Tag Archives: adventure

June 24, 2015 · 2:06 pm

Dr. Evil’s Removable Brain

Last time, after months of me waiting to play with my X-Box Baseball ’04, Captain Carl Action and the Action Super-hero-guy Team had actually found where in the Library Dr. Evil and his minions had been hiding.

It took an unbelievably long time for my Library to be liberated, but finally liberation was just around the corner…

So Dr. Evil threw a monkey wrench into the liberation plans with a carefully timed real-identity mix-up ploy.

Captain Carl had to stop and think for a moment… something that he only did when forced to do it,,, because, well, thinking is something that hurts quit a bit when you have a hollow plastic head with only a plastic armature for a brain.

Max Steele, the most practical member of the Hero-Guy Action Team, put Dr. Evil/Ming the Merciless down on the Dr. Evil mint-in-box box and began to saw with his Captain Action Lightning Blade.

Max sawed and whacked and hacked and smacked, and nothing seemed to even put a dent in the non-removable brain of Dr. Evil/Ming the Merciless.

Soon the Action Hero-Guy Team had to give up. The dumb plastic brain was all one piece with the rest of the plastic head and was not coming out. Dr. Evil/Ming the Merciless was simply NOT the answer.

Captain Carl was fed up. He couldn’t take any more of this thinking… There was only one thing left to do.

So Dr. Evil removed his removable brain and handed it to Carl, allowing me to repeat enough silly phrases and stupid words to get to the 500 mark for today.

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Filed under action figures, cartoons, humor

Tagged as action figures, adventure, Captain Action, cartoon, goofiness, humor, photo Paffooney, playing with dolls

May 23, 2015 · 1:43 pm

Another Link to My Vault

Like a lazy idiot I have been posting stuff I’ve already created to Mickey’s House of Fiction and pretending that it means I am actually getting writing work done. Today’s cartoon story, Expelling Evil, the Series, attempts to exploit my constant playing with dolls to make a humorous adventure cartoon strip. I realize that it is still incomplete and most probably a spectacular failure (at least, as much of a failure as is possible without destroying the internet or making your computer explode). But it makes me laugh, and I have been wanting to put it all together in one place. So, here is the link;

https://authormbeyer.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/expelling-evil-the-series/

Here is a photo Paffooney from the story to help you remember how much you want to avoid reading it all again.

I do promise to add on to the end of it in Mickey’s House of Fiction every time I bore you with another episode and nearly make your head implode from reading it. The purpose of that plan being to allow to find all of it in one place and thoroughly ignore everything in one go.

Visiting Tellosia

In the novel I recently entered in the Chanticleer Reviews YA Novel-Writing contest, I used the fairy kingdom of Tellosia to be the land of the little people integrated into hometown Iowa. As part of my cartoon stories page, I intend to take up the tale of The Hidden Kingdom once again and expand and complete it. I will post it as a web comic on Word Press. I know I can’t make money giving it away for free… but I hope to have my stories and cartoons read a little bit more through the buzz I hope this generates. And perhaps Petit Zam can come up with some fairy magic that will help… so I can cast a spell on you.

Here is installment one of The Hidden Kingdom;

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Filed under cartoons, Paffooney, web comic

Tagged as adventure, artwork, cartoon, fairies, paffooney cartoony, Paffoonies, pen and ink, web comic

April 5, 2015 · 9:17 pm

First Novel Yuckishness

One of my biggest regrets as a writer is that I started doing it before I had any earthly idea how to do it well. I know as a former writing teacher that you have to start by starting and you learn to write better by writing. There is no substitute for that redundantly repetitive redundancy of practice. And that is the mistake I made with the first novel… not the first one I ever wrote… the first one I ever tried to get published. I finished slapping the stupid thing together in primarily superfluous paragraphs and short chapters, and then sent it off to a publisher before I lost all willpower to try. The mistake was in choosing a publisher that was revolutionizing the publishing industry with cheap-o flim-flam tricks. If you have ever considered Publish America as an option… don’t. They work well as a way to get your students published and excite them about writing, but you can send them a bag full of grocery lists and they will publish it, telling you they have no intention of changing your unique style… all editing is left up to you. It is a crap guarantee that guarantees crap, no matter how good a writer you are. If I had wasted one of my good babies on the venture, they would own the rights to it for seven years. They do diddly-do-dah to promote or market your book. Everything is up to the author. They don’t even read the book. They make some effort to contact your family and people who know you and hawk the book at ridiculous prices that I wouldn’t pay for Hemingway and are satisfied with the profits they make selling a dozen copies.

Now that the term of my contract is up, I have to decide what to do with this novel. It is a hog-slop mish-mash of words and weirdness that no one could every truly appreciate as literature. It is juvenile blather that I would be truly ashamed of if more people had bought it and wasted their time reading it. (I don’t regret my friends and relatives reading it. They deserve that fate for one thing or another over the years. No one is without sin.)

You can see that I have made some attempts already to adapt it into something somewhat more-or-less interesting by using my rights to adaptation to make it into a graphic novel (These panels are merely rough draft form. If I do this, it will end up in a much more finished, web-comic form.) I am able to reclaim the entire book as of October of 2014. I just haven’t decided yet if it is worth the effort.

It was a learning experience to do this Aeroquest book-like thing. I learned a lot about what not to do. But I did end up $12 dollars in the black from the experience. The second book was a much more expensive proposition. I paid I-Universe for editing, proofreading, and training in marketing and promotion. They took the time to teach me all the proper steps and how to work towards eventual success. They even set up this blog for me and trained me how to do it. But I had to pay them. At this point, three years later, I am still in the red with this book. And they never mention that to be a success as an Indie novelist, you have to write more than one of these danged novel-things. Hoo-boy! But I am on it. I will write to my last breath, and I guarantee you that I will tell some stories.

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Filed under humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as adventure, Aeroquest, artwork, autobiography, first novel, graphic novel, humor, ninjas, novel writing, Paffoonies, publishing regrets

March 23, 2015 · 12:05 pm

Talk Like Popeye

I have long identified with Popeye. Let me review that notion by re-posting a bit of an old post in which I explain while talking like Popeye;

I am Popeye, I sez, because I just am… Yeah, that’s right, I yam what I yam.

First of all, I looks like Popeye. I has that cleft in me chin, very little hair left on me ol’ head, and I gots the same squinky eye (what squinky eye?). I has had that same squinky eye since I wuz a teenager and got kicked in the eye doin’ sandlot football (bettern’ sandlot high divin’, fer sure!). I also has them same bulgy arms, the ones that bulge in the forearm and is incredibobble thin on the upper arms.

Second of all, I has Popeye Spinach-strength. I look weak and scrawny, but I is a lot tuffer than I looks. I go into classrooms full of wild, crazed middle schoolers, and grabs their attention, tells ’em what’s what, and makes ’em woik. (Woik is a voib, and that means I is woikin’ when I makes ’em do it.) I kin stands ridicule and kids what will remarks on the hair in me ears and me squinky eye. I tells ’em that the scar on me face was did by a bloke with a knife (which it were, cause I had skin cancer and the doctor used a knife to get it off). I has taken all kinds of nasty punches from life (diabetes, blood-pressure problems, prostatitis, arthritis) and I still keeps comin’ back fer more. In fact, I can winds up me arm and give that ol’ Devil a good Twisker Sock right in the kisser.

Third of all, I has a typical Popeye Sweet Patootie. My Island Girl Wife is like Olive Oyl in very many ways. She is always tellin’ me what to do. She compares me to ol’ Bluto. She panics and flails her arms when there’s a crisis. And she expects me to always save the day and never says “thank you” after.

So, I mean it when I sez “I am Popeye”. I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam!

See? I kin talk like Popeye because in many ways I AM him… He of the mangled-mouth vocabubobulary created by Elzie Crisler Segar on January 17th, 1929 for his comic strip Thimble Theater for King Features Syndicate. He doesn’t talk right because his brain is so full of goodness and spinach that he has no room left for spelling and pronunskiation. Ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak…. Popeye is just a simple sailor, and has been for 94 years. He expresses himself horribly, but only in the very best of ways. So when I mangle a word on purpose… or by happy accident… it is just me honoring that old one-eyed sailor. It is not me just being a stupid addle-pated blarney goon who don’t knows how to talk right.

Comic strip from comicskingdom.com

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Filed under cartoons, humor, Paffooney

Tagged as adventure, cartoons, goofiness, humor, language tricks, lies, paffooney, talk like popeye

December 17, 2014 · 9:41 pm

Beast Men

I recently broke out my old Talislanta Dungeons and Dragons book. It contains drawings from the late 80’s and early 90’s in which the never-ending adventure went to the world of Talislanta where there are no elves or dwarves or goblins. The primary enemy were the beast men. They inhabited the great plains in the middle of the world. They were ravenous, and mostly evil… but a few were adopted as heroes and heroes’ companions. Here’s a look at the good guys and bad guys I found in the Plains of the Beastmen of Golarin.

Dr. Evil Invades Mickey’s Library!

Earlier I alluded to the plan of the super scary villain, Dr. Evil with the removable brain. He was planning on invading Mickey’s library with malice aforethought… er, anger about all the books in there… or something. Anyway, today he attacked. He showed up with several of his evil minions.

He brought some of the most evil minions I could afford on a teacher’s salary. Ming the Merciless is his most evil adviser, a real whiz with the evil plans, even though I suspect he really doesn’t like looking at the Doctor’s exposed removable brain so much.

So, once convinced, Dr. Evil put on his Dr. Normal-Guy mask. It was a disguise he often used, and was successful while wearing it, because he could sneak past his enemies while they were laughing and rolling on the ground. The laughter often started inexplicably after an enemy would ask what nationality a name like “Normal-Guy” really was.

Besides fooling the foolish Action Hero guys, Dr. Evil relied on a secret weapon. GRAMMAR NAZIS!!! He would use them to relentlessly correct the spelling of the Action Hero guys until they cried like little babies.

Will the Grammar Nazis prevail over the Action Heroes? Would they take over Mickey’s wonderful library? Would they notice how many times the villains misspelled the word “removable”?

Stay tuned next time… Same Bat Station! Same Bat Channel! For the next thrilling episode of Doctor Evil Attacks Mickey’s Library!!!!!

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Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as adventure, cartoons, dolls...er... Action Figures, Dr. Evil, humor, photo Paffooney

February 18, 2014 · 3:43 am

Space Ninjas and other Bright Ideas from a Dim Bulb

As cartoonists go, I am rather a failure and a flop. I have not made a single dollar on my cartoon art. Instead it has all gone into lessons at school, charity programs, and various role-playing games with geeky boys. Still, I have brilliant insights into what would make good adventure fiction, especially for geeky boys. You take outer-space teenage travelers, turn them into ninjas with ninjitsu powers, and then give them special mutant mind powers like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy, and clairvoyance. Little Mutant Space Ninjas I call them. And, yes, I know how lame and goofy that all is, but I love it. I think others will love it too.

These are a few of my Aeroquest mutant space ninjas. (Left to right; Taffy King, Billy Iowa, Gyro the Nebulon, Sara Smith, Sensei Ged Aero, Ham Aero Junior (an adopted Nebulon), Shu Kwai, Jadalaqstbr, and Alec Songh.)

Kids identify with child heroes. They also like action, adventure, and wild Sci-Fi special effects.

This it Tiki Astro, the artificial boy. He’s an ultra high tech metaloid (robot) who is made to be practically indistinguishable from a real boy. He was built by his “father”, a metaloid nanny-bot that was infected with Ancient technology and adopted the pseudonym Happy Jack.

Space ninjas have to be really cool and really really destructive to capture the interests and imagination of today’s young boys. This ninja boy is Sejii Killer, the son of the space pirate King Killer. He can single-handedly mow down whole armies of minions and deadly Nathir plant men. He can seriously alter the populations of whole worlds. That’s the kind of killer kid I need to put into space ninja cartoons.

So look out, World! My cartoon ninja kids from outer space are on their way to invade your sci-fi dreams and adolescent fantasies.

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Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as adventure, artwork, colored pencil, drawing, humor, kids, mutants, paffooney, pen and ink, science fiction, space ninjas

November 20, 2013 · 12:06 am

Many, Many Murphys

In both the books Snow Babies and The Bicycle-Wheel Genius I used the characters of the Magnificent Murphy Clan to weave actual people from my past into my stories. The Murphys; Mary and Warren, Warren’s father Sean “Cudgel” Murphy, Mary’s and Warren’s kids, Danny, Dilsey, Mike, Little Sean, Daisy, Sarah, Thomas “Pumpkin” Murphy, and Baby Jane all live together in a small, four- bedroom house dubbed “Murphy Mansion”.

Here is a look at a Paffooney of the irrepressible Mary Murphy with daughter Dilsey, and Little Sean on her shoulders.,

And here is one of my anti-hero Pirates, Mike Murphy with his little girlfriend Blueberry Bates.

Mike has the distinction of being in all three of my Norwall Novels, a very rare character indeed. And, NO, that doesn’t mean that he is me just because we have the same first name… Okay, maybe a little bit me, but that’s just the nature of writing silly novels about adventures through time and space and farm-town Iowa. I’m hoping to make you curious enough to buy one of my books. Catch a Falling Star is available as a hardback, paperback, or e-book from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and the link here to I-Universe. But I know you are far too smart for me, and I can never hook you just on the strength of my nerdy humor or my implausible Paffoonies. Here’s hoping a look at the Murphys will help.

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Tagged as adventure, artwork, colored pencil, goofiness, humor, illustration, kids, Murphys, novels, paffooney, utter nonsense

August 27, 2013 · 1:06 am

Colored Pencil Gallery

I admit to being a colored-pencil maniac. They are like oil colors. You lay down the dark hues first and overlay the lighter colors on top. I need to learn how to photograph them more effectively, but here are some of my best.