Wizardworld Chicago August 19-22, 2010

Come See Planet Doom Studios (Bequi and Me) at the Wizardworld Chicago Comicon.

Table 3513 in Artist's Alley.

Resurrecting the Past. Pt. 3

More Unearthed goodness from the stack of Art-i-facts.

Apparently, I had some deep seeded anger issues bubbling under the surface in high school as depicted in the above picture of my character THE VOID spattered with blood. There was most likely a girl and rejection involved as was usually the reasons for me being all mopey and broody. Gads...I was kinda goth back then. I certainly wore the black trenchcoat every day.

Throughout school up through college, I would doodle random nonsense all over my notes and homework. Here's a few lovely examples.

Note: the M&M weilding tha axe. There were quite a few violent depictions of those guys in my notes. Usually, they were ranting some wild nonsense.

Not quite sure what is going on here....Rah Rah Poopie? Hmmmm. I do know the "Curse you Dogman" was a quote from Ranma 1/2....so at least that makes some sense to me.

This one had me rolling. The X-men and Apocalypse having a dialogue about olives seems really funny to me. Maybe only me but oh well.

Like my school notes, I would also draw all over church bulletins. Not eactly what I should've been doing in the House of God but I swear, I was listening the whole time. Honest. Below is just one example of my character THE VOID and Pat Gleason's character LINT, endorsing Lazy Mountain Bible Church. Oh...and some randon dude too.

Chicago Comicon August 19-22

Come by and see me and buy stuff from us...Like maybe Great Big Pissed Off Bear #3. Yea!

http://www.wizardworld.com/mattwendt.html

Resurrecting the Past. Pt. 2

I met one of my best friends, Andy, back in 1986. We went to the same church and eventually were in the same class in 5th grade. What brought us together was a mutual love for GI JOE toys. Fast forward almost 25 years later and we're still obsessed with The Real American Heros. Yup...we're still brought together by plastic soldiers all these years later.

At some point in the early years of our friendship, we decided that we wanted to, not only play with and enjoy GI JOE toys, but we wanted to create and design them as well. So we spent hours drawing up new, cool vehicles and figures in hopes that Hasbro would see the potential and hire us for their design department. We even went so far as to list a suggested retail price for some of the designs should Hasbro decide to produce them. It was fun to dream back then. What was kind of eerie was that alot of our ideas were about resurrecting old characters and vehicles with repaints and putting them on a special team called the Lightning League ( a name stolen from Wheeled Warriors) and then years later Hasbro actually did just that with the likes of Tiger Force, Python Patrol, Night Force, and Slaughter's Marauders. Could they have been spying on us and stealing our ideas? I'd like to think so.

Below are a few examples of our super-awesome ideas.

I had drawings taped all over my walls and even my door when I was a kid. My obsession with GI JOE was even displayed on that door in the below drawing of DUKE.

This final drawing was done, most likely, during one of my classes, I'd guess in the 8th or 9th grade. It was during that time that I really got into collecting the comic books and was die-hard for the back issues. My first GI JOE figure ever was FLASH, the original Laser Trooper, so I proudly depicted him leading the charge in this one.

And now you know....And Knowing is half the battle.

Resurrecting the past. pt. 1

While on vacation back home up here in Alaska, I've had time to rummage through my mom's garage and sift through all the stuff I left behind when I moved out of state 12 years ago. I gotta say...I've found some real gems and can't believe I was stupid enough to leave these artifacts behind. The stuff spans my personal art history from grade school through college. IT has been a real treat reliving all the memories and I find myself laughing out loud at the littlest doodles. Needless to say I will be sending a box of these goodies home.

Here's just a few samples of what I've unearthed.

Here's one of the first renditions of my long-standing character, Mohawk Man. This was drawn in 1986 when I was a mere 4th grader. Apparently my original intent was to have a gang of Mohawk men complete with Mr. T look-alikes. I'm still not sure what Loober is....but it is awesom....minus the e.

This was one from 7th grade. Not sure why or what is going on. Some dude just punching another for some reason. I'm going to assume it's a good one...but, HEY, how about that punch?!

This was a Void cover that got scrapped for something cooler...or not. I have the one I went with back home in MN so I'll have to update later on whether it was better than this or not.

Well whadda ya know....I found an old James Crow and Rex drawing from 1989. I'm really liking Rex's look in this one.

And Speaking of James Crow....

Here's a scrapped cover for one of my James Crow 0017 issues. I think my problem with this one was the varying scale sizes of all the background characters. It just doesn't make sense here. Not sure what this issue number this was supposed to be but I'm sure the one I went with was better than this. Maybe not much but enough.

I got lots of great stuff still to sift through, so I'll try to post again very soon with more ancient treasures.