Beardroid with Iron Man Palm Lasers

Beardroid is another character from Axe Cop's "Bad Guy Earth"

...although he does not have Iron Man's palm lasers, nor does he make the "jazz hands" gesture anywhere in the book.  Archer wanted the palm lasers, and I am afraid I have only  myself to blame for the pose.

Axe Cop's Shield Wolf and Robot Satan

The non sequitur violence of Axe Cop continues to be compelling for the boys.  We finished rereading "Bad Guy Earth" and moved on to the updates on the web comic.

Archer points out that I totally blew it on Robot Satan's hands, or arm appendages, as the case may be. He is supposed to have some sort of gun apparatus on at least one arm.  Ansel seemed satisfied enough with the napkin despite my grievous  mistake.

Gunslinger Confronts The Clown Samurai Panda

A napkin inspired by our reading of Axe Cop's "Bad Guy Earth."

Ansel thought the napkin should look more like a comic, and star his latest hero and avatar- "The Gunslinger."

He specified that the Slinger should be funny as well as heroic- always falling off of his horse for comic effect. And he should be fighting a ridiculous bad guy.  

I'm afraid the Clown Samurai Panda is not as amusing as Axe Cop's President Zombie Bear Cop... or even Booterang, my personal Axe Cop favorite.  He seems to be overwhelmed by his outfit. 

Ninja Chainsaw Bear

Archer has been reading some Axe Cop recently.  I always thought that our kids would enjoy that series as it is written by a kid and drawn by his much older brother.  Now that there ads for the new Ax Cop TV show, Archer is rereading the books. 

Today's ninja bear with chainsaw arms is very much in the Ax Cop spirit.

Army Camouflage Bear with Cape

I'll admit that a trip to Build-A-Bear Workshop does not fill me with joy.

One of our kids has a condition that requires frequent blood tests with the drawing of multiple vials of blood...and generally children feel that there should be some sort of compensation for that sort of psychic and physical injury. 

I usually offer him the opportunity to go to a place that I would normally avoid at all costs in order  to choose a compensatory item. This often means a trip to the seventh circle of hell, otherwise known as the Times Square Toys R Us... or to Build-A-Bear.

Thus, we have at least a large garbage bag's worth of overpriced bears who can wear over priced clothing and interact with expensive furniture and accessories.  One or the other of the kids will occasionally bond with one of the bears for a few days, and this week, Ansel is focused on a camouflage green bear wearing a Dark Knight cape.

Here he is on a napkin, looking splotchy and vaguely Batman like. 
As you can see, I enjoyed the purple and green thing.

Infinity Blade's Siris with Connor From Assassin's Creed III

The anachronistic knight and assassin discuss the impact of impaired vision while battling the enemy.

Archer did  not give me a request last night, but these two guys are always good.

Gunslinger

Ansel asked for a "gunslinger" for today.

I'm not sure exactly what the word means to him... beyond a guy with a gun and a hat.  Yesterday he put on a gunslinger costume that consisted of a plastic Indiana Jones hat (came with a foam whip that played the movie's theme song) and his older brother's Assassin's Creed III costume from last Halloween.

When I prodded him for more details on the Gunslinger's appearance- wondering if I should draw yesterday's getup, Ansel told me the most important thing was to see the hole on the end of his gun.

(This sort of unapologetic weapon display on a napkin would be unacceptable at his Quaker school, but we can get away with more at summer camp.)

I avoided the issue of the costume by cribbing from a variant cover of "Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born" by Joe Quesada.  Although he usually hates it when I draw him, the fact that I made the face look a bit like Ansel himself was OK with him since it was mostly in shadow.

Ashbite from Kingdom Rush Again

Our kids spent the trip to camp this morning bickering bitterly over which one of them would have Ashbite as his imaginary guardian animal.  

Sharing, or imagining two Ashbites, was apparently impossible.

Kingdom Rush's Ashbite with Pacific Rim's Jaeger

Ashbite,  a pricey in-app purchase in Kingdom Rush Frontiers, continues to be popular with both of our kids.

Archer says the dragon would be well worth the $6.99 of hard earned allowance if he could walk on the ground as well as fly. 

He asked that Ashbite be paired with something from "Pacific Rim" for today's napkin. Gipsy Danger seemed like the obvious choice so the two could be glowing red together.

Both kids would be happy to point out that the size relationship between the two is definitely inaccurate:  The dragon should be much smaller.

Mine Turtle

Archer finds the "mine turtle" from asdf movies hysterically funny.

I am too old to appreciate it, perhaps.

The Regular Show's Mordecai and Rigby Pilot a Pacific Rim Jaeger

Mordecai and Rigby are canceling the apocalypse...maybe.

An image that represents a combination of my younger son's pop culture intake over the weekend.

One would imagine that Mordecai and Rigby would be avid fans of Pacific Rim, if not particularly adept Jaeger pilots themselves....

"Dude! It's like a giant video game!"

Jaeger from "Pacific Rim" Poster

When we saw the movie over the weekend , they gave us three free posters by Yoji Shinkawa of a particularly wasp-waisted version of the main mech.

The boys were so impressed with the movie, that they went home and put all three identical posters up on their bedroom wall.

And Ansel wanted me to draw the image on his napkin today.

Pacific Rim Jaeger with Knifehead Kaiju

We saw "Pacific Rim" over the weekend.

I definitely recommend it if you are, are related to, or in some other way feel compelled to indulge, a male person under the age of, say, twelve years old.

And as long as I am offering advise: Don't sit too close to the screen.

Ashbite From Kingdom Rush

I think this dragon might be a good guy on the latest version of Kingdom Rush.
It is definitely more manly than the Kitten Fist napkin that came before it.

At any rate, a fire breathing dragon is always good, and it will offer Archer an opportunity to boast about his prowess in the game.

Minion on Prospect Park Carousel Horse

Ansel conked out last night without telling me he wanted on the napkin for today. Suffering from heat stroke and sleep deprivation, I was unable to think of anything sufficiently cool to draw.
 
His camp group is going to the Prospect Park Carousel today, and he and Archer rode some small fiberglass horses at the local street fair (The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel for those up on neighborhood trivia) last evening

Foolishly, I thought perhaps a carousel horse, and an ever popular minion might be acceptable.
Instead, Ansel took an old napkin that he had not used before, The Macho Tooth Fairy.  I guess this napkin at least served the purpose of making that one seem more acceptable by comparison.

Teen Titans' Dog Hand with Gravity Falls' Kitten Fists

Archer failed to give me a request last night as he had locked himself in the bathroom to read a book past bedtime...so I rolled along on a Gravity Falls theme.

Last night, he thought Mabel's "Kitten Fists" were extremely funny.  As he was demonstrating them to me again this morning, I offered that I had drawn them on his napkin.  He literally recoiled in horror at the awful girlyness of the idea. (And he didn't even know that the background was magenta)

I told him he would have to hide the napkin in his lunchbox today, and that he should be sure to ask for an appropriately masculine image for tomorrow.

Gravity Fall's Muscular Dipper with Grunkle Stan

Yesterday we caught up on a couple of Gravity Falls episodes that we had missed.

Afterwards, Ansel requested a hugely muscular version of Dipper with a disgruntled Grunkle Stan looking at him from off to the side.  Well, he did not use the word "disgruntled" but that was definitely the sense.

I don't think this concept had anything specifically to do with the episodes that we watched, although I have to admit that I slept through most of the second one, so I can't be positive.

We did a similar napkin starring Teen Titans Robin back in May, and that might be the source.

Infinity Blade's Gortoel and Kingdom Rush's Vez'nan

Big bad guys with teeth and featureless groins from Archer's two favorite video games:

Archer had some specific narrative in mind which involved characters from both games.  Unfortunately, he explained it to me while I was trying to convince the kids to go to bed by dozing off myself, so I was unable to understand or retain his plan.  I did recall that he wanted something from both games and Vez'nan in particular.

I'm really not sure about the relative sizes here.  No doubt, Archer could have provided some guidance, but fortunately, he was finally asleep when I drew this. 

Grojband Huddle

Ansel is waiting for a new episode of Grojband.

Our old electric guitar has been seeing more use than it has any time since Archer was three years old and wanted to be Bruce Springsteen circa 1975.  (A DVD we purchased at Cosco was to blame back then)

Infinity Blade's Siris Prepares to Ax the Monster

Archer's interest in Infinity Blade waxes and wanes, but always seems to return.

I am consistently impressed with the size and ugliness of the adversaries in the game.

And I am still mulling over why no character, hero or foe, has any eyes.  

Skateboarding Dog

Ansel is very interested in skateboards.  Conversation at bedtime last night was about the one skateboard in the equipment closet in the gym at school. 

According to Ansel's not always gracious big brother, only "older" kids are allowed to use that board.  He's not really sure what older means, beyond, not the age of his younger brother.

Dogs probably aren't allowed to use it either, but we can pretend. 

And.... There are plenty of images online of dogs on skateboards... but none of them catching air.
This one is a fabrication- no actual dog was harmed in the making of the drawing.

Silver and the Lone Rangers

 

Ansel requested three Lone Rangers... and specified the 2013 version only.

He and his friends have been playing Lone Ranger at recess.  No one wants to be Tonto, or the brother, or the bad guys, so there have to be three masked men. 

As of last week, I don't think any of these six year old boys had actually seen the current movie, or even the previous television series, which was no doubt just as well as far as their game was concerned.

Having seen the movie over the weekend- silly gratuitous violence, casual references to genocide and all- my inner six year old says the horse was the coolest character in the movie.

Infinity Blade's Raidriar The God King

Over the weekend, Archer was somehow reminded how much he likes Infinity Blade.

I was reminded how hard I find it to draw all those guys who can't see out of their helmets.  The resulting napkin was not one of my better efforts.  Archer was unconcerned about my bad drawing as he views this as practice for me. 

His ultimate goal is to convince me to build him a Raidriar costume.

I somehow managed an Assassin's Creed costume last year, but that was relatively easy compared to this....

Gremlins' Gizmo With Spawn

Constantly infected by his older brother's enthusiasms, Ansel decided he was also interested in Spawn.

While Archer wants to see the R rated movie, (not going to happen) Ansel merely would like me to buy him some Spawn action figures from the 90's that he saw on the back of a old comic book. 

For the moment, I am very successfully resisting the urge to find out if such things are still available.  I got myself into trouble on a similar topic after we watched Gremlins.  That movie came out in 1984... that is 29 years ago, for those of you who are as geriatric and sleep deprived as I am.  But yet, one can easily find a Gizmo toy available on Amazon for about $13, maybe even with free shipping.  And when this toy from the early 80's arrives, its hands and feet will fall off because the glue holding it together gave out a decade ago.

This is to explain why Gizmo came to mind while I was drawing Spawn at midnight.
The combination seemed to make sense to Ansel this morning. 

Minion Reflected In Halo Helmet

Archer was somehow reminded yesterday of how cool he thinks all things Halo are.

Again, I feel I should offer the disclaimer that he is too young for the game, but that does not mean that he cannot expound at great length about the many versions of the armor and weapons.

I just could not contend with the idea of drawing a full suit last night, and one helmet seemed to offer enough detailing and reflective surfaces.

It seemed appropriate that something yellowish and rounded should be reflected in the faceplate.
This morning, Ansel told me it would be much cooler if the minion was inside the armor.
I'm not sure how that would work.  I tried this sort of thing before with the Lorax and had to leave the helmet off.

 Maybe next week.

Laser Pet Battle

What do your pets do when you are not home?

Much to my sons delight, their aunt and uncle have recently adopted Millie the puppy.  The preexisting pet, and  older cat named Tigger, is understandably not so thrilled about the situation.

Conversation at dinner last night with Aunt Andi kept cycling back to relations between the two animals and how they must interact when humans are not around.  The boys fantasized that the puppy should have a laser sword and the cat laser claws to work out their differences.

Aunt Andi replied that she is a responsible pet owner and does her best to keep lasers away from her animals as consistently as possible, so this image is not particularly realistic.

Predator and Spawn

The dark and age-inappropriate nature of "Spawn" is very compelling for Archer...in a way similar to the Predator series.

Archer gave me specific instructions for this one last night, asking that the two characters be holding various human remains- the Predator with a his trophy skull and spinal column and Spawn with some other item that I have forgotten, or perhaps repressed. 

Obviously there were limitations to what I was willing, or capable, of drawing last night, so I left the bones and bloody viscera out of this one.

Kick The Buddy With Attacking Alien

"Kick the Buddy is a PERFECT METHOD OF STRESS RELIEF"  trumpets the description on the iOS store for this game.

Archer's affection for this app where you can torture, dismember, incinerate and inflict damage of all kind on "Buddy" is only increased by my discomfort with sadistic iPad games. 

Yes, Buddy is ostensibly an inanimate object, it is true.  But you can add a photograph image  to his face, so you can pretend to destroy someone more animate.  Fortunately, our iPad camera is disabled and Archer is not motivated enough to import an image of his brother's face.   He does particularly enjoy siccing the Alien on Buddy.

I find Buddy's face, with his realistic grin and super shiny button eyes, extremely creepy.

Snark From "The Troop"

Last night Ansel requested this critter from Nickelodeon's Men In Black for kids: "The Troop."

Apparently this critter erases memories like the MIB neuralizer... and it gestates its young inside the neck of one of the human characters on the show. 

Ansel thought it was cute, I am not convinced.

Grojband

Ansel has been watching this new animated series about kids in a band with enthusiasm.

He is slightly more receptive than his older brother to programing that is not exclusively limited to weapons and physical combat.... TV shows that might even appeal to girls as well as boys.

Don't tell him I wrote that.... 

There's only one girl in the band and their logo seems to be a skull, so perhaps the show is manly enough?  I have not had an opportunity to sit through an entire episode yet.

Super Dinosaur With Forks

Archer enjoyed Super Dinosaur by Robert Kirkman, art by Jason Howard.

Perhaps the appeal was the talking T-Rex with the harness that allows him to use his tiny arms to manipulate huge robotic arms.... or perhaps he liked it because the 10 year old boy in the story is smarter than all the adults around him?

I replaced some of the weapons with forks for lunchtime compliance.

Minions With The Alien And Eggs

Archer was dissatisfied with my previous attempt at pairing the minions with the Alien.  He wanted a particular narrative: the minions first being excited about something and then disturbed by the Alien.  I told him this was definitely asking a lot for a napkin and that I was not sure I could pull it off.

I seriously considered drawing the lovely green glowing cracked egg from the original ad campaign, but finally went with nasty eggs that were more true to the movie... But there are so many iterations of Aliens and Alien paraphernalia that it is hard to choose.  For instance, how many fingers does the average Alien have?   A 2 minute visit to Google yields several versions of the Alien hand. This is the sort of topic that I can't really dwell on at 11:30 on Sunday night.  My apologies for any lack of Alien accuracy.

The minions seem to only have three fingers... I am reasonably sure of that anyway.

Alien with Despicable Me Minions

It has been a big week around here for minions and aliens.

I somehow feel the need to issue the disclaimer that my children have not seen any of the Alien movies, despite repeated requests.

There are limits to even my bad parenting.

Secret Agent Guy Who Is Not Tom Cruise

Ansel wanted me to put a guy that he has been drawing lately on today's napkin: a sort of Robinish person dressed in black with dark glasses that he calls the Secret Agent Guy.  He wanted me to work from one drawing in particular- a very large one done on a white board in our apartment.  He told me to be sure to add the sunglasses because he had mistakenly left them off because the hair was in the way.

I am not sure exactly what is going on with the second character on the right in his drawing.  I think he is a bad guy and that the stuff around his head is a result of receiving a punch from the Agent (stars and birds or such)  Is he farting an evil green fart also?  I did not ask.

My version ended up looking very Cruise/Mission Impossible, which was certainly not my goal.  I had briefly considered looking for something Mission Impossible like for the background, but instead borrowed the cliche macho action hero background explosion from Wolverine's movie.  Ansel does not even know of the existence of the MI movies yet, nor of Mr. Cruise for that matter. 

Happy July 4th From The Predator, Uncle Sam and The Alien

Alien versus Predator is Archer's favorite franchise this week.  He has been very frustrated with me as my plot knowledge only covers the first two Alien movies...and the more recent Prometheus, regrettably.  Somehow I missed all things Predator the first time around.

Bomb Pops were a childhood favorite for me.  Now, of course, I see them as an unfortunate opportunity for my kids to dye their lips, tongues and shoes both blue and red.

Ski Mask Thumb Wrestler

There was a lot of fierce thumb wrestling going on last night around bed time.

One of our Batman/ Dark Knight action figures came with a little black ski mask- I guess so one can act out the pre batcostume phase of Bruce's career.  Ansel was wearing this mask Luchador style on his thumb.

I couldn't come up with anything better last night.  Ansel was very disappointed this morning with my uncoolness and took an old napkin to camp today. 

Sonic The Hedgehog

Sonic never really is out of style as far as our older son is concerned. 

But it has been a while since I have had a request, and I discovered that I was out of practice.  His arms are supposed to be the strange plastic flesh tone, not blue.  Having made the mistake, however, I find I like them better blue.

Lone Rangers

Clayton Moore and Armie Hammer debate who has the better mask and hat:

Ansel asked for the Lone Ranger today.  I watched the 1950's series back in the early 70's, and somehow felt compelled to include the earlier version here.

Unsurprisingly, Ansel told me he prefers the guy on the right with the star.  I definitely did a better job rendering the recent incarnation, plus the costume and accessories have been refined to be more cool: no exposed forehead and no fey lace-up shirt and droopy bandana.

Tontos

Jay Silverheels from the 1950's series contemplates Johnny Depp's spectacular headgear.

This morning I tried to convince Archer that Tonto was more the cool character rather than the Lone Ranger, but he wasn't having any.

He has spent the last couple of years in school studying Native American  cultures in the northeast and how the reality differed from media stereotypes.  But I don't think that applying that information to a Hollywood movie with that probably has cool gunfights is all that compelling for him right now.

Monsters University's Mike Wazowski With Despicable Me's Minion

One eyed guys with rounded teeth:

 We saw Monsters University over the weekend.  Ansel and Archer find Mike kind of funny, but his ambition, anxiety and angst does not make him as simplistically hilarious as the minions are.

Despicable Me 2 Minions

The kids really wanted to see the new Despicable Me movie over the weekend.
Unfotunately, it does not open until Wednesday.

They find the minions hysterically funny.  My feelings are mixed.