Omzig

I'm going to be delving into my old folders of stuff that I had collected and scanned for my old "Blast from the Past" section of the "Planet Racers" website. I only wish that I had been more organized with that project, i.e. putting things I'd already used into a folder labeled "Already Used". I remember most but not all of the things I used in BftP, leading to the slightly embarrassing duplication of a BftP entry about those Will Vinton Claymation Turtles in one of my early "palblog" posts. I will endeavor to avoid this in future posts.

Anyway, I found this odd piece in one of those BftP folders -- it's a fun little drawing of what you might call "Gizmo's Evil Twin". Gizmo, as all fans of cool non-oil drinking comic book robots know, is the creation of Michael Dooney. Together with his giant dog thing sidekick Fluffy, Gizmo traveled through space in his ship 'Soto, having wacky adventures.



At some point, Mike and I obviously collaborated on this sketch, but for the life of me I can't recall how it came about. It's possible that we did it deliberately, or maybe Mike started a drawing of Gizmo, didn't like it, and was about to throw it away when I grabbed it and started playing around. I really don't know -- maybe MD himself will show up here and cast some light on the subject.

But I can see clearly Mike's style in the head and torso of the character, and my style in the various spiky accoutrements and the gun. I can't remember who decided to name the character "Omzig", but it was certainly the result of much careful thinking. -- PL