Simpson Sampler I: Retro Rejects Circa Y2K!

Just to show young aspiring cartoonist the level of mastery one can achieve and still be completely ignored by major publishers, I offer this 5-page story sampler I created for an outfit in New York, and submitted around the year 2000. (In fairness, at other times I did create a handful of pages of art for them). The plot is my own, as are the pencils and inks; note that melting your boy sidekick out of a block of ice - an idea later exploited in a major movie franchise - was my own original idea ...

The team has a surprise for the old World War II veteran!

The Veteran recalls losing his boy sidekick, who perished while trying to defuse a buzz bomb!

Surprise! The boy sidekick, like the Veteran years before, was frozen in a block of ice! Suspended animation!

The android lets his tool go limp, and electrify the puddle of melt runoff!

The android reverts to his golden age form - and combusts!

On the other hand, now that I look at the panel I quickly colored above, perhaps one reason no editor at the House of Ideas would hire me was the hugely phallic device the android uses to both melt the block of ice and accidentally reactivate his  own golden age self - but this is purely speculation.

Speaking of team books, below is an ink sample over a long-running penciler, who was kind enough to provide with photocopies of his penciled pages. Presumably it was too much like Sinnott, Wood, and Veerporten to result in any work in the early 2000s

While I appreciated the penciler giving me a shot to work over actual layouts, I would have gone nuts as an inker. I did several pages in a row from this issue, and found the layouts to be incredibly pedestrian, the body language stiff, and the storytelling slow as molasses. I prefer doing (at least) the entire art job myself, and the story and lettering as well whenever possible. Being such a stickler has limited my opportunities!

Original pencil layout (photocopy), which I lightboxed (traced) onto Bristol board, then inked with crowquill, brush, and India ink.

Years later, I sold the samples (which I had light-tabled onto Bristol board) to a fan, and the penciler contacted me and accused me of forgery, apparently having forgotten ever meeting me. I had to remind him that he was the source of the photocopies that I worked from. He never apologized and I never heard from him again. 'Nuff said!

Simpson Sampler II: Exilic Exodus! | Simpson Sampler III: Web-Rocks!