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.

Spak animated!

[Edit 2021 - Posted HERE on my Patreon because Loop De Loop removed their old content] 

See Spak animated!!  This month's theme was "Idiots" so he had plenty to say.

Spak introduces the Animoid Rimworlds in his own eloquent way.

 Helen Maier composed the music.
I'll tell you more about this piece after the screening when the votes are counted.

Lifeworks: Book Twelve

"Lifeworks" was intended to be the last of the twelve albums that I had planned. It was an origin story telling about how a scientist deconstructs his body into a cloud of living sub-matter and reforms it into the Zooniverse.

This highly symbolic cover was printed with a summary for part 2 of Lifeworks in 1994. Colored here for the 1st time (Click to Enlarge).

In 1993 fellow Australian cartoonist Gary Chaloner approached me to contribute to his publication Cyclone Comics Quarterly.  I had been trying to get a publisher interested in "Lifeworks" a few years earlier, so I jumped at the chance to have a deadline to work towards. A total of twenty pages were published in issues #3 and #4 in black and white, unfortunately Cyclone ran out of funds and I never had a chance to complete the story.

The Originie, the first child of the Zooniverse. Painted with gouache on board in 1994

Above is one of two covers that I prepared for Cyclone, unfortunately both were rejected, this image of the Originie has never been published. The Originie, the first Zoon, reappears in my first Zooniverse animation shown here on LoopDeLoop.

Story overview:
Lifeworks was tricky conceptually and I would write it differently today. It was intended as an analogy for my own creative relationship to the Zooniverse concept. The scientist in the future who turns his body into the living Zooniverse shares my name, and has successfully created a microscopic test Zoon from his own matter, called the Originie. Young, energetic the Originie is kept safe in a sphere hung around this future Fil Barlow's neck. The Originie has the ability to form his own playground inside the sphere from the same pre-matter that he is made from.

Based on a dream I once had, an assembly of virtual characters appear to witness the actual birth of the physical Zooniverse. The scientist Fil pulls his soul out of his body, which is able to form a face on a soul sensitive screen behind him to prove that he is still living (see top cover), his body is encased in a protective, computerized ball and stripped down to a sub atomic pre-matter, the soul re-enters this new etheric cloud to form it into what ever it desires.

The Originie safely inside his sphere, which is now inside the larger ball, realizes that a big change has happened to his father and gets so upset that the Zooniverse, being sensitive to extreme emotions, has no choice except to release him. Disaster strikes as the Originie is blinded by the piercing light of the proto-Zooniverse, and he runs screaming, his panic calcifies the pre-mater around him creating the Birthbone. The Zooniverse puts the Originie to sleep to save itself. Millions of paraspan pass before the Originie reawakens, horrified to find that he is blind, ancient and trapped by the calcified roots of the Birthbone.

A being called The Observant was created by the dreaming Originie to be his eyes upon awakening, but so many millennia have passed that there is no life left to observe in this ancient end of the Zooniverse. The Observant is now so old he can barely serve the Originie, but sets out to find some sentient being who can shed some light on the current state of the Zooniverse.

Zeroy marooned from page 14 of Lifeworks published in 1994

The Observant discovers Zeroy who has been marooned on an isolated planetoid. For the last eight paraspan Zeroy has been waiting for an event that opens up a wormhole allowing him to return to his own Nebulaxy.

... and here the published comic ends.

Zeroy bids farewell to the Kren Patrol this is the last time they are together and their last printed panel. Page 20 of Lifeworks published in 1994

Age Old Enemies: Book One

After completing the six issues of the Zooniverse comic I had planned to follow the three members of the Kren Patrol in a series of twelve albums. Upon leaving the planet Crastalla Spak, Lokki, and Entox, are besieged by Void Pirates who capture and sell them into slavery. The twelve albums follow their individual struggle back to freedom.

The first book I had planned was "Age Old Enemies", where Althra, a Shadanese agent from the Halls Of Record is sent to find out what happened to Zeroy and Larote's secret expedition. She goes to their last known whereabouts, the planet Crastalla, where she finds Larote Quoke, who has gone native and is leader/god of a village of Insectoids. Althra learns that Zeroy and the Kren Patrol went missing eight paraspan ago. Her journey leads her to Spak who she frees from sex enslavement and madness.

Althra is nabbed by Arachnoids.  This art was originally done in 1991 and colored recently.
(Click to enlarge)

So here's what happened to the book....
The timing seemed perfect, it was 1987 I had completed the first season as character designer on the animated ALF series and had met French publisher Guy Delcourt while in LA. He invited me to stay a few days with him in Paris during my return trip to Australia. In Paris, Guy discussed interest in my next Zooniverse book should he approve the story. So upon my return home I commenced work but was interrupted by the second season of Alf, and another trip around the world (this time with Helen), and back to Paris and Guy, I showed him some of the pages I had finished and left the first page in his care (doh! I guess I'll never see that art again). Back in Australia I completed inking up to the 16th page, and decided to send the finished pages off for review. Upon seeing the pages, Guy suggested that I show him roughs of the remaining 30 pages rather than allowing me to commit to finished art that he may not publish.

So I roughed the remaining pages at the same size as a French album. I sent them off to Guy. His response was that it was too hard to read, so he requested that I write a script.

I began scripting the entire 46 page book from beginning to end with my brother Thomas, who could type and use a computer, skills that I had yet to learn in 1991. Together we finished the tome, a process that took so many months that I probably could have completed drawing and inking the book within the same time. So in the end I held the script in my hand, but I had no passion for the project, all of my energy had been invested into what I considered to be a novel, the story was complete and I was creatively dry. I decided not to send it to Guy because I had no interest in illustrating the script.

I realized an important fact about my technique, I like to improvise and work by blending images and words, too much planning kills the spontaneity that I thrive on.

At this point it was early 1992, I was broke and disillusioned, there was a recession happening and I got a call to travel up North to Queensland to work in their film industry. To date, my work for "Age Old Enemies" remains unpublished and unseen, except for the panels on this blog.