What Shall I Draw Today? - Coming Sunday, February 28th

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Marketable Skills

“The French Market Restaurant Cast Poster, Summer 1989”

Black Xerographic reproduction on white paper

91.4 cm x 61.0 cm (36 inches x 24 inches)

1989

Here is one of the biggest self-started projects on which I worked relating to my days as a Cast-Member (i.e. employee) bussing tables at the buffeteria restaurant “The French Market” in New Orleans Square, Disneyland.  Each of the 107 Cast-Members is depicted as her/his critter-caricature or as I coined, “critticature” (or crittature), which were originally developed for my fledgling comic strip series, “Back Stage,” of which I have discussed previously.

I don’t know if almost 22 years later I need to apologize for any of my critticature selections, but I can say that none of them were out of meanness. On the opposite extreme, none of my critticature selections very much gained me anything. I didn't even have much in the way of rules of going about it, save for trying to never use the same species or breed twice. Some were actually because they reminded me of an animal or cartoon of an animal. Some were merely alliterative with either their first or last name. The worst were because I had never used a particular animal before.

The poster was as big as Kinko’s copiers, at the time, could reproduce. I drew the original at 100% scale on illustration board as a single, sprawling piece of art and pasted on the names in the legend at the bottom. To my chagrin, the large copier’s rollers would not accept the large board, and I had to peel off the top layer. I ran off 200 copies for sale I guess. I would later frame the original and give it to the department supervisor to put on display in the office, where unfortunately it got water damaged when some pipes burst (or something). In all, I sum it up as some thing I did. I didn’t even seek official permission from the park to do it. I never followed up the poster with updated or expanded versions

Disneyland being a place of seasonal employ, for some on the poster, this was their first and last season at the Market, so I think I remember about half of these people, with a few more in the “oh, yeah” edges of memory.

Food-tasmic!

French Market!
unused sweat shirt design.
30.48 x 30.48 cm (12.0 inch x 12.0 inch)
Color pencil, marker and gauche on illustration board.
c. 1992

In the summer of 1992, the night time spectacular, Fantasmic!, erupted on the Rivers of America in Frontierland, Disneyland, CA. I was a cast-member working in The French Market restaurant in New Orleans Square, whose outdoor patio overlooks the Rivers of America (and yet, by the way, because of the area foliage and incidental pedestrian traffic, is NOT a good place to view the show).

Up until then, the whole west side of the park had a predictable tapering off of business from day to evening in the summers. With a huge outdoor attraction like Fantasmic! with colored lights, video clips projected on water screens shooting fifty feet in the air and pyrotechnics, and nearly every square centimeter filled in with guests in the cycle of arriving, waiting, watching and trying to exit - well, things changed in a big way.

As for this unpublished image, I had by then gotten in to the pattern of designing and selling printed tee-shirts and sweat shirts to commemorate that year’s crew. This time around, I transformed the Fantasmic! logo into the restaurant’s name, and transformed the rest of the marketing artwork, swapping Mickey for three of my characters from the comic “BackStage” and the Maleficent dragon for a gigantic, hungry sheep. This being a full-color mixed media piece on board, I had ambitions of some how reproducing it on tee-shirts, that is until I learned how difficult and expensive the process would be.

The bears (a nod to “Bear Country,” the land which was re-named “Critter Country” with the opening of “Splash Mountain”) by their costumes represent the three basic zones of the restaurant. Fran (?) in the French Market blue dress and white apron is the hostess providing counter service in the buffeteria style restaurant. She apparently is entrusting the group’s safety to some sort of magic straining spoon. Herb is wearing a French Market blue vest and is hoisting what’s probably a fifty pound buss tub on his shoulder. Bus tubs aren’t much good in a fight, not even overloaded ones like that. Miles is wearing chef’s whites for those cast members who cook, prepare and run the food to the front counters. Miles has an empty fry basket in a batter’s stance - could that have been a bad visual pun? “Fry/batter?”.

Of course, I put in a hidden Mickey.

BackStage No. 014 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"Slow down,
you're goin' too fast
You've got to make
the mornin'
last..."

"Like a bridge
over troubled waters..."

"Hmmn? Simon
and Garfunkel, I
Haven't heard
them in a
long time."

"Yeah.
They put out
some pretty
good songs."

"Aaw, they aren't
that great. ..."

"... There are a lot
of better groups
than Simon and
Garfield."

"I don't know.
I think Paul
Simon might
agree to
cut a disc
with me."

"Copyright!"

"Copyright!"

Featuring Tom Almroth (pit bull terrier), Damon Johnson (greyhound), Paul Hogan (opossum)

-----------

Kitchen, The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland.

Ha, word play.

On his request, Tom's crittature was revised from a beagle to a pit bull. I would in later strips change him back.

A radio/ cassette tape player was permitted in the back kitchen. ... No, that's not very interesting is it.

The Disney company is pretty aggressive about protecting its rights over intellectual property. I don't know if Jim Davis or United Press Syndicate feels the same about "Garfield." The industry gets a bit more open about these things if it isn't re-occurring and/or it's editorial. At the time, I was concerned about it.

BackStage No. 013 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"Bussing!...
It's more than a job!
And it's no adventure!
It's war!
War, man, war!
A dirty, gritty
battle against
filth, grunge and
disorder!"

"These
are
your
allies"

"Paul, Gina, Todd, Chris, Tom"

"And
these
are
the
enemy..."

"... to
name
a few."

"Peter Birdfeeder, Shirley-Seat Shifter, Teddy Tablepusher, Baby Throw-It-Any-and-Everywhere."

Featuring Lionel Rodriguez (lion), Paul Okamura (cheetah), Gina McWilliams (mink), Todd Virtue (horse), Chris Dennis (rabbit, cottontail), Tom Almroth (beagle).

-----------

Patio, The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland.

The allies depicted were all leads at the time, kind of equivalent to shift managers. Gina holds the tell-tale break sheet and pen.

The "enemy" consists of characteristic guest (visitors, customers) annoyances:

Peter Birdfeeder) People like to feed little things like birds and squirrels. Other times food on the ground is food on the ground that cast-members must sweep up.

Shirley - Seat Shifter and Teddy Table Pusher) Groups of people like to eat together, no matter the number. Tables get pushed together as a result. Do you know what you get with two round tables? You get a figure-8 accommodating 25% less diners than if you didn't push the table together. Often time extra seat are left along walk ways.

Baby Throw-It-Any-And-Every-Where) Babies are a handful and don't know table manners. They DO know when they don't want to eat any more, however.

There are other annoyances. Hopefully, one of these BackStage's will give me the opportunity to reminisce about Sani-Sor-Bits®.

BackStage No. 012 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"Kelly (Holmes): Why don't you draw
a BackStage of me?
You did one of
everyone else."

"Bryan: That's not so, but
alright."

">scribble< >scribble<"

"Kelly: A Parrot!?
You think I look
like a parrot!?"

"Bryan: Well...
O.K. I'll try again."

"scribble"

"Bryan: How's this?"

"Kelly: WHAT!? No. ... "... NO! "... NO!"

"Kelly: Geeze. If you're not
gonna be nice about it,
then..."

"BAMM"

"Kelly:
A Koala!
Now that's
more like
it. Thanks."

"I knew drawing
could be
hard, but
I didn't know
it could be
so painful."

Featuring Kelly Holmes (koala, finally) and Bryan (monster).

-----------

So, BackStage started to get noticed. Nice, that's what I had hoped would happen.

But then came the requests to include people in the strip. In my assumed role of documentarian (or the like), that was much better than an angry "is that what you think of me?" which as evidence by this strip, something I think had/has more comic value.

BackStage No. 011 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"Boy! Am I tired.
My back hurts. My feet
ache. And on top of all
that, I've got homework
to do."

"That does it.
If I'm asked,
I'm not extending.
-Period-"

"Bryan! How would
you like to
extend!?"

"Ummm...
O.K."

"Yeah, i know i have
homework.
But academic
excellence is
far too
overrated."

Featuring Gina McWilliams (mink) and Bryan Mon (monster)

-----------

Patio, The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland.

I'm pretty sure I lost some of the early strips, so I arbitrarily jumped the numbering to 11.

I was hired on as a busser (i.e. buss boy) and that was probably the extent of my Casual-Temporary ambitions.

The tub contents are fairly accurate: oval platters on the ends and two round plates on the sides extend the walls of the tub vertically, a single perforated canister holds flatware besides a few stacks of plastic tumblers reserving two-thirds of the tub for food and whatever else you clear off a table. Then you shoulder it. Some times the tubs got over 50 pounds - and the mechanical tub conveyor would break down.

Regarding my monster crittature: this is possibly a representation of my Id. My stomach didn't look like that back then. The initial design seemed to necessitate a cookie monster like appetite, although that too was not a defining part of my personality.

Mmmmm, cookies.

BackStage No. 006 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy with re-traced lettering.
1989

"Uh! uh! Chuck!
Look at the beach balls
on the babe!"

"Wha'!? Wha'?
Oh, no Way!"

"I'd drop fish
for her
any day!"

"Get out!
no way, Dude!"

"You need glasses
more 'n I do"

"Hey! Check her out!
The one in the pink!"

"Where?"

"The one in pink
gettin' spaghetti."

"That's not pink.
That's more of
a rose/lavender."

"Hey pink is pink."

"'Pink!?' They're
arguing about colors?
And isn't someone
supposed to
be working?"

Featuring Russel Wolfram and Chuck Martin, with Jillian.

-----------

Kitchen, The French Market Restuarant, N.O.S., Disneyland.

Oh, dear, what coarse language I chose to use.

Russel and Chuck were a team of cooks in the Market's kitchen working (at the time) the deep fryers. "Drop Fish" was one of the call outs when we were low on the main component of the "Fish and Chip" dish. The restaurant obviously also served spaghetti with marinara sauce.

Russel, as this strip now stirs the brain cells, was given by his co-worker impressionists the linguistic prefacing "Uh, uh," or probably more phonetically accurate "ahw, ahw" rhyming with "Saw, saw."

The door depicted is one of two double hinged doors separating the kitchen from the "line" where the food is set buffeteria style. The oval, if it isn't clear, is the window in the door.

Jillian is another origianl character in my stable, name after The Mint Julep Bar. Briefly, I had considered Julie, but went with the less common name.

BackStage No. 005 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"Broken?! Whuduha
mean the coke machine's
broken?"

"Fiddle fiddle"

"FWOOSH!"

"O.K. Now it's
broken."

Featuring Chuck Martin (wolf).

-----------

The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland.

Chuck is depicted as an animal caricature, what I call a crittature (some times "critterature" or "crittaricature") in the tradition of using animals as actors/players: Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, all of Walt Disney's Robin Hood, etc. The two advantages are these: 1) easier to draw, 2) it's more entertaining or at least visually interesting.

Prior to drawing this, an at-the-time anonymous note posted beside one of the BackStages requested to see a coyote. That was enough inspiration for me on a strip in it's infancy to give crittatures a go. I later learned the author of that note to be Jeb Stuart, at the time part of the night cleaning crew.

This is based on actual events.

BackStage No. 004 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"You can call it a mint julep,
But we call it Medina"

Featuring Milton the bear.

-----------

The Mint Julep Bar, N.O.S., Disneyland.

Remember that Tone Loc song?

Just to be clear, NO ONE at work referred to the non-alcoholic mint julep (kind of like minty lemonade) as "Medina," but it would have been funny if they did. Actually it would have been sad it they actually did.

This particular strip (as well as a couple of other early ones) was drawn in green ink, making reproduction difficult, because green doesn't provide a lot of contrast for the color frequency in which the copier machine sees. As a result, the stains across the logo became much more pronounced. The actual strips were taped up on the kitchen walls for about a week, so stains were part of the life of the strip. These two facts plus the crudeness of a 15-minute drawing should be obvious indicators of the transient nature of these strips, not the stuff to be bound in a book.

Milton was named ofter "The Mile Long Bar" the original name of Critter Country's "Brer Bar." The location was closed and converted as an extension of the merchandise location "Pooh Corner," formerly "Crocodile Mercantile."

BackStage No. 003 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"That Quebec looks
good. How does
it taste?"

"Great! And how's
the Trout?"

"WOOSH!"

"It's a little
spicy."

Featuring Diane Ferguson and Richard Brill.

-----------

The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland.

This is the first and ONLY attempt to feature caricatures of fellow cast-members as the strip's players.

As for the joke, two new dishes were added to the French Market menu. (Note: most of BackStage revolved around shenanigans at the French Market Restaurant, New Orleans square, where I worked (naturally)) Twenty years later, I now have no idea what kind of dish the Quebec was, but the trout was spicy.

BackStage No. 002 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"They said it, and it's true.
'Someday that stupid paper hat may save your
life.'
Now, what in the world that vat of gravy was doing up there is another story."

Featuring Tommy the fox.

-----------

Kitchen, The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland.

All restaurant hosts must wear hats (usually paper ones) and hostesses must wear hair nets. Most cast-members quickly accept this as a part of the costume. Still, if you ever gave yourself a moment to consider it, it is a paper hat.

Tommy was named after Tom Sawyer Island on the other side of the Rivers of America in Fronteirland. At the time, Bear Country Restaurants encompassed six locations: The Hungry Bear Restaurants, Brer Bar (now closed), The Harbour Galley (new in 1989), Fort Wilderness Canteen (T.S.I.), The French Market Restaurant (New Orleans Square), and The Mint Julep Bar (N.O.S.)

BackStage No. 001 - 1989

from black and white xerographic copy
1989

"The buss-room
"Come on you lousy, broken down piece of
man made, scrap-iron intestinal track! You
smelly old head of fungus caked bowel
movement! START!"

Featuring Herb the bear.

-----------

Bussers' room, The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland

I first was hired to work at Disneyland as a restaurant host/cast-member on a part-time seasonal basis (casual temporary, a.k.a. C.T. in Disney lingo) in the summer of 1987. Always with my four-color medium point Bic® pen, I would at times draw on napkins during breaks in my shift. At the time I still a mechanical engineering student in college, so it wasn't an act of vocation but one of fun.

In a secret-Santa gift exchange in December 1988, I received a 9.00 in. x 11.50 in. pad of paper. With these supplies, my scribbles were formalized in one of my longest running comic strip ventures: BackStage.

As is turns out, the strip is 10 years old this year. That's good enough reason to post these old things as any.

Herb is part of the stable of original characters I had developed of intentional Disney-esque design. Most of the characters I developed were bears as a carry over from the department name, Bear Country Restaurants. That same year, the associated land was re-named Critter Country with the opening of Splash Mountain.

Back to TAGS

TAGS character sketches
Multi-color ball-point pen ink on paper.
each 21.59 cm x 27.94 cm (8.50 in. x 11.00 in)
May 19 & 20, 2008

I doodled a few "TAGS" characters in a sketch book, the first time in many years. These designs, are a lot closer to those from my comic strip which ran previous to "TAGS," "BackStage." The "TAGS" character designs feature the characters with big heads and much more anthropomorphic bodies, all within a tight height range - pretty close to Charles Schulz's "Peanuts," very similar to Richard Scarry's Busytown critters. The reason was practical, so that they would fit into the tiny panels of the TAGS daily strip format.

I have mentioned "BackStage" previously, but to re-cap: it was a free format comic strip which started as lunch break doodles about the shenanigan of working in a restaurant in a popular amusement park. Auto-biographical? Sure. The characters were anthropomorphic animals representing my co-workers. The designs, like the strip itself, were what I made up as I went along. It wasn't too disimilar in style and quality, I now think, from what you may find in an independent comic.

I used that as a spring board for "TAGS".

There's something I find appealing about dealing with characters of such widely different body types and sizes. It is at least more interesting for me to draw. Beyond the confines of comic panels, I do let the designs stray to the "BackStage" way.

I wonder why Disney didn't do more of it in their animated features: clothes wearing anthropomorphic critters, especially with Mickey and the gang as the company's foundation. Really just "Robin Hood." Of lesser examples are sequences in "Song of the South," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," plus characters sprinkled in "Pinocchio," "Alice in Wonderland," and the anthologies.

Drawing Conclusions 1997

watercolor over black toner xerographic reproduction of black India ink on paper, 21.59 x 27.94 cm (8.5 x 11 in.)

A new year - time for a refresh of my biography for the Disneyland watch shop.

A fantasy featuring me fighting with the eraser end of a No. 2 pencil, against a terrible beast.

The beheaded stuffed bear, which also appears in the first version of Drawing Conclusions, represents the one I received an as infant from my uncle. Although missing his nose, the real one's head remains intact.

The Cast-Members of the New Century Timepieces shop, who were responsible for assembling the watches, had a collected affection for Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Picking up on that vibe, I would start to sneak in baby oysters in some of my art. Here is one as the bullet for the last paragraph.

The monster (blue bear thing, bottom right) in the Art of Walt Disney cover Mickey pose is of the BackStage comic design, my alter ego.

Drawing Conclusions 1996

watercolor over black toner reproduction of black India ink on paper, 21.59 x 27.94 cm (8.5 x 11 in)

Some months into the next year, I decided to update or refresh my biography for the Original Artist Watch program at Disneyland.

The title box, as established in the first version, contains a caricature of my blue monster character, a caricature of a licensed character representing my current employer, and two other things representing personal interests (here, space ships and dinosaurs!).

Due to it's autobiographical nature, I made the point of view of the drawings in such a way as to show what I might be seeing. I tried to hide my face for that reason. This is similar to "first-person" shooter video games.

Panel 6: That's the blue vest and white paper hat of the cast-member costume of the French Market Restaurant, New Orleans Square, Disneyland.

Panel 7: This line up of characters from my comic BackStage made for my Disneyland co-cast-members. I drew animals which represented my friends, crittercatures I called them, which would be the inspiration of those in my TAGS comic strip. (L-R) Bald eagle (David Crane), Dragon (Michael Supancheck), Tabby cat (Wendy Maimbourg), Box Terrier (Mark Driggers), Cheetah and Red squirrel (Paul and Diana Okamura), Penguin (Dee Polinsky), Turtle (Richard Brill), Striped skunk (Ron Nakada), African Lion and Swan (Leo and Barbie Rodriguez), Seagull (Suzanne Palmiter).

Panels 8-10: My work station never looked like this, but it communicates the idea. To my left in the Belle model sheet, 'cause I enjoyed Beauty and the Beast so much. To my far right, "Squash / Stretch" the basic tenants to more lively caricatured drawings in animation. The three others, Mickey, Quizimodo and a dalmatian puppy stuff I've been drawing at work.