Those Girls from That Weekend

HeoresCon, June 4-6, 2010
Charlotte, NC

In what resulted in this continuation of a June 7th "monotonae" post, "Girls for Sale," I recently typed my name in Google and found the site ComicArtFan, a self described gallery and marketplace of comic related art.

Here three members posted a combined total of seven scans of commissioned convention drawings I did at this years' HeroesCon.

This doesn't mean I'm famous or anything, but maybe in some way this may bring a little attention to Tuff-Girl.


This costume for this "classic" style of Cat Woman was from reference provided by the commissioner (That sounds funny. I guess I used the term "client" previously.). Yes, experienced comic convention attendees do carry stacks of reference with themselves in the hopes that they might get their favorite character re-created especially for them.

This composition was left open to me, so, no, I wasn't trying to re-create a comic book cover. The safe box is a bit of property that felt right for the image's story and something I gladly added on this, one of the first commissions of the con. However, since additional property means more drawing (i.e. work), I decided not to so easily volunteer extra work on later commissions.



This is Starfire in the now classic George Perez costume of the 1990's. The client, had a sketchbook nearly full of commisioned art mostly of Starfire based both on Perez's art and Glen Murakami's animated style from the fan favorite Cartoon Network series. I had to reference the sketchbooks previous entries for the costume details. Unfortunately I forgot to draw her arm band, an omission that bugged me the whole following week. I'm over it now.



I've drawn enough Wonder Woman art that I didn't require reference, and in fact, this one was drawn during some down time, and later sold. This, like most of the other pieces done at the con., is in the animation inspired style I've picked up, and you may argue that as result she appears too young.


http://www.comicartfans.com/

You can type "Bryan Mon" in the search box for everything posted.

Wichita in "Beach Thief"

Here is the ten page Wichita adventure that played as the second feature story appearing in the first issue of "Unstoppable Tuff-Girl." It's broken into two parts. The mythology is helped, in this first issue any ways, not only by have Wichita involved in the action, but also by depicting Debbie in it as herself and not entirely is Tuff-Girl and inserting Deanne, none of which is in the lead feature.

The conceit of the Wichita stories is that they're Tuff-Girl stories told from the dog's perspective. The story telling is simpler with a more cartoony art style inspired by Chic Young's "Blondie."

Early Wichita designs actually more closely followed that of Dagwood's pup Daisy (or Pluto). Her final design incorporates a smooth line from head to nose which better suggests the profile of an Airedale or wire hair terrier and fur concealed paws that was more inspired by the design of Danny the sheep from Disney's "So Dear to My Heart" (1949) than other cartoon dog designs.

Neither Wichita nor any of the animal characters will talk or "think talk" as do Snoopy or Garfield. Instead the details of Wichita's thoughts and actions are described by the narrative - think nature film ala Walt Disney's "True Life Adventures" or more recently "March of the Penguins."

Production wise, the feature was originally planned as an eight page story told in two parts until two pages opened up in planning the book. Which was a bit better for the story, since it might be an idea bigger than even the final 36 panels.

Not hindered by the fact that I had yet to coalesce how magic works in Tuff-Girl stories, I needed a magician opponent for the tale and had come up with Voilare based on "voila." His design is roughly a caricature of Jim Valeri because of the similarity of the names. Then I kind-of sort-of based the assistant, Ana Cara, of his wife Kara. Ana Cara's back story is that she replaces her sister as Voilare's assistant. Her sister's name is Abigail Carolyn Dubois (a.k.a. Abby C. DuBois).

I was hoping to have the rabbit, Friday, play a bigger part in the tale, but there really wasn't enough room. Friday is named for a magician friend.

TAGS January 31 & February 01, 1994

01/31: Bemoan my Valentine.
02/01: Not that Monster asked.

January 31: Rodney (African Lion, 2nd appearance) and Murray (cheetah, 7) are best friends. As it happens, up until this point TAGS hasn't needed that relationship for any joke or story angle. Maybe they go out hunting together or something.

February 01: Jeannie (swan, 2) is dissatisfied relationship with Hans (fox). This might be the groundwork to have them break up and later pair Jeannie with someone else.

In these break room scenes, I don't know if readers think that it's odd to depict folks' bodies, albeit in shadow below the tabletop. Mostly, the table substitutes for the brick walls in Schulz's Peanuts. I wasn't comfortable with having the bottom panel border be the tabletop, thinking it flattened the depth too much.

Meredith McClaren

Debbie and Wichita
Artwork © Meredith McClaren
Tuff-Girl and related characters © Bryan Mon

Meredith has a drawing style that favors anime influences (think "FLCL"). It’s misleading to say so, because it has a flowing, introspective quality that’s as if it were something she invented in a similar way that nobody drew Mickey Mouse until Fred Moore drew Mickey Mouse (“The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Fantasia,” “The Brave Little Tailor”) a decade after Walt Disney invented the character.

Meredith is a young artist graduated from The Savana College of art and Design (SCAD). She posts an amusing weekly autobiographical comic strip, “Scraps.”

I met Meredith when she interned one summer at Cartoon Network, Atlanta. She created the image above as a pin-up for the first issue of “Unstoppable Tuff-Girl.”



http://iniquitousfish.blogspot.com/

Check out “Scraps”:
http://iniquitousfish-scraps.blogspot.com/