Adopted kid of time-traveling beagle Mr. Peabody, of the animated segment Peabody’s Improbable History, as featured in the 1959 Jay Ward Productions series, Rocky and His Friends.
Mr. Peabody!
Time-traveling beagle Mr. Peabody, of the animated segment Peabody’s Improbable History, as featured in the 1959 Jay Ward Productions series, Rocky and His Friends.
5/1/16 Dayton Toy & Hobby Show
Last minute, but I’ve been asked to guest at the Dayton, Ohio, Hara Arena Collectible Toy & Hobby Show. I’ll mainly be there to do caricatures, but I’ll be doing commissions and selling art, etc. Stop by and say help!
The show runs from 9:00-3:00 this Sunday, March 1, 2016 at Hara Arena, 1001 Shiloh Springs Rd., in Trotwood (Dayton). Admission only $5.00!
Wayne Boring Pencils!
Here’s another item that was buried sufficiently deep in a closet that it survived the house disaster… and a great photostatic keepsake it is. It’s the splash page and additional art from a Superman story I wrote — and for fans of the classic era of Superman, there’s no mistaking the drawing style. The artist is Wayne Boring.
Wayne’s history with Superman runs deep. He was hired as a ghost artist for the Siegel and Shuster (Superman’s creators) studio in the mid-1930’s, and eventually became the main, credited artist for the Superman newspaper comic strip. When Siegel and Shuster split from their comic book publisher, Boring was hired by that publisher as a staff artist and became one of the main artists for the Superman comic book line for decades thereafter. His style couldn’t have been more distinctive; his Superman figures were the ones who looked like they were jogging across the sky rather than flying.
Wayne Boring had long-since retired when I began writing Superman stories for Editor Julius Schwartz in the mid-1980’s.
Around that time,I was invited to stop in and give a talk at my alma mater, The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey. I had attended the school in its earliest days and we alumni were frequently invited to give a progress report whenever we were in town.
Deputy Dawg!
Deputy Dawg, a Terrytoons production that ran from 1962 on CBS. Behind bars: Muskie Muskrat. Wanted: Vincent van Gopher.
Gidney and Cloyd!
Scrooch Gun-wielding Moon Men from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show!
Queen City Con Sketch
The Queen City Comicon in Cincinnati got off to a great start yesterday; very fun show. If you missed it, plan ahead for September’s Cincinnati Comic Expo, organized by the same team and in the same location, Cincinnati’s Duke Energy Center.
This convention sketch was commissioned by a guy for his buddy, whom he claimed had four toes on his left foot, as the first two had somehow grown together. I didn’t ask to see, but I did draw this to his specs.
Sleep Cycle
Sleep Cycle is the name of the latest iPhone app I’ve been using regulrly. In part, it’s a re-invented alarm clock, designed to gently lead you out of your slumber instead of jolting you awake.
It uses the phone’s built-in microphone to monitor your breathing while you sleep and charts the depth of your rest throughout the night.
if you set the alarm for 7:00 am for instance, Sleep Cycle actively monitors the half-hour window leading up to seven, choosing a moment when the depth of your sleep is at its most shallow, and then plays soft music to bring you out of it. While you may wake up a bit sooner than you intended, the effect is that you’ll awaken feeling more rested than if your sleep were interrupted in the conventional manner.
The app passively monitors your sleep all night long. The feature of this program that has caught my attention most is the graph, recorded nightly, that illustrates and rates my night’s sleep. Here is how I did last night:
Sleep quality, 70%, which is generally about at high as I get. On just as many nights, I get a grade in the mid-to-low forties, which I’ve come to resent. On this chart, that area around 1:00 am shows that I was in a very profound deep sleep, which grew less deep throughout the night.
Anyway, I find that I’m now going to sleep more purposefully, with an aim of beating my best record. I haven’t cracked 75% yet, but I’m determined. No more 40’s!
Sleep Cycle is a free download in the app store, if you’re interested.
Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose!
Stars of Rocky and His Friends (aka The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and The Bullwinkle Show), created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, airing on network television beginning in 1959.
Howard the Duck Campaign Button
I’m still sorting through boxes of stuff from my house which flooded a while back, and every so often I discover an item that 1) survived the disaster, and 2) I’d pretty much forgotten ever existed. The process has been like a very soggy Christmas; I keep finding soggy presents amongst the soggy lumps of coal. So I decided to post some of these forgotten treasures as the mood strikes.
You didn’t know Howard the Duck ran for president? Here’s a campaign button that Marvel issued during the ’76 race, featuring Howard and his slogan “Get Down America!’ He didn’t win but perhaps he can be drafted this time around.
This image of Howard was drawn by the great Berni Wrightson, best known for his co-creation, Swamp Thing. Actually, Berni is better known for his intricate and controlled, dollar-bill-engraving-quality linework and his shadow-drenched atmospheric compositions.
Howard the Duck was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. He was an incidental character in Adventure Into Fear #19 (1973), caught the attention of readers, and was spun off into his own title (1976). And, there was a movie.
Incidentally, Frank Brunner, the artist who drew the first issue of Marvel’s Howard the Duck comic, will be the featured guest at this weekend’s Queen City Comicon. I’ve never met Frank (who also drew some of the more memorable issues of Doctor Strange), so here’s my chance! (And yours!)
