TO BE CONTINUED…
I'm going to start the strip off on a 3-times-a-week schedule: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Come back Wednesday for installment two in the life and times of Joe Barker.
By the way, if you are not familiar with these Blogspot blogs, clicking on an image (such as each half of the above strip) will make the image larger and easier to read.
1986. Marvel and I had just parted
ways, and Fantagraphics contacted me. Kim Thompson was putting
together a funny animal comic and wanted Jack Bunny in it. He was
also in negotiations to reprint Carl Barks’ Barney Bear, Benny
Burro stories, but that fell through.
I really did not want to do independent comics work, but was grateful to have the opportunity to do anything for anybody.
Practice panels.
More practice panels.
I revamped Jack Bunny into his next stage of evolution, and did several inked practice panels. Kim liked it, so I did the “Arch-Rivals!” Jack Bunny story which was printed in Critters #6, December 1986 issue.
This time I wrote the story starting from the ending and working backwards. I thought it would make for a good continuing situation if Jack were in partnership with his own worst enemy.
And to complicate the character a bit, I recast Jack as a pyrotechnist. I bought George Plimpton's book on fireworks and subscribed to some fireworks newsletters. I almost answered one of the ads in one of the newsletters and almost applied to be an intern at a fireworks factory. I sometimes go overboard when researching things.
I was a bit late on the airbrush cover I did to go with the “Arch-Rivals!” story, and that cover didn't get printed until Critters #8, along with a reprint of “Rocket Rabbit!” Kim liked the airbrush cover enough to use it for in-house advertising on the back of other Fantagraphics magazines.
Unpublished cover art
For the next Jack Bunny story I was going to depart briefly from the new storyline and do a wild adventure story. I did the cover first this time, with the intention of basing the story on the cover. I plotted the whole thing out, developed the supporting characters, broke the plot down into panels, and was starting to do the art, but it just wasn't working for me somehow.
I came up with a new arrangement with Kim that any stories I did in the future I would do without deadlines, and the stories would not go on the printing schedule until I had the art done and sent in. That turned out to be a real mistake. As unpleasant as deadlines are, deadlines spur one into getting things done. By not having a set deadline, I never got around to getting that story done. Nor did I get any more stories done for Fantagraphics, and that was that.
I think one
reason I wasn't able to get any more stories done and sent in was the
fact that Critters
was a black and white comic
book for comic shop
distribution. I was fixated on seeing my work in color on spinner
racks in drugstores and supermarkets. Without the enthusiasm generated by newsstand distribution, my creativity did not want to kick in.
Kim asked for any old stuff I had that could be reprinted in Critters. I sent him “Super Santa!” which he put into Critters #11, and “Surfin' Neanderthals!” which he put into Critters #13. Also included in Critters #8 was the first-time publication of a Rodney Roadhawg story I had submitted to Petersen's Cartoons back in 1981. It was a rejected piece that editor Dennis Ellefson had sent back with the note, “I like what I see, but stay away from funny animals.” But I was too deep into funny animals to come up with anything that I thought Ellefson would use, so I didn't submit anything else there.
Fantagraphics paid me as much per page to reprint those fanzine stories from Surf City Comics & Stories as Marvel had paid me to draw Peter Porker. And, Fantagraphics paid double to use the airbrush cover.
And in 1993, they arranged for “Super Santa!” to be reprinted in an Italian comic or magazine. I think it was because there were a lot of references to Carl Barks and Carl Barks stories in “Super Santa!”, and Carl Barks is, or was, very popular in Europe.
A funny incident in connection with Fantagraphics is that right after I agreed to do some work for them, I got a call from a convention organizer who was organizing a comic book convention in Cheyenne Wyoming. I think it was called something like Cheycon II. They offered to pay me to go out there, and provide me with a place to stay. I had never been to a comic book convention before, so I accepted. When I got out there, I learned that they thought I was an editor for Fantagraphics. Some gaming magazine I never heard of before or since had published in its news column that Mark Armstrong had signed on at Fantagraphics as a new editor. (Not everything you see in print is true, whether in newspapers, magazines, books, or the internet.)
I was appalled. I had visions of being charged with fraud, if not by the convention organizers, then by Fantagraphics. And throughout my time there at the convention, people were bringing me their portfolios, hoping to find work at Fantagraphics, hoping to find jobs and assignments I did not have to give out to people. At the time I realized that someday it would be considered a funny situation to be in, but it sure wasn't funny at the time.
Bob Conway was at the convention with a booth. He had a character he called Mr. Fly. As an experiment I wrote a Mr. Fly script for him. He illustrated it and sent it to Fantagraphics, which then printed it in Critters #23.
So my career in comics lasted just a few years, and involved just a handful of stories.
But before then, I am going to try my hand at doing an online comic strip. Starting this Monday, I plan to post episodes of a continuity-style comic strip, with a continuing story like Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie had back in the days of golden-age newspaper strips.
Since I am using virtually free electrons and not actual newsprint, I am giving myself the luxury of doing large-size panels on a comic book scale, rather than the postage-stamp sized panels of modern newspaper strips. I cannot promise that it will be daily—I do have a regular 7:30-4:30 job that takes priority over things done for fun. I will have to do the strip before work in predawn hours, during my lunch hour, after hours by the light of the moon, and on weekends. But I will try to make the strip worth reading and following.
See you tomorrow.
©1985 Marvel Comics
The second Spider-Ham story, “The Mysterious Island of Dukctor Doom!” was written by Steve Skeates and published in Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #1. Peter's darkroom was patterned after my own darkroom, although I did not hang prints out to dry as Peter was called upon to do in the script. I had a stainless steel print dryer.
©1985 Marvel Comics
The splash panel was a clever dodge on Skeates' part. Steve told me, later, that Larry had dictated that all stories had to start with a fight scene featuring Spider-Ham. So Steve wrote the script to call for a photograph of Spider-Ham in a fight scene.
©1985 Marvel Comics
It was this first issue of Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham that introduced J. Jeremiah Jackal, Bunsen Bunny, and Upton Adam Stray. I don't know whether it was writer Steve Skeates' idea or editor Larry Hama's idea to add the three little interns to the series.
© Marvel Comics
I don’t think I ever did a model sheet for Peter, either as Peter Porker or as Spider-Ham. I was constantly experimenting with the design of the character from issue to issue, trying to evolve the character as rapidly as possible. Although I do not recall ever doing a model sheet for Peter Porker, Spider-Ham, I do recall doing a model sheet for Ducktor Doom. However, I don’t know what I did with it. If I find it, I’ll edit this post and insert it at a later time.
©1985 Marvel Comics
Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #2 featured another story written by Steve Skeates, “Buzzards and Bullfrogs.” It was the third time I was to draw a Spider-Ham story, and the first time I was given the opportunity to do the cover. The entire time I was at Marvel the interiors were done first, and the covers were done as a final step. (This is in contrast to the golden age of comics, when covers were frequently done first and cover stories then written to match the covers.) I tried to come up with a Carl Barks styled gag for the cover rather than simply do a “heroic” pose.
©1985 Marvel Comics
When called upon to draw a newspaper printing press being operated by sewer rats under the city, I called Larry Hama and asked how on earth could anyone get a newspaper printing press into a sewer. And besides, I didn't know what the sewers under New York City looked like. Larry replied that nobody knows what the sewers under New York City look like. But somehow, in those pre-internet days I found (in an encyclopedia) a picture of the historic sewers of Paris, and used that as a starting point for what was otherwise fantasy.
I think it was while working on that story that Marvel paid my way to New York to visit the Marvel offices, so Larry and the rest could see what I looked like. The travel agency they used booked a flight for me out of a nearby airport. I then caught a connecting flight at St. Louis and Spent a few days in NYC on Marvel's dime.
©1985 Marvel Comics
The fourth Spider-Ham story I illustrated, “The Town that Never Grew Up,” appeared in Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #3.
©1985 Marvel Comics
The “Tomb of the Unknown Pedestrian” that appears on page 2 of the story was a comment on my trip to NYC. Traffic there is crazy—way crazier than the traffic in St. Louis, which is crazier than the traffic in Springfield, which is crazier than the traffic we have here in rural Missouri. I'm not surprised that many New Yorkers have never driven an automobile, much less own an automobile.
©1985 Marvel Comics
Another reference to my trip to NYC is on page 4, where J. Jonah is coming out of a restaurant named the “Fire in the Belly Restaurant.” I had the sign under it penciled as saying “authentic Wackostan cuisine.” In inking, it was changed to “authentic Wacko Stan cuisine.” While in New York I was taken out to eat by Larry Hama, Denny O'Neil, and Tom Defalco to some Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indian, or similar type restaurant. Way too hot and spicy for me, although the rest of them seemed to like it.
As for the motorcycles in the story, they probably should have been Harleys. But in looking for detailed drawings or photos of motorcycles all I could find of a motorcycle back in those pre-internet days was an airbrush painting of an American brand Indian Motorcycle in one of my airbrush magazines. I didn't have time to look further, and went with that for artistic reference.
Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #4 featured a story by Fred Hembeck as a fill-in artist, in an attempt to give me an opportunity to catch up, and to keep the magazine from going from bi-monthy to quarterly or semi-annually.
©1986 Marvel Comics
Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #5 contained the fifth Spider-Ham story I illustrated, “The Old Goats at Home.” This was probably my favorite Spider-Ham story. As an experiment, we did it using the “Marvel Method,” like Stan Lee used with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. Larry sent me Steve Skeates' plot for the story. I sort of hijacked the story and rewrote it to my own liking. Same plot, mostly, and same characters, mostly, but from more of an Armstrong point of view. One complaint I'd had about every Spider-Ham story I had illustrated up to that point was that I was never given any opportunities to draw Peter smiling. It was very depressing. I had to identify with Peter to be able to draw the stories, and Peter was always in the dumps. So I had Peter smiling a lot in this story. And I threw in a number of plot twists, particularly in the last three pages. I sent in the penciled pages, along with my notes on what was happening in each panel, and then Steve added dialogue.
©1986 Marvel Comics
I was still missing deadlines, so Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #6 became another fill-in issue.
©1986 Marvel Comics
Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #7 became my last issue. “A Blitz in Time!” was scripted in the conventional way. As usual, I thumb-nailed the entire story as an initial step. The thumbnails are small sketches to indicate the layout of each panel. As for the penciling, I was able to make it through penciling the first six pages.
©1986 Marvel Comics
Halfway through page 7, as I drew panel 4, the point where the retro rockets fire, I developed a mental block on drawing Peter Porker, Spider-Ham. I literally could go no further on it. And I mean literally in the literal sense, as in “exactly,” as Merriam-Webster’s dictionary puts it—I wanted to do the art, but my drawing hand would not comply. It was like the switch to my drawing ability had been turned off in regards to Peter Porker. My uncontrollable imagination would no longer permit me to draw the character and his story world. Even with my very own layouts at hand to copy, I could not copy them. Editor Larry Hama told me to send in what I had. I sent him the pages I had penciled, and my thumbnails. Joe Albelo completed the story using my thumbnails as a guide.
©1986 Marvel Comics
The last bit of work I did for Marvel was the cover for that issue. Larry insisted I do the cover. When I drew it, as I drew it, I was feeling a physical resistance as though I were pushing the point of the pencil through a quarter-inch layer of putty. The sensation was more like carving or etching than like drawing. The pencils I did was a stiff, awkward rough, with no refining except for the refining Joe provided with his inking.
Sales of Peter Porker were high, at least while I was drawing it. I recall hearing that at least one issue had sold about 97,000 copies. Marvel had an incentive bonus at the time, and the incentive bonus checks I got were about as big as the checks I got for drawing the stories in the first place. My rate for penciling was $65 a page, which wasn't bad considering that the cover price for a comic at that time was 60 cents, then 65 cents., and 75 cents with that last issue. I've read the base rate for beginning pencilers in that period was $50 a page. I think I was paid the same for covers as for interior pages.
©1986 Marvel Comics
The only photocopy I made of my Spider-Ham pencils was of an in-house ad that featured Spider-Ham pulling a giant comic book cover out of a comic book factory. I think the ad was used, probably with the cover of a Peter Porker comic pasted in, probably published in one or more comics other than Peter Porker. I was on the Marvel comp list back then, receiving complimentary copies of every comic that Marvel published, and seem to remember seeing the ad in a comic.
I have been unable to force myself to draw Peter Porker, Spider-Ham for decades. However, recently, I made an appearance at a comic shop in Lebanon, Missouri for Free Comic Book Day. In keeping with the spirit of free comic books, I did some pencil sketches to give away for free to the fans. Some of the sketches were of characters I own, but some of the sketches were of Spider-Ham. And I find that I am once again able to draw those characters.
Here are scans of the Peter Porker giveaway pencil sketches:
These pencil sketches show how I would draw the character if I were drawing Peter Porker, Spider-Ham today (although I hope my drawings would improve as I got back into practice, back into the swing of things). They also indicate the sort of stories I would script for Peter, if I were scripting.
Next installment of this series of blog posts—Fantagraphics and Critters.
In 1983 I got the opportunity to create the visual design of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham.
Larry Hama called and asked me to come up with “something that does not look like Porky Pig.” He sent me some examples of what he did not want to see. One was the above imaginary cover by Joe Albelo depicting Peter Porker as Porky Pig wearing the top half of a Spider-Man suit. Another, shown below, was Marie Severin's take on Peter Porker, Spider-Ham, with a “heavy” emphasis on “porker”:
So I came up with something that did not look like Porky Pig.
©1983 Marvel Comics
There were two directives. From Larry came the directive to come up with something that did not look like Porky Pig. From Tom Defalco's series concept came the directive that Peter Porker was to be 4 heads tall and Captain Americat was to be 5 heads tall. I did my best to deliver on those directives.
I wish Tom had simply stated that Peter was to be shorter than Steve, or that Steve was to be taller than Peter. I always tried to design characters that would be easy to draw. In the instance of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham, I start by using a circle template to draw a circle that will be the foundation of the head, and then mark off three spaces below that for the rest of the body. But by having a mandated scale to adhere to, I was not able to design the character with proportions that wanted to come out of the pencil. When I draw the character, Peter tends to have either a head that looks too big, or a body that stretches out a bit more than 4 heads. So, even though I did the visual design of the character, drawing the character in a way where he comes out 4 heads tall has always been a challenge for me.
Also, I designed the character without muscles. I always viewed Peter as being made of Silly Putty. But Joe Albelo, in inking the character, always put in muscles. I don't know if he did it on his own initiative, or did it at Larry's direction. I never discussed it with them.
J. Jonah Jackal went through a series of name changes before the first script was finalized. In Tom Defalco’s series/story concept, the character was called Jackson J. Jawbone. In the initial script he was called B. Bowser Bulldog, Jackson J. Jawbone, J. Jonah Jacka_ _* [I’m doing my best to keep this a family-oriented blog for all ages], and finally J. Jonah Jackal. I designed the look of the character with J. Jonah Jacka_ _* in mind, and have always had that name in mind when drawing him, and would think of him as a braying donkey, not a jackal.
The homage panels were scripted in. Tom included with the script photocopies of specific panels from Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby stories he wanted in the story. Although I’m a fan of Ditko and Kirby, I'm not that much a big fan of doing homage panels. But the script called for it, and I did my best to include them and to put my own spin on them so that they wouldn't be mere copies.
I tried to insert as many nonverbal gags and background gags as I could. And there are at least two Easter eggs in that first Spider-Ham story. The “old army buddy” who slaps Steve on the back on page 6 was one of the characters in “Recondo Rabbit,”--the top sergeant who goes to Heaven. I turned his death into a temporary one that turned out to be near-death experience. And on page 16 Super Santa makes a cameo appearance on an arcade game called “Super Santa Sleigh Ride.” The stories of both these characters are discussed in earlier installments of this series of blog posts.
©1983 Marvel Comics
The “town crier” beagle on the front of the Daily Beagle building (as shown on page 5 and throughout the series) I added as I thought there should be a logical reason for the name of the newspaper. A town crier was the only explanation I could come up with for a paper named for a beagle.
It was my idea to have most or all villains smoke cigarettes, a tradition that I continued in subsequent stories. And as with most all of my stories, I penciled the title lettering and sound effects. I hope the letterer of the book didn’t resent my encroachment into his territory.
That first story, “If He Should Punch Me!” appeared in a one-shot comic called Marvel Tails #1. Later, Larry Hama told me that after it hit the stands the distributor asked when the next issue would be coming out—something that the distributor had never asked before. So the decision was made at Marvel to make this one-shot a series.
I’ll discuss the subsequent Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham series in the next installment of My History in Comics.
Story ©1982 by Larry Hama, Artwork ©1982 by Mark Armstrong
The year was 1981. I got a quick reply from DC. Once again I failed to break through the slush pile and got a form-letter rejection. Marvel took a few months longer to respond, though. When they responded it was in the form of a phone call, probably from Denny O'Neil, but perhaps from Larry Hama. They liked what I had sent and would be sending me a script for a story for Bizarre Adventures, a black & white newsstand comic magazine published by Marvel. The story, “Recondo Rabbit,” may well be the only funny animal war story ever done, combining funny animal humor and sight gags with the horrors of war.
I got the script by FedEx which was a fairly new service called Federal Express at the time. Most all my communications with Marvel would be by telephone and FedEx. The script, by Larry Hama, featured a rabbit with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after a tour in Vietnam. The script called for the first and last pages of the story to be mostly photocopies of the same panel. But being very gung ho and ambitious at the time, I asked for and received permission to do the first and last pages in airbrush.
Story ©1982 by Larry Hama, Artwork ©1982 by Mark Armstrong
The story was written by Larry Hama who would later become editor of the Spider-Ham comics, and the inker was Joe Albelo who would later become my inker on the Spider-Ham stories I penciled.
Story ©1982 by Larry Hama, Artwork ©1982 by Mark Armstrong
Larry Hama had been in service and had been to Vietnam, but I hadn't. The John Wayne movie “The Green Berets” was conveniently broadcast on television right at that time and I got some inspiration from that. Also, my father loaned me some souvenirs and memorabilia from his time in Vietnam, and I was able to use that as reference material. And, as I drew the story, I listened to the Country Joe and the Fish song “I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxEyg61LC4g . We didn't have YouTube in 1981, and I wouldn't get a computer until 1998, but I did have a Country Joe and the Fish record album I had gotten in a remainder bin for something like fifty cents. If you want to read the story with the same background music it was drawn to, read it while listening to “I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag.”
Bizarre Adventures #31 has a cover date of April 1982. In 1982 we had a big recession and I hunkered down and did a few other things.
The Hardboiled Animal Comics #1 containing the “Roger Buck” one-pager is dated 1982. “Roger Buck was actually done in 1981, and was meant for Dennis Budd's Surf City Comics & Stories, but Dennis did not put out any more issues of Surf City after the issue containing “Surfin' Neanderthals!”
Hardboiled Animal Comics was published by Tim Fuller, who did the cover story for the Charlton Bullseye #2. Tim aspired to be publisher, and asked me to contribute. I had that unused “Roger Buck” piece in unused inventory, and sent him that. I also contributed to the jam-art cover.
The jam-art cover was done by Tim sending the same piece of bristol board to a series of contributors. I think I was the last one it was sent to, and I had to squeeze Roger Buck into the background. Had I known I was to be the last one to work on it, I might have done more with it, but I tried to leave space for still other contributors. I did sign it at the lower left-hand corner, but apparently there was a mishap at the printers and only a last portion of my name appears—half of the O, and the NG.
Also in 1982 I did an airbrush cover for The Duckburg Times #14, which was a fanzine devoted to Carl Barks and published by Dana Gabbard. The cover featured the early Oswald Rabbit and the early Woody Woodpecker, and referenced the fact that Oswald did not start out as a Walter Lantz character.
I first learned of the existence of airbrush paintings as an art form back in high school. I used to build model airplanes of balsa wood, tissue paper, fabric, rubber bands, and small gas engines. In the back of a model airplane magazine was an offer for a brochure for Paasche airbrushes. I wanted an airbrush to apply “dope” (lightweight airplane paint) to my models, so I sent off for the brochure.
What I got back was a booklet that reproduced gorgeous airbrush paintings. Then, when I went to Daytona Beach with a youth group, I saw an airbrush in action where a guy was doing airbrush paintings on t-shirts at a shop close to the beach. I was hooked on getting an airbrush.
The university where I got my BFA in drawing had no classes on airbrush painting. However, one of the instructors, Bill Armstrong (no relation) was familiar with them. He advised me to get a Thayer & Chandler model A airbrush, as he considered the Paasche brushes to be junk. He also advised me to use compressed nitrogen rather than compressed CO2 as a propellant, as the nitrogen would be less harmful to one's health over the long haul. I found a book on airbrush in the SMS library, and also bought a book on airbrush at the National Art Shop, where I purchased the Thayer & Chandler. I bought an air regulator and rented a tank of nitrogen for quite a few years until I finally got an air compressor. And I did, later, get a Paasche brush with a motorized reciprocating needle for doing detail work.
Besides Bizarre Adventures #31 and the cover of The Duckburg Times #14, I did a color air bush painting of Jack Bunny that appeared on the cover of Critters #8, and a black and white air brush painting of Jack swinging from a Fit to Print logo for Cat Yronwode's TBG column. I probably would have done at least one air brush cover for Charlton had I continued on there.
I’ve never tried doing an airbrush painting either in Photoshop or in Gimp, mainly because you don’t get to have any original art doing it that way. But I’ll probably get around to trying it out some time if there is a good, usable, digital equivalent to friskets.
Next up in this series, I discuss Spider-Ham.
In the aftermath of Charlton I sent a copy of “Rocket Rabbit!” to DC, and a copy to Marvel, along with a cover letter to each making my pitch. As before, I mentioned the gap left in the marketplace left by the departure of Gold Key, and probably added the argument that without kid comics on the market, there would be no replenishing of the readership to provide a market for comics aimed at older readers.
As I waited for a response from each company, those two Wacko Waddler one-pagers got printed in the Buyer's Guide, one in TBG #388, and the other shortly thereafter. And Dennis Budd printed “Surfin' Neanderthals!” in what turned out to be the final issue Surf City Comics & Stories. I'm not sure whether I did “Surfin' Neanderthals before “Rocket Rabbit!” or whether I did it after. But it got printed after.
I did “Surfin' Neanderthals!” in an exact opposite approach of how I did “Rocket Rabbit!” This time, I started with a panel near the middle—the large panel at the top of the last page—the panel where the characters evolve. Then I worked backwards, panel-to-panel, to the beginning of the story, then worked forward, panel-to-panel, to the ending.
The story was reprinted six years later by Fantagraphics in Critters #13.
I had a Chapter Two planned for the
fictional History of Surfin'--the discovery of inland surfing by
Surfo Boone using a birchbark surfboard and a bit of Indian magic to
create waves on rivers and creeks. But that got put aside as Dennis sold his comic shop and stopped publishing Surf City, and as a new opportunity for publication came up.
Coming up next in this series--the responses I got from DC and Marvel after they had a look at “Rocket Rabbit!”
One reason I had gravitated away from superheroes and toward funny animals was because comic shop owner Dennis Budd pushed me in that direction, turning me into a fellow fan of Carl Barks by loaning me a huge number of classic Barks comics. But another reason was that in the 1970s, Gold Key Comics (an imprint of Western Publishing) was the only comic book company soliciting contributions in the Writer’s Market book and in various writer’s magazines. Gold Key specialized in publishing licensed funny animal characters.
While still in college I was trying to come up with samples to send to Gold Key. I had in mind that I would spend a few weeks, or a few months at most, coming up with samples to put into my “Gold Key portfolio.” I figured I would get in at Gold Key, spend a few years there learning the tricks of the trade, then move on to DC Comics and do the superhero comics I had loved so much as a kid.
The first impression is always the strongest impression, so I did not want to approach Gold Key until I had a knock-out portfolio of samples to present to them. Coming up with impressive samples was taking more time and effort than I had expected. Also, I wanted to include at least one long story with the samples, to let them know I could write as well as draw, so I didn’t get stuck simply illustrating other people’s scripts. Coming up with stories longer than a page or two was proving to be a challenge.
I took time off from working on my Gold Key portfolio during the last several months of 1979 to do “Super Santa!” for Dennis Budd’s Surf City Comics & Stories. In January of 1980 I was ready to go back to working on samples of such characters as Mighty Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, and Daffy Duck, among others. Then I heard on the news on the radio or on television that Western Publishing was discontinuing their Gold Key line of comic books.
My effort to get into the comic book industry had hit smack into a brick wall. All that time and effort spent on samples for an opportunity that no longer existed. It was quite a setback.
So what to do next? At the time I thought of independent comics as glorified fanzines, so I did not even consider that route. I was fixated on doing 4-color mainstream work. I tried contacting DC and Marvel, but could not break out of their unsolicited submission slush piles.
Then the Charlton Bullseye experiment came along. Wikipedia explains the experiment this way:
According to the 1980 press release for the series, an artist showed up at the Charlton offices and offered to work for them for free in hopes of accumulating enough credits to get a job with one of the two leading comics publishers. Charlton Bullseye was based around this concept; contributors to the series were paid only in contributor copies, all original art was returned to the artists after publication, and contributors would hold the copyrights to any original characters they introduced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Bullseye_(comics)
The experiment was announced in more than one fanzine/newszine. In the first announcement nothing was said about anything other than superheroes and many, such as Jim Engel, assumed that humorists and funny animal artists need not apply.
However, I contacted Charlton anyway, sending them a copy of “Super Santa!” and a two-page letter making a pitch for funny animals and kid comics, arguing that with Gold Key out of the picture there was now a void in the comics market place that needed to be filled.
I don't know what sort of pitches Tim Fuller and Arn Saba made, or what sort of samples they sent, but it worked. Charlton decided to make the second issue of the Bullseye comic book a funny animal issue. And I got a letter dated October 6, 1980, asking me, on the basis of “Super Santa!”, to send them an 8-pager. But the letter also stated, NO DUCKS!
I was sent some Charlton bristol board, which was slightly larger than Marvel bristol board, and had pre-printed margins in black rather than blue. Charlton could be different with the paper size because they owned their own printing press, and probably still used the same setup for photographing originals that they used back when original art was even larger. Marvel and DC however, were both having things printed by Sparta, which had evidently settled on 10” x 15” art on 11” by 17” bristol board.
But I used my own bristol board anyway, so there would never be any question as to who owned the original art.
As for the NO DUCKS! edict, that meant Waldo Waddler and Wacko Waddler were out of consideration.
Fortunately I had a non-duck character design on hand. About a year or two previous I had read a biography of Walt Disney and became interested in the story of how his studio had come up with a highly successful character, Oswald Rabbit, which was then stolen from Disney by an unscrupulous distributor. The loss of Oswald, and most of his animators, to that distributor led Disney and his friend Ub Iwerks to come up with Mickey Mouse as a substitute for Oswald. The distributor himself subsequently lost ownership of Oswald, and the character eventually ended up as part of the Walter Lantz stable of characters.
As an exercise in character design, I started speculating on how Oswald might have evolved at Disney over the decades had Disney not lost the character. That speculation became the initial starting point for the character I presented to Charlton. I fiddled with the visual design some more, just to make sure it was my own character I was submitting to Charlton and not Oswald. The name I gave the character, Jack Bunny, was derived from the term “jack rabbit.” And I whipped up a model sheet, dated October 9, 1980. So I must have gotten Charlton’s October 6th letter within 3 days, and did the model sheet immediately.
As for Jack’s personality, it was basically my own. I had Jack feel, think, say, and do what I myself might feel, think, say, or do if I myself were put in the circumstances I put Jack into.
I had written the story and was started on the art when I wrote back to Charlton on October 15th. I wrote the story panel by panel, one panel at a time. I started with what I thought of at the time as a “springboard opening,” patterned after the sort of opening panels Carl Barks used in most of his ten-pagers. Today I would call such an opening panel simply an instance of using narrative as an opening hook. When I did that first panel, I had no idea what would happen next in the story.
I wrote panel-to-panel to the bottom of the first page, being careful to get some sort of story situation going by the bottom of the page. Having a rocket sled in the story was just one of many possibilities I considered while doing the first page.
Then I skipped from the first page to the last page. I wanted a rousing, high-energy finish with a gag ending. So I prioritized that over whatever I might come up with in the middle.
I then alternated between working forward from the first page, panel-to-panel, and backward from the last page, panel-to-panel, until the two narrative streams met somewhere in the middle of the story. And I reported to Charlton in a letter mailed October 15th that I had finished scripting and was in the process of doing the art.
While in the midst of working on Rocket Rabbit, I did a little promotional piece and mailed it to Cat Yronwode to put in her Fit to Print column in the Buyer’s Guide. As a courtesy I also sent a copy of that promotional art to Charlton with a letter dated November 8th. I was slightly surprised to see that promotional piece included in the Charlton Bullseye #1 alongside panels by Tim Fuller and Arn Saba, as it was designed for Cat’s Fit to Print column. But I was delighted to see that promotional piece in color.
I got “Rocket Rabbit!” done and the artwork into the mail by the end of December. The Charlton Bullseye #2 was printed quickly, and I got my 50 contributor’s copies probably in April.
Charlton wanted me to do more Jack Bunny stories, and I was going to. The follow-up story would have been an airplane race in which Jack Bunny would meet stunt pilot Bonnie Rabbit. However, my parents and others were criticizing me for doing work for a professional company and not being paid any money for the work, which killed my enthusiasm for Charlton. And I couldn’t do the creative work without the necessary enthusiasm.
What did I do next? In the next post in this series we will take a look at the story, “Surfin’ Neanderthals!”
