Cover Recovered #6: Sheesh!

The Comics Re-covery Project is my way to "study after the masters". I basically redraw an existing comic cover in my own style, which is another way of saying I ruin it.

Here's the latest. The comic cover design strategy is: Someone comes ripping through the cover from the inside of the comic. In this case, Hawkeye seems to be annoyed because, presumably, he has used his manners and crawled around the front cover in the proper manner.

The Fog Mound

I have a new favorite author/illustrator team -- the creators of Fog Mound. Susan Schade and Jon Buller have created this fantastic new series of books that many are calling a graphic novel "hybrid". The story is presented in half comic strip, half chapter book format. The books in the series so far are

• Book One: Travels of Thelonious,
• Book 2: Faradawn, and
• Book 3: Simon's Dream.

Thelonious is a chipmunk, who is fascinated with the tales he's heard of a race of humans that some say existed at one time. After all, the legends claim that they once ruled the earth. His sister insists that humans are only make-believe. One day Thelonious is carried away in a flash flood to the decaying remnants of a post-apocalyptic human city. He meets many friends and enemies in his quest to find the answer to this question, "What happened to the humans?" With his friends, a bear, a lizard, and a porcupine Thelonious explores the secrets of earth's past.

I think that many elementary age reluctant readers would be pulled into the wonderful characters and exciting story that they read in the comic sections -- so much so that they would make the effort to find out what happens next in the chapter book sections.

So far there are three books in the series. I discovered them at Barnes and Noble. I was looking at the kids' graphic novel section, checking out the new stuff. Frankly, a lot of things that are new look like someone has taken a commercial property and created comic strip versions that stale and lifeless. Then I discovered Fog Mound, which is far from that! It's the just the kind of book I would have loved as a kid. Though the underlying moral that we really better start taking care of the earth could have been heavy, the illustrations and story are lively and full of humor. I think most kids would think, "We're much to smart to let this happen -- we'd better be!"

When I shared my stack of favorite graphic novels for kids at a recent Comics in the Classroom workshop for librarians, this is the book they were most excited about and hastily wrote down the information needed to order copies for their collections. If you're looking for a book series to share with a young reader, this is one I highly recommend.

What's in the Box?

This comic was for an anthology that was proposed but never published. The idea was to have several artists make stories that had to do with a box -- the contents of which would never be revealed.

The Song says it All

It's all in a Meme

Batgirl's Tea Party by Joey Weiser

What's a meme? I saw it mentioned and had to look it up! What got me curious was the Great Batgirl Meme of '06 someone pointed me to. Evidently, one artist redesigned Batgirl's costume and hundreds of artists did the same. That evolved into Fat Bat Cat drawings by a bunch of artists. It is interesting how creative ideas spread -- and how one artist's action can inspire creativity in other artists. Anyway, you learn something new every day, and here's what I've learned today!

A meme (pronounced /miːm/)^[1] comprises any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to another by learning or imitation. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs, and dances. Memes propagate themselves and can move through the cultural sociosphere in a manner similar to the contagious behavior of a virus.

Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" as a neologism in his book The Selfish Gene (1976) to describe how one might extend evolutionary principles to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. He gave as examples melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs (notably religious belief, clothing/fashion, and the technology of building arches).^[2]

Something very interesting to me is that the word for self-replication is a shortened form of the Greek word mimeme -- which looks a lot like Mini-Me!

So that's a meme, but basically in internet jargon basically in internet-jargon it means like a game that people play on blogs where one person posts something and then their friends do the same and so on and so forth.

Comics Re-covered #5: FF vs. Diablo and his Awesome Elementals

Diablo was one of the super-villains who opposed the Fantastic Four. This bad guy was a powerful alchemist in 9th Century Saragossa, who sold his soul to the demon Mephisto to lengthen his life far beyond a human span. Having lived for centuries, when the FF meet him, he is a practitioner of alchemy, science based upon the transmutation of elements, and has attained mastery of the alchemical sciences with his genius intellect. Wikipedia says,

Diablo employs a huge arsenal of alchemical potions he has discovered or concocted, that he can conceal in hidden pouches and pockets within his costume. His alchemy, which can transmute elements through means unknown to modern science, enables him to control his own body, the bodies of others, or inorganic matter. His mixtures include nerve gas pellets, sleeping potions, a potion that renders a person inert by rapidly lowering their body temperature, pellets that make a person susceptible to Diablo's hypnotic commands, other potions and pellets that enable him to transmute inorganic matter, create explosive blasts and create beings known as elementals that are composed of ancient alchemical "elements" of earth, fire, air, and water. With few exceptions, all of Diablo's potions and pellets have only temporary effect. He also has alchemical potions which grant him teleportation.

All of that would tend to make you fatigued, but get this: He coats his mustache with a fast-healing Elixir of Rejuvenation to suck on.

I'd like to know what possesses a man who's lived for hundreds of years to choose to dress this way. Maybe the thought process goes like this:

Diablo: If I'm going to be a super-villain, I'm going to need a flamboyant outfit. Hmmm....I'll go with magenta tights with green trim. Let's see, wings on the ballet slippers and long flowing black sashes. There! That's just the look to inspire fear.

New Year, New Comic

“The creative mind plays with the objects it loves” - Carl Jung

I wasn't familiar with this quote until tonight, when I saw it in a book at Barnes and Nobles. It seems to fit the cover above though.

I should get my first copies of Eclectic #2 early in January. It won't be long after that before it can be purchased online at Ka-Blam. There were many setbacks to this -- computer crashes, etc.
I had the cover all colored once and the computer died before I could save it. The file could not be retrieved. Oh well, just had to do it again!

Finally the work is done. I'm happy with how it turned out.