Darkwing Duck: The Original Theme

"Drake Mallard, average citizen by day and St. Canard's resident superhero by night"

Darkwing Duck was an American animated TV series which produced by The Walt Disney Company. It featured an eponymous superhero anthropomorphic duck behind on his true identity, Drake Mallard (voiced by Jim Cummings). The costume of this superhero features the gas gun, and flashy introductions are all direct references to pulp heroes such as the Crimson Avenger, The Shadow, and The Green Hornet.

The premise of this series was on fictional city of St. Canard, Darkwing’s rogue gallery, and the relative darkness of Darkwing as it compared to other Disney character such as Batman, Zorro, and The Shadow influences. The character of this series was also appeared occasionally in the series bonkers and earlier Gosalyn appeared in the series Raw Toonage. The series and Ducktales are directly connected by two characters crossing over into the world of Darkwing Duck. The first is Launch pad, Darkwing's sidekick, who is a longtime staple of DuckTales, and GizmoDuck, an armored hero who became a popular part of the DuckTales cast during the series' run.

Dave

When I was about 17 I got in touch with Dave Stevens while he was still living at his parents. I imagine I saw something of his art in some San Diego con related thing and was blown away by his perfect inking ability. He was friendly and even thought he was only an year older than me he was already a budding pro having been published in fanzines and having sent samples to Marvel something, I hadn’t even dared to do yet.

He used to ink my bad pencil swipes for comic book store flyers that ended up in the comic book buyer’s guide. I never looked so good. I remember just being in awe of his initials, so perfectly realized from the get go. We inked some comic book jobs together; he and Bil Stout making me look good on my inking jobs for Russ Manning or Mark Evanier when we all did Tarzan comics for overseas comic markets. Often he would come by my studio at my parent’s house just to pass the time in our lonely profession.

When I moved to LA he soon followed and that’s where these photos were taken, he modeled for a horror story I did for Bruce Jones. Not only was he a brilliant artist, his writing ability helped him to grasp every emotion instantly. I’d show more shots, but as an overwrought horror story the other photos would be in bad taste at this point. As thin as Dave was he was in his prime for these shots as Paul Power, Jim Gomez, Dave and myself used to go to the YMCA in Hollywood and train our balls off. Dave wanted to gain weight and would train until he dropped, but then would eat like he was on a diet. We would always goad him to eat hamburgers and he would order tuna salad.

Dave dated my sister seriously for a time, a hook-up that I hoped would lead to marriage, as I couldn’t think of a better brother in- law, but I think he was determined to be a free sprit after his disaster of a first marriage. I never got whole lots of details about it, as Dave was very private about romance and deep personal feelings. He was open with his frustrations with himself and his artistic ambitions and we spent many an hour bitching out everything in the world. We went to concerts and worked at the same studios, He being the one who made great friends I being the one to fuck up and alienate everyone. I’m sure I embarrassed him, but he never lectured me, I lectured him and harangued guys he loved who I thought gave me a raw deal and he didn’t hold it against me.

Dave was slow, but steady with his art, always striving hard to do his very best. On the contrary, he always said he hated working, which used to piss me off, as his ability was so high I couldn’t imagine being down on myself if I had that kind of skill. His big regret is he just didn’t have enough art education as we lived through the time of anti- drawing when conceptual art ruled, there were good artists out there, but It didn’t seem like it to us. I think we both shared that trait that there was so much more to strive for, but you work, you live life and then whoops you’re out of time to achieve that greatness you can see in others, but inexplicably not in yourself.
I used to love dropping by Bil Stout and Dave’s studio on La Brea… that was a place that breathed art.
At the peak of his success Michael Jackson was stalking Dave to draw a comic book about him. One night when the studio phone rang Dave asked me to answer it and if it was Michael to say he wasn’t there. This high voice asked for Dave and I went into my best Cheech and Chong. Dave? Dave’s not here? “Can you tell him Michael called?” Michael who? ” He knows me.” Dave had to run into the other room once he saw where I was going. When I moved to New York to study art seriously our friendship became strained as distance and the very busy phase of his career blowing up with the Rocketeer movie. I stupidly took that stuff personally and after not hearing from him in a situation I thought was important. I decided to get mad at him for 20 years.

I heard rumors about a “blood thing” over a year ago but chose to not believe it. After some therapy for anger management, I decided to start calling some old friends I had beefs with and at least try and make amends. About that time I heard how badly off he really was and decided to get hold of him. I didn’t have his phone so I wrote him a postcard and he was gracious enough to call me. Immediately the years melted away and we had some great long conversations. When he was up to it we had a lunch or talked on the phone, but he would be down often and I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks. Last time I saw him he came to an art show of mine. He looked good considering and was in typical form at dinner. I called to thank him, but didn’t hear back. I’ve been really busy so I didn’t try as hard as I should have to stay in touch, my poor rational is he mostly let me see the good days so I let my guard down. I didn’t think it would happen so fast. I hadn’t processed how long he had been struggling with this thing and those criminals at Kaiser.

I avoided the career info already covered on other news sites, just let out a few random thoughts. If you love someone and have had a fight, please, please call him or her. I’m really happy we made peace, but so regretful of all those missed years.

Cyclops | The Tribute

"My name is Scott Summer but am known as Cyclops The Red and field leader of the X-Men."

Cyclops is one of the fictional characters of Marvel superhero the field leader of the group X-Men which created by the writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby. It first appeared in the X-Men on September 1963 before he originally dubbed as Slim Summer but later it was change to Scott Summer and Slim become his nickname. Scott was the son of Corsair (not mutant), brother of Havok and Volcan and the father of Cable, Marvel Girl, and X-Man and the widower of Jean Grey and Madelyn Pryor. He had a powerful “Optic Blast” coming from his eyes which always also forcing him to wear specialized glasses and combat visor.

Cyclops was the first recruited student by Professor Charles Xavier and one of the original members of X-Men. In his origin, Scott was boy coming from an Anchorage, Alaska in the United States but his father USAF Major Christopher Summers takes them in their de Havilland Mosquito. His ability is accidentally happening when it strikes in the head upon landing of the parachute under the attack of an alien Shi’ar spaceship, and cause brain damage to him and uncontrolled to his optic blast.

Note: In 2006, this character has been list as the number one in the Top 25 X-Men from the past forty years which rated by IGN.com.

Horror, I did Horror

Back in the eighties one of the many things I wanted to do was to draw comics in the tradition of EC horror comics. I'm going to post a big selection of that work over the next few days as kind of a floating portfolio for a director I'm trying to interest in letting me work for him on a dream "horror" project. I've never tried to get much work in live action, closet to that was art directing Space Jam for a few months, but that's another story. If Frankenstein built an artist to work on movies he would have made me for this project. I'm used to dreams going down in flames, but send a prayer on this one for me.

First up is a story I never finished for no other reason I can rationalize other than I lost momentum due to the length plus a series of delays on my and the original publishers part. It's a fantastic story by Charles Beaumont adapted by Mark Burbey and myself. I disappointed myself by not finishing it, but I imagine it about killed Mark. As it was an amazing coup to get the permission to get this story and he was trying to get into comics writing. Sorry Mark.









Bruce Jones did Horror Comics in an EC twist style in the eighties and I was a dream working for him. I was young and raw but he saw something in me, I was a real honor to work for him alongside Corben, Wrightson, Ploog and many other Horror greats. Sadly my work for him was still formative I was just hitting a groove when Bruce sold his titles to Eclipse comics and where my work was improving, the working conditions were fucked.
The editor Cat Ironwood had a big problem with the objectifying of the female form and clamped down hard on the nudity Bruce encouraged. All the nudity you see here was censored. ( but not Corben's in a previous issue) She called me an encourager of rapists as I had a clothed man and a nude woman in the story and so we had a big fight on this job on every level. I re- wrote the story to make it more cinematically interesting (including adding the guns) and that was a tussle with her and the writer. She even got mad with the panel open the last page of the big guy in the empty street. She wanted to know who he was, convinced I was getting something over on her. All my changes were used by John Carpenter in the movie They Live that was based on this story, including the panel of the girl fucking the alien as the end shot. (Another fight with Cat, she caved on cuting it thank God.) Great choice on his part as the writers original ending was flat. Here are a few pages...

Jumper | World Premiere

"I’m the jumper and going to anywhere is nothing possible for me".

Jumper is a 1992 fictional character based on written novel of Steven Gould which the story tells about a young teenager, Davey. He had special gift which is a genetic abnormality that allows him to teleport himself by using his thoughts. Although at first he doesn’t know how to use his power but later as he familiarized his talent he use it against any criminal activities and to find his long-lost mother. His gifts have existed for centuries that find him in war that has been raging for many years already between the “Jumper” and “Paladins”.

On a film version which going to release on February 14, 2008 of the same title, Hayden Christensen played as “Jumper” (stars on “Awaken” along Jessica Alba). The film has directed by Doug Liman which written in screenplay by David S. Goyer and other stars are Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson, and Jamie Bell. This film was also “a must seen movie of the year on our favorite movie theater” as the new superhero character that produced by 20^th Century Fox.

Uzumaki Naruto | Superhero Origin's

"Maybe I’m the simple and stupid ninja but am a leader and the strongest of them all as Hokage."

Naruto as anime superhero was one of the successful Japanese manga series with an anime adaptation which written and sketched by Masashi Kishimoto. The character of Naruto Uzumaki was loud, hyperactive, and unpredictable ninja who search for recognition as Hokage. In the village where he from, he recognized as the leader and the strongest ninja of them all.

The origin, He was the son of powerful fox demon whose spirit sealed away by the nine powerful warriors. Only one, the current chief of the village of the demon fox spirits on Mt. Oinari with a large likeness to the third Hokage from the current series, survived, and he took on the duty of raising Naruto. However, is mischievous and a troublemaker, pulling multiple pranks on others with each passing day. The angry village chief sends Naruto on special training to the human world to find a human friend he can trust; otherwise he will not be welcome to the village any longer.

In the successful previous volume of this manga series it follows the volume 28 onward and has a new setting which taken place after 2 ½ years after the volume one. The part II of this series has simply named as Naruto: Shippuden which tells the story of the matured and older cast after the training in the previous volume. The main character of Naruto Uzumaki and Jiraiya now turn into fifteen which returns to the village of Konohagakure and get reunite with his friends that reforms the Team 7 without Sasuke Uchiha.

Joker || The Dark Knight - Movie Trailer

“I’m the Joker, your clown as well the psychopathic murderer of the Gotham City. Be aware for me… Batman!!! ”

The Joker as fictional character is one the super villain and widely considered as prime archenemy of Batman which had his first appearance during the spring season of 1940. He is the master of criminals with a look of a clown that has bleached white skin, red lips, and a green hair. Initially he portrayed as violent sociopath who commits crimes and murders for his own amusement and later on it written as a goofy trickster-thief that became a vicious killer.

The origin of this character had start happen when he was dropped into vat of chemical waste of Batman. In the story, he was formerly an engineer at a chemical plant which decided to quit his and became a stand-up comedian but it turns out miserably. He desperately aggress to help the two criminals to break the plant company where he formerly been employed and his only way to support his pregnant wife. On their planning process, the police officer contacts him just to inform him that his wife has already dead because of household accident.

Update: In the upcoming American superhero film called “The Dark Knight” by DC Comics, Health Ledger will be the Joker as a psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy. Meanwhile, Christian Bale was still the actor in the character of Bruce Wayne, a billionaire who been dedicated to himself as the protector of the Gotham City in the form of Batman, The Dark Knight. It was another sequel and a must seen movie of the year, 2008.