Creation

Creation is a series of cartoons adapting folk tales from various cultures: Maya, San, Ainu, Babylon, Nlaka'pamux, Magyar, Pastafari, Swahili, Wotjobaluk, Nez Perce, Israelite, Buryat, Shuar, Tumandok, Pelasgian, Egyptian, Hebrew, + many North American tribes through the Sky Woman spin-off. Also at creation.artstation.com

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Sky Woman: the Squawkquel

Creation

Creator

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Sky Woman

Greetings, mythology lovers. I'm currently working on a larger “Creation” project called “Sky Woman," loosely based on an Iroquois story about an extraterrestrial woman who brings plant life to Earth.

👩🏽‍🌾🐺🐦‍⬛🐐🐻🦇🕷️🐢🐆🧜‍♀️ The project is currently in the design phase, and I'm publishing the character studies here: https://skywoman.thecomicseries.com/archive/

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Creation 19: Goofus and Gallant (parody)

The crimes of Goofus are based on folktales from the Jewish Tanakh, which includes books in the Torah and Nevi'im, written between 600 and 100 BC. Some of these books (Genesis, Exodus, etc.) were later integrated into the Christian and Muslim doctrines.

The Goofus and Gallant cartoon was created by psychologist, educator, and Highlights magazine founder Dr. Garry Cleveland Myers in 1938, and has been drawn by a succession of illustrators. The longest run was 32 years (1952-84) by artist Marion Hull Hammel.

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Creation 18: Bastet Guards the Sun

This is sun-god Ra's journey through the Egyptian Duat (underworld) as described in The Pyramid Texts (3100 BCE) and the Egyptian Book of the Dead (1550 BCE). The variation of Bastet taking over as helmsman and bodyguard was added by me.

Bastet was an Egyptian cat goddess whose primary role was protector of the sun god Ra. Her city was Bubastis (house of Bast). Earliest known evidence of Bastet worship is dated to 2890 BC, nearly 5000 years ago.

Besides Bastet and Ra, gods depicted in this strip include Sekhmet (lioness), Mehen (cobra), Khepri (scarab), and Apophis (giant serpent).

Illustration style is based on Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat comic strip and comic books, which he drew from 1923 to 1960.

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Creation 17: A Dance to Creation

The Pelasgians migrated to the Greek peninsula from Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) around 3500 B.C., hundreds of years prior to the arrival of the Proto-Greek from the north.

The Pelasgian creation myth was cobbled together from fragments by mythologist Robert Graves, best known for authoring I, Claudius (1934).

Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Jules Feiffer made books and films for children and adults. He began his career in 1946 at age 17 as a writer and clean-up artist for Will Eisner’s Spirit comics. From 1956 to 1997, he was a staff artist at the Village Voice.

In order of appearance, Feiffer's characters and collaborations in the above strip are Dancer, Huey, princesses Rhyme & Reason (portrayed by Passionella), bear-loser, Munro & Myrna, Phantom Tollbooth's Milo & Tock, The Spirit, Tom Terrific, Clifford & friends.

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Creation 16: Good Ol’ Tungkung Langit

The Tumandok (AKA Suludnon) are the native Philippine people living in the mountains of Panay Island who continually struggle against government oppression.

This installment is styled after the Peanuts comic strip, drawn by Charles Schulz from 1950 to 2000. Peanuts was its most emotionally charged during the 1960s when depicting failure, anxiety, and bullying in a humorous way.

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Creation 15: Faith is …

“Faith is an island in the setting sun, but proof is the bottom line for everyone.” — Paul Simon

“In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.” ― René Descartes

“I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.” ― Robert G. Ingersoll

“The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them.” ― H. L. Mencken

Kim (Grove) Casali created the “Love is” cartoon in the 1960s, and drew it until 1975, when Bill Asprey took over. In 1976, Casali became one of the first women to give birth via frozen sperm, for which she was condemned by the Vatican. Casali’s sons grew up to become designers for the Doom and Half-Life series of games.

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Creation 14: The Primordial Feuds

The Shuar people live in the rainforests and savanna of Ecuador and Peru. One of their religious practices was to preserve the severed heads of their enemies in order to prevent hauntings and control agricultural magic. Shortly after European colonists arrived in the 16th century, Shuar head-harvesting increased to meet Europeans’ demand for grotesque souvenirs.

Edward Gorey made illustrated books for adults from 1953 to 1999. Specific Gorey characters make an appearance in my war panel (#10) above.

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Creation #13

Lord Sombov of Frombov

The Buryats are an indigenous people of the Siberian forests. They fought against - and became subjects of - the Mongolian empire in the 1200s and the Russian empire in the 1600s.

Milt Gross was an influential newspaper cartoonist who earned fame during the American Great Depression. Prior to his newspaper career, he wrote and directed silent animated films for Bray Studios, an early animation studio which also employed Paul Terry, the Fleischer brothers, and Walter Lantz.

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Creation #12 Afterlife in Hell

People have been imagining hells and underworlds for thousands of years. According to the religious authorities, you're supposed to end up in hell if you disobey the religious authorities, or because you aren't a member of the correct tribe or civilization.

Respectively, the 6 underworlds illustrated here are Kur, Jahannam, Hindu Naraka, Druj Demana, Gehenna, and Buddhist Naraka.

(parody of Matt Groening's "Life in Hell" comics, 1977-2012)

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Creation #11 Yahweh the Unfriendly Ghost

Thousands of years ago, the Israelite tribes worshipped dozens of gods, including Baal, Asherah, and Yahweh. As the kingdom of Israel emerged, it chose Yahweh as the supreme god, and worship of all other gods was banned.

Character designs are based on the supernatural child characters from Harvey Comics, originally designed by Joe Oriolo, Steve Muffatti, and Warren Kremer. The Harvey characters are currently owned by DreamWorks Animation.

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Creation #10 Best Creation Ever

The Nez Perce (Niimíipuu) are a Sahaptin tribe in northern Idaho, USA. In 1877, led by Chief Joseph, they went to war against American invaders. The final panel above refers to the Heart of the Monster national park off highway 12 in Idaho. https://home.nps.gov/nepe/planyourvisit/visit-the-heart-of-the-monster.htm

Richard Scarry wrote and illustrated children's books from the 1950s to the early 90s. A Boston native, he moved to the foot of the Swiss Alps in 1972.

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Creation #9 Wee Wotjobaluk World

The Wotjobaluk live in southeast Australia, along the Wimmera River. In their stories, the sun is a torch carried across the sky by Gnowee, in search of her lost son.

Lyonel Feininger was a German-American who drew magazine and newspaper cartoons from 1894 to 1907, including Wee Willie Winkie's World and The Kin-der-Kids. A few years later, he was a German-expressionist painter, a member of the Blaue Reiter and Bauhaus. Labeled a "degenerate artist" by the Nazis, Feininger had to flee Germany to America in 1936.

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Creation #8 Mungu and the Divine Crayon

The Swahili people live in Zanzibar and neighboring countries. They practice a form of Islam which includes myths that are unique to Swahili culture.

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Creation #7 Big Deity?

Pastafarianism is a new religion which was revealed to the prophet Bobby Henderson in Corvallis, Oregon. It's practiced worldwide, wherever legal.

This strip is a parody of the infamous anti-science booklet "Big Daddy?" created in 1972 by child-frightener Jack Chick.

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Creation #6 Magyar

The Magyars are the southmost Finno-Ugric people who migrated thousands of miles from the Ural River, finally settling around 900 AD in the Carpathian Basin, lands previously occupied by the Huns.

Most outsiders refer to the country with some derivation of the Latin word Hungaria, Land of the Huns; but the "Hungarians" refer to themselves as the Magyar, and their nation as Magyarország.

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Creation #5 the Nlaka'pamux of Canada

With a population of 5000, the Nlaka'pamux are one of the four nations of the Interior Salish. Their territory is located near Vancouver, Canada. http://nntc.ca