"SWEET CHRISTMAS!!!"*

*Luke Cage ('Nuff said)

Happy Holidays, folks!

"IF YOU CAN'T HAVE PLASTIC MAN..."

That was a questioned posed to me and Tom Kenny a few years ago--about a year or so prior to finally getting the rights (away from the Wachowski bros. and Steven Spielberg, believe it or not--here, read their script. ), to give birth or squeeze one out, as it were--of our vision of the goggled, goofy, pliable paladin we all recognize....except when he's disguised as a lamp post!

"Screw WB, screw DC!!!" cried our executive at the time-and albeit AT times, an ardent antagonist, but also our staunch supporter when it came to this crazy, crimson crusader. It was then our task to completely plagiarize Plas, recycling what we could from our already sizable development.

THIS is what we came up with. Well, I should spare Tom from this embarrassment. He was dead against doing anything other than Plastic Man. I didn't have Spongebob money, so I sang. I sang loud and I sang off-key.



It should also be noted I wanted to give SILLY PETER PUTTY here, a sidekick...named BABY BATTER.

This could be the closest thing you'll see to our PLASTIC MAN pilot, that is, unless you VOTE FOR AN ARCHIE BRONSON SPINOFF!

"OLDE TYMEY"

--that title was for Darrick to appreciate.

Anyway. I am SOOO happy so many of you have watched CIRCUS PEANUT and commented on it. Thanks!

Thought I'd attach a couple of recently rescanned images that were used in the pilot blogged below.







This last one isn't a new scan, but a bad xerox; I wanted to put it up because I've always felt it hit the mark in terms of what I always strived for with my markers...

A CIRCUS PEANUT NAMED CARL

A long time ago...in a year called 2003...there was a pilot that tested waaaaaay better than anything on TV today. In a land called WB and oversaw by an overlord that's had many faces and names called CN, there walked but a tiny Circus Peanut who had dreams as big as his best friend Francis.

It's champions, albeit "Davids" in David and Goliath proportion to the powers that be were Matt Danner, Aaron Simpson, the boys of 6point Harness (before they were), Kim Olds...and yours truly.

Enjoy.



This video is for portfolio and resume use only. Copyright Warner Bros. Animation and to all others that apply.




...although I've reacquired the rights to the character(s) themselves.

SOMETHING FOR A(nother) FRIEND...

SOMETHING 'CELESTIAL'...

I'm not even going to SHOW you how bad I ripped off KIRBY's CELESTIALS! Jeez...hey, can you say homage?


Below, I wanted to do a quick color rough to show JOE CASEY what I was thinking in terms of color, for THE GANG OF FOUR GODS; although nothing I do via the computer is "quick".



The panel above was something I've been wanting to do since I was old enough to find my older brother's copy of THE NEW GODS #7 (1972) and saw this incredibly breathtaking and evidentally inspiring image:

SOMETHING VIOLENT...

Just to note: for some reason I've always been drawn to the composition of the last panel on the right of the two above. It's found it's way into any comic I've roughed out even prior to this series--digging through my referance, it's no surprise: DAVID MAZZUCCELLI, in all his glorious genuis did this in his and FRANK MILLER'S run on the beautiful DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN story arc from the '80s. I've just been trying so hard to rip him off ever since. Man, I wish. He's my Fabio.

See any similarities?

SOMETHING NEW...

Once again, some miscelanious, non-sequential inked panels from CHARLATAN BALL #4...




The page up top I had done after taking a bit of a breather--up until that point I had felt I was just steamrolling through inking both issues #3 and #4, as well as simultaneously penciling issue #5. I felt it was important to step away for a day, grab a new brush and slow down. Comic books by design are disposable entertainment at best, so one theory is to barrel through an issue as fast as possible; that it's a showcase of the overall collection--and not a spotlight on individual pages or panels. That being said; however, as a fan I myself like to take a moment to linger over an artist's brushstroke or genius composition. I'm not saying I achieved either here, but the above was one page I actually appreciate slightly more than the rest. I hope you like as well.

As evidence, I didn't carry this formula all the way through every page of the issue(s), rather picked and chose my battles. Sort of like we do when character designing an episode in animation: in order to hit (your) quota and deadline each week, the smartest, most ideal scenerio is to alternate between 4 or 5 simple, one-character designs, accompanied by a hideous crowd scene. Genndy actually had us doing that during STAR WARS: CLONE WARS, while frantically combining character design into actual character layout--and still hit our shipping dates. Sorry for the headaches Shareena! hahaha

SOMETHING OLD...

Geez; I don't know exactly how many years ago we did CIRCUS PEANUT. It was my first pilot that ever got developed; the boys at SIX POINT HARNESS, before they were technically called that and right before they had a studio are the ones who animated it--and the irreplaceable AARON SIMPSON helmed production duties as well as art and animation. He's a one-man army! What an experience and education. One of which were BACKGROUNDS. Our backs were up against a tight spot: CP was being animated in FLASH and my only experience with it was via the internet/webtoons. My biggest complaint was its "flatness". I loved ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, so I attempted to utilize and exploit "limited animation" as much as it's own art form as one would use a color palette (which would've been cool--except there are sequences in CP that I couldn't even tell wasn't traditional; oh my God--ERIC PRINGLE is a magician, to say the least. Anyway; my solution to "softening" up the look to a Flash cartoon was to use TRADITIONAL BG's, most everything done up until then were vector-based, flat, click-and-fill backgrounds (suitable for the internet). Seeing as this wasn't designed to stream the superhighway, my #1 stance on this project was its backgrounds. That's all well in good; but technically we had a budget of an animatic and more or less 2 weeks to produce it. That meant no money to hire an actual BG painter--and turned out, no actual time to implement myself...until I said "Hell no!” I believe around 8pm one night--and turned in 40-plus fully rendered BG's the next morning. I think Aaron said: "You're insane", first--and then: "Well, okay", next. Here are a few images I was able to scan. I hadn't time to learn how to ACTUALLY paint with the proper tools, so I thought: why fake it? So I used a combination of markers, colored pencils and even crayons. I suppose I was going for a children's book feel, while still being heavily influenced by Jay Ward.







That being said; if anyone possesses a copy of CIRCUS PEANUT and knows how to put up on the web via Youtube or whatever--not only would I appreciate it, but I'd even do an original marker comp for you!

SOMETHING DIFFERENT...

Thought I'd post something a little...a-typical for a moment. These were some designs I did as a favor for the beautiful and talented AMY ROGERS. Recently I've been wondering why it is out of all the pitches and shows I've put together, I've never presented an "action" show. I've always been a fan--though suppose I always viewed anything other than ROBOTECH sort of mindless. These days, anyways. But I caught Legion of Super Heroes the other day and thought it was fun; if only for seeing characters I looked at in comic books for years actually moving and talking. Who knows, perhaps inspiration will strike and the next developement road I'll travel will be one with toy possibilities!

COME TO MY BLOCK PARTY!

So this is cool, DC Comics sent me an advance copy of the CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY! I did featuring My Gym Partner's a Monkey. It will be out this Wednesday and is ISSUE #38 featuring this cover by MIKE ("Herobear") KUNKLE I believe...



Overall; I'm excited to see my work published again--thought the inker was great, though somewhat horrified at the over-abundance of word balloons and text. God help any kid that likes to read THAT much. hahaha

Here are a few misc. pages..





I'm veeeeery excited to report that I actually just got another issue/8-page story to do this month; hopefully I will learn from my mistakes on this one and apply.

Those of you @ Cartoon Network; please save me a few that's soon to be stuffed in your mailboxes and consequentally discarded.

Those not @ CN; pick one up at your local comic spot--read and compare against my earlier post featuring my pencils:

http://andyupdates.blogspot.com/2007/09/dc-comicscartoon-network-blockparty.html

Thanx! Enjoy!

"FIT, DAMMIT!"

...I've been waiting to tell a few of you in person; but my folks have been in town and we've been all over the place. But yes, yes, it's official. The beautiful and lovely Miss Carlyn has finally made an honest man-boy out of me. But please don't ask me if we've set a date yet--I wouldn't have believed it, but that's the 1st thing from everyone's lips--even before "congratulations"!? Too funny.

CLOWN POOP

I did this little ditty, or is it diddy--or is it P-Diddy?! for my friend Doug Griffith of MacSkinz on his birthday this past weekend. Doug is one of the most talented guys I know, with an unbelievable eye for design. I will have many links to his various sites up soon.

Surfing Porn...

True story.

I suppose there are Ikea's all over the world.

HEATWAVE!

For those of you in SoCal, you'll recall the massive heatwave we had a couple weeks ago...I have had some killer deadlines as of late and no airconditioning at my place or my studio, which meant strapping on the head and wristbands, stripping down my clothes and MacGyvering a fan to, well...you can see.


Which was okay until the power went out.

FRADON IS A GREAT ONE!

While I'm waiting to see if it's cool for me to post some more freelance I've been doing; I thought I'd share a few glorious items I recently came across on the web. Please behold the masterful, 1970's Plastic Man work by Ramona Fradon. Next to Jack Cole; she was really the only other artist that I felt really had a grip on the slippery Eel O'Brian (Plas' real name, for those uneducated!). She and these pages (in their printed, published form) were actually my first exposure to our pliable paladin way back when. Ramona's work was equally influencial to me as Jack Coles--and as instrumental in the developement of our Warner Bros. PLASTIC MAN pilot that never aired (PLEASE bug Cartoon Network about it!) Stephen DeStefano even snuck "FRADON PARK" into our Plas storyoard (let's see if I can dig that BG up and post it!). Consequently, I feel Stephen DeStefano also has the mastery of skill, line and dark humor to handle Plas--and the ONLY one (myself included as being NOT included--(over me hands down)), qualified to do so, in my opinion, in today's day. Man, I wish I could share with everyone his beautiful, beautiful storyboards...in the meantime, enjoy Ramonas...