ABC #27: The Infiniternal

This month's Art by Committee Challenge is to illustrate this random quote from a science fiction novel: "Randall's avatar was a tortoise."

ABC #26: "Let's Put our Heads Together"

ABC Comics are something I do each month as part of the Art by Committee sketch game sponsored by the best artist website around, The Gurney Journey. Each month we're provided with a random line or scene from an unknown science fiction novel. Each artist who participates creates their interpretation of the scene.

I try to use each challenge in a comic story that is in progress in which The Mighty Andar is held captive in an alien prison on Planet X. I literally have no idea what will happen next, so it's kind of like real life. If you want to get caught up, click here -- but if you want to read them in order, you have to buy my comics, because I don't always create them in chronological order. If you think you're confused, you should try making them!

Our assignment this month is to imagine who is having the conversation below:


And, here is the comic I created to illustrate it!

ABC #25: Cinderella Story

The ABC Challenge this month is to "imagine the owner of the business card" above. Here's my entry!

ABC #24: Bright Eyes

When last we heard from The Mighty Andar, he was thrown 20 feet by a giant chicken.

The Art by Committee Challenge this month is to illustrate this random quote from a science fiction novel. I have no idea what novel or anything about the story.

“He is shorter than I remember, and thin. His fur is grayed to white in a fringe around his head, just below his ears. His coat is dull, thinning, and coarse. His eyes, so bright I…”

Regular readers of this blog know that I am trying to piece all of these into a cohesive story. Below are two pages. The second is the one I did to illustrate this challenge. The one above it is one I did about a year and a half ago, to put it in context.

ABC #23: Big Chicken

The Art by Committee challenge this month is to illustrate this random quote from a science fiction novel:

"I became immediately and irrationally angry. How dare this six foot chicken with a silly red crest on top of his narrow foolish head say that we humans were deficient in feii? I controlled...."

The comic below is what I created for this challenge.

ABC Challenge #22: "Snap!"

The quote this month for the Art by Committee Sketch game is:

ABC Challenge #21: "Big Ugly"

Here's our assignment for this month's Art by Committee:

...followed by my entry!

ABC Challenge #20: Black Dots

The Art by Committee challenge is a sketch game I play each month. It's sponsored by the Gurney Journey, and I just figured out that this is my 20th challenge. My responses to these challenges have generated 40 pages of comics.

As an experiment, what I've been doing, is trying to make as many of the prompts as I can go into the same story. By jumping around a lot, I can make a lot of them fit. As it turns out, the two pages I made for this month's challenge flows nicely into the very first one I did! Because it makes a nice punchline, I'm reprinting it at the bottom of this post.

Eventually, they'll all appear in an issue of Eclectic Comics.

Anyway, this month's challenge was to interpret this random, out of context line from a science fiction novel:

“But when the dots did not vanish even after he scrubbed his fists across his eyes three times, he shouted hoarsely…”

Here we go!

ABC Challenge: The Origin of Clipboard Girl

This month's ABC Challenge is to somehow use the business card above as inspiration for a work of art. To me, it led to the origin of Clipboard Girl, one of the characters in my comics.

ABC Challenge: The Harper

Our challenge this month for the Art by Committee sketch game is to illustrate this quote:

“The harper began to sing. His deep voice was fine and sweet, eloquently expressing his intent. He sang of the bitterness of defeat and the gut-wrenching carnage of war. He sang of boys…”

The comic strip below is my interpretation of that line.

For this comic, I used ink washes, which I don't usually do. It seemed important to use them to get the feeling of being in a dark concert hall.

Bar Room Blitz

“Behind the bar, polishing four glasses at the same time with his blue tentacles, was the Tookah. Two of his three eyes didn’t bother to look up, but it was the third one, the upper eye, the sleepy one that appears bored by everything but never misses anything. That one sleepily looked over at me and then blinked and opened wide.”

This was the quote we were assigned to illustrate for the latest challenge at Art by Committee.
I chose to put the scene within the context of a story I'm doing. In case you came in late, The Mighty Andar has been deprived of his powers, beaten and abused and locked up in an alien prison. Now he's got his powers back and has a score to settle with some prison guards.

Banana trees are falling left and right!

Art by Committee is a sketch game group I belong to. This is how it works -- a random line from a sci-fi novel is posted. We have no idea what book it came from or in what context the sentence occurs. Then everybody in the group draws their own interpretation of the quote. I actually come up with a lot of ideas that way.

This month's quote was: “I lashed out with my left arm, clutched at something thin and hard, tore at it; the next second a banana tree fell across my chest. But the pain was…”

I've already posted my entry for this, but I thought some of you might like to see some of the other entries, including this one by Dave Harshberger.

The quote for next month is

“Behind the bar, polishing four glasses at the same time with his blue tentacles, was the Tookah. Two of his three eyes didn’t bother to look up, but it was the third one, the upper eye, the sleepy one that appears bored by everything but never misses anything. That one sleepily looked over at me and then blinked and opened wide.”

If you would like to join in the fun, the deadline is April 12. All other details can be found at the Gurney Journey.

ABC Challenge: Light's Out!

This is my entry for this month's Art by Committee challenge. The assignment this time is to draw our interpretation of this following quote -- an actual excerpt from a science fiction novel:

"I lashed out with my left arm, clutched something thin and hard, tore at it; the next second a banana tree fell across my chest. But the pain was..."

The ABC Challenge is Back!

For those of you late to the party, this is how this works -- The ABC Challenge (Art by Committee) is a sketch game run by artist James Gurney. Once a month he posts a random line from a science fiction novel. The challenge to participants is to illustrate that line however we see it. We do not know the novel or the context of the line. I always choose to make a page or so of comics. I'm trying to piece them all together into a long form comic story. Eventually the whole story will be told in the pages of Eclectic Comics, the comic book I publish.

The line to illustrate this time was: “I should stay here and keep an eye out.” I cheated a little, but I'm like that.

This segment of the story introduces two new characters. The previous actions of our hero, The Mighty Andar have also caused two other imprisoned superheroes to regain their powers. The sketches below illustrate how I came up with them. I thought Major Uranus was a funny name for a character. He's the kind of guy that does the right thing but isn't always nice about it. Evidently this is the symbol for Uranus.

I designed a costume that used that symbol.

The name Spinclaw came from a name generating device. I liked the image that came to mind because I always wanted to mock the ridiculous headgear that Wolverine, Hawkeye and many other superheroes wear.

Cleanup Crew

"She was stiff and clumsy with rage. White-blonde hair spilled free of its sheer silken covering, tumbling past slender shoulders clad in slate grey velvet. Her gown was torn and…"

That's our prompt this week at the ABC Challenge. That excerpt inspired this comic:

Quality Fruit Growers

Our challenge this week at the Gurney Journey is to look at a business card and imagine what the business owner(s) are like. This business card:


...inspired this comic:

“The old man felt a tendril of anger rising.”

Will the Mighty Andar ever get out of the offic of General Patriot and onto a space ship? I hope so! The title of this post is our prompt at the Art by Committee challenge this week.

"Not Sorcery!"

“The man spasmed against the snow. 'Gods, no! No! No sorcery'—'Hold him,' I said calmly, as he tried to leap up and run."

That's the challenge this week from Art by Committee art game. You'll notice I had to cheat a little to get it to fit my story line, hence the lack of snow, leaping or running. I can show you my artistic license if you need to see it.

The Mighty Andar -- Stayin' Alive

"Their voices are high pitched and piercing, yet human" -- this is the prompt for the Art by Committee Challenge this week. I immediately thought of the Bee Gees, and worked them into the current Andar epic.