If I had one super power as a teenager (outside of writing and drawing), it was the ability to conjure up a Star Wars story from just about anything. Here's what happens when you pull a story out of a magic combination of Star Wars toys.
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By the time I began this project, making comics had been my full-time job for about year and a half. Starting with Deathshadow Rising, I would be penciling and inking a comic for the first time. It's a little odd to say that since I started out as my own inker back in the kid comic/fanzine days. But it's worth drawing a distinction, because true comic book inking is a whole separate animal.
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A gang of Egyptian mummies is revived in the modern world to protect the 12-year-old descendant of their pharaoh from an evil sorcerer on a quest for immortality. Rather than stumbling around as dried-up zombie husks, they draw power from Egyptian gods that turns them superhuman guardians against villains and evil spirits. See my storyboard for one episode of this series, drawn in the last days of the pre-digital era when TV cartoons changed forever. And not entirely for the better.
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As time went on, my clients at DISC Distributing got more and more inventive with the cartoon scenarios for their DAD character. I don't know whose responsibility it was to think them up, but every couple of weeks I would get another unpredictable request. One by one, I'd whip up a new cartoon (or several) that put DAD through his paces. Here's round 2, mainly from 1996.
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This one is LOADED with memories for me. First and foremost, it's another bounty hunter story. As my record will attest, I was fascinated by the bounty hunters since the first sighting of Boba Fett in 1978. When that rogue's gallery appeared for the first time in Empire, it was like Uncle George was handing me story ideas. There was a tale to be told about each of them, and this comic was one of those tales. ALSO: lucky special bonus comic inside!
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The invasion of Independence Colony has placed its citizens between two rival forces, but neither is what it appears to be. As we get closer to the truth, the line blurs between ally and enemy until they become indistinguishable. When all is revealed, nobody will walk away as the person they once were.
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Season 4 was truly packed with major events. After the original team goes missing, Black Panther brings together the "New Avengers" until the others can be found/rescued. After some more crazy adventures, everyone is transported to Battleworld where the Beyonder makes them his pawns in our version of Secret Wars. Boyoboy those are trigger words for me. Find out why in this article.
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I don't exactly remember how I got involved in this particular arena, but it lasted a good long time and I've got a LOT to show for it. The arena was computer hardware. The job was cartooning. The client was a company named DISC Distributing. It went to some silly places.
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This was my fourth Star Wars comic written and drawn for a fanzine in April 1982, when I was 16. It was published in Crossed Sabers (Vol. 2, issue 3) in 1983. At the time I drew it, Return of the Jedi was a little over away, so in my head the rebel alliance was still in a Battlestar Galactica scenario, creeping through space toward whatever was to come. And space is always full of weird hazards.
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Independence Colony is a smoking ruin after a surprise attack from planetary orbit. Two survivors run into what appears to be a platoon of alien soldiers who easily overpower and imprison them. Against all hope, a heavily-armed team arrives from Earth. But what seems to be a rescue looks more like a second invasion!
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The universal gaming system developed by Steve Jackson worked for martial arts scenarios, and this book contained three of them. Each of the three was illustrated by a different artist, and I was assigned one titled Dark Arena. Imagine a Kung Fu movie in which fighters are abducted and forced to face each other in the ring and you won't be far off.
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The studio was Wildbrain and the client was actor/fitness guru Jake Steinfeld, better known under the brand name "Body by Jake." After a successful career of training adults, he made the commendable decision to turn his breezy, positive, and encouraging style toward children's health. And there are few better ways to reach children than through cartoons. I heartily endorse EVERYTHING Jake has to say in these cartoons. Well done, sir.
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It's a grab bag inside a grab bag! Here are a whole bunch of projects I did over a stretch of about thirty years. The only thing they all have in common is that they came out of my head and helped someone else achieve their goals.
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Luke Skywalker and an Imperial pilot crash-land on an uncharted planet, where mutual survival forces them into a temporary truce. They are forced into much more when they find a city of persecuted droids massing to retaliate against the entire galaxy! This was my third Star Wars story created for fanzine publication, written and drawn from January to March, 1982 (at age 16).
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In the future, everyday life on an Earth colony planet is quiet and routine...until the day an unexpected and devastating attack from space disrupts it forever. Suddenly, people who lived normal, predictable lives are caught between two brutal forces intent on mutual destruction. One of those forces is from Earth. But which of them is the enemy?
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It's always nice for an artist, especially one with a long resume, to surprise themselves on an assignment. This project did that for me. It was my second time illustrating a TORG sourcebook for West End Games, and the job was HUGE. Over 40 illustrations from a genre-bending scenario of Earth beset by inter-dimensional invaders. The setting was future Tokyo, and though it would be another 14 years before I started visiting Tokyo in person, my head was already there via the worlds of anime and manga.
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I've been an anime fan since 1980, so you can imagine what a thrill it was to actually get to work on an anime series, drawing storyboards that would be animated in Japan. This series took a long, winding road to my door and was in heaps of trouble when it finally arrived. What was it like to help rescue a medium that I'd always revered? Find out in this article!
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Super people? Aliens? Sonic the Hedgehog? Buckaroo Banzai? Here's another round of projects that went nowhere, at least in terms of them panning out into real gigs. They were certainly not dead ends in terms of creativity.
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Few "live-action anime" movies succeed in doing justice to their source material. Speed Racer (2008), Space Battleship Yamato (2010) and Battle Angel (2019) are rare exceptions that capture both tone and spirit. But if you want one that embodies the flavor and texture of 80s mecha anime, Gunhed is where it's at.
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From the exploits of Han Solo: Han and Chewie are stalked through a big city by the toughest, meanest bounty hunter this side of Boba Fett! This was one of the earliest Star Wars comics I drew for a fanzine, and it predated a lot of later Bossk appearances that seemed to be cut from the same cloth.
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