The second round of my Shogun Warriors comics (issues 4-7) in which I continued to ransack the world of anime giant robots without even knowing it. Two more warriors join the fold, crazy plot points give no warning before they smack you upside the head, and the ground shakes from the battle of the Mecha Dinosaurs! Enter the mind of a 13-year-old boy who wanted nothing more than to capture the pictures in his head and share them with the world.
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Aaron Broid leads his team into another city to look for potential allies. Their enemy isn't just an oppressive system, it is the indifference of those being oppressed. The masses have never known another way of life and lack the imagination to build one. It will take someone from outside the bubble to ignite them. And he can't do it alone. Meanwhile, in the real world, the comic book industry broke my heart for the first time.
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The illustrations that appeared in this volume were originally drawn for The Politics of Contraband. My guess is that the content for that book was overproduced, and some of it got diverted into this one. The environment is a trader/smuggler route called the Kira Run, and the book contains seven different playable adventures. My work was used for two of them.
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This adventure was about smugglers taking jobs that got them in over their head, which apparently happens all the time in the Star Wars galaxy. I was the solo artist on the book (nyuk nyuk), so I got to design a gang of reprobates and put them through their paces.
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In season 2 of this entertaining series, the catalog of obscure DC characters kept on growing and the show kept getting more entertaining because of it (even dark and serious when it needed to). And there was a HUGE surprise waiting for me at the end.
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From 1984-86, I was Cadence newspaper's own version of Sergio Aragones, whipping up little jokes and cartoons for the margins. No reader ever commented and I don't know if they were actually noticed, but hopefully they brightened what could otherwise be a pretty standard routine of high school sports, local tempests, and that week's grocery bargains.
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Once you cross the line into drawing comics professionally, assignments can come from places you never expected. This is one of those cases. It came from a fella named Dan Koeppel, an editor on Mountain Bike magazine. He wanted to create an article that reviewed tires, and he thought a 6-page comic strip would be a good way to catch some eyeballs.
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Leiji Matsumoto is a legend in his own time, known for a huge range of genres from everyday drama to elevated science-fiction. His began his manga career as a teenager in 1953 and is still going in his 80s. This collection encompasses books on Matsumoto's anime and manga projects, art collections, retrospectives, biography, and other odds and ends. It is by no means the complete catalog, but it's definitely extensive.
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Looking back now, it’s like my head was secretly invaded and conditioned for everything yet to come. Today, I’m a huge anime and manga fan. Back in 1977, I didn’t know they existed. But evidence was closing in around me. I thought it was my plaything. But I was the one being played. And my strings were pulled by an amazing line of toys called The Shogun Warriors
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In this chapter of the story, the heroes (if we can call them that) have just taken their first lumps, and Broid himself is beginning to see what an impossible task it is to upend a system of government. I wanted to demonstrate how arrogant he could be, wielding his intellect like a cudgel against Sef just as the younger man is beginning to invest in their crusade.
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For my third go-round with West End Games, the scenario for the adventure was quite different. Instead of a backwater planet, this one was set on an industrial and cultural center, a busy city planet that we wouldn’t see on film until the prequels and sequels arrived.
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This was the first TV cartoon I ever worked on, and it was a perfect fit in every way. Based on the famous computer game series, it was loaded with high-octane sci-fi space fighter action. The staff took a chance on me, and it turned into a wild ride that went beyond everyone's expectations, including my own. It was a true right time/right place story with exactly the right amount of luck!
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They're weird! They're crazy! They're extremely unhygienic! Here's a bunch of dopey characters I invented during goof-off time at an animation studio. Not for the weak-willed or faint of heart.
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Back in the days of the original trilogy, Star Wars was on my mind pretty much every minute of every day. Star Wars calendars were a regular thing by then; 1978, 79, 80, and 81 were covered, but as 1982 approached no new calendar was on the horizon. So I had no choice but to make my own.
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When anime/manga virtuoso Yoshikazu Yasuhiko began his career as an anime creator, his first project was this 26-episode TV series that occupies a firm middle ground between Jonny Quest and The Iron Giant. Despite an auspicious start, all sorts of external factors dropped obstacles in its path and prevented immediate success. But over the long term, it found its way to classic status. Read all about it here!
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In the years 1978 and 1979, the Star Wars rulebook didn't really exist yet, at least as it is known today. All we had to go on was a 2-hour film and its implications, which were vast. Overlap it with a steady diet of comic books and SF and you could go in practically any direction. I drew 12 homemade Star Wars comics in this time period, ALL of which are presented here.
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BROID #2 was only half the length of #1, but it was a lot denser with more characters and a busy city environment. Drawing the second issue of a series is when you realize that your hobby has become your job, and the calendar now rules your life. So you better REALLY love drawing comics, or you're not gonna last. Fortunately, I did (both).
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I was the sole artist assigned to this book, so I was entrusted with the task of designing the characters and environment: a race of amphibians, an Imperial Swamp Trooper, a method of docking for TIE fighters, and a pair of female mercenaries who I subconsciously thought of as the Star Wars version of Japan’s Dirty Pair.
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When I joined the crew of Batman: The Brave and the Bold in 2008, it was the beginning of a hugely enjoyable run that lasted for three seasons. I made it a point to save a lot of the materials from that production, so there's a ton of it to share. In this article, I’ll focus on my contributions to Season 1.
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To entertain my fellow employees at an ad agency in 1988, I’d crank these out (fast improv freehand style) and pass them around for laughs. I’d never lived anywhere but Michigan at this point, so they all kinda channeled stereotypes of the midwest.
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