Monster Mash

Some things never change. I used to work on class projects in my bedroom studio in my parents’ house while a 13-inch black and white TV set played trash. Last night I was sketching for fun while watching trash from roughly that era. It was 1979 and NBC executive Fred Silverman thought it would be a great idea to give one of television’s iconic detectives a crime solving spouse. So they got 24-year old Kate Mulgrew; gave her a 10-year old daughter and had her go through the motions of sleuthing out homicides in stories that felt like writers had them sitting around in a desk drawer gathering dust.

Episodes of Mrs Columbo are available to view on TubiTV. I watched a couple episodes as I penciled the two guys struggling with the Frankenstein monster above. I never watched the show in its initial run, but I remember television critics at the time deriding it as being a creatively bankrupt knock-off of a better show which it was. Upon watching it I was relieved that Kate Mulgrew didn’t effect the voice and mannerisms of Peter Falk. It just seemed to be a generic murder mystery television series, and it was perfect background noise to sketching.

I am continuing my sketches in my now nearly depleted Out of This World sketch pad. Seated on the couch and sketching in small, cheap sketchbooks as trash plays on the television is how I wind down my evenings.

This entry was posted in Illustration, It Came From the Sketchbook, Sketch and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.