Daniel Boone and the Giant p10 - Boone and Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 3

 It’s amazing to me sometimes where my mind goes. As I was reading the letter that is the basis for this comic, and I reached this part where Daniel Boone is describing the “giant” he’d just shot, particularly the “long yellowish hair” portion, my mind suddenly saw this Sasquatch in an Alphonse Mucha, Art Nouveau painting. I’m sure you’ll recognize the genre I’m talking about from my drawing below.

At first I thought, “No. I can’t do that. That’s just a little too far.” Then I remembered what one of my spirit guides advised me recently. “Lean into your whimsy.” There’s a kind of poetic beauty there, because it was the no-nonsense, all-father, king of the Norse gods, Odin who said this. Yet there’s a certain level of whimsy necessary to even mention having a casual conversation with an ancient god. 

Besides that I am the cartoonist and I can do anything I want. So there! 

This page also helped me come full circle in a way, and pointed me toward the realization of how much influence Art Nouveau, and Mucha in particular, had on my personal art. Along with Mucha is the Hanna-Barbara cartoons that filled my childhood - Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Touche Turtle - which were always drawn with thicker, heavier outlines, with lighter lines  filling out the details on the inner lines. 

And so I present to you page 10 of our little yarn, and the Art Nouveau Sasquatch. 

To read the entire series thus far, please click on the Sasquatch Sagas link below. To read just the Daniel Boone part, click on Boone & Giant link. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for reading!

Daniel Boone and the Giant p9 - Boone and Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 3

For those of you just joining us, this is my latest project which entails the retelling from personal letters the stories of encounters by Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett with Bigfoot. To read the entire series thus far, click on the Sasquatch Sagas link below. To read just the currently unfinished Daniel Boone part, click on the Boone & Giant link below. And for the Davy Crockett portion you can click here for the Bigfoot Prophecy. 

…We now return you to our regularly scheduled comic already in progress…

 

Daniel Boone and the Giant p8 - Boone and Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 3

Page 8 of Daniel Boone’s experience with a Sasquatch, where the previous second hand narrative of the letter’s author suddenly shifts to the firsthand words from Boone’s own mouth. 

To read the rest of this story thus far, please click on the Boone & Giant label below. For the entire comic to this point please click on the Sasquatch Sagas label. I hope you enjoy it and thank you so much for reading! 

 

Daniel Boone and the Giant p6 - Boone and Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 3

 For those of you just joining us - This is page 6 of chapter 3 of my most current project, so on its own, out of context from the rest of the comic, there are sure to arise a couple of questions. Other than the obvious, “What the heck is going on?” there’s the additional, “How can this guy write comics if he can’t spell worth a darn?” Both questions share the self-same answer: This is a “comictization” (like a ‘dramatization’ but with… well, you get it!) of a documented Sasquatch encounter experienced by Daniel Boone, as reported through a handwritten letter by a person who was told the story firsthand by Boone himself at the turn of the 19th Century when there was still quite a bit of wriggle room where spelling is concerned, especially in the Kentucky backwoods. 

To read the rest of this story, you can check out my previous post here. To read the entire comic thus far, please click on the Sasquatch Sagas label below. And, as always, thank you so much for reading! 

Daniel Boone and the Giant pp1-5 - Boone and Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 3

Next stop - Boonesborough! Here is the beginning of the next chapter in my Sasquatch Sagas series where it comes time to tell the story of Daniel Boone’s real-life encounter with a Sasquatch. Any strange phrasings or spellings are due to this being a direct relaying of a personal letter penned by a 18th Century gentleman to whom Daniel Boone personally told this story. 

As an aside, the fourth page below is, incidentally, the first time, I believe, I’ve ever drawn some form of firearm in my comics. Thus far I’d always found a clever way to scrub around guns, such as in this earlier Davy Crockett comic. I won’t go into my personal feelings on the subject here, but at some point my plans do include drawing at least one excerpt from The Three Musketeers (One of my life goals is to learn French so I can read the original Musketeers books by Alexander Dumas), and musketeers, strangely enough, require muskets. 

 

More coming soon, so stay tuned! And thank you so much for reading! 

Segue p4&5 - Boone and Crockett: Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 2

When I finished the final page of my segue between the Crockett and the Boone stories, and went to post it here, I discovered that, though I'd uploaded it, I hadn't actually published the penultimate page yet.

So here they are together, the last two pages of the segue/break/intermission between the main stories. Next stop Boonesborough!

If you'd like to read the whole comic thus far, please click on the Sasquatch Sagas label below, and to read just the segue, please click on the segue label. 

And thank you for reading!

Segue p3 - Boone & Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 2

Normally when I do one of these Gerb and gang renditions of literary sources, the portrayal itself contains little jokes and fourth wall flouting dialogues, questioning, mostly on the part of Gerb, the direction taken, or the interpretation of the material, by the “lame-brained cartoonist.” 

For some reason - perhaps the brevity of the original source materials - so far, this particular project hasn’t contained the same breaks and asides from the primary documentation. Therefore, this ‘second chapter’ segue between the two main stories was probably inevitable to give the necessary space and free reign to the guys to express those things that are such an integral ingredient of my comics. 

To read the entire comic thus far, click on the Sasquatch Sagas link below, and to read just the Segue portion, click on the Segue link below. Thank you for reading! 

 

Segue p1&2 - Boone and Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas Chapter 2

As an update to my last post, I couldn't not connect the two stories, the most likely segue between the Davy Crockett chapter and the Daniel Boone chapter, being the inevitable behind the scenes squabble amongst my characters about who should play the leading role. Enjoy!

To read the entire comic thus far, please click on the "Sasquatch Sagas" label below.

 

Davy Crockett and the Bigfoot Prophecy (Boone and Crockett: The Sasquatch Sagas - Chapter 1)

This is one of two comics I’ve been planning on drawing for quite awhile now - ever since I discovered the fact that both of my childhood heroes, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, had individual, documented experiences of encounters with a Sasquatch. 

This one, Davy Crockett’s first hand account, is briefer with a bit more of a paranormal slant than Daniel Boone’s, with a prophetizing by the Bigfoot. As a shaman, in my eyes, this actually lends credence to the validity of the experience, particularly since this occurred in 1836, in Nacohdoches, Texas on his way to the Alamo!

Daniel Boone’s narrative is next on my agenda, but I haven’t yet decided whether it’s going to be two separate tales or two parts of a single comic. I’m leaning toward the latter, so stay tuned to find out how it plays out! 

                                       

 

I Just Wanted to Draw

 

Gerb's Quarterly No 11

So, funny story...

Many year ago, in the days before the internet, I had the idea of creating a short, quarterly mini-comic starring Gerb, my at-the-time, relatively new character, along with the two mainstays from my childhood, a dog named "Long Leg" and an earth worm named "Wormy" (Did I mention I've been drawing them since childhood?). Following through in the predigital times, printing off physical copies at Kinkos and distributing them to the masses, proved too much for me, as did producing them in the required timely fashion (Maybe instead of "Quarterly" I should call it a "Wheneverly"). 

One way or another, I do occasionally continue the storyline, and thus I present to you the 11th issue of Gerb's Quarterly. You can click on the GQ label below to read the previous issue, as well as to find the link to the first 9 issues that I have compiled into a graphic novel on Blurb.com. 

And, as always, thank you for reading!

 

Ultimately Final

In an earlier post I mentioned how I have been working on putting together another graphic novel book called Home Gerb Companion for self publication from a blank book full of a series of comics I'd drawn long ago. Before I started drawing my Drawing Breath comic, directly portraying my life, I drew a comic where my three characters - Gerb, Longleg, and Wormy - would have a running dialogue about my life from the sidelines, kinda like Mystery Science Theater 3000 style.  

The thing is, I never actually finished the original comic. I got up to the penultimate (second to the last) page...

...And then I paused because I had ambitious plans for the final page! I would make the last page like a pop-up book with the Phoenix, from whom Longleg had gotten the quill pen, unexpectedly flying straight out of the book at the reader in 3-D! The thing is that at the time the internet was relatively new, and it didn't have the wealth of information that it does now, plus I didn't have regular access to it. Not that I didn't have access to other information and instructions. It's just that my life was different back then and I didn't have the same resources or reservoirs of energy to draw on, so the project got set on the back burner where it has languished for almost twenty years. 

Then recently, when the arrow of inspiration hit to publish this volume, I realized that one way or t'other, I had to finish that last page. Not being sure how I would self publish a book with a pop-up component, I went ahead and drew the page, reserving the right to, at some future date, make that page an actual pop-up. Until that time, here is the final page of the Home Gerb Companion graphic novel drawn 18 years, 9 months, and 12 days after the previous page... 

I am really excited to get this work into book form! Stay tuned to my website, Facebook, Instagram, and this blog for updates to when it will be available for purchase. Meanwhile, if you'd like to see what other of my comics I've already published check out my Perching Wolf Studios bookstore on Blurb.

 

Bringing It Home

I don't know if  you've noticed, but I have not been posting a lot here lately, mostly because I haven't actually been drawing as much lately. Time I would normally spend creating new comics has been mostly dedicated to putting together a book of some older comics I drew in a blank book many years ago. These comics are a precursor to my Drawing Breath comics, still being a sort of illustrational journal of my life at the time, but rather than drawing myself in the starring role, it's a bit more Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with my comic characters - Gerb, Longleg the dog, and Wormy the worm - commenting on what's happening in my life from the sidelines. I call it Home Gerb Companion ~ Le Chronique de Comique.

 

So I've been spending many afternoons and evenings flipping through this journal and, with Palama the platypus aiding me by holding open the book, photographing each page in turn then cropping and fine tuning them. This is why on some of the pages you can see distortions of the drawings as if they are curving toward the binding of the book. Sometimes Palama couldn't keep the book entirely flat. 

I am not always central to what's happening as my characters come to terms with living inside a book...

...But they do celebrate with me my achievements...

...And they console me through my challenges...

Drawing women has never been my strong suit, which Gerb knows and sometimes exploits by hanging out with the Amazons when he doesn't want to be drawn. At the time of the comic, though, I was married to a fellow artist, Bobbi Blackwell aka Mrs. Cartoonist Dude, and I would just have her draw the necessary panels if needed...

She is not the only guest artist. As it turns out, Longleg is also a cartoonist whose work occasionally ends up on the page, as a comic within a comic, which is always fun...

And sometimes Newmar, Bobbi's teddy bear, would get a hold of the book and attempt to draw his own adventures, seeing as they were so much more adventury than my own... 

The fun thing is that, if it were Newmar drawing, I'd pencil it with my left hand and ink it with my right. If it were Longleg drawing, I'd pencil with my right hand and ink it with my left.

So, as production of new comics experiences a bit of a lull, you can rest assured that I am not idle. Soon this new book will be available for purchase, and meanwhile you can check out my other graphic novels and coloring books here on my Blurb Store.

 

The Saga of Didrik - Complete

Now that I have finished this particular adventure of Gerb and the gang, I wanted to put all the pages together in one post. Ta-da!!