The Amazing SKUNKDOG

black crayon on paper – circa 1980 - 1981

The Amazing Skunkdog - from my first year at The Kubert School. I believe these were done as part of a character design assignment for Milt Neil's, Introduction to Animation class.

The Amazing Skunkdog, name and inspiration come directly from a poem by Patti Smith in her 1978 volume BABEL.

I was planning to adapt the poem to comic pages and my well-worn copy of BABEL still has pencil marks in the margins indicating where I would break the poem down into panels and pages.

What does this have to do with ZONE?

A year before ZONE was finally delineated The Amazing Skunkdog was clearly his visual predecessor, we can see it in his hulking frame and the unique shape of his head.

Regrets, I've had a few...

Ink on duo-shade board - 1986
Page 25 from issue # 3 of THREAT!

Back in the day, the THREAT! guys were a regular fixture at Robert Geenberger's NYC comic conventions. We'd sit at a table and promote our book, talk to fans and maybe do a couple of sketches. And then one convention, when I was feeling particularly mercenary (and probably broke) I decided to try and sell my pages.

Well, I sold one page, this one, for $35.00 which was about what we were getting as a page rate back then. This one was one of my favorites and I've regretted selling it ever since.

I've always wondered if the guy who bought it hung it on his wall or just slipped it into a portfolio in his closet or under his bed.

From the files

Ink and color pencil on illustration board – 1986

Jeffrey Catherine Jones

Jeffrey Catherine Jones 1944 - 2011

This is a sad passing of energy. Jeffrey Jones was an incredibly gifted artist whose work was always inspiring and influential. His influence on ZONE was large. IDYL published in National Lampoon, and I'm AGE published in HEAVY METAL, were beautifully sketchy one page narratives espousing the profound, the profane or the pun.

I saw Jones only once, at a comic book convention years ago. Try as I might I can't recall if I spoke to him or just studied him visually from a distance. If I did say something it would have only been something like, I really like your work.

I did have the honor of introducing a very close friend to the work of Jeffery Jones, and now she has a Jones painting hanging in her dining room.

Student Sketchbook Stuff

Faber-Castell PITT artist pen – 2011

Done in a student's sketchbook, Friday, May 13th. I don't think the background worked out that well on this one, I was trying to get an up-shot of ZONE leaping off something and just couldn't mange to get the background elements right. I should have drawn the figure higher on the page. I guess that 's what I get for drawing on the train at 6:15 a.m.

Playing with Photoshop

Ink and Photoshop® - 2011

Ink - 2011

This sketch was done in one of my students sketchbooks last week, I colored it Saturday.

A Mother's Day tribute.

Ink, zip-a-tone and crayon on Bristol - 1985

A Mother's Day tribute.

This play on words printed as page 16 in the very first issue of THREAT! I was struggling to draw my own mom in the second panel, working from a photo of her it just wasn't working out. Then, my roommate and fellow THREAT! contributor Jay Geldhof suggested I just find a "mom-type" photo for reference, I did and it looked so much more mom-like. I did some minor adjustments to the hair and glasses and then it really looked more like my mom.

Hold on tight to your genes, was a play off the Electric Light Orchestra song Hold On Tight (1981). Lots of talk about DNA and genes at the time this was created. Being a fairly new vegetarian at the time I was concerned about them using radiation on fruits and vegetables to kill bacteria and messing with plant DNA to create super plants that were immune to certain diseases and resilient to pests. After what happened to him, ZONE is cautioning us to be very careful with what we mess with.