mr. rock and the delicate blown glass unicorn

I have been drawing werewolves all week for a Halloween comic, but I took some time this afternoon to finish and color a Mr. Rock cartoon that I inked a while ago.  Unlike many of the Mr. Rocks I’ve posted so far, this one was not scanned right out of my sketchbook.  Instead, it’s a real finished drawing drawn on the actual drawing board on genuine drawing paper.  Mr. Rock copes well enough with this, and frankly, nobody wants to see a badly botched sketchbook drawing of a Delicate Blown Glass Unicorn.  Very few of the Kekionga characters are supposed to be “pretty”, and I have a hard time managing the whole concept under even the best of conditions.

Mr. Rock lives in two worlds (so far): the “real world” of Kekionga’s full sized characters and objects, and a “toy world” of sometimes-sentient objects in scale with himself.

mr rock in sketchbook world

No one was more surprised than I was to discover that Mr. Rock was my first character who pretty much demands to appear in color.  The others don’t mind it, but Mr. Rock doesn’t feel like himself without his turquoise shirt, pink bicorder, and mint green complexion.  He’s going to have to get used to it eventually, since I can’t afford to print minicomics in color, but for digital presentation, well, he is going to be in flatted color even if the rest of the drawing is not.

The “three rocks” is a comics trope made famous in Ernie Bushmiller’s  “Nancy” and later in the meta meanderings of “Zippy the Pinhead”.  In my universe, one of the three (at least) will be a Spirit Rock.

Attentive fans of Mr. Rock will notice that I made a pretty big error in this drawing.  How well do you know our favorite Plutonian’s character design, and what mistake did I make?

the long awaited return of mr. rock!

I did not plan for this to happen.  For the last three weeks World Headquarters has been all about Health Care- all kinds of Health Care for multiple members of the household.  None of it was Covid related, which is a good thing, but that didn’t make it an easy time.  The inks for the Mr. Rock comic are actually moving again, and in the mean time I have some freshly colored cartoons to share.   

It takes a giant coffee mug to hold a space opera hero.  The pink friendly shark is just a bonus.  You can tell this was originally a sketchbook drawing because it’s very slightly whopperjawed and leaning to the right.  Forty years and more of practice has never been enough to cure this.

minicomics live: crisis … and resolution

The last two pages of Mission Equinox are finally penciled.  You’ve got some space opera action, including some sci-fi upside downness, some corny montage, some sleeping stegosaurus.  Yes, I know stegosauruses almost certainly slept standing up, like a rhinoceros, an elephant, or a even a horse, but this is funnier.

Lettering tomorrow.  Lots and lots of lettering.

The Shoebox Spacecraft is harder to draw than I thought it would be.

minicomics live: giant space worm

Minicomics Live continues.  This is the page with the giant space worm on it.  I really, really like the giant space worm.

Also, we need a page number and an engine nacelle on the falling Shoebox Spacecraft.

Also, also, so much lettering in this comic.

minicomics live: about a bleach bottle spaceship

minicomics live: box lunch

The Admiral eats her box lunch, and Mr. Rock is nosy about it.  Hope that private log really is private, or else that the Admiral is tolerant of scientific curiosity.  And yes, a dinosaur’s box lunch has “dinosaur food” written on the box. How else would she get the right one? That’s how we roll on our Shoebox Spacecraft.

minicomics live- two more pages of pencils

Work on Mission: Equinox continues.  Here are two more pages of finished pencils.  Most of what’s going on here artistically is developing the the character of Rear Admiral Grace.  She is amazingly hard to draw, as I try to balance “real stegosaurus”, “plastic toy stegsaurus” and “admiral in a space opera navy” in her character design.  Why I chose a challenge like this to introduce a complicated person like Grace, I have no idea.  It just sorta happened.

The Time Cook is a tribute to my new favorite kitchen timer, the Extra Big and Loud  Timer (yes, that is its real name) from ThermoWorks.  It is truly a mighty beast.

This comic has a ridiculous amount of lettering in it.  Onward!

minicomics live: finished script

If any minicomics script is ever finished.  This is as finished as it is probably going to get before it makes contact with the page.  There is definitely one place I will have to make a major decision on the fly.

Mr. Rock: Mission: Equinox v2

a Minicomics Live Minicomic by Pam Bliss ©2020

Random word list:  Equinox, Refuse, Clock or Cloakroom, Grace, Wild Rice, Rear Admiral, Spindle, The Iliad (changed it to the Odyssey just because), Diorama or Dinosaur, Review.

Cast: Mr. Rock, Rear Admiral Grace, a centipede, various objects and toys

p1 (right): cover: Space Opera style movie poster featuring Mr. Rock’s Shoebox Spacecraft,  the Pluto Star.

page turn

p2 (left) : (splash: Mr. Rock is in the Shoebox with a large book, a digital kitchen timer, and a plastic Stegosaurus wearing a cardboard Star Navy insignia on a ribbon around her neck.)

Mr. Rock (narrating): Tonight’s mission is simple: to confirm the Autumnal Equinox using the Celestial Chronometer provided.  However, it is complicated somewhat by the presence on board of Rear Admiral Grace, who is conducting my annual performance review.

p3

two panels. each the same size

panel 1: Mr. Rock is seated on a large paperback book, looking at his bicorder.

Mr. Rock (narrating):I have been provided with a copy of Homer’s Odyssey for entertainment.  It seems somewhat bulky, so I turn to a download on my bicorder.

panel 2: He looks up and the Admiral is eating out of a box.  She chomps loudly.

Mr. Rock (narrating): The Admiral eats her box lunch.    The bicorder indicates her meal consists primarily of wild rice.

page turn

p.4

two panels, one large, one small

large panel:  The shoebox sized Pluto Star and a much larger ship made out of several bleach bottles taped together are silhouetted against the moon in front of a bedroom window

Mr. Rock (narrating): A moment of excitement when the sensors detect the presence of another ship on a parallel course, much larger than the Pluto Star and moving fast.  The bicorder confirms she is a Jovian Bleach Bottle bulk freighter.  She passes safely and is lost in the void.

small panel: Mr. Rock is reading on his bicorder again.

Mr. Rock (narrating):The hero of the Odyssey, whose name I cannot spell the same way twice, has encountered several seductive sorceresses, and also a Cyclops. Rather entertaining.

page 5

two small panels and a big one?

panel1

a giant space worm!

Mr. Rock (narrating): Mighty beasts in our world are a more serious matter. This was the largest Space Worm I have ever seen.

panel 2

it’s squirming around!

Mr.Rock (narrating): In spite of its formidable appearance, it is a harmless creature and I shifted the Pluto Star to avoid injuring it.

panel 3

the ship falls off the dresser.  in the background, a centipede or millipede is clinging to the screen covering the window.

Mr. Rock (narrating): Unfortunately, this disturbed our point of stability and, with only the local effect engines active, sent us plunging into the rift below.

page turn

p6 (left)

two panels- big one over a small one

panel 1 space opera hero panel. the ship tumbles, then jets up past itself with its main engine (in the center of the rear framework) activated.

Mr. Rock (narrating): I had less than a second to ignite the main drive.  It was a tense moment.

panel 2

montage with relieved admiral, clock, view of the moon.

Mr. Rock (narrating): We returned to the point of stability just as the celestial chronometer clicked down to zero.  The nearby planetoid was in perfect position: the Equinox was proved.

(caption or even montage could move to page 7??)

.

p7  return to the peaceful scene inside the shoebox.  callback to p2?

Mr. Rock (narrating): The rest of the mission was uneventful.  I learned to spell Odysseus. Unfortunately, I remain unsure of the outcome of my review.

page turn

p8 (left): back cover: two shot of Mr. Rock and Rear Admiral Grace

Mr. Rock (narrating): The Admiral, as always, is enigmatic.

 

minicomics live: front cover pencils

The front cover of Mission: Equinox, so far.  I did say there might be Giant Alien Worms.  You think I could ignore a challenge like that?

This is the best thing about Minicomics Live: watching the pages start to come off the board and knowing that this particular comic would never have happened if you hadn’t opened that dictionary to those exact ten words.

And yes, the worm is not attacking.  That’s on purpose.