Bird Superhero Character - I had an idea for a bird that was a superhero - kind of a Clark Kent thing going on.

An interesting precursor to Asimov, maybe is this guy HENRI

When my eldest daughter was 4, we did a little project and wrote a children’s book together. I did some drawings of the little girl in the story thinking I would illustrate it. In reality, I want her to do it as a project though.

A more sophisticated version of Captain John?

Lastly, right before I realized I just didn’t have time to pursue animation, I was going to do a short based on this book “Trubloff” I read as a kid, a Russian folk tale about a mouse who plays the Balalaika. So I had done a bunch of drawings of him that I was going to use to build the model. Here’s one.

I kind of like these, I’m glad I’ve learned not to throw stuff away. I had done lots of stuff in college that is long gone now that I wish I still had. Never throw your art away!

Here’s a few webcomics of which I have become a daily reader.

I’ve already mentioned Legend of Bill by David Reddick. Another obvious one is Sheldon, a long running strip by Dave Kellet and one of the authors of the book “How to Make Webcomics” (highly recommended.) Sheldon has a certain care-free feel to it which makes it really enjoyable to read. And Dave’s sense of humor is both sophisticated and sneaky.

One that is less of a strip and more of a comic book type is Kukuburi by Ramon Perez. This guy just oozes artistic talent and creative storytelling. He posts a two panel update once a week and it’s spectacularly inventive and creative stuff. You owe it to yourself to check it out. He was also nice enough to give me a mention on his blog. (Isn’t it great when people are super talented AND nice? You can fit David Reddick into that category as well.)

Next is Pinkerton by Mike Witmer. Anyway, I’ve only recently discovered this one but it has me cracking up already. The characters are great, the artwork is really appropriate with the angled lines and the sharp humor. I must now go back and read the archives to catch up…yay!

Lastly is Calamities of Nature by Tony Piro. This is not a daily but a weekly, I believe. Tony just celebrated his one year anniversary of the strip (congrats!) He states he has been drawing his characters since he was ten - how about that! I like Tony’s very unique style and his characters have well thought out personalities that come through in his strip.

Check these strips out, you won’t be sorry!

Many thanks to the others who entered the contest, I really appreciate you taking part!

What would you miss about Earth if you were stuck on Mars? It looks like John gets nostalgic about good old fashioned comic book heroes. Not much more says Earth than a superhero, right?

Ultimately it was going to be way too time consuming to become an animator, especially with a family to support. But I finally made my way back to comics. But I digress…

At Pixar they say “Story is King.” Yes they have wonderful animators and special effects, but it’s truly the stories that make it all shine. I’ve been so busy I haven’t really been following all the Wall-e hype, so I didn’t really know what to expect, which was great.

It really was nothing like I expected. Wall-e is truly an endearing character and the little romance between him and Eve is incredibly touching. I don’t want to give anything away, so go see this gem for yourself. It will be another staple in my movie library for sure.

It seems to me that the animators keep getting better and better, and the special effects keep breaking new ground. And as a fan of well, robots…ahem… the robots in the film were great. Go see it!

Here’s my little short I did a few years ago.

Edit: Put this one up for auction - if you want it here it is:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120277774964

“He started out in the licensing department — as a character that came to the syndicate from England as a toy. United wanted to have a strip featuring him — the design of the character was already established but the family setting (The Milde Family) and the other characters in the strip had to be created here.”

Meddick was hired to write the strip. It mainly revolved around Robotman’s quirky interactions with earthly life and customs and the family reacting to stuff he did. It was a pretty good strip. At some point, Monty enters the scene not as a main character but as just someone coming on the scene. Meddick explains most of it here. Eventually the Milde family gets dropped and we have Monty and Robotman living together with Moondog as Monty’s close friend.

At this point, I’m totally digging the strip. The dynamic between Monty and Robotman - the quirky inventor and the smartly adapted and more socially adept Robotman have a great rapport. The stories are interesting and funny. At some point around this time the strip was renamed “Robotman and Monty”.

Over time though, Monty’s stories start to come more to the forefront, and somehow Meddick wanted to make a clean break from the past. Robotman was the last vestige of the strip he had signed on to do as a “hired hand” and he wanted to finally be free from that. So there was one last story arc where Robotman basically gets abducted by aliens, wins a great battle, falls in love and finally leaves earth - and the strip - for good (full story here).

At this point the strip is renamed “Monty” and now the strip is fully Meddick’s own creations, which was his intention at that point in his career - to be putting his efforts into his own creation instead of someone else’s.

I still like the strip and I think it’s mostly funny and well done. The humor is still the same for the most part, Monty is a really funny character. But I do miss Robotman and his interaction with Monty.

The strip is interesting in that it has survived massive character changes. Meddick has taken some heat for rotating in new fairly major characters (a monkey, an alien character “Mr. Pi”) and then losing them - not to mention the Milde family and Robotman. Yet because of his excellent writing skills and appealing artwork he has maintained a strong following. I’m not sure how many papers his strip is in but it seems to be doing well.

There are still those of us who pine away for the Robotman days, though. And trying to get your hands on the few strip collections that exist is tough - the stuff is seriously expensive. I foolishly sold my “Primary Crullers” book a few years ago when I needed some cash. I was lucky enough to grab the second book on e-Bay for steal price and read strips I had never seen before. The first two books generally sell for well over $100 dollars.

Anyway, check the strip out you might enjoy it. Meddick’s work is a testament to hard work and creative thinking on the part of a cartoonist. He took something that was not ideal in his mind and worked it into something that holds the seeds of the original but is truly his own creation, and he did it on his own terms.

Below: One of my prized cartoon possessions - Robotman Book Two: The Untold Story

Update: I just found out that Jim won the Best Newspaper Strip award from the NCS this May - congrats to him!

So last week I got Moon Flower by James P. Hogan, who is a “true” science fiction writer. His stories are often interspersed with hard science, which always adds to the believability and enjoyment of the book. So I’m looking forward to reading this one, I have not read a new book of his in some time. I actually just finished re-reading his book Real Time Interrupt while waiting for this one.

So far I’ve only read the introduction, but he has me intrigued already. Hogan has a way of pulling you into his characters quite quickly and getting down to business. One of the earliest science fiction books I read when I was younger was Inherit the Stars by Hogan, a classic and the book that led to his Giants series. My Grandfather was a big reader and loved sci-fi and at one point he passed a whole box of books to me when I was like a freshman in high school, and I tore through those. That’s partly where my love for sci-fi came from.

So by all means, pick up some of Hogan’s books, you’ll be guaranteed to enjoy them.