#2023 version

[lil-doodles]

Prompt 22 for the Cartoonist Kayfabe Kayfabetober challenge(added to the 2023 list from the 2022 list to replace the prompt Beserk because I had no idea what that pertained to) is Tezuka. While I’m not overly familiar with Japanese pop culture, even a neophyte like myself knows Osamu Tezuka. Even if you don’t know him by name you’ll at least know his characters, especially Astro Boy. He was responsible for a lot of Japan’s best known manga and anime and made Kimba the White Lion, the movie Disney ripped off for The Lion King.

[i-carrion-icarian]

Lead me down to the river, late after dark I'm lost in devotion

[heartlandians]

DREAMER (2023 Version)

To celebrate the 250th episode of 'Heartland' airing tonight I've created a new version of my song 'Dreamer' it will air tonight on the show at 7pm EST and will be available to download and stream on Oct 5th. Pre-Save link here: https://ffm.to/dreamer2023

[lil-doodles]

Prompt #24 in the Cartoonist Kayfabe Kayfabetober challenge (2023 version) is Aeon Flux. I feel like this is becoming a confession of my inability to “nerd” correctly but this is another thing I never got into. I remember the early short pieces on MTV’s Liquid Television animation show (where Beevis and Butthead got their ignominious start) but I never saw the movie or the animated tv series so I don’t know a lot about it. It must have been decent to warrant a movie but I may never know as I haven’t read much no interest in checking it out.

[lil-doodles]

Happy Halloween everyone! The last, but certainly not least, prompt (31 of course) for the Cartoonist Kayfabe Kayfabetober challenge is Lobo, The Main Man. Of course you may notice that he has an eerily similar appearance of one Lemmy Kilmister of a little group called Motörhead. This is no accident. I’m not sure if Keith Giffen and Roger Slifer (Lobo’s creators) were fans of Lenny’s but the resemblance is uncanny if you ask me. Artists have paid homage to this many times so I know I’m not the only one who noticed. I will say that I was never fond of Lobo but I have always loved Lemmy and Motörhead. I just finished reading a graphic novel about Lemmy called No Remorse that contained short vignettes about him drawn by various artists. It brought to mind a wake with various famous friends and associates recalling memories of him from Ozzy to Dave Grohl to Lita Ford and more. It was a decent collection with some great art, some good art, and some okay art which is par for the course with anthology books. If you dig Lemmy and his music then you’ll like the book. These stories only cement his legend as a true rock n’ roll madman and, by all accounts, a real sweetheart of a man.

[lil-doodles]

Prompt #28 (we’re quickly approaching the end!) in the Cartoonist Kayfabe Kayfabetober challenge (2023 version) is shojo horror and so you get Tomei created by Junji Ito. As I previously stated during this challenge, I don’t know a lot about Japanese culture so I had to research this one as well. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s fun to learn new things and see different art styles. From what I can surmise, shojo (or shoujo?) is a genre aimed at young women/girls that primarily focuses on romance and personal relationships. I think (correct me if I’m wrong) Sailor Moon falls into this category. Shojo horror is a sub genre of that. The Tomei comic book appears to be quite popular as there were cartoons and a movie made from it. Of course I was drawn (no pun intended) to the aesthetics of the character more than anything else. I’m old and pretty set in my ways and, as I’ve never been particularly interested in manga or anime, but this drawing did lead me into buying my first ever manga book, No Longer Human, an adaptation of a novel by Osamu Dazai drawn by Junji Ito. I haven’t read it yet but it looks great. It will make for good Halloween reading.

[lil-doodles]

Prompt #25 on the Cartoonist Kayfabe Kayfabetober challenge list (2023 version) is 80’s Black and White Explosion so I drew Boris the Bear! I talked about Boris being an answer to the proliferation of anamorphic adolescent martial arts critters in the wake of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles success. Basically he killed them off in a bloody a massacre leaving no sacred cow untouched. As I was already sick to death of those rip off books, and not particularly interested in the TMNT themselves, it was happy to see someone doing the lord’s work, even if it was another talking animal (spoiler alert: he was actually a robot). This character debuted in 1986 and was around for a lot longer than any of those copycat comics. That’s probably because they diversified the storyline to be about more than mindless annihilation of other comic book characters. Believe it or not this is one of the comics that gave Dark Horse Comics their start in the industry. Anyway, the black and white explosion of the 80’s started with Cerebus and TMNT and a few other titles as a way of publishing comics on the cheap that probably wouldn’t have been published otherwise. It was basically the same formula that was used by the 60’s underground comix but the material tended to be more mainstream (for the most part) and it lead to classic books like Bone and Badger and American Flagg and more. In fact, most of the best books of the 80’s were being put out by smaller publishers and independent creators if you ask me.

[lil-doodles]

Prompt #30 from the Cartoonist Kayfabe Kayfabetober drawing challenge (2023 version) is Moebius and so I drew Blueberry, the western character he created with Jean-Michel Charlier. I’ve never read any of them but I like westerns and Moebius’ art so I probably will eventually. I realize that this isn’t as high quality as what Moebius would have turned out but, as I have stated previously, it’s a sketch for a drawing challenge that I’m doing during my lunch hour so take it with a grain of salt. One more tomorrow and we’ll be done! See you then!