Blast from the Past #200: "Stupid Heroes" poster art

I think I drew this art to be used as a promotional poster for the "Stupid Heroes" comic I did for Mirage's short-lived "Next" comic book imprint. This series was another of my attempts to emulate Jack Kirby's approach to comics. I'm not sure that it was really successful, but I did have fun with it. Here's the penciled version...



... and the final inked art. Actually, I'm not sure if this was ever used. -- PL

Blast from the Past #196: "Return of the Dragon" poster

Here's another one of my efforts at promoting the showing of Bruce Lee movies on the UMass campus back when I was a student -- in this case, "Return of the Dragon" (which is actually "Way of the Dragon", retitled, and coincidentally the first Bruce Lee movie I ever saw).



I'm not sure why I did this color version -- probably just for fun. -- PL

Blast from the Past #194: "The Chinese Connection" poster

This is an artifact from my student days in the mid-1970's at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. I had recently become a big Bruce Lee fan, and got very excited upon hearing that the Asian-American Student Association was going to be sponsoring a screening of one of his movies, "The Chinese Connection".

It's been a while (around thirty-five years... gack!), so I don't remember some of the details, such as whether or not I had already seen this movie (I think not). But what I do remember is that -- rightly or wrongly -- I felt there wasn't enough promotion on-campus for this showing, so I decided to make my own poster.



This was the result. I made a bunch of Xeroxed copies of the artwork and taped them up at strategic locations around campus. I'm not sure if it actually resulted in any more people coming to see the movie... but I tried.

One curious thing about this original that reminds me of how tight things were for me, money-wise, back then -- notice the curved corners on the right side? They remind me that I drew this thing on a piece of white posterboard-like paper which I salvaged from somewhere. I think it was some kind of packing material. As I recall, it wasn't the best drawing surface (too glossy), but it WAS free. -- PL

Eagle sighting

Yesterday, my friend Rick and I decided to ride on the bike path to Amherst from Northampton. As we started across the Connecticut River on the part of the path which goes over the old railroad bridge, we noticed a woman standing near the bridge railing and looking intently at something. Rick asked her what she was looking at, and she pointed out an eagle perched in a tree about forty feet away.

In this photo, the eagle is pretty much dead center.



And here's a closeup -- not a great one, but you can see some details more clearly.



The eagle didn't move much in the ten minutes we stood there watching it -- just turned its head a few times. -- PL

Blast from the Past #193: Bread Loaf Writers' Conference

Back in 1983, my writer wife had the opportunity to attend the renowned Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. Around this time, Kevin and I had discovered the copy shop in Portsmouth, NH had that newfangled color copier which could print color artwork onto transfers which could then be ironed onto t-shirts. So I decided to make Jeannine a custom t-shirt for the conference.

Here's the black and white art...



... and here's the color, reversed so that when the iron-on was applied it would read in the right direction.



You might note some odd glare in this image -- that's because I had used a piece of clear acetate over the drawing on which I could apply the dot pattern screen used for the background. I did this because it allowed me to remove the pattern at will if desired, and also because it was easier cutting that stuff on acetate than on paper (paper would often tear in places when pulling up the excess adhesive-backed pattern film.

If memory serves, my wife got a kick out of the design and wore the t-shirt until the iron-on faded -- sadly, that didn't take too long (the quality and durability of those things was very variable). -- PL

More Mirage Moto Mania

I forgot to post these two photos in the "Rune has left the building" post of a few days ago. I took them while riding in Vermont.

Here's Eric putting the Triumph Scrambler 900 through its paces...



... and Steve cruising on the Rune. -- PL



P.S. If you click on each image to view a larger version, and look closely, you can see each of the dudes wearing big grins inside their helmets!

The Rune has left the building...

Regular readers of this blog may recall a post or two in which I mentioned my Honda Valkyrie "Rune", an 1800cc, six-cylinder beast which used to be Steve Lavigne's favorite ride when he came down to visit us in Massachusetts.

Well, no longer. Now it's going to be Steve's favorite ride in Maine. Yes, Steve took the Rune off my hands and is going to give it all the love and attention that it deserves. Maybe he'll even ride it back down here to visit.

Today was a beautiful day, and it just so happened that Steve came down to visit a couple of days ago, with the main intent being a group motorcycle ride with me, Jim Lawson, and the newly-licensed Eric Talbot. Yes, you read that right -- Eric got his motorcycle license last week! Yahoo! So for today's ride, we incorporated something which would have been illegal for him not too long ago -- riding out of state.

We met in Easthampton around 9:45AM, and decided to alter our original plan, which was to ride out to a big vintage Japanese motorcycle show in Rhinebeck, NY. Several things factored into this change of plan -- the distance, the weather, and the fact the some of us weren't feeling completely well. So we settled on a blast up into Vermont, then over into New Hampshire, where we would say goodbye to Steve as he took off on the rest of his journey back to Maine.

We hit one of our favorite motorcycling roads, Rt. 112 and then Rt. 100 heading north into Vermont, where we picked up Rt. 9 east. I was leading at this time, and I figured it was probably time to take a break, so about five miles up the road, I pulled over at the Hogback Mountain rest stop, where you can observe quite a dramatic vista. Here's a photo of Steve, Jim and Eric with our bikes.



From left to right: I was on the Victory Vision Tour (Tenth Anniversary Model), Steve was riding the Rune, Eric had borrowed my Triumph Scrambler 900 for the day, and Jim had his Yamaha FJR1300 (or "Feejer" as he affectionately calls it),.

After this break, we started off down the mountain, and no more than a tenth of a mile down we were delighted to see a medium-sized black bear watching traffic from the side of the road.Hurriedly pulling over, I tried to get my camera out quickly, but I only managed to snap a photo of the bear once it had gotten off the road and back into the brush. Here's the photo...



... and a blowup of the part of the photo with the bear. Really, it's a bear.



We continued on down to Brattleboro, where we stopped to get sandwiches and sodas at the Vermont Deli. Our intent was to drive across the river into New Hampshire and stop at "Madame Sherri's Castle" (another thing I have blogged about before) to eat this lunch, and so we did. Here's a little panorama of the boys enjoying their food al fresco:



After this pleasant repast, we continued on to Keene, stopped at Borders Books for a bathroom break (and to buy a couple of magazines), said our farewells and good wishes to Steve, then headed back home. All in all, a great ride. I look forward to doing more of the same. And I have to say it's very nice having a new member of our "club" -- Eric -- joining us now. -- PL