Join me for a sketching session where I both catch up on Inktober prompts and do some story development for my next Doctor Baer story.
It’s punny laughs with the chatroom while I draw these:
Live Stream Replay, October 14, 2023
Author: Jerzy Drozd
Teaching Artist and Cartoonist. He/him. When life is feeling heavy, I enjoy creating and sharing stories of cute heroes showing extraordinary courage.
Atlantis, Arise! Four Million Years Later, episode 24
In this exciting episode, if IMDB is to be believed, the DECEPTICONS MAKE FRIENDS UNDER THE SEA! It really doesn’t go quite that way… but there’s plenty of Autobot cars-on-waterskiis, Subatlantican telepathy, and bad guys turning on other badguys action! So grab your speedo and scuba mask like Spike and dive in!!!
In this episode we mention the TOY GALAXY HISTORY OF ENTERTECH video.
We also mention the old serial THE CRIMSON GHOST.
- Subscribe to the show
- Befriend the FOUR MILLION YEARS LATER page on Facebook
- Closing theme by Nick Mehalick
- Please email us!
Watch the episode before listening to our commentary:
Music & Comics Duets
Last Monday I attended the Feeling Heard concert performance at the Ohio State University. A partnership between the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, and the OSU School of Music, this concert explored the overlaps between musical and comics storytelling through some “duets” where the musicians performed pieces in response to cartoon art, and art responded to music being played.
Here’s the latter, with art by Justin Schell:
And here is the improvisational duet, where musicians responded to Raina Telgemeier’s drawings as they emerged on the screen.
We can celebrate comics for what they can do better than other media. But we can also do that while simultaneously exploring the similarities it shares with other art forms. After the last decade or so, it seems to me like relating our interests to those of others is a healthy move, and I’m grateful to the team who demonstrated that through this performance.
I was also thrilled that two of the students I’m working with in my current residency got to play a part in the performance!
(oh and full disclosure, I was involved in the team, but only in drawing the cartoon host, Gene. Here I am on stage with everyone else)
Doctor Baer’s Yard Inks & Spooky Movies
Saturday was a glorious day where I had no obligations outside my studio (well, I did have to mow the lawn and weed the front walk). So most of the day was spent on creative pursuits!
My favorite Saturday nights are spent drawing while watching old horror or monster movies. Most of the time Svengoolie provides the movie, but when he’s playing something I’ve seen recently (or don’t ever want to see again), I’ll turn to Tubi. This week I found a fun Peter Cushing film from 1977 titled The Uncanny.
If you love scary movies and cats as much as I do, you might like this one. Peter Cushing plays a frightened writer with a manuscript proving that cats are truly out to get us. The manuscript is a framing device for an anthology film with three stories wherein cats create a body count (but the people always had it coming). I was happily surprised to see one of my favorite actors (and inspiration for an upcoming Doctor Baer character) Donald Pleasance was in one of the stories. It also has one of the coolest title sequences I’ve seen in a long time.
I will warn you that there is some minor disturbing gore in the first story, though.
So now I move on to flatting this piece so I can have it painted before Halloween. Fingers crossed that it won’t be as hard as it looks!
The Autobot Run – Four Million Years Later, episode 23
There’s…. well, there’s a lot of sighing in this episode. This is another one of the AKOM-animated episodes, and it… it looks pretty bad. Very bad even. So the challenge is, can we find the good in it?? Well, we found some!! It’s got Chip Chase, so you know Jerzy ferreted some good out. And it’s got some nice Skywarp action, so Hoover was pleased with that at least. What else was there to like? LISTEN AND FIND OUT!
- Subscribe to the show
- Befriend the FOUR MILLION YEARS LATER page on Facebook
- Closing theme by Nick Mehalick
- Please email us!
Watch the episode before listening to our commentary:
Building Doctor Baer’s Home
The Blender model of the Doctor’s house is almost done!
It’s very reassuring to know that I now have his house as an asset to drop into any scene in future stories. I wish I had done this with the first book.
I’m feeling so emboldened by this I’m considering making the entire setting for the next story in Blender. It’d really only be like 20-30 houses, some cliffs, and an abbey on a hill. I’m watching the clock, though–if making the setting cuts too much into thumbnailing time, I’ll have to ditch it. This first five weeks of teaching full-time has been instructive for me in the sense of knowing how much time I’ll actually have for art production.
Super Comics Challenge at CXC 2023!
The game show where cartoonists match wits and pencils returns in-person to CXC in 2023! Join Raina Telgemeier, Coni Yovaniniz, and Rafael Rosado for some fun drawing games where the prompts are provided by YOU! Sunday, October 1,3-4pm at the Columbus Metropolitan Library Downtown branch. Check out Cartoon Crossroads Columbus for more information.
Check out a bit of Super Comics Challenge held virtually in 2020 featuring Gregg Schigiel, Gerimi Burleigh, Aaron Polk, and Elizabeth:
Doctor Baer Thumbnails are Underway
And here’s chapter 1 of the next Doctor Baer book in sticky note thumbnails (my first guess at how the pages will look). I’m slowly adapting to teaching full-time and squeezing in time for personal projects. I found myself stopping and breathing to shut down the anxious little goblin sitting on my shoulder, shouting that I should maximize every minute. I’m hopeful that in the coming weeks I’ll find some kind of comfortable rhythm.
I’m sharing the entire process of making this book, including audio essays on my experience making it, over on my Patreon for Teams Pickles and up, by the way. You can sign up here!
From the Sketchbook: New Doctor Baer Story
I’ve recently finished a draft for my next Doctor Baer story. My plans are to serialize it as a webcomic, so I’m free to share as much of the process as I want.
Which is to say, if you don’t mind spoilers I’m sharing every step of the process of making this comic on my Patreon (Team Pickles and up!).
Or you can wait for the pages to appear here on the blog.
Negotiating with Baba Yaga
Another development piece for a short Doctor Baer story. In some of the stories featuring Baba Yaga her house is surrounded by a fence capped by human skulls, whose eye sockets glow eerily. I’m playing with that image to see what it might look like if Baba Yaga had some sentient skulls who assisted her similarly to how the Wisps assist Doctor Baer.
I’ve also updated the runes on Baba Yaga’s mortar. In the previous drawing I was aping some approximations of ancient Slavic script, but I remembered that I was sitting on a mystical alphabet I designed over 20 years ago:
Which appears at least twice in Two-Faced Statue.
Baba Yaga’s mortar got updated with these runes:
I’m not telling what it says. But I do plan on releasing a lot of Doctor Baer merchandise with this writing on it, so observant readers will eventually figure it out.
I’ve still got a lot of work to do on the outline, but my goal is to begin thumbnailing by the end of August. I’ll share what I’ve got as I go!
