Babies Groot and Yoda Celebrate 2020

Happy New Year:

One last Baby Yoda, with his predecessor, Baby Groot.

Not my best effort, but look at those cool glasses! It’s a good year for New Year’s eyewear.

Here’s to better drawing in 2020.

Stan Lee

I Have So Many More Stories To Tell....

Stan Lee’s cameo appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 seemed like the most appropriate napkin image to mark his passing yesterday. 

(And how could I pass up the challenge of  a blotchy pink and purple sky and a transparent helmet....though maybe better luck on that next time...)

This cameo was billed in the movie’s credits as “Watchers’ Informant” and he was briefly shown twice, once in a post credit bit, regaling a group of Watchers with stories at an intergalactic transfer. The scene were perhaps a meta joke, suggesting that all of Stan’s cameos in Marvel movies, television shows and comics were appearances of the same character. 

The Watchers, imagined long ago in the comics by Lee and Jack Kirby, are powerful immortal beings whose calling is to observe galactic events.  In the Guardians’ post credits scene, The Watchers depart, leaving him protesting “Hey fellas, where are you going? You were supposed to be my lift home. I have so many stories to tell."

Here’s hoping the Watchers will be giving Stan a ride home.

Chewy and Rocket

You can never go wrong with a furry sidekick: 

Chewie (or is it Chewy?) and Rocket affirm how much they have in common

...though the raccoon looks a bit concerned about the situation.

Probably what my sons really like most about these two is their weapons, not their furry charm.

This one was for Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you) ...but it did not get finished or posted then as dinner has to get made, even on Star Wars Day.

Unicorn, Raptor, Wade, Rocket and Groot

Much anticipated spring movie characters with weird, awkwardly drawn, pink furry unicorn:

Yes of course we saw the Avengers Infinity War. 

And we will not miss Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, no matter how ridiculous the premise necessary to allow dinosaurs the opportunity to eat humans again.

Deadpool 2 presents another challenge. 

We were able to all watch the first Deadpool movie courtesy of some fancy editing by mom on the iPad. While our eleven year old son has definitely viewed more material inappropriate for his age than I care to admit here... I will probably have to put the popcorn bucket over his head if we see the movie in a theater.

The Three Star-Lords

I neglected to post this one in a timely fashion:

The Easter Bunny, incredibly overindulgent holiday character that he (or she) is, hid Funko Pop minis inside some of the plastic eggs found in our living room Easter morning....(Along with those organic jelly beans than no one really likes since the bunny takes direction from the kids’ killjoy of a mother)

Unfortunately, given the nature of blind boxes, 3 out of the 4 Guardians of the Galaxy boxes were occupied by Star Lords.

Which made me think of The Three Stooges... my apologies to Chris Pratt.

Baby Groot and Rocket from GotG Vol 2

‪Too adorable to kill:‬ ‪

But trash pandas might not like broccoli. 

Groot offers some greens to Rocket Raccoon for lunch. ‬ ‪

Yes, of course my kids liked the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie‬.

Proposed Sidekicks for Doctor Who in Season 10

Just some suggestions...

Yes, I know that they have already announced who the co stars will be for Peter Capaldi's last season. We even saw the Christmas special.

This napkin post is rather delayed, I am afraid. We had the conversation about who should replace the dear departed Clara quite a while ago. The kids both thought that a new sidekick should be someone other than another young attractive Caucasian woman, but could not agree on what sort of person should be next. I have assembled a cast of their favorites as potential companions.

Doctor Who is not really on our sons' minds right now, but as the tenth season is coming up soon, I thought perhaps it was time to post this one.

My younger son was happy to point out some of the many drawing failings on this one. Deadpool is too small,  the pug in the foreground is awkwardly posed. And, he would like to add that pugs aren't necessarily his favorite dogs right this now.

This napkin is definitely more about quantity rather than quality. Back when I was drawing two napkins a night, I used to have a rule about no more than two characters at a time. It made a lot of sense.

Rocket Raccon, Captain America and Deadpool

What did you have for lunch today?
I had a Cap' Sandwich!

Our sons certainly enjoyed watching "Captain America: Civil War" last weekend. But they did not seem as outright giddy as they have been after the viewing of various other much promoted and anticipated superhero blockbusters. Perhaps that is partly due to superhero blockbuster fatigue? It hasn't been so long since Batman and Superman squared off, and the next X-men iteration is breathing its hot breath on our necks already.

But I think that the absence of their usual overwhelming enthusiasm had something to do with the somewhat serious tone of the movie and the lack of talking animals or extensive comic relief. Their main gripe afterward was that there hadn't been enough screen time for Spider Man and Ant Man.

In other words, perhaps "Civil War" would have benefited from a little Rocket or Deadpool.

The "Sandwich" joke appears to be a thing in my husband's family. Two people, usually sitting on a couch, sidle up to an unsuspecting person, usually a child. One asks the other, "What did you have for lunch today?"  The second responds, "A insert-name-of-victim-here, SANDWICH!" Hilarious (or extremely annoying) body compression follows. This sort of thing did not go on in my childhood home. (We did not do the "You've got something on your shirt" thing either.)

Perhaps Steve Rodgers would have a jovial disposition about such pranks. But it seems possible that Rocket and Wade might be a bit much for his taste.....
But Marvel/Disney does own all of these characters. So you never know. It could happen.

Guardians of the Galaxy's Star Lord with Death Gun from Sword Art Online

Guys wearing masks with glowing red eyes take selfies.
(Is it any coincidence that our younger son likes both Death Gun and Star Lord?)

During our intense Star Lord phase, which reached its peak around Halloween 2014, we were able to purchase an inexpensive costume, complete with a fairly adequate mask.

At present, our son is asserting his deep need for a Death Gun costume. And sadly, Death Gun costumes for children are not so easily purchased online. I usually do what I can to avoid making complicated sci-fi masks for my sons, but I may not be able to entirely dodge this one. At least Death Gun's mask is less complicated than Star Lord's.

Rocket Raccoon and Future Rigby Take a Selfie

Happiness is a cool raccoon with a warm gun. Or two.

The kids were very pleased with the recent Regular Show Movie.
Rigby, the raccoon character, has apparently become more cool in the future.  He is outfitted with an impressive weapon, stylish jacket and decorative facial hair.

He looked a bit like Rocket from the Guardians of the Galaxy... (Rocket Raccoon, the guy who says, "There ain't no thing like me, except me.") ....So it seemed like a team up was in order. I drew the guys without their weapons...and since they are both so overwhelmingly cool- and so aware of their own coolness- it seemed appropriate that they should be taking a picture of themselves.

My more realistic version of Rigby was not very successful. I was trying to put him in the same representational universe as Rocket, but couldn't quite pull it off.

Rigby as he appears in the movie, with Benson, the walking gumball machine:

Rocket Raccoon with Velociraptor

"Guardians of the Galaxy" meets "Jurassic World"

 It seemed only fair to put the stars (as far as my sons are concerned) of these movies together.
After looking at the press pictures of Chris Pratt snuggling up to a raccoon or baby dinosaurs, I thought perhaps Rocket and the raptor should be similarly cozy.

Not sure what might happen after the photo shoot is over.

Velociraptor, Chris Pratt and Rocket Raccoon

"Guardians of the Jurassic World"

Type Chris Pratt's name into a search engine and invariably images of him posing with an animal will come up. My kids agree, he is clearly a cool guy...but he's even cooler when cuddling with a raccoon or baby dinosaurs.

After yesterday's napkin image of a raptor on a motorcycle, adding Mr. Pratt was the next logical step. And once I had added him, it seemed a shame not to include Rocket Raccoon.

No doubt Rocket would have something to say about the folly of genetically modified dinosaurs...they can't even speak English or pilot a space ship, after all. Although he would probably appreciate the capitalist motives of the builders of Jurassic World.

This image was definitely too complicated for me to pull off comfortably. I often feel like a lazy draftsman when I look over the past napkins images.  I tend to avoid drawing full bodies and usually just chose an easy close up of a head or two. In this case, I didn't even deal with the whole motorcycle and raptor, but I still struggled with the orchestration of limbs and bike parts and ran poor Rocket's arm right out of the image. I will happily set my aspirations lower for the moment.

George and the Cherry Tree Observe Presidents Day

 

We definitely need to work on our Presidential recognition skills.  Ansel has learned how to recognize a few extras beyond Obama courtesy of the Simpsons (JFK, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt and Nixon) but clearly we need to do better.

I fantasized about some sort of obscure presidential napkin team-up in the spirit of "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter":   Rutherford B. Hayes, Boss of Werewolves, William H. Taft, Beastmaster. James Garfield, Zombie Hunter, James K. Polk, Shapeshifting Overlord. etc.  I just couldn't find the time to work something like that out, conceptually or logistically.  Instead, I went for the low hanging fruit: a "Guardians of the Galaxy" Rocket and Groot style team up. 

Even the second graders know that the cherry tree story is bunk, but the tree looks nervous anyway.

Rocket Raccoon with Tongue and Goggles

Rocket Raccoon makes a lewd joke in the "Guardians of the Galaxy: Annual #1" (by Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Cho) that our sons didn't really get, but found HILARIOUS nonetheless.

They had not been big fans of the Guardians comic series, outside of those focused on Rocket and Groot, and I wasn't sure that they were going to be interested in this issue.  In the annual, the Guardians discover the SHIELD helicarrier floating out in space. It is populated by a lot of relatively obscure Marvel characters and a white guy version of Nick Fury.

But had I known that there would be an image of Rocket sticking out his tongue on one of the opening pages, I would not have wondered if my kids would want to read it.  In that scene, Rocket is interrupting Captain Marvel as she tries to record a video message to send back to Earth. She asks him sarcastically if he even knows anyone on Earth, and he responds, "Not intimately!" and sticks out his tongue...just in case any children in the room might have missed the joke.  Carol Danvers recoils and says, "Don't put that image in my head!"

My kids claimed to not understand what he meant by "intimately," but it was all still so funny that they had to turn back to the page repeatedly and giggle over it.

Rocket looks quite different in Cho's drawings. My rendition is of course not so amusing. He seems more wistful than lewd. But perhaps that is for the best, given the 2nd grade lunch context.  I went with the image of Einstein sticking out his tongue for source material.  Although if you Google "raccoon sticking tongue out  there are more images than you might expect, or need... and I am pretty sure none of them are making jokes about interspecies sex.

From Halloween to Christmas

Ansel's napkins from the fall holiday season, more or less.
Certain themes stand out: Rocket Raccoon and the Guardians of the Galaxy, Sea Otters, Ewoks and Star Wars.

Grinch and Gamora

"This green bore is not my friend...."
Or: "Just because we are both green, doesn't mean we have anything in common."

I knew this one was a bad idea from the start, but it went even more wrong than I could have anticipated. 

While I do select what to draw on these napkins with my sons' interests foremost in mind, my own issues about being the mother of two over indulged white boys who consume a lot of mainstream pop culture material creeps into the mix in some not entirely positive ways.

I thought "Guardians of the Galaxy" was a pleasantly entertaining movie, but having watched some of it again recently, (released on DVD and iTunes this week) I am reminded that it suffers from some of the usual gender and racial "insensitivities." As Gamora is the only central female character, and ahem, the only "person of color" in the cast with a large part, she stands at the center of these problems.

In a minor example: one of the biggest laugh lines in the movie as far as my sons were concerned occurs when Drax, a very literal thinker, declares the rest of the Guardians to be his friends.  He says something like, "You, Quill, are my friend. This dumb tree is also my friend. And this green whore is also my friend..." In fact, the only promiscuous character in the group is Star Lord, but Drax refers to him by name rather than calling him more appropriately "this pink whore." While Gamora is "a warrior and an assassin," she is still saddled with a peekaboo outfit and intermittent sexual slurs.

The variously brightly hued people in "Guardians" made me think of the often used invocation of strangely colored people to dismiss the topic of race: i.e. phrases like, "I don't care if you are white, black, yellow or purple..."  This sort of phrase usually comes out of the mouths of white people who are in the midst of claiming that race does not matter to them or to the world at large....( see the blog stuffwhitepeoplesay.com for a clearer discussion of this)  There are a lot of green, yellow, magenta and blue people in the movie... but... they are still mostly white.
 
I am pretty sure that I am not succeeding in conveying the importance of these issues to my sons.  My hectoring just makes them tune out all the more:  "Do your homework! Pick up your room! Brush your teeth! Don't be an insensitive, overentitled, chauvinistic, racist asshole!"

What does all this have to do with the poor Grinch? you might ask.
I am not entirely sure, but I think he might be a victim here as well.

Rocket and Groot Decorate for the Holidays

Over the weekend, I realized that there was only one week left of school and there had been no seasonally themed napkins.  

I had noticed that the most popular napkin as far as web traffic goes recently is one with the Minions dressed up for Christmas... And given that we will probably have to see the upcoming Minions movie I should probably do another holiday Minions napkin....The Minions lend themselves to endless costuming and mashups. (google "minions mashup" if you doubt, or have nothing better to do)

Not so much for Rocket and Groot.  They seem a little annoyed by the decorations and the substitution of candy cane for weapon.

Rocket Raccoon Lifts the Winter Soldier

Last week Ansel finally redeemed multiple rewards that he had earned this fall (known as bribes in less indulgent circles) and picked out the Disney Infinity game.  He was relatively unenthusiastic about Skylanders, another console-plus-endlessly-expensive-figurines style game.  But Disney Infinity won him over with the possibility of playing as the Guardians of the Galaxy and other Marvel people as well as other Disney and Pixar characters.

Don't know about you, but the pop culture juggernaut of Disney/Marvel/Pixar/Star Wars is making the whole idea of crossovers oddly less interesting for me.  My sons claim to agree, but I am pretty sure that they do not have the same reservations about corporate monoliths that I do. Certainly the "Phineas and Ferb"and  "Star Wars" episode was nicely done.  Ansel was quite excited to see the "Ultimate Spider-Man" and "Jessie" Halloween episode. (If you are unfamiliar with "Jessie," please don't ask) But once everything is possible and Sleeping Beauty can have a light saber battle with Darth Vader...Well, let's just say that just because it can happen, doesn't always mean that it should...Unless we are talking about drawings on napkins, of course.  Ha.

At any rate, We bought the Infinity Marvel starter set and a couple Guardians characters....because... how could we possibly not have Star Lord and Rocket?  I will admit that I don't really understand the logic of the game at the moment- i.e., which character can play in which world, and who else might appear in that world.

But the configuration of characters that we have somehow makes it possible for the person who is playing as Rocket to snatch up the Winter Soldier- a character we don't own, who just seems to wander aimlessly around the set- and carry him around like a piece of lumber...and then toss him off the edge of the world...again, and again, and again.

I am not sure why the Winter Soldier character seems OK with this, or what is gained by the operation, but my sons certainly seem to enjoy doing it.


Of course Rocket looks like the below in the actual game, so please forgive my...would we call it "artistic license?" and/or just sloppy rendering of his costume?

Guardians of the Galaxy Selfie

I had to put Rocket in the front as  I've lately had much more practice drawing raccoons than people, (green skinned or otherwise) and I think it shows.

Ansel had requested that I include all members of the Guardians on this one, which really exceeded my powers of plausible character arrangement. Apparently Ansel wanted to ask a classmate whether she liked the movie or not, and wanted a visual aid to help prompt the conversation. This was a slightly unusual request as he is most often only interested in the Rocket or Star Lord characters.

When I asked Ansel what was so cool about Star Lord, he told me that he really liked the way that Star Lord's long coat flapped when he jumped. I certainly like that quality in a role model for my 7 year old son more than I like his unrealistic physique or his way with women.

I don't have to ask what he likes about the raccoon.

Raccoons Rocket and Rigby

What do talking raccoons do for fun?

Rocket Raccoon from "Guardians of the Galaxy" makes a proposal to Rigby from the "Regular Show."

Our sons enjoy these two characters far too much.