Zooniverse Minicomic #2

It is official! Helen Maier and I now own a publishing house!  
We took the plunge through our new Australian company Zoonitoons, printing two comics:- Zooniverse mini #2 and a reprint of issue #1. Launching them at the Armageddon Comic Expo in Melbourne. Halfway through Saturday we recovered our printing costs.
We are sincerely grateful to everyone who supported us by buying copies! 

Introducing Zooniverse minicomic #2 . . . a little bit of Australian comic history
This issue collects some my pre-Zooniverse comics published in Melbourne around 1983-84 and nine illustrations I did for the UK at the same time. All of the artwork in this issue was rescued last June after 15 years mouldering in a Queensland garage. Back in our possession we were shocked to discover the poor condition of what remains. Luckily we found a few old bromide copies and although most of the out-of-print mint copies I had of Australian comics containing my work were nicked a decade ago by our light-fingered ex-employees, a couple of original comic magazines survived. It was important to get this work scanned and printed before the originals deteriorated further, becoming unusable. 

Please keep in mind that all the line art was done before computers, using brushes and metal nibs dipped in ink bottles!

The Cover of Zooniverse mini comic #2 Available at www.zoonitoons.com

The cover for Zoonimini #2 is a huge coup to finally have this art printed after waiting almost three decades. It was originally done, when I was 21 years old, as a wrap-around cover for Inkspots issue #5 back in 1984 (the year Helen and I met). Unfortunately the comic magazine was abandoned by it's publisher and the original art was either lost or stolen. All that was left to work with was a single twenty eight year old bromide. I was so happy to finally scan it and digitally colored it! Seeing as we were getting posters printed we have an A3 version that will be available for purchase on the Zoonitoons' website. The poster includes the 3 zoons that were cropped out so that the Kren Patrol could be featured on the above cover.

Here is how the Inkspots cover looked back in 1984...

Unprinted wrap-around cover for Inkspots #5

The stories inside Zoonimini #2 include "Sproat Fanbunder & Spleen Sphincter: the infamous repairmen" which was originally printed as a two parter in Reverie comic magazine issues #6 in 1983 and #7 in 1984 (I did the second installment while working on the original Zooniverse series). Below is the front page for the story, the original art was never returned from the printer, so I assume that puts it in the stolen category.

The front page for the "The infamous repairmen" in Zooniverse mini comic #2

Below is the cover for issue #7 as it was printed in 1984. I had to do the colors by hand separation, which meant a separate piece of art for each CMYK color, it was tricky to guess the right combination of values to make a subtle color. I no longer have this original art or my mint copies of Reverie, so I relied on the help of fellow veteran cartoonist Ian Thomas to send me a scan of the cover which I repaired as shown above. Without Ian's gracious help this art would have been lost forever.

The original Reverie #7 cover featuring "The infamous repairmen" from 1984

The story for the infamous repairmen on the surface seems to be a flippant and shameless plug I did back then for the upcoming Zooniverse comic, but it is actually deeply personal allegory for my childhood. With Spleen representing my father, Sproat my mother, Snok as me and the Clone-a-gram as my art (Zooniverse). My two younger brothers don't make an appearance but they were essentially treated the same as me, so Snok could easily represent them too. I'll leave you to figure out the rest should you get your hands on this story. 

The first appearance of a Clone-a-gram from "The infamous repairmen" 1983

The second story in Zoonimini #2 is "Sacred Stripture". For this one I set myself a ludicrous challenge. I wanted to combine old illustrations with my recent "History" animation so that the story looped between the comic and the animation. The animation shows the Sacred Text scrolling in the background and the comic is the Sacred Text! I had to turn the old illustrations from 1983 into a Holy Stripture, within less than a week due to the printing schedule!

Below is the introductory page. I had trouble incorporating it into the story until woke up one morning realizing that the artist portrayed in the image is the Notator:- the zoon who wrote the Stripture! I've always loved this image which at the time summed up my personal feelings about being an artist. It was a bold experiment before I found my "Zooniverse" style. I was choosing a direction here, the pig drawing was an old comfortable look that I'd used for my earlier "TimeTree" comic. The spooks were an entirely new style of mine that has never been published and the "Notator" character was halfway between my previous Asphyxiation work and the emerging Zooniverse technique. Again, the original art was never returned from the printer, and presumed stolen, so I scanned and restored the image from the printed cover.

The front page for the "Sacred Stripture" in Zooniverse mini comic #2

The image above was originally published in 1984 as the cover for Fox Comics issue #4 shown below, I'm pretty sure that I did the art in 1983. Obviously I've flipped it for story flow, but I've always liked that the original cover made little sense until the back cover revealed the artist character...

Original wrap-around cover for Fox comics issue #4

"Sacred Stripture" includes new art that I took from the "History" animated loop, I also made new panels with assets created in Flash (below left). The Rector and his innocent Supplelicant are recent artwork, the rest (below right) was originally done in 1983 when I was twenty years old for two publications in England. These random images were pre-Zooniverse and gave me a chance to experiment with inking styles while creating strange environments over which the publisher pasted badly photocopied code for the Spectrum (an early home computer that was released in the UK).

Old and new art combined in "Sacred Stripture" the second Zoonimini story.

Below is the second book of "Astounding Arcade Games" which was published exclusively in England in 1984. I had finished the art a year before for issue #1 and the publisher reused my art without my permission for the second book, this time cutting images up to make it look like new work. The cover below is a mash up of two pieces of art, and no I didn't color it. I once possessed a mint copy of the first book but it's long gone now so I can't verify it's exact name.

Cover for Astounding Arcade games for your Spectrum issue #2 printed in the UK

I now have the original illustrations in my care and used most of them for the Sacred Stripture. I scanned them shuffling them around until some semblance of a theme came into view. I now have a Zooniverse based Holy Scripture to form religions and philosophies off with Zoons misinterpreting and misquoting the texts. This is going to be fun!

Spak's back story

[Edit 2021 - The shockwave file is available HERE at my Patreon]

The Loop De Loop animation challenge for this month was "Mad", so I had to do something on Spak! 
[SPOILERS AHEAD...]

Due to commitments coloring Rex Vectar, another comic of mine, for Clubhouse Comics and the Australian government making me run around for a week so that bureaucratic boxes could be checked, I ended up with only four days to produce this entire loop, including writing the script and editing the audio with Helen Maier's wonderful musical score. Somehow I got it done and two days later it was screened at the Loop Bar. I was overjoyed!

Spak in happier times. Still from the animation.

This animation deals with a some of Spak's back story: how his lover died 2100 years ago.
In the early stages of the War Between the Sexes, the four races of the Motherhood Empire escaped their domineering male counterparts to live peacefully on their fem-constructed worldship, they called Girlaxia. Being a single sex meant that clonebirthing was the Foremothers only means of reproduction, but biologically many femzoons needed male companionship and sexplay, so they created the Plastoid race, a genetically obedient population of synthetic malezoons. Using their own DNA the Foremothers batched male duplicates of themselves in living plastic, the game was to find their copy. Girlaxia was so enormous that it dwarfed giant gas planets so often the copies never met, some found each other and formed deep friendships, but quite a few bonded.

Althra was clonedbirthed into flesh from her own ancient genes when Spak was over 900 years old. (Plastoids are non-biodegradable by the way). The two copies found each other and fell in deeply in love.

A moment of horror. A still from the animation.

Spak and Althra were both Scy-Borraine warriors, fighting side by side during the height of the War Between the Sexes. When Girlaxia fell they were still holding back hordes of fleshmales on the planet Asu-Assala. Plastoids don't eat or sleep, Althra simply couldn't keep up. Overwhelmed she was skewered and paraded around until Spak could reach and protect her shredded corpse.

Above is the original panel from issue #3 of the Zooniverse series from 1986 (Entox is in the foreground by the way). I traced a lot of this comic art for the animation, trying to keep it as acurate as possible. The image on the left is the original painted art that I've scanned and not adjusted in any way, yes the paints have survived for twenty six years. The image on the right I scanned from the comic so that you could see how it printed. For the animation I took my color cues from the printed version. The deeper red suggested a bloodbath without me having to stoop to showing gore.

Spak seethes. A still from the animation.

I love the above image, the moment when Spak cracks!
I made a last minute decision to include the image below in the animation. Meeting the deadline, meant that I had to work all night. The image was traced from my 1991 roughs for page 30 of the unpublished book Age Old Enemies. I'm glad that it has finally seen the light of day!

Spak takes his revenge. A still from the animation.

 Above is another panel from issue #3 of the original Zooniverse series. It shows Spak during his banishment on Asu-Assala by the Plastoid Society who decide to hide until the Foremothers return. Spak is worshiped as the Dead God Krantrak by the locals, who Spak ritually kills.... it's an even longer story. Again the original paints on the left, the printed version on the right.

The Birth of the Zooniverse

[Edit 2021 - The shockwave file is available HERE on my Patreon]

Last month's Loop De Loop animation challenge theme was "elements" which gave me the opportunity to animate the birth of the Zooniverse.

The scientist who becomes the Zooniverse. Still from the animation.

The animations were traced from comic panels from Lifeworks. For more background on the origin story go to this earlier post.

Animated Zooniverse

That's right, Zooniverse is now animated. [Edit 2021- Moved to my Patreon as loop De Loop removed their older content] The monthly animation challenge was just right for me to begin the year with the new direction for Zooniverse. I hope you all like it.

The Originator the ancient being who, along with the Zooniverse, has co-created all things and beings. (Click to enlarge)

The whole piece was completed in two weeks along with music by Helen Maier, and I am currently reworking the animation for an HD version. The screening at the "Loop" venue went very well and I am very grateful to the LoopDeLoop team for this wonderfully creative event.

A special thanks to Colin Paraskevas

Zooniverse would never have existed without Colin Paraskevas and I'd like to take a moment to explain his involvement in the comic's development. When I met Colin I was a kid armed with bundles of folders each as thick as a phone-book, packed with character designs and concepts, at any opportunity I'd enthusiastically explain each world and it's inhabitants. Colin suggested that I pick one concept and focus on it, something that could house all of the other ideas. At the time Zooniverse was just one of a multitude of concepts that was buried in my sketch pile. It was about a man turning himself into a living universe, and that was it. Colin thought it was perfect! So I began a very vague series of story-lines about how the Zooniverse came into being. Influenced by Kenneth Smith's Phantasmagoria, I broke it into chapters for each wave of evolutionary lifeforms. From Mulouscoids, to Insectoids, then Lizardoids, eventually to Humanoids, describing how each reached sentience. What I showed Colin was more observational and distant than the rollicking adventure he was expecting.
(Please click to enlarge any image).

An early concept page for Crastalla an Insectoid created at the age of 18 in 1981

[Just a quick segue.....
You may recognize the name Crastalla in the image above as the planet that the Kren Patrol escaped to at the end of the comic series. Well, a Shadanese agent called Althra searches for their whereabouts in a follow up unpublished story called "Age Old Enemies." As you can see many of the original ideas from the sketch above bore fruit ten years later in the panels below. The Hollowlands are where Larote Quoke, now the leader of a village of Insectoids who ride tame Blimpsnails, rescues Althra from a pack of Arachnoid troglodytes. Obviously this story would have been more to Colin's liking, but I did this version after his influence on me.]

Two panels from "Age Old Enemies"

Colin took matters into his own hands, wanting to focus my attention, he randomly picked two characters out of the stack of thousands and said, "Okay make a story out of these two!" It was Lokki and Tulky.  Two characters that I'd never thought to put together, but I was up for the challenge and began working on their comic. The comic never saw the light of day, but I've kept the story. Chronologically it happens after the Kren Patrol leave Crastalla and are kidnapped by pirates, ooh but you don't know about that yet! Ssshh. I would often redesign my characters, redrawing them out of a curiosity to see how they would look with my evolving abilities. Here's Tulky as he changed over the years with Lokki, who was originally called Entox.

This first Zooniverse comic never saw print, but by a wonderfully weird co-incidence, Colin's seemingly random choice of picking Lokki, inadvertently tapped into a deep root, for he was a very old character who had been with me since I was thirteen years old. Lokki had been a member of the Nerk Patrol, with a tall skinny character and a big heavy bruiser. I had pages of brush inked comics I'd done of the Nerk Patrol. So the obvious thing was to revisit my old team and redesign them to see if they could fit in this new Zooniverse.It turns out that they did!! I didn't feel right about using the word Nerk as I'd lifted it from years of listening to the The Goon Show on the radio, it was invented by Spike Milligan as a silly, but derogatory term for an idiot. I didn't want that for my new team so I swapped the letters around and renamed them the Kren Patrol!

As the years passed Colin saw my Kren Patrol designs and noticed that the big bruiser was called Lokki and the little green guy was called Entox, he suggested I swap their names because Entox sounded like a big guy's name. It was a wrench at the time, but he was absolutely correct.

So fast forward to late 1984. The Zooniverse series is in development, fellow artist, Helen Maier is permanently a part of my life, and Colin is paying my rent at $70 a week. I was living in the top quarter of a very cold subdivided mansion, spending whole days immersed in Zooniverse, designing and planning the series, pulling all of those ideas into a cohesive story. So many wonderful things were fitting into place, and I was grateful for them all, it was an incredibly creative time! 

The apartment where Zooniverse series was created, with Helen Maier and myself in our beloved bay window. In Melbourne Australia.

Colin only visited a couple of times, but his story advice was invaluable. Originally the first issue began on what is now page 2, the Control Lords were something I added after he suggested that the story was too linear and needed a second plot. So I created a new first page that, at Colin's suggestion, summarized the entire series. Page 6 was split in half to bookend a new page and a half of Control Lord business. The rest of the issue is as I wrote it, with a little editorial support from Michael Logan. When Colin's rent payments ended somewhere in 1985 Michael Logan, Allister Hardiman and I began an illustration company to service the Advertising Industry (they did the five page Gatcheralis back up story in issue #1).

My method to completing finished pages from rough to ink took five stages, and Colin was always frustrated that it was too slow a technique. I tried to cut steps out but unfortunately I lacked the seasoned skill to confidently remove my safety nets, I simply wasn't that good a draftsman. I did marker inked roughs the same size as the printed comic, which I enlarged to half size up, traced and inked again with markers, traced that on to my inking paper and cleaned it up with blue pencil. Now that the work was done I could have fun, I didn't like to think at the inking stage, just gesture and let the spontaneity have it's way. I believe that the structural work created muscle memory that allowed my brush and nib work to be fluid and enjoyable. I was unable to explain it to Colin, he would just roll his eyes, but I have to say that I never missed a deadline.

Colin had big and admirable plans to set up a publishing empire, he talked to other artists about their titles. If Zooniverse had been a huge success, things would have been very different and very exciting in sleepy 'old Melbourne. Colin and I only expected the 6 issue series to be a test run, to iron out the relationship with the American market after which we intended to make Zooniverse a regular series. Alas, fate was not our friend.

So the series went to print, Colin bankrolled the entire publication, but decided to go through Eclipse, which was news to me. I can only guess that he wanted to work with a company with publication experience. There were a number of hurdles. We had a month to paint the first issue. For three weeks the Australian custom officials held a strike, which left us with a week to hand paint thirty pages of bromides, plus the cover. You may have noticed the 2 panels on page 23 where the Kren Patrol are unpainted, was it for dramatic effect? No. I had simply run out of time and after three all-nighters in a row I just couldn't cope. Micheal Logan wrenched the artwork out of my hands and took it to FedEx before they closed. Thanks Australian Customs.

The unpainted panels on Page 23 from Issue #1, the gouache was mixed with my tears.

We wanted Zooniverse to have subtle European colors, but the printers cranked up the color on nearly every issue, ruining our hard work with over saturation and shoddy workmanship. Colin tried so hard to remedy the problem but it never worked out. Either Eclipse didn't care or they were simply negligent, I have no idea.But relations became strained between Minotaur Books and Eclipse.

Understandably Colin was disappointed, things weren't turning out quite as he expected. We  briefly clashed over censorship of my editorial for issue #4. With Colin's approval, somebody, and I never found out who, made me say things I simply didn't agree with. Thankfully Colin let me do the issue #5 editorial without interference and I tried to clarify my position. However he was on the censorship war path, I guess I'd just put too many sexual innuendos into my work, tame by comparison to Heavy Metal and Underground Comix which I had weaned on in my youth. So when Cat Yronwode from Eclipse asked to completely remove my tastefully masturbating she-fairy from the last page of the last issue, Colin agreed without ever consulting me. And that how Chinnut, the masturbating fairy was snuffed out of existence, changing the tone of the way my series ended. If a reprint ever comes to fruition, she will live again, as I intended.

Issue #1 sold well, it looked like steady sales might have this project be a paying venture. The American Comic Industry had other ideas. We were riding the crest of the anamorphic funny fighting animal comic boom. There was a feeding frenzy. Only first issues of independent funny animal books were sought after, and never read because they would get soiled, and they would be worth something one day! Comic shops bought up big expecting the subsequent issues to sell as well as the first. Alas, no one wanted them, leaving the stores choking to the gills in product that wouldn't move. We ended on that bust. By the time Issue #6 was about to be released, I was working in Los Angeles on the animated series of Alf. I was too shy to be present when the last issue was being purchased by my work mates, so I stayed at the studio through lunch. They returned with the report that they had emptied out the store of Issue #6. They asked the shop owner if he would restock he said, "Nah I'm glad to be rid of that crap!" I think he was referring to independent comics, because all of the store owners ran sobbing back to the milky teat of the mainstream superhero publishers.

Zooniverse didn't get a fair chance, but without Colin you probably wouldn't have seen it. He guided me, bankrolled the thing and wore the losses, but the series got done and was released around the world. Zooniverse opened the door to my career in Hollywood, and as much as I would have rather stayed in Melbourne continuing to work on my little comic, fate had other plans for me, but Colin will always have my gratitude.

Now if only he'd return my calls, so I can thank him in person!