plogg: January 2021

Thursday, January 28, 2021

Sunny Afternoon

"Sunny Afternoon"; pen and ink; 22" x 28" Bristol board; 1980/1981.

Back in 1980, when I was 16, I went and bought a pair of jeans -- probably the first time I ever went and bought an article of clothing for myself. They were dark navy blue, which I didn't like, but there weren't a lot of choices where I came from, not at that time. The next morning, when no one else was around, I decided to throw them in the washing machine and fade them. I'd never used the washing machine before, either, but I reckoned I could handle it. I threw in the jeans -- no water -- poured Javex bleach directly on the jeans, made a few calculations, then started up the machine. Well, what I had was a pair of jeans, only slightly faded, with a big splash of white down the side of the left leg, looking something like the Milky Way. Not wanting to waste a new pair of jeans, I wore them anyway. I felt like an idiot, at first, but then I grew to liking them. They were unique!

It was around this time that I started working on this picture. A giant battle scene, with humans, aliens and monsters. Visually, it's confusing. The detailed line work was influenced by Philippe Druillet and Enki Bilal, and all those figures are hard to untangle -- but not impossible.

I did it a little bit here and there, when I had time, since I was also working on other projects. It took me half a year to complete. Unfortunately, I spilled ink on the left side of the drawing about halfway through. It was devastating. I painted over the black blot with white watercolour, I think, then had to redraw the damaged part -- except I couldn't remember what I had originally drawn. But I managed, drawing something and matching up the lines. The correction is most visible.

But there was still more devastation. I was wearing my unique, white-flecked jeans on that occasion, and the ink splashed all over the left leg. Now I had a mix of black and white splashes on the same leg. But I got over the initial disappointment the next day, when I realised no one else in the world had a pair of jeans like mine!

I named the drawing after the Kinks song.

Monday, January 25, 2021

The Dial-Up Drawings

Beach Girl

I had dial-up internet until 2009. That meant speeds of 40 or 50 kilobits per second...if I was lucky. Waiting for a page to load took forever. It was tedious and aggravating. I had piles of notepads with white paper, 5 1/4" x 8", thick stock. I always kept one between the keyboard and the screen, to make notes or doodle, always with a ball point pen. In the last few months of 2008 I started drawing something more than a scribble, using one of my Staedtler felt tip pens. It was better than staring at the screen, waiting.

It was a good exercise, because the drawings were extemporaneous and, as I was using a pen rather than a pencil, I couldn't do any erasing; if I made a mistake, all I could do was curse myself, or work around it. Not that it mattered: they were just doodles that no one would ever see. Till now. Here's a few of the better ones from those last few months of dial-up. One and a half inches of the paper in those pads is taken up by the company logo, so the illustrations are actually 5" x 6 1/2" or less. Arranged in alphabetical order.

Chamber Maid

Cloud

Cyclops

Dungeon

Eyeball

Geologist

Goblin

Lizard

Lost In Thought

Red Riding Hood

Repairs

Rowboat

Smile

Spear

Spiral Eyes

Stone

Tough Bull

Up And At 'Em

Wild Man

Wrench

Sunday, January 24, 2021

The Usual Gang of Idiots

"The Usual Gang of Idiots" was written and drawn in 2006, and appeared in PLOGG #5 (May 2007). It was the last of four stories featuring Sarva. There's not much to know about the character: she lives in the notorious "Hell's Bathroom" section of an unnamed city (I suppose I could have made up a name, like "Metropolis" or "Gotham City"); she can take care of herself; and, despite her hostile environment, she's optimistic, but not quite a Pollyanna.

A few notes: The title of the story is what the writers and artists at MAD magazine were called. All of the comic book covers shown in the story are actual covers. Where the boxes of valuable Golden and Silver Age comics left on the sidewalk came from, and who the doomsayer, Edgar Allan Burroughs, is, is revealed in the very last panel. No, you haven't missed anything: I don't know who Mr Big Stuff is, either; but Sarva is always getting into trouble, so it doesn't surprise me that he'd want to deliver a warning to her personally. The wrestlers got their gimmick -- chaining themselves together and calling themselves "The Defiant Ones" -- from the 1958 movie of the same name, starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis as escaped convicts. As for Lord Rathbone, he's just a maniac who's seen too many Johnny Weissmuller movies.

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 1

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 2

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 3

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 4

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 5

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 6

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 7

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 8

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 9

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 10

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 11

Usual Gang of Idiots, page 12

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Horror at Pinocchio's House

"Horror at Pinocchio's House" first appeared in PLOGG #3 (October 1998) as a back-up feature.

Pinocchio, page1

Pinocchio, page 2

Pinocchio, page 3

Pinocchio, page 4

Pinocchio, page 5

Pinocchio, page 6

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

The Pied-Pirate of Hallowe'en

"The Pied-Pirate of Hallowe'en", featuring May the Hyperborean, first appeared in PLOGG #6 (March 2015), though it was written and drawn in 2014. May and her dog, Digger, wander into a small town, where she joins the Roughing It Girls, a Girl Guide-type organisation, and makes an enemy of a pirate named Cap'n Sane, who, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, leads the town's cat population away for some mysterious purpose. May and her newfound friends stumble upon Cap'n Sane's hideout, a haunted house, while trick-or-treating on Halloween night. The plot also involves pirate skeletons and two deadly suits of armour.

Most of the comics shown on "Toughie" Binder's stand are titles popular in the 1940s, with the exception of BUSTER BEAR, which didn't debut until 1953, and "Whacko Comics", which simply didn't exist. While reading a comic up in a tree (page 6), May mentions a little girl who likes dots; she's referring to Little Dot, of course, who debuted in the first issue of Harvey's LITTLE MAX COMICS in 1949. Again, while up in a tree reading a comic (page 13), May mentions a "mean old guy"; that's Doctor Sivana, archenemy of Captain Marvel, "The Big Red Cheese".

At the end of the story, "Toughie" Binder is wondering where his comic stand disappeared to. The answer is hinted at in the first and second panels of the same page.