It Came From The Beanworld Archives!

"Romance atop the World's Finest"
1984
Color markers & pencils on dime-store bond paper

With all the razz-a-ma-tazz and hoopty-doo going on with DC Comics nowadays, I thought I'd pull this oldie-but-still-goodie tributre out of the Beanworld Archives. I never get tired of drawing leguminous homages to Superman and Batman. Honestly, it's hard for me to believe that this drawing is 27 years old. And how "psychic" was I drawing "Superman" with that high collar, hmmm?

It Came From The Beanworld Archives!

"Late 1970s ~ 20" x 11" ~ Xerography, pen, colored paper, colored markers on cheap copy paper

So I was spending part of my day today thinking about the presentation I'm giving at Stumptown Comics Fest 2011 on Saturday April 16th at noon. (Mouch more on Stumptown in posts over the weekend). I was going through the Beanworld Archives looking for something else and lo & behold, the illo above appeared.

This is from the time I was doing a lot of exploration of how-to-abuse-the-Xerox-machine-at-work. I loved investigating the boundaries of 1970s xerography (a semi-lost art due to digital copying) using photographs I found in the dead files at the ad agency I worked at. Actually at this point, in the late '70s I was in charge of the dead files and for me it was a treasure trove of cornball model photography from the 60s and photos of crops and insects. I rescued all sorts of oddities from the going in the dumpster.

In that day of (analog?) photocopy machines you could really push things in weird directions by copying copies over and over and over again and all sorts of magical things would happen. Now that I think of it, maybe that still can happen, but in this world of digital accuracy I kinda doubt it. Not like back then anyway.

In this primitive world of Magic Tape, Spra-Mount and rubber cement I cobbled together this composition--most likely just seeing-what-I-could-see as I went along. There is are pre-versions of Beanish & Mr. Spook. There is a hint of the Chowdown Pool stairs. There is a more-or-less fully fleshed out Chow Sol'jer.

I don't know why the Madmen-era advertising models people are green. Relatives of J'onn J'onzz maybe.

It doesn't seem finished at all. But I find it interesting. Thought I'd share.

From the Beanworld Archives!

8 1/2" x 11"

The cheapest bond paper imaginable
Black markers and color pencils
Late 1970s

At recent convention appearances, I've made it no secret that Beanworld Book Four: Something More has been slowly taken over by the Boom'r Band.

I set out telling one story and this other one, in a direction I hadn't foreseen, took over. Recently I've learned that this does fold back into the story I originally set out to tell.

The side track is the Origin of the Boom'r Band.
This tale of the Beanworld has been hinted at from time to time, most significantly in a frame of
Beanish Breaks Out! (TOTB #4 and/or page 112 of Wahoolazuma!).

While going through my accumulation of notes regarding the Boom'rs, I found the drawing above. This is part of the going-backwards process I often talk about.

Beanworld started out as a complicated entity and I kept simplifying it, parsing it down, narrowing its scope intil I discovered Gran'Ma'Pa (or maybe Gran'Ma'Pas discovered me...not quite sure!).Then I started moving forward with the comic that became Tales of the Beanworld #1.

I cant say with certainty what year this piece was drawn.
I think late 1970s.

If I recall correctly it an early attempt at a Beanworld story about a human being (it might have been me) who is transported to Beanworld (I've forgotten how) and finds himself (assuming it was me) in a Bean-body.

And in a (clumsy) Wizard of Oz-ish riff finds himself on a red and yellow boardwalk that he follows on his adventures until he...he...I'm not sure as I don't think I ever finished it.

That's The Visitor, surprised, in the lower left hand corner.
That's about all I can recollect.

By 1980 I had come up with the Boom'r Band trio.
They had a different look but they had their current instruments.

In the sky are the four symbols of the Beanworld Tarot.
Two of those symbols came down to the ground as Mystery Pods.
The other two came down even further and became two of the Four Realities.

I really like some of these Beanworld-ed of instruments.
The bass balalaika still works for me.
And the Bonging-thing with the hammers too.
The Harp-ish thing isn't so bad either.

What really jumps out at me though is wooden structure sure looks like something from Angry Birds doesn't it?

The First Time I Drew Professor Garbanzo and the 23 Realities!

I recently came across this curiosity in the Beanworld Archives.
As far as I can reckon, it's the cover that I sent to Eclipse Comics for the solicitation of Tales of the Beanworld #21.

It's a relatively finished piece with all the PMTs in place as if I had intended for this to be the actual art I would color later by hand cutting adhesive screen tone with an X-acto knife on clear acetate overlays. One acetate layer for each color of the four colors of the printing process (black, cyan, magenta, yellow) to be turned into film negatives and then made into plates ready for printing. Having started my career in a film stripping room at a printer, I knew I wasn't particularly skilled at angling screens to prevent moire patterns. But I was knowledgeable enough to compensate for that by always using only one screen pattern over a solid color. Doing so greatly limited my palate but it worked most of the time--excluding the awful pink cover of TOTB #9 which makes me cringe to this day!

Comparing the cover above to the one below, I can see why I redrew it. I simplified the composition by eliminating the other "shards," remembered the "dream pattern" shading I used in earlier issues and changed Proffy's expression to one of more puzzlement.

I get a kick out of discovering these lost pieces.
Hope you do too.

From the Archives AND the Future?

e Beanworld Cityscape With Visitor-To-Be-Named-Later".
1984
8" x 10"
Felt tip pen, color markers, colored pencils on really cheap bond paper.


Is this drawing related to a previously posted drawing?
I reckon so.

Will something like this happen in the Summertime Saga?
It feels far more Autumnal.

It Came From The Beanworld Archives!

"Self-portrait of the bean as a young artist."
Undated
8 1/2" x 11"
Technical pen, felt tip pen, color markers on Bienfang 360 mounted on color clay-based paper.

So there used to be this weird colored paper that was once a fairly common art supply. For the life of me I can't remember the trade name for it, but when I was first in advertising, at the agency, there was a big flat-drawer full of it.

The older art directors called it "clay-based paper."
No one ever used it.

The back side was white and the front side was coated with a thin layer of beautiful lush smooth color.
Brilliant colors.
But the clay-based coating was fragile and easily cracked.

You wanted to work with it because of its brilliant hues. The clay paper surface was so "thirsty" it hungrily soaked up all forms of ink and tempera paints. So I think it was considered a superior art supply in the "Golden Age" of advertising layout when everything was rendered with pen & ink, brushes, and chalk.

But it was absolutely incompatible with dry transfer lettering.
Dry transfer lettering wouldn't adhere to the clay base for even three seconds before it just slid off.

Colored Pantone papers were developed and marketed to work hand in glove with dry transfer lettering. By the time I entered the advertising business Pantone Matching System (PMS) papers had elbowed clay-based out of the way. PMS stuff (papers, markers, and inks) had became the new standard for making layouts.

So, as I said, we had a drawer full of these gorgeous clay-based papers. They were too expensive to throw out but no one wanted them either. Sometimes I'd play around with them.
The illo above is one of those times. The clay-based paper is probably 35 years old or more and the color is still brilliant.

Based on the shapes in the night time sky, I think this is from the late '70s, around the time I made my Beanworld Tarot deck. The "orb"and "hot dog "shapes later transformed into hoops and slats and became the Four Realities. The original shapes became the Mystery Pebbles we know today.

I believe that this piece is less of a true Beanworld study and more of a self-portrait.

More from the Beanworld Archives!

Wakinyan vs Unktehi
Early '80s
81/2" x 11"
Felt tip marker on cheap bond paper

Just found!
Another study of one of my favorite themes: Wakinyan versus Unktehi!
The eternal battle of elemental Gods in the Americas.

Check out the link above to read what I've recently written
about this fascinating mythological phenomenon!

This quick study, clearly takes place in the Beanworld, so it is post 1980.
The circular picture of Dreamishness, however, indicates that this was drawn
some time before her introduction in "The Float Factor" (now in Wahoolazuma!)

More From The Beanworld Archives!

top: 8 3/4" x height: 5 3/4" x bottom: 10 3/4"
Ink, color pencils, color markers on card stock
(really old and yellow card stock!)

This drawing is undated but from the style and the tools used I can tell it is from the late '70s--before I started putting Beanworld stories down onto paper in the sequential art format.

At the time I was deep in study of the Grail Mythos and also very interested in Malevich & Suprematism.

I see the influences here.
All these years later, I still like the basic composition.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn't started telling comic book stories in 1980 and instead had started painting or printmaking.

Never will know the answer to that!

More From the Beanworld Archives!

Mr Spook
12" x 12 1/2"
Pencil drawing on paper
(really old and yellow paper!)

This drawing in on a piece of paper that was from my days at Lithographics, Inc. in Canton, CT.

I can tell because it has pre-printed "live area" and "trim marks" on the back side. Nowadays, you only see these things on comic book art boards, but it was pretty standard stuff in all the graphics arts back then.

I left Lithographics during Bicentennial Week in 1976.
I moved from Connecticut, where I'd gone to art school, back to my hometown of Chicago. I brought a lot of paper scraps with me because there were certain stocks that I really liked drawing on.

Do I remember the names?
Nope.
Not a clue.

Even if I did remember, chances are, the paper companies long ago were absorbed into a huge paper mega-conglomerates and the names stocks have been renamed.

The drawing itself is undated but it wasn't drawn in Connecticut.
Based on the style, I'd say it's from the mid-80s 'cuz that's the "real" Mr.Spook and Fork.
And he's riding some sort of Thunderbird vehicle.
(But it does have a wee bit of foreshadowing of things that happen in Here There!)

I don't remember drawing it.

I don't quite know what it's supposed to be or when in the Beanworld story arc it is intended to take place.
Not sure if it is a "real" Thunderbird or if it is some sort of symbol on shield.
Could be either.

But I like it.
So I thought I'd share it!

-----

It Came From The Beanworld Archives!

Pencil page layout
8 1/2" x 11" on bond paper
Circa 1983

A layout for a page that became page 30 of TOTB #1, page 36 of the Volume #1 of the old Beanworld TPBs and currently is page 36 of the Beanworld hardcover Wahoolazuma.

In those days, I used to pencil pages in the finished size and then blow them up on a photocopier. I then inked on single-ply Strathmore on a homemade light box my Dad made for me. (Long lost in the fog of many moves.)

I didn't start inking on double-ply board until about halfway through the run of TOTB.

Because I was always laboring for myself, I never had to work according to any industry standard rules or regulations. To the best of my recollection, I've never pencilled a page directly onto the paper and then inked over my pencil lines.

Sometimes I still come across pages that were discarded for some reason and the photocopy is still taped to the back of the board.

I still have two store-bought light boxes and I rarely have any reason whatsoever to use either!

It Came From The Beanworld Archives!

Hmmmm.

This is clearly some sort of preliminary pencil for "Beanish Breaks Out!"
It's (more or less) the drawing that appears on pg 115 of Wahoolazuma! but the actual dialogue doesn't appear until pg 117.

I have absolutely no idea why I drew it on a lined pad.

Normally, at home I drew in a sketch book so I would be able to sort through my notes in a reasonable fashion. I guess that means I did it on the job at the ad agency. During this period of time (mid '80s) I was going to a lot of client meetings and doing a lot of account executive-type work. I did a lot of scribble/doodling on lined pads during those meetings but this drawing looks like I was being rather careful and making an attempt to be precise.

The drawing is old, wrinkled, rather yellowed and the paper a bit fragile. I have a hunch that it might have been exposed to some sunlight at some point--but who knows?

From the Beanworld Archives!

Beanworld Gothic

1986 5 1/2" x 7 1/4"

Ink on Crescent No. 201 Illustration Board

I've written before about the little illos I used to call "chip drawings" and sold off of my table at conventions.
Most of the time I made the actual drawings on the spot, but sometimes, I'd make some bigger and fancier ones in advance. This is a photocopy of one of those advance drawings.

It was drawn on Crescent No. 201 Hot Press Medium Weight Illustration Board which is what we used for all our keyline mechanicals at the ad agency. We had a big ol' heavyweight paper cutter that was already a junky antique when I first "met it" over 30 years ago.

It actually took some skill to cut board with it straight and smoothly. A lot of long and thin slivers of board used to end up in the trash can. I thought it was a shame to waste such good drawing stock. So I'd slice up the long slivers into little rectangles of thoroughly arbitrary sizes. I'd put 'em in a baggie and then take the "chips" to cons and pull 'em out and draw on 'em.

I probably sold hundreds of "chip drawings" between 1985 to the mid-90s. I have absolutely zero idea of how many still survive. Nor do I have a clue as to who might have taken home "Beanworld Gothic" and if it is still in their possession.

I still have a small stash of blank chips in my possession. They are at least 20 years old because it has been almost that long since I regularly worked with it as an art supply.

Archival Synchronicity?

I'll let Aaron King of MEGATONik start this post:

"Every year, for the past four years, the great folks at the Comic Book Resources Classic Comics forum have participated in a Classic Comics Christmas list. Thought up and moderated by the Spectacular Kurt Mitchell, past lists have been built around favorite single issues, favorite characters, and favorite comic adaptations and merchandise. This year, the topic was favorite covers from before 1990.

So, presented here with gracious permission from Kurt Mitchell and the rest of the Classic Comics crew, are my picks for this years Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas.

My selections were chosen with no solid criteria but were all pulled from my personal collection. Generally I wanted them to stand on their own, regardless of the story inside. If someone needed some information from inside the comic, the cover was probably disqualified from my list. Also, I looked for pieces that were more than pretty drawings. Either they exhibited something new and weird or they utilize the form and tropes of comics in a way that moves them away from being anything other than comic art. Of course, there are pieces that break all of these rules. Enjoy."

Well, one of the covers on his list was TOTB#2.

He wrote: "Anyone that read last week’s Emanata knows how much I love Beanworld, and here’s another little dip into that strange place. Automatic points for the graphic design element of including the main illustration inside a box, and you can just feel how worn out and full those beans are despite how non-representational the art is."

Thanks for the kind words, Aaron.

This morning, I decided to dip into the Beanworld Archives looking for something to post. One of the first pieces to pop into my hand was the piece below. It's the color comp that I made for TOTB #2. I thought more like an advertising creative director than comic book creator at the time. I was very accustomed to making ad comps for client approval. I treated myself like a client and so I would do things like making full comp layouts for Beanworld ventures for myself to approve. As time went by, this internal agency/client relationship disappeared as I became more familiar with how Beanworld was perceived in the marketplace and started to make it up on the drawing board as I went along.

Anyway, as you can see, it is totally old school, a messy paste-up done with marker on layout paper and some photocopies stuck on with Spra-Mount. I can see that I thought about some decorative dingbats to be put outside the frame of the illo but decided against them and just covered then with bits of paper. Looks like I followed my layout pretty closely.

From the Beanworld Archives

Sculpture Garden #3: World's Finest Sculpture

Marker on sketchbook paper
9" x 12"
1986

As always apologies to DC Comics

Haven't a clue why I drew this when I did....probably at a convention after a day of drawing Beanworld sketches. I reckon I liked it enough to take it home. I really do enjoy doing my own takes on other folk's characters from time to time. Heh.

From the Beanworld Archives!

Lurking Strangers

11" x 17"

Markers, color pencils on bristol board

1987

With the smoke from the wild fires billowing over the horizon in the distance today...this piece seems somehow appropriate. Although I'm quite certain that this drawing was actually some sort of internal dialogue I was having after working on an advertising job that had to do with antibiotics, antibacterial formulas or something germ-phobic.

From The Beanword Archives!

Skull and Crossbones, sorta

6" x 11"

Colored markers and rapidograph on card stock

The drawing is undated and the card stock has aged into this creamy color. I suspect that is because at some point it was mounted on something else--because the backside is streaked with the markings of a rubber cement brush. That clue, along with the style, gives me a hint of the year I drew it--probably the late '70s. I might even hazard a guess that I'd been working on a layout for a toxic insecticide or something that day and went home and drew this. I used to do that sort of thing a lot.

I really only used rubber cement from the mid-70s to around 1980 when I (for better or for worse) switched to Spra-Mount. Rubber cement was primitive and pretty much was guaranteed to stay stuck for only a few short years. Spra-Mount seems to last far, far longer sometimes. but it is really messy, nasty stuff and fortunately I don't seem to have to use any of that sort of gunk'l'dunk anymore.

From the Beanworld Archives!

I'm home and back in the saddle in the studio. Just doing the finishing touches for the cover art for Larry Marder's Beanworld Book Two: A Gift Comes! If everything goes according to plan--it will be on sale June 9, 2009. Like Book One--it will be an affordable hardcover with all the pages of story rescanned from the original artwork.

But the drawing above has absolutely nothing to do with Larry Marder's Beanworld Book Two: A Gift Comes! except that it from the same era that those original Beanworld stories were originally drawn.

I don't think that this piece was actually ever published. If it was, I'm not sure where. Assuming my memory serves me correctly, this piece was drawn for a Canadian Batman fanzine that was supposed to be published around the time of the first Tim Burton movie.

I think T. M. Maple asked me to contribute to it and that somehow the plans for the 'zine fell apart due to the ever zealous and vigilant Warner Brothers legal department that didn't really quite understand what purpose a fanzine served in the food chain of fandom.

I could be wrong. But that is what I remember. Anyway, I always liked this idea a lot.

Beanworld Buzz Abounds!
Stuff about Beanworld (good, bad, and indifferent) keeps popping up on the Internet and so I thought I'd pass some of it along to you.

I have no idea what this might say--but it is clearly about Beanworld

Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?

Reid Harris Cooper

Fictions

Heck, It’sa Buncha Comics, You Betcha!

The Daily Cross Hatch

Howling Curmudgeons

A Nice Cup of Rabies

Hi! (Books, bikes, movies and me)

Ernie's 3D Pancakes

Comic Geek Speak

Comic Books Beta

Comics and Other Imaginary Tales

From the Beanworld Archives!

8" x 10"

Marker and colored marker

1987

I'm guessing that this was an unsold convention sketch. Mostly 'cuz it is marked $7- on the back in my handwriting. Considering the reasonably priced black and white "chip drawings" I was marketing at conventions at the time--I'd have passed up on this drawing myself! Now I like it way too much to part with it.

One of these says I'm going to write about the chip drawings in more depth. How many of you folks still have one or two of 'em?

And, speaking of donuts....

Descending Donut

8 1/2" x 11"
Marker on bond paper

Here is a drawing of one I found in the Beanworld Archives. No date on it but based on my style and tools it is from the late '70s.
Pretty sure I remember the subject matter too. Right around the corner from the ad agency I worked at, there was a restaurant named O'Connell's. By the time I was patronizing the place in the late '70s it was ancient and everything in it was cracked or chipped. It had an old-time menu full of stuff like liver and onions, meat loaf and mashed potatoes, and on Wednesday the special was olive burgers and the art department and production guys would go there a lot. The waitresses there were tough old ladies who never messed up and order and always called you "Doll" or "Honey."
I also popped in there every morning to purchase a donut at the grill. It was always the same waitress. She had on enough makeup to make Tammy Fae Baker jealous and a big beehive hairdo. I'd walk up and she'd say "Chok-lit, hun?"And I'd nod and she'd spear a chocolate donut on the cardboard tray and put it in a white paper bag.
I can't remember when O'Connell's closed. I do remember that in its space went an Abercrombie & Fitch store. Well, the whole block was demolished anyway, and now its full of big touristy stores.
But I'd recognize that "chok-lit" donut anywhere!

More From The Beanworld Archives!

A Beanworld Study in Bat Aesthetics

11" x 14"
Colored pencils, markers, and ink on bristol board

This study is from the late '70s in my "Bat Period."
I think this was a variation on a Bat-Mite theme.
I had it up next to my drawing board in my home studio for many years.