Not all my Paffoonies are completely sane. The never-ending struggle of darkness and light can color things funny in a world of swiftly swirling imaginings. Lyrical joy opposed to malignant menace, devouring worlds in the palm of my hand.
Tag Archives: drawing
Comic Book Heroes – A is for Aquaman
Today’s Paffooney is a tribute to a childhood hero, Aquaman. I drew the picture from a comic book inspiration source coming from DC Comics in the 1960’s. Aquaman is a B-level superhero with not nearly so many fans as the big three, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. He was, however, my second favorite after Spiderman. He was more important to me than the Avengers. And this was strange, because I only had the chance to read the sacred comic books in the old barbershop in uptown Rowan. I only remember about two different issues that I was able to read during the long wait for a haircut. (Haircuts on Saturday took forever, because all the bald and crew-cut farmers would take forever getting their hair cut. And they hardly had any hair! I think the barber cut each hair individually.)
Aquaman and Aqualad would journey together in an incredible undersea world of sea monsters, giant fish, scuba divers, villains like Black Manta, and Mera, a real hot underwater babe. Topo the octopus could play comic relief by playing musical instruments or getting drunk on old lost kegs of pirate rum. I became a part of the adventure. I’m not sure whether I imagined myself more as Aquaman himself, or Aqualad. Aqualand was dressed all in red and blue, my favorite colors. I liked his blue swim-trunks. I myself could never wear swim trunks without a fatal case of embarrassment over my knobby knees and hairy legs. I admired Aqualad’s smooth and muscled boy-legs, though not without some shame and embarrassment. Some suggest that the relationship between Aquaman and Aqualad was a homo-erotic thing just like Batman and Robin. But, hey… NO IT WASN’T! It was a hero and sidekick that mirrored the complex relationship between a father and son. My father and I could never talk at any deeper level than Aquaman talked to Aqualad. Yet my father had super-powers for solving my problems and helping me do things and make things. Yes, I think I loved Aquaman because he reminded me of my own father in his quiet competence.
And I had a Captain Action Aquaman costume, a Christmas present and wonderful treasure. I played with it so much that only the broken trident, mask, and swim fins remain. The rest was all broken and unraveled and disintegrated from being played with. The Aquaman in my Captain Action collection has replacement parts in it to make it more complete. Yes, I spent time and money putting that toy back together so that I might play with it yet again.
So why is the super-powered King of the Sea so important to me? After all, his super powers are to breath underwater and telepathically talk to fish. I think, reading back over this stupid little essay, that the most important theme is the father-son thing. I never owned a single Aquaman comic book as a kid, but I watched him on Saturday morning TV. He was one of the Superfriends. And my father had been in the Navy on Aircraft Carriers. Yes, Aquaman is my favorite because Aquaman is secretly my father.
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One Blue Night
I was always the one on the outside looking in. The sad fact is, all of us who are too creative and sensitive for our own good feel that way. We wish we had what see in there, but miss the beauty inherent in being on the outside. Stalker… peeping faun… magical wishes… and dreams in the dark blue of the night.
February 7, 2014 · 3:35 am
Movie Monsters
I am fascinated by the tragic-romantic monster-heroes of the silver screen. The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Mummy… Christopher Lee, Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff… so much visual monstrosity and wild fantasy of the most terrifying sort. I love it.
February 6, 2014 · 2:55 am
Elf Art
Much of my colored pencil ability came from drawing Dungeons and Dragons characters. I created this as a logo for my sister’s archery club, but it owes more to D & D and LOTR than to any commercial art. The tricky part was getting the bow and the elf’s form right. Movie elves are for the most part not real archers. So I tried very hard to get this elf to shoot the bow correctly in front of a green moon.
February 4, 2014 · 8:52 pm
David Copperfield
I believe a very important part of my art training is illustrating some of the books that I love. That being said, there is probably no writer that I love more than Charles Dickens. Here I tried to capture the sweet-sad relationship between David and Little Emily when Peggotty took him to Yarmouth. I used red, yellow, and blue, the primary colors to show fullness, completeness and the lovely warmth of family love that he captured there.
February 4, 2014 · 12:10 am
Space Ninja School
In 2014 I should be able to get back the rights to my 2007 novel Aeroquest. I would very much like to re-work it and publish it again. It was a kind of original project that was not created solely by me. In the 1980’s and 1990’s I played role-playing games with boys that needed a mentor. I began with the Dungeons and Dragons game from TSR. But South Texas has a strong Baptist presence that fears imagination, especially if it involves dragons and demons. So I had to change it to a Star Wars inspired game called Traveller. With a star-spanning fictional empire and a band of dice-rolled characters, we conquered the galaxy together for about one hundred and fifty game years. I used my story-telling abilities to carry the game forward and keep the boys enthralled.
So, the characters in the book are not completely created by me. They reflect the qualities, manners, and choices of the players. Even the most important character, the teacher-hunter-explorer-hero Ged Aero, was created by someone else (although I have for the most part made him into me). The story is overly complex because it was directed by the players and the decisions they made as they tried to solve the problems the game master (me) put in front of them. I think I can fix that given time. I should never have tried to publish it when I did, but the Publish America company gave me the chance to publish for free and tempted me in ways I never should’ve fallen for. I am glad I didn’t try to do this with more important stories that I was working on at the time.
Central to the story is the space school in which Ged Aero teaches. It is on the oriental planet called Gaijin (the word in Japanese for stupid foreigner). It is a special school. Ged’s is the only class, and all the students have special abilities, mind powers, that are like Ged’s own shape-shifting ability. There are telepaths, telekinetics, kids who mentally control the heat and cold in the air, teleport, mentally change molecules, and even foretell the future.
I don’t recommend you buy the book as it is now (a strange bit of advice from a starving artist and author) but I hope to one day turn it into something much better, more entertaining, and worth reading.
The Paffooney that accompanies today’s post is a class picture of all but three of the teenage Psionic space ninjas.
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The Sunshine of My Life
Yes, I have a daughter. She’s a lovely young girl, and far more like me than I’m willing to admit. She used to like snakes and always laughs about farting and bathroom humor. She beats up her older brothers, always has, and loves to draw unicorns, neo-pets, and warriors beheading bad guys in the bloodiest way possible. I call her “the Princess” in my writing, and she is sometimes all-girl, and sometimes all-boy. Love her, get disgusted with her, fray your last nerve, and still, she’s the apple of my eye, the gravy to my mashed potatoes, the something-good to my whatever fuzzy-warm metaphor you choose. Stevie Wonder sings “Isn’t She Lovely?” in the background music of our lives.
So, what’s it all about, having a daughter? Heck if I know. I just know that when the nurse put her in my hands the first time, and she weighed so much for a newborn that jokes were made about her future as an NFL linebacker, and she peed all over everything, she captured my heart and I would forever after be her thrall.
All three of my children like art and can draw well. Of the three, my daughter is the one who best understands “cute”. She is capable of drawing big-eyed critters that make you go “awww.” She has a color sense that meshes seamlessly with my own, loving primary colors, especially Maxfield Parrish blue. She understands my sense of humor (a feat of understanding more impressive than uncovering the secrets of nuclear physics). She is made up of the best parts and worst parts of me as well as many of the good parts of her mother. So, if I die tomorrow, or am changed into a small blue mushroom by an alien magician, she will be the one that carries on the torch of my creativity. Let’s hope that doesn’t mean that she will use that torch to burn things down.
Do you have a daughter too? If you do, I have great sympathy for you, but also great joy. She is the sunshine of my life.
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The Wizard of Edo
There is great beauty in the land of the imagination. I enjoy visiting places that exist only in my mind… Places like Narnia, Middle Earth, Pellucidar, Arrakis called Dune… There are more places in the realm of imagination than in all of reality. Yes, I know… crazy, crazy, crazy….
February 1, 2014 · 2:06 am
Mickey, the Teacher of the Jungle
It’s true… 24 years of my life was spent in the Jungles of Junior High fighting for my life against predatory seventh graders, monkey people, lizard people, and general craziness. If my pictures are loony, and my stories are insane, it is because I have endured where no sane man should ever venture. The pink raptor, by the way… one of my best students.
January 31, 2014 · 2:29 am
Catch a Falling Star 