dream jobs part 2: ROCKET RACCOON!!!

yeah, you heard...
since i was twelve, i have loved this book. and what's not to love?!! rockets... raccoons... mignola... BIM! BAM! BOOM! about a year ago, when i was thinking about ways to build work for myself, "rocky" popped back into my head. i reread it and to my delight it still held up... or maybe more accurately it's still got great bones (i could have done without the clowns). but maybe the best part was how easily it can fall outside of regular marvel continuity...

the pitch: give me a good writer, someone who can write well, but, more importantly, someone who can write fun (mike carey, jeff parker, etc...). once you've done that, charge them with writing the best damn "adam strange" story they can think of, staple a tail to it, and let me paint. ...that's it...

now here's the tricky part: publish in a different format (slightly bigger, slightly smaller-- doesn't matter) at about 44+ pages per book, and throw it onto a bookstore shelf next to "bone". the beauty of this is that at a different format you can trick parents into buying their kids comics ("this isn't comic book," they'll say. "comic books are bigger/smaller and have less pages and are crap. with this i can help my son/daughter to be interested in reading REAL books..."-- don't think it works? ask my folks about "asterix"), and the kids are happy 'cause they're reading a book about a raccoon with a jet pack*. win/win, and nary a cape (and all their accompanying baggage) in sight.


why no one will let me do it: honestly? i'm not totally sure they wouldn't. i'll give you a moment to let the gasps at tom being positive about something die down...

i actually brought this up to someone at marvel when he was trying to offer me a job on something else (the something else didn't happen, but foot in the door, etc...) and wasn't completely shut down right away.

the crinkle in my master plan, though, is that in the time that it took me cook up this genius rocket raccoon comeback THEY BROUGHT THE CHARACTER BACK THEMSELVES! and worst of all for me, by all reports, they did a good job of it. rocky's now a member of the "guardians of the galaxy" and therefore well ensconced (albeit at an arm's length) in the same marvel universe i'd have further distanced him from. again because, purely from a bookstore marketing/trickery standpoint, it becomes significantly more difficult to trick parents into buying it if it's got spiderman plastered all over it. weirdest of all for me is that when they brought him back it was in an almost identical costume as the one i'd designed for him (though, admittedly i cribbed mine from garcia lopez's "tommy tomorrow" in "twilight").

so here's the new pitch: eventually guardians is going to end, right? well then maybe rocky goes home. and maybe things aren't as stable as he left them. maybe it's time to don the jet pack once again... and no parent would be the wiser.


*yeah i know he had jet skates. i like jet packs better.

EDIT: monique pointed out last night that the above picture of rocket might look a bit too lupine. i agree. here's the new one.

some monkey pages for you...

...'cause you asked for 'em, kids.

that's all.




also: BEHOLD THE SAVAGE POWER!

dream jobs part 1

i'm starting a new semi-regular feature here at blarg (though, i suppose "semi-regular" could be used to describe just about everything to do with how i keep this site...).

"Dream Jobs". which is really just as it sounds. each installment will consist of three elements: the project, the pitch, and, most gloomily, the reason no one will ever let me do it ...

and with that ringingly positive description let's start with:

the project: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!
the pitch:

pretty much a direct adaptation of the radio series... all twenty-six episodes! if you figure about 23-30 minutes per episode -- taking into account the differences in the two media, dropping out a few of the wordier bits of exposition, drawing out some extra colour from the novels, as well as all of the wonderfully alien characters and environs that only comics can fully realize-- that should translate fairly well to a 22-24 page comic for each. or a 44 page european style album for each two, or a 144 page ogn for each "phase", etc, etc, etc... all adapted (though probably with help) and drawn by me, with the excerpts from "the book" -- and since we're dealing with tom's perfect dream-world let's just keep dreamin'-- drawn by chip zdarsky (or as he likes to be called now, mrs. edith nausbaum) in the style he uses for his national post "extremely bad advice" column. funny funny funny stuff...

i've found myself drawing this stuff like a madman in my spare time... and i've been finding marvin to be the toughest nut to crack. these are the three best iterations so far...

first one's good but a bit too scrawny. he'd work well, though, as the generic model for all the other robots to be built off from...
this guy's getting closer, he's got that could fall apart at any moment and is slightly testy about it look that i always picture marvin with...
this is the one i'm happiest with. still not sure about the head, the body's exactly as i picture it when i'm listening...

the reason no one will ever let me do it: two reasons, really.

first: it's already been done... poorly (or, at least that's how everyone who remembers it remembers it.)

and second: there's been a movie. once hollywood shoots it's mostly corrupted and ill conceived wad, that's usually just about it for any comic version. unless your average modern comic publisher can sniff out the pungent aroma of option money rising off your project, they won't go anywhere near it; let alone something they'd have to license. add to that the movie, tragically, not being all that good.

(let me just back that up before i get jumped on... everything on screen that was pure unadulterated douglas adams, shot through the henson lens, and even with the disney "let's put 'mericans in it so 'mericans will watch it" filter (mos def, sam rockwell, even zooey deschannel): good, all good. hell, mos def was outstanding. everything else (i'm looking at you karey kirkparick): malkovitch, the truth gun, the alien dmv, the tacked on love story/happy ending... bad. very bad. tragically, horribly, egregiously bad. i mean come on! he hadn't even read the fudding book!!! that said we do own the movie, for all of the above "good" reasons.)

all of this means the chances of a comic book publisher committing to this kind of major undertaking, without anything other than comic/trade sales on the back end are about as good as me riding a hippo drawn battle wagon through the tim hortons drive thru...

but then who knows?... maybe ballantine would be interested...

edit: on a totally unrelated topic, i just had to do a google image search of "monkey" for a job (yeah... "had to"), and it came up with this. awesome.

wee monsters...

some more xmas monsters for you....

these were some quick gifts i whipped up for our friends during an uncommonly busy xmas season (monique made cookies). they were all achieved fairly quickly on a pad of craft paper i bought years ago with faber-castell's coloured brush pens and a little bit of gouache. i wouldn't want to burst anyone's bubbles on how the artistic mind works, but generally, if a cartoonist friend of your's ever gives you a little piece of art as a gift, he's not being thoughtful.... he's being lazy.

enjoy...



it's also come to my attention that some old work of mine got linked to on journalista (apparently the direct link is here). it's cool, but i have absolutely no fudding idea where on the scans-daily page it is. if anyone can find it and send me an actually direct direct link i would greatly appreciate it. i'm kind of curious what, if anything, people are saying about it...

problem solved... HAPPY XMAS!!! (late)

it's a naked xmas monsters miracle!!!!

again, the best of the season to you from the fowlers: tom, monique, graham, and zool...

ps... the bear on the right is "stephen"...

pps... more xmas monsters in varying states of dress...

happy, er... feast of stephen...

just the teeniest bit pissed at blogger right now, as it won't let me upload this year's xmas card (one of my very best!) without reversing all the colours... anyone know why?

that said, i hope you're both doing well. please accept this naked christmas monster as our gift to you on this special day... after that other special day...

--the fowlers: tom, monique, graham, and zool...

ps... some more naked xmas monsters...

stuff...( cbc1 interview included)

with any luck it's still there (oct 18th ), or here. i don't have real player on my computer so i can't play it for myself. if i remember correctly i swore a lot and talked about pelicans the whole time.

it's fascinating....

(though it should be said i didn't know i'd be doing an interview until about an hour and a half before i was sitting in the studio.)



as far as le salon......de gatineau goes, here's my comprehensive, in depth account:

it was awesome.

articulate, no?

honestly, i wish i could remember it better. i met some really great people, was treated really incredibly well by the staff and the organizers (hell, it was like being a star), ate in some terrific restaurants, attended some great parties, learned a hell of a lot more about bandes desinees, and came away maybe thinking i'd like to take another stab at it...

all that and those two most glorious words in any language: PER DIEM!!! god bless the french! (or in this case les quebecois!)...

and with that a sneak peak at my next project...

---ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!



EDIT... in digging around i actually tracked down some photos of the event! if i find more (or if someone sends me any) i'll post those too...

top row l-r: Bill Slavin, moi, Lalie, Yves Bourgelas, and Christian Darasse.
bottom row: Serge "Bosse" Bosmans, Boulet, Pierre Wazem (just behind Boulet), Emmanuel Lepage, Francois Miville-Deschenes.
not pictured: Philippe "Phlppgrrd" Girard.

i wound up on a panel with bosse, lalie, and lepage entitled "are you herge or franquin", and treaded water as best i could....



that's me doodling for a confused fan ("what do you mean these are original pages?"). if i look like like i'm sweating it's because i was struggling through a tortured-french explanation of who monroe was (and, indeed, what MAD is?), and running a temperature of 102. don't ever say i'm not there for the fans... to get them sick...

behind me is the great hall of the canadian museum of civilisation.

if i wasn't clear before, le rendezvous was everything a comic show should be, and quite unlike anything i'd ever attended in the past. it was at the same time a fun, relaxing, and rewarding experience, and i've already offered myself up to the organizers should they ever need any help in the future.

sadly, though, i won't get another per diem.