May the Hyperborean (1994)

 

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

The Night Before Frostmas

"The Night Before Frostmas", featuring May the Hyperborean, was pencilled in 2019 and inked in 2020.  I'd actually begun the comic in 2015, getting as far as rough pencils for the first four pages and a watercolour illustration, "May versus Krampus", before putting it on hold for four years.  I had planned to publish it in December, 2020 (just in time for Christmas) as the 7th issue of my small press comic, PLOGG, but unfortunately a number of circumstances made it nigh impossible.  PLOGG #7 will see the light of day soon enough, but until then "The Night Before Frostmas" can be read right here.

As everyone knows, Frostmas occurs on the day of the winter solstice in December.  During the Frostmas season, Krampus comes around to scare children.  Let's see if he can scare a Hyperborean child:

Night Before Frostmas, pg 1

Night Before Frostmas, pg 2

Night Before Frostmas, pg 3

Night Before Frostmas, pg 4

Night Before Frostmas, pg 5

Night Before Frostmas, pg 6

Night Before Frostmas, pg 7

Night Before Frostmas, pg 8

Night Before Frostmas, pg 9

Night Before Frostmas, pg 10

Night Before Frostmas, pg 11

Night Before Frostmas, pg 12

Night Before Frostmas, pg 13

Night Before Frostmas, pg 14

Night Before Frostmas, pg 15

Night Before Frostmas, pg 16

Night Before Frostmas, pg 17

Night Before Frostmas, pg 18

Night Before Frostmas, pg 19

Night Before Frostmas, pg 20

Night Before Frostmas, pg 21

Night Before Frostmas, pg 22

Night Before Frostmas, pg 23

Night Before Frostmas, pg 24 (finis)

 

Another adventure of May the Hyperborean can be found here.

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.

 

Pied Pirate page1

Pied Pirate page 2

Pied Pirate page 3

Pied Pirate pages 4 and 5

Pied Pirate page 6

Pied Pirate page 7

Pied Pirate page 8

Pied Pirate page 9

Pied Pirate page 10

Pied Pirate page 11

Pied Pirate page 12

Pied Pirate page 13

Pied Pirate page 14

Pied Pirate page 15

Pied Pirate page 16

Pied Pirate page 17

Pied Pirate page 18

Pied Pirate page 19

Pied Pirate page 20

Pied Pirate page 21

Pied Pirate page 22

Pied Pirate page 23

Pied Pirate page 24 (end)