May the Fourth be With You 2026

May the Fourth be With You 2026

OK, I'm only 6 hours late to the official "May the Fourth"--based on a pun so obvious and terrible I am disappointed I didn't think of it myself.  It's also using Jaxxon T. Tumperakki as part of a running joke I've been using for... 11 years now?  What the--what happened to all that time?  Well, let it never be said that I will not commit to the bit.  This time it's Jaxxon wistfully staring off at the Twin Suns of Tatooine as they begin to drop down below the horizon.

To re-explain everything about Jaxxon (and to copy-and-paste part of this from last year's Blog), he's part of my continuing--although not as Quixotic as it used to be--quest to make Jaxxon, the "Star Wars" version of a green Bugs Bunny, into something vaguely popular.  Jaxxon started in the Marvel Comics "Star Wars" #8 (1977), taking place after "A New Hope", in a pastiche of "Seven Samurai"/"Magnificent Seven" and...  And it's a long story.  He's a 6' tall, green rabbit which was loosely based on Bugs Bunny that was in "Star Wars" comics and he caught my attention as a kid.

Since I've started this crazy quest, he's now he's appeared in comics (sure, it's the "Star Wars: Adventures" line, but I'll take it as a win and say he's officially canon, now), and apparently even has a Black Series action figure.  He also is the star of the "Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories" one-shot with Dark Horse Comics a couple years ago (with an awesome Mike Mignola cover).  And he is in the non-canon "Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy - Pieces of the Past", voice by Ben Schwartz.  So, shall I declare myself the winner and say I'm done?  Oh, I'll probably beat that dead horse a little more, still!

BONUS for "May the Fourth": Here's an unrelated link to a hauntingly beautiful song by Jeremy Messersmith's "Tatooine", delightfully animated with paper cutouts from the original trilogy.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the quickly scrawled digital pencils on a 3,000px x 2,000px canvas in Rebelle 8 Pro.

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STEP TWO:  And here's the finished digital painting

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Done digitally in Rebelle 8 Pro.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #7

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

Well, this took a little bit longer than I intended, but here’s my ripoff… er, pastiche of Frank Frazetta, based on a problematic scene in “Ms. Marvel #7” vol. 1 (1977) where M.O.D.O.K. attempts to take over Ms. Marvel’s mind and make her love and worship him.  It didn’t last long before he got the stuffings beaten out of him, of course, but I could not pass up the image of M.O.D.O.K. in a Frazetta-esque scene, vaguely based on the comic page.

Here's the original page from "Ms. Marvel #7" (1977) in question.

And here is the one of the many "Princess of Mars" covers from Frazetta that I used to base my parody upon.

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  Hey, look, I used Rebelle and remembered to do some "Work in Process" pics while working on the digital painting.  (It happened once, I guess it can theoretically happen again.)  Anyhoo, here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  Here's the first and part of a second pass with the digital Gouache brushes.

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STEP THREE:  And here's the finished digital painting, after lots and lots and lots of back-and-forth.

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Done digitally in Rebelle 8 Pro.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #5

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

This time, it's just a bit of digital doodling on a canvas in Rebelle 8 Pro and this came out.  Looks like non-idle hands are also the Devil's Workshop!  Although, in my Mind's Eye, it was going to remain a bit more "painterly" and impressionistic.  Maybe next time!  Or, one of the times coming up, anyways...

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  I just did some doodling in Rebelle 8 Pro and had done on a 1,875px x 2,600px canvas.  This time, I remembered to do a half-way point of the digital painting, rather than realize when I'm 80% of the way finished to think "Oh, crud, I should have done this an hour ago..." 

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STEP TWO:  Here's the finished digital painting

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Done digitally in Rebelle 8 Pro.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #1

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's time again for everyone's favorite March-based bit of Madness and Mirth featuring that wacky, hyper-cephalic Jack Kirby creation Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

For the first one, I had an image pop into my head of M.O.D.O.K. as the poster for the B-Movie classic, "Attack of the 50ft. Woman".  Oh, sorry, "Classic" should be in scare quotes--but I liked it when I saw it as a kid as part of a double-feature with "The Amazing Colossal Man"... or was it "War of the Colossal Beast"?... I watched all of them at one time or another on "T.J. and the A.N.T. (All Night Theater)".

Here is the original, classic "Attack of the 50ft. Woman" poster.  Classic Poster and awesome art by Sci-Fi Movie Poster painter, Reynold Brown.  He painted so many of the Classic Sci-Fi posters that fascinated me in my youth.  Give 'em a Google!

I'm hoping to get about 8-10 submissions done and sent to the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog.  Visit the site to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the digital painting, done in Rebelle 8.  And, yeah, those cars are comically childish, but they were small and just in the background.

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Done digitally in Rebelle with an assist from Clip Studio Paint with the Lettering

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Batman-uary 2026 - Adam West of Zur-En-Arrh

BATMAN-UARY 2026:
Adam West of Zur-En-Arrh

Na-na-na-na-na-nah... Batman-uary!  And, yeah, it's the same line I used a couple weeks ago, but this time it is fitting.

I always meant to do something with the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, but between Grant Morrison's and Chip Zdarsky's use of the character, it seems a little bit overused of late (wait, what the--?  Grant Morrison's run was almost 20 years ago?  That can't be right...).  And, yeah, there was even a gesture toward the Adam West version in a Multiverse part of the storyline, but, what the heck, I wanted to do this anyways.  And here it is.  With his Bat-Radia and everything!

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Here is a panel from "Batman #133" featuring Tlano/Batman of Zur-En-Arrh.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the scrawled, digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas @ 300dpi in Rebelle 8.

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STEP TWO: And here is the finished digital work, using mostly digital Watercolor/Gouache brushes and a digital Airbrush.

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Done digitally in Rebelle.

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Batman-uary 2026 - Luminous Uniform

BATMAN-UARY 2026:
Luminous Uniform

Na-na-na-na-na-nah... Batman-uary!  It's the Luminous Unoform, mentioned on the cover and one panel in "Detective Comics" #165 while fighting, um, I think it was Dr. Radium?  Anyhoo, I figured I'd do it up as a parody/pastiche for Alex Ross's cover to "Batman" #676, which seemed to lend itself to a glowing Batman costume.

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Here is the original cover to "Detective Comics" #165.

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And it was done as a parody/homage to Alex Ross's cover to "Batman 676"

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And here's the Batman-uary Logo.  Feel free to use it as you please...

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STEP ONE:  Here's a brief peek behind the curtain: I did up some quickly scrawled thumbnails done in Rebelle 8.  It was a choice of the Alex Ross cover, the Norm Breyfogle cover to "Detective Comics" #587, or a general looking Batman standing in front of the Moon while glowing.

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STEP TWO:  Here are the scrawled, digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas @ 300dpi in Rebelle 8.

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STEP THREE: And here is the finished digital work, using mostly digital Watercolor brushes and a digital Airbrush.  There was some digital trickery involving a couple Overlay layers to give that glow on the Bat symbol.

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Done digitally in Rebelle.

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Happy New Year - Supergirl-uary

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Supergirl-uary

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

What's this, a Happy New Year Post on the actual New Year's Day?  Who'da thunk it?

Just to carry on with last year's New Year's post, this time it's Supergirl instead of Superman.  I will admit, being a huge fan of "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow" (a book I've gifted to my daughters), I am looking forward to the movie set to be released later this year.  I'm also hardly the first to point out that it is a super-hero version of "True Grit", and the Charles Portis book and Coen Bros. movie in 2010 are also both great.  And, yeah, Supergirl-uary is a deliberately, comically a terrible name.

I want to give a sincere "Thank You" to all of you who have stopped by to gawk and rubberneck at my modest Blog.  As I mentioned in my previous End of Year post, there has been a 10x to 20x increase in traffic to this Blog (although, it may just be bots and AI scrapers trying to steal art and whatnot.  Again, suck it Tech-Overlords and Oligarch Dickheads trying to force AI Slop on everyone and everything).  The Blog also crossed a half-million Views, so that's something, I guess.  A mind blowing, humbling statistic to me.

Last year I was hoping to do some larger projects for the Blog.  Well, it was a resolution that sorta was half-done.  I did have several larger projects in 2025, but they fell outside the scope of this Blog, alas, although I did do the most posts on this Blog last year (69 posts--Nice!).

This year, aside from a trying to break last year's number of posts, I have a few comic-based projects specifically that I am hoping to do for my own amusement.  We'll see how that goes with this New Year's Delusions... er, I mean New Year's Resolutions!  So, stay tuned and check back often!  Well, not too often, of course, we don't wanna be weird about it...  Y'know, casual often.

The next post should be back to our regularly scheduled silliness, Batman-uary style!

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Done digitally in Rebelle 8, with as assist in Photoshop for the lettering.

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Merry Sithmas 2025 - Darth Maul

MERRY SITHMAS
Darth Maul

Merry Sithmas!  I hope everyone is well and has/had/will have a great Holiday Season (whatever you do or don't believe)!  Rather than do up a more obscure Sith character (cannon or non-cannon, who knows?), I figured I'd dust of Darth Maul again with his Christmas Tree lights for horns.

Sure, last year I was hoping to perhaps do up a "Real" animated video for Sithmas and while I did do up a better animated .gif, it is not quite the true, smooth animation I had in mind.  Oh, well, next year, for sure!  Probably...

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Alas, I don't have a Work in Progress, but here's a single image .jpeg rather than the Animate .GIF for no apparent reason at all...

I did up the Darth Maul and Winter Scene digital painting in Rebelle, leaving the Christmas Tree Bulbs/Horns on his head to be done in Photoshop, along with the snow and the type for "Merry Sithmas".

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Done digitally in Rebelle and some in Photoshop (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Day 31: The Incredible Melting Man (1977) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025:
The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

Well, I made it--and with plenty of time to spare!  And as is the tradition, it's myself represented at the beginning and end of each year--and this year I feel like this picture of "The Incredible Melting Man" (1977) looks.  Which is pretty much how I feel at the end of every "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween," alongside a mild sense of accomplishment of actually having finished it.  So, there's that.

I've probably mentioned it before, when I was a kid, I found a huge stack of "Monsters of Film Land" and "Starlog" magazines at a rummage sale.  One of them had "The Incredible Melting Man" on the cover and I must have pored over that cover so many times.  It was a gross-out cover and it definitely captured my attention.  As for the movie itself, it was pretty slow-moving (like The Incredible Melting Man!) and the story did sort of fall apart (like The Incredible Melting Man!), but it was good, clean fun (like The Incredible Melting Man!  Oh, wait... that's the opposite of The Incredible Melting Man...)

This was a bit of a strange year for my dumb "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween" challenge, in that I was sort of bored just painting various horror movie monsters (and assumed everyone else was bored of seeing them) and decided to mix stuff up a little bit--in some cases literally, what with all the Mash-Ups and all.  Sure, there were still a few referenced drawings here and there (particularly the Addams Family and the Horror Host series), so it wasn't a complete deviation from my normal challenge.

Last year was almost all traditional acrylic paintings on cardstock.  This year was a bit heavier on the digital side of the ledger.  Granted, the first dozen mash-ups of "The Horrors of Sesame Street" and "The Breakfast Club" were 12" x 16" on chipboard, so those really kicked my butt as far as the amount of time involved.

Maybe I'll try something different yet again next year for HELL-O-Ween.  As always, we shall see...

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STEP ONE:  Here are the quick, digital pencils in Rebelle 8 on a 2,000px x 3,000px @300dpi digital canvas with the digital Pencil Brush.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the first pass with Rebelle's Filbert Quick Oil Brush.

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STEP THREE:  And here's the finished digital painting, done with a variety of brushes, blending, and whatnot.  Also, lots of specular highlights with all the gooey stuff happening.

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Done in Rebelle 8.

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Day 30: John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) Mash-Up - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025:
John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

I mentioned earlier when I posted the original mash-up with "John Carpenter's The Thing" 15 days ago that I was considering redoing it in a more realistic manner.  So, it's the Thing-Thing-Thing: Redux

Well, I didn't quite achieve the full realism I was working toward, but I got a little bit closer and decided to post it as the second-to-last post for 2025's "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween".

One day to go!

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STEP ONE:  Here is the previous posting, which I imported back into Rebelle 8 on a 2,000px x 3,000px @300dpi digital canvas.

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STEP TWO:  'Cuz I'm a little slow, I forgot to include a mid-point "Work in Progress", so here it is completed.  I did keep the merging Thing #1 and Thing #2 logo the same, as it seemed to fit without having to be modified.

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Done in Rebelle 8.

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Day 29: Addams Family: Wednesday - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025:
Addams Family: Wednesday

Hey, it's Wednesday, again--And it's also Wednesday Addams!  Oh, and it's the same joke as last Wednesday.  That's right, I'm so environmentally conscious, I recycle all my jokes, too!  Although, it's probably better to just leave them on the compost pile now that I think about it...

This time, it's a semi-cartoonish version of Christina Ricci from the amusing "Addams Family" (1991) and "Addams Family Values" (1993).

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STEP ONE:  Here are the quick, digital pencils in Rebelle 8 on a 2,000px x 3,000px @300dpi digital canvas with the digital Pencil Brush.

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STEP TWO:  Because I wasn't paying enough attention, I had merged down and kept working on the first pass layer until it was pretty much done.  Ah, well, one of these days I will learn.  Not any time soon, I'm sure, but one of these days...

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Done in Rebelle 8.

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Day 28: TV Horror Hosts - Svengoolie - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025:
Svengoolie

This time it's the relatively local Horror Host out of Chicago, Svengoolie, on MeTV.  I watched it semi-regularly on Saturday evenings just after  a double-shot of Adam West's "Batman".  Lots of Sci-Fi and Horror B-Movies--right in my wheelhouse.

The finish line is in sight and we're down to the final three!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the quick, digital pencils in Rebelle 8 on a 2,000px x 3,000px @300dpi digital canvas with the digital Charcoal Brush.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the first pass with Rebelle's Soft Charcoal Brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the finished tones and values, done with lots of blending, back-and-forth, etc.

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Done in Rebelle 8.

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Day 27: TV Horror Hosts - Elvira: Mistress of the Dark - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025:
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

Continuing on with the TV Horror Hosts theme, it's Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.  I would see her show up on TV occasionally when I was an early teen--just when a young male would be mostly likely to imprint on a seductively curvaceous TV Host (sorry, Svengoolie, you're cool and all, but you arrived much later and never stood a chance).  It was all fourth wall breaking high camp with terrible puns.  Y'know, the stuff I do all the time. 

She also was also the illustrated host of DC Comics "Elvira's House of Mystery", which were PG-ish ghost and ghoul stories ala "Tales from the Crypt" and other EC Comics of yore, as well as some other comic books here-and-there.  There was also a 1988 Elvira: Mistress of the Dark movie which I recall fondly, again filled with campy fun.

I have frequently mentioned the massive impact that the obscure, Wisconsin-based TV Host driven show ,"T.J. and the A.N.T." (All Night Theater) made on my childhood.  I was 7 years old and staying up all night on Fridays to watch Sci-Fi and Monster B-Movies, so I already had a predilection toward TV Horror Hosts and MST3K (alas, I have watched a shocking number of movies they have featured without Joel/Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo in the corner).  The format for the TV Horror Hosts brings a deep nostalgia in my dotage.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the quick, digital pencils in Rebelle 8 on a 2,000px x 3,000px @300dpi digital canvas with the digital Charcoal Brush.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the first pass with Rebelle's Soft Charcoal Brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the finished tones and values, done with lots of blending, back-and-forth, etc.

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Done in Rebelle 8.

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Day 26: TV Horror Hosts - SCTV: Count Floyd - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2025:
SCTV: Count Floyd

Well, since I mentioned SCT's Count Floyd (played by the late, great Joe Flaherty), why not included him among a very brief series of TV horror hosts?  I watched "SCTV" as a young kid, staying up really late with it playing after "Saturday Night Live".  One of the recurring segments was Count Floyd, an attempted TV horror host dressed as a dime-store Dracula with a grease paint widow's peak to introduce and talk during breaks in the movie.  He would try to hype up the terrible movies with "Very scary stuff" to stuff that was obviously not very scary at all.

Count Floyd amused me, and one of the things that always stuck with me was Count Floyd in his 3D glasses watching "Dr. Tongue's Evil House of Pancakes" spoofing the 3D movie cliche by breaking the scene to move stuff back and forth toward the camera with a semi-spooky music sting.  "Would you like some more... PANCAKES?"

I used to imitate it, myself, all the time.  Yes, I was an irritating kid.  And equally irritating adult!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the quick, digital pencils in Rebelle 8 on a 2,000px x 3,000px @300dpi digital canvas with the digital Charcoal Brush.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the first pass with Rebelle's Soft Charcoal Brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the finished tones and values, done with lots of blending, back-and-forth, etc.  I also added color to the 3D glasses as an interesting accent. 

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Done in Rebelle 8.

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