates as cast members of the show.  So I really cannot leave out the Defender Of The Universe... there is so much I could include about this program.  So when you look at my characters, you are seeing something that is greatly influenced by this 80's anime program, among others.

Every once in a while, I dabble with animation... I am by no means an expert, but I don't let that stop me from trying things out.  A few years ago, I wanted to recreate one of the original clips of Lion Voltron swinging his sword back... not the one you saw in every episode, but one that would have been seen in one of the early episodes.  I heavily referenced the original animation to get this done... I quite literally reverse engineered it.  The final result contains about six frames (the original production would have used many more), each had to be digitally stitched together and then colored.  The lens flare was added later.  Check it out... enjoy.






Friday, February 22, 2013

Lonesome Ghosts!!

So a very long time ago, I had one of these Fisher Price hand-held movie viewers.  It was waaaaay cooler than a GAF Viewmaster which could only show one frame at a time.  The movie viewer accepted a cartridge which contained a real, celluloid motion picture.  You aimed it at a light source and cranked it by hand.  The two cartridges I had were cartoons, one of which I do not remember... the other was Disney's "Lonesome Ghosts".  I used to watch this cartoon short over and over again.  I ran it at normal speed, fast, slow, forwards and backwards... I couldn't have been more than 4 years old at the time... and I was already studying how to make pictures move.  The only catch... there was no sound.  So I am sure I've watched it about 100x more without sound than with sound.  As this blog is turning into a creative archive of my work and inspirations, I couldn't not post about this favorite cartoon of mine... I guess the part of me that loves cartoons will never grow up.


Monday, February 18, 2013

Hairyer Parts reboot

For the time being, I've disconnected most of the old Hairyer Parts website as I'm retooling and reworking the Hairyer Parts Universe into "Hairyer Parts Comics".  For the time being, I've set up a slideshow of previous work as a placeholder until I can get more of my newer work finished and uploaded.

Dade Ursus

While it would be easy to turn this blog into a collection of big-eyed anime characters, transforming robots, and other sanitized, kid-friendly content, my blog just would not be complete without a few tip-of-the-hat's to gay artists who inspired me to do artwork for a gay audience.  DaDe Ursus is one of those artists.  His work was commonly seen on t-shirts back in the mid-1990's as the bear movement was picking up steam.  Around that time, I made my first trip to San Francisco, to the Lone Star, and to the Bear Store which was run by Brush Creek Media.  They were the ones who marketed DaDe Ursus, and at the Bear Store were all sorts of tshirts and art cards with his work on them, but the best find was his book, "Bears, Beasts & Masculine Beauties".


It actually took me a long time to get this book.  For some reason, I hesitated, and instead went home with another volume in this series, and then we all know what happened.  Brush Creek Media went under, the store was closed, and suddenly books like these were out of print. At Bear Week a few years ago, we noticed people walking around with t-shirts that looked identical to the ones minted back in the 1990's, as if they had just come off the presses.  We made our way over to M.G. Leather, where we learned that they bought all the outstanding stock from the Bear Store!  I was able to acquire this long lost volume and a few like-new tees.  My most favorite of them all, sadly, was not available, so I will be sure to take extra care of my original, well worn garment (stock image below - tee has been put away).


Friday, February 8, 2013

Baseball & Anime

Back when I was president of the Northeast Ursamen (as if it were so long ago), Daddy Mike and I came up with an idea for an event to take place in Boston on a regular basis, called "Spring Training".  Knowing how much the Red Sox are loved in that city (and by many of us in other parts of Southern New England), we gave the party a Red Sox theme.  I mean, on any given night a game is happening across town at Fenway Park, you can see the game on big screens in pubs of all sizes, including The Alley, arguably the best bear bar in the Northeast, so throwing a Red Sox themed party at the Alley was a perfect formula.  So we needed an image for the poster, and after having done "Butch & Bruiser" and the "Nut & Bolt Party", I set out to do "Spring Training" but Hairyer Parts-style.  People often compared the finished product to Jason Varitek, though truth be known, I worked from a drawing of Youkalis to get the job done.






So I knew that baseball has been big in Japan, but it never occurred to me to look into baseball manga.  I think I was aware of one show whose name escapes me... so for kicks tonight, I put in the words "anime" and "baseball" into a Google image search, and found all sorts of great images.  This one particular article I found from Otaku USA gave a whole mini-course on baseball subjects in Japanese cartoons.  Do check it out.  It made me smile to think I may have been on to something when I did that "Sprig Training" drawing... now four years old!


Thursday, February 7, 2013

How To Draw Cartoons - Syd Hoff

From a very young age, I've been into comics strips, animated cartoons, and comic books.  I would spend hours in the school library reading Peanuts books by Charles M. Schultz (more on him later).  And Saturday morning was not Saturday morning without the Superfriends.  I want to say it was around first grade that I saw a book at one our school book fairs that I had to have.  It was Syd Hoff's "How To Draw Cartoons", a how-to book for kids.  I remember that my mother didn't really want me to have it.  I think she would have rather had me get something I could read, to improve my reading skills.  I must have pleaded my case effectively, because after a couple missed opportunities, I finally went home from a school book fair with this book.

I think from the moment I learned how to use a pencil, I began to draw, but when I took ownership of this book, I turned my attention from drawing cityscapes to drawing cartoons.  I spent hours with pencil, paper, and my new how-to book.  Now, instead of reading Charles M. Schultz, I studied his work.  At times, I imitated him.  I imitated Syd Hoff and his style too. I know I probably wasn't a very good cartoonist back then, and I don't really know that I'm that great now, but I would have to say, if there was one book that changed my life, it would be Syd Hoff's How-To book.  It helped me discover a lifetime of pleasure and relaxation as a cartoonist.  I suppose the drive was always there, and it probably would have come out somehow, but I guess Syd gets the credit for being the one who showed me how to get started.

Recently, I was going thru my collection of how-to books, art books, and other toon-related things, and realized that I lost this book long ago.  Thanks to Google and eBay, was able to locate it a copy of it for just a couple dollars.  So history repeated itself... I had to have it.  It's now on its way to me.  I can't wait to get it and leaf thru it again.  It'll be fun to see the images again that started me down my journey as a cartoonist.


Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Hatsune Miku


An old friend of mine and fellow anime fan posted this on my Facebook page today. It's Hatsune Miku, a "singing synthesized voice application" with a computer generated personality to go with it.  She's gained a certain amount of popularity in Japan... according to Wikipedia, there are 100,000 songs written for her, and now she is a character in a manga series.  For more info, visit Wikipedia.

Monday, February 4, 2013

New Copic markers... Thank goodness for art supply stores like Jerry's Artarama.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Hairyer Parts - 2004 Auction Poster

Hard to believe it's been 9 years since the last Ursamen Valentines Day Auction which featured all sorts of creative talent.  These events were geared towards raising charitable funds for those who received HIV & AIDS services from the Springfield VNA.  These events raised easily over $1000 at a time... with my own handmade cartoon cels bringing in hundreds of dollars.  Following this period, I entered a life of public service, first for the Northeast Ursamen as newsletter editor for two years, then the independent scouts for another two years... then back to the Ursamen for four years as President.... so here is a flash back to 2004... this poster showcased the cel that was to go up on the auction block later that month.  The poster itself hung on the wall at York Steet for the Northeast Ursamen's 2004 Superbowl & Chili Cookoff party.  Happy Superbowl 2013 everyone!


Tom Of Finland Foundation

Happy to see that the world of Tom Of Finland has a web presence, AND a blog, so that I can keep up with them.  I saw today's lead story on Facebook and it brought a smile to my own face.  The LA Band Of Brothers, a group of leather titleholders from the city of the same name, volunteered at what I believe is Tom's House (which the Tom of Finland Foundation is trying to preserve).  It looks like they put in a lot of sweat equity into the house where it was needed most.  I like hearing about clubs helping their own community, especially when it comes in a form other than fundraising.  As gay people, we have our own culture, which includes our own art and history.  To see these men preserving it is really inspirational.  Support the gay arts!!

LA Band of Brothers at Tom's House



Saturday, February 2, 2013

Dusting off the Copic Markers

Dug out my Copic markers today, and I'm happy that they haven't dried out after all this time! I can tell I'm a bit rusty but its good to be drawing again!!

Friday, February 1, 2013

First "Hairyer Parts"

"Hairyer Parts" is the bear-centric comic that I created specifically for publication in the Northeast Ursamen's "Bears & Hunters" official newsletter.  My cartoons ran for 10 years before my volunteer commitments forced me to suspend production.  The series was originally a single-panel strip which eventually was relaunched as a multi-panel color strip.  My characters also found their way into several promotional posters for Northeast Ursamen events, including Butch & Bruisers Boots & Boxers Party, Nut & Bolt Party, and Spring Training.  With most of my major commitments now behind me, I'm looking forward to giving the Hairyer Parts Universe a "hard boot" and putting it back out there.  For now, here is a look back at the very first few HP comics.