polarized double

ANOTHER 'loving close-up  'of one of the supporting characters, as she enjoys a peek into the domestic world of B.B. and the rest of the main cast, as their everyday lifestyle is interrupted---once again------by a 'passing Collussus'. The  vast differnce in scale between the minute central players and the two main supporting characters makes for seemingly endless visual gag opportunities, though to be honest this approach was a wee bit tricky in the early incarnations of the strip: modern approaches to comic-strip presentation [ which I have to go along with, if I am to be serious about this lark] dictate that I have to do these strips in the dreaded 'postage-stamp-sized' artwork, which basically means that everything---- and that includes space set aside for word-balloons/sound-effects, 'dead space' to avoid the drawings looking cluttered, etc-----has to be distilled into tinily-cramped frames, a mere four inches high!! This of course is a world away fr...

ANOTHER ASPECT of the strip ripe for development are the 'sideline gags' where the strip veers off into another direction, and in this case, it's lush catgal 's VERONICA'S twilight-hours 'part-time job' as vigilante  feline-crimefighter in the moonlight hours. There's definately a touch of the ' EMMA PEELS' [ a mid-late 60s sultry glam icon of ITV'S The AVENGERS, unforgettable to anyone who lived the swinging '60s] about Vero's leather-clad persona,  all shiney black leather and flowing locks. I've only done about 5 finished drawings on the subject of this character, which of course takes in influences from BATMAN and other 'Superhero' references.......I've just made Vero an agile mortal without Superpowers, however: she's a darned good athlete and acrobat [ a bit like a real cat, really], as she takes off into her own self-contained adventures of danger and drama, presumably while B.B., Jet, and Vibes are still ki...

THE THEME of comic-books themselves are adrressed directly within the pages of BABY BOOMER, and this scenario depicts B.B. and Jet fantasising that they are comic-book heroes, seemingly unaware that the readers are watching them act as comic-strip beings themselves. Another common theme that is covered in the strips a fair bit are  the self-referential sequences depicting the gang turning out their own actual comic-strips in which they appear, under the banner of RETRO COMICS.  This theme has not yet been covered visually on this site, but doubtless I will get around to it eventually. A few strips have been completed of the main characters putting the BABY BOOMER strips together, admidst the chaos of deflating speech-bubbles, backfiring sound-effects, etc......more on this later. Lots of strips out there tend to overdo the relationship between the drawn characters and their realization that they are merely fantasy characters: I address this theme in moderation, but I am carefu...

Slowly but surely, I'm learning to use computer-color......I've just learned to use the 'bucket tool': ace stuff, very quick indeed! So that's 'flat' artwork sussed out---------now to move onto 'gradiated tone, which is what I really want.......

This 'new' entry is actually culled from the 'archaic archives' , and in fact was a pencil-only effort I discovered last week. It looked fine, so I decided to ink it up----check out that vintage '2006' reference in the bottom left-hand corner! This is undoubtedly the longest-ever I have taken to 'finish' a long-ago started cartoon......many other half-finished ideas exist from the same period, but looking at most of them now, they lack direction and cohesion. So I suppose I have learned something doing all these drawings! Another Love-themed offering, with a typical team-up between KOONG KING and the Statue of Liberty. Muchos Appy Polly Logies that  the theme here is a bit too 'samey' to the last effort---I do try to vary the subject-matter evenly throughout, avoiding repetition--but rest assured, the works currently 'in progress' are striking out into new, uncharted territory. I had hoped to add a timely, topical EASTER motif into the pr...

Another 'one-off' Epic Extravaganza  today, readers, as we witness the first--and probably last----appearence of the Statue of Liberty's ' babesome' relative, seen here in a quite literal 'walk-on' role. Why do three of the main characters [ B.B., Jet and Vibes ] live in a Noo Yoik skyscaper, I hear you ask? Well, not only is it very handy for having the characters witness outlandish events from atop their vantage-point visually, it's also semi-autobiographical: for the most part of my youth [up until teens] I resided in top-floor flats, and many youthful memories are of viewing everyday life from a bird's eye view: this appears to have worked it's way into the strip,without me really realizing it until much later..... This picture is also a 'first' on this site, in asmuch as we see a few of the main character's incidental neighbors: again, these are merely walk-on appearences, who may never likely surface again. Cityscapes can be a b...

I am persevering with 'computer-color', and although the following example is more trial-and-error more than anything else, it's a step in the right direction, nevertheless. 'Soft-Focus ' stuff that has altered the look of my drawings already: ---can't wait to try out some more stuff!

THE RICH VEIN of Cartoon Horror has thus far been woefully underexploited within the comic-pages of BABY BOOMER, and again there is a lot of potential in there, but up 'til now, it's been kept to a minimum. This is yet another theme bristling with cartoon potential, and the following diagram reveals  the very first public airing of  the 'skellingtons' who inhabit poor JET'S flat to torment him at will. The 'skellingtons' usually get 'sorted out', though, thru' the usual comic-cavortings. I am aware that the term 'skellington' has been widely used in the Jack Skellington character within the Nightmare before Christmas, but I was using this term long before I ever heard of Tim Burton, and  indeed I used to use this word in my natural speech when I was very young and never knew any better.....to be on the safe side, the skeletons are un-named in the actual strips, especially seeing they are minor supporting characters amidst the cartoon mayh...

Continuing on from earlier cartoon 'Beggar's Banquet', here's a connected cartoon with a similar outlook, if more surreal .  Again, we see three of the central characters----- VIBES, B.B. and JET-----  down-at-heel yet again, only to emerge triumphant in pulling off the coup of attaining another lavish slap-up feed. Nothing extraordinary in that, you might think, but take a look outside of the Restaurant Window: three doppelgangers of the same cartoon trio------attired in posh, tailored, dinner-suit clobber, are taken aback at the sight of the triumphant 'doubles' relishing their sumptuous feast. I can't explain this gag, it's just an inspirational  flash that came to me at the time. Dig that use of  mirrored signage in the'  RITZ' window-lettering.......details like this 'sort out the men from the boys' regarding effective cartoonery [ oh, all right, for adding a 'bit of gloss', at least ]. FOOTNOTE: Friday's 'Subvers-O-t...

  MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS: The Third entry in the 'Subverso-O-toons' series sees a very unusual ---and intruiging-----view of glamorous 'catgal' Veronica, here resembling an erotic image out of 1970s 'Gentlemen's mag' PENTHOUSE  [so I'm told]. Savor this image, readers, as it's likely never to be repeated: however, a delightful experiment, which I hope I handled with taste and decency. I'm a long-time enthusiast of vintage British saucy seaside postcards, and this is my 'sort of' tribute to the erotically-charged cartoons of my youth. Other influences cited here must surely be the U.S.-STYLED ' Glamor pin-ups' of the 20th Century, which I also pursue with relish, with the expertly-crafted painted work of GIL ELVGREN in particular being a special personal favorite---check out this dude's work online; you won't regret it! This drawing here had to be approached with delicacy and insighfulness: witness the alarmed reactions ...

Slightly risque imagery here as we see celebrated 'BIG APE' KOONG KING studying the contents of a 'racy' gentlemen's magazine..........dubbed 'OOMPH!' in this case. OOMPH! does not actually spring from my demented imagination, but is lifted, I believe, wholesale from a brief shot in an early M-G-M Tex Avery cartoon, in which one of Tex's characters views this ficticious mag momentarily.......I forget which cartoon it was [ I've seen 'em all!]  was, but the idea has clearly stuck in my memory, and I'm glad to resurrect it here. Another cityscape view, which so peppers the highly visual World of  BABY BOOMER and his pen-and-ink companions, this is yet another recognizable backdrop that offers up great potential for muchos experimentation and visual exuberance.....in fact, there is no way I will be able to find the time to put together all the gag ideas I have written thus far: the skill is in selecting suitable material worthy of adaptation. Ov...

LAW and ORDER serves up unending potential for highly-visual gags, and this item sees our four central characters  take on the role of beat officers within a tough neighborhood in Downtown NYC. Their assignment: to track down---and unmask---- the mysterious masked figure who is waging a one- [wo]man crime wave war on NOO YOIK. Tongue-in-cheek humor comes to the fore in this scenario, as not only is the suspect clearly the Statue of Liberty wearing a scowl and archaic mask, the fact that she is accurately described on her WANTED poster as being ' one hundred and fifty one feet tall, less plinth surely must narrow down the odds of identifying this renegade criminal. For pedants of fact-finding trivia, [ and they are a-plenty on the web] you can rest assured that your dedicated author and cartoonist has taken the time to check out the actual height of the 'real' Statue of Liberty, in order to ground this gag properly into 'reality'. ----- Yes, I thought the real Statue...

TODAY, I dipped my toes [tentatively] into the wonderful world of 'computer-color', and this is the first 'fruits' of my labors.........just mucking about, really, as is evident here. I can paint by hand and have done a few airbrush pieces, and jumping straight into this computerized color lark is a real trial by brimstone/ baptism of fire...it is mind-boggling, the sheer range of options and appliances available to the doodler, and clearly there is a long, long way to go with this malarkey:    this first crude mucking about will be saved on the FREE Photoshop-like site I am using, and will be cleaned up and sharpened as I acquire 'skills' in this field. Next stage, I have to work out how to 'cut out' the central characters, so I can 'drop in' a gradiated-tone sky background. At the moment, this looks no better than mucking around with felt-tipped pens, however the next time you see this very rough experiment, hopefully you will see a big differe...

MORE Crime-and-Punishment related cartunery, although this one is a wee bit different inasmuch as it's the first in a 'new' subsection: CARTOONS inspired by actual song-lyrics,  which make up a surprizing amount of the finished strips. Sometimes when I'm drawing with the radio on, , a lot of good ideas come from hearing words out of songs, and here's a fairly  ecocative one: ----no, the theme of this drawing isn't inspired by THIN LIZZY'S ' Jailbreak', but by a much lesser-known ALICE COOPER toon from 1973 or so, called HARD-HEARTED ALICE. No actual  promotional videos from other sources than myself will be featured regarding youtube material, etc, although I will provide a link in this case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtxQV5Dr0tE The FREE AS A JAILBIRD reference kicks in at about the 46-seconds in mark. I only revisited this tune for the first time in years after considering it for gag inclusion here...more on this sort of thing later.

Instalment Two in the series of illustrations featuring back-up character the Statue of Liberty, this following image was produced for the JULY 4 Celebrations in the good old US of A-----of course-----in time for the 2010 celebrations. I worked in an American-financed animation studio in London in the early 90s, and the imported animators used to celebrate July the Fourth with small fireworks [sparklers, etc,] and celebratory grubsteaks. These were the only times I ever saw anyone celebrating these events in 'real life' and obviously it reminded me a bit of the Fireworks Night celebrations we enjoy in the YOO-KAY. I love all the enthusiastic razamatazz of US celebrations, which puts the more restrained and 'stiff upper lip' variants in Britain to shame. I am happy to endorse a lot of US imagery into my comic strips as it forces me to use my imagination when trying to come up with imagery set in a land 3000 miles away [and the same distance again from the East to the Wes...

I'll be chucking in the odd off-key type of drawing, more for my own amusement, but hopefully you guys will like them too. Now and again, I'll be adding something a bit more adventurous than the more commercial material, and the following is summat I've been itching to ink in for a fair while..... ------' Subvers-O-toons', as the name suggests, is an occassional feature that sees me apply something 'not exactly commercial or fit for print' but great fun to add as throwaway gags, which also helps to keep the drawings fresh and fanciful. It's no secret that I am not exactly the biggest fan around of Political Correctness , and delight in portraying my characters doing something or other not exactly ''politically right-on', but nevertheless much fun for me to work on. PART ONE :  VIBES: Here, in this wholly 'unofficial', not-for-public- consumption graphic greeting, our muttworthy mongrel savors the forbidden fruits of smoking, a chilled...

Amongst the most Fantasy-Bound directions that this strip takes is more than likely the occassional Time  Travel  excursion, which of course offers up limitless opportunities for imaginitive scenarios. Only a handful of these niche  gags have been turned out thus far: I'd love to do more, but I have to be careful to 'rein the strip in' from time to time, to stop it from sprawling about all over the place. This is not an attempt to stifle imagination and creativity, but rather trying to clarify matters and situations, which is very important. As a result, the TIME TRAVEL destination is----at the time of writing------ limited to the Prehistoric era only, and the characters , thus far, have only summoned up the bravery to take a cautious peep outside their Time travel Capsule. It is tempting to take the entire strip in this direction exclusively, ---there is so much potential in there------but I am deliberately holding back, and keeping this theme very much as a 'novelty...

The First ALL-NEW,  unseen-elsewhere-before image to be published within this blog outlet , and thus a bonus for committed followers of this forum------- yew lucky, lucky, people, yew!-------. revolves around that yearly 'Noo Yoik' celebration, the Thanksgiving Macy's Day Parade, whose high-profile cartoon /outsized balloon visuals appear nicely suited for some of the extravagances seen within the world as  populated by BABY BOOMER and his 'co-stars'. Regular BOOMER-Watchers will likely have twigged that most cartoon images uploaded thus far have been already seen, within ace fansite COMICS UK especially, but also elsewhere........ Due to the finite supply of archive illustrations [ NOT the actual strips, which remain as largely unseen by human eyes!] it has been neccessary for me to assemble fresh material to supplement the visual attractions of this site, a task I am happy to pursue. There are still a fair few archive cartoon pics to add on here, but the emphasis...

A 'cartoonized' version of the Statue of Liberty makes up the second of the supporting 'background, back-up' players within the BABY BOOMER strip, who exists as a living, [if mute] being, turning up unexpectedly to provide the required surrealist sight-gags. The fact that 'Libby' [ just a nickname I shoehorned in here five seconds ago] is accepted as a casual passer-by by the key players is another indication that 'anything goes' within this off-center cartoon World.  The sheer scale of this vast Statue also means that there is scope for interplay with the similarly-gigantic KOONG KING,  and the pair do indeed 'team' up on occassion if the specific gag can be tailored to this requirement..... -----it's all kept to pretty much of a minimum, however: there is great novelty potential in this sort of 'lavish spectacle', but I don't want it to swamp the strip,  and I am keen to give prime importance to the central four characters  at t...

ANOTHER ' Crime-and-Punishment'-  related item from the dusty archives, this one sees BABY BOOMER gleefully taking control of the crime-ridden 'patch' he has been assigned to on his Noo Yoik 'beat'. His customized mega-handcuffs see him in good stead as he 'cleans up' much of the lowlife from this particularly sleazy neighborhood.  All other characters seen here are merely incidental 'stock villains': as I strive to make my drawings 'interesting', I often ensure that even the 'background characters' [or 'supporting players' in this particular instance] are each a wholly unique individual, with very different character traits: even if these characters will never be featured anywhere again. How exactly B.B. has managed to actually round up these somewhat mean-looking baddies is not entirely clear: my drawings are sometimes criticized for not explaining every single motivation/action within a given scenario : ' why this?...