First Post of the New Year!

First off, Happy New Year! All things considered, 2008 was a pretty good year for my family and me. We had a new baby, now ten months old, and moved into a nicer place over the summer. The kids are in a new school, but their old friends are not too far away. The Serial Squad! Thrill-O-Rama rolled off the printing press and the response to it far exceeded any of my expectations. So, all things considered, 2009 looks like it's gonna be a good year.

With the kids being on Christmas vacation, I haven't done too much "serious" artwork, mostly just sketch cards, images on 4"x6" card stock, which I'll post soon. Below is a concept drawing to the Chimera's vehicle, circa 1978, when the Chimera is actually the daughter of Richmond Kane, Kane being my version of Mike Indovina's brainchild. Confused? Somewhere down the road, I plan on doing something with the 1970s second generation of Squad! members. Richmond Kane (aka The Chimera) and Kay Campbell (aka Tasma the Congo Queen) had twin girls before, on a final Serial Squad! mission, she disappeared. Both girls are mutants (or whatever synonym Marvel Comics will let me use), one with superhuman healing powers due to her mother's exposure to a fountain of youth, the other has the power to generate bursts of light due to her father's prolonged exposure to the radioactive power supply of his Flash Gun. The latter twin becomes the Chimera. Her Chimera Mobile, or "Carmera" is a 1978 Corvette originally designed by George Barris for a TV pilot of some sort that didn't take off, then anonymously purchased by the new Chimera and loaded with Martian tech weaponry for catching bad guys.

I've set the Wayback Machine to 1990 for this next image. About twenty years ago, I entered a contest to create a newspaper daily comic strip. To enter, you had to do a week's worth of an original strip, including a double-sized Sunday edition. My entry, which obviously didn't win, was called "Kwiky" and was based on the stuffed animals of my friends' and my childhood. The first of each month, until July, I plan on posting an installment of "Kwiky." Sorry for the grainy images.

See you soon, boppers.