VECTORMAN 25th Anniversary

Fans of the SEGA Genesis, that great 16-bit game console of yore, will be glad/shocked/appalled to learn that 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of VECTORMAN. This resonates with me—I was intimately involved in this game’s creation, and hearing the news cast me back not to the game itself, but all the personalities (good and bad) that worked together to create this minor masterpiece.

My job was the animation—not only doing the bulk of it, but working with genius programmers Rick Karpp and esp’ly Karl Robrillard to develop a custom animation tool that allowed us to fake 3D graphics for the 16-bit world of the Genesis. This was our big selling point, and the game looked like no other at that time. Everyone compared us to Donkey Kong Country,. This still vexes me. DKC is a great game, sure—but totally unlike our super-fast shooter. Because DKC beat us to market, it was easy to assume we were imitators. But in that timorous, pre-PS1 world where true 3D was but a dream, lots of developers were groping toward something that looked like the new CG beginning to emerge elsewhere (remember, Toy Story hadn’t even been released yet). There was DKC, then came a game called Ballz (similar tech to ours, but a poor game experience). But neither played as fast or as well as VMAN.

Gosh that was fun.

I was but a pup, and this was just my third title. Mark Lorenzen was the brilliant art mind behind so much of the game’s look and feel. A real learning experience….but then, we were just slingin’ the titles out as fast as we could.

Truth was, had we been able to release the game 6 months earlier, it would have received the accolades it deserved. If we’d managed to do it a year earlier (and Karl and Rich were messing about with the 3D part of the engine while the company was finishing up the Jurassic Park game back in ‘93, so it could have happened), VMAN would’ve been legend.

Writer/designer Tom Carroll was asked to pen an in-depth appreciation of the title on this 25th anniversary, and he asked if I could contribute an illustration. He wanted a re-working of a classic little inspirational sketch done back during development.

Development sketch of VECTORMAN done by…Ellis Goodson (I think??) This is an early VMAN in his simplest, roundest iteration. In fact, maybe this art is the work of Christopher Kreidel (??), the first artist assigned to develop the character.

I got a real kick out of going back and making a proper portrait of this old friend. It’s funny because I did not have the chops to do this sort of work back at the time—but I did wind up having a lot of input on the final character design. Remember, sketches like these may seem woefully undercooked compared to the in-dpeth model sheets and gorgeous character detailing of today, but we were working with characters that were only 40 to 80 pixels tall. Sketches like this were just a suggestion. Our screen size was a mere 480 by 320 (and computers of the day huffed and puffed to handle that), and just 64 colors total at our disposal, of that a mere 16 dedicated to the hero . These limits inspired a lot of creativity, and resulted in some really fun games.

I will be sure to link Tom’s article when it hits. In the meantime…”SEGA!!”

Autoweek Columns, pt. II

Here’s another batch of Autoweek column illos. Sadly, it looks like these will be the last. As of Novemeber 1st, 2019, the print edition of Autoweek is no more. It was the first magazine I subscribed to as a teenager in Chino, and to have had the chance to draw—and write!—for them has really been a very special privilege. And they are really great people, too! The main staff will stay on under the Hearst Publications aegis, and focus on the online magazine, for which we hope to do more special features and illustrations in the future. But not the steady, twice-a-month column illos that you see here. So enjoy this last batch—I did.

Halloween at the Chateau Marmont

Illustrated an article about a solo séance at the Chateau Marmont for the online magazine Road Trippers (it’s good! check it out). One of those out-of-the-blue jobs where I met someone at the Indy 500, they liked my drawings and over a year later rec’ed me to an editor looking for some drawings. The turnaround time was ridiculously quick—just a week from 1st contact to the due date. With my clogged schedule I basically did the entire 3 illustration job in one insane 17 hour overnight stretch…but, because the content was so fun, it was actually one of the more enjoyable all-nighters I’ve pulled….

So there’s that.

Illustration is interesting because a reader will pick this article up (or click on it, I guess) and be immersed in what looks like a collaborative world devised by writer and artist (with behind-the-scene presence of an editor, art staff, etc., implied), but in fact I had no contact with Dan Shapiro, the author of the piece. Just a series of breathless texts with the editor, and one phone call the night of the deadline. I did have the article, so I had something very solid to riff on. And they’d asked for something “wild, like Scarfe.” We were all happiest with the first image, in the bathtub. The last image, with the ghost in the room, was both the slickest and the one that’s sort of least successful I think….spells it all out too literally, maybe. Which points out the other big obstacle to getting the best work done: the time constraint. If I had another day or two I could have redone the seance drawing into a wilder technique.

But them’s the breaks in the life of a freelance illustrator. I did get the best text message reply ever when I sent the editor the first two images: “I FUCKING LOVE THESE!!”

Illustrating Autoweek's Columnists

Since Sept. of 2017 I’ve been the “Contributing Illustrator” of record for Autoweek Magazine. What that means is I do a black-n-white + single color illustration for the editorial column that opens every magazine. I was asked to take this on when the magazine art staff undertook a top-to-toe redesign back at the end of 2017. Now I’ve done over 30 of these, and thought I’d better share some of my faves here.

The Legend of the Lost Lancia

Autoweek sent myself and Pal Peet up into the hinterlands of the Great Lakes region in search of a legendary rally car, the Lancia Stratos. Stories of a genuine team car abandoned in the woods of northernmost Michigan have been swirling for years, and the magazine knew only its most intrepid reporters could get to the bottom of the tale…

READ IT ALL HERE!

In the process we witnessed one of the world’s most affordable and exciting forms of motorsports up close, stumbled onto a mysterious government testing site, talked with air rescue pilots, found a thriving culture of DIY racers of every gender and background, took a lap on the dirt in a vicious, vintage 1980 Ford Escort Mk. II rally car that blew our minds, and spent an hour hanging out with the man many rally aficionados consider the greatest rally driver of all time, Hannu Mikkola.

All in all, a good trip.

If you haven’t watched any rally footage before, click on the links above—it is insane and insanely cool.

I did a dozen or so illustrations for the article, Peet wrote the text. Peet and I hadn’t done an article together before, but quickly fell into a routine where we’d take turns chatting up sources and then splitting up to pursue leads…frequently I’d listen to Peet interview someone while I took notes; I’d sketch some, and Peet would take photos that I could later use as reference for the big illustrations. We expected to have fun on the assignment, and figured the final article would be good, but neither of us expected to work so dang well together. We were a real team—and it really improved the work! We decided we need to do more articles together like this. The organizers and sponsors agreed—both the race organizer, and the primary sponsor of the event, Dirt Fish Rally School came up to us at the event’s closing awards dinner and said we were the best journalists they’d ever worked with (!). So much so, Dirt Fish invited us out to take a 3 Day course at their school so we could write about the experience.

An article on that experience will be coming soon….

Sketchin' the 2017 Indy 500

The good folk from Autoweek Magazine (a wonderful pub that you can check out HERE and maybe even...subscribe?) and Chevrolet sent me to this year's Indianapolis 500 to create another of what is becoming a series of "Great Race Sketchbooks." The race experience exceeded expectations in every way. I spent 5 days on the ground searching the scene for "sketchables." I always feel like I'm never getting enough down on the pad....I took the sketchbooks home and Autoweek indulged me another week and a half or so to flesh out the sketches for publication (Autoweek is the best). Instead of writing an accompanying article, this time I put the comments/narrative its on the drawings themselves. You can check out the article HERE; a selection of sketches below.

San Diego Comics Fest 2016

The good people who run San Diego Comic Fest asked me to do this year's program cover. The honoree was Forrest J. Ackerman, trailblazer of sci-fi fandom and owner of the "Ackermansion" where he kept his mongo collection of movie memorabilia. Most famously he created the "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, and this provided the inspiration for my illo. How could you not have fun digging into these guys? Everything was so last-minute we didn't have a chance to print any posters in time for the Fest--but they are available here on the Comics by Marty Davis website. Check 'em out! I only made it down on the weekend, but lots of fun to see old friends and make some new ones. And gratified to see the Fest reach a whole 'nother level of popularity this year...must've been my cover!

APE CON 2015

San Jose welcomed the great unwashed alternative masses to their downtown this weekend past, and boy did we have fun. A proper blogsite would have blasted fans and followers with the news beforehand, but we prefer to work retroactively thru the psychological mechanism called REGRET.

"See what you missed in San Jose...?"

ECCC Action

If you buy a copy of FUME! the Comic (or a Brushpen Breakfast sketchbook), I will happily, gladly, and gratefully do a sketch for you on the back page. Here are some examples from our three days in Seattle at Emerald City (which was, like always, a great time). 

Emerald City Comic Con 2015

I am about to depart on my annual pilgrimage to the Emerald City, or ECCC2015 as they call it. The organizers were kind enough to include my Bride of Frankenstein illustration in the Con's annual charity book, "Monsters & Dames," which will be on sale exclusively on-site. So there's a reason to show.

And I've got a box full o' preview copies of the (much-delayed, still-unfinished, but now with color cover) FUME #1. I started with a tight pencil drawing (in orange & blue, 'natch), scanned it, then printed a real faint version on 11" x 17" paper that I colored with markers (you can see it all on my tumblr). Used the pencils as a "MULTIPLY" layer in PhoSho and let that substitute for doing any proper linework. It means no brushpen, but I wanted to experiment with a more painterly look....

Anyhoo, ECCC: in a burst of post-Con hubris, Rick Schmitz and I ponied up for not one but two tables. We will be at V-03/04. Come by and help us recoup the cost of our hubris!

When you stop by you can check out the new FUME--I'll also have art print versions of the cover that should be beautiful. And I will be doing funny drawings ALL DAY EVERY DAY. I can draw you, along with your favorite superheroes, historical personages, or musical lodestones. Just ask!

Josh Ellingson, Super Artist

I want to be sure to laud a fellow who I think is super-talented, and who helped me out of a jam at last year's A.P.E. Con in San Francisco (I didn't know we table'ing artists would need to supply our own table cloths, and Josh--ever-prepared expert that he is--loaned me a natty black jacquard that kept my space looking smart).

Who is Josh Ellinson, you might ask? Only one of the best graphic designers out there. He does magazine work, he does cover work...but most of all, he does fantastic POSTERS. And these posters are available for sale to the public (that means YOU!).

Shake a leg and check out his SITE!

We bought this pre-framed octopus (among other things) from Josh at A.P.E. last year. At the time it was purely a gotta-get-something-this-seems-cool purchase (we all do those to support artists we like, right?). Didn't have a plan for it. Found a spot behind the dish where we leave our keys...and now it's one of our favorite daily sites. Had it there for half a year now and it ALWAYS brings us a smile (Blair loves it, too).

THAT'S the beauty of buying art!

I bet he's got one for you...?

Thanks, Josh!