Holiday Times are Tuff

"Happy Holidays with Tuff-Girl and Ruff," squibbill Christmas greetings, 2007
30.0 cm x 20.5 cm (12.25" x 8.375")
Carmine Red Colerase pencil on paper.

I rushed to make this year's Christmas card design. That I'm always looking for ways of marketing Tuff-Girl obviously served as the subject for this year's card.

In previous years, I had designed Christmas cards as sets of three or four. This meant that co-workers could receive different cards. The hand made greeting usually were simple double folded letter-sized sheets delivered in Baronial (5.75" x 4.375") envelopes. I hand-traced them initially, then I color photocopied them, then ink-jetted them at home.

This year, I'm giving them a more finished look by having them printed. I'm using the same company who I used to print the postcard advertisement of my Silver Comics/ Tuff-Girl book signing, Modern Postcard.

Designer at CN, Jay, recommended them to me. I was pretty happy with the postcard. I'm sure the Christmas card will turn out just as well.

TAGS Mar. 1 & 2, 1993

...and Wham! Three new characters suddenly introduced to the strip, not one of which ever having before appeared or been mentioned in TAGS, and only one named and in her second appearance at that.

Carolyn (raccoon), introduced in panel 1, Mar. 1 strip and then disappears. Hmmn...?
Edie (squirrel), seems pretty even tempered.
Polly (penguin), seems to have some neurotic tendencies.

So, here the strip continues in the rocky terrain of boy/girl relationships, this time from the girl's point of view.

From a design perspective, more minimalist layouts (i.e. non-existent backgrounds), and (to my eye now) more huge word balloons resulting in more talking heads. Oh well, these were the parameters set for the strip.

Super Girls

Carmine red Col-erase® pencil and red, medium point Bic® ball-point pen on paper.
Sketchbook drawing.
Mary Marvel, Supergirl, Wonder Girl and Power Girl ©DC Comics.

What would happen if four young super-powered flying female protégés teamed up?

I actually have no idea, but I'm sure they would have a good reason to do so. Probably kick some bad-guy butt.

Once There Was Princess

For a span of about two years, I drew princesses at Disney Consumer Products (DCP) group. It’s difficult, now, to say of what qualifications I had for such a position - drawing over 80% of the art of the character Mulan for her licensing styles guide and all of the Jessie art for Toy Story 2 guide? For my part, my interest was equal parts contributing to the custodianship of classic Disney properties and characters plus I like drawing girls.

It can not be overlooked that, DCP had divided into separate lines of businesses by categories (hard-lines, soft-lines, toys and new film properties) each with their own team of designers and artist, while the long time residing Cinderella artist, Diane Keener, had recently retired. I at least had Mulan, Jessie and a few Belle drawings in the portfolio, compared to the Mickey and Pooh artists in the soft-lines artist pool.

Unfortunately, fashion programs quickly turned out to be more design oriented, which favored artistic interpretations rather than the classic versions of the characters. Then next big thing was the company’s discovery that “The Disney Princess” was an untapped brand and the company’s decision to make it an official brand with product.

I had a satirical response to the trend of mashing Snow White, Cinerella, Ariel, etc. together on to tee-shirts: “The Royal World”. Drawing upon and spoofing the conceit of MTV’s “the Real World”, I had drawn up a little poster featuring six of the company’s most popular heroines, suggesting that in doing so that trouble would ensue. I then carried the idea further by drawing a few newspaper styled comic strips.

Five years later, it’s an idea that hasn’t died. In my current sketch book, I drew my version of the Grimm brother’s titular character, Snow White. The property, whether it reappears as a book, comic strip or TV cartoon, has been re-named “Royality”. The design is rather simplified as if for animation. Snow White takes on the leadership roll most often - mostly because, as they all live in her castle, after her wicked step mother/ queen has been dispatched.

The “Disney Princess” brand continues to be successful. No surprise considering that the princesses themselves have continued to be popular through the last seventy years. On the other hand, the success of films “Shrek”, “Hoodwinked” and to an extent the comic book “Fables” prove that its still worth satirizing.

TAGS Feb. 15 & 16, 1993

Corina (poodle) introduces Sara (panther).
Not only that, but I introduce the idea that Monster is a cartoonist. I’ll probably mention that a couple of times more and show Monster actually drawing perhaps twice.

As I recall things, I had not yet decided if I was going to reveal who the so-called ”new girl” in the strip.


Rodney (lion) follows the creed, “faint hearts never won fair maiden.” - from Walt Disney’s Robin Hood.

As I had previously made note, there are large gaps in the dates of the strips, some times weeks. At the time, I would make a pair of TAGS strips over a week end, dating them for the next Monday and Tuesday - or at least the next non-Sunday days. I wasn’t actually trying to produce at a real world pace of six daily strips and one Sunday edition per week.

The large spans of time in TAGS production, resulted in jumps in the story telling, which is more obvious to me now than when I was writing TAGS. It’s as if there are missing strips.

In a way there are lost strips. When I would start back up with TAGS production, it would be as if it was days or weeks later for the TAGS characters as well. As an attempt at continuity, the characters continued to dwell on the “current” topic, “the new girl”. I wonder if the pacing was jolting to readers. Yeah , it probably was.

Book Signing 2006

Wed., April 12, 2006
Oxford Comics, Atlanta GA.

The book signing event heralded the first published appearance of Tuff-Girl, the adventure heroine co-created by Merrill Hagan and myself, Bryan Mon. The six page feature appears in issue #5 of Silver Comics. Add to that two pin-up pieces of art and the cover, it isn’t a bad way to start things.

Oxford Comics is probably the store that best caters to Atlanta’s serious comic and graphic novel reading crowd, just the sort of crowd that might gamble $2 or so on an independent tome. With that in mind, having the gathered masses consist mostly of friends and people from work was a given. That traffic would be high in the first hour and a half to trail off, was also a given. That we would be packing and carting home a majority of our inventory, was a given.

We did, however, sell a few copies that night to anonymous readers willing to give it a chance, including a few back copies of Silver Comics. Additionally, copies left on Oxford’s shelves sold without the hard sell in the next few months.

Oxford’s signing table, is generous if you were to set in front of you when you’re eating your dinner while watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, so things were snug for Merrill, myself, a few stacks of issues #1 through #5, the “Freebies” bowl and T-shirts on display and in sock behindus. Still, I might describe it as fun - or at least I might describe the memory of it as fun. Merrill thought it was weird, as I recall. For me, anyways, there were those five years I spent as a character artist on Disneyland’s Main Street,USA, doing my thing in full view of passing guests. The weirdness of being on display gets to be less weird in the second year.

The freebies were metal pin-back buttons imprinted with characters and insignia from Silver Comics. Juan, publisher and major creator behind Silver, had them made up and sent a bag out to me in Atlanta for the event. Kids love the freebies.

That follow-up to the event was at the San Diego Comic Convention, later that year in July. But that’s another story.

Fenn-natic

Sherilyn Fenn, portrait from a magazine photograph (09/1993)
Bic® medium four-color ball-point pen on paper.

In the early 1990’s I was forming my preference to using ball-point pens as a drawing medium, which may be quite the offensive statement to any one calling her or himself an artist, even if I’m really only talking about my sketch books. I don’t suppose the ink is meant to be archival. They do, however, have these positives: 1) they’re inexpensive; 2) highly available; and 3) come in different colors.

To this day, I carry a Bic brand, medium tip, four-color ball-point pen with me. Admittedly, black, blue, red and green do not constitute a full spectrum of color, not even when you add to it yellow highlighter and white correction fluid. (Yes, at one time, I thought office supply art was worth pursuing.) However, I do manage to get my ideas across with it.

The portrait is a sketch book drawing, and even so, I’d consider “unfinished”. The undirected hatching gives it a coarse appearance. The black areas become the more tedious aspects of “Bic” art, due to the layering of black, blue and usually red strokes because black alone never looks quite deep enough.

Sherilyn Fenn is an actress (Audrey Horne, Twin Peaks 1990-91).

TAGS Feb. 8 & 9, 1993

Barron - stuffed bear doll. The design was fun, and just the idea of a stuffed bear amongst living bears and animals seamed a quirky enough thing with which to run. They’re all anthropomorphic, and as long as I avoided explaining how they all had babies, it didn’t seem to matter much. As for the character’s roll, however, I would usually opt to feature Checkov. The only distinction would have been that Barron was more crude.

You may have noticed, if you’ve read or have been reading the previous strips in the series, that the strips are in two-day, themed blocks. This reflects how I was drawing two strips per page. Having them relate thematically, was due, in part, to the fact that Charles Schulz would do entire weeks of, say, tennis themed strips. My emulation of Mr. Schulz’s “Peanuts” knew no bounds. It was also an exercise to see if I could mine an idea for multiple gags. In a few strips, I will use the two-at-a-time schedule to tell a series from two points of view (more or less).

So far, TAGS has been presented complete, in sequential order. Gaps in the dates, accurately reflection my production schedule.

Hot Wings

Multi-color ball point pen on gray paper.

In 2001, I explored some designs for PinUSA (maker of enamel pins) who, as I understood it, was seeking a license to make cloisonné pins for the Hooters restaurant chain. I had done, by that time, a “waitress” pin series for the Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) license for them, and felt that Hooters might want something different than HRC. I also thought, something more cartoony would look better for 1-inch tall pins.

I was never asked to do the series. I think Hooters wanted something more like the HRC girls I was drawing. I know they wanted their actual logo on the girls’ shirts, which I wanted to avoid drawing, thinking it could be copied and pasted on to the production art. Frankly I thought it would look like mud on the actual pins.

TAGS Feb. 1 & 2, 1993

Expanding the cast, Geri, a beaver (02/01), is introduced as a line lead, the restaurant manager in charge of the servers and cashiers. She will pretty much remain a third level character, used whenever a mid-manager is required.

The skunk in kitchen whites (02/02, panel four) is Nick, who is the fourth of who will become the main six Tags yet introduced. Nick is kind of like Lucy from Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” and little like Grumpy from Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The character is book-smart, opinionated and some times bossy - all in a good way.

The other three are Murray, Checkov and of course, Monster.

Murray (cheetah), to continue the “Peanuts” and “Seven Dwarfs” analogies, is Snoopy mixed with Happy - clever, efficient and good natured. In good time, he will also be half of “the couple” archetype.

Checkov (dragon) is Linus mixed with Dopey - intuitive, impulsive and loyal. He also plays well as Monster’s id, even after I introduce Monster’s literal id in an upcoming dream series of strips.

Monster (monster) is Charlie Brown and Bashful.