Sketchbook: Arrogant Rat

An argumentative looking rat, in the vein of that-guy-who-drew-googley-eyed-crazed-monsters-from-back-in-the-day.

Above, my five-year-old daughter Reno's version of Mickey and Minnie.

The Dearth of Superheroes

A photo of a panel from Bobu Leene #13, done earlier this year.

When I first got into comics, it was the Mickey and Donald stuff of Gottfredson and Barks, reprinted via Gladstone comics, initially. Later, after I left these "childish" stories and got into superheroes, I traversed a route from Spider-Man through Batman to Wolverine, then left that genre somewhat and took in things like Cerebus. At the time I was doing Bobu Leene, I was trying, in my inevitably feeble way, to process the idea of the anti-hero; one of the themes of the book, that was not necessarily well developed on my part, was how does a bad guy try and make good on past misdeeds? In this case, Bobu Leene tries to set things straight by eliminating his former boss and crooked colleagues, but of course two wrongs do not make a right.

Over the course of the series, though, I was becoming disenchanted with superhero/action comics in general. In terms of my romance with art, in hindsight I realize that I intuitively elevated comic art to the same level as that of the grand master painters of old (your Michelangelo crowd), values I inherited from my dad, I guess (the Italians love their grand master painters and fumetti). So when I began to doubt the value of comic art, I began to question my commitment to the entire endeavor of art.

Anyways, just some 10 cent psychologizin'. Hope to add some more sketches down the line.

Origins

Here's cool image taken by Mark Berman of Middle Earth comics...it shows a copy of Bobu Leene #1 as well as some original art I did that would end up as an "ad" in one of the subsequent issues. The "ad" features Bobu Leene in a comic book store that looks suspiciously like Middle Earth.

Good times.

A Cover

Here's a cover for a story I wrote pretty recently, that I may eventually getting around to publishing on the Amazon Kindle. It's about a guy named Lupone who solves mysteries...your usual type of urban fantasy-mystery mix. Going hard '80s on the cover design here.

The Dog of Nightmares

It's been awhile, again. Just uploading a couple of sketches I did of a friend's sociopathic canine. One is him in his good moments; the other, his manic mode. You decide which is which.