Re-Run Toons! Sorry!

What? Again? It’s not even summer?

Sorry folks, I don’t have a choice today.  I’m up against a deadline for an art job that’s very deadly and very liney.  It’s for a super-fun project with one of comics’ most successful writers (no hints beyond that), and I can’t wait to tell you what it is, but I can’t tell you yet.  On top of that, I’m putting the finishing touches on a script that I can’t tell you about until it’s announced, which is equally fun, but doesn’t involve one of comics’ most successful writers because the writer is me, and I’m only mildly successful.

SO…

We heard this week that the latest Superman and Batman movie is going to have an R-Rated release on blue ray, so I re-present a story of Superman’s private areas.

It’s hard to believe that it’s a year ago this weekend that the world lost Mr. Spock.  Sigh…

See you next week, where I’ll be far less employed in the making of comics for big-time publishers and industry people, and can come back here and make free comics for the likes of YOU.

Ty the Guy OUT!

For last week’s Bun Toon that obliquely references Star Trek (oh, but hardly), click here.

For the archive of old Bun Toons, click here.  (Oh, my god, it’s been too long since I updated the archive.  I’m a bad person)

Another Swan Song Bun Toon. Not So Yay!

This keeps happening. I think this whole “mortality” thing is just awful.

No preamble.  The Bun Toon says it all.

Okay, I did end up with Ringo’s signature, but it was at the insistence of a friend, not me.

Ty the Guy OUT!

———————————————————————————————

The signatures…

Rather than just looking at the artwork, let’s consider the man we lost this week at 89  years old….

That’s Murphy Anderson, looking dapper in the ever-present suit.

My middle name is “Murphy” by the way, so I had an EXTRA fondness for the only other person I’ve ever met who shares that moniker.

I really do think that these two comic books have more influence on me than any two comics ever published…

This was the first time I saw the “new” Superman of the 70s…Clark and Lois worked for a TV station, and Lois was starting to dress in modern clothes (Jimmy, not so much.)  The story (by Denny O’Neil) seemed more “grown-up” than the previous Superman stories I read.  This seemed like it was “mine”, and not the old fashioned stuff my older brothers used to read.

I still have my copies of these two issues, though they have long ago lost their covers (and I purchased nice new copies at a convention).  This one also introduced me to my life-long fondness of Nick Cardy (quite a cover, no?)…as it had a Teen Titans reprint found within.

These two comics started me down my path of obsessive collecting, which led to me learning to draw them (like Curt and Murphy if I could), which led me to working in the biz…

…Which led to me eventually taking Murphy’s job after he retired.

Yup.  I became Curt Swan’s inker about two years after I met them.  Did it for a while, and it was like nothing I can describe to wake up every morning working your dream job.

Curt Swan and I even co-created ARM FALL OFF BOY, the greatest comic character of all time.

But enough about me.
Let’s finish off looking at some Swanderson artwork in their prime…from Action Comics #410.  One of those first issues I ever bought, back when I was nine years old….

Damn.  Look how good that stuff still is!  Every drop of ink is in the right place.

Thanks for the fantastic ride, Curt and Murphy.  You were both unimaginable treasures of my youth, and you are both unimaginably missed.

————————————————————————————————-

For last week’s nostalgic and yet, futuristic Bun Toon, click here.

For the increasingly un-updated Bun Toon archive, click here!

Celebrate Good Times Come On! YAY!

Love Long and Perspire

Oh my lack of god, there’s been a lot of my favourite people dying this last two weeks….  Writer Terry Pratchett,  Simpsons Co-Creator Sam Simon, Golden Age DC artist Irwin Hasen,  and of course, two of the giants of Star Trek:  Harve Bennett and Leonard Nimoy.

Enough feeling bad about this.

I’m not kidding.  If you’re reading this on Saturday afternoon, come on down to the TRANZAC CLUB at 292 Brunswick Avenue, just south of Danforth, west of Spadina.

It’s ten bucks at the door (two Spock Fives!)

and the proceeds go to the Lung Association of Canada.

I promise an evening of illogic and joy.

Ty the Guy OUT!

———————————————————————————————–

Because Marvel eventually used every syllable in naming their various monsters…

…that purple monkey fellow up there is named “Grok”.  He’s in the Marvel Wiki.

‘Nuff Said.

—————————————————————————————————

For my tribute to Leonard Nimoy Bun Toon (from two weeks ago) click here.

For last week’s non-Star Trek Bun Toon, click here

For The Bun Toon Archive, click here

Fascinating Bun Toons. Not Yay.

Taken out by a smoking habit. He could only be destroyed by something completely illogical.

—————————————————————————————————

Ty the Guy OUT!

—————————————————————————————————-

I was at a comic convention in Kitchener, Ontario yesterday, where I was asked to do a sketch of Mr. Spock.  This was about twenty minutes or so, magic markers on cardboard from a photo on a smart-phone.

It turned out not bad for a marker sketch.

I’ve drawn Nimoy/Spock a zillion times over the years.  He was one of the faces I used when I first auditioned for Mad Magazine a lifetime ago…

Here’s Spock’s first appearance from issue #1 of the Star Trek miniseries I wrote for IDW a couple of years back:  MISSION’S END.  The pencils are by the delightfully skilled Steve Molnar.

I loved the “alien” look on the character, looking down on Gary Mitchell and another crew-woman as they first encounter him.  One of my favorite moments from a script I wrote brought to life perfectly by Steve…

The “Spock Five” did, in fact, start with me.  I’ve been drawing these on Canadian money since the late seventies, and some time in the nineties, a TV producer friend of mine named Mark Askwith asked me to demonstrate the trick on TV.  Shortly after that, I started getting them back as change, which freaked me the f*** out the first time it  happened.    Apparently, they’re still around, and a few folks did up some new ones in hounour of Leonard’s passing.  (the bill up above is not one of mine, btw, but I can’t find an original bill anywhere and had to settle for one found online).

—————————————————————————————————

For last week’s equally sad Bun Toon, click here

for the Bun Toon Archive, click here

Happy Birthday Leonard Nimoy.

Happy Birthday Len!  Actor, director, photographer, national treasure, icon, and tied with Batman as the fictional character I most wanted to be when I was twelve years old.  (Then I discovered girls, and wanted to be Kirk, as he got more tail!)

I wish I had a larger scan of this one. It's my portrait of Spock I did as part of an audition to work at Mad Magazine.

When I was a teenager, I used to suffer from terrible migraines in both my head and my stomach.  Debilitating, awful pains.  Pain relievers didn’t work (they still don’t, I’m immune to morphine, believe it or not), and I had no other tools to battle these pains but mental concentration.  I used to repeat Spock’s mantra at times like this “There is no pain.  It is all an illusion, it is not real…etc.” paraphrasing from a few episodes put together, admittedly.  But it WORKED.  I discovered the very useful trick of controlling my mind and learning to control the pain.  And all because of my rock-solid belief in the reality of Vulcans, Mr. Spock, and his world.

I would not have gotten through my teen-age years without him.  So this is personal.

Thanks for being in our world, Leonard, from the bottom of my heart.

TY THE GUY OUT!

And now, some personal Templeton/Nimoy bonus moments!

To start with, there's the Star Trek mini-series I wrote...

ALSO:  I auditioned for a small part in the film “THE GOOD MOTHER” which Leonard directed.  I didn’t get the part, but I got to meet the director at the audition, which was a thoroughly pleasant experience.

Pictured: Actors I didn't get to work with.

ALSO:  My ex-brother-in-law Michael Burgess, DID have a part in the movie THREE MEN AND A BABY (another Nimoy Opus), but had nothing but unpleasant things to say about Nimoy, so screw Burgess.  He’s divorced from sister, he’s an epic ass, and not much of an actor, anyway.

 

Pictured: More actors I've never worked with.

Also:  I have every Leonard Nimoy music album ever made, all original vinyl pressings,  and once produced a video for the song “If I Had a Hammer” when I worked at CITY TV in the 80s.  I can’t find the video, or you’d be seeing it everywhere, believe me.

Feel? Feel? What are these emotions you speak of?

My inner Mad

When I put up those Harvey Pekar sketches last week, I mentioned that neither of the drawings were in my “usual” style of doing a likeness.  At this point in my career, I’m not sure I have a style, but I do have some vague idea of what sort of final drawing will look right to my eyes, and these ideas are usually rooted in Mort Drucker and John Severin…two of the great Mad artists of my youth.

As you can see by the drawing of a young Jay Leno (done for a Canadian TV Guide some years ago) and the Movie Spock (done for my own amusement last year), my line work tends towards Drucker’s when I’m just trying to make a portrait.

Oddly enough, when I fit a likeness into a story (as I did with these panels from various editions of the Factoid BIG BOOK series, or as I’m currently doing with my fun Dexter gig), I find my line work and sensibility tends towards John Severin.   Probably because Severin was slavishly realistic, and Drucker was more playful.

Either way, when you add the Jack Davis influence in the Pekar drawing below (coupled with a blatant attempt to inject a little R. Crumb in there, another Harvey Kurtzman protege), I’ve obviously never gotten over my early crush on Mad Magazine.

And I ain’t never gonna.

Ty the Guy