Pug Nefarious

Pug Nefarious:

We’ve always been big fans of “Gladstone’s School for World Conquerers” by Armand Villavert and Mark Andrew Smith.

 “Kid Nefarious” One Shot is in its final hours on kickstarter now. 

Please consider funding, we did, and are fervently hoping that it reaches its goal and gets published!

Nefarious on Kickstarter 

You can also see the rest of our canine cosplay series from 2012-13:

Including the Skull Brothers as dogs, (also from Gladstone’s) Raven the Weimaraner, Starfire the Dachshund, Nightwing the Hound, Kid Flash the Italian Greyhound, and a disturbing number of many more. One can assess whether my Nefarious or Pug napkin drawing skills have improved over the last six years.

Or there’s always the Animal Cosplay series, if you are really looking to waste some time (Nintendo cosplay for cats!)

General Ogun and I-r0k

Skull Brothers: 

“Who Wore it Better?”

Or, “Separated at Birth?”

I-r0k, played by TJ Miller in the recent movie version of Ready Player One strangely has much in common with General Ogun from Jason T Kruse’s “World of Quest”

Like “Quest,” Ernest Cline’s original novel was one of our younger son’s favorite reads...  Even though I-r0k is a rather minor character and I don’t remember anything about what he was wearing....

Really, one can never go wrong with a skull body.

(You can see a previous napkin appearance for General Ogun from back in 2013 at this link)

Spider-Man Noir and Gotham by Gaslight Batman

Brothers in Stylish Darkness:

Spider-Man Noir teams up with “Gotham by Gaslight”s Batman.

Our sons are fond of both of these “alternate universe” iterations of  these characters. Darkness, stylish outfits and significant violence...what’s not to like? 

Although they are supposedly separated by a few decades: Batman in “Gaslight” tracks Jack the Ripper in the late 1880’s London, and Spider-Man Noir swings in the 1930’s during the American Depression, they look like they could work together.

A crossover opportunity, perhaps?

Bears at Home on the Couch

Sometimes the bear is your bro:

My younger son really enjoyed Shannon Hale's "Real Friends," illustrated by LeUyen Pham.

"Real Friends" is the semi autobiographical story of a middle schooler's fraught relationships with her friends at school and her volatile older sister who is sometimes portrayed as a giant bear. 

Which brings us to the question of which sibling is the Grizzly at our house?

My vote is: 

Both. 

Obviously.

Catastrophon with Space Unicorn

These two seemed to go together well...horns, big eyes, excessive cuteness...

Of course the Catastrophon is the ultimate destructive evil (ok, one of several ultimate destructive evils) in Skottie Young's "I Hate Fairyland" volume 2, and the Space Unicorn is the insipid, rainbow spreading, happy deliverer of mail from Parry Gripp's ear worm song and video.... 

But otherwise, they have a lot in common.

Esu From Rumble

The kids really loved reading  "Rumble" written by John Arcudi, illustrated by James Harren. 

The main character is an ancient demigod charged with the killing of monsters who has been unfortunately embodied in a large scarecrow.  The world is populated with a wide and creative assortment of monsters known as "Esu."  Some Esu are small and cute.  My younger son particularly liked this one, but requested that I give him less disgusting teeth.

I gave him my son's snaggled teeth.  He recently had 4 teeth pulled in anticipation of braces.

Battlepug Rides the L Train

Don't step in the drool.

We are quite honored to be included in the fan art section in the back of Mike Norton's Battlepug Volume 5: The Paws of War
Battlepug has long been one of the kids' favorites: a cute dog that is enormous and able to eat enemies, other ridiculous animals, a little girl who swears, violence and tasteful nudity, what more could lower and middle school boys wish for?

Thanks Mike!

You can see our other Battlepug or Pug napkins at those links.

Mr. Toots from "Red Faction" vs. Happy from "I Hate Fairyland"

Rainbow Battle:

The kids have always been enamored of Mr Toots, who is apparently one of the acquirable weapons in the "Red Faction: Armageddon" game. One holds the unicorn like a gun, and when he is somehow triggered, he farts a deadly rainbow blast.  (They have never played this game- this information came from YouTube of course.)

And of course they loved Skottie Young's first volume of "I Hate Fairyland" a gleefully profane child-inappropriate spin on what happens when a young girl named Gertrude is sent on a quest in a magical kingdom....and then what happens when she is still stuck there two decades later.

Gertrude's competition in the graphic novel is Happy, a girl who initially has much better luck on the fairytale quest....and who can shoot deadly rainbows.

While reading the book, our older son proclaimed, "Happy is my new spirit animal!"

But could she beat Mr. Toots in a fair fight?
Or in an unfair one?

Totoro Sits on Deadpool

"Insert snarky comment here"

Our younger son has developed a sudden intense desire to watch the movie "My Neighbor Totoro." I suspect this interest somehow came from a YouTube video, but I cannot identify the exact source. Unfortunately "Totoro" appears to only be available on DVD, and our TV and DVD player stopped communicating with one another about a year ago. The kids are utterly mystified- "HOW can this movie not be available on Netflix or ITunes?  In their universe, all video entertainment is available at all times.

As a stopgap measure to satisfy the Totoro craving, I picked up a used copy of a four volume graphic novel composed of stills from the movie. The direct import of movie stills into the book leads to some oddities. There is not a lot of dialogue in the movie, but there are a lot of sound effects. These are reproduced graphically in Japanese text with an index of english translations in the back- many pages of tiny text translations of "tmp, tmp, tmp,"  "VROOSH" and the like.

And certain images in the book seem a little odd or awkward because they were isolated out of a stream of animation. In the flow of the movie, one would not be able to dwell on them, but in the book, one can.

One such image which particularly drew my sons' attention was the dangling furry testicles of the flying "CatBus" character. In the context of the movie, his endowment might be a brief visual joke, if one noticed at all... but in the book, one can dwell on the image at length, particularly if testicles are of special interest.

Earlier on in the book, I had explained that Japanese culture feels generally a bit more relaxed about the anatomical realities of the human body than we do here in the puritanical United States. There is a scene where the Dad hangs out naked in the bathtub with his two female children which would probably not appear in an episode of "Dora the Explorer" or "Inside/Out."  But the CatBus scrotum seemed a bit extra credit anyway.  As my sons were quick to point out, he did not appear to have a penis.

The CatBus anatomy of course led to conjecture about Totoro's genitals, or lack thereof.
So when it came time to draw Totoro comically sitting on top of Deadpool, I decided that Wade had better be on his stomach and not potentially getting a face full of furry dangly bits.

My sons told me that I should have just drawn Deadpool's head sticking out instead, and that he should have a speech bubble that says "insert snarky comment here."
As usual, they were correct. 

Hybrid Unicorn Owl Pig Creature

Our kids really enjoyed "Kaptara Volume 1: Fear Not, Tiny Alien" by Chip Zdarsky, art by Kagan McLeod. The Image Comics blurb says that it is about "a world filled with danger and weird danger and dangerous weirdos!" It is definitely filled with extremely imaginative combinations of animals, monsters, pseudo-humans, etc. Our kids are always up for a universe where troop transport vehicles are made of giant pugs with tank treads.

We thought the comic was great, and look forward to the next installment. Nonetheless, I can't give it a ringing endorsement as a book for kids, because perhaps other parents wish to refrain from reading age-inappropriate materials to their offspring. I did do some editing during my reading, and the book is relatively inoffensive, but there is perhaps too much gleeful profanity for the average 8 year old....or for the parents of the average 8 year old.  It is already too late to completely avoid such language around here, I am afraid.

My younger son spotted a strange creature stuffed in the corner of one of the frames and exclaimed that he wanted a creature like that drawn on a napkin.  As near as he could tell, it was some amalgamation of owl, pig and unicorn parts.

While the creature was kinda cute in Kaptara, my son tells me that my rendition is definitely nightmare fuel.
I have to admit that I agree with his assessment.

Zombi Rambi with "Scorch Trials" Background

Our younger son's wish to see the "Scorch Trials" movie with a friend who is also a "Maze Runner" fan had been thwarted for almost three weeks, so I felt that I had to make it finally happen yesterday. In all of my parental guilt about not gratifying this wish before, I failed to give significant thought to the content of the movie. I did slog through all of the Maze Runner books back before the first movie came out to make sure it would not  not too scary...but over the weekend, they were not fresh in my memory.

So while I did know about the zombie-like "cranks" in the second and third books, I didn't realize, that they would be behaving horrifically like full blown zombies during so much of this movie. 24 hours later, there doesn't seem to be any obvious zombie-induced psychological scars and phobias in either of our kids. Perhaps it is too early.

But since zombies are still on our minds today, I thought maybe a cuter, more humorous version of the undead might be appropriate for a napkin.

We were introduced to the idea of "Rambi" by the graphic novel "Ricky Rouse Has a Gun." The story is set in a Chinese amusement park that is heavily "inspired" by American pop culture. Costumed characters in the park include the Dark Knight-like "Ratman," a bottom-heavy version of a flying elephant named "Bumbo," and the titular big-eared rodent as well as "Rambi," the red bandana-wearing mercenary deer. "Ricky Rouse"  was not written for  kids, and required significant editing, but our sons definitely appreciated the humor (and the violence.)

Perhaps I should add that neither child has seen the movie "Bambi" or "Rambo," but they still get the joke here.

Walking home from our viewing of "The Scorch Trials," my older son claimed that he has seen "some of nearly every zombie movie ever made" courtesy of YouTube, and was therefore an authority on that genre.

I hope he is just boasting.

Colossal Minion at Wall Maria

I think we have all agreed:
Enough with the Minions.
 
But....the kids are always open to a reference to the colossal Titan reaching over the wall from the manga/anime series "Attack on Titan." And there is a giant Minion in the recent movie, so the comparison was inescapable.

Ok. Now we are done with the Minions.
For a while, at least.

Some of our previous Titan-at-the-wall examples:

Deadpool

Pikachu

Ganondorph

Valiant Cerberus

Valiant the Pug, our kids' favorite character from Giants Beware and Dragons Beware gets the Cerberus treatment.
A three headed dog does appear in the book, along with gargoyles, a witch, and of course, dragons.
Valiant only has the one head in the graphic novels. but he is willing to take on dragons anyway.

Pug and Dragon

Bi-Species Team-up inspired by Dragons Beware:

Our kids were so enthusiastic to receive the sequel to "Giants Beware," by Rafael Rosado and Jorge Aguirre, that we had a bitter struggle over who was going to get to look at the book first. Things were looking so grim that, against my  better judgement, I broke out a second copy that I had purchased for a birthday gift for a friend.

Of course now we have two sticky copies.

Eren Jaeger and Link

"Legend of Zelda" meets "Attack on Titan"
Back to Back Badasses Team up:

When I thought about drawing my kids' two favorite sword wielding heroes, it seemed like they should be posed back to back. Unsurprisingly there is an "official" TV trope of action heroes posed this way called "back to back badasses"
Regrettably, "badass" was my sons' favorite word last week. Their enthusiasm does seems to be waning, finally.... But I certainly did not mention the name of theTV trope when I offered up the napkin.

Speaking of badasses...I do find it winning that Eren and Link do not seem to need to be macho in order to be effective heroes. One might even describe them as being a bit girly.

Girly Badasses.

Park Avenue Godzilla Sculpture

Our sons were really taken with Scott McCloud's recently released graphic novel "The Sculptor."

I'll admit I was slightly surprised by their interest. I felt that I had to buy the book for my own personal and professional reasons.  (For the casual or accidental reader of this page- ie, if you are not one of my relatives- when I am not drawing on napkins, my actual vocation is making sculpture.)

But I was dubious that my sons were going to be able to stay engaged for the 496 page run of this fairly adult story.  David Smith, an aspiring sculptor makes a deal with death, trading the rest of his life for 200 days of the ability to make anything out of any material with only his bare hands.

The story proved so compelling to  my sons that we had to read the book every chance we got: on the train and past bedtime.  The story is definitely not designed for kids. The life versus art question is not resolved in a neat or upbeat way. And there are a few some tasteful depictions of sex that we paged past rather quickly. 

Reading "The Sculptor" lead to a couple of interesting conversations with my sons about sculpture and the making of art in general.  They rarely take much of an interest in what I do in the studio. Most often, they see my non-napkin artwork as getting in the way of the services that I provide to them. 

At the end of "The Sculptor" the doomed protagonist gets the opportunity to make one more magnum opus before he dies. He models a partially constructed unpopular skyscraper into an enormous personal figurative sculpture.  We discussed the question:  If you had a chance to make a giant sculpture in a very public context, what would it be? This is something that I have been thinking about for 30 years without arriving at a good answer.  My sons agreed that it might be impossible to come up with a serious solution, and that maybe a slightly silly one was best.

Therefore, this napkin takes the still-under-construction and somewhat controversial "tallest residential building in the western hemisphere," 432 Park Avenue, and turns it into a sculpture of Godzilla

(You can see the actual building, described as "Gotham's fickle finger of real estate wealth signaling the next Gilded Age."in this New York Times Article)

Scabby from Chickenhare Book 2

 "Scabby wants to live!"

The boys really like the Chickenhare books by Chris Grine, and particularly "Chickenhare Volume 2: Fire in the Hole"  The book includes this scene where Scabby the sea captain expresses his feelings after being told that he and his companions are going to be transported to hell by a devil. 

This proved to be way too weird for lunch,  however.

I cannot say that I was surprised.

Apathea Ravenchilde and Selke from "Americus"

Characters from the story within a story in MK Reed's graphic novel "Americus," illustrated by Jonathan David Hill.

Ansel loved this book, insisting that there "HAS to be a sequel!"
But he was not so impressed with my  dippy rendition of the characters.

"Americus" is both about the power of reading fiction, and about becoming an adolescent nonconformist in a conservative American small town.

The main protagonist is a 13 year old named Neil who is an avid reader of a Dungeons and Dragons like fantasy series called, "The Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, the Huntress Witch." When conservative Christians move to ban the series from the town library, he is driven to take action. Along the way, he discovers the joys of punk music, wearing black clothes and hanging out with other non conforming kids. Neil's story alternates with selections from the Apathea books.

My sons are growing up in the trendy wilds of Williamsburg Brooklyn, wearing too much black and subsisting on a diet of science fiction and fantasy graphic novels.  Conservative Christian middle America is a totally foreign concept for them. They were fascinated by the idea that someone would want to ban a book because of religious beliefs.

Unfortunately, the topics of intolerance and censorship are particularly relevant after yesterday's events in Paris.

Red Hoods

Under the Little Red Riding Hood:

We came across an oblique mention of Little Red Riding Hood while I was reading "Jinx" by Sage Blackwood to the kids last night. Ansel was delighted to spot the "little girl wearing a red cloak" as the fairy tale character. Fan of DC comics that he is, however, he first identified her as "The Red Hood." This led to some brief chuckling about the comparison between Jason Todd and the girl with the basket.

For those of you who don't spend significant amounts of time reading age inappropriate graphic novels to small boys:  "Under the Red Hood" is an animated movie which also has a couple comic book and graphic novel incarnations.  I
To attempt a brief summary: Jason, the third Robin is brutally murdered by the Joker and then later resurfaces as a mysterious, reanimated and red masked vigilante.  (With cool guns and a stylish jacket!) The story is on the darker, more violent end of the Batman spectrum... but yet, no elderly people are eaten alive by a wolf.

I thought Little Red should have the upper hand on today's napkin, as she survived a fate arguably worse than being blown up by the Joker.

Skull Brother 2 From "Gladstone's School for World Conquerers"

Ansel insists that we reread this book by Mark Andrew Smith, art by Armand Villavert, at least once every couple of months.

"Gladstone's"  is a story about the kids of super-villains, including Ansel's favorites, the infamous Skull Brothers. Not only do the masked brothers look cool and carry an erxtensive armory of weapons, they are appealing to Ansel because their mother is locked in the super villain prison and they are free of adult authority. And even in the context of the bad guy community, the Skull Bros  are definitely up to no good.

My more realistic version of Skull Brother number two definitely diminished his coolness.
You can see the cooler originals on the Gladstone's Facebook page.