The above strip above was going to be today’s Cool Jerk, but I had a change of heart. Here’s the backstory:

First, I saw a Garfield comic last year and thought “Holy crap — what the hell happened to his proportions? It doesn’t even look like a CAT anymore!” Over time, Garfield’s eyes had grown so ridiculously huge that I figured at some point they’d sag out of his head like the giant breasts of a 70-year-old stripper.

Then I thought, “Hey, that’s a Cool Jerk.” And I jotted the idea down in my phone. There it sat for months, until last week when I put pencil to paper.

I was pretty happy with it, all the way through the inks. Then it dawned on me, “this is kind of a one-note sight gag, at the expense of Puppy’s… um… physique.” In other words, plain ol’ boob joke. While there’s a time and a place for everything, I grew unhappy with it. I challenged myself to find a better solution that allowed for a sight gag comparing Puppy to that cat’s over-endowed eyeballs without having to recreate the whole strip from scratch.

Thank God I gave Puppy earrings back in 1987.

Darlene thinks it’d be cool to share with you readers some of my artistic influences. Wow. I could blog each day for a year and probably not get to all of them. But one artist comes to mind who’s perfect for me to start this occasional series: Charles Harper.

I remember the first time I saw Charley’s work — it was in the library of my next door neighbor, Oscar “Ozz” Warbach. (Also an artistic influence; see page 99 in Cool Jerk Vol. 2: Chickadoowa) Ozz had the book The Animal Kingdom, which Harper illustrated. I must’ve borrowed that book from Ozz a half-dozen times throughout second grade. In fact, we second graders had to create a marketplace in our classroom and each of us had to come up with a product to sell. I made laminated placemats with illustrations of animals on them. Yes, I “swiped” my style from Harper. But I didn’t trace or lightbox! Swear!

The Animal Kingdom has been out of print for decades, and Harper died in 2007. Luckily, he was still alive when AMMO Books started their Charley Harper — An Illustrated Life tome, which features hundreds of Harper’s best work and a long conversation with the man. That was the only thing I wanted for my birthday last year, and Darlene got it for me. I recommend it highly.

I regard Harper as the Godfather of Vector Art, which is a misnomer on its face because Charley never used the computer to generate his mathematically perfect geometric paintings. Yes, you can pick your jaw up off the keyboard/iPad — that’s all natural media, Holmes. I wonder if the creators of Adobe Illustrator, Aldus FreeHand and other vector drawing applications weren’t influenced by Harper’s work.

The past couple of Cool Jerk strips featured the debut of a character I’m naming Typhoid Larry. He’s the owner of Lung Fung Donuts in Spittle Beach. We may or may not see more of him in the future.

Some readers have implied that I’m doing a parody/homage/slam against a local donut shop here in San Diego. Which is true, but Typhoid Larry is based on a shuttlevan driver Darlene and I saw in San Francisco last year. Right down to the flop sweat. Oh, if only I had the balls to take a photo of him. I swear I thought he was going to collapse behind the wheel. He really did look like Jeff Goldblum in the third reel of “The Fly.”

The name “Lung Fung Donuts” comes from my youth — House of Lung Fung was a Chinese restaurant in Reno, Nev. in the 1980s and 1990s. I wish I’d taken a photo of the sign. Apparently “Lung Fung” isn’t overly uncommon, as a Flickr search will reveal.

I do have a photo of another character inspiration, tho. Here’s the guy I based Pokéyman on.

It’s all Vince Colletta’s fault.

Vince Colletta, if the name doesn’t ring a bell, was a prolific inker for Marvel and DC Comics from the 1950s through to his death in 1991. He was known for inking heavyweights like Jack Kirby (Fantastic Four, Thor, New Gods), inking ridiculously thick mascara on the ladies and inking a comic in a ridiculously short amount of time. Most industry professionals agree that Colletta wasn’t necessarily great… but he was fast. And in an industry where keeping deadlines were more important than quality work, Colletta was an MVP. Love him or hate him, everyone would agree he left an indelible mark on comics’ Silver Age.

Darlene and I are on opposite sides of the Vinnie Colletta coin: for as much as I don’t care for his work, Darlene loves it. She loves the pen work and the trademark mascara. And for Christmas she got me his biography, “The Thin Black Line.” On Christmas Day, we took to reading full chapters out loud to each other. Story time!

On to today’s Cool Jerk. I’d been suggesting to Darlene that she could ink one of my strips sometime, and the one I had planned for today was a stand-alone based on Darlene’s idea of “Die-Fi™,” the next generation of wireless communication. I learned that Colletta primarily used pens instead of brushes, so I penciled up the strip, gave Darlene a handful of Micron pens and told her to “have at it.” My only stipulation was that she couldn’t erase parts she didn’t want to ink (a controversial habit practiced by Colletta, much to the chagrin of the artists whose work went to Colletta).

As you can see from my pencils, (above), I added some notes to the margins a la Jack Kirby. I normally don’t do that, because I’m always my own inker. And in stark contrast to Vince Colletta, Darlene added elements (birds, cupcake logos on MacBook, butterfly onto Betty’s sweater, Jolly Roger logo on the iPad, feet to the chair legs). In fact, in a test panel, she had Archie listening to The Smiths (a no-no, since the first panel was supposed to represent 1950s).

Darlene declined to give me a proper interview about her inking process, but here are a couple of Tweets from yesterday:

Inking for @cooljerk today should be interesting. I’ll be the Vince Colletta to his Jack Kirby.

Problem #1 for inking for Sgt. Paul: he will *not* let me use my favorite purple Sharpie pen to ink his pencils. Can you say wet towel?

My downfall while inking seems to be hands. And arms. And faces. But I do really good mountains.

In addition, I’m having a problem with this panel with the exploding head. Thinking of drawing butterflies instead.

I’m actually pretty happy with the end result — not bad at all for a never-inked-before inker. I only slightly touched up spots here and there where Darlene’s lines “jumped” the panel or she misread my pencils (like the shorthand “X” in spots that tells the inker “solid black here, please”).

Let’s give her a nice round of applause, and we’ll see how she does with a Sunday-sized strip!

…here’s a vintage crowd-pleaser from 2008, the last year we did Christmas/Holiday cards before we gave up.

If you’ve received cards in the past, look for a triumphant return of the HornCard™ in early 2011!

(If you want to receive a limited edition 2010 first quarter 2011 holiday card, email me your mailing address before January)

The season is truly about giving. In that spirit, I’m going to suggest you check out some creative friends of mine, who — like me — are making a living doing what they love. Please consider buying some stuff from them!

 

Agreeable Comics

I’ve collaborated with never-not-busy comics scribe/personality/gadfly Kevin Church on various fun projects over the past few years. The bromance cannot be denied. In fact, at next year’s San Diego Comic-Con we’re going to be table neighbors, allowing for a small overlap of our respective cartooning worlds. Many of his Agreeable Comics have been collected into purchasable books.

 

JustJENN

Aw, Jenn. She wears many hats — roller coaster architect, Sanrio ambassador, master baker (she did the incredible cupcakes for Darlene’s and my wedding), überblogger, stationery wizard and comics creator. How she still has time to take the boys to Disneyland every week is beyond me.

 

Steamcrow

Daniel Davis is living the dream… if your dream is filled with steampunk, monsters and comics, that is. The Steamcrow/Monster Commute brand — nay, empire — is a wonder to behold. Daniel and Dawna have raised the bar for us creative types, in everything from website and product design to customer service and comic-con booth displays. It’s no secret that they’re my mentors. Go explore another world brimming with beasts, miscreants, machines and an adorable ectrodactyly Goth girl.

 

Crying Macho Man

I’ve seen Jose Cabrera and his Crying Macho Man brand at comic-cons for a couple years, but I lucked out in 2007 when he became my regular SDCC table neighbor to the north. He’s doing what I’m doing: creating comics that make him laugh, putting them online, then collecting them into books. His sense of humor is infectious. Check him out and see for yourself.

 

Chris Wisnia

The less that’s said about Chris, the better. Joke. Here are the quick hits: he’s also a SDCC table neighbor (to the south), he’s hilarious, he produces comics (both self-published and via Slave Labor Graphics), and his hair sometimes startles me.

 

Sarah Kuhn

She and her husband, Jeff, are Darlene’s and my favorite hostages (we’ve “kidnapped” them a few times on jaunts around L.A., Hollywood, Burbank and Santa Monica). Sarah’s a journalist with the best beat ever — nerd culture — but has decided to stop “working for the man” so she can focus on other writing projects. I have her first novel, One Con Glory, and you should, too. It’s full of win!™

 

Sandra Corey

There’s more to my art appreciation than comic-con regulars. There’s also my downstairs neighbor, Sandra. She’s also been living the dream (a few years longer than I have), working from home as an artist. Sandra’s work crosses back and forth between natural media and digital. That, plus her talent and friendship, makes me a fan.

Indeed! Free domestic shipping on purchases made at the Cool Jerk store until Jan. 1, 2011! So if you’ve been on the fence about adding some Cool Jerk books to your library or maybe have some holiday shopping to wrap up, NOW’S THE TIME!

(Sorry, my foreign friends — international shipping rates still apply!)

Folks. I wouldn’t mention Glenn Beck on my site unless there was a really good reason.

A few months ago I was hired to illustrate a short story in Machine of Death — a sci-fi anthology about a machine that can predict your exact cause of death — by my friend, colleague and secret mentor David Malki ! (of Wondermark fame). He and co-authors/editors Ryan North and Matthew Bennardo swore me to secrecy (regarding my involvement, artwork, etc.) until the book was officially released. And when it dropped a few weeks ago, they orchestrated a campaign to have as many people buy Machine of Death from amazon.com on Oct. 26.

And it worked. It not only became the Top Seller for the day and longer, but it also kept Glenn Beck’s book from doing the same. Chris Sims’ Invincible Super-Blog has a write-up on this event here.

I mentioned this on Facebook and Twitter when history was being made, but since I was just informed that the book is going international with foreign translations, I figured I’d post this to my site.

Needless to say, I recommend the book. Go find it at your local brick-and-mortar bookstore or favorite online bookseller.

Darlene tells me every now and then I should post some non-Cool Jerk art on this here blog. Well, here’s a little gem from 1976.

As some of you may know — either through my astonishing tales of yesteryear or from first-hand experience — my second grade was unlike any I’ve ever known. Mrs. Joyce Frank turned our Ralya Elementary (Haslett, MI) classroom of 30 desks into a freaking CITY. “Super Citizen City” was its name, actually. And there isn’t enough time in the day to impress upon you how incredible it was. Sure, we learned the three “R”s, phonics and cursive, but we also learned about federal, state and local government and each student had a role (I was a federal judge, IIRC). We also learned about commerce (we each had to create a store to sell our own hand-made goods) and assembly lines (for craft projects and the Yellow Pages-sized yearbook each kid received on the last day). Good grades earned us “money” and we could buy toys and candy with our hard-earned currency. For the major holidays we each made papier-mache decorations (pilgrim and turkey, Santa Claus in a chimney, etc.). And we each made a mobile.

The mobile was a personal reflection of each student. It had to contain a self-portrait, your house, your pet or pets, your favorite food, your favorite TV show, some of your memorable dreams, a list of your positive qualities, a testament to your patriotism (this was during the Bicentennial, after all), your loves and favorite activities. Each art element of the mobile had to be drawn and colored by the student, front-and-back, then reinforced with a sturdy middle layer, then varnished. Mrs. Frank helped out with art touch-ups and lettering where necessary.

My interests that year pretty much revolved around Godzilla movies, Six Million Dollar Man, “Jaws,” my pet iguana Igszy and social networking (except back then, “social networking” was actually “talking in class when I shouldn’t be”). While my art skillz have certainly improved over time, you can see my ability to draw cars pretty much plateaued when I was 7.

I’ve actually hanged the mobile in every place I’ve lived (when Darlene first saw it a decade ago, she wondered if I secretly had a grade-schooler). It’s gotten a little faded but looks pretty good after nearly 35 years. Thanks to Facebook, I’m in contact with about 25% of my second grade alumni and I bet they all still have their mobiles, somewhere.

Just a short recap of last week’s store signing at A-1 Comics in Sacramento. To be honest, I really needed to pimp the hell out of this thing (sending out a Facebook Cool Jerk Group invite, for example). Maybe coordinate with an area taco truck (like my signing in September). Maybe just plan out more than two weeks in advance. Lesson learned.

BUT— it was a lot of fun! I was only there for three hours but I got to hang out with fellow cartoonist Chris Wisnia, who dropped in to talk smack with me! Also, Jeff Kenoyer and his boy Alex came by — Hodabeast, Chickadoowa and sketchbook in hand — to get Bimboozled and catch up with me. Awesome! I haven’t seen Jeff since high school days (he’s my buddy Jay Kenoyer‘s younger brother) and I hadn’t met Alex, although I was warned he’s a big-time Cool Jerk aficionado. I also met and chatted with a bunch of other area comics fans who will soon join my ever-expanding legion of sleeper agents.

Sacramento, I shall return! Thanks again to Brian Peets (and Joe & Joey) for being such awesome hosts!