Alphabeasts: W is for Wild Thing

Quick post this week, because I still have a ton of Jane Eyre to prep (and The Death Ray, to boot). But here's this week's Alphabeasts critter, which I hope will be universally recognizable:

W is for Wild Thing.




These guys are so fun. I've loved them since I was just a little kid.

Yes, they make everything groovy.

Next week: hard sci-fi not suitable for the wee ones.

Alphabeasts: T is for Tove

I'm writing this in the wee hours of the morning, as usual, and this time I'm a little tired, so maybe I'll keep it brief.

For this week's Alphabeasts entry, T is for tove. You know, from "Jabberwocky," in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.

What do we know about toves, aside from the fact that they gimble and gyre, that they're typically slithy, that they make their nests at the base of sundials, and that they subsist on cheese? Well, Humpty Dumpty tells us that they're something like badgers, something like lizards, and something like corkscrews.



There's one canonical illustration of the toves (along with the raths and the borogoves, which I've clipped out for the sake of clarity), and there's no way I could improve on it (though I have been happy to swipe it already). I tip my hat in sincere respect to John Tenniel.



Given that I knew I couldn't outdo Tenniel, I started trying to think about ways that Humpty Dumpty's description could fit a different-looking creature. That led to some false starts: what if it were a squat little chameleon with a curly horn? What about a little horned-toad sort of thing? How can something be like a badger and a lizard at the same time? And so forth.



I even tried a pose that involve a little more gyring (whirling in circles) along with the gimbling (drilling holes as with a gimlet), but I couldn't bring myself to ink it because it looked so awkward and wrong.



Anyway, there you have it.

Next week, a sea monster from the Earth Nation.

Alphabeasts: R is for Rust Monster

If you know that from the entire Star Trek universe I chose the mugato for my Alphabeasts alphabet, then you might be able to predict what critter I would choose from the superpopulated realms of Dungeons & Dragons. Evidently I have a fondness for an awkward chimerical hodgepodge whatsis, so I had to draw the Rust Monster.

Yes, that's what R is for.



Like the piercer, the mimic, and the lurker above, the rust monster is one of those D&D creatures that only makes sense as a tactical obstacle in a dungeon-crawling game. If it attacks you in combat, it won't hurt you, but it very well might disintegrate your cherished +4 plate mail and enchanted longsword. It's kind of a jackass thing to for a DM to bring out, in most circumstances, though while doing my research this week I found a smart little blog entry that makes a case for the sort of game where the rust monster is not just appropriate but a sort of suitably frightening challenge.

But why does it look so dorky? Why the wingnut propeller on the tail, the Ben-Grimm hide, and the mishmash of different body parts?

Well, like the bulette and the owlbear, the rust monster was originally based on a crappy plastic toy from a bag of "Prehistoric" monsters you could buy in convenience stores when I was a kid. Here's a picture of the original toy, pulled from a cool photoseries that any D&D-philes ought to click over to look at.



Since the first edition, D&D has apparently tried to de-dorkify the rust monster, but to me those revisions just don't ring true. The fantasy world of D&D is supposed to be a gawky, clumsy reworking of Tolkien and assorted folklore; the awkward ugly cartooning of David C. Sutherland III and the weirdo heavy-metal Aztec foofaraw of Erol Otus are the way adolescence is supposed to feel. Give me, instead, a lengthy pseudo-scientific explanation of its gimcrack ecology (search this PDF, and ye shall find) and the threat that my mithril shield or gauntlets of ogre strength may not survive the encounter.

Anyway, given the rust monster's origins as a stiff plastic toy, it turns out to be pretty hard to "animate" into a different pose: those legs are too short to do more than waddle, and there's not one joint in the critter's body from its nose to the base of its tail.

So I did a little doodling. This week, it struck me that I could put my doodles on the postcards I was about to send, up in the area where the cancelation mark will go.




I hope you have enjoyed this little jaunt down Curdled Nostalgia Lane.

Next week, a tribute to a small-press comic that you should all be reading.

Alphabeasts: M is for Mugato

This week's Alphabeasts creature is dear to my heart despite of — nay, perhaps because of — its intense dorkiness. It's not just a guy in a white gorilla suit. No, this is gorilla suit with a few horns and a tail stuck on!



This must be the week for goofy alphabeasts!

Maybe you're not familiar with the mugato. This video clip will tell you all ye need to know.



Maybe you would prefer the sort of cartoon that isolates a creature from its natural environment, without that mysterious grainy background. (And if you're the first to tell me, in the comments below, where I got that background, then I'll happily send you a couple of alphabet minicomics for free.)

If you want to see its feet, in other words, or if you just want it bigger, here's a picture from my working files.



It took me a while to work out a pose that would allow me to show off the mugato's goony face and the row of ridiculous dinosaur-style spikes that run down its back. Here are some of my notes, on the back of an envelope.



Next week: another possibly apocryphal mid-century etymological surprise.

Animal Alphabet: Z is for Zebra Swallowtail

Last week I promised a terrifying chimera for the final week of the Animal Alphabet.

Here it is!



Yes, Z is for the zebra swallowtail butterfly, as the title of this post indicates.

Maybe you don't think it is terrifying (or chimerical). Clearly, if you think that way, you don't know how these things are made. Here is a glimpse of that unholy alchemy. Click to see it more clearly.



Rumor has it that another alphabet is about to begin, full of imaginary (rather than authentic) creatures. I am consulting my sources and limbering my digits.

Demonstration (May 2004)

In the spring of 2004, we undertook an interesting exercise in cartooning, inspired by Lynda Barry's excellent book One Hundred Demons. More to improve our drawing and visual thinking than to plumb any inner recesses, we resolved to draw one demon a day for a hundred days. The best of our results from that exercise are collected in this "oversized" minicomic -- 24 pages of doodles, sketches, and strange ideas.

For each of the demons we chose to present, we include a bit of prose explaining something about the demon: where the idea came from, whom we were imitating, what the demon reminds us of, or what we've come to think of it. Here on this page, for example, (you may click to enlarge) ...

...I have a few words to say about the linguistic origin of the "Dark Abbess," Mike talks about an early "failed" demon and his all-in-one-line satyr (with a nod to our friend Jeff Seymour's Satyrn minicomic), and I acknowledge a visual debt to Dan Clowes (and the "Nunzilla" toy).

We're also able to juxtapose a few demons in interesting ways, as you can see on this page:


If you're not deeply involved with comics, you might appreciate the set of footnotes that we include in this book, giving a little more detail about a few of the people we reference in our explanations and captions. Although there's no story in this book, and although some of my early drawings in the project are kind of clumsy, there are a lot of ways in which Demonstration serves as a nice introduction to our visual style or our collaborative oeuvre.

We've been pleased to see the demons pop up in a few other places, too. A couple of them had cameos in Satisfactory Comics #5, in among the other weirdies in the Museum of the Horrible, even before we'd finished our fivescore. Tom Motley also used quite a few of them (including my demonic self-portrait) in his first story for the Mapjam.

Since Mike posted a little last week about his devotion to Walt Kelly, I thought I ought to include an image of this little guy, who is one of my favorite results of the project, and who is one of the critters that cropped up in Satisfactory #5:


Demonstration is 24 pages, at 8 1/2" by 7". Each cover is different: the demons on the cover are rubber-stamped on there, and we had several different stamps to choose from. (Some covers feature doodles instead of or in addition to the rubber stamps.)



If you'd like a copy, you can buy it at our Storenvy shop.



RARR!