Here they are, as they looked back in 1980-something... Wonder Kid, Inviso-Kid, Colormatic, Thundercloud, and Wombat, just to name a few... my new favorite is the one at the top, center.... Flame Boy (think "Human Torch") with his hand tea-potting on his hip with just the right amount of Fabulosity.... if that's really a word (I doubt it).
I mean, the work is all very derivative... if DC or Marvel had a hero that did something, I made my own version of it. I actually designed two sets of heroes back then... Laughing Lad (top row, right) was in both leagues. Of course, for all the things I loved to create, I never really took these works to the next level... I did actually start a comic for Zippy, the borderline inappropriately named boy speedster. It was to be a secret origin tale where he (and untold others) gained their powers from a tremendous glowing meteorite that lands in the woods behind his house. He later meets up with Inviso-Kid and become anti-bullying champions. That book, along with many others, lay filed away and unfinished. For years, I berated myself for having so many unfinished pieces of work, but I've since learned their purpose. They were all skill-developing endeavors. It was a big problem to start a project, only to find that your expertise and style were now much better than when you started. It would have been too much to go back and start everything over... so I took them as far as I could at the time and moved on. In the end, I became a better artist.
It just so happened the other day, that I was cleaning house, and as my mind normally does, it wandered on to something a little more entertaining than vaccuming, and it just so happened that these heroes came bubbling up to the surface of my mind. Suddenly I was plotting out what could be the makings of my next full comic. One never knows... this is really a good sign. I did post recently about balance in my activities... the more these things work their way to the surface, the easier it will be for me to choose what comes next!
Oh... so that people don't think I totally, totally abandoned these kids to time... here is a rework I did a few years ago... luckily I had the good sense to file them all together so that I could find them. I wanted to know what these heroes would look like if I drew them today. I avoided all manner of "Hollywood rewriting" and instead just drew them with today's skills - minus the hands... I totally admit I rushed the hands to get the below drawing done. As they came to life on the paper, the pencil nearly ran away from me with excitement to see these guys again after so many years. I could almost see them animating themselves on the page. It may be time to reboot Reflex Comics!!
