A good friend of mine from high school (and beyond) found a drawing of mine in his old papers recently and he was nice enough to send it on to me.
It’s a drawing from the late seventies (possibly early eighties). The character in the background in called RJ, from a story called “RJ’s Van.” This is a single drawing, not part of a story or series of panels. And, while it’s clearly my style, I have no memory of doing it. I certainly had no ideas regarding some sort of Spider-Man/RJ’s Van crossover. Most likely it was just a quick practice sketch.
I don’t know what’s stranger, the drawing itself or the fact that I don’t remember it. Who knows what other drawings of mine are out there?
As for “RJ’s Van”, well, that story never completely went away. It started out as a teenage gag strip, slowly turned into an adventure strip, finally became a movie screenplay and, recently, I’d been messing around with the idea of doing it as a graphic novel. The whole thing got put on hold when I decided to get “Ryan’s Dad” going. I’d still like to do something with it, but who knows?
So how about me putting other old drawings out there? Well, maybe. But I have to say, every time I look at my old stuff, I cringe (sometimes when I look at my new stuff, too). I remember meeting a couple of local cartoonists back in the seventies (you may have heard of them: Tom Ryan and Jim Davis) and am now absolutely ashamed at the strips I brought in for them to look at. Jim Davis gets a lot of bashing nowadays, but I’ll always be grateful to him for being kind to me when he clearly would have had every right to kick me out of his studio for a being a no-talent.
One thing I might upload up though, is a package I put together for a strip called “Brian the Brain.” It didn’t sell and I can see why now, but it might be interesting in that it features an early version of the character of Rooster (then known as “Fred.” Actually, in “Ryan’s Dad,” Rooster’s real name is “Frederick.” Rooster is just a nickname, of course. What parents would name their kid “Rooster”?).
Ahem… “Spider-Man” is copyrighted by Marvel Comics. No copyright infringment is intended.
So I’m watching a commercial for Burger King the other night… it’s the one featuring the Spongebob Squarepants promotion with the take-off on the song, “Baby Got Back.” So as I’m watching, a thought occurs to me…