Rather than toss out old laser prints in work, I keep a stack of them in front of my keyboard as a scratch pad. Usually I scribble out numbers, notes and nonsense, but occasionally I get carried away doodling with a ballpoint pen or a Flair marker. Most of it is garbage, but sometimes I like what rolls out of the end of my pen like my sketch of Ben Grimm above. I started this sketch with a green Flair and went back at it with a Faber-Castell brush pen.
I used to read Fantastic Four and Marvel Two-in-One back in the ’70s when comics were in spinning racks and they only cost a quarter. I always wondered if there was some sort of guidebook to the shapes and number of rocks that comprised the Thing’s head. Was their an editor who complained that someone had drawn too few or too many rocks?
Here’s another doodle of what turned out to be a hipster/greaser guy that was completely unconscious on my part. He kind of looks like the big headed alien guys from This Island Earth. He was also done in green Flair (which I’ve really grown to love again having ignored them since Charles Nelson Reilly used to shill for felt tips)Â and I hit it quickly with a brush pen.
Sometimes I cut these things out and paste them into a sketchbook, but I’ve amassed a sloppy pile of recycled laser prints held together with a bulldog clip. I’ve got to go through those things.
