Akira / Charles M. Schulz Mash-Up

Akira / Charles M. Schulz Mash-Up

Linus/Tetsuo Transformation

I guess I'm still in a Charles M. Schulz state of mind.  And, with it being the 30th Anniversary of "Akira" (an anime I sought out shortly after it was released on VHS for rental back in the day--as well as the manga when it was being released through Epic Comics, and eventually the giant, phone books of the series), I thought it would be amusing to mash 'em up.

In this case, it is Linus as Tetsuo in the beginning of his transformation.  Originally, I thought about doing it as Charlie Brown saying "Good Grief!"  But, then I thought it would be better to have Linus, and he could use his blanket as the "cape" and his hair would vaguely resemble Tetsuo's (well, that may have been a little optimistic).  It seemed to work better, in my humble opinion.  I may still do something right-and-proper for Akira, as it is a series for which I have a great fondness.

Also, completely unrelated, this is something weird for me: I had my own brush with the Mandela Effect this evening.  For the longest time, I thought "Charles M. Schulz" spelled his last name "Schultz"--right up 'til a few hours ago.  In fact, my fingers still automatically type it out that way.  Now, I could just say it's a case of me not paying careful attention as a kid, assuming it is spelled in the more classic manner, and having my stupid brain just insert the "t" that I always assumed was there; nope, rather than admitting I'm a total, complete dumb@$$, instead I'll postulate an alternate-universe/quantum something-something/time-travel mix-up.  So, there!

That said, I went through this morning and updated my obvious, previous posts and fixed the spelling to "Schulz"--well, aside from a couple drawings which have "With apologies to Charles M. Schultz" on them, where I'm afraid my shame will still be on display as I'm too lazy to fix it at the moment.  Good grief!

For fun (your definition of "fun" may vary), below, I actually decided to include the steps for making the picture.  It shouldn't be quite as cumbersome as the trying to do the last post of the O.M.A.C. / Charles M. Schulz Mash-Up.  So, for those of you interested, here ya go!  For those of you not interested...  Um, well, it's still there.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, which I did on a 1,500px x 2,100px canvas at 300dpi.  

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STEP TWO:  Here are the digital inks.  I used a slightly modified G-Brush from Clip Studio Paint to ink the drawing, typed in the text with a Comix Heavy font, and created the dialog balloon.

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STEP THREE:  I colorized the drawing in Photoshop on a Multiply layer.

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STEP FOUR:  Because I liked the distressed effects in the previous post, I thought I'd do it again.  In this case, the color-Mulitply layer was duplicated on top of the original one, with a 4pt Color Pixelation filter applied to it; it was changed to a Lighten layer and opacity was dropped to 50%.  Then, on top, I had a scan of a cracked, yellowed paper which I placed on top, changed to a Darken Layer, adjusted the Levels to bring out some of the texture, and dropped the opacity to 40%.  

To post it, the resolution was dropped to 1,000px x 1,400px at 200dpi, and called it "Good 'nuff!"

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This was done with Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop.

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O.M.A.C. / Charles M. Schulz Mash-Up

O.M.A.C. / Charles M. Schulz Mash-Up

Page Recreation of O.M.A.C. #1 by Jack Kirby

For absolutely no reason at all (well, other than it amuses me), here's a page recreation of pages 4 and 5 from O.M.A.C. issue #1.  It's a mash-up of Jack Kirby's O.M.A.C. (One-Man Army Corps) as I imagine how it would be done by Charles Schulz.

O.M.A.C. is one of the more esoteric DC characters that pulls my interest for some reason.  To be honest, like many Kirby creations, it isn't the best written, but there is a glittering idea bomb within which appeals to me.  Something darkly satiric and psychological beneath the veneer of super-heroes and bad guys punching each other and punctuated with explosions.  In the case of this issue, it is robot decoys which would be used to seduce and assassinate world leaders.

And, yes, I know the Little Red-Haired Girl has a name, Heather Wold.  But, as that is relatively obscure, I figured it would cause more confusion to use "Heather" as a substitute for the name "Lila", and stuck with "Little Red-Haired Girl".

For fun, here's the original pages from O.M.A.C. #1 by Jack Kirby:

I decided not to include the various steps used in creating the pages, as it would be quite a long, boring list.  But, it was done digitally in Clip Studio Paint using LOTS of layers, and with some of the dot/moire pattern filters done in Photoshop.  I also did some discoloration and cracked paper texture effects to give it an artificially aged look.

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