WHY I NEVER GOT MY BACHELOR PAD

When I was a kid I was certain that my future home would look something like this (above). I really liked the bachelor pad look, even when I was too young to know what a bachelor was.

 I figured I'd have a chemistry lab (above) in the basement....

...and an electric lab next to that. You never know when you might need to resurrect the dead.

I'd have a sophisticated telescope (above) on the roof.... 

....and a Bat Cave and Batmobile. I thought I might even dabble in fighting crime.

Oh, and control panels....I wanted lots of electronics with viewing screens and control panels!

So, what happened? How come I never got my manly dream house (apart from the expense, of course)?

This (above) is what happened. I grew up and got married. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I got married. I wouldn't change that for the world. It's just that American tradition gives the girl a big influence in home decoration. If you're a guy and you muscle in on that your neighbors will think you're a monster.

Let's be clear about what we're talking about here. The girl who's going to decorate your manly dream house may have developed her taste while growing up in rooms like this (above). Yikes!

That extra room you were thinking of turning into a safari room?

Your wife may have other plans (above) for it. 

Let's face it, women are different than us. They're...I don't know how to say it....refined! When when they sit down to dinner they imagine they're on some country estate having high tea.  

You and I, being men, naturally think of a meal as "grub." We like to imagine ourselves in a cabin in the in the Klondike eating seal blubber with Bowie knives.

Fortunately rational people can resolve their differences by compromise. In the above example, the husband's desire for a safari motif neatly combines with the wife's desire for girly things. Problem solved...I think.

BTW: I showed this post to my wife, who thought it was funny but also appallingly inaccurate. I had to talk her out of demanding equal time.

WALLY WOOD'S WOMEN

This is about Wally Wood.

I love the way Wood used to draw women in glamor poses (above), even when they were casually walking down the street.

Even his sci-fi was full of glamor poses. A wife tearfully saying goodbye to a husband leaving for Mars wasn't above striking a calendar pose. Amazingly the off-topic poses didn't diminish the seriousness of the story.

Wood obviously did this because he thought it was funny, but I'm guessing that it was also because his photo reference (above) came from ads and mens magazines. 50s glamor was very stylized. Even ice-cream could be sold with bombshell poses. The era wasn't interested in looking natural, and neither was Wood.

Unfettered by naturalism Wood was free to figure out his own way of walking women. I like that better than the literal stuff we do now.

I imagine that this (above) is the way women really walk in heels.  It's different than what Wood did, but that doesn't mean Wood was wrong. Cartooning and animation aren't about realism, they're about caricature....

...and nobody caricatured better than Wood. Imagine how this walk (above) would have looked in animation. Imagine how much fun it would have been to draw. It would even have been fun to draw the discombobulated men she passed.

Surprisingly animation never picked up on Wood's unique way of drawing sexy walks. Too bad, the subject (above) was far from exhausted.

Animation's in a rut, don't you think? I yearn for something new and different. 

I'm thinking only of walks here, but I don't mean something X-rated. I mean something "G" or "PG" that's funny, and which a family could watch together without the parents falling asleep. 

Geez, all this is making me want to draw.

CONGRATULATIONS GRADUATES!!!!

I'm not due for another post til Monday morning, but this won't wait. I just want to raise a glass to all the students who graduated this Summer. Wow! You made it! All that work...all those memories...and now you're on the threshold of a new life. Here's to you! The best of luck!



Of course no tribute is more apt than the Medieval academic hymn, "Gaudeamus Igitur."



Here's another version!

JOHN K CARICATURES EDDIE

A few days ago John did this caricature of me (above) in my copy of the newly published Spumco Comic Book anthology. Wow! I look ten million years old...even the flies around my head look old...but it's me alright, no doubt about it. The part of the inscription that's missing reads (Ahem!)....."To that renowned cartoonist and scholar..."

Who knows? In a hundred years this caricature in this book might end up in The Louvre and I'll have the posthumous satisfaction of being displayed under the same roof as Rubens and DaVinci. 

A couple of days later another caricature (above)! This time I'm an arch villain encased in ice.

For comparison, here's (above) what I really look like, and that's the book containing the caricature.

I'm in this book...well, sort of. In the book a guy who looks just like me is the neighborhood butcher, Victor Lugnuts.

Victor has no buck teeth, so the resemblance isn't 100%, but it's still close. Gee, that's a really appealing drawing. I'm guessing John did the pencil roughs, Mike cleaned them up and Shane did the inks.

Above, a masterful shot of the back of Victor Lugnuts' head.  Art students take note: get hold of this book even if you have to sacrifice to do it.

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (PARODY)

ON COUPLE KISSING PASSIONATELY:

(SFX): SMOOCH! SMOOCH!

(SFX): KISSY! KISSY! KISSY!

  (SFX): SMOOOCH! KISSY! KISSY! SMOOCH!!!!

(SFX): SMOOOOOOCH!!!!

COUPLE:  KISSY! SMOOOOOCH!!!!! KISSY!! SMOOOOOOOCH! SMOOOOOOCH!!!!!!!!!

SHE SITS UP, PUSHES HIM AWAY:

GLADYS: "No, wait a minute...we shouldn't be doing this. It's wrong."

PIERRE: "Wrong? How can it be wrong? Are you saying the love between a man and a woman is wrong? How can it be wrong?"

GLADYS (WHILE SPITTING OUT WATER): "I don't know...it just is!"

PIERRE: "Well, if it's wrong, how come it feels so right? I mean I feel pretty doggoned right about it, and if you feel that way, too....."

PIERRE: "Gladys, have you got a towel?"

GLADYS: "I forgot to bring a towel. I have a sandwich. Do you want a sandwich?"

PIERRE: " No, forget the sandwich. Look, all I'm saying is...that when a man..."

PIERRE (WHILE SPITTING OUT WATER): "When a man...."

PIERRE: "What's in the sandwich?"

GLADYS: "Peanut butter, I think."

PIERRE: "The crunchy kind?"

GLADYS: "Yeah, the crunchy kind."

PIERRE: "Good. Let's do it."


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Photo and title copyright by original copyright holders.