Middle School Was A Trying Time

Mista Roboto

Addendum: "the 80's"

I'm not really sure what I was thinking on this one. He looks like a very awkward robot. My favorite part would have to be the alternating up and down "O"s in "Roboto".

Sixth grade. A wild-haired, eccentric lady who could not yet be characterized as "old" is standing in front of a skeptical class of children. "Today," she announces, "we are going to listen to Stravinski's... The Firebird!" I didn't really know who or what Stravinski was at the time, but I played along. "I want you all to close your eyes and listen to the music. Then, we can draw what we see!" After a few minutes of listening, my friend turns to me and says, "I saw a dancing candle." My own imagination sparked by this highly comical image, I began drawing. The larger candle is my rendering of my friend's thoughts, the smaller one on the right is his own.

PAUL

Addendum: None

And now, after a brief radio silence, we're back!

At the top of this drawing is a portrayal of an anonymous sunglasses-wearing Good Guy nonchalantly taking out a gun-wielding Bad Guy. This is part of the "knives-vs-guns" theme that many of my drawings exhibit. Below this violent tableaux is an anagram for my name, Paul. This dates this picture sometime after I read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, in which the main character is confronted with a devilishly clever religious (or anti-religious) sect entitled the Illuminati who brand their victims with anagrams. Perfect reading for a fifth grader, no? Anyways, a couple of my friends who were also Brown fans at the time decided to make anagrams of their names, and I gave it a shot. I'd say that this was probably the most rewarding part of reading Brown's work.

As the wind blows...

Addendum: "I must be light"

As the RAIN FALLS...

Addendum: "Perhaps the melting is a metaphor for the current mental state of the author"

As the Bird Fly's...

Addendum: "Sad≠Happy=Funny=Sad"

This was part of a series of drawings I did featuring the same bug-eyed stick character. I'd prefer to let it speak for itself.

Anger Management

Addendum: None

A lot going on in this one. For starters, there is a floor! The central figure appears to be flinging throwing stars (perhaps the aforementioned ones?) and brandishing an extremely phallic sword. Both the sword and this figure's face are crossed out, most likely because they are (respectively) too phallic and angry. The figure at the bottom escapes the sword's reach, but his/her head has still been both bumped and stabbed. The stick above is unlucky enough to be caught with a throwing star. At the far left another stick figure is run through with a cello endpin, the cello is presumably held by an unusually tall classmate of mine named Nellie.

seizure!!!!!!

Addendum: None

This was one of my first experimentations with negative space. At the top is a prototype I did in Sharpie to test that the idea for a 4-panel "seizure person" would work. Once that was a success, I moved on to a bigger image (albeit in pencil and done by erasing scribbles). At right is another "seizure person," this one quite confused and being bombarded by lines. At bottom is a mess of words and lines, but I'll try to decipher it somewhat. There is a picture of a male and female stick figure. The male stick figure holds a paper that says "BLIMP". To the left of these two figures are the words "Jimbo in Spanish" and "je olde fa-". I can't entirely make out what the fa- word is. Fad? Faq-? Fag? Faw-? Facebook didn't exist (for me) at this time in my life, so that's out of the question. Puzzling.

Bob the Hamma-Stoppa

Addendum: "classic"

This enduring character is Bob, the Hamma-Stoppa. Ironically enough, he himself is shaped like a human-sized sqiuggly hammer that talks like Mr. T. In later comics, I would prove that for Bob, form equals function. At the bottom left of the page is another glimpse of internet-speak, this time from the misunderstood masterpiece The End of The World. At the top right is a spanglish statement that reads, "Paul likes el pene bomberos," or, roughly translated, "Paul likes fireman penis." It was hastily crossed out, and I decided that I would have to be more careful to whom I would show my drawings in the future.

Salad Fingers

Addendum: "Phailiure To Spell"

This was my attempt to render the wonderful, surreal flash animation salad fingers on some fancy heavy drawing paper. I'd say it came out pretty well. I took my time, drew light enough to erase without leaving dark marks on the page, and the source content was simple enough (keep in mind simplicity does not imply ineffective) for me to copy without feeling overwhelmed. Shown here is (right to left) Huber Cumberdale, Majory Stewart-Baxter, Jeremy Fisher, and half of the face of Salad Fingers himself.