"VOTE FOR AN ARCHIE BRONSON SPINOFF!!!"

Digging through some of my old files from mine and Tom Kenny's PLASTIC MAN PILOT @ WB a few years back, I came across designs for Plas' parole officer, ARCHIE BRONSON. Little known fact: Dynamite Jones was originally created to be Plas' mentor and boss, but after initial notes from DC Comics, we decidedly went another direction and came up with this diminutive supporting character, unabashedly inspired by ROBERT FORSTER's "Max Cherry, Bail Bondsman" from Jackie Brown. GEORGE LIQUOR comparisons aside, Archie also has as much to owe to Yogi's BOO BOO Bear, than John K. Although he does owe a lot. Especially his rage.

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See?
And...We even modeled Archie's office after his...
(I'll try and dig up other views. Beautiful work by SEONNA HONG and layouts from BILL FLORES)

Apparently Tom ran into Robert Forster at a Christmas party--and talked about of all things, Plastic Man, his favorite superhero! He was flattered to be the point of reference and supposedly loved the dvd of our short Tom gave him.

Looking back at these drawings now, they are in no way "great" design theories. At least not as much as I thought they were. But they made sense to me at the time.

I'd actually love to do a show or comic team-up w/Dynamite and grizzled ex-cop with a sensitive side Archie.

SUPERHEROINES

A big THANK YOU goes out to the women in my life...no, my lovely wife--if you're reading this, it isn't how it sounds...but the other day, an incredibly talented artist from Missouri sent me something that not only made my day, but made me humbled--by her skill...using traditional medium (markers, prismacolors, etc)--you've might have seen it on her blog, but take a gander at her SCARLET WENCH drawing!!!

Thanks a million, KRISTEN McCABE! She is possibly one of the most talented cartoonists I've seen out there in Blog Country. Each drawing is textured and tactile. Her lines and form retain their energy--can't say enough about this talented chick...except she does live in Missouri. hahaha

Awhile ago, I had the good fortune to trade super hero drawings with another amazingly talented--and obscenely popular (!) (she averages 50+ comments on each post, I'm not insinuating anything, but...hehee) artist from Toronto, Canada (she's not a girl I made up, I swear!). I think I did a GREEN LANTERN for her--the Hal Jordan version, she was very specific (sorry, Guy Gardner...perhaps someday). She, in turn did this amazing LUKE CAGE and MISTY KNIGHT!

Thanks MEL MADURO!

He might not look like one, but CIRCUS PEANUT is a super hero to me. This first piece is a collaboration between myself and TINY PICNIC'S MICHELLE BICKFORD. I've talked about her work before--but she's so multi-talented it warrants further discussions. Visit one of her many sites and buy something!

She's also good at assemblages...
Not to mention all of the cool things she's sent me over the years. Who could ever forget the ANDY UPDATES BOARD GAME!!

Thanks, ladies!

NUMBER SIX WILL ALWAYS BE #1 TO ME.

It's a sad day. "The Village" finally cracked my favorite secret agent. PATRICK McGOOHAN passed away today.

I'd like to think THIS is how he went...

STAY TUNED...

Our resident Chaos Mage, Demon Empty, will have some goodies in store for you shortly...And not just Hostess Fruit Pies...but close.
Some fun CHARLATAN BALL items coming up soon. Stay tuned!

PART 4: DYNAMITE SNAPS, A TURKEY WITH THE POWER COSMIC AND OUR HEROES LOSE THEIR LUNCH

The climatic battle...



Dynamite discovers the "mandroids" Achilles heel: they just happen to be made of 3/4 chains! Convenient, non?

A few pages and many destroyed robots later, the battle escalates and Dynamite devolves into a chain-breaking maniac...
A few pages after that...



Add some super hero banter and The Power Cosmic...
And this is what everyone in the room thought after I pitched the entire board: And it more or less continued like this for 45 minutes.

THE END

PART 3: "Where's My Gas Money!?"

At this point in the story, a dejected Dynamite sulks over a cup of joe, at a coffee joint directly next to the battle site. I intercut scenes of the battles with Dynamite spiraling towards a breakdown.

PART 2: "CAN'T TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW..."

Change is hard for Dynamite Jones...(and even harder for others!)...


As you can see, the story became a super hero parody; which ultimately was it's kiss of death. "We've all seen it before". It's true, we have.

The main through line of the piece was the father/son relationship between Dynamite and his son. I tried to inject as much "heart" as possible.

PART 1: DYNAMITE! STORYBOARDS...

HAPPY 2009 EVERYBODY! Hope you all had happy, healthy, holidays.

I recently collected a few storyboard pages from the recently failed DYNAMITE JONES! pitch. I'll put up a few sequences so you can get an idea of the tone of the proposed show.

The two pages below are at the top of the story. Dynamite runs a "Hire a Hero" shop, as you can see, not-just delegated to bodyguard work or fighting bad guys...


...it was at THIS point (5 pages in), it was suggested I should have continued to pursue this storyline, that of having Dynamite service, er, the old lady's gutters--and not, as was previously decided, outlined and revised 3 times, follow the original plan of driving his son to the "Long Hall of Supers" for his first day on the "Super League of Supers"...which I had done...for about 300 more subsequent storyboard pages later. And not well-executed or funny storyboarded pages either! Ugh.

...and looking back, pursuing that tangent definitely would've made for a funnier cartoon. No question. I'd like to do that short someday.

At this point of the opening, I wanted to showcase Dynamite's only power--his "chain-breaking-strength", along with his soft-spot for helping those in need as well as illuminating his popularity of 30+ years ago; demonstrated here by busting open his large book of i.o.u.'s...