Monday, October 5, 2009

Blast from the Past #237: sample comic book page

This one puzzles me. I don't think it is one of the pages I did as samples to try to get work doing comics. I do have a vague memory of drawing it as the first page to a story which I never finished, but that's about all I remember.



In any event, I kind of like it. -- PL

8 comments:

Dinoff said...

Love the art!
Have you ever thought of finishing the (possible) story, or creating a new story based on your sample pages? You could throw it up online for everyone for free!

~Dinoff~

~ tOkKa said...

-->> The little side - kick , Golum creature is very cute ..

Tyr Germanic said...

the file is called PRIEST and skinny alien.
so hes a priest?
bringing religion where no man has gone before!

ive always wondered why mirage didnt have more non-turtle titles.
(probably because next got its ass handed to it)
but its time to get back on the horse.like planet racers was awesome.

~ tOkKa said...

-->> Tyr, do you recall the " NEXT " comics label by Mirage ?!

Daryl S. Herrick said...

Peter:

I got the urge to cast about the internet to see if I could find any information about a group I was involved in the 1970s. No, it was not the Weathermen. The group with which I was involved formed during the post-radical, later half of the decade. The group was the Pioneer Valley Graphics Guild.

In the back of my mind, it seems like you may have been around at that time. I run your name and see that you are posting these drawings done that time and place. This coincidence at least brought the era for me into a little sharper focus.

In 1976, I felt more like a mascot to this group of graphic artists: a high school kid who had scripted a short story with Jerry Ordway, the extent of what I had actually produced and had gotten published when I got involved in the group. I was there for the initial meetings and the later planning sessions for a magazine published by the Guild that might have been called Scat but then again I might be mistaken about the title.

I am trying to recall who was in the group. There was John Hayman who I liked for his mellow manner. Someone called Marty who was from Long Island and whose wit impressed my teenage mind. There was Steve Lafler who I believe worked as a cartoonist into the 1980s. There was a comix (with an "x") artist whose name I think was Chris Jackson. I forgot the name of the person who first brought the Guild together although I conjure up the image of his face with moustache and glasses.

I left the area to go to Syracuse University in 1977, but I hooked up with my cartooning cohorts the following summer and did some errands helping to get the Guild's magazine out. I might have met you at that time, but like that answer blowing in the wind, the events remain elusive.

Tyr Germanic said...

tokka,yeah,i remember it.
i thought it was good.
but i dont think it sold well,so it didnt last.
so mirage rarely had new comics...
(or a fugitoid #2 damnit)

being independant they have room to do great things while even image is trying to settle into comics' tired stereotypes.

NO COMPLAINTS though,
im looking forward to the ambitious ammount of comics mirage has planned for winter.
(oh yeah,commandosaurs/grunts were cool too)

PL said...

" Daryl S. Herrick said...
Peter:

I got the urge to cast about the internet to see if I could find any information about a group I was involved in the 1970s. No, it was not the Weathermen. The group with which I was involved formed during the post-radical, later half of the decade. The group was the Pioneer Valley Graphics Guild.

In the back of my mind, it seems like you may have been around at that time. I run your name and see that you are posting these drawings done that time and place. This coincidence at least brought the era for me into a little sharper focus.

In 1976, I felt more like a mascot to this group of graphic artists: a high school kid who had scripted a short story with Jerry Ordway, the extent of what I had actually produced and had gotten published when I got involved in the group. I was there for the initial meetings and the later planning sessions for a magazine published by the Guild that might have been called Scat but then again I might be mistaken about the title.

I am trying to recall who was in the group. There was John Hayman who I liked for his mellow manner. Someone called Marty who was from Long Island and whose wit impressed my teenage mind. "

That was Marty Maceda, who was a very witty guy. His then-wife Denny was also involved in the group.-- PL

"There was Steve Lafler who I believe worked as a cartoonist into the 1980s. There was a comix (with an "x") artist whose name I think was Chris Jackson. I forgot the name of the person who first brought the Guild together although I conjure up the image of his face with moustache and glasses."

You might be thinking of Brian Turner. -- PL

I left the area to go to Syracuse University in 1977, but I hooked up with my cartooning cohorts the following summer and did some errands helping to get the Guild's magazine out. I might have met you at that time, but like that answer blowing in the wind, the events remain elusive."

It IS difficult to remember all the details of events that happened over thirty years ago. At this point, without referring to old letters and/or notebooks, I can't remember exactly how long I was with SCAT. I think I participated in the production of the first five or six issues, but it may have been more -- or less -- before I had my falling-out with them. -- PL

Daryl S. Herrick said...

Peter:

Thank you for filling in some of the gaps.

I felt like Snapper Carr and the Justice League of America when I was with that group. I was younger than the others for one thing, joining the group when I was sixteen; it was only a couple or a few years younger but at that age, that difference seems like a lot. Also I aspired to be a writer and anyone can be a writer while the rest were artists and that takes talent, a power not given to all mortal men.

I am very glad you too have good memories of Marty Maceda. I did not want to exactly emulate Marty but I appreciated his perspective and it helped shape my own as I grew into that stage of life where I was maybe shaving at least every third day. A bunch of us went to New York City for the Bicentennial and for the big comic convention that Phil Seuling would have in July and we stayed at the home of Marty's parents in New York, a milestone for the country and for me.

The name Brian Turner filled in that piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Brian tolerated me, but I felt he occasionally asked himself, what the hell I was doing there. In turn, I thought to myself, every group needs a responsible adult so I knew what Brian was doing there.

i did not know you had a split with the group. I had probably faded out by that point. Knowing that, however, helps me from getting too sanguine.

Now with real names, I can fish for real facts about that era. I see you, yourself, have written about the group in your blog--and that I did not remember the name of the group exactly as it was, although I have to wonder if Pioneer Valley Graphics Guild was a very early name for the group or if that is an entirely fictive memory. Digging deeper, I find someone has posted on a creative writing website his thoughts about an encounter with Marty and Denny ( http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/ed-backissues/ed11-5.txt )

The experience of dwelling in the remembered facts has been pleasant. The real ones, a footnote in comic book history, stand ready to march through the gates. I want to say, "so long, halcyon days that never were", because it is such an overblown, ridiculous line, but instead I shall be terse and say, I appreciate the chance to bring the past to the fore.