CLAW DRAWS--Lady Smurf-Smurf

This was a drawing I did for the CLAW DRAWS blog-site. I did the drawing last night...took about half an hour. Then I scanned it and spent an hour or so doing the color. The theme was, obviously, Visions of Smurfette.

Cowboy ala Moebius

The last of my "Magnificent Seven" sketches was yet another ball-point pen sketch (with no pencil under-drawing) done while watching an episode of Gunsmoke and eating dinner. LOL Multi-tasking--my old nemesis!!

This was supposed to reflect Jean Giraud's (also known as Moebius) style of elaborate shading which is, unsurprisingly, very European. Of course, it's very loose, given the nature of the medium and the lack of a pencil sketch. But the intent was for it to be purposely over-rendered.

Anyway, Lieutenant Blueberry was a western comics series created by the Belgian scriptwriter Jean-Michel Charlier and French comics artist Jean "Mœbius" Giraud in the 70s & 80s. It chronicles the adventures of Mike Blueberry on his travels through the American Old West. It's actually very famous, although not as well known to American readers. I have yet to acquire a copy of any of the books myself...but will one day do so!

The Palest Face of All

Before the motorcycle-riding, flaming skull-faced, Ghost Rider came along, the previous Ghost Rider (also known as the Phantom Rider) was a horse-riding, phosphorous/white wearing six-gun totin' mystery man serving up spooky justice in the Old West! In the movie they made him all flamey and skeletal like the new guy, but in the old comics he was (I believe) just a guy in a costume masquerading as a phantom. He would have been a big hero too...if it hadn't been for those pesky kids!

YOU Go To Town, Kimosabe!

It seemed unfair to post The Lone Ranger as an Old West icon without posting Tonto as one too. Yeah, he's usually relegated to the status of a mere side-kick, but the new Tonto in the Dynamite Comics' series is a bad-ass Warrior of the Plains! He's hard-core and doesn't take crap from anyone--especially his good ol' Kimosabe! One good thing about the new vision of the Old West--there's a little more equality--at least in terms of credit due.

Maybe The Lone Ranger is technically the lead...but he ain't the only "hero"! And Tonto helps him out of his own personal sense of justice and honor and not because he's somehow less important, or thinks of The Ranger as his boss or master. The new vision has them on deservedly even ground...and frankly, in a fight, I'd have to give the odds to Tonto!

Rootin' Tootin' Six-Gun Shootin'

OK, so Yosemite Sam can hardly be called an Old West hero...since he's invariably the villain in any Warner Bros. cartoon he finds himself in. But he's such an iconic little varmit, how could you not throw him into the mix! After all, even a band of magnificent Western characters as the ones I've been paying tribute to needs a little comic relief!

The Hex You Say

This was another sketch doodled up while watching a Gunsmoke episode. LOL I REALLY like Gunsmoke--it's become one of my favorite series, not just my favorite Western series. Especially the older black and white ones.

Anyway--about the sketch. It is, of course, the infamous "Jonah Hex" of DC Comics. I never really followed his series, although, since there's a new one I may start. He seems to be, as I understand it, the "Batman" (although he looks more like Two-Face) of a frontier town that will eventually become Gotham City. He certainly has an iconic look, I'll give him that! I apologize to any JH fans if I messed up any details since this was sketched from memory. It was done with a blue ballpoint pen, but I adjusted the color to sepia after I scanned it to give it a more Old West glamour. ^0^

This is the third of my "Magnificent Seven" western tribute sketches.

No Time For Werewolves

Day two of my Heroes of the Old West tribute features the one man on the frontier who doesn't have to worry about werewolves because he's always got a silver bullet handy!

The Lone Ranger! These days he's got a new comic book series with a bigger, badder Tonto and a secret hide-out in a silver mine to help explain his tendency to use bullet that most outlaws would want to be shot by just to get the silver! The old TV series wasn't bad...but it's pretty dated. The movie they did in '81, I think, would have been OK...if it wasn't for the cheesy singing narrator. The cool thing was Tonto, played by Michael Horse, later famous as the deputy in Twin Peaks. Now he's an artist producing Native American fine arts pieces for galleries.

This was actually drawn with a standard blue ball-point pen. I was sitting at the computer in our computer study last night watching an episode of Gunsmoke on Netflix while I had dinner...after I finished dinner, I started doodling...

The Magnificent Seven

I missed a couple of days through just being busy. You'd think that being off work, I'd have MORE time rather than less to do these sketches...and truthfully, I did some sketching, but it was on a private project that I'm not ready to display here.

But today I've decided to kick off my "Magnificent Seven"! Seven days of sketching comic book heroes of the Old West. I'm starting off with the controversial Rawhide Kid. When Marvel did a miniseries of Rawhide, drawn by Johnny Severin--whom I have always loved--I was excited that they were going to play on his alleged gayness and make him an outright (pardon the pun) homosexual character.

It turned out, it was just kind of all in fun...sort of a parody (meaning it wasn't meant to stand as 'canon'). The homosexual idea was only ever implied. The extent of his "gay" portrayal was a series of innuendos and stereotypical gags. Personally, I didn't mind it so much...I still thought it was a neat story and I enjoyed him flaming around the wild frontier. But I am in the minority there. Most folks in the gay community were really irritated about it.

The thing that DID offend me was the fact that despite the complete lack of ANYTHING even remotely explicit, they still insisted on including a warning label on the cover of each issue! Implying, of course, that the mere fact that they were even insinuating he was gay meant that the book was unfit for younger readers! But I loved the story and, even more the art, so I bought it anyway. Ah well...one step forward, two steps back.

Anyway, here is sketch #1 in my "Magnificent Seven" series, the magnificent Rawhide Kid!