polarized double

I would love to just sit here and draw, day after day--and in fact I manage to do this for the most part, belting stuff out quickly, early most mornings......real-life responsibilities get in the way sometimes, of course, and I have to attend to family matters over the next few days, which will take my full attention, so no more drawing for a few days , I have to report. These transmissions will continue again  before too long, though: I have well over 100 unseen cartoons to  still place on here, with ongoing brand-new  material struck up most days...but not so,  for the next few days. I try to keep this blog regular-as-clockwork but transmissions will cease for a wee,  wee while. Do look in again soon, though: this work has only just begun..... Planned for the near-future:                                              THE FLY       ...

One of the more reputable cartoonist-sites is running a 'create-yer-own-MISTER MEN-character-tomfoolery' theme, and here's my very straightforwards entry: I wasn't too sure about this to begin with [ I have never been one for copying the styles of other artists rigidly, and even here I think my unique way of drawing still shows through] but great fun nevertheless, and it has proved a quick and easy way of getting effective results. Some subversive MISTER MEN will be forthcoming at some pint, when time allows, etc, etc........ ---Anyway, the more I submerge myself into drawing, the more I realize that simpler drawings like PEANUTS or indeed the MISTER MEN indeed take a fair bit of skill because many cartoonists---including me------hide everything in endless detail, which in some ways is a cop-out. Simpler, fewer  lines to draw with requires  DEFINITE SKILL to do effectively and I appreciate this a lot more these days. Anyhow------here, looking very much like vintage IPC ...

I sure seem to be building up quite a cast of original cartoon characters and concepts , far more than I ever set out to: it has expanded organically [ ooh, missus!] and built up gradually, just trying things out to see what--or who--transpires. I am taking a leaf out of the big Movie Studios' book [ yes, I know, I have already made clear I think Hollwood is a load of baloney behind the scenes.......but that finished product can often LOOK Maginficent!]   and attempting to tie everything together, under an easily-reconizable symbol, or logo. Disney have Mickey Mouse....Warner Bros Animation has Bugs Bunny......I liked the Walter Lantz one, with Woody Woodpecker on a horse, 'lancing' the Walter Lantz lettering....I am not too struck on the more modern ones like the Pixar 'humanized. lamp' but there you go. I cannot decide on who to choose as a masthead logo-----Baby Boomer or the main-cat Jet Blanc? This is why I have come up with this image---[they are usually amigo...

The 'fly-prism' tapestry seen last post is ripe for supplementary material:   ---I am well aware that some of my posts come accross as 'repeats' of previously-seen imagery, however in this case, it is unchartered territory I have delved into, and I feel it is well worth including.----------this cartoon represents my first 'proper use' of cloning the same image repeatedly for use in a single frame. I have seen examples of other cartoonists cloning the same image and I fancied a bash at this: to be honest, the fairly complex  techniques of Digital Manipulation took me a while to get to grips with, and I doubt if I would have had the experience to attempt an image such as this even a year ago. About the close-up of the screaming Helleyne:  once I finished this toon, I realized it resembled a well-known cartoon image used on a cover of the 1975 Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack album: this may well have been lurking at the back of my psyche during creating the dr...

It may all have gone pretty quiet on the old FLY front recently, readers: but never fear-------this one is my ultimate  pet project, and I have no intentions of ever giving up on it. The Fly-Guy Andre does not appear in this serving, but we get to see his 'point-of-view' after he is unveiled by his wife HELEYNE, who after removing the vast cloth concealing his mutated head,  gets to see his grotesque fly-features for the first time. The 5os sci-fi unmasking is second-only to the world-famous Lon Chaney 1925 Phantom of the Opera definitive , in the minds of many film buffs. Anyone who has seen the 1958 FLY film will instantly recognize this unmasking scene, of course, very powerful stuff visually it was, although the 'prism' effect of Multiple images of the same viewpoint is scientifically inaccurate: real flies do not see like this, it is reckoned,--but what the Hell, it made for great 50s sci-fi! Anyway, the technique I have utilized here is my first 'proper' u...

THE BABY BOOMER characters have been adapted into the HELLSCAPE theme and so their appearence has been altered accordingly:  this material is just a 'sub-division' of the BABY BOOMER output---here we see central cat-character  Jet Blanc all chivvied up for his first 'proper' HADES appearence---great potential for cartoon phantassie in this theme: ---Tom and Jerry/ Bugs Bunny/ and even some of the 30s-50s Disney cartoon shorts all successfully  explore the HELL theme: so why not indeed BABY BOOMER also, with it's very similar, American Animation-like style of cartunery? Below:   in reverse, the order of production, in five stages. More Hellworks are in the can...........Enjoi!!!!

HERE WE DELVE INTO 'PreHistory' as a very early incarnatiion of my cartoon drawings are dredged up from within my dusty archives, and spewed forth upon  an unsuspecting world. At the age of 22-and-a-half, I was delighted to join the staff of BEANO publishers  D C Thomson as a freelance cartoonist: a very exciting time it was for me then back in the 80s....although it has to be said there were a lot more openings for artists back then, work opportunities for cartoon-comic artists were much more bountiful compared to the 'graveyard' situation we see today. In my youth, I was something of an anti-Establishment bohemian,  a sort of 'fringe anarchist' who hypocritically still bought Multi-packs of assorted-flavor potato chips..........with my  healthy disregard for 'straight' society: there were very few things I truly respected in the Rat Race that makes up the Working World, but comics were one of them....perhaps this route could offer an opportunity for me...