Me, If I Were Jack Skellington

My first attempt to draw me as Jack Skellington (from Tim Burton and Henry Selick's "Nightmare Before Christmas") failed miserably. I was using a still from the film as reference. I just couldn't get it to look right to save my life. Luckily, my life didn't depend on it and I drew it this way instead. I don't know who the original artist on this piece was... I found this picture on several websites. I think it's rather nifty.

I like the curlicue goatee, especially. I came up with that on my lonesome.

Me, If I Were One Of H.R. Giger's Aliens

When I was in middle school, a girl I had a total crush on showed me a copy of H.R. Giger's Taschen collection, "Arh+," that her parents had, strangely, gotten her for Christmas. Apparently they were unaware of just how graphic Giger's biomechanical art could be. If you're unfamiliar with H.R. Giger, there are a LOT of varieties of mechanoid sphincters in his work. A LOT. And dead babies. It's not traditional Christmas fare.

One thing I did learn, though, is that the Xenomorph, the alien from the "Alien" movies, was also designed by Giger. And I thought that was pretty freaking awesome. The "Alien" aliens are incredibly creepy, disgusting looking and sufficiently otherworldly to make them a contender for modern horror archetypes... kind of a Universal monster for my generation.

They're also ridiculously hard to draw. This was reaching. I'm not even a mote of the artist that Giger is, so replicating an alien in his style was a challenge. While I didn't quite succeed, I think I managed a respectable showing... the glasses and goatee look especially like an afterthought on this guy...

Me, If I Were The Giant From "Twin Peaks"

Remember "Twin Peaks"? If you're a lot younger than me, probably not... because I barely remember it. But I DO remember renting the first seven episodes with my ex-girlfriend, like, ten years ago. The mix of soap opera and surrealism really appealed to me... how many prime time dramas have backwards dancing cosmic dwarfs and girl-hunting demons named "Bob"? Not enough, I tell you what.

When Bob, the demon who (spoiler alert!) killed Laura Palmer strikes a second time in the town of Twin Peaks, Special Agent Dale Cooper sees this crazy big blue-white giant (in a red bow tie) telling him that it's happening again. It's one of my favorite scenes in a series absolutely cram packed with awesomeness.



So here's me as the giant... I was tempted to draw myself as the backwards dancing cosmic space dwarf, but, as the dwarf explains, they're both the same guy anyways.

Me, If I Were A Kid In Calvin & Hobbes' Neighborhood

So, my second favorite comic strip of all time is Bill Watterson's "Calvin & Hobbes." I think he's a remarkable artist and the sheer variety of his strip, which features only a handful of regular characters, is staggering. Spaceman Spiff, Tracer Bullet, Stupendousman... all of Calvin's alter egos allow Watterson to explore and invent in other genres even as he pokes fun at them (not unlike what I'm trying to do with this blog...).

I'm a "Calvin" nut... I have all the books, including one printed for the 10th anniversary of the strip... That one's my favorite, because it allows a look in at Watterson's mind, his creative process, his struggles and his inspirations. Also, it opened a door on one of my favorite comic artists' prejudices. In one fantastic strip, Calvin delineates the different between "low art" (commercial illustration, like comic strips) and "high art" (an ironic painting of a comic strip). It's a valid point... why is Roy Lichtenstein, with his framed pictures of comic strip style art, museum-worthy, while the sketchy wonder of something like "Calvin & Hobbes" is ghettoized to "museums of sequential art." It's unfair and Watterson makes a good point.

Later in the book, though he takes a shot at "graphic novels," and how dressing up superheroes with a harder cover and better binding still leaves them just as dumb. But how is that fair, Bill? How can you judge an entire body of work with one simple, insulting adjective. There certainly ARE dumb graphic novels (I would say a goodly portion of them...), but there are WAY more dumb comic strips. So while Bill doesn't think it's fair to treat comic strips as "low art," he's perfectly content with keeping comic books in their sub-literature state. Not that that affects the brilliance of his work or anything... I just thought it was interesting.

Anyways, here I am drawn in Watterson's style... and I'm just noticing now I have five fingers on my right hand. In real life and in the drawing. *sigh* I should've caught that. Oh well.

Me, If I Were Heath Ledger's Version of The Joker From "The Dark Knight"

I absolutely LOVED Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight." Aside from Christian Bale's ridiculously annoying Batman voice, it was a pretty great film. The best part, of course, was the creepshow performance of Heath Ledger as The Joker. Now, I'm not even a huge Batman fan... I'm a Marvel Comics sort of kid. But The Joker is awesome. He's all crazy and green haired and giggly... Plus, y'know, he's got the creepy make-up. (Or not make-up? I've seen it both ways... like sometimes the Joker's face was dyed white by, like falling in a playing card factory acid vat or something. But in the movie, he's this sort of scarred up freakwad who applies facepaint quite haphazardly.) And he's loony. And sinister. And murderous. He's really quite dark for someone with the word "joke" right in his name.

Anyways, he looks way cool, and I got to thinkin', "Hey! I wouldn't mind lookin' as way cool as Heath Ledger's version of The Joker from "The Dark Knight." So I drew this. Just a little bit ago.

I struggled with the goatee.

Me, If I Were Gumby

From what I've heard, Gumby is here and he will be sure to stay... so, hey, why don't we all see what magical games he can play? Who doesn't love Gumby (besides Nazis and serial killers)? NOBODY. Everybody thinks this green guy is loads of fun... he can, of course, change into anything. He's got a horse. A flying seal friend who spits blue balls of clay at his enemies. He has a big ol' pet wooly mammoth. A fire-breathing dinosaur friend. Dude can enter the magical world of books that are just laying around. He drives a jeep. He fought moon people on the moon! He's a jack-of-all-trades, a lover, a fighter, big brother to Minga and a loving son who's not afraid to show villainous Blockheads who's boss. And he's got a moralistic streak a mile wide.

Art and Ruth Clokey's weird little green guy has been around since 1956 when he debuted on the unintentionally terrifying "Howdy Doody Show." Later, he got his own series of weird cartoons. As a kid, I would watch them at five in the morning, eating Cheerios in a dark living room after my dad had gone to work and before anybody else in the house woke up. I always liked the really old shorts the best, because they were a little more eerie and incomprehensible. Plus, a lot of them revolved around Gumby being on the moon. I thought Gumby was at his best on the moon.



Drawing me as Gumby was tough... I wanted it to look like a photograph, so I found a well lit shot of Gumby for reference. As an added bonus, Gumby was standing in front of awesome wallpaper, and I tried to mimic that as best as I could. I also took care to try to make the glasses and goatee look made of clay as well. It turned out pretty nicely, I think... when the picture is shrunk down to a small enough size, it does, in fact, look like a photo. When it was completed, I was a little disappointed that the most realistic thing I've ever drawn was Gumby with facial hair... but, hey, you take your little victories where you can.



One last point about Gumby: He WILL walk through a wall if you want him to.

Me, If I Were The Mad Hatter

"Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" is my absolute favorite book of all time. I'm totally obsessed with it. I collect copies of it. I have, like, a hundred and fifty or so. Seriously. I'm that weird. I love having different versions to see how various artists portray Lewis Carroll's surreal world. It's amazing how many different ways you can convey that a Hatter is, in fact, stark raving mad. When you include all of the filmed versions of it, the sheer variety of images is pretty darn staggering.

But in my head, the characters will ALWAYS appear the way Sir John Tenniel drew them in the first published edition. I'm sure a lot of people have the Disney versions as their mental "Alice" defaults (if, uh, they have any mental "Alice" defaults at all), but I think Tenniel's skritchy, detailed drawings capture the unbridled weirdness of Wonderland better than lush cell paintings ever could.

My favorite picture from the two "Alice" books is that of Alice holding the pig (that had once been a baby) after rescuing it from the Duchess' house. I, however, didn't want to draw myself as Alice, because, well, that'd be a little weird. So I drew myself as the Mad Hatter instead. Note the sneaky positioning of "Danger" onto his hat...

CHANGE PLACES!