 |
Cover of PLOGG #1 (1994)
|
May the Hyperborean, a little barbarian girl from the north, was originally featured in a prose story, "Nightmare in Metal", in 1990. In December of 1991 I decided to start my own small press, Plogg Press, and designed a logo inspired by Jim Steranko's cover for THE INCREDIBLE HULK SPECIAL #1 (1968), which always thrilled me. (Hulk's face was redrawn by Marie Severin, who was the Hulk's regular artist, and who also drew that issue.)
 |
THE INCREDIBLE HULK SPECIAL #1 (1968), cover by Jim Steranko (and Marie Severin)
|
The next month, January 1992, I started working on a May the Hyperborean comic. For some reason I made her a teenager. I think I had in mind Robert E. Howard's Conan, whose original stories in WEIRD TALES in the 1930s followed no chronological order, jumping around from the Cimmerian's teens to his 40s. I've since kept May at about age 9, just as Little Orphan Annie never aged. As long as Archie comics are around, there will always be enough teen comics in the world.
 |
Unused rough pencils for first page
|
I hadn't drawn a full comic since 1984, so I was rusty -- very rusty. To make matters worse, I was working longer hours than a Victorian child in a cotton mill, six days a week. I just didn't have time. I drew the first three pages in 1992, and the rest in 1994, all in pen and ink. (As you can see, I used dirt cheap 3-hole sheets of paper.) I didn't finish the 16-page comic till the summer of 1994, two and a half years later. I painted a cover for it and "published" the first issue of PLOGG early in August of 1994 in an edition of 40 copies. I'm guessing you don't own one of these babies.
 |
May pg1
|
 |
May pg2
|
 |
May pg3
|
 |
May pg4
|
 |
May pg5
|
 |
May pg6
|
 |
May pg7
|
 |
May pg8
|
 |
May pg9
|
 |
May pg10
|
 |
May pg11
|
 |
May pg12
|
 |
May pg13
|
 |
May pg14
|
 |
May pg15
|
 |
May pg16
|
